Global Warming Doesn’t Exist

As you can see, there is no such thing as global warming. It's all a great big like dreamed up by Al Gore.

It’s simply incredible the number of dickhead Americans, almost all White by the way, who say that either there’s no such thing as global warming or it hasn’t been proven yet. In 2008, the figure of Americans who did not believe in global warming was

These days, since Obama’s election, a relentless rightwing campaign run by the Republitard Party, Fox News and the Teabaggers (Yes, Teabaggers to a man don’t believe in global warming) has raised the number who don’t believe from

For some assfucked reason, White nationalists have decided that global warming is a White issue. In other words, the pro-White view is that there’s no such thing as global warming. I don’t get it. Pro-White means acting like a retard then? Is that it? American Renaissance, Occidental Dissent, Stormfront, every dipshit WN site out there lines up with the 70 IQ crowd and says there’s no such thing as global warming. But isn’t their argument that White people are the smartest humans on Earth?

This just shows how shitty and evil capitalism is. What do people who don’t believe in global warming all have in common? They are reactionary capitalists and pro-capitalists, strong supporters of the capitalist mode of production. This is what capitalism does to your brain. It fries it to a crisp worse than any drug known to mankind.

Capitalists oppose the idea of global warming because they fear that efforts to deal with global warming by curbing global carbon emissions will result in serious losses to their the profits. Bourgeois White Americans refuse to believe in global warming because they believe that efforts to deal with it will cause a lowering of their standard of living. These idiots would rather blowup the whole fuckin’ planet than take a hit to their profits or their living standard. Capitalism more and more looks like mass suicide a la Jonestown or lemmings plunging off a cliff.

Wow! People would rather die and see others be killed than take a profit loss or a living standard hit? Damn. That sounds like drug addiction or alcoholism. The addict keeps on hitting the bottle, pipe or needle until he drops. He’d rather be dead than sober. He’d rather be high than alive. Same with a capitalist. He’d rather be dead than socialist. He’d rather be a capitalist than be alive.

I hang out on a site called 2Care. It’s a liberal site, full of middle class+ SWPL Whites. But it’s also full of insane rightwing Whites. The rightwing Whites are there because they often have some weird “Left” pet cause, like animal rights, religion, or even environmentalism.

The rightwingers have been getting more and more scarce lately for some weird reason (That’s because the US is swinging Right, eh Fox News?), but they are still out in droves on the global warming stuff. 2Care is a good view into the mind of middle class and upper middle class Whites. A Hell of lot of them, even White “liberals,” still don’t believe in global warming.

Unbelievable.

Rats running off the cliff.

Please follow and like us:
error3
fb-share-icon20
20
fb-share-icon20

114 thoughts on “Global Warming Doesn’t Exist”

  1. I think anthropogenic global warming is undeniable, but still I have some suspicion that perhaps people like Al Gore are exaggerating the danger to make people care about it more. Remember the Great American Heterosexual AIDS Epidemic? Neither do I.

    If they’re estimating that Idiocratic America doesn’t care about anything unless it’s literally just about to blow their house down, they’re probably right. Except here we see that it is having the opposite effect. Lamericans are pretty stupid, but they’re smart enough to see when they’re being manipulated.

  2. LaRouche is certainly no neoliberal capitalist, yet he and his followers believe global warming is a hoax designed by the global banker elites to push deindustrialization and enslavement upon mankind.

    1. >deindustrialization and enslavement

      Energy policy based on acknowledgement of global warming doesn’t have anything to do with deindustrialization, but rather reindustrialization on the basis of establishing new renewable energy production industries and infrastructure. This is what Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, and really all of Scandinavia and Western Europe is doing.

      Global warming isn’t even the most imminent and pressing reason for engaging in this massive level of reindustrialization; Peak Oil is.

      LaRouche is a very smart man, but in my opinion he has numerous viewpoints that not evidence-based.

        1. Essentially ALL predictions by people who actually know what they are talking about (oil geologists, industry professionals) have peak oil taking place sometime before 2030. The article you posted is essentially entirely anecdotal and refers to none of the actual data used in the peak oil argument.

          Even big oil companies agree with peak oil, and you’d think they would have a vested interest in promoting this “oil forever” nonsense.

    2. Just goes to show you what a shithead he is then. Notice that all these conspiracy theory idiots are on board with the No Global Warming thing. Being a conspiracy theory person means you’re a nut. It’s interesting that all the nuts say there’s no global warming, and all the sane people, you know, like the scientists, say there isn’t.

  3. Hmm, that’s interesting. From what I’ve read, Alexander Cockburn doesn’t believe in it either. Or to the extent that he does believe in it, he doesn’t believe that humans are responsible.

    At least according to Wikipedia.

    1. Alexander Cockburn has long been fucked in the head on all sorts of things. He’s also one of the “Democrats are the same as Republicans” lunatics. Actually, he’s worse. During the Clinton times, he kept saying Democrats were WORSE than Republicans. Demonstrably untrue.

      No wonder he hired Reaganites to write for him. Worse than that, he just had anti-Semite Israel Shamir write a piece for him. Cockburn just gets worse and worse.

      I’m a member of the Communist Party USA. We always support Dems, and we hate Republicans. We don’t do that because we flip coins. We are pragmatists.

      You guys have no idea how bad global warming is going to be. No idea. Beyond your worst dreams. I’ll be lucky. I’ll be dead before the worst of it.

