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Greta Thunberg - Honorary PhD

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  • #16
    Originally posted by seanD View Post
    What's interesting is that they all used different forms of doomsday predictions from ice ages, peak oil, global famines and mass starvation, ozone depletion, to global warming, yet they all used the same exact reason each time -- overpopulation. That's never ever changed from their doomsday mantra.
    I think it's severely overstating things to say overpopulation has been a constant theme. Climate change issues are only indirectly connected to overpopulation.

    That said, I've also found many conservatives don't realize how human population has changed over time...

    Annual-World-Population-since-10-thousand-BCE.png
    Fortunately most demographers believe the population growth is rapidly trailing off and that world population isn't going to increase much further. I mean, it's obviously self-explanatory that had the line continued vertically indefinitely that that would have been a problem, at a certain point you'd have to eventually pass the finite planet's limit for sustainability regardless of what that was.
    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
    "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
    "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by seanD View Post
      There are quite a few folks that have documented all the failed doomsday predictions in science... ozone depletion
      Ozone depletion is an interesting one, and possibly the best example in history of how international agreement on government regulation can solve world problems.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
      The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force on 1 January 1989... As a result of the international agreement, the ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering. Climate projections indicate that the ozone layer will return to 1980 levels between 2040 (across much of the world) and 2066 (over Antarctica). Due to its widespread adoption and implementation, it has been hailed as an example of successful international co-operation. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol".


      If the world is able to solve climate change via international agreement and government regulation the way it did the Ozone Hole, that would be incredibly great. That is a textbook case of scientists correctly diagnosing a world problem, and politicians agreeing to implement a solution, and the world problem being successfully solved as a result.

      It is also an example of a problem that the world would likely have failed to successfully address if not for world discussion forums to reach such agreements and if not for governments and their ability to regulate. In a fully libertarian world, each individual would have just continued to do what benefited them individually the most, and if that was using products that damaged the Ozone layer, they would have continued to do so, and the problem would have gotten endlessly worse. In a sense this then demonstrates the inherent limitations of the libertarian political philosophy and its inherent inability to address problems like this that need collective action.

      Incidentally, the Ozone Hole is a case of scientists being right, not being wrong. Doomsday scenarios were successfully averted precisely because scientists warned of those possible doomsday scenarios occurring if action was not taken, and global action was then taken to avert those outcomes. That's how it should work, and that's getting it right.
      Last edited by Starlight; 03-24-2023, 01:05 AM.
      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
      "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by Starlight View Post
        Ozone depletion is an interesting one, and possibly the best example in history of how international agreement on government regulation can solve world problems.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
        The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force on 1 January 1989... As a result of the international agreement, the ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering. Climate projections indicate that the ozone layer will return to 1980 levels between 2040 (across much of the world) and 2066 (over Antarctica). Due to its widespread adoption and implementation, it has been hailed as an example of successful international co-operation. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol".


        If the world is able to solve climate change via international agreement and government regulation the way it did the Ozone Hole, that would be incredibly great. That is a textbook case of scientists correctly diagnosing a world problem, and politicians agreeing to implement a solution, and the world problem being successfully solved as a result.

        It is also an example of a problem that the world would likely have failed to successfully address if not for world discussion forums to reach such agreements and if not for governments and their ability to regulate. In a fully libertarian world, each individual would have just continued to do what benefited them individually the most, and if that was using products that damaged the Ozone layer, they would have continued to do so, and the problem would have gotten endlessly worse. In a sense this then demonstrates the inherent limitations of the libertarian political philosophy and its inherent inability to address problems like this that need collective action.

        Incidentally, the Ozone Hole is a case of scientists being right, not being wrong. Doomsday scenarios were successfully averted precisely because scientists warned of those possible doomsday scenarios occurring if action was not taken, and global action was then taken to avert those outcomes. That's how it should work, and that's getting it right.
        They can't solve climate change because the amount of radical policy they claim must be enacted in a short amount of time will be impossible to get societies to voluntarily comply. They'd have to do it forcefully. I believe the greater threat right now is a world war between two nuclear powers than any doomsday scenario the climate change cult predicts is coming.

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
          I think it's severely overstating things to say overpopulation has been a constant theme. Climate change issues are only indirectly connected to overpopulation.
          That's not at all true. Climate change elites and academics push overpopulation as much as climate change; in fact, the two go hand in hand because they often claim the former is the direct cause of the latter. I did a comparison of some of the 20th century eugenicists with modern academics and their fearmongering about overpopulation is very eerily similar. Quite of few old school eugenicists even echoed the same ecological disaster as the modern day academics.

          As long as you omit parts my posts, I'll omit parts of yours.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by seanD View Post
            They can't solve climate change because the amount of radical policy they claim must be enacted in a short amount of time will be impossible to get societies to voluntarily comply. They'd have to do it forcefully.
            What do you mean by this claim?

            All laws and regulations are 'forceful' in a vague sense that they have a punishment if not complied with. Are you just meaning it in that sense, like any other law or regulation?

