Yes but the WRONG kind of correlation. You have not one damn example of CO2 “leading” and yet we are to believe it “causes” GW.

Get a statistics book and realize your “correlation” example is meaningless.

Yes all those other events as amlord pointed out were caused by other factors – as is the case today. And when we find them we will know what they are. Could be solar or any number of other theories dismissed by you and the “believers”.



And all of this can take centuries and we still have no firm data on the relationship between CO2 and the main greenhouse gas – water vapor.

The assumed relationship is not correct, the “multiplier” is wrong and when it is corrected – if ever, we will have a better idea of this relationship. Until them “other factors” (other than CO2) is still undefined.

Uh huh. And the reason that the climate has spiralled uncontrollably in one direction is ...

And the reason we should expect an irreversible "tipping point" is soon to be reached is ...

So, you've admitted that something other than CO2 rising has caused dramatic temperature changes and then those temperature changes cause a release of CO2 which (according to you) cause additional warming.

Then at some point (in fact, many points), something else causes a dramatic decrease in temperature, which then causes a corresponding decrease in CO2 concentrations.

However, at no point in the past has the climate spiralled out of control. It always seems to come back though in a sinusoidal pattern.

Let me help you out, TedN5's favorite source, RealClimate, has an article on this and here's what they say:



An interesting summary, but it does not explain what happens when the temperature drops. What sequesters CO2 during the periods where temperatures go lower?

It also does not explain the fact that the graphs show about an 8 degree C temperature rise per 100ppm of CO2 over the past half million years, but in the last century, when the CO2 concentration has also increased by 100 ppm, the corresponding temperature rise has been about 0.7 degrees C.

A theory must agree with all known data, not just a portion of it, in order to be valid.

And let me comment about the BBC article linked earlier.

They say that is shows that the climate is entering a "danger zone". How would they know that when they admit :



Exactly! How can we conclude from ice core data that such and such will occur when "we don't have an analogue in our records"???

Somebody needs to get their eyes checked and its not me. There are plenty of places where temperature does not lead. But then to get hung up on the matter is kind of silly. CO2 is a ghg so of course its going to contribute to warming. Maybe somebody needs a lesson in chart reading.

It is simply amazing to me that people would rather believe in some mysterious X factor as being behind warming and ignore the CO2 staring them right in their face. But that's what faith does for some folks.

These conversations belong more and more in the evolution vs. creationism department.


You might want to try reining in your strawmen. I never suggested anything spiraling out of control, or irreversible tipping points. And I haven't "admitted" anything. Any normal student of long term temperature cycles finds out they are generally kicked off by orbit changes or orientation shifts.

As far as CO2 dimminishing I assume if the orbit moves the earth farther from the sun then particularly the waters cool and can absorb more CO2 and other natural processes come into play.


Help yourself out. I'm not the denialist around here.

Oh yeah, the opening of your linked realclimate article is probably more to the point.


I think it's a bogus notion that some X factor warming agent is exclusively responsible for temperature and CO2 rise. The temperature lead on the chart is simply an appearance that arises from the process of charting in the initial 800 year lag apparently. Interesting that it would lead to the delusion that a ghg would not act like a ghg. I'm amazed how often logic takes a vacation in these matters.

I really hate to jump into the fray of this topic, although I have followed it closely for a long time. But Dingo, the RealClimate article does not really do anything to prove your point. If warming occurred for 800 years without a significant rise in CO2, then what caused the rise in temperature? Neither you nor I know for sure. What the article postulates is that once CO2 matched the temperature, that it might have caused the additional rise in temperature. The language is all wishy washy. What about the factor that caused the warming in the first place? Did it stop becoming a factor? Was the CO2 maintained because of or in spite of that factor acting on the environment? There are no certainties in that assessment.

Yeah, I ignored that opening bit because it is not very logical. They are basically saying that CO2 is not the original cause of warming but wait wait wait it IS the cause of 5/6th of the warming because it continues to rise with the rising temperatures. Sorry, but that's bunk.

