I am sure I follow the issue as much as anyone here.  I've been reading RealClimate.org for years and am an active user on treehugger.com.  I've certainly gotten my exposure to the data and arguments of the climate change crowd.

I have enough confidence in my own knowledge on the subject to make my own conclusions which is a strong sense of skepticism. 

Both sides have vested interests in their positions. Calling one side "satan's spin doctors" really just says a lot about the ideology of one side - the literal demonizing of those who don't agree.

From my vantage point, I only see one group trying to coerce money from individuals. The others make their money through voluntary choices.

Anti-social recluses don't go into marketing.  It doesn't even work on them.

Florida is mostly gone already.  It's why so much of it is swamp.  It will be completely under water before the next ice age hits, our existence is irrelevant to that fact.  There's quite a bit of the southeast that's composed of ocean floor.  To be composed of ocean floor, it had to be ocean floor.  We weren't around the last time, we didn't do it then.  Italy is the same way, Venice has been slowly sinking into the ocean since long before Venice was inhabited by humans.  It's not a possibility, it's an eventuality.  If we happen to speed up the process we're just going to reach that green paradise sooner.  If we really can warm the planet a significant amount, we can even skip that next ice age.  No one is going to drown because of it, the change will happen over centuries.

One of the biggest things you guys are missing when they talk about global warming is that no one is trying to make the claim that the place wouldn't be warming without us.  It's known fact, the ocean will cover a lot of currently dry ground in the next few thousand years regardless of our actions.

As Brad said, only one side is looking to coerce money out of your pocket, by way of both taxes & higher energy bills.  I don't care what the 'consensus' of politicians is, the science is not settled.

Lemming.  Knock yourself out.

Wow, Mumblefratz, where did the second part of your last reply come from.

That was a response from Daiwa. And this is not Daiwa's site, as far as I know, nor was it even a reply to one of your posts.

I do have a question for you, however.

I do not doubt that the earth has been in a warming period for a couple decades, at least until this decade at any rate.

I do not doubt that we have contributed to it, at least in a small way. (I personally think in a very small way)

But the earth has gone through very many warming and cooling periods in the past, with no significant human intervention.

Heck, a thousand years ago the Vikings lived in Greenland's southwestern coastal area - which was not covered in ice at that time. This graph shows a variance of several degrees (C) in Greenland over the past 1500 years - which we had nothing to do with (in fact, 1990 - the year the graph ends - is not even the warmest):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grtemp.png

Greenland has experienced several temp changes spanning 3C, with no human interaction. I don't see how 1-2C in this, our current time period, is so different from what has happened in the past.

My question to you is...

What makes you think that this latest warming trend is directly caused by us?

And further, what makes you think that anything we do can alter it in any truly significant way?

Greenland is obviously a plot by the tobacco industry to...  Um...

I forget, why is the tobacco industry against global warming?

ok ... it is sad that there is real politics, this is true.

What about political systems in-place in the game? I mean do adopt one simple system, perhaps to work alongside "civics" ... where a nation adopts either a Creed, Motto, Monolythic Government, Guild, something whatever its called. This Creed will give acess to special units as well as special abilities.

Like the necromancer creed will have better summons and a weaker economy, or a Nature creed will have less expensive and more varied terraforming abilities, as well as require less food/make extra food, ect.

And the Shadow creed enables sneak attacks more readily, and provides Mercenary Assasin heroes more readily, and allows you to recruit an Assasin hero permanently. Downside is it does not provide major economic effects that the other religions do.

Gold creed could increase mining production and commerce.

Fire creed could have increased city morale/prestige, although prestige bonus begins to turn into a penalty if as many as 2 extra creeds are present within city ... so in order to have maximum Monetary/Law bonuses, as well as Prestige bonuses, you need to remove other creeds from your cities in some way.

There could be bonuses for the Headquarters of a Creed, whoever adopted the creed first could have first opportunity to build the Headquarters of the Creed ( a 20 turn block on later adopters to start building the headquarters ... arbitrary, but better than only allowing initial adopter to build headquarters).