      1. Robert, I don’t agree with Cockburn. I do believe that global warming is serious and must be attended to.

        And yeah, I do find it strange that Cockburn would run the articles of Paul Craig Roberts, who’s traditionally been associated (and in many ways, still is) VDare, The Political Cesspool, and other far right, pseudo white nationalist organizations/publications.

        Of course, I have a great deal of respect for Roberts. But then again, I’m not the one posturing as an overall leftist, and I’m not the one who edits Counterpunch.

        By the way, can you post a link to Israel Shamir’s article? Does he actually write for them now?

        It’s funny. Some Jewish neocon, speaking of counterpunch, once said (paraphrase), “Every self-hating Jew with a computer either writes for counterpunch, or is an object of their celebration.”

        I used to think that they were always full of shit and playing the “anti-semite” card. I still think they do. Though I guess counterpunch adding on Israel Shamir lends some justification to their beliefs.

        1. I have no problem with Shamir, though I presume Robert does.

          And I absolutely despise Abe Foxman. You see, I’m no longer reading Ank Mie, Tim Wise, etc. Are they self-righteous, self-indulgent, obnoxious POS’s? Sure. But do they have any real power or influence? No.

          Abe Foxman and the ADL, on the other hand, DO have real power, and they’ve used that power to usher in the recent Hate Crimes Expansion Act, they’re attempting to censor the internet, and they have way too much power for a supposedly non-profit organization.

          I mean, Abe Foxman, despite going on an anti anti-semite crusade, he, BY HIMSELF, reinforces every anti-Jewish stereotype in the book.

          Let’s see:

          1. He believes in the “uniqueness doctrine” (ie. we Jews are so special an what happened to us in the holocaust is more important than other peoples’ suffering)

          2. He’s a worshipper of Israhell, thus lending credence to the belief that Jews are more loyal to Israel than the U.S.

          3. He was part of the Holocaust Industry’s shakedown scams against European countries.

          4. He screams “anti-Semite!” if a non-Jew even uses the word “Jew.”

          5. And man, would you look at that Jew face of his? I mean, his face fits every anti-Jewish caricature in the book!

        2. Exactly. I’ll take a “self-hating Jew” over an arrogant super-kike any day. I think Cockburn is onto something when he, as a leftist, is connecting with Paul Craig Roberts. It’s the far-right and the far-left coming together against the corrupt, evil establishment.

  4. Human produced CO2 from industry has everything to do with global warming. Get used to it.

    A physicist writing in Monthly Review dealt with Alexander Cockburn’s argument against humans having anything to do with global warming very effectively back in 2008:
    monthlyreview.org/080728farley.php

    1. I’m not saying I agree with Cockburn. I just find it interesting that he, editor of Counterpunch, which is about as far left as they come (even though they run Paul Craig Roberts’ articles), would endorse views similar to many right wingers.

      1. Cockburn has become kind of a kneejerk contrarian on some issues in his old age. I don’t follow him enough to know what brought it on.

        Counterpunch does still have many good articles, though.

        1. Cockburn actually comes out of an anarchist tradition. That’s the source of all the insanity, the support for militias, the Branch Davidians, Randy Weaver. I bet he even supports Tea Parties.

        2. I bet he even supports Tea Parties.

          Lol!

          I don’t know about that. But hey, if a far leftist like Cockburn indeed supports the Tea Parties, that will make my day!

      2. It isn’t interesting at all. Cockburn is simply a headcase. That’s all. He’s been one for at least 20 years. Sure, he’s often correct, but when he’s wrong, he’s really, really wrong.

  5. I do believe that global warming is real, and that it requires serious attention.

    At the same time, I think we cannot go overboard and go all Bezerkeley when trying to cultivate an environmental attitude.

    I think that everyday, collective action on our part, better public transportation, and greater use of solar technology will help.

    1. Environmentalists seem to be all about guilt tripping the average working stiff for driving a car to work, but they won’t lift a finger to help institute a decent public transportation system like they have just about everywhere else in the developed world. Self righteousness and ineffectiveness. What a great combination.

      1. To me, Global Warming is a nationwide, global problem that requires nationwide and global solutions.

        Chastising the average guy for driving his car doesn’t do much good.

        Better public transportation, cleaner and more renewable energy, and other social solutions would do the trick.

      2. I’m not aware that enviros are mad at people for driving their cars. I’m a radical enviro, and I drive my car all over the place. Sometimes I just drive to look at the scenery. I especially like to drive in the rain. I can’t remember when I ever read anything by any enviro railing against Joe Blow for driving his car, and I read global warming stuff all the time.

        1. It’s idiot Americans who oppose it. Mostly rightwing Whites. Like you.

          Whoa, that was uncalled for!

          1. Yeah, while my views on race are right wing, my views on other issues are not.

          I’m leftist on economic, environmental, and other issues.

          2. I’m no idiot, pal! Just so you know.

          And besides, Robert, you act as if every flesh-and-blood black or brown person is gung ho in favor of the concept of global warming.

          Do you really think that your average DeShawn or Pedro really knows or cares about global warming?

        2. DeShawn or Pedro probably think “global warming” is when the entire world gets sucked into a gang war, with all the “heat” being used.

        3. I’m not right wing, and I clearly don’t oppose mass transit. If the enviros really cared, things like decent mass transit would be job one, not creating boutique “green technologies” so Hollywood types could feel really good about themselves.