They as much as admit that CO2 is NOT the cause of warming in the historical record, but then they put some crap there such as your "well, we KNOW that CO2 is a ghg" malarkey. If we KNOW it, then we can prove it. Not just at some times, but at ALL times.

Why so inhibited? The more the merrier.


No we don't know for sure but we can take some educated guesses. How about orbit or orientation change as a possibility? There are a lot of cycles to draw on.


The general argument is that CO2 rise is a temperature forcing due to its ghg characteristics. That appears to be shown in the chart. Warming also increases CO2. In the beginning there isn't a definite certainty as to what caused that initial warming. The fact that one cannot cross every T or dot every i in assessing a process is not an argument for not drawing strong theories from what is known, which is considerable. For my money orbit change or orientation change is a good guess as to being a significant contributing factor in beginning the long temp/CO2 climb upward. Whether say the orbit change was a continuing additive factor beyond the initial kick off I doubt but don't know. Orbit change is a one shot deal, that happens and then stays the same for a long period as far as I know. Whether the initial cause continues to influence the temperature rise through the whole cycle, CO2 by definition as a ghg would still be a contributing factor.

It seems to me the burden is on you guys, if you want to cut the influence of CO2 as a temperature forcing out of the picture, to identify that X factor that is causing the warming throughout the other 5/6 climb.



That's not malarkey. CO2 was established as a ghg back in the 19th century. That's not even an issue. Hell Lindzen would tell you that.

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Now its your turn to read – the operative word above is COULD. And this is one hell of a “could” with NO backup.

It essentially says as amlord points out – something starts a warming cycle and CO2 then rises. Since the times are “close” (in this one example) CO2 “could”.

Real scientific – we should really just run out and spend 6 trillion on a “could”. You have to be kidding.



How about we wait until we know rather than spend the money based on your (or anyone’s) speculation?

I speculated on reasonable possibilities. That beats your unbased inane assertions by 10,000 miles.

For those interested in the CO2 lag business here is a more recent discussion of the matter.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channe...-change/dn11659

No doubt there is some level of positive feedback. How much is the question. And to give CO2 the position of the prime mover in the this issue is not justified. Ya it could be but it is not likely imo.


Spending trillions on a "could be" while millions die of real pollution is silly.

It appears you like to play Russian Roulette. Do it with your own life. If the CO2 chamber and temperature bullet seriously line up it could mean human extinction.

You see this is the kind of rhetoric that does a real disservice to the environmental movement and the GW issue. Human extinction? Hardly. You forget the positive consequences of a warmer planet. If you look at various periods in human history, you will find that humanity prospered most during times of warming when more crops could be grown and less people died of cold. More CO2 in the atmosphere will allow crop growth to go to much higher levels leading to higher output and more food. If economic and trade liberalization continue on their current paths, then in half a century poverty will be a rarity. That means that by the time the real effects of GW occur, that nations will have the means to adapt to whatever occurs. This hogwash about human extinction is pure scare tactics and have no basis in science or reality.

So you don't think we have optimized out in the warming department. How much more warming would suit your fancy? You want to grow coconuts up in Alaska?

As to the hogwash about potential human extinction if we continue pumping out carbon gasses as we are presently doing you might want to take it up with National Geographic. Check out this video. It's not long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_1wL7_yn2g

Or maybe we will get lucky and the temperature will max out at 1 deg C higher in which case we will enjoy "the positive consequences of a warmer planet", with a more productive agriculture and people less likely to freeze to death. Well Nat. Geographic has something to say about that too. See what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ZQRIsn2pA&NR=1

But we still haven't got to that glorious point where we can grow coconuts in Alaska. Maybe 2 deg. cen. will do the trick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-0_gDXqYeQ...feature=related

It all depends on what you define as spiraling out of control! A 10 degree C temperature swing into or out of an ice age can be accompanied by a 20 or 30 meter change in sea level and drastic changes in climate everywhere. Also consider that we currently live at a time near a temperature maximum during an inter glaciation. Warming the planet moves us into an era unlike any covered by the ice record. In addition, consider that we are changing the climate very rapidly and all species will have difficulty adapting including human populations.

