Earth Hour: Turn Off the Lights!

[Ron in Regina]

... what I'm saying is that it is a money decision. Since Monsanto is primarily an Ag business it make sense to sponsor things that people in the Ag business care about, if you are viewing this from an advertising perspective. Sponsorship can be used for advertising purposes or it can be used to grease palms. There isn't a great advertising benefit for Monsanto in sponsoring WWF. That's my point. I believe there is probably a hidden motive as the link I provided suggests.

Let's see if I got this straight: the Ag business promotes the WWF because the WWF serves AG business by pushing the GW agenda, which indirectly pushes for biofuels, which is what the Ag industry wants.

What link were you referring to?

Blasphemy!!! Careful or Al Gore will smite you with his....his
non-willingness to debate Global whatever it is at this point!!!

_____________________
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

 

[Cannuck]

What link were you referring to?

Post #286

Globalization and Autonomy
"In addition to this issue of animal welfare, there is also a great deal of controversy surrounding WWF's relations with Indigenous and traditional peoples. Although WWF claims to maintain partnerships with Indigenous peoples who live in ecologically-sensitive areas, complaints about WWF's treatment of Indigenous peoples have emerged all over the world. One complaint is that the establishment of Protected Areas and National Parks has often led to the eviction of Indigenous and traditional peoples from their lands and has cut short the land claims being made by these peoples.
There are also concerns about the conflicts of interest that arise from the funding relationships that WWF has with governments, multilateral agencies, and private corporations. Corporations such as Shell, ExxonMobile and Monsanto are major funders of WWF, meaning that WWF is allying "with forces that are destroying the world's remaining ecosystems" (Chapin 2004). This funding has several consequences. For example, WWF cannot ally itself with Indigenous peoples who are fighting these corporation's activities without endangering their funding, and their government and corporate ties mean that they may not oppose the government corruption and inaction that is often responsible for environmental degradation. WWF excuses its lack of action in "national matters" with the suggestion that they wish to remain apolitical, but critics believe that WWF is more concerned with the science of biodiversity than social realities."

 

[YukonJack]

"Same thing with the fake "organic" labels: people who have a true understanding of healthy food will not buy into it, but plenty of people who merely have a doubt will."

Does "Organic" mean that the only fertilizer that was used to produce a certain crop was natural, animal manure?

Does that not cause E-coli infection?

 

[L Gilbert]

Horse manure seems to work well. Haven't heard of anyone catching an E-coli infection from eating Money's mushrooms. Deer and other critters poop in the woods, yet people wander all over the place around here looking for shiitakes, oyster 'shrooms, chanterelles, etc.

 

[JLM]

JLM, that is what I meant when I said that a theory can never be proved, only disproved. Thus it is quite possible that Theory of Relativity or the Big bang Theory may someday be disproved. But that does not make them any less valuable.

I believe SOME theories can be proved, like the theory of the earth being a sphere, I'm pretty sure there's proof of it now. But who knows for sure?, maybe in 50 years the prevailing belief will be that it is flat again.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I believe SOME theories can be proved, like the theory of the earth being a sphere, I'm pretty sure there's proof of it now. But who knows for sure?, maybe in 50 years the prevailing belief will be that it is flat again.

JLM, that is not a theory, that is an observation, like sun rises in the east. A theory puts forward concepts, ideas regarding how things work. Facts or observations (like earth is round) are what confirm or disprove a theory.

Thus, for instance, suppose somebody came up with a theory as to how planets always have to be spherical. The fact that earth is spherical is a fact that would go towards validating the theory. Of course, a non spherical planet would disprove the theory.

So don’t confuse scientific theory with scientific observation. Thus, when you drop an apple form a height, it falls down. That is not a theory, that is an observation. But theory of gravitation is a theory, which can be validated by the fact that the apple falls down.

 

[petros]

"Same thing with the fake "organic" labels: people who have a true understanding of healthy food will not buy into it, but plenty of people who merely have a doubt will."

Does "Organic" mean that the only fertilizer that was used to produce a certain crop was natural, animal manure?

Does that not cause E-coli infection?

To be commercially classified "organic" only ONE aspect of producing the food has to be natural. It is usually pesticides and herbicides that get skipped over. Good land management doesn't require fertilizers but if need they can be used and still be called organic.

 

[JLM]

JLM, that is not a theory, that is an observation, like sun rises in the east. A theory puts forward concepts, ideas regarding how things work. Facts or observations (like earth is round) are what confirm or disprove a theory.

