JohnB

You're not wrong. DDT is still allowed for mosquito vector control. But, it's very hard to buy a product when the factories are closed down. India is the only nation currently making DDT. It is also very hard for poor nations who often depend on outside donors to get those donors to fund DDT programs due to political pressure applied to those donors in the west. Even though DDT is still available, the money to fund programs dried up. There is more than one way to kill an idea. Can you imagine the stink Bob Brown would make if the Oz gov funded some DDT programs overseas?

I've heard this about the Federal Reserve. I don't really understand your version, the Reserve Bank of Australia is basically gov run. I don't get private banks being involved with the Gov funds in your system. Maybe it is time to chuck it and replace it with another version. Similarly with the EPA, I would be quite happy to see my State gov version gone and replaced. It's not that I don't think the environment shouldn't be protected, it's that I don't think the department should be run by ideologues, and the rot is too deep. We actually have more public servants looking after the "environment" in Queensland than are employed by the Australian Tax Office nation wide. It's just insane. With the dollars, IIRC we have not had a surplus under a left wing gov in Australia for decades. The conservatives lost gov in 2007 leaving a surplus of $20 billion for the 2007-2008 budget. The progressive Labor gov took that to a deficit of $30 billion in the 2008-2009 budget. They think they might be back in the black by 2014 or so. Pretty poor when you started with money in the bank. Now I know $20 B isn't a big number from the US govs POV, but our annual budget is only around $300 B. Putting the figures proportionally into US amounts it's like having a budget of $2.6 Trillion like you do and having a $173 B surplus one year and a $295 B deficit the next. And to be fair the GFC hit and a lot of money was spent on "stimulus". It didn't do anything, but a lot of money was spent. I don't know what the answer is for the US, but you can't keep spending more than the Gov gets. I think people are going to have to accept taxes will have to go up or you're just going to have to do things differently. Remenber the UHC debate figures? It would be very interesting to know exactly why the USA is spending 3 times as much as everybody else for similar results. Changing the system could yield significant benefits. I do wonder if pride is part of the problem for both the US left and right. Does wanting to appear as a "Leader" prevent your politicians from looking at how things are done elsewhere and copying it? Would a pollie saying "Listen folks, this part of what we do isn't working. Nation "A" over there does it a different way and it works fine for them. I think we should copy what they do" survive the next election?