      1. The US is currently overshooting its bio-capacity by at least 52%. Even so, we have a greater bio-capacity than most countries. That’s half the reason for staying in this backwater. If Americans weren’t so stupid and selfish, we would be much better off here than the rest of the world for a long time to come. Maybe TPTB are just planning to invade Canada when the time comes.

  6. Global warming is a hoax made up by the international commie bankers who convince people to accept returning back to Stone Age conditions while they live in the mansions.

    1. But people living in Stone Age conditions wouldn’t be creating a lot of wealth for the bankers, would they?

  7. I stand corrected.

    So what exactly do they advocate, then? What should the average Joe Blow do?

    Nothing, really. What’s required is state action, not individual stuff. Radically increasing fuel efficiency in cars would be one step. Then people would burn a lot less fossil fuel going from here to there.

  8. What’s wrong with Shamir?

    He’s an anti-Semite, #1. He’s a pro-fascist and pro-Nazi, like most anti-Semites, #2. That will be all for now.

    Do you prefer pricks like Foxman instead?

    You keep asking me to choose between cancer and AIDS. I prefer not to get sick in the first place.

    1. That’s a pretty lazy and glib dismissal of a writer who produced in ‘Flowers of Galilee’, probably the finest collection of essays since Montaigne. I do not for a minute believe the zionazi slander that he is not a Russian jew living in Jaffa, but a Swedish fascist – ‘Jermas’? He is critical of jewish religion and culture. Why not? How many newspaper articles and books and tv programmes do we have, critical of Islam? Thousands upon thousands. Jews need more criticism, not less

      His later product is patchier, and he seemed for a while to fall under the influence of E. Michael Jones, a Roman Catholic self-styled theologian, actually a purveyor of a sort of Eric Von Daniken version of traditional RC anti-semitism – at great length. Jones is in my opinion seriously mentally ill. I feel that Shamir just ran out of things to say about the jews; and his metaphors started to displace the substance; and as his metaphors got more elaborate ( as in his worst book, the mystical ‘ PaRDeS (?)) he started to fling everything and anything into them, and Jones mystical flamboyance provided him with some colourful material. In short, I feel he got ‘a bit carried away’, and he has shown signs of ‘second thoughts’ about Jones recently.

      Shamir is NOT a nazi or a fascist. Shamir does NOT advocate a racially exclusive or supremacist or separatist state; neither does he advocate the suspension of the popular franchise, and direct rule by the rich under martial law. He has talked with some leaders of far-right groups on some matters which are considered out of bounds by the mainstream and the pseudo-left; in fact by any meaningful definition of ‘left’, including anti-racism, the so-called ‘far-right’ are way to the ‘left’ of the Trots and what’s left of the official commies, certainly to the left of the parties of government.
      I think his politics are extremely garbled – he thinks Obama is a ‘good guy’ – but so are nearly everyone else’s. He still writes some excellent pieces. He is certainly not a leader, but his better pieces are pure gems, so he’s not to be sneezed at.

  9. That was a fuck up by BP, not something inherent to drilling.

    You don’t get it. You drill, you spill. No way around it. They can’t stop spilling. Which is why we can’t let them drill in the Arctic Seas. If they could stop spilling, I would have problem with offshore drilling myself.

    1. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jul2008/db20080718_965702.htm

      Drilling in the now-restricted areas would require years of extensive seismic research before a single rig could operate. Even then, companies would not embark on such massive projects unless the profitability were clear. What’s more, the federal Energy Information Administration estimates that access to new U.S. deposits would not significantly affect overall domestic production for 22 years.

      “Drill baby drill” is just more political wank.

      How much oil and natural gas is there offshore? No one really knows. According to estimates from the Interior Dept.’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), the U.S. has roughly 18 billion undiscovered and technically recoverable bbl. of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Eric Potter, associate director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, says that if these areas are opened up now, by 2025, 1 million additional bbl. per day could potentially be added to the market. Using International Energy Agency demand forecasts, by 2030 this production would equal less than 5% of U.S. daily consumption, and less than 1% of global daily consumption. “It would certainly help,” says Potter. “But it won’t make us energy-independent.”

      fpy should check out The Oil Drum sometime. There isn’t enough oil offshore to put off the effects of peak oil for very long.

  10. Whoa, that was uncalled for!

    It was not addressed to you.

    2. I’m no idiot, pal! Just so you know.

    True in general, but if you don’t believe in global warming, um yeah, you are idiot, sorry.

    Do you really think that your average DeShawn or Pedro really knows or cares about global warming?

    Have you ever heard a Black or Hispanic going on about the global warming hoax. It’s always a White person. Why do racists say Whites are smarter than POC’s anyway. On the global warming thing, the evidence is the opposite.

    1. True in general, but if you don’t believe in global warming, um yeah, you are idiot, sorry.

      First of all, I do believe in global warming. Secondly, not believing in global warming in and of itself doesn’t make you an idiot. But yes, I do agree that those opposing the concept are dumb, because they cannot back up their claims with evidence.

      Have you ever heard a Black or Hispanic going on about the global warming hoax?

      Well, Robert, most flesh-and-blood black and Hispanic people will not be heard in public. So we don’t know what they truly think on this issue.

