I'm not so sure wars are ever truly won...........stopped sure.......but then that usually happens through colossal loss of life as well.  I'm sure any event as large as a 'world war' being stopped requires/required cooperation and should not be represented as a 'single-handed victory'...........of course this is only my opinion.         Also it is infinitely interesting to me why/how a nation that prides itself on being the 'world helper' (largest bringer of 'foreign aid') has such qualms and/or reservations about helping its own citizens (at whatever cost).  I mean I'm sure the cost of funding even one aircraft-carrier battlegroup and its various escorts/logistics infrastructure for a single 'humanitarian operation' deployment could have gone a long way towards speeding that healthcare.gov business along? 

The US is controlled by a small elite of millionaires who have only their own self-interest in mind. (In theory it's a democracy, but it's a democracy where you can only be elected by the backup of very large sums of money, and it's a "democracy" where you can win an election by spreading ridiculous lies to the people... well that's not really how a real democracy is supposed to work)

It's not surprising that the 2% elite in the US has gotten ever richer in the last 30 years, and the rest of that country ever poorer.

Hardly anyone pays taxes in the US, almost half of everything they make is payed by loans.

The printing of over 3 trillion US dollars has put a lot of strain on the whole world, inflating asset prices globally and creating the foundation of the next big crisis.

But they don't care, just keep printing as long as that 2% elite in the US gets richer.

And a 2% that doesn't even give a shit about the other 98% of their people, well you cannot expect any compassion from such types, you cannot expect that such people will give up their enormous wealth and their status, just for the sake of the entire planet 100 years into the future... that's not how they got their money.

It's really horrible.

A long time ago, 50 years ago or so, the tax system in the US was more fair. There was more equality and the "american dream" meant something for a lot of people. At the moment there is just too much poverty.

In such a political climate, nobody gives a damn about the state of the planet. The rich just sit in their big fat houses counting their money and the poor cannot complain because all they care about is scraping together enough money to survive another day, they don't have time to complain.

Just look at all that "fracking" business, and the oil shale business - it's called another oil boom. But it's expensive and polluting. It's an artificial attempt to keep an out-of-date economy going as if nothing is happening. Why: fracked oil is more expensive, it cannot really be used to fuel an economy that's based on the availbility of cheap oil. It's just drawing enormous amounts of money away from development of more sustainable sources of fuel.

The only ones who benefit from this in the medium term (there is no long term) are the oil companies and their stockholders.

The ones who lose are the people who buy that expensive oil and who think it's "normal" to buy it. Well it's not, it's fucking ridiculous that such a thing is happening nowadays. But I suppose it's the new "normal" and the new normal is:

- more pollution at a higher price -

BTW. China is even worse than that, China is ruled by a super-rich elite that's not kept in check by any democratic means. And Europa is going down the drain too, heading for US-style "solutions".

Yes, but the other end of the spectrum is also bad. Placing wealth in the hands of only a few causes other kinds of problems.

In Europe, the industrial revolution led to incredible wealth in the hands of a few industrialists. In the US too (in the roaring 20s). It caused lots of problems.

China also suffers under the abuse of an elite. Are we going to end up like China, or like the 20s again, or like the times of the industrial revolution again (with coal smog covering the big cities, because the rich are too greedy to do something about it) ?

The 20s ended with an implosion of a wealth bubble. About 5 years ago there was another implosion, but this time the wealthy simply print more and more money to keep their precious bubble intact. It's just unreal.

They're doing the same with our coal-based economy. They don't want to spend money on new technology if that means they've to throw away trillions of dollars worth of shares in oil companies, energy companies, car companies etcetera. Those will become worthless and they'll lose their wealth and power. They don't want that and they'll do whatever they can to prevent a change.

(I know I would try everything if I were that wealthy ^^)

Democracy saved us from ending up like China during the industrial revolution. But democracy is hollowed out, especially in the US, by the might of money. You can literally buy yourself a seat in Congress and do whatever crazy stuff you want in there... just throw a lot of money on ads, discredit your opponent by whatever crazy scandal you can think of, doesn't even have to be real... and you're safe.

Hell, because of the "war on terrorism", everybody is a suspect and subject to an elaborate spying network that monitors billions of people (just to catsh a handful of terrorists). There were times when the rights of the individual were protected, when monitoring was only allowed after there were reasonable suspicions. Now everyone is a suspect, while 99.999% of those monitored have done absolutely nothing.

