China

[Rambo]

 

[aroncull]

Hmmmm interesting.. i guess that the chemtrails or HARRP will get us before the BLACK OPS will huh.. Yeah hmm well i certainly dont believe in that stuff...
but i do believe in war over resources.. namely 2 of them that are connected to everything we do, eat, sleep and wipe our selves with...

OIL
WATER

so to me eventually there will come a point when the "superpowers" will go head to head over the OIL and WATER that is left.. [cheap sweet oil]

So i am hoping that most of you can dicern the difference of a conspiracy such as the "weapons of mass distruction" to get into Iraq.. as well as the idea of Abiotic Oil.

Now i really really really hope that non of you believe in Abiotic Oil..= total nonsense...


Otherwise good points gental men very good thank you for those who contributed
-Aaron

 

[Ramsey]

beej, what the hell are you doing with an anorexic chick like that?

Just for that, I'm having this thread moved to the Den. (Or maybe they'll just delete my post? )

Anyway, you're just jealous...

 

[XJ Dreamin']

Have seen anything about a famine in china but its obvious how the communists in the country treat the labor force or the people in general...

About 20 years ago I saw a story. It began with a question: What country was most advanced in the medical techniques of limb reattachment and autonomous transplant? The answer? China. Why? Because they have no OSHA. The government doesn't give a shait about it workers. Open blades, no safeties on presses. Twenty years ago there were more amputations per capita in China than any other country in the world. I doubt that much has changed in that regard. As noted in this thread, they certainly have no regard for pollution. My folks were there about 10 years ago. The main thing my mom remembers is, no mosquitoes...and no birds. Walking around anywhere the least bit urban, she didn't hear any birds.

My hope is that we wake up to the fact that as the country [china] goes up or down hill we need to watch them and the military that they have. It seems to me that sometimes we Americans....[yeah yeah] we can be little too confident about our abilities militarily and i would like us to always believe and strive for a stronger more stable fighting force able to deal with anything that comes its way..... try to fend off the complacency that we have for new fighting abilities and technology....

Of course we need to watch them - they're sneaky (sorry: non-PC ethnic slur. Sometimes I can't help myself). However, I think the threat level is pretty low. As to famine: China has always operated on a razor's edge regarding feeding the populace. With the move to urban industrial labor, they're losing what little cushion they have.

Steven Colbert had a magnificent summary of American confidence through the ages on the Colbert Report Monday or Tuesday night. funny stuff and oh so true.

 

[8Mud]

If I am understanding your point, that is like saying we should be cannibals because some island in the south Pacific still does it.

Bush won't sign Kyoto because the lobbyists don't want it and politicians don't think beyond the length of their mandate. If you are a cynic tag on "there's no money in it for Bush" as well.

Kyoto is kinda misguided anyway. IIRC, it makes no provisions for pollution, only CO2. CO2 is important, but at the rate China (or the rest of us for that matter) is billowing smoke we'll be dead of environmental toxins before CO2 becomes a real issue. There is a linkage between pollution and CO2 of course, but if they had made that linkage front and center there would be much better buy in.

Anybody that thinks Kyoto is some kind of altruistic undertaking is being kind of naive. It's just another way for the industrialized and non industrialized nations to influence American industry. Does anybody actually think a German car maker wouldn't use Kyoto accord guidelines to improve there market position? Or an agricultural country to use the Kyoto accords to influence tarrifs. Bush is just not going to play that game. It's just another way to stir the pot and get the money flowing in different directions. And at the same time grow another bureaucracy to monitor and administer it. The new bureaucracy will inevitably become political. And it would be doubtful, anything it accomplished, would be good for America.
Most of the signatories of the Kyoto accords, probably have little to loose and the major players are looking to make gains, by changing and controlling the rules.
The Kyoto accords remind me of the push to have American soldiers accountable to the World court. Whomever controls the World Court would have a very large influence on American politics.
To put it simply, most Europeans and many other countries believe anything that is bad for America is good for them. Talk about short sighted. Whomever manages to finally topple America, will undoubtedly cause the failure of much of the worlds economy. And there is probably one chance in three that whatever eventually replaces America will be any better.
But they are bound to keep chipping away at America whenever possible. For whatever gain they think they can make.

 

[Roxtar]

What about Korean?

Kalbi and Bulldoggie?

Chinese is ancient and Thai is passe'

Fixed

 

[Root Moose]

Anybody that thinks Kyoto is some kind of altruistic undertaking is being kind of naive. It's just another way for the industrialized and non industrialized nations to influence American industry. Does anybody actually think a German car maker wouldn't use Kyoto accord guidelines to improve there market position? Or an agricultural country to use the Kyoto accords to influence tarrifs. Bush is just not going to play that game. It's just another way to stir the pot and get the money flowing in different directions. And at the same time grow another bureaucracy to monitor and administer it. The new bureaucracy will inevitably become political. And it would be doubtful, anything it accomplished, would be good for America.