      Second of all, most of the Greenpeace people I’ve seen have been SWPL liberals. I’ve never seen a black or brown Greenpeace volunteer/worker.

      1. I should add on that neither will most flesh-and-blood white people.

        And besides, most black public figures are there to talk about race.

        I’ve never really heard a black public figure talk about global warming, pro or against the concept.

  11. Even if it were a hoax (it’s not) peak oil has probably already passed and most of our international oil funds go to support semi-totalitarian regimes, so conservative or liberal, we’d do best to cut our oil consumption fast. We’re going to need what’s leftover for plastics and certain more important transportation systems. That is, if we live through this and don’t descend into some mad max libertarian paradise.

  12. The real key here is showing your vast misunderstanding of how Capitalism works.

    Why would profits end if global warming were truly a problem? On the contrary, businesses built to combat global warming would make huge profits–if that were truly the concern of consumers.

    As for the mentions of Peak Oil–again, a total misunderstanding of how the market works. Peak Oil will never occur.

    1. The capitalists are obviously afraid that it’s going to pound their profits something horrid, which is why they are waging this insane jihad against global warming. You say that’s irrational. Maybe you’re right. Why don’t you tell that to your capitalist friends?

      1. What the Capitalists are trying to protect themselves from is Government intervention in their practices, not customer loss. There is a huge difference.

        If the masses truly felt it were time to switch away from carbon-based emissions, the Capitalists would follow suit. The only way for a producers to continue to see profits is by meeting the demands of the consumers.

        Profit and losses are the economics indicators that tell producers whether they are allocating resources correctly. This is why competition is crucial, and why arbitrary economic intervention from law enforcement monopolies (governments) is so detrimental.

        1. Government intervention and enforcement of recycling, environmental legislation etc hurts profits.

          Private corporations do not want the Government to dictate where they allocate resources, they want their customers to dictate it.

          Corporations are subject the desires of their customers, not of bureaucrats. Only their customers truly know what they want to spend their own money on. Bureaucrats can only know what their constituents want, and usually don’t even grasp or follow that.

        2. They don’t customers to determine where they allocate their resources either.

          Customers aren’t just fed products they want; they’re made into buying-machines by a whole slew of societal forces that help create the consumerist society. That’s what “The Culture Industry” is.

          People didn’t crave fast food before it was around. It was fed to them, popularized, they got addicted and were hooked. Maybe it doesn’t need to be govt intervention, but some kind of intervention, needs to make sure they don’t just think about profits, but about the good of people.

          Yeah, capitalism works great! It does what it says it wants to do. But is the mere creation of profits the highest good? I guess it’s mostly a philosophical issue for me. Ever heard about Thales and his investment in olive oil presses?

        3. Well said, Erranter. Just what I’d have said myself.

          Plus, the private corporations don’t mind economic intervention when it comes to saving their necks with bailouts – yes, banks are corporations. And they don’t mind public intervention in the shape of the massive military expenditure that goes to protect them from disgruntled customers and workers, home and abroad; and also does most of their research and development for them – see any of Chomsky’s recent books; he writes very well on this. There is not, and never has been, a ‘free market’.
          And of course, they’ll be lining up for hand-outs to compensate them for the costs necessitated by the global warming they have largely caused.

    2. As for the mentions of Peak Oil–again, a total misunderstanding of how the market works. Peak Oil will never occur.

      What does the market have to do with whether there are enough fossil fuels to meet demand?

      1. Ah, good question LaFluer.

        The current estimates predict that oil will soon begin to run out. The charts are set up using historical datum of the rise in oil consumption. They assume a steady increase.

        However, these statistics do not factor in the most important thing about ANY commodity: prices. The laws of economics dictate that as supply diminishes, prices will increase.

        This means that as prices increase there will be more and more incentive to switch over to alternative resources. Meaning that oil will never run out simply because no one will have the money to pay for as prices will increase ad infinitum.

        1. Peak oil isn’t about running out. It’s about the increasing prices due to increasing scarcity. So yes, peak oil will drive prices higher and then there will be more drive to newer technologies.

          It would never run out entirely in either case. It’s just going to get harder to find and not be worth the cost to refine and extract.

          Peak extraction year was in 2006 and it hasn’t gotten as high since then. Of course, the global recession might have something to do with it, but it has plateaued. We might have something more like a oil plateau than an oil peak and our fossil economies might just keep bumping up against that highest point.

        2. The US has more energy units in coal than all the world’s oil reserves put together.

          It also has enough shale oil to last another 100 years.

          The energy situation for the US is actually very positive. Don’t let dem scare you into the mountains.

        3. Um, and if we burn all that coal how will our air be tasting? and what about all the forests it’s under?

          Coal is a disaster.

          Natural gas, on the other hand, looks provident.

        4. RT,

          Flat out energy units don’t determine prices. Of course not, if this were true then gas would be free since sunlight has 10 power 10 more energy than oil. It’s competitive energy units that matter. Coal will always present a price ceiling for oil as will bio-fuels, solar, hydrogen, etc. It’s a high ceiling. Other energies don’t compete until oil gets to probably $200/gallon or about $15/gallon at Shell. But Americans likely won’t even drive if gas gets to $10/gallon.

          Refining oil has high barriers to entry. Only a handful of companies have the money and ability to refine oil. But the margins are great and largely unrelated to the amount of sweet oil produced.

