<p>@mini - Gore isn’t a scientist - you introduced him to support your argument and still haven’t produced any scientists to support your argument.</p>
<p>Totally anecdotal, in support of Mini’s prediction, not his stance, was my experience as a teen going to Europe for long stays and as an adult in Japan for 4 years after growing up in the USA.
Economic crisis and political crisis probably DO have to happen before the trends of consumption, earth usage, population growth are reversed. Capitalists and liberals alike had hoped that we could develop a political consciousness and a new industry to obviate the need for such.</p>
<p>I remember in France in 1970 and 1977, and in Japan in the early 1990’s how parsimonious the locals seemed compared to Americans at the times. They valued every drop of water they used and re-used, taking baths, washing dishes and clothing by hand and irrigating their gardens with “dirty” water, collecting rainwater, taking baths once a week. There were still lines in the bathtubs in Paris in 1977 from WWII and afterwards. The awareness that resources were limited and precious, that conveniences were expending resources inefficiently was pre-dominant and new to me, a child of a country which was booming with developing technologies for the arms and space races, a growing middle class with ever-expanding notions of meaning of that life-style.
Japanese seniors told me of living on just japanese yams for several years after WWII. The French were living in old buildings without many conveniences that they cherished even with bombed out sections, but explained how much they had lost in the war. Refrigerators were smaller than the size college kids have in their rooms today. The food came from the garden or the market almost every day with little left over to store. There was a sense of collective cooperation that I had not experienced at all in the US.</p>
<p>I am not a nostalgist or agrarian or a Jeffersonian or a Luddite. I am not idealizing this. It was a tough life. My point is that doing without and respecting our resources were caused by a severe disruption both political and economic, in these cases WWII. But the lessons learned and changes made were still in use many many years later in these places.</p>
<p>Sadly, the effects of WWII were more localized than global warming, climate change, man-made wasting of the earth could/will be.</p>
<p>“@mini - Gore isn’t a scientist - you introduced him to support your argument and still haven’t produced any scientists to support your argument.”</p>
<p>You can go to his movie and to his book yourself, and come up with his very long list of scientists. I don’t feel I am required to do your homework for you.</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t realize Perry was masquerading as mini.</p>
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<p>Got it in one, zoose but their end goals aren’t necessarily the same. Some merely want people to use less, others may not care about the environment but do have that kink that makes them find central planning a fascinating career, and others don’t have any goal other than seeing that the pie is carved in new and different ways.</p>
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<p>Falsifiability is the work horse for the rest of science, but… sigh… the AGW team can’t be expected to plod along on that old nag, can they, kluge?</p>
<p>How convenient that we’ve so little time to make a difference and that the predictions of climate behavior that don’t come to pass, we simply have to wait a little longer to see.</p>
<p>Omigosh I cannot believe that those who are open minded to climate change being anything but man-made are now called “deniers”. Crazy.</p>
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<p>Did you realize that Rachel Maddow was masquerading as Parent1986?</p>
<p>Climate change is a leftist conspiracy and gasoline is a mass hysteria induced by nanobots dropped over the US in 1922 by Red China. We should wear aluminium foil hats to block the signal, and use human fat (liposuction) and exercise (treadmills hooked to turbines) to generate energy. The human body is actually pretty efficient.</p>
<p>Catahoula, climate science is no less falsifiable than Einstein’s theory of relativity. It’s just not easy. Other than creating an alternate Earth, changing energy use in one but not the other, and travelling forward in time to see how it works out, we have to rely on less direct forms of verification and falsification - just like in most other areas of science.</p>
<p>I understand that you apply different standards for climate science than for other areas of science. That’s the interesting part.</p>
<p>So Kluge, what exactly does climate change science say is the reduction in global temperature if a million tons of steel are not manufactured in the USA or Germany, but done so in India and China and shipped back here?</p>
<p>Dad<em>of</em>3, are looking for a coherent discussion or an excuse to justify the answer you want? Because if it’s the former, your hypothetical needs work. If it’s the latter, your work is done - but I’m not playing.</p>
<p>Dad<em>of</em>3:</p>
<p>In certain quarters, you need to expect that when you come up with solid, reasonable points, the discussion will be quashed, switched to humor, suddenly peppered with attacks, or abandoned. This is, by the way, the equivalent of closing one’s eyes, putting one’s hands over the ears, and singing very loudly. When you see people doing that, you must have said something that hit home.</p>