Sorry Phi, I don't see it as a strawman at all. In many places there isn't enough power in the grid to service the people already connected to it. For example Haiti has a grid connectivity of 31%, so combine that with the production of 63.49 kWh per capita feeding into the grid, this means that each person connected has available to them some 180 kWh of power. That isn't enough power. It doesn't matter that Haiti is a basket case, it could have the most wonderful democratic government on Earth, but the numbers just don't add up. You would need to feed 33 times as much power into the current grid just to get those currently connected up the level of Britain, let alone expanding the grid to everybody. It's like saying that the original Niagra Falls generator would power the USA if you only had "more efficient" appliances. More efficient appliances are fine as a thing, but it's putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. When you are short Gigawatts, saving a few megawatts here and there doesn't make a real difference. While I take your point about hydro dams, to a degree I gather from your comment that it isn't so much what is being done, but how it's being done. If that is the case, then argue for a better way, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, there is corruption in many of these nations. That is a fact of life and doing business there, you factor bribes into your costings. It's not good, it's not how people from the West would like to do things, but that is how they are. Do you really want to stand on your principles so much that you would deny 100,000 people electricity, clean water and sewerage just to avoid paying some fathead local governor $1,000,000 in bribes? This is the world of "RealPolitik". But here is the real question. If you don't want to use hydro, what do you want to use? I think we can rule out nukes as I personally wouldn't trust a lot of those govs as far as I could throw them. Since one of the reasons you give against hydro is that they "mess up the local environment" we can rule out vast wind farms as well. If you're worried about CO2 then they can't have coal. Solar is not yet a viable baseload generator. So where are the needed Gigawatts going to come from? Also bear in mind that these are poor nations with poor governments. They simply cannot afford to subsidise "renewables" at 20 cents per kWh like the West can. So where is the power going to come from? Also note that the more high tech (like wind) the power comes from, the fewer jobs there will be for the generally poorly educated people. Cut it any way you like, but if the local population is basically uneducated, then low paying labouring jobs is all that the locals are able to do. Power installations like hydro dams employ large numbers of people and stimulate the local economy, wind farms with their relatively few highly specialised jobs do not. (At least nowhere near as much.) Medical boards operate on a national and not supranational basis. That is point one. Point two is that you think the Australian Medical Board is doing a good job. I think it's bloody appalling. In the James Patel case the Medical Authorities that you seem to think so highly of ignored complaints about this doctor for over two years. We finished up with something like 80 bodies on the deck and over 120 patients severely injured. The system stinks to high heaven. Do a bit of a Google search and see if you see what is missing. I happen to find it extremely suspicious that no doctors seem to have been struck off for negligence. There are plenty for "inappropriate conduct" towards women and children, but negligence? If we are to believe what is easily available, doctors might be sexual predators, rapists and kiddie fiddlers, but they are also at all times highly trained and professional in their conduct. Anybody want to buy a bridge? I notice the same thing with the Poms by the way. The Daily Mail had an article on this recently. I don't want to see more boards like this because I don't think the ones we have are doing their job properly. When you get the ones we have to work the way they are supposed to you will have an argument for more and bigger versions, not before. Rubbish. Even without the immigration Europes pop. dens. is far higher than most third world nations. Europes density is higher because it is developed and can therefore support more people. Developed modern agriculture supports more people per square mile than subsistance farming does. Yes, their population is unsustainable while they are a third world nation, this encourages people to leave. This is no different than the free settlers who came to Australia. But if the third world was developed, it could then sustain more people and a higher population and density. The difference between our approaches is that you want them to die off until they reach a lower population, "sustainable" at their current development level. I want them to develop so that they can sustain their current and possibly higher population. Prove it. This is the basic assumption that your entire argument relies on. Prove it, show me the figures. Just about every bit of development the third world has got has been with the direct opposition of the western green movement. Who stopped them from having DDT? Who prevents them from getting fertiliser? Who opposes dams and power generation on behalf of "the ecology"? They are suffering and dieing because every green lobby in the west wants them to and acts in direct opposition to their development. Don't try to hang that one on me, it won't work. If that is what you have got from my comments, then I suggest a course in remedial comprehension. Read what I write, not what your political blinders interpret. PS. Phi, I warned back in post #24 that the discussion was headed directly for politics. If the idea is to do the "right thing" rather than "some thing" then deciding what the "right thing" is is strictly a political decision.

Personally I think the whole Left/Right or Progressive/Conservative thing is hogwash. We are told that extreme right wing is Nazism/Facism while extreme left wing is Socialism/Communism. If there are any practical differences between the two (At least I got it right iNow ) then I have yet to see them. If you are "in" with the party you do well, the general populace are ground underfoot. There is also the lack of a spot for Anarchy on this spectrum. My own belief is that the true political spectrum is from Anarchy or zero governmental control at one end to Statism or total govermental control at the other. Most people, either left or right are roughly in the middle and are trying to balance government control with individual liberty. The only real difference I've seen between progressives and conservatives is that progressives are more likely to favour government action than conservatives are. This doesn't mean that progressives want total gov control, they just favour more of it than conservatives do. On a scale of 1 to 10 for gov control, conservatives are about a 4.95 and progressives are a 5.01. The differences are in what areas the control should be and how much control there should be. This is why iNow and I can disagree on some things but totally agree on others. He's left wing and I'm from the right, but we both agree that Universal Health Care is a damn good idea. I would also suggest that progressives are slightly less practical. (Don't shoot me for that!) Progressives dream about how the world could be and maybe should be, they are the dreamers. Conservatives are better economic managers (speaking from the Oz perspective here) who work out how to pay for the dreams of the progressives. The Australian experience is that the Left has some really great ideas but can't put them into practice, they try but generally stuff it up. When turfed out the right roll back some of the things and work out how to pay for those things not rolled back. Each time we swap parties in gov, the general welfare goes up. But seriously, judging people because of how someone sat in relation to the Chair in the French parliment 300 years ago strikes me as a damn silly way to conduct modern political discussions.