        5. This means that as prices increase there will be more and more incentive to switch over to alternative resources. Meaning that oil will never run out simply because no one will have the money to pay for as prices will increase ad infinitum.

          I don’t know exactly how things will shake out, but I’m skeptical about the ability of the invisible hand to deal with all the issues coming at us. Those issues include the EROI and environmental consequences of alternative fuel sources, and how you replace petroleum in all the products made from it, like fertilizer. Will someone come up with alternatives before increased oil prices make all the things now made with oil too expensive? I think the transition from the high energy resource of oil to lower grade energy resources results in a much lower level of industrial production and wealth creation. Not that this is a bad thing environment-wise.

          And what about the the environmental damage resulting from processes like oil shale extraction? As Wired reported two years ago:

          http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/no-quick-energy/

          The federal Bureau of Land Management wants to make it easy for the fossil fuel industry to siphon oil out of the Rocky Mountains — but it’s not clear whether this would work, and it could be an environmental disaster if it does.

          On Tuesday, the BLM proposed cutting the royalties it charges on oil shale from about 15 percent to five percent. According to Department of the Interior chief Dirk Kempthorne, shale deposits in the Rockies could yield 800 billion barrels of oil. That’s enough to meet current U.S. oil demands for a century.

          But as the Red, Green and Blue blog explains, nobody knows if commercial oil shale development is viable; even fossil fuel giant Shell is getting cold feet. And if oil shale works out, extracting it will require from 100 million to 300 million gallons of water per day — enough to meet the daily water needs of about two million Americans. And if there’s one thing the western United States is already short of, it’s water.

          As if that wasn’t enough, there’s the greenhouse gas issue. Should we really be making it easier and cheaper to run America on oil for another 100 years?

          A commenter on The Oil Drum made a good point:

          http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3839

          We are at the point of eating the bark off the trees. Woe betide us.

          What’s worse, as we desperately struggle to sustain the unsustainable (our present way of life), we have to climb farther and farther up the tree to get the bark.

          What’s the value of the tree we are denuding? How does one include this in the EROI calculations?

          At some point this desperate and futile struggle will collapse because of ever rising costs, and then we will be left with that which we have not yet destroyed, the water, the soil, the forests, etc. How much will be left?

          That’s the limitation of EROI. It seems to improve on dollar ROI in dealing directly with the resource. But it still does not properly account for the destruction of resources that are of essentially infinite value (depending, of course, on how much value one assigns to future human existence).

          I have a bad feeling capitalism will keep on truckin’ until we’re chopping down the last tree on Easter Island.

        6. Look LaFluer as I said before, this whole EROI talk is irrelevant.

          The Law of Conservation of Energy states that no energy can be created or destroyed, it can only change form. It’s impossible to get more energy out of something than you put into producing it.

          Peak Oil is a myth, because to address that question you first have to answer:

          1. What are the exact amount of fossil fuels the earth contains?

          2. How fossil fuels are made?

          We don’t know either. What we do know is that PRICES REGULATE SUPPLY. So all your issues are non-problems. Oil is just one form of captured solar energy. We are not destroying resources, we are merely changing their form.

        7. What we do know is that PRICES REGULATE SUPPLY. So all your issues are non-problems. Oil is just one form of captured solar energy. We are not destroying resources, we are merely changing their form.

          Robert L., I think this touching display of religious faith deserves its own post.

  13. I have a bad feeling capitalism will keep on truckin’ until we’re chopping down the last tree on Easter Island.

    Sure it will. Or at least it wants to. That’s why capitalism is insane, whether it “works” or not. And how is that capitalism “works” when it’s destroying the whole climate and ecosphere of the planet via global warming? You call that something that “works?” Works how?

    Answering Robert, sure global warming itself is not bad for the bottom line, although there is a suspicion that all of the wild climate changes themselves could cause serious economic damage right there. Look at Russia, New Orleans and Pakistan. That climate stuff didn’t help their economies. Fires and floods aren’t good for business

    Their argument against global warming is that it doesn’t exist, because if it exists, then the state is probably going to regulate them and regulate the economy in such a way as to hit their bottom line.

    1. Capitalism is efficient in converting raw resources into finished products and wealth. Damn efficient. In fact, the most efficient system of human organization yet devised.

      It is not, however, efficient at distributing the wealth it generates equitably, nor is it capable of “self-regulating” itself in terms of restricting the environmental damage it causes.

      This is why the most successful systems of economic organization today (in terms of combined human and environmental welfare) are those European “socialist” states which are in actuality at their core capitalist, only a type of heavily regulated capitalism that provides negative financial incentives for environmental havoc wreaked (as in, carbon credits and heavy regulation, among other things) and redistributes wealth on a massive scale (as in, 40%+ overall taxation rate, directed mostly at the wealthy, which is then funneled into social services).

        1. It means wealth is concentrated in a tiny percentage of the population, and a huge percentage of population lives like absolute shit.

        2. Nope, I’m not qualified nor trained to do such a thing.

          All I’m doing is pointing out the objective fact that countries like Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, France, which all have lower per capita GDPs than the United states, have massively higher standards of living for the majority of the population.

          It’s due pretty much entirely to their high rates of taxation (the lowest is Netherlands, which is still 38 or 39% of the GDP), which is then used to generate free health care, education, and a variety of other social services for the population.

