When will the decline of America reach the point of no return?
- Thread starter grymster2007
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Double Naught Spy
New member
How do you define the point of no return?
No society, government, or culture is stagnate. The remain in flux. Generation after generation here in the US has claimed the generation that preceded did horrible things and the the next generation lacks proper values.
So with that in mind, we have reached the point of no return repeatedly as seen through the eyes of every generation.
Historically, all governments fail at some point.
CarbineCaleb
New member
On that "silly hypothesis" called global warming...
Roughly 50% of Americans do not even believe in Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection, nearly 160 years after its publication. With this astonishing and rather profound fact illuminating the nature of our national curiosity, intellect and scientific literacy, is it any wonder that many refuse to accept global warming as real?
Roughly 50% of Americans do not even believe in Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection, nearly 160 years after its publication. With this astonishing and rather profound fact illuminating the nature of our national curiosity, intellect and scientific literacy, is it any wonder that many refuse to accept global warming as real?
MAN MADE Global Warming. It's a SOLAR cycle (unless were warming up Mars with CO2 too). Seems your right on about the scientific illiteracy thing. The sale of carbon offset credits and the man made scare are both via the same folks. That's another one of those 'I don't care about the facts.... I BELIEVE IT and my opinions are as valid as anyone else's' things.
You can tell it's one of those because people that support it have fierce emotional reactions to hearing these facts.
You can tell it's one of those because people that support it have fierce emotional reactions to hearing these facts.
CarbineCaleb
New member
Bruxley - if you want to believe the observed warming is actually due to a solar cycle and the scientific community is engaged in some elaborate conspiratorial ruse so they'll get rich on carbon credits, I am fine with that. I also won't argue with anyone who wants to deny evolution - have pretty much learned my lesson the hard way on these things already - been there, done that, wasted the time.
JuanCarlos
New member
Of course, the other side of the coin is those that treat the evidence against human impact on climate as conclusive...then resort to insults and condescension when somebody points out that it isn't.
Granted, people on both sides are guilty of this (including myself, from time to time). But generally anytime anybody is treating the evidence on either side of this one as absolutely conclusive they're just trying to justify their personal bias.
Which is why this might be a conversation best suited for its own thread, if we're assuming there's really anything about this thread worth continuing.
Anytime somebody's theory rests on a wide-reaching and deep-rooted conspiracy, I do become instantly skeptical. It's not grounds for instant dismissal, but it certainly isn't a good place to start.
Marketing your ideas to make money isn't a conspiracy. There aren't unknown, behind the scenes puppet masters or any of that gooblidy gock being discussed.
If you could get people to pay you for permission to be late to work wouldn't you make it THE reason for lowering productivity in American industry? I sure would. And I could easily find a line of folks to substantiate it.
No conspiracy, just damn brilliant marketing.
If you could get people to pay you for permission to be late to work wouldn't you make it THE reason for lowering productivity in American industry? I sure would. And I could easily find a line of folks to substantiate it.
No conspiracy, just damn brilliant marketing.
CarbineCaleb
New member
For any folks actually looking for credible information, I can suggest the following websites - and note the organizations that provide the information:
U.S. National Academy of Sciences
http://dels.nas.edu/globalchange/clim.shtml
American Academy for the Advancement of Science
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.noaa.gov/climate.html
NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/earthandsun/index.html
Of course, some people don't believe in science - I get that. But, such people would never take the time to read these websites, so it's not to them that these links are addressed.
U.S. National Academy of Sciences
http://dels.nas.edu/globalchange/clim.shtml
American Academy for the Advancement of Science
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.noaa.gov/climate.html
NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/earthandsun/index.html
Of course, some people don't believe in science - I get that. But, such people would never take the time to read these websites, so it's not to them that these links are addressed.
Thanks for the links. As you can see those very people agree that the sun is in fact more directly effecting the warming of the Earth.
NASA
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/SORCE/sorce_04.html
NOAA did the best job of making the point by plotting the information to illustrate how directly correlated the sun and global warming are.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
SOLAR VARIABILITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Figure 3: (a) The northern hemisphere land temperatures are plotted with the solar cycle length
The globally averaged sea surface temperatures are plotted with the sunspot numbers (Reid; 1999). Both sunspot number and solar cycle length are proxies for the amount of solar energy that Earth receives. The similarity of these curves is evidence that the sun has influenced the climate of the last 150 years.
Seems someone without the need to believe an alternative 'maybe possibly' explanation would be able to see how clearly NOAA has made the case that the EVIDENCE shows the direct correlation with solar activity and global warming.
But hey, there's no way to make a buck or win a vote with such science.