And where is all that information going... such information is valuable and it won't stay indoors. It'll leak to different parts of the government, maybe to top industrialists ... anything to gain an advantage on the competition.

And while they're busy spying on each other and planning one costly war after the other, the world around us is falling apart.

It's horrible, just horrible, they should get their priorities straight.

A. You make sure your home is a nice place to live in.

B. You make sure your home will not be flooded in 100 years from now.

C. After that, you're free to fight your neighbour.

But you have to agree the age we are now in is not a bad era, the majority of the population in developed countries should be satisfied because they are not starving, have homes etc. Though I agree there are several sreious porblems with this world, but what can you do about it? While the society is full of lame idiots you cannot achieve anything, they will just follow the ones that promise them the most..

Remember.

Politics is a prohibited topic in this Forum section.

The subject of this thread is Global Warming, not Democracy.

Much of the 'science' was pre-school quality.... but essentially the Political 'divide' wasn't/hasn't been brought up in relation to pro/con GW ...so it's OK.

Side-stepping into Holocaust denial, etc. is clearly off-topic and symptomatic of the gradual decay into a political stoush - the very thing which is not desired/allowed here.

And, BTW, no-one needs to 'get over themselves' simply because they make a comment of opinion...

Of course.

Though I thought you'd had your last comment several times already...

More final concerts than Whispering Jack...

Yes ... it's a bit addictive.

Yes. For a long time the biggest polluter in the world. The biggest economy. The biggest army. Fought most wars of the last century. A completely self-centered foreign policy. So naturally everything is the fault of the US. But don't worry, China is taking over that role, and the Chinese are even worse.

The only "ifs" come from deniers. As far as I'm concerned it is not a matter of "if" anymore, but "when"

Ok. I can only speak for the Netherlands. The last time there were major investments in infrastructure, was after a severe flooding of the Southern part of the country.

So I think my government will only do the necessary investments when the sealevel is so high, that it will cause new flooding of that magnitude.

This requires a few meters of sea level rise.

I don't think the increasing temperatures by themselves will be problematic for the Netherlands. It might affect agriculture due to hotter summers and maybe drier topsoil... but I doubt that will trigger action by my government.

Sea level rise will also affect agriculture, by making the groundwater in the coastal regions more salty. But I don't think that will trigger more decisive action, maybe they'll just install more pumps to get rid of the extra water.

So we will have to wait for the floods. Unfortunately, when the sea level is rising that much, then it will be due to melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps (plus the smaller glaciers elsewhere) and that will not stop overnight. I'm afraid it will be too late by then and we'll have to evacuate the low-lying western part of my country. This will be quite costly, because that is where the large harbours and some very large cities are located.

Hmm... this is nice, it gives an overview of statements from deniers and why those are wrong. It doesn't add much to what's been said in this forum but it's a nice listing.

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths

This is a nice article describing the history of obtaining temperature data from foraminifera. Perhaps skeptics will learn to admire such work one day...

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/forams.htm

I rest my case.

I have glasses, he's right on all points.

Instead of spending all your effort telling others they don't understand what constitutes real science, you should actually read the foundations of their conclusions.  It's spelled out pretty plainly for anyone that bothers to read the climate model evaluations.  They claim 99% accuracy because they're able to model past changes, using the information they determined the past changes by.  They have nothing resembling an accurate representation of current temperatures, let alone future temperatures.  The bias for the last 15 years is larger than the temperature change.

A ham sandwich would be just as useful for predicting future climate changes.  Go make yourself one and ask it if you should buy a windmill.

I might not necessarily agree with psychoak's viewpoint but I'm not going to question his 'credibility'.  He has an opinion as equally 'valid' as my own.

I'd suggest everyone adopts my attitude towards others' opinion....it's good for your future tenure...

Debating is about TOPIC, not person ...

I'm not going to debate Stardock's forum policy re conduct...it's not open to debate.

If you look closely at the timeline of responses in this thread you'll see 'some' people have been absent for 'a time' - instigated by yours truly in response to inappropriate comment/s.

You're entirely free to join them if you cannot debate the topic rather than the person.

Yes, Physics IS the same 'throughout the universe' however none of it is entirely defined as ABSOLUTE.  ALL of it is open to revision - THAT is the nature of Science. 

Both sides of this particular topic are fundamentally FLAWED through the artifice of selective reference AND prejudice, both of the debater AND the sources.  It is the nature of contentious topicality.  The very fact this subject has gone on for 46 pages without any form of 'resolution' is simple testament to that.