Agreed. The intent of Kyoto is generally good if you believe in CO2 issues but by the same token anything that mucks with economies in this scale is going to make the money flow in a different direction. Kyoto is kinda like the hybrid cars that are out. In the final financial analysis the only winner is the environment because you haven't saved any money paying for a more expensive shoe box that gets marginally better fuel economy than another cheaper shoe box. "The Environment" doesn't have a balance sheet so there is no incentive to carry on.

Most of the signatories of the Kyoto accords, probably have little to loose and the major players are looking to make gains, by changing and controlling the rules.
The Kyoto accords remind me of the push to have American soldiers accountable to the World court. Whomever controls the World Court would have a very large influence on American politics.
To put it simply, most Europeans and many other countries believe anything that is bad for America is good for them. Talk about short sighted. Whomever manages to finally topple America, will undoubtedly cause the failure of much of the worlds economy. And there is probably one chance in three that whatever eventually replaces America will be any better.
But they are bound to keep chipping away at America whenever possible. For whatever gain they think they can make.

Almost sounds like a free market economy dealing with with the big gorilla that dominates the market, no? <chip/ > <chip/ >



Unfortunately, what most governments don't realize is that there is money to be made within their country whether they embrace Kyoto or not. Countries like the U.S. that are not signatories[sp?] would be smart to "cherry pick" the parts of Kyoto that could be used to generate money/revenue within their borders, sh!te can the rest. Make themselves look good by lock stepping what they do accept out of Kyoto with anti-pollution legislation (potentially also a big money maker).

As a "friggen' foreigner" with a view of the U.S. from the outside what continually surprises me is that other "FF"s don't realize that the U.S. will only do what is good for U.S. interests, not counter to them. That's no different than any other country but the U.S. has the "front and center" position so they are an easy target when others disagree with the immediate tact taken.

David Suzuki made an interesting point once with respect to stuff like Kyoto affecting the economy, paraphrasing: "The economy is a man made thing, if the economy doesn't work in this new "climate" then change the economy before we kill ourselves". What good is an economy for a dead planet?

Ultimately, I believe the fear of Kyoto, China, whatever is the expression of the most dangerous aspect of the human species: the fear of change/difference. No matter how "advanced" our technology becomes, at this stage our societies (i.e. humanity) are still pretty primitive. A frightened, shivering mouse backed into a dark corner comes to mind whenever I see public displays of "power".

 

[8Mud]

Ultimately, I believe the fear of Kyoto, China, whatever is the expression of the most dangerous aspect of the human species: the fear of change/difference. No matter how "advanced" our technology becomes, at this stage our societies (i.e. humanity) are still pretty primitive. A frightened, shivering mouse backed into a dark corner comes to mind whenever I see public displays of "power".

I don't think the idea (or the goals) of Kyoto is bad or even unneeded. I just think it will be subverted, like the vast majority of politically driven agendas. Or on an even more realistic level, will be transformed into a real money maker. Read the proposition, running the whole thing like the stock market, buying and selling C02 futures and credits.
Resources are finite, wasting them on doomed exercises is wasteful. Shooting yourself in the foot by giving, even partial control of your business, to somebody of doubtful honesty is dumb.
Global warming is a problem, doubt Kyoto is the answer. I've been talking about global warming, way before it became the topic of the day. The whole thing was fairly evident in the mid 70`s. For a hobby naturalist like myself, it was kind of a glaring phenomenon.
Cutting back on CO2 emissions makes sense, harvesting forests, in a managed way makes sense. Trying to control the whole thing by posting it onto he stock exchange, sounds ludicrous.
The fear of change? You bet, change anything and the results are unpredictable **(global warming is change)**. We are paying the penalty now for the good/new ideas of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Think of the complexity of the economy, the more complex anything is (generally) the more fragile it becomes. Every time the base index for borrowing changes a quarter of a percent, a whole lot of people do a whole lot of hand wringing.
I can think of a whole lot of new ideas, that when implemented, turned out radically different from the intended results. It's kind of like the ecology, cut down a tree in the Amazon and the Sahara gets a little dryer.
Just to throw something out there, people are encouraged to buy newer fuel efficient cars. The car it's replacing cost resources and energy to produce, if it's retired before it's lifespan is up, that's wasted energy. The energy consumed in the production of it's replacement, may or may not reach the break even point in it's lifetime. Or in other words, the CO2 gases generated in it's production, the CO2 gases wasted in the production of the car it replaced and the CO2 produced by all of the employees that participated in it's production and the reduced CO2 emissions it will produce in it's lifetime, may or may not offset each other. It may actually produce more garbage. Fuel efficient cars, good idea, a practical solution, unlikely in a single generation.
I figured out a long time ago, it's doubtful the saved CO2 will ever equal the CO2 expended and wasted in the process of change.

 

[w_howey]

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MEOW!!!!

 

[GSequoia]

Bark bark.