NASA
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/SORCE/sorce_04.html
NOAA did the best job of making the point by plotting the information to illustrate how directly correlated the sun and global warming are.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
SOLAR VARIABILITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Figure 3: (a) The northern hemisphere land temperatures are plotted with the solar cycle length
The globally averaged sea surface temperatures are plotted with the sunspot numbers (Reid; 1999). Both sunspot number and solar cycle length are proxies for the amount of solar energy that Earth receives. The similarity of these curves is evidence that the sun has influenced the climate of the last 150 years.
Seems someone without the need to believe an alternative 'maybe possibly' explanation would be able to see how clearly NOAA has made the case that the EVIDENCE shows the direct correlation with solar activity and global warming.
But hey, there's no way to make a buck or win a vote with such science.
Attachments
Remember that evolution is not the same thing as saying man evolved from single cells. The two are often confused. I do not think anyone can deny that living things evolve. That has been proven. The question here is whether or not man evolved from a few strands of proteins.
The same with global warming- the Earth has warmed a bit, as compared to previous measurements. However, the Earth has been both warmer and colder than it is now, and Mars has warmed during the same period as Earth. This suggests an extra terrestrial warming that has nothing to do with man.
Also consider that one volcano (Pinatubo) discharged more greenhouse gases and CFCs than all of mankind has through recorded history, and you see that we are being egotistical to believe that we are causing the changes.
The same with global warming- the Earth has warmed a bit, as compared to previous measurements. However, the Earth has been both warmer and colder than it is now, and Mars has warmed during the same period as Earth. This suggests an extra terrestrial warming that has nothing to do with man.
Also consider that one volcano (Pinatubo) discharged more greenhouse gases and CFCs than all of mankind has through recorded history, and you see that we are being egotistical to believe that we are causing the changes.
Martyn4802
New member
As far as our country being in serious trouble, we have past the point of no return.
Our decline began in 1915, and we've been sliding down the slope ever since. The 1960's was a huge decline down the slope. I look at the 1960's as the period when we began the great decent into oblivion. Little by little, we have been handing our rights, and freedoms over to the sheeple. When the time was at hand to fight for our freedoms and rights, we didn't win; the left won.
We're now faced with a segement of the population that looks to the government for everything. They are unable to do anything for themselves, but suck on the government tit for survival. And, All of these people have a vote. We are facing an election in 2008 where we rational thinking people, with values, may be outnumbered by the sheep. If Hillary gets elected, you, we, will know that we only have about 20 years before America will be gone forever.
Democracies have only survived fo about 200 years, historically. I suspect what is doing us in today, did them in too.
"The only thing necessary for the triump of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke
Martyn
Our decline began in 1915, and we've been sliding down the slope ever since. The 1960's was a huge decline down the slope. I look at the 1960's as the period when we began the great decent into oblivion. Little by little, we have been handing our rights, and freedoms over to the sheeple. When the time was at hand to fight for our freedoms and rights, we didn't win; the left won.
We're now faced with a segement of the population that looks to the government for everything. They are unable to do anything for themselves, but suck on the government tit for survival. And, All of these people have a vote. We are facing an election in 2008 where we rational thinking people, with values, may be outnumbered by the sheep. If Hillary gets elected, you, we, will know that we only have about 20 years before America will be gone forever.
Democracies have only survived fo about 200 years, historically. I suspect what is doing us in today, did them in too.
"The only thing necessary for the triump of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke
Martyn
"We are near (or even past) the point where the majority of the people in the US pay no taxes."
Not hardly.
www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
"From other IRS data, we can see that 89 million of the tax returns came from people who paid taxes into the Treasury. That leaves 43 million tax returns filed by people who used exemptions, deductions and tax credits to completely wipe out their federal income tax liability."
Not hardly.
www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
"From other IRS data, we can see that 89 million of the tax returns came from people who paid taxes into the Treasury. That leaves 43 million tax returns filed by people who used exemptions, deductions and tax credits to completely wipe out their federal income tax liability."
CarbineCaleb
New member
Bruxley - on the surface, variation in solar forcing is at least a plausible alternate explanation. The sun is what warms the earth, and so variation in its output could be the cause of the warming observed over the last century. But, the problem is, there is little credible evidence that it is an important mechanism.
Those very pages you linked, which are not current (2001), and which don't represent the views of most scientists, go no further than to say that solar forcing may be responsible for 1/3 or 1/2 of global warming:
That minority of scientists who 5 years ago were even trying to assert that variation in solar output was causing a significant part of global warming, has largely faded, as the result of critical looks at those publications by other scientists.
Those pages cite the IPCC report of 2001 as evidence for their claim - because that at least gives some credulity to the notion. Without even going there, lets look at precisely what the 2005 IPCC report says in it's conclusions?