Only the fringe “believers” buy this and there is no credible support. Please feel free to show me a scenario with peer review.

And if you think we should spend trillions of $$ of this speculation that’s fine – as long as you leave me out. My answer is no and hell no.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may20...7endofworld.htm

That came out wrong and I apologize. I am not a luddite. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but what I meant in this context is the assertion that because CO2 is a GHG, then it automatically followed that rising CO2 caused the observed changes in temperatures.

Again, the problem with this is that it fails to explain how temperatures dropped (also leading the CO2 "forcer") and instead of the higher CO2 forcing temperatures to restabilize at a higher level, CO2 then followed the temperature pattern.

Just like the Ptolemaic model (geocentric), although we can make some assumptions and force our observations to fit the model, this may also be the case.


And since none of the predictions from the AR4 have a 10 degree C rise, this is simply more alarmist language.

You ignored the second part of my short post. We are near a thermal maximum. 6 degrees C would certainly be a calamity (taking the world into uncharted territory) and the 2 degrees (already here or in the pipeline) may be enough to destabilize the polar ice and raise sea levels drastically. You should also be aware that the IPCC's review only covered papers published before 2005 and explicitly excluded the troubling evidence developing on the cryosphere. The AR4 has been criticized by a number of climate scientists as being too conservative. (Most prominently by NASA's Jim Hansen).

(See Wiki Article).

"Only the fringe “believers” buy this" uh. I give you National Geographic to make my point and you come back with blather from an Alex Jones site. You do know about Alex Jones don't you? He's the guy who never found a conspiracy theory he didn't believe in. He's even weird by nutcase standards.

PS. Ted, when did you suddenly get interested in peer review? What denialist article have you ever offered that was associated with a peer reviewed paper?


Well it would have to cause some of the rise wouldn't it? To not do so you would have to come up with some mysterious factor that would neutralize its propensity to behave like a ghg. If you want to find other significant long term forcings be my guest. CO2 is the biggy according to the scientists who have studied the matter.


That's a somewhat unclear sentence but I'll try to respond the best I can. There are definite cyclical patterns that are associated with changes going from the glacial to the interglacial and then back to the glacial and so on. Orbit changes are fingered as one significant catalyst to these changes. Let's focus on the orbital influence as the primary example. During the glacial period the earth orbit changes to bring the earth closer to the sun. The warming causes a release of CO2. Increasing CO2 influences warming until the height of the interglacial period. Then the orbit changes so the earth is farther from the sun. The resulting cooling causes the earth, particularly the oceans to begin reabsorbing the CO2. You can take it from there and see how the process repeats itself.


The guide that most comes to mind is Occam's Razor. The simplest theory consistent with the available data is the theory that is to be preferred. Based on the available data-observations the AGW theory has emerged as the warming theory to be presently taken the most seriously. Like evolution all the data isn't in but it is consistent with the data we have. Denial of human caused warming and Creationism remain as expressions of our imaginary wishes but cannot be inductively arrived at from the available evidence.

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This is pure speculation on your part - again and let me ask you AGAIN to back it up. Certainly there is no backup. It simply cannot be explained as amlord has pointed out.



Ya sure the “simplest” theory happens to be the with models that are too complex to predict 2 years out or back, a relationship to water vapor that may not be there and speculation about “orbit changes” to cover past data that cannot be explained by the “theory” – I get it – how could I have missed it??????

I gave you the links. If you don't want to read them that's your problem. They are derivative from the links and no they are not slam dunk descriptions but a reasonable simplification from authoritative material. It beats anything you've got by a country mile.


Plugging in unknowns with intelligent plausible speculations is a perfectly legitimate process. You ought to try it sometimes. The point is nothing I put out there you can refute. Virtually everything you put out is refutable.

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Exactly the same for your speculations. “plausible speculation” can go in many directions and is worth considering – just don’t ask us to spend 5 trillion $$ in it!

