[s]Goal: 100,000 New Goal: 200,000[/s] New Goal: 250.000

[Shad_]

 

Ever see the one where a Republican brings a snowball into the capitol building in the dead of winter and displays it as incontestable proof that the climate is not changing?

 

To be fair, the climate debate is rifle with that on both sides. If it's "the hottest ... ever" that's always "OMG CLIMATE CHANGE" too, while there's 365 hottest days, 12 hottest months, a hottest year, etc always possible. Considering that's almost 400 hottest somethings, and I'm staying at the basic ones here, it doens't mean anything, as there haven't even been measurements for 400 years, so if several records would be broken every year that would be expected.

 

I mean, yeah, the earth is warming up. The real question is "is it our fault?" and "can we do something about it (wheter it's our fault or not)?"

 

 

Here's my response to all rational people who want to debate climate change:

 

Do our actions impact the environment?

 

Can we mitigate this at no serious cost?

 

Ok so what's your issue?

[Leyrann]

We're talking about the President who on a daily basis claims that tens of millions of Americans have all engaged in secret underground conspiracy to undermine his legitimacy.  We're probably doing it via those sneaky internets or something.

 

To be fair, that's kinda what the "This is not my president" is.

 

Democracy works this way, wheter people like it or not. He's the POTUS, and people have to accept that until the end of his term or when he is removed from office in a legal way.

[Leyrann]

 

 

Ever see the one where a Republican brings a snowball into the capitol building in the dead of winter and displays it as incontestable proof that the climate is not changing?

 

To be fair, the climate debate is rifle with that on both sides. If it's "the hottest ... ever" that's always "OMG CLIMATE CHANGE" too, while there's 365 hottest days, 12 hottest months, a hottest year, etc always possible. Considering that's almost 400 hottest somethings, and I'm staying at the basic ones here, it doens't mean anything, as there haven't even been measurements for 400 years, so if several records would be broken every year that would be expected.

 

I mean, yeah, the earth is warming up. The real question is "is it our fault?" and "can we do something about it (wheter it's our fault or not)?"

 

 

Here's my response to all rational people who want to debate climate change:

 

Do our actions impact the environment?

 

Can we mitigate this at no serious cost?

 

Ok so what's your issue?

 

 

Yes, our actions impact the environment.

 

Some things we can mitigate at no serious cost, others are much harder.

 

The issue is that it's hard. We don't even understand the climate. We're just making our best guess. But you know what would help? Take all that money that is being shoved into wind energy and put it into nuclear fusion research instead. Once nuclear fusion is online, no one is gonna bother with fossil fuel anymore.

[Shad_]

And maybe that's regionally divergent too.  Like here we say "it should be ok for factories to dump toxic waste into our water system because Exxon-Mobile has produced a climate study which contradicts scientific consensus and maybe they got it right".

 

It's exploited on a ridiculous level.

 

It's not "we should phase out mining in x region slowly and ensure it is replaced with an alternative viable industry so people don't starve to death".  I would wholeheartedly support that.

 

It's "no you shut up, 20% of the population contracting the same form of cancer in x region has absolutely nothing to do with dumping toxic waste into the water reservoirs.  Look, I can prove it!  I have a snowball!"

[Leyrann]

And maybe that's regionally divergent too.  Like here we say "it should be ok for factories to dump toxic waste into our water system because Exxon-Mobile has produced a climate study which contradicts scientific consensus and maybe they got it right".

 

It's exploited on a ridiculous level.

 

It's not "we should phase out mining in x region slowly and ensure it is replaced with an alternative viable industry so people don't starve to death".  I would wholeheartedly support that.

 

It's "no you shut up, 20% of the population contracting the same form of cancer in x region has absolutely nothing to do with dumping toxic waste into the water reservoirs.  Look, I can prove it!  I have a snowball!"

 

I'm just saying though, you're throwing a name out here (and maybe with good reason) but as a chemical technology student, wherever I look for potential future employers, everyone talks about being sustainable. It's not a flagship for some companies, all companies are working on it.

[Leyrann]

And now I'm gonna go take that shower.

[Shad_]

There's a difference between CEOs and average educated employees though.

[Shad_]

The people who call the shots, at least in America, could not care less as long as they maximize profit.