Thus, for instance, suppose somebody came up with a theory as to how planets always have to be spherical. The fact that earth is spherical is a fact that would go towards validating the theory. Of course, a non spherical planet would disprove the theory.

So don’t confuse scientific theory with scientific observation. Thus, when you drop an apple form a height, it falls down. That is not a theory, that is an observation. But theory of gravitation is a theory, which can be validated by the fact that the apple falls down.

I agree with what you are saying in general terms, but the earth being spherical is not an observation, if it was an observation then it would have always been accepted as being so.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I agree with what you are saying in general terms, but the earth being spherical is not an observation, if it was an observation then it would have always been accepted as being so.

In the old days, perhaps it was not an observation. They couldn’t observe the earth from the space, so they had to deduce its shape.

These days however, we can observe it form space, we can look at it in three dimensions. It is very much an observation.

A theory tells us about general concepts, tells us how something works (gravitation, evolution, photosynthesis etc.). An observation on the other hand, tells us about particular phenomena in nature, and does not advance our understanding of the world in general.

Thus, the observation that earth is round tells us only about earth. It does not tell us that Venus is round, or Mars is round etc.

But a theory of planetary formation, which says that planets must be spherical in shape, would be applicable to all planets, Earth, Venus, Mars, and indeed planets in other solar systems.

A theory adds to our understanding of the universe, an observation adds to our knowledge of the universe.

 

[petros]

I agree with what you are saying in general terms, but the earth being spherical is not an observation, if it was an observation then it would have always been accepted as being so.

Plato made mention of a round earth but we know how dogma works.....

 

[Extrafire]

I didn't miss it; those are things that have happened/are happening in the world but aside from biofuels (and DDT--I'm not sure that's relevant because it's carcinogenic, so malaria is the lesser evil)

DDT is NOT carcinogenic. That's just one of the lies made up to get it banned. While the campaign to ban it was ongoing, a supporter of DDT would eat it by the spoonful to demonstrate its safety. And speaking from personal experience, I grew up on an apple orchard in the Okanaganin the '50's. My father used DDT extensively, even handled it with bare hands. For some other pesticides he suited up in protective clothing, but DDT was safe. He lived to 102.

Sure it's easy for you to believe that malaria is the lesser evil when it's just a few million black people in Africa, but I bet if it was your kids who were vulnerable you'd think different. I got to know some refugees from Sudan and their biggest and ever present fear (after the political unrest and killings) for their kids was malaria. One of the things they specifically mentioned that they liked about Canada was the absence of that killer.

you haven't really made a clear cause and effect connection between the GW movement and all of the above. Sure that's what you're saying but you haven't really backed it up with why that is so.

I listed my concerns as the reason for my protest. You mean you're unaware of the cost of reducing CO2 emissions? Or the effect such expenditure would have on the various economies of the world? I'm surprised.

Now you're talking. The pro-Kyoto argument is that reduction of emissions would result in lower health costs/deaths. The argument is dependent on the idea that average global temperatures are rising and all that that implies.

"all that that implies" is myth. (I'm assuming you're referring to the scare mongering about desertification, increased hurricane and tornado activity and severity, severe weather events, massive crop failures, rising oceans flooding lowlands etc, etc.) However, let's pretend it's not myth but true.

Since it Kyoto doesn't really cover for example water sources (aside from indirectly via polluted rainfall), it doesn't seem reasonable to put people's immediate welfare on the line for the sake of reducing just emissions, in most cases.

Take Forestry for as example of an exception: limits on clear-cutting would cause significant job-loss in the Forestry/lumber industry. However, the costs of losing all that air-filtering potential due to clear-cutting outweighs the cost of unemployment.

You may not be aware, but my career has been in the BC forest industry, first as an employee of the ministry of forests, and later (mostly) in the industry.

So my first question is; Why just clear cutting? Why not all logging? After all, a trees "air filtering potential" is ended when it is cut, either in a clear cut or selective cut.

Second question; Do you think a tree will live forever? They're all going to die anyway eventually. The new seedling that springs up in a logged area isn't any less "air filtering" than one that seeds naturally in a naturally deforested area.

Third question; What the heck do you mean by "air filtering"?

The idea that "Green jobs" are somehow an effective employment-gap filler seems unlikely though. Some jobs are created, but it hardly counters the job loss at the other end. People who promote that just seem to want to have their cake and eat it to; going "green" requires sacrifice (at least initially until you introduce large-scale economic changes to regain viability).

