Thanks Even… I’m still here, and still bitter about the failing condition of my country and I really needed to spit it out a bit

respectfully
BJ

The loss of ice is not too surprising given the four degrees C rise in average winter temperatures in the Arctic. However, the extent and speed with which the Arctic ice is melting is unprecedented.

Those changes are impossible to predict with precision, but Scambos believes that the sea ice will continue to melt. The loss of sea ice appears to have triggered a major feedback loop because there is less ice and snow to reflect the sun’s energy, making the region ever warmer.

“We think that these feedbacks are starting to take hold and that we’re going to see an accelerated decline in sea ice,” Scambos said in a release.

Greenland alone has enough ice to raise global sea levels three metres.

Earlier in the year, European scientists reported that analysis of ice cores from Antarctica shows that today’s level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 27 percent higher than any previous peak — looking back 650,000 years

Political leadership is all that’s missing to achieve emissions cuts of 30 to 40 percent,” said Marshall

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1228-04.htm

Corporate Media Kills….

Here is an consequence of your “where nobody interferes with their right to do this” in the most holy benevalent free market going and our model for advancement-the U.S.:
WASHINGTON - December 20 - The first ever nationwide compilation of tap water testing results from drinking water utilities shows widespread contamination of drinking water with scores of contaminants for which there are no enforceable health standards. Examples include the gasoline additive MTBE, the rocket fuel component perchlorate, and a variety of industrial solvents. The pollution affects more than one hundred million people in 42 states.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/1220-01.htm

And yes, i don’t think we evolved having a prevalence of drug companies providing medication for 100 million people and don’t consider it an improvement. Your free market exchange value for value means in exchange for the value of pollutions, toxins, “beneficial” technologies and massive profits that at least 90% of the population get no real benefit from, we get the value of drug companies and their trillion dollar profit margins in control of the living enviroment.
The above disregard is off course very much the rule, not the exception, when it comes to the wisdom of the free market and corporate self regulation and permeates through out.

It’s fascinating that Labour had caved on the carbon tax even BEFORE getting into bed with the centrists, who had that item high on their agenda.

Hard to see them making such an announcement in the context of a Lab/Green government.

Retrospectively it looks like a good reason for Clark & co not to want to have Greens on board…

fits my idea that Labour had already decided to drift further towards the centre-right, and having Peter and Peters on board is merely an alibi.

We may not end up facing armageddon, but what we may end up with instead is industrial collapse at best. If we run out of oil while we’re still oil-dependant, and we’re being hit by abnormally violent weather which destroys our infrastructure, how do you think people are going to cope? Can you realistically see anyone living like we do now? This is certainly assuming mankind doesn’t come up with anything… but sitting there and saying “yes it’s a problem”, but not incentivising anyone to do what they can to avoid the problem doesn’t help anyone. It just makes us look better about doing nothing.

It’s not a simple matter of cost-benefits analysis, and if it works out we’re right as rain. There are big, scary unknowns in this equation, and when such things appear you do your best to minimise them. And minimising them right now means cutting emissions and oil dependancy.

Africa - Up in Smoke
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?PID=208

Cast adrift: How the rich are leaving the poor to sink in a warming world.
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?pid=200

Up in Smoke
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?pid=196

Incidentally the journal Nature - http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html
makes for a terrifying read; the actual peer reviewed research on climate change gives more cause for concern than the battle of the headlines. Don’t trust the journalists. Go straight to the source

The impact of climate change on the already strained farming environments of the world is predicted to be huge. The worst hit continent is going to be Africa according to most models, and less rainfall, increased winds and widespread desertification are going to intensify the ressures that already exist.

The report by the New Economics Foundation “Africa Up In Smoke” provides a good backgrounder to the issue.

On the basis of it’s failure on climate change, this Government is worse for the worlds poor (intergenrationally) than any other in our history. We might have a few more dollars in our pockets for a few more weeks, but they certainly won’t see any benefit.

When we write up the list of climate criminals, Clark and Hodgson will get my nominations.

Shame!

Um, a market is where individuals exchange value for value, a free one is one where nobody else interferes with their right to do this. Attach whatever labels you want to it - but it is as simple as that, despite what the Marxists say. The opposite of the free market exists in a number of countries - if you find the free market so awful, see what happens when you eliminate it.

The rest of that statement is just random rage - you don’t want drug companies? Good luck getting a small business to develop and produce enough medication for 100 million users. you don’t want prisons? So the couple who starved their 5 kids to death that were just caught in the UK should not be held somewhere securely? How are you going to fix inequality - punish those who are smarter, who produce more and work harder?

By the way, look into the books on politics and political economy written by some in the West in the 1930s - many lauded Hitler and Stalin for the new way forward. Stalin was lauded by many western academics through till the 50s, just like Mao was in the 60s. There is also much evidence to show that Hitler was genuinely popular in the mid 1930s in Germany given the economic recovery and the huge boost to national morale that presented Germans - certainly there is little evidence of dissent or any effort by Germans to go against the regime. Remember Hitler was a National Socialist - the socialism was there, with a strong belief in equality, in sacrifice to the common good and big brother government, and most of what Hitler got done was done by the state, hardly the free market, nobody was allowed to set up businesses without state approval.