[Shad_]

Literally one of the first actions Trump took in office was to eliminate a regulation that said coal companies could not dump toxic waste into our sources for drinking water.

 

It's why I made that example.

 

It saves them money.  They don't have to haul the waste elsewhere.  We get cancer but.... freedom! or something.

[Shad_]

People around here have started buying bottled water instead of drinking from the tap lately.

 

It costs a fortune and no one can afford it.

 

It's not like they got raises since their employer is saving money now.  They abandoned their bargaining power in favor of "trickle down economics" theory.

 

Some sadist in Monaco gets a new yacht.

[Shad_]

And no that's not a direct correlation to Trump shredding the standing policy.  The problem already existed and the Obama administration wasn't doing jack to change it.  The difference is that we transitioned from stagnation to an openly self-destructive stance.  Instead of doing nothing to make things better, we're going out of our way to make things worse so corporations can turn a larger profit.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Shad_

[Shad_]

 

We're talking about the President who on a daily basis claims that tens of millions of Americans have all engaged in secret underground conspiracy to undermine his legitimacy.  We're probably doing it via those sneaky internets or something.

 

To be fair, that's kinda what the "This is not my president" is.

 

Democracy works this way, wheter people like it or not. He's the POTUS, and people have to accept that until the end of his term or when he is removed from office in a legal way.

 

 

There is an extraordinary difference between Jeane-Claude Juncker saying "if aliens are watching us they would be disappointed" and "I hold regular conferences with extra-terrestrials."

 

Trump does not argue that a majority of Americans want his presidency to fail as quickly as possible.  That's a fact that we can all agree on.  He argues that millions of people are engaging in a coordinated secret plot against him.

[Leyrann]

Literally one of the first actions Trump took in office was to eliminate a regulation that said coal companies could not dump toxic waste into our sources for drinking water.

 

It's why I made that example.

 

It saves them money.  They don't have to haul the waste elsewhere.  We get cancer but.... freedom! or something.

 

I do wonder what's toxic about that waste though. I would assume that we're talking about the water that's heated to steam by the burning coal, and which is then used to spin a dynamo which generates electricity. This water should, to my knowledge, not come into contact with anything else. It shouldn't even be in the same compartiment as the coal, for example.

[Leyrann]

 

 

We're talking about the President who on a daily basis claims that tens of millions of Americans have all engaged in secret underground conspiracy to undermine his legitimacy.  We're probably doing it via those sneaky internets or something.

 

To be fair, that's kinda what the "This is not my president" is.

 

Democracy works this way, wheter people like it or not. He's the POTUS, and people have to accept that until the end of his term or when he is removed from office in a legal way.

 

 

There is an extraordinary difference between Jeane-Claude Juncker saying "if aliens are watching us they would be disappointed" and "I hold regular conferences with extra-terrestrials."

 

Trump does not argue that a majority of Americans want his presidency to fail as quickly as possible.  That's a fact that we can all agree on.  He argues that millions of people are engaging in a coordinated secret plot against him.

 

 

Juncker is saying the second though, not the first. The subtitles are correct. I had to listen three times with my rudimentary knowledge of French, but he literally says "j'ai vu" which means "I have seen".

[Shad_]

And this is why there was no right choice last november. Rational = no Trump, guided by the ideal of putting forth its best effort to benefit the people it represents = no Hillary.

Well, no.  Purely self-interested + irrational is worse than purely self-interested + rational.  Hillary Clinton would have done the bare minimum necessary to keep things from hitting rock bottom, because she is interested in maintaining some semblance of a political advantage and recognizes that giving the people bread crumbs of what they want is necessary to accomplish this.  Faced with two garbage options, one can still be significantly less bad than the other.  The only reasonable justification for siding with Trump there is the hope that things get so bad that we have some sort of revolution to our political system and a Bernie Sanders type can actually get elected in 2020.

[Shad_]

Juncker is saying the second though, not the first. The subtitles are correct. I had to listen three times with my rudimentary knowledge of French, but he literally says "j'ai vu" which means "I have seen".

I recognize that. So is Trump. That's my point.

[Shad_]

I do wonder what's toxic about that waste though. I would assume that we're talking about the water that's heated to steam by the burning coal, and which is then used to spin a dynamo which generates electricity. This water should, to my knowledge, not come into contact with anything else. It shouldn't even be in the same compartiment as the coal, for example.