Disciplined by who? And regulated by who? No greg, I'm not. I'm pointing out the glaring double standard that I see. Given that you said; I'm pointing out that you don't seem to want to apply the same criteria to keeping people alive in western nations. Belguim has a population density of 355 per square kilometre while Mali has 12. Which is overpopulated? Not a racist slur at all. I've simply noted that the "environmentally friendly" answer to every environmental "problem" for the last 50 years has involved the third world continuing to live in poverty and sqalour. It is an observation of fact. If that makes some environmentalists uncomfortable, that is not my problem. The increasing long term squalour you speak of would be alleviated by economic development. But that means more access to cheap power, and technology and medicines. These are things you are arguing against so I can only conclude that you are in favour of them continuing to live in misery. The simple fact that it will be mostly non whites who are adversely effected by these ideas is beside the point. I don't think that you are racist, I think that you simply don't care. Black, white, brown or yellow, you just hate humans. You don't care who dies, so long as a lot of them do, it just happens to easier to oppress and slaughter the very poor in poor nations than it is to convince the West to self immolate. "Seig Heil! Yawohl main Fuhrer. Ze people will not tink anyzing zat has not been officially approved." What you are saying is that only those who agree with the "party" line will be allowed to speak. Therefore there will be nobody who speaks in dissent. Therefore there is no dissent. Therefore the "Party Line" is always right. Have you read 1984? The scary thing is that after the disaster of Lysenkoism and State directed research in general someone is actually putting forward such ideas again. Re the corruption thing. It's not that I think corruption will be worse with the described organisation, I think it will be the same. (roughly) However I work from the basis that scientists are human beings and are effected by the failings of all human beings, therefore some of them are corrupt. (And this is demonstratably true.) So any organisation that doesn't have external oversight will inevitable become corrupt because there is no mechanism to stop the corruption. The medical boards haven't done that great a job of being self policing have they? For two years there were complaints about James Patel and the boards found nothing amiss. For me it's a philosophical thing. I believe that without external oversight then corruption will become entrenched, simply because of the lack of removal mechanisms. Therefore internal investigations are always bad. The desire not to harm the reputation of the organisation can be a very strong incentive to turn a blind eye. Rather than an objection to your organisation specifically, this is an objection to any organisation set up in such a manner.

Compulsory unionisation. Work licences. Zero responsibility or oversight. (How do you handle internal corruption?) But there's nothing better than a great big organisation to tell people what they are allowed to think or say is there? Go against the "Union" lines and no research funding and no publication rights. We could stop cancer research as well, that would save a fair bit of money and help reduce the population on this "grossly overpopulated" planet. Gee, maybe we should simply shut down all the hospitals. So we force the poor, non white people of the world to die in misery and squalor to give a brighter future for your white descendents. Damn Greg, it sounds like heaven on a stick. JustinW, a simple question. How could an organisation that people are forced to join and forced to agree with and forced to comply with, without the option of dissent possibly be a "voice of reason" in any conversation? The entire concept is based on the logical fallacy of "Appeal to Authority". The logic works this way; 1. The scientists are smarter than you are. 2. The scientists "agree". 3. You must do as you are told and defer to their authority. The fallacy of this idea is shown by simple example. Swansont is an atomic physicist. Why is his opinion on mosquito bourne tropical diseases any better than mine? So the "voice of reason and influence" is based on a logical fallacy, is totally authoritarian and is intolerant of dissent. Still think it's a worthwhile idea?