<p>Yes, Spideygirl; “solid, reasonable points” which are simplistic to the point of being well, pointless, “hit home” - that is, they point out that the person making them doesn’t want to address all of the variables involved in what’s under discussion, only the ones which make him feel good. That’s just playing games. Dad<em>of</em>3’s hypothetical is incomplete. I suspect he understands that.</p>
<p>I’m used to simplistic argumentation. It overflows the internet. I’m just bored with it.</p>
<p>Good ones, kluge: “simplistic”, “variables”, “hypothetical”… those all are pretty much the guts of AGW arguments, aren’t they?</p>
<p>Simplistic claims of polar bears forced to imitate Mark Spitz to survive, seas engulfing Manhattan high rises, hurricane seasons that make room for a whole 'nother generation of coastal developers…</p>
<p>Variables that are simply too variable to ever pin down… not in the limited lifetimes the suckers have, anyway. Heck, it’s impossible to even pin down your average alarmist as to what he’s talking about when he claims he feels strongly about whatever he’s talking about: Global Warming, AGW, Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events,…'</p>
<p>And “hypothetical” - which so neatly sums up the entire faith, along with the entirely “hypothetical” benefits of whatever moneymakin… transfer payme… 'scuse me, remediation plans the UN has in mind, I have to concede that you do indeed have your moments.</p>
<p>BTW: don’t you think it’s kind of… demeaning to Einstein to throw him in that wading pool Hansen, et al are splashing around in? I mean, he’s been right, which doesn’t make him look much like one of the team.</p>
<p>Actually, Catahoula, Einstein’s theories have no more been proven to be “right” than AGW theory has. To date, no one has traveled anywhere at 99% of the speed of light and come back and told us about it to confirm Special Relativity. There’s been a variety of experiments performed to test hypotheses based on General Relativity - “if GR is right, gravity should bend light, so if light appears to bend around heavy object X, that’s consistent with GR” - that sort of thing - and so far, none seem to have generated results which contradict GR within the margin of error of the instruments used to measure the results. But that doesn’t mean it’s been been proven to be “right” any more than Newtonian laws of physics - which stood unrebutted for hundreds of years -were. Interesting comments at[Einstein’s</a> General Theory of Relativity Proven? - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers](<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos) The big difference is that there’s not a cottage industry developed around an ideologically-driven desire to throw mud at Einstein, or anyone interested in funding one, as far as I can tell. That’s the basic difference between GR and AGW, as I see it.</p>
<p>You’ve spent a significant amount of time engaging in name-calling and sneering. But you still haven’t presented a viable explanation of why all of those climate scientists are deliberately lying to us, other then the laughable “gravy train” spitball. Because a near-universal conspiracy to deceive the public, carried out by hundreds of scientists all around the world is actually what your position requires.</p>
<p>“Actually, Catahoula, Einstein’s theories have no more been proven to be “right” than AGW theory has. To date, no one has traveled anywhere at 99% of the speed of light and come back and told us about it to confirm Special Relativity. There’s been a variety of experiments performed to test hypotheses based on General Relativity - “if GR is right, gravity should bend light, so if light appears to bend around heavy object X, that’s consistent with GR” - that sort of thing - and so far, none seem to have generated results which contradict GR within the margin of error of the instruments used to measure the results. But that doesn’t mean it’s been been proven to be “right” any more than Newtonian laws of physics - which stood unrebutted for hundreds of years -were.”</p>
<p>LOL!!!</p>
<p>DocT’s made a very good point, kluge - I’m looking forward to your rebuttal. </p>
<p>While you’re working on it, you might reconsider this, too…</p>
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<p>… keeping in mind that proving Einstein wrong about darn near anything he ever postulated, would mean some seriously bright but unknown math/physics prodigy would suddenly become a rock star. </p>
<p>You might also check and see how many times Einstein got himself cuffed while trying to sell his theories, too.</p>
<p>I have no real idea of the relative contribution of humans vs natural causes to global warming but in regards to post #176, I can see that science education is sadly lacking. A lot of engineers etc. would be interested in knowing about how Newtonian laws are “wrong” as implied in that post.</p>
<p>DocT, I never said Newtonian physics was “wrong” in the sense of not being useful in most normal situations - just that it isn’t “right” - at least not if quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity theory are “right” - since it fails to correctly predict physical behavior in all situations such as extremes of velocity and mass. </p>
<p>But as a person with a “science education” that’s not “sadly lacking”, you knew that. You probably sit around with your buddies making jokes about Lorentz transformations over a cold one on weekends, right? 
For those who lack your superior education, there’s an interesting discussion of this (in not-too-technical terms) here: [Einstein</a> right = Newton wrong?](<a href=“Einstein right = Newton wrong?”>Einstein right = Newton wrong?)</p>
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whereas proving AGW wrong would make a person a rock star and fabulously wealthy. So what, exactly, is your point?</p>