Sorry, but your analysis here is somewhat lacking. While past warming periods have had positive effects on growth and agriculture (we can thank CO2 for the Vikings), there is limited value in the extrapolation of these events. Population patterns have changed dramatically; the global population is 60 times what it was back then and an increase in arable farm-land in some regions does not necessarily equate into more food.

Another caveat to your comparison is of course the severity of the change. The mini-warming periods you refer to saw much smaller temperature increases than some of the current projected increases we are facing. The change in climate could be drastically different given a larger jump in global temperatures. Human extinction is of course highly unlikely... but no more so than your pie-in-the-sky conclusion that poverty will be a rarity.

Hmmm, I've never put a price tag on carbon clean up, however I'd rather pay one dollar now than 10 dollars down stream when it likely is too late. Strange that you would think that switching from fossil fuel to photovoltaics is some sort of disastrous hit on our economy. But then again you're some kind of strange suicidal dude.

I apologize if my post sounded definitive but that was not my intention. My point was to show that the warming of the planet is not necessarily a completely bad thing. We have mostly focused on the negatives of Global Warming in comparison to present standards. What we should be doing is measuring the negatives of the future against the positives of the future.



Large changes in the climate will certainly have an effect in the planet. I would not dispute this nor am I a GW skeptic per say. I am critical of the policy decisions that have been put forth to combat it. The problem that i see with the whole GW movement is that people equate a difference in policy with outright denial. For instance, if I do not believe that damaging our economic progress to cut emissions is the reasonable way to fight GW, then I am a denier that GW is a problem. It is highly popular yet incredibly fallacious logic. Even if the US and all industrialized nations adhered fully to Kyoto tomorrow, it would delay the effects of GW only a short period of time. Spending trillions to delay something 6 years or so is a complete waste and would be better spent on adaptation.



More people have risen out of poverty since WW2 than at any point in history. The world has always been poor. Developing nations are raising their standards of living and PPP at rates greater than ever before. A century more of economic progress will create a situation where people will not longer be poor by todays standards. Poverty is just a term that is relative to the wealthy and vice-versa. But if we compare poverty in 1950 to poverty today its not even close.

My guess is there are more poor people now and we are in a upward trend. The life expectancy in Russian for instance has gone down appreciably from earlier, particularly among men, and AIDS and wars and drought have taken a severe toll on many 3rd world populations. Add in the millions of refugees and growing and the poorer environmental conditions and the world looks a lot worse now than it did then.


That is simply your opinion.
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/114245/index.php

Not to seem so down beat I agree with the rest of your comments.

This guess has no basis in reality.

Globalisation Reduces World Poverty



Here is the data for your own enjoyment: Millennium Development Goals: A Compact Among Nations to End Human Poverty

Economic growth is the key to combating Global Warming. If nations are richer then they have more resources to care for their population and actually reduce the amount of deaths caused by malnourishment and disease.

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Well there is this from the UK. Its likely this is true elsewhere as well.

“The risk of a fatal heatwave in the UK within ten years is high, but overall global warming may mean fewer deaths due to temperature, a report says.
A seriously hot summer between now and 2017 could claim more than 6,000 lives, the Department of Health report warns.
But it also stresses that milder winters mean deaths during this time of year - which far outstrip heat-related mortality - will continue to decline.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7240463.stm

The estimates I have seen are that the “fixes” will cost less even with significant warming – so where do you get the 10:1 ratio?

The poverty statistics are actually much more complicate than you indicate and there is recent evidence that they are a whole lot worse than globalization advocates (or anyone else for that matter) have been portraying them. (See This Blog and the associated article in Yale Global Online).

From the Blog:





From Yale Online :





This will make it more difficult for those who wish to make us choose between doing something significant about climate change and global growth to reduce poverty. Even without this revision it is clear that this is a false choice. The evidence is overwhelming that climate change is and will impact poor countries and the poor generally far more than the well off.

Certainly in Sudan and Ethiopia - drought and Burma and China - hurricanes we get a taste of the kind of thing that global warming intensifies and where the poor pay the principal price.



