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Naomi Klein's new book, This Changes Everything, a must read

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Kleins' book is one of the most cogent and outspoken new books on climate change. If you have conservative political views or are a free-market ideologue this book will probably enrage you, but it speaks blunt truth to the climate harm done by blind faith in capitalism, free markets, and unbridled economic growth.
 
IMO best way to approach the Climate Change matter is to be unbiased and free of political prejudices. It's difficult but this is the way it should be to get best results. Too often the Climate Change matter becomes an occasion for political debates while it's a technical and scientific matter that has almost anything to do with politics. The political aspects of the Climate Change matter should be discussed starting from technical and scientific arguments and not the other way around IMO.
 
Unfortunately in the US, everything for some reason is divided red/blue, left/right. Donuts (perhaps red?) .. whole foods (blue)....etc.... I'm exaggerating here but that's what's happened with our media.

How climate change has become this way is nuts.

I remember back in the 70s, many environmentalists were Republicans.


IMO best way to approach the Climate Change matter is to be unbiased and free of political prejudices. It's difficult but this is the way it should be to get best results. Too often the Climate Change matter becomes an occasion for political debates while it's a technical and scientific matter that has almost anything to do with politics. The political aspects of the Climate Change matter should be discussed starting from technical and scientific arguments and not the other way around IMO.
 
Yes, and back in the 70s it was global cooling that was feared. There were even plans to spray the ice caps with dark material. Were scientists back then so much more clueless as to be 180 degrees out of touch? And to think we are so much smarter today is the height of arrogance.

It has been said that "the science is settled." Well, science is never settled and anyone who says this certainly doesn't understand science. Even our most exhaustively tested and amazingly confirmed science of quantum electrodynamics is still open for investigation.

We don't have the faintest idea of the complete mechanism of weather or climate change. We do know that extreme climate change happened long before the modern industrial age. What caused the 1400-1650 mini ice age? What caused the warming period from 1900-1945? We do know things started to get colder in the early 70s and that's when we had the knee-jerk reaction of global cooling.

We are unable to explain why in the last 17 years or so the average global temps have remained flat. We have no idea why throughout earlier periods of Earth’s history CO2 levels have been between 4 and 15 times higher than now, with temperature changes preceding, not following atmospheric CO2 changes.

I know for a fact that if you're a scientist and wish to report or investigate anything that does NOT align with the current popular theories then you will be shut down, not published at ridiculed. That is not science, it's politics.
 
I know for a fact that if you're a scientist and wish to report or investigate anything that does NOT align with the current popular theories then you will be shut down, not published at ridiculed. That is not science, it's politics.

As a scientist, I have to disagree with this statement. There are definitely imperfect people with very big egos in the sciences, and there are even very rare attempts to do the sorts of things you describe. My (very) personal experience with this, however, is that in the end, the research gets done, and the material gets published. There is a maxim in the sciences that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," which you may be confusing with suppression and ridicule. The reason for this standard, though, is based on practical experience: if twenty people measure one thing, and one person measures something totally different, s/he needs to be able to explain what it is that twenty people missed. Sometimes that happens (the solar neutrino puzzle comes to mind), but more often than not, it is the lone researcher that made the error.

I suppose it is possible that my over 20 years of experience in physics, along with those of my colleagues from many institutions and fields (including atmospheric science) may somehow not be representative, so if you have a citation from a reputable journal for the relevant sociological or anthropological research from which you draw this conclusion, I would be more than happy to review it so that I could push for the appropriate reforms.
 
Unfortunately in the US, everything for some reason is divided red/blue, left/right. Donuts (perhaps red?) .. whole foods (blue)....etc.... I'm exaggerating here but that's what's happened with our media.

How climate change has become this way is nuts.

I remember back in the 70s, many environmentalists were Republicans.

I know this is true. IMO this situation could be overtaken by establishing in the USA a transversal party consisting of both Repubblican and Democrat people having same views on the Climate Change matter. That is to say when it comes to environmental issues I forget to be Repubblican or Democrat and we act together in the interest of the USA and/or the planet. I think that this already happens in the USA for what is concerning terrorism. In fact there is not difference of view on this matter between Democrat and Repubblican people. Now since the Climate Change/Global Warming threat is considered from the US Department of Defense a threat even bigger than terrorism it should be natural to get an agreement between Democrat and Repubblican people in the USA on this matter.
 