            Or are you saying "forceful" in the sense that there would be a mass movement of dissenters and shootouts with police, and the army would be brought in, etc?

            I believe the greater threat right now is a world war between two nuclear powers than any doomsday scenario the climate change cult predicts is coming.
            A nuclear war would certainly be bad. But we're coming up on 75 years of nuclear powers not having a nuclear war. So whatever's been happening to prevent one has been working. It's fairly clear from the data that efforts to address climate change up to the present are not yet working, hence it seems to be the more pressing issue (not that we necessarily have to choose only one to be focused on / deal with).
            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by seanD View Post
              Climate change elites and academics push overpopulation as much as climate change
              In my experience this is not at all remotely true. If I had to give a number, I would say overpopulation gets talked about one hundred times less than climate change.

              As long as you omit parts my posts, I'll omit parts of yours.
              I find it really fascinating you find that offensive... it's like meeting someone who takes personal offense at the concept of t-shirts. It's sure not meant to be offensive or bad faith or deceptive, or whatever it is that triggers you about it.
              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by seanD View Post
                They can't solve climate change because the amount of radical policy they claim must be enacted in a short amount of time will be impossible to get societies to voluntarily comply.
                Generally I tend to see climate policies in a win-win light. e.g.
                1. Govt pays for some solar panels to be built and added to the grid. This provides some jobs. Power gets cheaper to the end user cos total supply has gone up.
                2. Govt pays for some trees to be planted. This provides some jobs. Who doesn't like having more trees? Long term they can provide a source of nice walks through forests, or jobs in the forestry industry and sustainable logging.
                3. Govt subsidizes hybrid and electric vehicles. This makes cars cheaper, and the fuel for them cheaper (in the sense that it's electricity that's cheaper than gas, or that you're now getting more miles to the gallon for the gas). Who doesn't like cheaper cars and lower costs for refueling?

                I don't see societies refusing to voluntarily comply with any of that. This was one reason I was a bit baffled by Republicans' negative responses to the Green New Deal ideas... I mean, who doesn't like good things and win-win policies that help people, help the world, and make things cheaper? Someone who is legit insane?

                Your statement reminds me of a claim once that a friend made to me that to avoid climate change we would need to forgo entirely our modern lifestyles and live at near caveman levels of tech. My response was basically: ???!??!?!?? He didn't seem to have any data or evidence to back up that claim, it just seemed to be his own idea about the situation. Whereas, I don't personally conceive of climate change solutions causing a lower quality of life for us, if anything, the opposite (e.g. see the above, win-win situations).

                That's not to say a small number of people might not be mildly inconvenienced, e.g. Sparko has told me how annoying the Ozone-Hole-solving Montreal Protocol was for people trying to clean large mechanical parts because the alternative chemicals weren't as good. But that's mild inconvenience for a few people, and I expect we'll see the same with respect to climate change solutions, where the mild inconveniences are massively outweighed by the number of people helped by solving the problem.
                Last edited by Starlight; 03-24-2023, 03:06 AM.
                "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                  In my experience this is not at all remotely true. If I had to give a number, I would say overpopulation gets talked about one hundred times less than climate change.
                  Well, "in your experience," you'd be wrong, much like you're wrong about a lot of things. I follow this subject quite closely and I can tell you climate change and overpopulation go hand in hand and is an ideology pushed by most of the same outspoken advocates of climate change policy. It's very easy to prove you wrong with a search and bit of research on the subject. But I can understand why you'd disown it and insist the two are unrelated, being that overpopulation is primarily a political leftist trope and because it has a rightful ugly history and stigma behind it.


                  Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                  What do you mean by this claim?

                  All laws and regulations are 'forceful' in a vague sense that they have a punishment if not complied with. Are you just meaning it in that sense, like any other law or regulation?

                  Or are you saying "forceful" in the sense that there would be a mass movement of dissenters and shootouts with police, and the army would be brought in, etc?

                  A nuclear war would certainly be bad. But we're coming up on 75 years of nuclear powers not having a nuclear war. So whatever's been happening to prevent one has been working. It's fairly clear from the data that efforts to address climate change up to the present are not yet working, hence it seems to be the more pressing issue (not that we necessarily have to choose only one to be focused on / deal with).
                  You know exactly what I mean by forceful. I mean regulation does nothing unless it's enforced. Look at the miserable failure the Paris Accord has been. There's no possible way they can even get elites themselves to comply to the climate change reduction that they push, let alone get the plebs to comply to the demands needed in such a short amount of time, unless they use authoritarian rule, much like they used during the covid lockdowns, and of course that would spark economic disruption and major civil unrest.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by seanD View Post
                    Well, "in your experience," you'd be wrong
                    Well I can't be wrong in that I'm saying that's what I've experienced. If you want to think my personal experience isn't representative, well, okay, but it's not like you've personally experienced the worldwide sum of people talking about climate change and overpopulation, so I think the most you can say is that your personal experience hasn't been the same as mine in this regard.

                    You know exactly what I mean by forceful. I mean regulation does nothing unless it's enforced.
                    So the normal libertarian utterly false claim about all government laws and taxation being "inherently violent" even if they involve no violence, because "it's theoretically backed up by physical force" somewhere down the theoretical line, even though its not always? Right. So you've got nothing except libertarian falsehoods.

                    Look at the miserable failure the Paris Accord has been.
                    ???

                    The Paris Accord hasn't come into full effect yet. Step 1 is for nations to prepare their own sets of climate change plans and goals and to meet and discuss those in December 2023. We aren't at Dec 2023 yet, so nothing much interesting has yet happened.

                    It's strange for you to call something a "miserable failure" before it's yet done its scheduled things. Maybe wait until at least Dec 2023 before calling it a failure if the Dec 2023 conference goes really really badly? You calling it a failure before it's gotten started just makes me think you're either incredibly ill-informed or not honest in your comments.
                    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                    "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                    "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                      Well I can't be wrong in that I'm saying that's what I've experienced. If you want to think my personal experience isn't representative, well, okay, but it's not like you've personally experienced the worldwide sum of people talking about climate change and overpopulation, so I think the most you can say is that your personal experience hasn't been the same as mine in this regard.

                      So the normal libertarian utterly false claim about all government laws and taxation being "inherently violent" even if they involve no violence, because "it's theoretically backed up by physical force" somewhere down the theoretical line, even though its not always? Right. So you've got nothing except libertarian falsehoods.

                      ???

                      The Paris Accord hasn't come into full effect yet. Step 1 is for nations to prepare their own sets of climate change plans and goals and to meet and discuss those in December 2023. We aren't at Dec 2023 yet, so nothing much interesting has yet happened.

                      It's strange for you to call something a "miserable failure" before it's yet done its scheduled things. Maybe wait until at least Dec 2023 before calling it a failure if the Dec 2023 conference goes really really badly? You calling it a failure before it's gotten started just makes me think you're either incredibly ill-informed or not honest in your comments.
                      It's not really about "experience," more than it's about just knowing facts, of which you're poorly devoid of. I can post numerous quotes from the most prominent and outspoken climate change pushers in the media and academia peddling both climate change and overpopulation as the cause.

                      Your incoherent spiel about libertarian goes right over my head. I'm not a libertarian, nor do I even know what you're on about.

                      And it's not me saying the accord is a failure. UN admits it's a failure, maybe not in those words, but they admit the measures taken are not enough to meet the urgent demands they claim must be taken before 2030 to avoid "certain disaster." They simply can't get countries to voluntarily meet those demands no matter how much they fearmonger about the repercussions, likely because leaders of those countries know the consequences of attempting to do so.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                        Mispredicting the End-Times is classic religious behavior. Mossrose was doing it this week over in the Canada thread. Maybe Greta does deserve the honorary PhD to be in Theology for that reason?
                        Christians tend to roll their eyes when someone lists such and such is going to be when the Second Coming will take place. Climate change alarmists, OTOH, tend to treat their predictions as writ in stone and start conducting policy according to it.

                        I'm always still in trouble again

                        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                          Possibly worth pedantically noting that we can't be absolutely sure his prediction was wrong, the way we can with rapture predictions that don't happen. These climate predictions about the timeframes we have to act, are suggesting that if action isn't taken that some critical threshold will be reached that will knock some major climate / ocean / Antarctic ice etc processes permanently out of their current equilibria which will over many decades cause increasingly bad effects. They are not suggesting that the bad effects will have fully occurred within the timeframe they give. So humanity still being here 5 years later, doesn't prove he was wrong in his claim that lack of human action in those five years has doomed humanity sometime ~50-200 years in the future. (I've seen no evidence to suggest his claim is correct, and don't believe it is. But I'm saying that the existence of humanity 5 years on doesn't prove his claim wrong. The existence of humanity ~200 years in the future would prove his claim wrong.) His claim being right would be equally embarrassing to climate-activist Greta who wants to convince people to take climate action, and if it's too late to do so as his claim says, then Greta's activism is a waste of time because humanity's already failed on the issue.
                          Spoken like a follower of religion trying desperately to make a failed doomsday prediction not seem failed

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                            Fortunately most demographers believe the population growth is rapidly trailing off and that world population isn't going to increase much further. I mean, it's obviously self-explanatory that had the line continued vertically indefinitely that that would have been a problem, at a certain point you'd have to eventually pass the finite planet's limit for sustainability regardless of what that was.
                            Yep. Population growth will take care of itself. What we don't need are a gaggle elite climate cultists trying to make life difficult or impossible for those already here.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                              And the state of theology at Helsinki U
                              That is what I was thinking. It shows how little that University actually thinks of Theology if it just tosses out honorary degrees to the likes of Thunberg for political activism.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                                In my experience this is not at all remotely true. If I had to give a number, I would say overpopulation gets talked about one hundred times less than climate change.
                                It goes without saying. The carbon footprint of 7.9 billion people today versus, say, 990 million 200 years ago would solve their "crisis" without any other measures applied.

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