Yes. Conservative down here seems to be roughly an extreme right wing Democrat. The thing is that this idea is simply wrong. In many places they don't have a grid. Have a look at these percentages from the IEA. By all means hand over refrigerators and washing machines to Zambia, but 91% of the population don't have anything to plug them in to. Here is a list of electricity generation per capita by nation. How long will that refrigerator and washing machine run in Chad where the generation is 10.116 kWh per person? They need to increase power generation by 200x (not 200%, 200x) just to get to the level of Mexico. If they generate 6x as much power they reach the level of Haiti. Unless you have some absolutely new and mind bogglingly efficient refrigerators and washing machines, they need more power. In many places there simply isn't a grid to disperse the power and even if there was, there isn't enough power being generated to do more than give each house 1 electric light. Great Britain is already starting to suffer energy shortages while generating 6,104.359 kWh per person. While 6,000 kWh might sound like a lot, it's not all for personal consumption. It runs the industry and the electric trains and the street lights. The third world needs to brought up to at least the level of Britain before you can start talking about "efficiency" in any meaningful sense. Australians are told and I'm sure Americans are too that we use too much power, some 11,000-12,000 kWh per capita and we should reduce it. But you and I don't actually use that much, part of our "per capita" share runs, for example, the Aluminium industry. According to the USGS, America produced 3.1 million tons of Aluminium in 2010 and Australia produced some 2 million tons. Bauxite production requires some 260 kWh per ton for production, recycling and the production of the metal is around 12,000 kWh per ton. Remember this the next time someone says Americans should cut their energy usage. The only way you cut it in any meaningful way is to shut down your industrial base. Anything else is a drop in the bucket. Also, beware the idea that all the crazy is only on one side. From down here everything you say about your right is looks pretty true but at the same time the American left is so full of its own righteousness that it views any who disagree as either intentionally evil or mentally incompetent. This too is a form of crazy. BTW, you didn't answer any of my questions about which "right" things you wanted done. Swansont, I totally agree. Science is amoral, individual scientists can be either moral or immoral.

You keep using that word......

Phi, while I am in the category of "conservative", I don't see my comment as such. To me it is simply a good way to run a society. A good "people" society is one in which there is freedom for the people and the government enforced laws only come into play when a person does something that inhibits others. To the conservatives that I know, this applies to business as well. A "free market" is one in which there are few restrictions on business except where it effects the public good. Relate to other businesses in any way you wish, use whatever processes and chemicals you wish, just don't dump the rubbish into the waterways or air. Dispose of your waste properly. The last bit is where many conservatives in government have fallen down badly. WRT the CO2 question there are those who think that these emissions are detrimental to the public good and should be stopped before we reach some sort of Thermageddon. I happen to disagree with this position. However that doesn't stop me from expecting scrubbers in the smoke stacks to filter out airborne particulates, mercury, etc from the exhaust gas and sedimentation ponds and filters to clean the waste water before discharge. I don't mind if an entire mountain is mined for resources, but I do expect the mining company to clean up the mess when they are finished. These things are simply the cost of doing business in a free market, like the cost of building and maintaining a warehouse. This will take the thread squarely into politics. What is the "right" thing to do? What is the Cost/Benefit? Will spending large amounts now on mitigation substantially reduce the future costs of adaptation? More specifically, exactly what future problems is this "right thing" supposed to solve? It cannot solve the problems caused by climate change because the climate will always change and those problems are therefore endemic and outside human control. (unless you are claiming that mankind can in fact control the climate) Will it solve flooding due to extreme weather? (Personally I would think that dams and levees would be more use in flood mitigation than getting your electricity from windmills, but that's just me. ) Similarly, if third world (poor) economies are less able to deal with the effects of a changing climate, and given that removal of energy poverty is the first step to the removal of poverty in general, then which is the "right" thing to do? Help them build power stations to generate cheap power so they can advance their economies as fast as possible or shackle them with expensive electrical power, thereby slowing their growth and also their ability to adapt to climate change? Or let's make it real and right now. At Durban COP 17, Oxfam put forward the idea of an extra tax on fuel oil for shipping. The grounds being that more expensive fuel would encourage fuel efficiency and cut CO2 emissions. This is therefore the "right" thing to do. I'm sure most "warmers" would agree on that. However there are some 900 million people who are undernourished on this planet and they depend on imported food to survive. Strangely enough this food doesn't arrive all by itself but in great, big ships. Those ships use fuel oil. So the result of this particular "right" thing would be to increase the cost of food to the poorest people on the planet. Is it still the "right" thing to do? So what specific "right" things do you want and what specific problems will this solve? And will it be cost effective? Essentially these are the conservative questions. The problem is that those who want to "do something" have as yet been unable to answer these rather basic questions satisfactorily and when faced with this reality have simply resorted to name calling. But seriously, why should I be expected to support your course of action if you cannot explain exactly what the actions are and the problems those actions are going to solve? If you can't show that what you want to do is in fact the "right" thing to do, why get huffy if I simply don't agree? Edit to add. A further question is that since there has been no harm caused anywhere by the rather modest .8 degrees of warming so far, on what factual basis is the idea that there is a "problem" that we need to "do something" about founded?