Well let's see what this guess was. Also while you were quoting a poorly formed statement of mine I was editing it. Unfortunately my edit was completed while your post was in progress.


In terms of the number in poverty, simply by virtue of the volume of the present population vs. then I'm sure there are more poor people now than in 1950. Also I don't think you can necessarily compare the incomes because many people in 3rd world countries were subsistence farmers who were not as much involved with a cash economy.


Where is your source on that?

Yes this is the Socialist mantra. Progress in countries where all incomes have risen and million are rescued from lives in abject poverty can easily be dismissed with this stupid index.

So, yes in countries where “evil globalization” has given jobs and income to million “income inequality” has risen because, as in any modern society where people work, some people are paid more. How “evil” is that.

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And here (thank you TedN5) is the connection. The real target of the socialists is globalization – and “climate change” is the weapon of choice. And imo globalization will do far more good than climate change ever could erase regardless of the cause.

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You are dead wrong and it seems you are still drinking the TedN5 cool-aid. Poverty had dropped like a rock – principally because of the (hated by Socialists) globalization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty

Income inequality is a poor unit of analysis when determining the level of poverty. The world has always been poor. This is a point that has to be emphasized. Wealth is a new thing. The creation of wealth is a consequence of the of the division of labor under the rule of law and economically liberal policies. As different civilizations embraced industrialization and economic liberalism, they advanced more rapidly than the other nations. The poorest people in the world all have the same starting point. People making $1 or $2 a day are stuck at a fixed point whereas people who are in developed countries can make an infinite amount of wealth. So obviously the difference between a fixed point and an infinite point will be greater as more prosperity is created in certain nations.

What is important for our debate in Global Warming is where that lowest fixed point is. The amount of people who are living on $1 or $2 a day has decreased dramatically in the past 50 years. The West was the first to advance followed by Far East, South America, and the Middle East. Africa lags behind the rest. What is important to understand is that when the effects of GW do surface that the current rate of advancement in developing countries will roughly match current day standards in developed countries. Nations that are already developed will exceed the current standards. The point is that while I can agree that GW is real and can be happening, I believe that it is a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot more intelligent to adapt. I have seen few people refute the claim tha even if we adhered to Kyoto that we would be delaying the effects of GW only a couple of years. Why spend trillions trying to delay something a few years when that wealth could go to strengthening the economies of developing nations so that their populations are healthy and prosperous?

I realize in your Limbot world Ted throwing out made up straw men and then denouncing them is the way the game is played. My point was in absolute terms there are more poor people now than in 1950, the date I was given earlier. Your wikipedia link doesn't address that.

As far as improving conditions clearly the technologies of agriculture, transportation, storage, hygiene and medicine have advanced enough and been dispersed sufficiently widely so that life expectancy has generally increased. But cracks have been showing up in that dike and the future may make Malthus appear more prescient than he presently does. The increasing degradation of the environment, with AGW being a very important component, along with the human race showing up at the wrong end of the energy supply/demand equation big time, appears to be contributing significantly to those cracks.

leaderuvdapac, you obviously didn't read my links well. The whole point of both were that purchasing price parity (PPP) is the basis for calculations of per capita income by country and that the basis for current calculations in many poor countries has been flawed. (See Yale Global Online Article).





And, yes, Ted, there are many who questioned the benefits of globalization even without this revision. Certainly, a relatively well off business class has emerged in many less developed countries' as their elite sectors became part of the global cash system. The benefits to this sector, however, have to be balanced against such things as the thousands of Indian farmers who have committed suicide as a result of the debts they were encouraged to take on to participate and the millions of Mexican farmers who have been displaced because of NAFTA and who feed the immigrant stream to the US. In addition, the whole enterprise may not be sustainable in face of resource shortages (like petroleum) and with the additional economic damage resulting from climate change.

The article you posted is does not help your case for their methodology seeks to change the rules of the game to suit their purposes.



