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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (10897)	4/9/2001 11:59:57 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

That friend speaks my mind.

To: E who wrote (10897)	4/10/2001 6:23:03 AM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 82486

E, well-said. One of the great counterfeits in arguments is synecdoche-- taking the part for the whole. In the case of injustice, real, serious, bloody injustice, one thing a country can do is invade. But that's not the only thing it can do. And what it can do is a lot of things on the spectrum that stop short of invasion You've listed just some of the official ways. Another nicely devastating method is to refuse arms export licences to these regimes [of course, here it helps to have good relations with the other major arms exporters (UK, France, Russia, China...) so that they don't simply swipe the business] which does not just directly weaken that regime but is surely ethically correct. And for those supporting the market, there are plenty of market-based steps. At the far extreme, there are always sanctions...but before that, for example: denial of aid, linking of aid to specified and concrete actions, removal/denial of PNTR, removal of official aid to trade, linkage of trade to ILO or Amnesty recommendations, export limitations (not allowing US exports to a country, or refusal of export credit), import limitations, financial restrictions - disallowal of earnings from a subsidiary, or higher taxes on earnings from subsidiaries in certain areas/countries.... Consumers can also work in the same way: for example, Barclays Bank lost about 50% of its student/education business because it refused to stop aiding the apartheid-backing SA regime in the 1970's-80's. Basically student and educational bodies just moved their business elsewhere. Quite apart from the PR damage, it genuinely hit business. But ultimately few things beat direct political pressure. And as the richest and strongest country on the planet, the US is best-placed to apply such... if not the US, then who? Self-interest motive? Who stands, on present form, to benefit most by the gradual enrichment and improval of the human condition worldwide? Or, put bluntly, which country would gain most from exports of the services bought most by the most economically advanced consumers? Of course, we're talking long-term stuff here. Maybe over 4 years, or even over 8...

To: E who wrote (10897)	4/10/2001 11:45:18 AM
From: Greg or e	Respond to of 82486

Good morning E That was an excellent post! Well thought out, and articulate. Politicians will only start to act when they get the sense that they must, to be re-elected. It is unfortunate that truly principled individuals are essentially un-electable in to days, Me first, climate. So we are left with a bunch of people who almost by default, have had to sacrifice their principals to even run for dog catcher. It's little wonder then, that by the time they make their way up the political food chain that there is any principal left, that is not up for grabs. Very sad, but we seem to get the government we demand and therefore, deserve. A.I. is like a voice in the wilderness, but enough voices, joining together will effect real, and substantial change. Have a good day. Greg

To: E who wrote (10897)	4/14/2001 9:31:26 PM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 82486

From Climate News April 2001. New evidence casts doubt on global warming -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Claims are "based on false data," international team of scientists says -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Robert Matthews -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fresh doubt has been cast on evidence for global warming following the discovery that a key method of measuring temperature change has exaggerated the warming rate by almost 40 percent. Studies of temperature records dating back more than a century have seemed to indicate a rise in global temperature of around 0.5C, with much of it occurring since the late 1970s. This has led many scientists to conclude global warming is under way, with the finger of blame usually pointed at man-made emissions of such greenhouse gases as carbon dioxide. Now an international team of scientists, including researchers from the Met Office in Bracknell, Berkshire, United Kingdom, has found serious discrepancies in the temperature measurements, suggesting that the amount of global warming is much less than previously believed. Measuring water, not air The concern focuses on the temperature of the atmosphere over the oceans, which cover almost three-quarters of the Earth's surface. While scientists use standard weather station instruments to detect warming on land, they have been forced to rely on the crews of ships to make measurements over the vast ocean regions. Crews have taken the temperature by dipping buckets into the sea or using water flowing into the engine intakes. Scientists have assumed there is a simple link between the temperature of seawater and that of the air above it. However, after analyzing years of data from scientific buoys in the Pacific that measure sea and air temperatures simultaneously, the team has found no evidence of a simple link. Instead, the seawater measurements have exaggerated the amount of global warming over the seas, with the real temperature having risen less than half as fast during the 1970s than the standard measurements suggest. Reporting their findings in the influential journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists say the exact cause of the discrepancy is not known. One possibility is that the atmosphere responded faster than the sea to cooling events such as volcanic eruptions. A big cut The findings have major implications for the climate change debate because sea temperature measurements are a key part of global warming calculations. According to the team, replacing the standard seawater data with the appropriate air data produces a big cut in the overall global warming rate during the last 20 years, from around 0.18C per decade to 0.13C. This suggests that the widely quoted global warming figure used to persuade governments to take action on greenhouse gas emissions exaggerates the true warming rate by almost 40 percent. The team is now calling for climate experts to switch from seawater data to sea-air temperature measurements. One member of the team, David Parker, of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the Met Office, said the discovery of the discrepancy "shows we don't understand everything, and that we need better observations--all branches of science are like that." Yet according to Parker, the new results do not undermine the case for global warming: "It is raising questions about the interpretation of the sea-surface data." Even so, the findings will be seized on by skeptics as more evidence that scientists have little idea about the current rate of global warming, let alone its future rate. Climate experts are still trying to explain why satellites measuring the temperature of the Earth have detected little sign of global warming, despite taking measurements during supposedly the warmest period on record. Some researchers suspect the fault may again lie with the ground-based temperature measurements. They say many of the data come from stations surrounded by growing urban sprawl, whose warmth could give a misleading figure. A study of data taken around Vienna, Austria, between 1951 and 1996 found that the air temperature rose by anything from zero to 0.6C, depending on precisely where the measurements were made.