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Discussion > There IS no answer in the climate debate.

Just give some examples in the warmist blogs in the list on the right where the blogger promotes de-industrialisation. Why is that so difficult for you to understand? And if you can't find any, why do you sit around telling lies to each other about warmists promoting de-industrialisation? You might as well tell each other that we all have greasy hair and zits and that we fart noisily during dinner. Maybe you need to demonise your "enemy" when you are such an ill-fitting group that you have no logical reason to like each other.

Jun 4, 2015 at 3:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterRaff

Did you ever do an intelligence test Raff? Did the result scar you for life? I mean driving around in a two stroke Wartburg must be depressing but written proof that you are an idiot must be very hard to take?

Jun 4, 2015 at 3:28 PM | Registered CommenterDung

I'm now convinced that Raff is BitBucket. He used to think that blogs were somehow the repository of what people think, instead of just opinion pieces of one particular person. If it aint on a warmist blog then they don't think it, apparently. If he believes that, he's more stupid than he appears.

Jun 5, 2015 at 9:25 AM | Unregistered CommenterTheBigYinJames

I'm asking you for examples from the opinions stated in those blogs. If in the opinion of all those bloggers, de-industrialization is desirable, they would have written that. Just give some examples of that instead of this psychoanalysis. How hard can that be?

If you (plural) can't find any examples then admit it and drop the de-industrialization bull.

Jun 5, 2015 at 2:33 PM | Unregistered CommenterRaff

ok Raff, read just about article by Michael Tobis on the Planet 3.0 blog or this one by one of his
mates

Jun 5, 2015 at 3:07 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

I read some Tobis and your link and have seen nothing that claims to want de-industrialization. Try again.

Jun 5, 2015 at 9:28 PM | Unregistered CommenterRaff

The Tobis link to Krugman's essay is interesting in that it shows Krugman's magical thinking skills in plain, stark light. The implication that believing renewables are as good as coal, nuclear, hydro or natural gas, is true is magical thinking in its most indulgent form. If any nation actually attempted to run its power grid as Krugman seems to want, the stark limits of magical thinking would become unavoidable.

Jun 5, 2015 at 9:56 PM | Unregistered Commenterhunter

Oh dear raff, try to think through the implications of negative growth. Krugman supplies some clues. As a starter, if your computer fails, do you expect to replace it with something exactly the same or something better? If the latter, you need growth, which Tobis and Co hate.

Jun 8, 2015 at 12:33 AM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

Diogenes, it is not clear to me that growth is what gives you a better computer net year. It seems like the opposite, that design of better computer might drive growth. Either way, I've seen nothing that Tobis has written that mentions de-industrialization. If you have something, then give a link. And show me where other bloggers in the lost on the right favour de-ind. Otherwise I conclude that the de-ind claim, like so many other "skeptic" memes is total BS.

Jun 8, 2015 at 12:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterRaff

In the forlorn hope that you are writing in good faith, Raff I will reply to you again. You seem to have no conception of the meaning of "economic growth" and sadly you did not go to the link in that inane Planet 3 essay to the article by Krugman. He says "For there are some people on the left who keep insisting that economic growth is incompatible with reduced emissions, and that therefore we have to turn our backs on growth. Such people have no power, and therefore don’t do any real harm. Still, it’s worth pointing out that they have a much too narrow notion of what it means to have a growing economy. It doesn’t necessarily mean more stuff! It could be better stuff, or more services — and there are also choices to be made in how we produce and distribute stuff. There is absolutely no reason to believe in a one-for-one link between real GDP and greenhouse gases."

If you stop growth, then you are in a steady state world, one in which there is no incentive for people to develop better micro-processors or to increase productivity or even to use fewer resources to do anything whatsoever. Why work to do something better if you will not be rewarded? If you are an exisiting producer of pcs, why bother to employ people to speed up the processors or enhance the operating system?

Therefore you are in a stagnant economy. There will be no need for young people to take jobs. And eventually the economy will fade away and die because it has gone into a retirement home. No one is driving it forward: no one is striving for improvements or new products. No one remembers how to make it work anymore.

Returning to the inane Dan Olner - he makes Tobis seem intelligent - "Growth of material extraction can’t go on forever."

How stupid is that! It shows a lack of historical knowledge for one thing. Consider...1000 years ago, how many people mined coal? Very few, they used wood to heat their houses. Wimnd forward 600 or 700 years, the development of the steam engine enabled much greater productivity and people started to mine coal to fuel steam engines and the furnaces to make iron and steel in far greater quantities than had been needed before.

How may people drilled for oil until the 19th c.? It just used to seep out in pools in California, the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico etc. No one had a use for it...until the invention of the internal combustion engine and the advantages that gave over steam power. Hell, we used to mine whales for oil to give lighting before we started to drill seriously for oil. Perhaps it was an advance?

How many people mined uranium, rare earth metals, lithium?

The things that we extract change in accordance with advances in technology. To say that we should not extract resources is just crass in the extreme. People who promote nonsensical ideas like that want humans to return to the stone age. Without extraction of resources, how do we get metal implements of any kind? How do we survive without killing all the animals on the planet for their bones? They might claim that they are not in favour of de-industrialisation, but that is what they are arguing for. There is simply no other way of understanding their vision.

Jun 8, 2015 at 7:01 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

I'm familiar with the Krugman quote as I often follow him. He is what you would call a warmist, a prominent one at that, and yet his quote clearly doesn't call for an end to growth. Neither have I seen him call for de-industrialization.

I don't know of Olner and I don't know whether he really calls for an end to resource extraction. His statement is about growth in extraction. But it is clearly true that nether extraction nor growth in extraction of any particular resource cannot continue indefinitely. All resources are finite, except for solar (practically). Energy use obviously cannot grow indefinitely at past rates either. But as Krugman says, GDP growth is not linked to CO2 emissions and, as you say, we have always in the past stopped extracting resources for reasons other than scarcity.

Jun 8, 2015 at 11:45 PM | Unregistered CommenterRaff

Raff, you are not worth dealing with as you lack reading and comprehension skills.

Jun 9, 2015 at 12:21 AM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

I am done with debating someone who is not arguing in good faith

Jun 9, 2015 at 12:39 AM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

To support the idea that warmists as a whole want de-ind. you have to do more than quote one prominent warmist who clearly doesn't. Even if he is talking about a group who do. It is clear that some do. But some people think President Bush Jr wasn't a disaster; there's many odd people around. Find some examples of warmist blogs in the list on the right that promote de-ind.

Jun 9, 2015 at 2:40 PM | Unregistered CommenterRaff