Wrong. Different products and different services are valued differently in different places. A bottle of coca-cola in the United States does not have the same value as a bottle of coca-cola in India. The same for a haircut. That is because different factors of production go into producing that same product. For instance, if that coca cola was imported into the country, you must take into account the cost of tariffs, transportation, as well as the shape of the demand curve - all of this on top of the factors of production. This is not an objective analysis of price levels but a highly subjective anaylsis.

But these are the the methodologies used by mainstream economists to demonstrate the benefits of globalization and growth in poor countries. The problem is that the have been using a data base that was decades out of date making their conclusions meaningless.



Then just how would you go about calculating the benefit or loss that a society has received from economic growth and globalization? I was trained in economics in a different era and actually agree that current methods of calculating comparative benefits and losses are extremely weak to the point of almost being meaningless. For instance anything that becomes part of the cash economy is calculated as a gain even if it produces sickness and early death like cigarettes. At the same time, the loss of intangibles like tight knit communities and a sense of place are given no value. In addition, social costs like increased pollution and congestion are not counted on the negative side of the ledger because they effect the commons and only indirectly the commercial economy. The failure to account for these costs in both developed and developing economies may destroy us all. Global warming is just one of the impacts of this failure.

I like your qualitative approach to the discussion of economic growth. Back in 2003 we had a big knock down drag out argument on the whole matter of the qualitative aspects of growth and whether in fact growth in the long run was even desirable.
http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...pic=2401&hl

To get refocused on global warming, as the debate goes on the Arctic melt accelerates. Now there is a report out that says there is a 50-50 chance that this summer the North Pole will be ice free. I'm not sure if they are saying the entire Arctic will be ice free, presumably not.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25419299/wid=18298287

No method is perfect because you are dealing with subjective value judgments. I may dislike the fact that my neighbors are more prosperous although it had no effect on my lot, i would object to the "progress" made. However, i do believe that there are a number of indicators that reflect well on how society is impacted by an increase in wealth. Some factors include fertility rate, life expectancy, median household income, GDP per capita, and some others I probably forget. None of the indicators are sufficient in their own right, but when taken together can paint a fairly accurate picture. Globalization on the whole has been a huge benefit to societies that have embraced liberal trade policies. This is not to say however that everybody benefits at the same time. When nations open up their borders to trade and reduce tariffs, industries that were once under the protection of the state must now face outside competition. When faced with superior products at lower prices, the consumer will always choose whats best for their self interest. This causes a lot of home grown industries to faulter under the weight of competition. This is normal consequence of the market. In a short term outlook, this would be perceived as bad (although the consumer immediately benefits). The long term outlook sees a more equitable distribution of income as capital that subsidized uncompetitive industries now goes to industries where they are much more competitive. This increases the overal efficiency and well being of the economy. The problem is that people do not like to put things into the context of time.

In keeping with our GW discussion, developing economies are still - developing. But as they continue to accrue wealth, their populace becomes more prosperous. One of the easiest correllations that you can draw is the relationship between wealth and all those standard of living indicators that you would like to apply. The wealthiest nations have the best schools, the best healthcare, etc... The 20th Century saw the fastest growth the world has ever seen and pulled more people out of poverty than have ever existed. Barring global depression or a return to economic populism and protectionism, liberalization will continue and give more people opportunites to rise out of poverty. When this cocurs, the poor developing nations of today will be developed nations in a century and be able to handle whatever burdens GW may impose.

Wow, what a collection of conventional mantras and faith statements. One doesn't know where to start.

1. Poverty can continue to increase while all the "good" indices are going up. Average a person making a $100 a year with one making $10,000 a year and the average is somewhere around $5000. Average 9 persons making $100 a year with one person making a $1,000,000 a year and the average is somewhere around $100,000. Take a bunch of babies who would have died at birth in the past and keep them around to starve to death at 12 or die of some disease or get massacred in war and you kick the life expectancy up enormously. I mentioned before the movement from subsidence farming basically outside the cash economy to a cash based approach to determining household GDP. You have to look at the human realities behind the statistics.