Imposed "green jobs" are overall job killers. "Green jobs" that arise from the economy due to a response to demand are beneficial to the ecnonomy. Any "sacrifice" such as illustrated by the Spanish example I provided will result in large-scale economic changes, but those will be detrimental to the economy for as long as they are imposed by a government.

[BTW I assume by "AGW" you actually meant GW (i.e. Kyoto won't have any impact on non-human-caused CC).]

No, I mean AGW. Even the proponents admit that it will have no meaningful effect. When Vice President Al Gore proudly brought the Kyoto agreement home he knew it would be a tough sell to the American public, so he ordered a scientific study to determine just what the result of a 100% compliance with reduction targets would achieve, thinking that the public would be willing to sacrifice if they knew just how much they would achieve. The result - a reduction in the rate of warming of 7/100th of 1 degree C over the next 50 years. Notice that this isn't a reduction in global temperatures, but only a tiny slowing in the RATE of warming. That's why he and Clinton abandoned any thought of ratifying or implementing it.

I would still say that intended threats to human welfare, like companies polluting water sources just to save a buck (i.e. causing ill-health and death supposedly for the sake of cutting costs and keeping a few more people employed) are more logical targets for protest than generally well-meaning threats to jobs (i.e. Earth Hour).

While I would agree with you that those are laudable targets for protest, I still think it makes much more sense to target the threat that has the most potential for harm (more harm than all those others combined) namely the AGW scare, of which the earth hour demonstration was a part.

I would wager that most of the human-caused health threats faced by humans today all over the world are preventable without causing economic havoc.

And, to be honest, if it does cause havoc...balls to that economy. Humans need to learn how to live responsibly for *uck's sake.

We basically agree on that, and the biggest human caused threat would be the AGW scam.

 

[Extrafire]

Quite right, Ron. The thread has gone way off topic. I suggested after earth hour was over, that we give a decent burial to the thread. But I suppose people get worked up when it comes to the environment.

You suggested the thread be ended because you were getting hammered! :lol:

 

[SirJosephPorter]

You suggested the thread be ended because you were getting hammered! :lol:

Nothing of the sort, Extrafire. The earth hour was a huge success (1 billion people, 4000 cities, 88 countries). As soon as earth hour was over, I suggested we bury the thread, before all the spinning by rabid anti-environmentalists started.

Go back and check the thread. I still think that was the proper place to end the thread, most of what has been said after that is really so much hot air, mostly spin by anti-environmentalists as to how earth hour was a flop (even though they don’t have a lick of evidence to support their assertion).

As to getting hammered, I really haven’t paid much attention to propaganda by anti-environmentalists like you after the earth hour was done. Once the numbers were out (1 billion people, 4000 cities, 88 counties) and were not challenged by anybody (even far right websites like worldnetdaily reported them), it was really over as far as I was concerned, all the ranting and raving by anti-environmentalists notwithstanding.

So again, you re welcome to think what you like, but if you go back and check, you will find that I suggested we give the thread a decent burial as soon as earth hour was over.

But it looks like anti-environmentalists like you may well keep the thread alive until the next earth hour. Hey, that is OK by me; it will save me the trouble of posting another thread at the next earth hour. As I said, I hope they shoot for 2 billion people the next time.

 

[TenPenny]

This thread long ago passed the point of idiocy.

It's still entertainment, though. It's somewhat like watching Paris Hilton doing a Mensa quiz.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

This thread long ago passed the point of idiocy.

It's still entertainment, though. It's somewhat like watching Paris Hilton doing a Mensa quiz.

Couldn't agree with you more. The thread should have been buried right after the earth hour (which was the subject of the thread).

 

[Cannuck]

Does "Organic" mean that the only fertilizer that was used to produce a certain crop was natural, animal manure?

Does that not cause E-coli infection?

E-coli generally isn't a problem with herbivores.

 

[JLM]

E-coli generally isn't a problem with herbivores.

Herbivores among the human population often have other problems (vitamin B12 deficiency just to name one).

 

[Cannuck]

Herbivores among the human population often have other problems (vitamin B12 deficiency just to name one).

...and a lack of common sense...and a holier than thou attitude...and....

 

[JLM]

...and a lack of common sense...and a holier than thou attitude...and....

Yep, quite often suffer from the cat jumping on the hot stove syndrome. They sometimes start out by making themselves sick from eating 50 hamburgers a week at McDonalds and then decide red meat of any kind in any amount is taboo, so never again in their life enjoy another 4 oz. steak.

 

[Cannuck]

They sometimes start out by making themselves sick from eating 50 hamburgers a week at McDonalds ...

McDonalds hamburgers have meat in them?