OT Global warming and human activity 13535

On Saturday 05 November 2005 17:04, Karel "de Jazz" Jansens stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.advocacy...:

That still doesn't mean we should act irresponsibly in that respect. Chopping away the rainforest, performing subterranean or submarine nuclear weapons tests, sending loads of toxic waste into the atmosphere...

And then they go and blame it all on the little guy in the street. "Your car is polluting the atmosphere", "Your smoking causes other people to get cancer", etc.

Really? Hmm... I didn't know what caused it, but it's possible, yes. Just cause to show what kind of an effect something happening on the other side of the planet may have on the climate.

The natural cycle may have started in the fifteenth Century, yes, but it's quite evident that pollution and global warming began booming at the dawn of mbutt-industrialization.

Of course, back then, nobody cared. People weren't smart enough yet to figure it all out. Now we have the equipment to measure such things.

Ehm... If global warming continues evolving the way it does now, Europe will not be warmer, it'll be damn cold here. This has to do with the currents in the oceans which lead to warm air from the south being backported this way.

I think that based upon the knowledge we have and the wisdom weshouldhave, we can't afford to take our chances.

While what you say is true, I should have expressed myself more correctly. By "roadworks", I didn't mean the actual works - although it does of course happen the way you say it - but certain alterations to roads to make traffic go slower, i.e. narrowing the roads, planting obstructions, speed bumps, etc.

Instead of adjusting the law to match the environment, they are adjusting the environment to match the law. If the law says you can only do 70 or 50 km-h in a certain area where the road itself warrants 90 km-h and has previously been used at such speeds, they are now making such roads only fit for those lower speeds.

And then of course, they are surprised if some speed freaks still try to go 90 km-h or faster there and cause an accident.

I really like the following quote, although I don't know who's it from anymore...

"Statistics are all too often used as a drunken man uses a lamp post: for support, rather than for illumination."

I beg to differ, and while man has always been good at screwing up, I think modern man is screwing up at a far higher pace than ever before. Partially because we're driven by economics, rather than by intelligence.

True scientists consider economics to be a pseudo-science. And I second that wholeheartedly. "Putting food on the table" is a cheap excuse, and we all know that the guys in Wall Street are not there to put food on their tables.

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)