The problem is with the initial assumption. While it might take 20,000 years to terraform Mars using todays tech, it might only take 1,000 years using the tech available in 20,000 years. Good luck to anybody who wants to use predictions of technological advances for the next 20,000 years to justify actions today. Yes, if it had been caused by man and prevented we would still be living in the wonderful climate known as the "Little Ice Age". Why this is supposedly a good thing I have yet to understand.

I disagree with both the title of the thread and the OP. People don't need to do "something", they need to do the "right thing". Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic classifies as doing "something", getting to the life boats is doing the "right thing". Too often in climate there is way too much emphasis on doing "some thing" rather than doing the "right thing". As to a world run by scientists I have but one word "Eugenics". Science and politics don't mix because politics is essentially about morality, defined politically as "what the electorate will put up with". Science is amoral, it cares not whether we like or dislike the findings, the facts simply are. If the "facts" are based on a misthought pseudoscience, then the ramifications are terrible, as history has shown.

And I thought that the UN was out of touch with reality. The clip is 10 minutes long but you only need to hear the first minute or so. The Police Commissioner implies that "Politicians don't give straight answers" and don't a couple of the pollies get their knickers in a twist. Yes, he does dare, and so I think would 99% of the general population.

I just thought I would add, to point out the disconnect from reality that the UN suffers from. South Korea as a developed nation and a party to the Covention is expected to disarm while North Korea, who is not a party to the Convention is not. I can only assume that the UN believes the assurances of "The peace loving people of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea" that they have no militaristic ambitions towards the South.

Yes, he's an idiot, but what is wrong with the general idea? Do you have some form of knowledge that says such a vessel can't be built?

"Yes, you can." - My dad.

So that's why I can't think in American. But well said. You don't really know another language until you are thinking in it rather than translating it. (I've heard that thinking in Russian is great for those with paranoid thoughts.)

Acting emotionally is to build a city on land lower than sea level and then spending money on "vote winning" things rather than maintainence, rationally is spending on maintainence first. Don't worry, others do the same. In 1974 Brisbane flooded. So we went to the hydrologists and they told us to build three more dams to mitigate or prevent future flooding in the area. We built one (rational) and didn't build the other two because they might flood the habitat of the hairy nosed something or other (emotional). Also we were taking the "latest and best" scientific advice of the climate change crowd who were saying that the heavy rains weren't going to come again. (emotional) The result was that heavy rains came and the single dam filled up and Brisbane and other cities got flooded. Thinking that the climate is stable and that since it is changing we are all going to die in horrible ways due to massive natural catastrophes is emotional and not rational.

But Tony, you didn't answer the question. Are they helping the environment?

Not so crazy. A great way to demonstrate that the South has plenty to spare of what the North lacks. Electricity and lights. Regardless of what the propaganda machine says, I doubt the message will be missed by those who see the tree.

