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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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On July 28 2020 16:06 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2020 15:50 plated.rawr wrote:On July 28 2020 14:56 Starlightsun wrote:Has anyone seen anything to cooberate that some of the federal troops deployed on protestors are mercenaries from Blackwater legacy companies? That group was run by Betsy Devos's brother until convicted of war crimes in Iraq. https://medium.com/@wkc6428/the-lead-federal-agency-responding-to-protesters-in-portland-employs-thousands-of-private-db137349f8b0What has not been reported widely in the media, however, is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unit that is coordinating the “crowd control” effort — an agency called the Federal Protective Service (FPS) — is composed largely of contract security personnel. Those contractors are being furnished to FPS by major private-sector security companies like Blackwater corporate descendant Triple Canopy as well as dozens of other private security firms.
If true, that's some next level dystopian cyberpunk shit right there. On July 28 2020 15:13 Wegandi wrote:On July 28 2020 15:12 Amui wrote:On July 28 2020 14:17 Wegandi wrote:
Are we back to climate doom theology again? No one respectable holds that insane position. At times I feel like I'm reading the lefts version of R/TheDonald when I come to TL. Putting your fingers in your ears screaming lalala doesn't make reality go away. Yeah, the human race going extinct or the world ending is the realist position here....lol. Cute strawmen aside, im not worried about the human race going extinct. What i worry about, is the global famine and refugee situation as greater regions of agriculture and livable land along the equator and coastal regions become unlivable due to increased temperatures and rising sea levels. Strawman eh? I'm literally using the words by a good few posters here. Don't be daft. I'm not worried about food supplies as that isn't even part of the fuss about it (likely a wash of arable land, but with better soil nutrition leading to higher yields). Come on folks. Do your research if you're going to come with that non-sense. The worst case effects are coastal land-loss / flooding. That's bad, but that's not end of the world or an ELE. The people peddling doom theology only do your own cause a disservice by being so blatantly wrong and turning huge parts of the population away from that side of the argument. Not even the worst-case scientific models come close to such a hypothesis. Can we just call the people peddling that shit crackpots and move on? What dubious reckoning are the socialists next going to try and use to peddle their wares? Last generation was overpopulation mythos. I wonder what the next generation will use when "climate catastrophe" comes and goes with a blip.
Work is starting, so i sadly cant give a proper response.
Global warming and famine. https://climatenewsnetwork.net/famine/
As for your second paragraph - you seem very eager to politicize science, and to basket your ideological opponents.
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On July 28 2020 16:16 plated.rawr wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2020 16:06 Wegandi wrote:On July 28 2020 15:50 plated.rawr wrote:On July 28 2020 14:56 Starlightsun wrote:Has anyone seen anything to cooberate that some of the federal troops deployed on protestors are mercenaries from Blackwater legacy companies? That group was run by Betsy Devos's brother until convicted of war crimes in Iraq. https://medium.com/@wkc6428/the-lead-federal-agency-responding-to-protesters-in-portland-employs-thousands-of-private-db137349f8b0What has not been reported widely in the media, however, is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unit that is coordinating the “crowd control” effort — an agency called the Federal Protective Service (FPS) — is composed largely of contract security personnel. Those contractors are being furnished to FPS by major private-sector security companies like Blackwater corporate descendant Triple Canopy as well as dozens of other private security firms.