        3. You’re just blatantly wrong on that “objective fact”. Maybe you’d like to refine the statement, David. If you’re talking income, average income in Sweden for example is less than average income for black Americans, which comprise the lowest-income socioeconomic group in this country.

          I’m glad you said you’re not qualified to decide. Maybe it would have been nice for you to admit that no one is?

        4. You are seriously in outer space if you think that the average Swede is worse off than the average black American, by ANY way of counting it. Same if you think the average joe worker in Western Europe (except Ireland possibly) is worse off than the average American. The elites have a real push on to rectify that now though – by taking away our civilised institutions, like healthcare, NOT by giving them to you in the US.

        5. You’re just blatantly wrong on that “objective fact”. Maybe you’d like to refine the statement, David.

          Take a look at Hong Kong for instance, Milton Friedman’s “prime example” of the glorious powers of unrestricted capitalism.

          They have something like the 7th or 8th highest per capita GDP in the world, yet on the Human Development Index they rank number 24 in the world, behind (actually rather behind) places like Spain (26th in the world by GDP per capita), Italy (27th), France (21st), Sweden (16th), Denmark (17th), and pretty much every other country in Western Europe with a tax rate higher than 37 or 38%. Hong Kong still has vast third world-style shantytowns lacking even basic services, something you find pretty much NOWHERE in Scandinavia, or any of Western Europe really.

          You’re just blatantly wrong on that “objective fact”. Maybe you’d like to refine the statement, David. If you’re talking income, average income in Sweden for example is less than average income for black Americans, which comprise the lowest-income socioeconomic group in this country.

          Sure, Hong Kong and the United States generate more total per capita wealth than Western Europe, but this is meaningless when the extra wealth generated is funneled only to 1% of the population. Having a higher average income is meaningless if you spend vastly more than the difference on healthcare, education, childcare, and other basic services, work longer hours, have fewer vacation days, fewer job benefits, shittier healthcare, a lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, lower housing standards, a shitty environment, etc. Swedes, the French, and other highly-taxed Europeans live WAY better on average than Americans. HDI is by no means the only metric that objectively demonstrates this, but it is the most comprehensive.

          Maybe it would have been nice for you to admit that no one is?

          Sorry, if a country has higher life expectancy, higher, lower infant mortality rate, lower real poverty rate, higher access to healthcare and education, it’s a better country and a better society.

          It’s nice that you think wealth in a society should be controlled and consumed primarily by the top 1%, but I don’t think societies like this (for example, the United States) are a nice place to live for vast numbers of the population.

        6. Wow, that last paragraph was a bit tortured grammatically.

          LaFayette is right though, you are living in a fantasy land if you think that average living standards in Sweden or anywhere in Europe are comparable to living standards of Black Americans (25% of whom live in poverty, and 25% more of whom live close to it).

        7. ” Who is to decide what is equitable distribution of wealth? ”

          Ah, now we come to that democracy thing you guys are so keen on promoting around the world. Yes, the voters should decide in free and fair elections – by free and fair, I mean that everyone is allowed to spend as much money as they like to promote their point of view. No I don’t really – mean that. Heavy sarcasm.

          There you have another useful parameter for equitable – a distribution of wealth that doesn’t lead to private concentrations of wealth overwhelming democratic processes.

          So, do you, Robert Taylor, support rule by and for ‘the people’ ( as in the legend of the US constitution, or rule by and for the rich?

  14. I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned the glaringly obvious reason that ‘the right’ are unconcerned about global warming – it will mostly affect darkies, and solve a lot of the overpopulation problem, and actually reduce the demand for Western lifestyles which could increase the warming even more. A Gaia-style self-regulating mechanism. They’re already preparing us for this. Asshole James Lovelock, the originator of the ‘Gaia’ bullshit, is getting a lot of MSM airing recently, spouting about how the Earth’s safe load of humans is about 1 billion.

    That’s what they’ve got planned. They’re already excited about the new opportunities opening up in Siberia, Greenland and the Arctic generally – bet the next housing bubble is in Greenland.

    If you think Marx and Lenin had it right about imperialism being the last option of capitalism in crisis, we’ve now reached the stage where the last new proletariats have been lapped up, and there’s nowhere left to go. The massive financialisation and leveraging with ‘funny money’ – non-existant- capital – may be the indicator that the time has come for our elites to move beyond capitalism. The solution could be to cut out the waste, engendered by production for profit, by bringing back slavery – direct production for the use of the elites. This could keep them with the lifestyles they currently enjoy, with a massively reduced workforce.

    So, no problem. Let the sun kill off the darkies, get rid of about 5 billion, enslave the rest, and move to Greenland, the North of Canada, and Siberia. Just like in the Phillip Pullman books ( you know, the Golden Compass and the rest of the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy).

  15. Economic independence is even more important than the internal political economy of a nation. Without economic autonomy, you’re guaranteed to live in squalor and at the mercy of international plundering organizations and superpowers. Just look at Latin America and Russia in the 1990s.

