Are Greenies the new fundamentalist nutjobs?

[f0xxee]

Of late I have become more and more affeared of the fundamentalist nature of the bunny huggers.
They to a large extent hold the balance of power in Australian politics, based on nothing more than they are "for" the environment, while the other parties are decimaters of bunnies and all things fluffy and cute.
What concerns me is that although they are elected as environmentalists, they politically have a say on things beyond their ken, little, unimportant policies, like economic policy, immigration policy, taxation, defence and the rest.

And really?They haven't a clue. They try to relate all policy to an environmental point of view.

Secondly, they really dont seem to like people like me and you much. That is ones that work, pay bills and raise kiddies. We use petrol and electricity and want to clear land and build houses. No they prefer cute little frogs, parrots and bunnies.

Thirdly they are fucking illogical. They will block a dam which could supply FREE water and FREE electricity for a city to protect a parrot so endangered that no one has seen it in 50 years, instead preferring a desalination plant which, unless it runs on hamsters on treadmills, uses hydrocarbons as a power source, creates more toxins (Salt.. and lots of it) and heat.


Forthly they dont really like people like you and me and the Japanese and well, anyone unlucky enough to suffer a recent catastrophe. They also have no fucking idea of tact. The recent flash flood/slow flood/and cyclone in Queensland, Australia were all excuses for the greens to immediately blame global warming as the root cause.
Note that for the preceding 12 years the Aus east coast had been crippled by drought, also apparently caused by global warming. And all the above is scant compensation to those who lost thier houses.
The day after the Japanese Tsunami they were again blaming global warming. Funny, I thought it was plate tectonics.

SO: I make my case that the Green Movement are the new nutters.

Like religious fundamentalists they cannot ever be contradicted in public by a public official without crying foul, rape, and bunny-hater, and they demand to be pandered to.

Like religious fundamentalists they can change facts to suit their arguments overnight, no matter how tenuous or entirely lacking in logic their argument may be.

Like religious fundamentalists, if you ain't for them, in their eyes  you are against them.

Like religous fundamentalists they would happily see us back in the dark ages, LITTERALLY.

Like religious fundamentalists they really dont like, respect, or care for people like you and me much.

What do you think?

[SiamSam]

I couldn't agree with you more.

[transcebu]

Perhaps the best critique of environmentalism and the kooks behind it:
http://www.capitalism.net/Environmen...20Toxicity.htm

One incredible hypocrisy of environmentalists is that they lobby to ban anything that may somehow poison or harm 1 in a million humans, yet, their essential philosophy is that humans are a cancer and should be reduced.

A quote from one of the leading environazis:
"Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true. Somewhere along the line--at about a billion years ago, maybe half that--we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth."

[Torurot]

Will someone think of the children!! ... No sorry that's the excuse/reason another lot want to ban all porn and free (but not as in beer) internet access argument.... or "all men are rapists, and peados 'feminist' argument...

In the end it's just another power grab from the another end of the political spectrum. All as bad as each other.

I wouldn't mind the "I want a Prius and and solar panels" part of the first choice, and if you read the "The Emerald Planet" by David Beerling (EXCELLENT BOOK!!) you might be forced to slip in a vote between the first and second choices. Not to sit on any fence or anything, specially if is electric.....

[Bumpa STIKKA]

It's religion for the stupid. Everyone with an IQ of about 80 or so need something to believe in.

It affects the Westerners with too much time on their hands. The rest of the world is too busy for this childish nonsense.

[Tomcat]

Dams can be unsafe, in 1975 around 4 dams burst in China and killed around 230,000 people

Fossil fuels are already dwindling and i suppose that shale oil could bump us along for another 50 years.. but what after that.  In other words people dont really have a choice in the long term the oil is drying up and you have to go green... no choice , just as the water, food and copper and other resources are getting scarcer which is just as worse.

In ten years time around 2, maybe 3 in 10 Western  jobs will  be attached in some way to green energy .

[rxpharm]

Tomcat is 100% correct. Sooner or later fossil fuels will run out - nuclear may be an option, but only if they can make the plants safer. Current public opinion is extremely negative on nuclear and will take some time for it to change.

If you disagree with this, and say toss the research, it doesn't matter to me because in 50-100 years I won't be around, you're setting the table for the future to be pretty grim for mankind (and lbs too!).

[strocube]

Yes, there are not jobs and assholes at every end of the political spectrum.
It is also true, that we, as inhabitants of this planet need to seriously consider the effects of our actions on the environment, especially in light of the fact that our use of fossil fuels is poisoning the planet and therefore us as well. I'm sure you would rather breathe clean air as opposed to toxic shite.
Also, as mentioned above, the shit is running out. It is a finite resource.

You can debate global warming and its causes all you like, the fact is, the planet is getting warmer, and that will have consequences.

I live in Los Angeles, and I am old enough to remember a time when the air pollution was MUCH WORSE. In the 70s, it was not unusual to get smog warnings during the summer, in which gym class was cancelled due to shitty air.  Air quality, and therefor quality of life in general has improved here because of measures and environmental laws put in place by environmentally minded people, you know, like Nixon, that great tree hugger airhead, who created the EPA.

Of course, then as now, the big polluters, the car companies and the oil industry squealed like stuck pigs about the new environmental policies. "These measures are unfair to us, they will cost too much, we will go out of business, the economy will be destroyed," etc, ad nauseam. None of those things happened, they are still taking in insane profits, and thanks to the environmental regulations we get to live healthier lives.