If true, that's some next level dystopian cyberpunk shit right there. On July 28 2020 15:13 Wegandi wrote:On July 28 2020 15:12 Amui wrote:On July 28 2020 14:17 Wegandi wrote:
Are we back to climate doom theology again? No one respectable holds that insane position. At times I feel like I'm reading the lefts version of R/TheDonald when I come to TL. Putting your fingers in your ears screaming lalala doesn't make reality go away. Yeah, the human race going extinct or the world ending is the realist position here....lol. Cute strawmen aside, im not worried about the human race going extinct. What i worry about, is the global famine and refugee situation as greater regions of agriculture and livable land along the equator and coastal regions become unlivable due to increased temperatures and rising sea levels. Strawman eh? I'm literally using the words by a good few posters here. Don't be daft. I'm not worried about food supplies as that isn't even part of the fuss about it (likely a wash of arable land, but with better soil nutrition leading to higher yields). Come on folks. Do your research if you're going to come with that non-sense. The worst case effects are coastal land-loss / flooding. That's bad, but that's not end of the world or an ELE. The people peddling doom theology only do your own cause a disservice by being so blatantly wrong and turning huge parts of the population away from that side of the argument. Not even the worst-case scientific models come close to such a hypothesis. Can we just call the people peddling that shit crackpots and move on? What dubious reckoning are the socialists next going to try and use to peddle their wares? Last generation was overpopulation mythos. I wonder what the next generation will use when "climate catastrophe" comes and goes with a blip. Work is starting, so i sadly cant give a proper response. Global warming and famine. https://climatenewsnetwork.net/famine/As for your second paragraph - you seem very eager to politicize science, and to basket your ideological opponents.
One, there's no evidence for your supposition and even based on various models (of dubious predictability) yields are supposed to range from slightly poorer to as much as 30% better with minimal impacts on net arable lands. As we do have the actual data about crop yields we can post those:
https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields
It's abundantly clear that (climate change has been on-going for a while now, you can't just keep prolonging the effects in perpetuity) yields are strong and our food chain is robust. Humans are marvelous at adapting. We're not going anywhere unless an asteroid comes smacking us or we're invaded by aliens. If we look at actual data of poverty, we see that poverty as considerably declined in the last 30 years. More people are "food secure" today than ever before. Thanks to liberal reforms and relatively globalized markets and free-trade (compared to times past). We're in GOOD times, not bad.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview#:~:text=According to the most recent,probably will reverse in 2020.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/12/13/rethinking-global-poverty-reduction-in-2019/
For people supposedly about the science and data you conveniently ignore the reality of the world we live in (or you know you can argue that "climate change" hasn't really happened at all yet just like real socialism has never been tried).
Or we can go based on your absurdly poor article on "climatenewsnetwork" (surely, the arbiter of unbiased reporting).
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We're only this good because we don't need to avert disasters. When you have literal millions of people who will need to relocate because they can't provide the infrastructure to hold back rising sea levels, you put enormous strains on the supply chain.
Europe could barely handle the surge of migrants, logistically and politically. I don't feel like living in a warzone because people got displaced because of something we created and could possibly prevent.
Sure, we're adaptable, but we're fighting a losing battle at the moment. Crop innovation and infrastructural reinforcement can't keep up. If we need 20 years to release a heat/drought resistant crop, we're screwed.
Also, while food securty is a thing, quality food is the real indicator here.
Stuffing your face with pop tarts and having 2/3 of your populace be obese, food security isn't really indicative now, is it? You might call it a predatory food chain at best, but to say food security is at an all time high becuse we have x million of people every successive year who are non-starving anymore, is simply looking at things at face value.
Also, while we're in GOOD times relative to the past, we could be in BETTER times because of good policies and not because of what we have now.
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On July 28 2020 16:08 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2020 15:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2020 15:13 Wegandi wrote:On July 28 2020 15:12 Amui wrote:On July 28 2020 14:17 Wegandi wrote:
Are we back to climate doom theology again? No one respectable holds that insane position. At times I feel like I'm reading the lefts version of R/TheDonald when I come to TL. Putting your fingers in your ears screaming lalala doesn't make reality go away. Yeah, the human race going extinct or the world ending is the realist position here....lol. Not extinct most likely, just ecological collapse based on the best available data and scientific understanding of the world around us, vs I dunno, your gut? You can stop pretending that your position of ecological disaster and doom is science-based.
You're not even rejecting the science, just imagining/hoping that we'll adapt to the changing circumstances well enough to avoid the ecological and social collapse all the data indicates is coming. This is despite every indication otherwise politically, economically, scientifically and socially.
I imagine the mad max hellscape dictatorial corporatocracy I see that leading to is the desired result for libertarians though.