  16. I’m still not exactly positive on Global Warming, people keep jumping back and forth, I just don’t know. But, I do know one thing; it doesn’t matter. IT DOES NOT MATTER. Everything that leads to Global Warming is hurting us now, why bother pontificating on how it will hurt us in 50 years? It’s hurting us now! Men dying in coal mines and on oil rigs, poisoning from mass oil spills that will wash up on our beaches and plague us for years. Poisoning from corn syrup and soy-bean oil that have land clear-cut to make way for their subsidized asses, causing chemical run-off from the fertilizers used, and the loss of top-soil, slowly destroying the fecundity of the land and fouling the rivers. Hormone killing chemicals in all of those plastic bottles we worry won’t biodegrade, harming us before it’s even in the ground. Over-fishing of the ocean, polluting of the ocean, both which harm the bacteria that create the majority of the oxygen we breathe, eventually choking us. Why worry about breaking a leg later in the marathon when we have a twisted ankle now? Fuck “climate change,” we have bigger fish to fry.

  17. Climate change is killing 150,000 people a year now. That’s the 2000 estimate of the World Health Organisation, so it’s ten years out of date. The once in a thousand year 2010 Moscow heatwave has caused an estimated 15,000 deaths http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/09/russia-heat-wave-one-thousand-years-global-warming/

    For the “we have nothing to do with it” global warming deniers (FPY3P!), here’s a little primer on the current state of the science: http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2009/06/06/global-warming-denial-myths/

    Forget Al Gore. He’s an amateur…

    Metacommentary on Russia’s heatwave here:
    http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2010/08/07/russia-burning-not-apocalypse-but-prelude/ and http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/08/11/global-boiling-russia/

    Climate records are being broken all over the world this year: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Floods+fires+landslides+called+evidence+warming/3383518/story.html

    It’s actuality. It does matter. And it can’t be stopped, but it can be moderated to a level where we can survive it, by cutting carbon emissions drastically. Business as usual = civilisational collapse.

    If you don’t care, don’t have kids. They won’t forgive you.

    If you want to get up to date on global warming, read the scientists! I suggest the realclimate website, http://www.realclimate.org/ and the NOAA website, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html, plus the climate progress website mentioned above. I do, and I’m not a scientist.

    The human race currently emits 45 billion tons of carbon a year. And it doesn’t do that by breathing,
    or by farting!

    We are changing the climate, and without global carbon emission reductions there is point of no return, where positive feedbacks kick in and carbon emissions from natural processes such as the melting of the subarctic tundra and the burning of the world’s forests, start to exceed annual human emissions, and kick global warming into high gear.

    When the climate “tipping points” are passed (the scientific consensus – but NO-ONE REALLY KNOWS – is that this starts to happen at 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial global temperatures: we are currently 0.8 degrees Centrigrade above), we are in for a very rough ride indeed: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/why-failure–of-climate-summit-would-herald-global-catastrophe-35-2066127.html.

    That’s from today’s UK newspaper The Independent.

    Given the current levels of urgency regarding this issue on the part of global elites (who as Lafayette points out regard mass population culls as highly desirable), runaway global warming is currently more likely than not.

    It’s the new global genocide. Enjoy it!

    With runaway climate change, civilisation will collapse, and there will be a catastrophic collapse in global human population (I don’t like Lovelock’s politics at all, but in a sense he is right). For more on this, see Anatoly Karlin’s review of Six Degrees, by Mark Lynas:

    http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2009/06/10/notes-lynas/#more-1189

    It’s very graphic and very detailed, degree by degree of global warming above pre-industrial levels.

    It’s fun reading! Apocalypse Now! What a great film that was!

    Seriously though, read this Karlin’s review of Lynas if you read nothing else I reference. It’s the uncertain future toward which we are headed, with no stars to steer by.

    I hope that’s a helpful contribution.

      1. Something like that. As far as Lovelock’s concerned it’s far too late to avoid a global population crash. He sees the population eventually falling to around a billion planet wide.

        He was an enthusiastic supporter of Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s neoliberal nemesis. Nowadays he thinks there’s a slim chance of survival with massive investment in nuclear power, and geoengineering for global warming.

        Technocratic, not socioeconomic approaches. He’s over 90 years old. Why should he give a damn? He ‘s had a good life.

  18. Lafayette:

    “So, no problem. Let the sun kill off the darkies, get rid of about 5 billion, enslave the rest, and move to Greenland, the North of Canada, and Siberia. Just like in the Phillip Pullman books ( you know, the Golden Compass and the rest of the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy).”

    Or have you started reading Far North Lafayette?
    It’s much more germane.

    I’ve read the Pullman trilogy. He doesn’t even reference global warming. Northern Lights was OK; then it went off the boil for me.

    1. Yes, he didn’t deliver on the promise of the first book. I thought the second one was ok though, but the third was awful. The film was dreadful too, though it looked good, and the actors were very good – it was just like some edited highlights of the book.

    2. Robert Taylor – so there’s an ‘economic analysis for equitable distribution of wealth’? Does that mean anything? Or are you trying to repeat the familiar mantra of the neo-liberals, that the distribution of wealth that is the outcome of leaving the market unfettered is the best possible outcome, and that any attempt to interfere (by active re-distribution or anything else) will just make everyone else worse off? The ‘trickle-down (pseudo)theory’ in other words?

      1. Find me a society anywhere in any time where a free market has operated.

      2. The application of Milton Friedman type theories since Reagan and Thatcher has impoverished the working classes everywhere it has been tried, without exception. Not that it was ever ‘free’ anyway; totally rigged in the interests of the parasitic investor class.

      1. Just because you’re ignorant of Economics doesn’t mean you can just go around throwing economic opinions and think you’re correct.

        If you understood Economics, you’d know that asking me about historical or statistical proof that the free market works is as baseless as using historical and statistical data to prove Socialism works.