Yes, and back in the 70s it was global cooling that was feared. There were even plans to spray the ice caps with dark material. Were scientists back then so much more clueless as to be 180 degrees out of touch? And to think we are so much smarter today is the height of arrogance.

You're forgetting one very important thing. Global cooling was feared due to POLLUTION - and not enough sunshine getting through the smog to heat us up.

We were told that cleaning the air, lakes and rivers would bankrupt the country. Well, we did it and we're not bankrupt.

If we could SEE carbon, I think there'd be a VERY different attitude. There's nearly a THIRD more carbon in the atmosphere than there was in 1960. We are producing over SIXTY times the amount of carbon that volcanoes do - and volcanoes are what USED to drive the carbon in our atmosphere.
 
We were told that cleaning the air, lakes and rivers would bankrupt the country. Well, we did it and we're not bankrupt.

I don't think we are done with the cleanup - those who live in Ohio who couldn't drink tap water would probably disagree as well. I know the Chesapeake Bay has a long way to go before it is healthy again too. And getting back to political shenanigans, the fact that over a dozen attorney generals are wasting their taxpayers' money fighting the Clean Water legislation that is trying to clean up the Bay is unconscionable to me.

But I completely agree that finishing what we need to do shouldn't bankrupt anybody. If anything cleaning up the environment might just alleviate healthcare costs as we reduce the pollutants in our air and food.
 
Yes, and back in the 70s it was global cooling that was feared. There were even plans to spray the ice caps with dark material. Were scientists back then so much more clueless as to be 180 degrees out of touch? And to think we are so much smarter today is the height of arrogance.

You know... saying this is the equivalent to screaming, "I really have no clue on this topic yet I have a very strong opinion". Global cooling was based on SO2... Global warming is based on CO2. If we hadn't passed the clean air act and SO2 was still unregulated we might still be talking about global cooling and acid rain. Never mind the fact that even in the 70s most if the discussion was STILL around AGW since there was little doubt which would win.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~eps5/writing_assignment/CLIMATE_BKGD/Sawyer_Nature_1972.pdf
 
I got the impression that the book took an anti-capitalist approach to AGW... that troubles me if true. IMO capitalism is a hammer... it can be used to build or destroy. I'm anti-destruction not anti-hammer.

Problem is that on the climate capitalism has been a sledge hammer. The building part has been totally missing until lately. The costs of the damage to the climate, increasing toxicity of the oceans, etc. have not been paid. But as they say, you pay now or pay later. Our children and grandchildren will be paying the bill when it comes due, and it won't be pretty.

Mr. Anders must live on another planet. If one ignores temperature changes (hard to do since his claim that temps have not increased for 17 years is Fox News poppycock) and just looks at the evidence regarding what's happening to the oceans, which have become a global sewer, if current patterns continue, our seas will no longer support life. In that case we're all goners.
 
@artsci and nwdiver

As I say in my post above best way to approach this matter would be to start from the Climate Change matter in itself from a scientific point of view and try to find technical solutions to this issue. We all have our political background but we should try to get rid of it when we approach such a delicate matter. We should remember that the Earth is in danger because of the Climate Change issue. We don't have time to waste with our political arguments.
 
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@artsci and nwdiver

As I say in my post above best way to approach this matter would be to start from the Climate Change matter in itself from a scientific point of view and try to find technical solutions to this issue. We all have our political background but we should try to get rid of it when we approach such a delicate matter. We should remember that the Earth is in danger because of the Climate Change issue. We don't have time to waste with our political argoments.

I agree that the science of the problem needs to be ideologically separated but unfortunately the solutions ARE political. Wether or not there should be a carbon tax is a political question. If there is a solution to AGW that doesn't involve some kind of government action/regulation i.e. a political solution... I'm eager to hear it.
 
I agree that the science of the problem needs to be ideologically separated but unfortunately the solutions ARE political. Wether or not there should be a carbon tax is a political question. If there is a solution to AGW that doesn't involve some kind of government action/regulation i.e. a political solution... I'm eager to hear it.

Agree. That's why IMO when it comes to environment solutions should be bipartizan. This way solutions would be much more effective, believe me. To this concern see my post #12 in this thread.