2. The main manifestation historically of globalization was colonialization. It would take a cold heart to call that an historical positive. Since the millions and millions of victims aren't here to testify in their native languages that mostly have been obliterated along with their cultures one is left with the sad voices of their surviving children who haven't been completely co-opted. One can cherry pick the advantages of globalization + free trade but I see how it has made this country energy dependent on foreign sources and forced 3rd world countries into cash crop economies that leave their citizens without the varied subsidence foods they use to farm. Japan was smart and subsidized their rice farmers and now are not subject to the whims of world grain shortages, in fact they have become the biggest source of donated rice for nations suffering from devastating natural calamities. National and regional self-sufficiency should be the priority not global free trade.

3. And no consumers do not always choose what is in their best self-interest, that should be obvious. Addictive drugs both legal and illegal is one example. I have watched in California while cigarette smoking went down drastically due to a whole host of government interventions, including higher taxes on cigarettes, expanding no smoking zones and anti-smoking education. On the macro level Jimmy Carter after the Gulf oil boycott tried to put through policies headed toward national energy self-sufficiency but he got beaten before he could implement it by hands off morning-in-America Ronald Reagan. So now we are in the soup.

4. A further example of moving from government regulation to the free market is what happened to Calif.(Sorry to have to overuse examples from here but that's where I live) when energy was deregulated. The energy suppliers like Enron cut off supplies to the state to spike the prices. California had to go deeply into debt to keep the state from going into a blackout. We're still trying to get out from under the debt we accrued.

5. Where is this broad equity you are talking about? When the rich are getting exponentially richer and the poor particularly in poor countries are going into a condition of crisis I don't know what equity you are talking about. Yes the number of millionaires is increasing. Maybe that's what you meant. In the case of Mexico globalization has meant the destruction of their small farming industry with the consequence that many of them are abandoning their farms to sneak into the US to find work.

6. This idea that 20th century growth expansion can simply continue indefinitely while the benefits trickle down to all is the fallacy of an economics removed from basic ecology. That expansion has been fueled by a consumer society eating up its capital base and degrading its surroundings and accelerating the extinction of other species. That kind of thing can't continue indefinitely anymore than a growing cancer can. If you take a pair of rats, male and female, and place them in a large grain storage bin and leave them to their laissez faire ways there is going to be one heck of an expansion curve. It will continue until the last grain is either eaten or gone rotten. The downstream effects of this expansion appear now about to come back to bite us. The overuse of our energy sources and AGW are just two of the effects that appear ready to change the equation.

Talk about your biased sample. Unfortunately, your statistical analysis is severely lacking. Even if I entertained your ridiculous criticism of average income, I did mention median and not mean income didn't I? Almost like I expected this line of reasoning.



Who is talking about colonization? Just you. I am talking about the current wave of globalization (post WW2-present). It is simply amazing to me that all of the anti-globalization rhetoric conveniently leaves out the fact that more people have risen out of poverty in the last 50 or so years than in the history of the planet. That this can be attributed to anything other than economic liberalism and free trade astounds me. When you compare the economic well-being to economically liberal countries and economically authoritarian countries - it is not even close. Globalization and free trade does not create poverty - the most ridiculous myth ever put forth. People have always been poor. It is only since nations have opened up their markets that prosperity has been growing. I would never argue that globalization will affect every individual positively and equally. That would be ridiculous. However, on the aggregate the evidence unequivocally points to greater wealth for nations.




This is a value judgment more than anything. Who are you to dictate to someone else what they should spend their money on? Are you the ultimate arbiter of self-interest? Didn't think so.




The Myth of Energy Deregulation





As usual the anti-globalization rhetoric is just the same old protectionist and Marxist rhetoric of old. Globalization did not destroy the small farming industry. It allowed Mexican consumers to buy cheaper and higher quality products from other countries. With no more protections, the uncompetitive industries failed. The misplaced capital that goes to insolvent industries will then be transferred to industries where they can be more competitive.


Perhaps you should start a brand new thread on the relationship between economics and ecology so we can discuss this issue further.

leaderuvpac, your multiple indices of progress are much more reasonable than those advanced where I began to engage this discussion: