taygone

I thought the debate was over according to Al Gore? I haven't seen Al Gore's movie, but from what I've heard there was some computer simulation of Greenland melting and then Manhatthan is under water. I assumed that the flooding was going to be caused by melted polar ice caps concluded by the consensus.
The current flooding is caused by rain of all things. Looks like the debate isn't over and if it keeps raining Global Warming will be a new religon, with the 40 days and 40 nights of rain.

dalem

Hmm. Give some specific examples of how the Right stifles debate on any topic. I myself can think of only one (abortion = murder), and I'm not even sure I'd label that "Right".

I stick by my thesis - it is a historical characteristic of the modern Left to stifle thought on topics. It has been this way whether or not we had a 24 hr news cycle to fill or not.

-dale

dalem

You are confusing weather with climate.

300 days of increased rainfall is weather. 300 years is climate.

-dale

The Chap

Too late, Sir.

The messianic fervour is already entrentched as deeply as my love of Gin.

No-one is crucified so cruely as the apostate: Lomberg.

(The Skeptical Environmentalist)

Anyhooo ... the media are creaming their collective pants at something allowing them the role of Serious Journalist in what is normally the newsless month - aka the "silly season".

Plu ca change?

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Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on its liver, not its ruddy stomach.

entropy

40 years is climate, according to official definitions.

Maybe you inch-gallon-mile guys have other measurements on this one, too?

And anyway, how does one call it then? Potential climate change?

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If memory serves...

The Chap

"no sunny days in etc."

Must have been a pre-pubescent girl reading your weather.

I hitting the basement here.
Or found it on the internet etc.

It really is NOTHING personal. It's just, well, Belgium. Leopold, nonces, mercs and Tin-Tin.

No, no, not fair. There is also the running gag in Austin Powers. As well as very rich pastries.

Does that constitute balance.?

Not that you Euro-boy parliamentary-sovereignty-thief-types sprout farmers would know!

Oh, and the floods are not JUST Golem Brown but the EU trying to make us more like the continent. Wherever that is.

entropy

Tin-Tin is actuallt called Kuifje. It is the French who call him Tin-Tin, the French I say.
As for the flood, you can blackmail the EU by threatening to flood France through the Chunnel. Would get rid of them and their Wallon intruders for us.
Actually, most of the Netherlands and a great deal of Belgium are nearly below sea level. Still we survive and even manage to grow asperges in the area, while you cry and wheep after a little rain.

It's just you jealous that we got the best piece of Africa. Jealous after seeing how we got the world's biggest rubber factory for the price of some hands while you were struggling for a piece of damned desert in Omdurman.

And why did I help you with the Latin anyway...

Officer of Engineers

Snow? Snow? Anybody wants some snow? I've got tons to give away this coming Dec-Jan-Feb.

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Chimo

entropy

Save it for the Winter Olympics 2014. Hosting the Olympic Games in the sub-tropics requires foolish bravery at best. The entire NATO strategic airlift wouldn't suffice to provide Sochi with snow.
Oh yes and paradrop some on Antwerp as well. Snow here is scarce like atheists in the States.

dalem

I was taught differently.

Call it nothing. Because it's weather.

-dale

entropy

Eh, what can I say about a people that measures in feet.

Well, it's a weather system. Things are at first systems, and then anything else.

PubFather

OK - one quick clarification, the global warming debate is the clearest eg. of the "Left" successfully (largely) stiffling the debate. That having been said, more than half the UK population doesnt believe in it. (I'll return to that point later).

In terms of the Right trying to stiffle debate - the GWOT has been painted as a survival struggle, where any counter-arguments/solutions are oft dismissed as appeasement/surrender. (Note, I'm not inviting a discussion on this issue, merely suggesting it as an eg of the Right doing what the Left has also done).
Linking Iraq directly with AQ and terrorism was done extremely widely, and was widely accepted. Communism = evil, was/is a debate that was stifled extremely effectively by the American Right.

Not to say that the Left isnt as guilty, but the Right has its moments also.

Even although the mainstream media might well (certainly in the UK) be depressingly similiar in their views on Global Warming/immigration etc, it doesnt necessarily mean sheep-like acceptance of their world view.

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Nemo Me Impune Lacessit - Scottish Motto

"They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion” Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan

gunnut

Climate changes. That's what the earth does. It gets hot and it gets cold. Nothing we can do about it.

That's the central dispute. Global warming cult believes we the mighty humans can change the earth's climate in a few short decades. Skeptics like me believe we aren't that powerful. Earth does what earth wants, with a little help from that yellow fireball in the sky, of course.

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

dalem

Well, I don't want to turn this into a Left-Right thread either, we have plenty of those.

Sticking to climate. When this topic is raised around me, I usually start with standard questions.

What is the climate supposed to be doing right now?

What is the normal global temperature?

Etc.

And when, of course, they can't answer any of those questions, they get angry at me and dismiss me because I'm not a scientist. If I'm feeling really sparky I'll ask them to explain the Scientific Method to me, and when they can't, explain it to them.

Things generally go downhill from there.

-dale

ArmchairGeneral

Wow, you can explain the Scientific Method? After 4 months of philosophy of science, I've just about given up trying to figure out the scientific method. Deductive logic? Absurd. Inductive logic? Bosh. Falsification? Attractive on the face of it, but mostly just nice sounding blather. Kuhnian Paradigms? Maybe, but who really understands Kuhn, anyway? It's far easier for a lazy bum like me to go along with Feyerabend and say "there is no method!"

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"Apocalyptic thought is curiously pleasurable."
-Theodore Dalrymple