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Some weeks, we have to hunt hard for topics. Other weeks, well, they rain down like a monsoon. The latter describes this week and to provide an umbrella we’ve got the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s White House correspondent Debra J. Saunders on the political topics (and a bit on San Francisco) and The Skeptical Environmentalist himself, Bjørn Lomborg, who at this moment, is the world’s second most famous Scandinavian authority in climate. Also, a new poll question (answer it!) and Lileks make a cameo appearance to award Ricochet member Kevin Creighton the highly coveted Lileks Post of The Week.
Music from this week’s show: How Soon Is Now by The Smiths
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Also, another name for carbon dioxide is “plant food.” Why tax plant food?
I voted with the “A” majority but it comes down to a lot of unknowns at this time. I’m pretty sure my Republican senator is a solid no on conviction. So I’m going to want to know what changed his mind. Was it something big that we don’t yet know about today? Or was it getting cornered in an elevator?
The harder it gets to keep an open mind on these things, the more important it becomes to do so.
I voted, but neither of my Senators are Republican, so it was a big hypothetical.
The polar ice caps are relatively young. Estimates range between 5 and 15 million years, for the north pole, and the Antarctic can be no older than 3 million years. Meaning that the earth ‘normally’ does not have polar ice caps.
Considering that humans (and other critters) live in climates ranging from the north pole to the Arabian Desert, isnt it unscientific to claim that a change of a few degrees will drive all living things to the brink of extinction?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH1PJTY9AVA
Which makes the climate-alarmists seem rather selfish for demanding that Earth somehow bend to THEIR desires.
But really, if the left were truly pro-science, they would be anti-abortion.
“By 23 million years ago, Antarctica was mostly icy forest and for the last 15 million years, it has been a frozen desert under a thick ice sheet.”—sciencefocus.com
There is definitely controversy over the age of the antarctic ice pack. I did a quick google on the subject this morning… They said the youngest possible date of the ice pack was at 3 million years, because of evidence of volcanic activity in the west of Antarctica.
Ive also heard 30 million years… But the point I was making, that the polar ice caps are a relative recent development compared to the age of the earth. Look at this talk with Randall Carlson:
Three hours? No.
The meat of the interview – about global warming and Ice Ages, starts at 14 minutes. If they dont capture your interest turn it off…
Now, see, there’s the problem. They might capture my interest, and then I would be out almost three hours, when I can look up and read a written summary in perhaps five minutes.
I watched the whole thing, so you don’t have to. :-)
Basically if you just want to be able to “destroy” anthropogenic global warming… enthusiasts… you only need to watch/listen up to about half an hour, or to just over 1 hour to be more fair. After that, listening to about the 90 minute point I’d say is the next big “break.” And then about 2 hours and 4 minutes. After that, they want to talk more about mind-expanding psychedelic drugs and other detritus that frankly leaves me rather cold.
But I really don’t think a written summary could do it justice, especially not any kind of brief summary.
Spoiler! Come on! That’s still in the theaters.
We have no plans to accept bitcoin or any currency other than US dollars.
Andrew Johnson was a Democrat. Don’t fob him off on us.
Jeff Flake donated to the Democrat running for senate in Alabama.
Does “destroy” mean “make them roll around on the floor, laughing”?
I made the mistake of starting to listen from the beginning, where Carlson embraces crackpot pseudo-archeologist Graham Hancock.
I don’t think Carlson is worth much of my time.
Maybe try skipping ahead to 14 minutes, then.
Come on! It’s the first line in the movie.
To find out what it meant, and the connection to “disposing with a lifetime of (someone’s) belongings” you have to watch it through to the closing shot!
(You knew that.)
I have a bit of a problem with Bjorn’s call for tons of funding for R&D. It’s both safe and irresponsible. It’s safe because that’s the usual call for things not going as they should. It’s irresponsible because so many people line their pockets with the cash and it gets wasted in the name of “trying things”
More money will not allow for the evolution of science. It was true during the first days of the AIDS epidemic, it’s true for global warming/green energy. Millions of dollars in Civil War medicine would not have borne x-ray machines, the science wasn’t there and no amount of money would help it catch up.
If Republican senators remove Trump from office then I will never vote for another Republican for the rest of my life, even my GOP state rep who lives down the street from me. Removing Trump from office would be a traitorous betrayal of the voters and the conservative policy agenda they voted for and that Trump has been enacting.
Another option that Rob forgot to include… :-)
kedavis, I think you’re confusing “poll” with “conversation.” No poll can ever possibly cover all of the possible outcomes of a conversation.
Blame the guilty, not the innocent.
Removing Trump from office, of course, is exceedingly unlikely to happen.
However, Pelosi calculates that, while impeachment may cost her some seats in the House, she will still maintain control.
Whereas putting pressure on vulnerable Republican Senators, whichever way they vote, might help ensure Democrat control of the Senate.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
It’s ridiculous. Even if we the planet warms to the level of the Cambrian era, when CO2 levels were 18 times current levels and the average temperature was 22C degrees compared to the current 14 C, to think life and humanity will be extinct is nonsense.
30 million years is a blink of the eye in geologic time.
Ditto. I’ve already warned my GOP senators.
Hence the :-)
But the small number of overly simplistic options given are, well… a small number, and overly simplistic.
Heck, he didn’t even include “none of the above!”
No. Way. I’d never heard that before but it is rather lifeless compared to the original. And yes, the title is wrong in the description.