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On July 28 2020 17:26 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2020 16:08 Wegandi wrote:On July 28 2020 15:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 28 2020 15:13 Wegandi wrote:On July 28 2020 15:12 Amui wrote:On July 28 2020 14:17 Wegandi wrote:
Are we back to climate doom theology again? No one respectable holds that insane position. At times I feel like I'm reading the lefts version of R/TheDonald when I come to TL. Putting your fingers in your ears screaming lalala doesn't make reality go away. Yeah, the human race going extinct or the world ending is the realist position here....lol. Not extinct most likely, just ecological collapse based on the best available data and scientific understanding of the world around us, vs I dunno, your gut? You can stop pretending that your position of ecological disaster and doom is science-based. You're not even rejecting the science, just imagining/hoping that we'll adapt to the changing circumstances well enough to avoid the ecological and social collapse all the data indicates is coming. This is despite every indication otherwise politically, economically, scientifically and socially. I imagine the mad max hellscape dictatorial corporatocracy I see that leading to is the desired result for libertarians though.
No, the science and data is not pointing to societal/ecological collapse. That's your theological interpretation. People said the same thing with overpopulation, peak oil, or any number of things. People routinely fail to account for progress, innovation, and human adaptability. It is never accounted for. Let me just reiterate, your interpretation of "the data" is wholly inaccurate and wrong. Even worse case scenario warming does not portend the things you say "the data" says it does, never mind the poor track record of climate modeling.
Are you aware that the worst polluters on the planet are socialist/communist countries and organizations like the US Military? Why you think collective ownership of resources produces better environmental outcomes when all the evidence says the contrary is baffling. Organizations like PERC have the right solutions, not rehashing failed ideologies.
https://www.perc.org/
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On July 28 2020 17:24 Uldridge wrote:
We're only this good because we don't need to avert disasters. When you have literal millions of people who will need to relocate because they can't provide the infrastructure to hold back rising sea levels, you put enormous strains on the supply chain.
Europe could barely handle the surge of migrants, logistically and politically. I don't feel like living in a warzone because people got displaced because of something we created and could possibly prevent.
Sure, we're adaptable, but we're fighting a losing battle at the moment. Crop innovation and infrastructural reinforcement can't keep up. If we need 20 years to release a heat/drought resistant crop, we're screwed.
Also, while food securty is a thing, quality food is the real indicator here.
Stuffing your face with pop tarts and having 2/3 of your populace be obese, food security isn't really indicative now, is it? You might call it a predatory food chain at best, but to say food security is at an all time high becuse we have x million of people every successive year who are non-starving anymore, is simply looking at things at face value.
Also, while we're in GOOD times relative to the past, we could be in BETTER times because of good policies and not because of what we have now.
1) Data and studies suggest that harvest yields will be better with rising global temperatures (the fact that NOW with climate change having been a thing for more than 3 decades now, harvest yields are fantastic is ignored...). With rising sea levels and changing weather patterns arable lands will shift, but the outcome will fall somewhere between a wash to a net increase.
2) I see you moving goal posts. The fact people aren't starving anymore isn't the issue, it's food quality and obesity (well, damn, I bet people rather be obese than starve to death, but whatever). Of course things aren't perfect for everyone, but life is better and food security is better. Those are plain facts. Stop trying to circumvent your way around and rationalize bullshit, OK?
3) Evidence says the policies that people in the doom theology crowd want to enact will make things worse, not better. We know because the body of history since Marx and Engels died. The proper answer to oil is not to do the same for all energy sectors (massive subsidies, etc.), it's to eliminate the subsidies. Allow people the environment to innovate and bring their entrepreneurial spirit to bear to environmental issues. Reinstituting nuisance courts and strengthening property rights would be a nice start.
4) I repeat, public opinion is going to crush you if you keep pedaling climate doom theology.
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1) From what I remember in my plant physiology classes, sustained elevated temperatures, accompanied by higher atmospheric co2 would heavily decrease crop viability and yield.
I guess we'll have to find out who's correct on this one.
2) I guess moved the goalpost for the Western world. There are still many areas in Africa and Asia, where food security isn't completely established, where they suffer from micronutrient deficiencies (for example 25% of children in Uganda are at risk of becoming blind because of vitamine A shortage), or countless pathogens and insects descreasing crop yield. Not to mention the pesticide spraying they have to do because they don't have access to the more modern stuff like over here. You kinda fuck yourself as a farmer if you need to spray >100 times per growth cycle just to get some yield. Anyway, I'm in rant territory here, but what I want to summarize is that for the at risk regions, staple crops and more niche crops are under tremendous pressure. Climate change is only going to exacerbate this.
3) I'm not calling for draconian policies, I'm calling for sensible measures that help people all over the world and give people in the West better access to more healthy food. Fuck McDonalds and the like.
4) When is it okay to call upon this 'climate doom theology' then? Will people literally need to wake up in a flooded bedroom? Do we need more fires in Australia? Or do we need Australia to become uninhabitable first?
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Northern Ireland27387 Posts
On July 28 2020 16:06 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2020 15:50 plated.rawr wrote:On July 28 2020 14:56 Starlightsun wrote:Has anyone seen anything to cooberate that some of the federal troops deployed on protestors are mercenaries from Blackwater legacy companies? That group was run by Betsy Devos's brother until convicted of war crimes in Iraq. https://medium.com/@wkc6428/the-lead-federal-agency-responding-to-protesters-in-portland-employs-thousands-of-private-db137349f8b0What has not been reported widely in the media, however, is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unit that is coordinating the “crowd control” effort — an agency called the Federal Protective Service (FPS) — is composed largely of contract security personnel. Those contractors are being furnished to FPS by major private-sector security companies like Blackwater corporate descendant Triple Canopy as well as dozens of other private security firms.
If true, that's some next level dystopian cyberpunk shit right there. On July 28 2020 15:13 Wegandi wrote:On July 28 2020 15:12 Amui wrote:On July 28 2020 14:17 Wegandi wrote:
Are we back to climate doom theology again? No one respectable holds that insane position. At times I feel like I'm reading the lefts version of R/TheDonald when I come to TL. Putting your fingers in your ears screaming lalala doesn't make reality go away. Yeah, the human race going extinct or the world ending is the realist position here....lol. Cute strawmen aside, im not worried about the human race going extinct. What i worry about, is the global famine and refugee situation as greater regions of agriculture and livable land along the equator and coastal regions become unlivable due to increased temperatures and rising sea levels. Strawman eh? I'm literally using the words by a good few posters here. Don't be daft. I'm not worried about food supplies as that isn't even part of the fuss about it (likely a wash of arable land, but with better soil nutrition leading to higher yields). Come on folks. Do your research if you're going to come with that non-sense. The worst case effects are coastal land-loss / flooding. That's bad, but that's not end of the world or an ELE. The people peddling doom theology only do your own cause a disservice by being so blatantly wrong and turning huge parts of the population away from that side of the argument. Not even the worst-case scientific models come close to such a hypothesis. Can we just call the people peddling that shit crackpots and move on? What dubious reckoning are the socialists next going to try and use to peddle their wares? Last generation was overpopulation mythos. I wonder what the next generation will use when "climate catastrophe" comes and goes with a blip.
Since when was it socialists pushing overpopulation being potentially catastrophic anyway? At least in the West. There’s plenty of resources to go around they’re just not exactly distributed equitably.
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Is this normal practice in the US or is it more evidence of America's deliberate slide into authoritarianism?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/24/seattle-times-protesters-police-subpoena/?fbclid=IwAR2BGMMMMsEYmZcn7pnviZEl7yRWZnslzxVa384xjIAiidWhyVRDAdqhg3g
On May 30, photographers from the Seattle Times and local TV stations aimed their cameras at an unruly crowd that had broken off from peaceful protests against police brutality and racial injustice. As the journalists documented the scene in downtown Seattle, the crowd smashed windows, set police cars on fire and looted businesses.
Many of the perpetrators escaped arrest. But the Seattle Police Department had an idea how to try to find them: They demanded all the images shot that day by journalists on the scene.
On Thursday, King County Superior Court Judge Nelson Lee ordered five news organizations to turn over the unpublished material, a decision that Times’s editors warned would gravely endanger reporters covering other protests.
“The media exist in large part to hold governments, including law enforcement agencies, accountable to the public,” Michele Matassa Flores, the Times’s executive editor, told the paper. “We don’t work in concert with government, and it’s important to our credibility and effectiveness to retain our independence from those we cover.”
Brian Esler, an attorney representing the police department, did not immediately return a message from The Washington Post on Thursday night.
As President Trump prepares to send federal agents to Seattle to confront ongoing protests, an expansion of his contentious efforts in Portland, Ore., the judge’s ruling adds more tension to simmering protests that have been particularly intense throughout the Pacific Northwest.
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Is that not normal everywhere? You took pictures of these criminals and we want you to provide them to us so we can bring them to justice?
He did place limits on police, according to the Times, ruling that they could only use the photos and video to identify suspects who burned the police car and stole guns — not those involved in other more minor vandalism or looting. He also protected the reporters’ cellphone videos and photos.
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It is normal (and controversial) everywhere. For example in 2011 British courts sided with the police against broadcasters who didn't want to hand over the footage of London riots.
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United States44299 Posts
On July 28 2020 14:17 Wegandi wrote:
Are we back to climate doom theology again? No one respectable holds that insane position. At times I feel like I'm reading the lefts version of R/TheDonald when I come to TL.
Out of curiousity, do you not believe in carbon dioxide, not believe in sunlight, or believe in the two of them but not believe they have any impact on each other? I use “believe” because you seem to think this is a matter of theology in which we are all believers.
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Afaik, he does. He just believes that the human ingenuity will overcome.
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United States44299 Posts
That’s sure to be good news to the non humans of the planet on which we depend. Humans are able to very rapidly adapt to changing circumstances but the natural world adapts very slowly and it’s main tool for adaptation is killing off everything that fails to adapt. That’s not great given the pace at which we’re changing the environment coupled with our dependence on extracting the resources it generates.
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Also the idea that displacing 25% or more of our entire race because we couldn't be bothered to not lose our safe habitats, and that we'll just shrug it off b/c Capitalism is... lol
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United States44299 Posts
On July 29 2020 01:54 JimmiC wrote:
The biggest problem with blaming capitalism for the environmental problems is socialists are doing just as shitty a job. The issue is a mix of consumerism, throw away culture, valuing short term gains over sustainability.
Socialists at least place value on the commons and rightly place ownership of it with the people as a whole. If I declare that fish stocks are a free for all and that everyone is entitled to take as much as they wish then, as a capitalist, I should rationally take all that I can because I know that you, as another capitalist, plan to do the same. I should not steward the resource because that will benefit you at my cost, it would be irrational to do so, especially given you’re likely to overfish it anyway despite my efforts. And if you attempt to steward it then I should still overfish it because a third capitalist probably intends to do that too so I should get there before he does.
The first step to limiting this behaviour is recognizing that it is a collectively owned resource that the people at large have rights to. All subsequent steps depend upon that, you cannot address the excesses of capitalism without first socializing the commons. What you choose to subsequently do may not be environmentally friendly, it may ultimately be worth destroying a river ecosystem to make a hydroelectric dam, but at least the stakeholders in the river are the same as in the dam. If the people choose to forfeit the value of a natural resource for something of greater value to them then so be it. But only through collective ownership can the value of a natural resource be established and only after establishing its value can that value be protected.
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On July 29 2020 01:54 JimmiC wrote:
The biggest problem with blaming capitalism for the environmental problems is socialists are doing just as shitty a job. The issue is a mix of consumerism, throw away culture, valuing short term gains over sustainability.
My point is that saving the environment goes beyond any -ism, and at its core requires giving a shit about whether we can continue to live here. So when Wegandi drops in, acts like the science agrees with him while also refusing to cite any, and says "lol don't worry bro, we've got capitalism" is just as much a theology as he's trying to say we are for taking our and the planet's future seriously.
There's a reason engineers make conservative assumptions when they design anything that handles human life. It's so that when they're wrong, people still live because they erred on the side of caution when they built that bridge everyone needs, or that car you drive every day, or that rocket that got us to the moon. Suddenly when it comes to our ecosystem though, that's just a big joke to people, and it's totally awesome if we're wrong in the end and billions die.
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