        Economic Analysis proves Capitalism works better than Socialism.

        1. ” If you understood Economics, you’d know that asking me about historical or statistical proof that the free market works is as baseless as using historical and statistical data to prove Socialism works… Economic Analysis proves Capitalism works better than Socialism.”

          Pardon me, but ‘proves’ sort of implies ‘proof’, which implies ‘evidence’ – what kind of evidence, if not historical or statistical? (i.e. what happened and how much of it, where and when?)

          But I know enough about economics to know that many prominent economists point out that much of what’s taught in economics courses and textbooks as standard wisdom has long been shown to be wrong. So yes, I see your point. Economic analysis proves free market capitalism to be the best, in the same way the Bible proves creationism is correct.
          It’s about faith – dispensed nowadays by the US military instead of the Spanish inquisition.

        2. @lafayette

          “Pardon me, but ‘proves’ sort of implies ‘proof’, which implies ‘evidence’ – what kind of evidence, if not historical or statistical? (i.e. what happened and how much of it, where and when?)”

          You clearly show that you lack even a basic grasp of how Economics as a science of human action works.

          There exists in the realm of human understanding postulates that are A PRIORI. Economics deals within that realm. Just as Mathematics deals with a prioristic knowledge.

          We know 2+2=4. I don’t have to prove it is true Empirically. I know it, before testing. This is in stark contrast with religious faith, whose logical postulates are contradictory theoretically as well as in practice. Positivism, like that of which you push has been thoroughly debunked hundreds of years ago.

      2. Robert Taylor is an extremely hardline Libertarian type. More of an anarcho-capitalist. He’s so radical he thinks most of his fellow Libertarians are socialists. Just so you know who you’re dealing with.

      3. It’s a fact. Everywhere Friedmanite neoliberalism was tried, the usual outcome was massive wealth redistribution.

        In general, the top 20% of the population gained, though not as much as they should have. The top 5% seriously cleaned up and the top 1% had a nonstop party. The bottom 80% lost money. From 1980-1992, the top 20% gained and the bottom 80% lost. If you factor in benefit losses, the losses at the bottom will be much greater.

        So in the US, if you make more than family income $80,000/yr, you gain with neoliberalism. Everyone below that loses, flat out. If not in one way, than in another.

        That’s why Latin America got rid of neoliberalism recently. Everyone knows it didn’t work.

        1. @Robert Lindsay, Friedman’s policies were simply not instituted. Look I’m not saying I agree with many of Friedman’s views on Economics, but what is VERY clear is that during Reagan’s era, Tax Were Not Cut, Deregulation Did Not Occur, And Deficits Were Not Reduced.

          Mix that with increases in military spending which are clearly anti-free market and we can clearly see why we aren’t better off after the Reagan era.

    3. I’ll try and get round to reading Far North. Sounds good. Thanks for the links.

      Shetland, and Scotland, won’t be so pretty if global warming alters the course of the gulf stream. If it doesn’t (soon) there’s a good chance both will be receiving a present from BP, all the way from the Gulf of Mexico.

  19. Norn, the indigenous language of the Shetland islands, died out in the 18th century. Shetlandic Scots however still uses vocabulary from the dead language. Here is the Lord’s prayer in Norn:

    Fy vor or er i Chimeri.
    Halaght vara nam dit.
    La Konungdum din cumma.
    La vill din vera guerde
    i vrildin sin da er i chimeri.
    Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau.
    Forgive sindorwara sin vi forgiva gem ao sinda gainst wus.
    Lia wus ikè o vera tempa, but delivra wus fro adlu idlu.
    For do i ir Kongungdum, u puri, u glori, Amen

    1. I worked in Shetland for years, in oil-related stuff. Unfortunately most of the time I was working double shifts 7 days a week (from choice) and flying home for a week every 6 weeks, so I didn’t see all that much of it.
      That promo film may well have been made under the aegis of a close member of my family, who had the contract for marketing Shetland as a tourist attraction for a while. I had to say to him that though Shetland has some nice things about it, most other places have more of these things. I’ve never been on Dartmoor, but a lot of English people up there told me that Shetland is like Dartmoor in the middle of the sea – bleak moorland, usually covered with snow, and never more than half a mile from the sea. It ISN’T that cold, though, unless the wind’s blowing – straight off the Arctic icecap, cuts you to the bone.

      But yes, that film caught its attractions – the seabirds and seals, and the thousands of architectural remains. Like Orkney it has all these ancient sunken villages that show a relatively advanced level of culture 2 or 3 thousand years BC. Who built these and what for? Here’s an interesting take on that, though I can’t vouch for it.

      The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales: The “Illiad”, the “Odyssey” and the Migration of Myth [Paperback]Felice Vinci
      Felice Vinci (Author)
      http://tinyurl.com/2b22d2m

      The midnight sun (for at least a month) is fun though, but not the constant dark in winter. Do you know that the land of the midnight sun starts just 60 miles North of Glasgow? In Glasgow on Summer nights the sky is a sort of mauve colour.

  20. @lafayette I do of course support rule of law by and for the people, but I would never suggest that Democracy would be the best way to achieve such a thing.

    For the masses to truly increase their standard of living and capital accumulation, only Capitalism meets the economic analysis for “equitable” distribution of wealth.

Leave a Reply to LaFleur Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)