Here is a chart of the various contributions to global warming from the 2005 IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers - "anthropogenic" means caused by man, btw. You will note that solar irradiance is considered to be a minor contributor:
See, page 4, IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Don't like complex charts? How about text? Again, from the 2005 IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers
Climate Change" on page 10, IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Those very pages you linked, which are not current (2001), and which don't represent the views of most scientists, go no further than to say that solar forcing may be responsible for 1/3 or 1/2 of global warming:
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/SORCE/sorce_04.html
That minority of scientists who 5 years ago were even trying to assert that variation in solar output was causing a significant part of global warming, has largely faded, as the result of critical looks at those publications by other scientists.
Those pages cite the IPCC report of 2001 as evidence for their claim - because that at least gives some credulity to the notion. Without even going there, lets look at precisely what the 2005 IPCC report says in it's conclusions?
Here is a chart of the various contributions to global warming from the 2005 IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers - "anthropogenic" means caused by man, btw. You will note that solar irradiance is considered to be a minor contributor:
See, page 4, IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Don't like complex charts? How about text? Again, from the 2005 IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers
See conclusion in section entitled "Understanding and Attributing2005 IPCC AR4 Report Summary said:
Climate Change" on page 10, IPCC AR4 report, Summary for Policymakers:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Attachments
I think the posts arguing the global warming issue are great and deserve a thread of their own, providing all are backed with copious science.
The original poster, as I understand it, posted the global warming issue, not to be discussed in detail, but to demonstrate how it's the issue that's been seized by global sociofascists to enhance centralization of control over business and the everyday lives of people. The Kyoto protocols, which thankfully were NOT agreed to by the US government, are a great example of this. The main purpose of Kyoto was to hamstring industrialized, first world nations so that second and third world nations, who were virtually unlimited by Kyoto, could see a shift of wealth from industrialized nations to them. Essentially, Kyoto's main effect was wealth redistribution writ large.
The original poster, as I understand it, posted the global warming issue, not to be discussed in detail, but to demonstrate how it's the issue that's been seized by global sociofascists to enhance centralization of control over business and the everyday lives of people. The Kyoto protocols, which thankfully were NOT agreed to by the US government, are a great example of this. The main purpose of Kyoto was to hamstring industrialized, first world nations so that second and third world nations, who were virtually unlimited by Kyoto, could see a shift of wealth from industrialized nations to them. Essentially, Kyoto's main effect was wealth redistribution writ large.
CarbineCaleb
New member
I agree - Darwin's theory does not, immediately at least, address the question of Genesis.
Yes, evolution can even be observed before your eyes in the laboratory with short life cycle organisms such as bacteria, or in the dominance of the most virulent cancer cells within the human body. But, 50% of Americans do deny it.
It won't be possible to 'prove' this, in fact, philosophically speaking, science never 'proves' anything in the sense that a mathematician does a proof. Rather, science constructs conceptual models for understanding the world around us that are evaluated according to their ability to explain observable phenomena. There is, however, little disagreement in the scientific community on the issue of whether or not higher mammals are an extension of a line that billions of years ago consisted of single cells. The current area of contention is on how these single cells arose.
I keep seeing the claim that pretty much everyone in the scientific community agrees that global warming is caused by man, yet when I start “Googling” the topic I find anything but a common consensus. And frankly I have never found anything like a consensus in all the years I have taken an interest in the subject. In fact what I have found consistently is a significant percentage of scientists attempting to be heard within the court of policy makers.
Kind of like the idea that guns kill people rather than people kill people. These kinds of ideas are for the people who either A.) have an agenda they are trying to promote or B.) Can’t be bothered to find out for them selves and so get all their info from M-TV or the sterile and carefully prepared sound bites delivered by the evening news.
The people in the “B” list are the ones Mr. Lenin referred to as “useful idiots”
Kind of like the idea that guns kill people rather than people kill people. These kinds of ideas are for the people who either A.) have an agenda they are trying to promote or B.) Can’t be bothered to find out for them selves and so get all their info from M-TV or the sterile and carefully prepared sound bites delivered by the evening news.
The people in the “B” list are the ones Mr. Lenin referred to as “useful idiots”
Wildalaska
Moderator
This thread is premature, as we havent reached an accord that America is in decline at all.
WildjustabriefcorrectionAlaska TM
WildjustabriefcorrectionAlaska TM
CarbineCaleb
New member
*Sighs* well, I need to take a trip for the next 5 days anyways. For those people looking for ways to deny, they can always find solace somewhere. If you want to find someone on the web who can tell you global warming is actually caused by leprechauns, I am sure you can find it. But if you stick with the majority of qualified scientists, the only thing deniers have left is these conspiracy theories that we scientists are trying to get rich on carbon credits. And, if you want to believe that, there is little hope for any serious discussion.