Foxxee, your post flat out states that anyone who suggests that we need to take into account the effects of our actions on the environment is somehow a deranged fundamentalist fear monger pushing dubious science in the interest of maintaing their own authority. That position is clearly an oversimplification of the facts.

[f0xxee]

(strocube @ Mar. 28 2011,01:04) Foxxee, your post flat out states that anyone who suggests that we need to take into account the effects of our actions on the environment is somehow a deranged fundamentalist fear monger pushing dubious science in the interest of maintaing their own authority. That position is clearly an oversimplification of the facts.

Hi Strocube,

Actually no I didn't. What I suggested was that many greenies brook no argument contrary to thiers, a point you have just made more than adqequately for me.

Can you refute the fact that while greens arrive in parliment on an environmental platform, they are unfortunately allowed to take their crayons and mark ballot papers on issues such as economics and defense?

No you can't. You have immediately ignored the whole point of my post to take the "If they are not with me they are my enemy" stance.

Re: Tomcat: Fossil Fuels are running out for sure: but not in my lifetime, or the next generations either.
And what will make the change to cleaner fuels will not be scarcity but the accompanying economic truth that scarcity leads to an increase in value. It will be capitalism that drives a green revolution, not weird beards in badly knitted cardigans.

The fact is, if you want to have a transport infrstructure, manufacture anything bigger than a tin of beans, smelt steel and for that matter, build wind generators, then wind and solar power are NOT going to cut it. It takes real electricity to achieve the above, MegaAmps not milliAmps.

So guys get used to it. Nuclear is the future. Unless you think wooden ships and ox carts are the way to travel the globe. And kiss air-travel goodbye. As I see it air travel will be the domain of the rich, who can afford ticket prices driven by the last remaining hydrocarbons.

[Bumpa STIKKA]

(strocube @ Mar. 28 2011,01:04) the fact is, the planet is getting warmer...

No it isn't.

[Bumpa STIKKA]

(f0xxee @ Mar. 28 2011,05:58) Nuclear is the future. Unless you think wooden ships and ox carts are the way to travel the globe. And kiss air-travel goodbye. As I see it air travel will be the domain of the rich, who can afford ticket prices driven by the last remaining hydrocarbons.

Spot on.

[manarak]

Actually Foxxee I agree.
Some of them are definitely nutjobs.

Green is an ideology, much like fascism (eco-fascists), or also a religion (Gaia, i.e. "mother Nature"), sometimes both.

These people are scary.

[f0xxee]

Appreciated Manarak and Bumpa.

Tomcat I note your point about the failure of dams in China in 1975 Tomcat. But I wonder if they were designed and built by western engineers to western standards would they have failed? This is not rascism, but having been to various communist countries seeing rotten concrete and weeping rust from rebar and sandy, dusty cement makes you wonder about how much real professional pride was involved.

I wonder about the three gorges dam too. The problem with regimes such as the Chinese is lack of oversight. And also a lack of democratic argument from those who the dam will affect.

RE: Nuclear and bad press. It gets a lot of bad press from the luddites amongst us. I spent my lunch hour researching the number of deaths via coal mining vs the number of deaths via Three Mile Island, Chenobyl and Fuji-watthafukeva.

What do you think was the result? Which power source kills more?

The fact is that to maintain any sort of quality of life we require electricity... Big fucking gobs of it. Its all good to have electric cars and trains..... but where do you get the power to firstly manufacture them, then pwer them?

It requires electricity on a massive scale to smelt steel, aluminium etc. It takes masses of electricity to make cars. It takes massive electricity to run an electric transport system, and sorry, but wind and solar dont generate anywhere near enough power.

The simple fact is when steam power commenced the industrial revolution many persons no doubt died due to poor metalurgy, poor understanding of control systems, poor pressure relief valves etc. Steam got safer and we moved on.
Electricity on a massive scale was the baby of Edison and Westinghouse. And it killed a LOT of people. (some on purpose as TA Edison's way of proving that the AC system was not as safe as his DC system.) How many houses burnt down in the early days through poor wiring?
The fact is unless we want to go back to the woods and eat bark, we need a shit load of electricity.

Yet the greens dont like dams and hydroelectricity cos they kill frogs and parrots.
And they don't like coal as it causes global warming.
And they dont like Nuclear cos its..... nuclear.

So what the fuck do they suggest?

My argument has never been there is no climate change.

My argument is that greenies are fundamentalists and like any opposition party, wonderful at telling everone why we are all wrong, without presenting any solutions.

[Tomcat]

Nuclear power will continue to develop using Thorium instead of Uranium and also the new breed of reactors are designed to be more safe.

Last year was the hottest on record i think. In any event the complex nature of climate change and the science means that its all about probability and not 100% certainty. No Scientist would ever claim he knows the truth..just the best explanation at the time. Like a Horse race ..all the arguments have some form and you place your bets , or not as the case may be

If it were not so complex then we wouldnt be here chatting about it would we.

Bjorn Lomberg is/was the arch Skeptic and was regularly quoted here by such BM luminaries as Grunyen the last time this argument reared its head. Actually even Lomberg has changed his mind ..read below

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth....s.html#

[f0xxee]

Hi TC,

Yes I have heard of thorium reactors and know so little about the subject.

But no matter how you cut it, whether it be health care, education, standard of living, transport, and comfort human beings have become energy addicts.

And it would seem Nuclear is the only option for high output at this point in time.