I don't know the scientific basis of it. As I said, Trump did not create this problem. It was pre-existing. So that particular regulation wasn't solving it when he wiped it from the books. If he had eliminated the regulation on the grounds that it does not actually have any impact on the problem, and sought to actually resolve the problem instead, I would support that. Trump's message has consistently been "the problem does not exist, here let me distract you with some anti-Mexican propaganda."

[Leyrann]

Let me get clear though, that I don't intend to argue in favour of Trump; by no means do I think he's a good president.

 

That said, I do think he's not acting out of self-interest. If he were doing that, he would have been better off with what he was doing before and I don't have any idea how I should call it in English. He may be very wrong on a lot of points, but he does believe that he's doing the best for the USA. There have been more very bad leaders for countries who believed they were doing the best for the country though.

[Shad_]

A rational approach would be to bring in scientists who understand this crap and conduct a study to figure out what is wrong and find a way to solve it.

 

Popular opinion is that it's a consequence of fracking, but hell if I understand these things.

 

The democrats' approach is let's apply some regulation that will look good for our base, never mind if it will be effective or not.

 

The republicans' approach is to adamantly insist there is no problem, invent a conspiracy theory that some coalition of democrats and Muslims are secretly dumping uranium into our water supply, and declare that we must sanction Qatar to stop punish them for this deviousness!

[Leyrann]

Well, fracking is important, but it doesn't have to do with coal... A lot with oil though. Fracking certainly creates toxic products like benzene (which can indeed cause cancer) but the products from fracking are typically used again, as the whole purpose of fracking is to get useful 'building blocks', so to say, for the industry.

 

But yeah, neither of those approaches is gonna works well.

 

(I do believe the USA should fking abort relations with Saudi-Arabia though, as they fund terrorists all across the Middle-East... But yeah, oil...)

[Shad_]

Let me get clear though, that I don't intend to argue in favour of Trump; by no means do I think he's a good president.

 

That said, I do think he's not acting out of self-interest. If he were doing that, he would have been better off with what he was doing before and I don't have any idea how I should call it in English. He may be very wrong on a lot of points, but he does believe that he's doing the best for the USA. There have been more very bad leaders for countries who believed they were doing the best for the country though.

 

 

Yikes.

 

I'm too tired to keep chatting but I think you're very, very, very misguided on that one.

 

Maybe on some really base and narcissistic level he thinks "well I'm the president so whatever is best for me is best for the country", but if so that's the extent of it.

 

Before he ever seriously considered running for President he even joked about how he'd have to run on a Republican ticket because they'd be stupid enough to believe him and let him do whatever he wants to make money.

 

Like, just no.

[Shad_]

Well, fracking is important, but it doesn't have to do with coal... A lot with oil though. Fracking certainly creates toxic products like benzene (which can indeed cause cancer) but the products from fracking are typically used again, as the whole purpose of fracking is to get useful 'building blocks', so to say, for the industry.

 

But yeah, neither of those approaches is gonna works well.

 

(I do believe the USA should fking abort relations with Saudi-Arabia though, as they fund terrorists all across the Middle-East... But yeah, oil...)

 

Fracking is a big deal in Pennsylvania.

 

It's become a huge industry here over the past 15 years or so.

 

As I understand it, the procedure is imprecise and leaves a lot of underground leaks into water etc.

 

We get a lot of local news stories where Joe the Farmer can throw a match into the creek running through his property and it keeps on burning.

 

It's almost completely untaxed and unregulated here and doesn't really create many jobs either.

 

Marcellus Shale finances a lot of the political campaigns in my state.

 

They actually sponsored one candidate who won on an anti-fracking ticket. You can bet what he did when he got into office. Took a lot of vacations.

 

That's really the root of our drinking water issues here. At least, that's what the common perception is.

 

Donald Trump's reaction to further deregulate water pollution in general might not have actually have a negative consequence. I don't know the science and the specifics. But he's made it very clear that he's going to go out of his way to prevent any attempt to fix the problem.

[Shad_]

kk sleep

[Shad_]

and banana

[Zander?]

 

This would also be the only time Id WANT VOTES ON ME!!!!!

 

lolololololol

 

Excluding when you're jester.

 

 

Im always Town

Edited July 9, 2017 by Zander