Water Creed could allow for much cheaper, and much more effective, healing priestesses, which only require a minor ice-kit in order to be created (special ice kit called priestess kit, 75% cost of normal ice-kit, and double as effective, only for healing though, all damage spells by water priestesses are decreased in damage/attack 50%)

The options are endless, as you can soon see, but either way, whether you call it Government, Creed, Guild, or whatever ... the gaming effects will be seen. I would advise no more than 7 major creeds, although due to the size of the Elemental game maybe as many as 12 major creeds as possible, as well as perhaps several minor guilds which synergize with certain creeds, or are unlocked in special ways.

Mumble, have you no sense of humor whatsoever?

Never mind, I know the answer.  You are so the pot calling the kettle black.

Yes I'm quite familiar with the fact that on JU I'm a second class citizen that has to abide by a more restrictive set of rules than you do merely because my opinions don't agree with the site norm.

This very conversation represents a risk to me but none to you. It's very easy for you to be brave when you hide behind your mama's skirts.

You're one of those people!

My grandmother died because she smoked a pack and a half a day.  I definitely hold the companies responsible for their lies regarding the addictive qualities and safety issues, but she still chose to keep smoking knowing it wasn't healthy.  That is no longer an issue, the record is corrected, overly so.  Smoking is a choice, restricting liberties to keep people from choosing to shorten their own lives is still a restriction of liberty.  Anyone in denial of the drawbacks at this point has chosen to be there and has the right to do so.  You're the liberal here, don't you freakishly left wing nuts claim to be the last bastion of lifestyle choice against the evil social conservative?

I agree that as long as a person’s choice shortens only their own life then that is not something we should try to regulate. However I don’t believe that anyone has a right to make a choice that shortens the life of someone else so I’m OK with restricting people’s liberties to poison others with second hand smoke.

I suspect that the liberal view is to be totally against those dirty nasty smokers. I mean they’re so easy to hate and such an easy target for any additional state revenue that’s needed. It’s like an infinite supply, just raise taxes on smokers. I think that they’re paying close to ten dollars a pack in Massachusetts these days.

I mean I’m OK with “sin” taxes as a general idea but when the tax on the sin becomes 5 or more times the value of the item then I have to say that’s a bit excessive.

I’m a former smoker myself having quit 8 years ago after my heart attack. I found that it was very easy to quit once they shoved those angioplasty rods up holes I didn’t realize that I had. However to this very day I still enjoy the smell of cigarettes even though when I smell cigarette smoke it feels like there’s a hand clamped around my heart squeezing hard.

However being a former smoker I don’t believe that we should effectively criminalize people just because they smoke. I mean if we really want to treat smokers as criminals then make smoking a crime. But until it’s actually a crime then don’t treat people that smoke as if it is a crime. Sure you need to protect others from being exposed to second hand smoke, I don’t think there’s anyone that disagrees with that, but smokers are not criminals and should not be treated as such, but that’s just my opinion.

However *none* of this has anything whatsoever to do with the analogy that I made between tobacco lobbies and certain AGW skeptic organizations. The only point I was making was about the techniques which use assertion with no proof which is intended only to generate a certain amount of noise so as to claim that the science is unsettled and therefore nothing should be done.

So given the above, please tell me what kind of people that makes me, because I really would like to know.

[edit] For those that wonder that single word was "racist" and like I said it did not end well although it did end quickly. [/edit]

Mumble, for reasonably valid reasons we won't get into here, has a history of banning people from his own threads when they become obnoxious; not for simply disagreeing but for being intentionally disruptive. It's not paranoid for him to consider that Brad may maintain a similar policy with the site as a whole. There is ample history to support that concern, too. I do think it more likely that any offending thread would simply be moved to JU, but his concern is reasonably valid.

"Liberals" as we know them in the US tend to be for more lifestyle choice (to a point) but also for using legislation to steer those choices to what they consider "better".

http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/09/progressives-democracy-health