CaptainPanic, What fallacy? You are equating climate change with war and anybody who isn't afraid of getting caught up in a war is either psychotic or foolish, I assume that you are neither. The other point I was trying to make concerns how people think about climate change, as if there is some choice involved. You can choose not to go to war, you cannot choose for the climate not to change. People are being given the impression that if we "do something" then climate change won't be a problem and this is incorrect. Natural climate change has been written out of the story. Concerning CC there are really only two possible courses of action. Attempt to "do something" about it or simply to "deal with it" and the problems as they occur. I happen to think that "dealing with it" is the best course. You might think that not being too worried about "reducing our footprint" (whatever that means in reality) is selfish, I OTOH think it silly to spend a fortune on "reducing our footprint" for little to no practical purpose. Is it worth spending the money to ensure that the next hurricane has winds of only 150 mph instead of 153 mph? Or the next flood is 10 mm lower? Or that the sea level will rise by 50 cm by 2100 instead of 59 cm? Far more sensible to me to spend the money on dams and sea walls and better buildings. Because even if we do spend all that money on reducing our footprint, we will still have to build dams and sea walls and better buildings, won't we? The benefits of mitigation are very small compared to the costs, this isn't the case with adaptation. Take the extreme case. Let's say that everybody puts in a huge effort and the entire planet becomes carbon neutral or whatever term you wnat to use. The activities of man no longer have any effect whatsoever on the climate and even more we found a magical way of taking CO2 out of the air and reduced the concentration to 280 ppm. So the world is now just like preindustrial. What then in this magical world? We'd be spending money on adapting to the natural CC, wouldn't we? There is something bizzarely Kanute like going on here. In case I'm not fully clear, I'm pretty much with you and the Dutch Gov. No matter what, with or without an anthro component, the water will come. It is good to plan, prepare and adapt. Essay, World Government?!? Wouldn't you say that a group that has the power to tax and the power to pass rules by which the population lives is, in effect, a government? The difference between what is happening and the example you use of America is that in America the people demanded that their duly appointed government give those "guiding limits". What we are evolving is an EPA without Parlimentary oversight. I'm not against international co-operation or even a world gov eventually, but consideration has to be given to form. If we finish up with the WTO making the rules for trade and the WHO making the rules for health plus many others making the rules for their little piece of the action, all under the auspices of the UN in the name of "International Co-operation", would we not then have a de facto world government? Once that state occurs, getting the power away from the beauracrats and back into the hands of the people will be very, very difficult. Mankind has always been afflicted by the psycho minority, those to whom the dream of unfettered power is a narcotic. What is evolving is a wet dream for them, the power to instruct and tax whole nations with absolutely nobody looking over their shoulder. These people have always worked from within the system to subvert it. Now unless you think that this trait has been bred out of the human race in the last 60 years or so, then you must accept that these people are around today and are currently within the system and working to subvert it for their own ends. Where are the checks and balances? This is an attitude I find interesting. These would be the indigenous peoples that have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years.? (or whatever the current descriptive fad is) The people whose "old ways" are credited with stampeding hundreds of Mammoths off cliffs for food and the extinction of the megafauna in the known world? How people whose ways haven't changed for thousands of years can be both the guiding light for future conservation and responsible for massive extinctions is a dichotomy I have yet to fathom. It was the "rapacious patterns" of these primitive peoples that supposedly led to the extinctions in the first place. At least the "Noble Savage" myth is still alive and well. I'm not sure how to respond to this. The seasons, last I heard, were caused by the axial tilt of the Earth and it's orbit around the Sun. Are you suggesting that there was no tilt until 30 million years ago or so? You've made the point mentioned on the slide before and I have to ask "So what?". You use the "levels not seen in 30 million years" as though it is a bad thing. Tell me why. As I pointed out last time, life was flourishing all over the planet at that time. Your argument seems to boil down to "Change = Bad", well "Change = Inevitable". I frankly don't see the problem. Even giving that the comment is factually correct, I don't see the problem. Expand the idea please. Soooo, you're grieving for people yet unborn in a civilisation that doesn't exist who were maybe effected by speculative things that might not happen. Have I got that right? Whereas I'm p*ssed at people like Oxfam who want an extra tax on bunker fuel, making shipping more expensive and thereby increasing the price of food for the 900 million people who are malnourished right bloody now. Isn't it funny that concern for "our (predominantly white) children and grandchildren" having problems in the future is so much more important than the millions of (predominantly black) people dying today. michel, The wording is "shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security and warfare", that was $800 billion for the US according to Wiki. (Counting Homeland Security, CIA, etc.) So the yanks are to pony up that much and the UN will spend it. BTW, your share is $9.3 Billion USD. Greece is an Annex I developed nation. I'm sure that the Greek gov has a spare $9.3 B lying around somewhere.

Out of curiousity, and since change is actually the normal state for the climate, could you explain to the hypothetical alien how somebody made you afraid of it? Are you afraid of night following day as well? Or Summer following Winter? Whether you live in a Supercity or a grass hut, war is not inevitable but climate change certainly is. However, to keep things in this thread on the political side. My point in posting was to show that the UNFCCC answers to the percieved problem are so divorced from reality as to need a ouiji board and a star map to find Earth again. Don't people find it uncomfortable to be arguing that the UNFCCC is sane, practical and rational as to the "problem" when their "solutions" are insane, impractical and irrational? JustinW, one day it will "fly", not just in America but all over the planet. The day is coming when there will be a World government, the question is "What type?". ATM it's forming from the unelected beauracrats of the UN simply because nobody else is speaking up and there is nobody to regulate or stop them. While there must be some with nefarious ideas, the majority simply want to standardise things and why not? Isn't it a reasonable and laudable aim that all people on the planet have access to the same standards for food packaging as we do in the West? So things just naturally grow. The problem is that we might finish up with a world beauracracy that has no Parlimentary oversight and therefore no responsibility to the governed. That is where it gets dangerous to freedoms and liberties. It isn't government that is dangerous, but a government with a lack of checks and balances. Checks and balances is what the UN currently lacks. But make no mistake, a World government is coming and will be neccessary in the future. This is one planet with one intelligent race on it and some problems that we will face will require united action. It might be climate or it might be to avert an asteroid collision. Or it might be simpler than that. Our satellites are discovering more and more extra solar planets each day. It is only a matter of time before we find another intelligent race and when that day comes there must be somebody who the united people of Earth have decided will speak for them. Not for Americans or Chinese or Australians, not for Caucasians or Asians or Negroids, but for all of us. Besides, think of how many manned ships we could have exploring the Solar system if we weren't spending trillions on defence. Especially since if you look at it logically, most of the money is wasted because the things never get used. The third largest Airforce in the world lies in boneyards across America. Billions of dollars worth of aircraft that never did anything but fly around and drop expensive ordnance on billions of dollars worth of tanks and trucks that never saw combat. Think of how many warships have been built, paid for and decommissioned without ever seeing action. I'm no peacenik and I'm not in a hurry to give up the defence spending of the West, but at the same time I can see the subtle lunacy in what we are doing as a planet. If someone can come up with a way off this crazy merry go round, I'll at least listen.

I always knew that the connection of beauracrats and (many) NGOs to reality was tenuous at best, but this out of Durban simply shows how far from the real world they are. From the UNFCCC agreement that they wanted to get signed at durban; So how much "new and addititional finance" you may ask? So America, your share is around $800 Billion. I'm so glad you can afford it. But seriously, how far divorced from any form of economic reality do you have to be to even make such a suggestion? Only people living in a total fairyland could think that Germany has a spare 30 Billion Euros to throw at this. (There are other ways of funding this, see below.) All up it would come to around $1.3 Trillion, a nice little earner for the UN that I'm sure has them swooning at all the great deeds and marvelous works they could accomplish with the money. (After management fees, their wages and a few conferences in very nice places are deducted of course.) Some other really cool bits (Are you listening America?) You are required to stop all "warfare" related activities and shut down your defence industries, giving all the saved money to the UN for redistribution. (See 47 above) What you do about the hundreds of thousands unemployed is presumably your problem. How about this bit? Can somebody enlighten me as to exactly what an "Intrinsic Law of Nature" is? Or is it just a greenies wet dream? But I'm sure the "Climate Court of Justice" will be able to rule on this; BTW, "Annex I Parties" are the West, the developed nations, a full list is here. The court is to have the power to judge and fine only the developed nations. The West is to comply or else, the ROW can do what they like. I guess some animals are more equal than others. I've always thought that those who think that "Climate Change" was a cover for some UN conspiracy were fools. However, having read the UN documents and seeing the sheer amounts of money it wants and the power that it is demanding in that name, I'm starting to wonder if they might not have a point. The documents are long on power and authority over the people of the planet, but very short on responsibility to the people of this planet. It seems to be very much assumed that the UN knows best and would never act except in the best interests of the people or the planet. If that is true then they would be the first organisation in history to manage that little feat. The UN needs to be introduced to reality, very soon.

True, true. And I understand that while expanding the Convention Centre they found a midden heap nearly 400 years old that had oyster shells in it. An archaeological find that rivals the Acropolis itself.

Can you provide any actual evidence for these four things happening? Or are you just spreading more urban legends?

I'd suggest a video clip with a labratory theme, but it would be hard to beat these two. Rick Guard or the Zheng Labs terrific