I think what the post means is that, although science is doing better than it was under Bush (how could it not?), it is not as healthy as it should be. That shortcoming I lay to hangers-on from the previous administration.

I understand your desire to see the public figuratively “whacked up’side the head” so they don’t forget the cause of their distress. I share it. But I’m not sure it would work that way. It’s barely two years since President Obama’s election, less than that since his administration began. The housing crisis, the surge in unemployment came late in the previous administration. McCain’s goof on suspending his campaign over the economy, then showing up unprepared at the “summit meeting” is hard to forget. Yet the public, as they typically do, chose to associate their troubles with the party currently in power. Living hand-to-mouth shortens the memory.

But the architects of these changes don’t have short memories. What you suggest would give them additional opportunities to shift their people into the bureaucracy, to lobby effectively, and to pack the courts with rightists. Who do you think would have replaced retiring SCOTUS justices? Not Sonia Sotomajor and Elena Kagan.

So I don’t think this would play to the advantage of progressives.

@93 Messier: One shopping tip I’d add – never, ever shop for groceries while you’re hungry

Yep, very true & good point.

Election time depressingly enough, is when we are reminded again how guillibly and badly all too many people seem to think – or rather NOT think – and how little regard too many folks have for science and its importance generally.

I look at the candidates put forward as our would-be leaders ranging from the appallingly bad to the even worse and just despair these days.

Now with this election it now looks like all hope for the US govt acting against climate change has now gone. With the time lag of the stuff already in the atmosphere .. we’re stuffed.

There’s not a one of them I’d trust further than I could garrote them.

Cynical as it may be, I’m increasingly coming to think that there’s a blazes of a lot of truth to the old adage that :

“Guy Fawkes was the only person to enter parliament (equivalent of Congress) with honest intentions.”

US politics seems to have gotten ever more hyper-partisan, hyper-polarised and hyper-depressing.

Whoever you vote for you get a politician.

——

“Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night

The problem is when people react with vitriol to knowledge, as you have, rather than rationality. You are attacking a strawman, the republican party, rather than the argument. I don’t care if communists, republicans or anti-vaxxers have made an argument. I have to defeat the argument, not the proponent.

To go back a bit to an earlier post. I don’t give a damned about Republican or Democratic Party ideals because I don’t believe they have any. I care about consistency, which both parties lack.

To clarify, I do not think that poverty sucks out more from the middle than the wealthy, though it does suck out some, with welfare and social programs. I think that it doesn’t matter how wealthy the top is, so long as the bottom isn’t suffering for it. Think of it this way. In 1933 America, the poorest people were bathing in rivers and hunting for food. The homeless at that time weren’t just a problem, they were a large demographic. In 2009 America, the poorest people are mostly living in homes or sometimes apartments. 97.3% of them have refrigerators and 1/3 of them have cell phones. They are also, often, buying their iPods and $99 Walmart iPhones. To a lot of the rest of the world, and our historic selves, being poor in America is akin to what being middle class is. Who cares if the top 1% is effing rich, so long as there is an acceptible standard of living for even the poorest? I don’t. It doesn’t affect me. I care if the standard of living is unacceptible. I care if laws are exploitive and support suppression of a class of people. I care if unfair advantage is given to one people because of their cozy relationship with the government. If we didn’t plan our economy, we wouldn’t have cozy relationships between business and ANY politicians.

That high overall standard of living can only be maintained so long as their is a robust middle class for the government, and business, to exploit. I would love to use a different word, but I can’t. The middle class pays for everything in our society. It pays both the top 1% who then pays robust taxes, or they are taxed directly by the government. There is some muddying of the water because the middle class also makes money off of the top 1%, but they make a lot more off of other middle-classers. Real economy, that is to say unplanned economy, occurs mostly among that demographic. Taxes come along and take money from them and the rich. The rich realize this and exploit the lower earners to get more money to protect themselves from the new taxes.

What I think sucks out life from the middle class is planned economy. This creates a tacit or actual agreement between the planners and the ‘stewards of industry’ which eventually is used by those stewards to get effing rich. The unplanned economy is not great either; who wants to live in anarchy? But this is a case of regulating the excesses, not injecting extra capital into the economy. Even so, it must be understood that the more control you give to someone in the economy, the more super-rich you will create, and the more political despots you will generate. And is this a “Republican” or “Democrat” thing? Absolutely not. As Nixon said, “We’re all Keynesians now”. The Democrats and the Republicans agree on everything. Now they are just arguing over the fine print.

If you want to say that the Democrats love the poor and the Republicans love the rich, who the heck loves the middle? Communists, Socialists, and Libertarians? They are extreme in their views. You need Moderation, not extremes. Communists think you can make everyone financially equal without making everyone uniformly poor. Socialists think you can take away the right to fail without taking away other rights. Libertarians think that you can limit government without losing interconnectedness. A moderate looks at it all and thinks for themselves without attacking a concept as too republican or democratic. Does Hayek make more sense than Keynes? I think so, but I need to study Hayek a bit more to say for sure. Does Supply-Side economics work? Hell, I don’t think so because look around. Its got all the same problems that Keynes did, it resolved none of them.

As far as “Republicans and their cozy relationships with corporate interests” Sometime, you should look at who gets lobbied in congress. The corporate interests are lobbying BOTH parties just as hard, and BOTH parties are playing along. Both parties are spin-doctoring the hell out of everything. The republicans are no more the owners of spin than the democrats. Want to know how I can tell? Which party says, “the American people want” or “The American people are”. Whenever someone pretends to knowledge of the will of 300 million diverse people, they are spin doctoring like crazy. It’s just one example, offered up by Jon Stewart, but who does it more? Palin or Pelosi? Obama or McCain? I’ve heard all of them say it. In fact, maybe the Democrats are just better at spin doctoring because they seem to have made people believe they are idealists who don’t engage in it.

Edit:
There is the question about what to do about all of this. I don’t have an answer. I don’t trust anyone who does have an answer. I don’t believe in Utopia. I don’t believe that there can be a perfect union. I do have suggestions. We need to curb government spending, but not wipe out programs wholesale. We need to cut back on military spending as much as we do social programs. We need to eliminate blocks to competition in the medical field so that healthcare will be cheaper. Even if we keep the grotesque invasion of rights that is forcing everyone to buy health insurance, we should allow communities to build more hospitals and clinics to support themselves without other hospitals having a say. We should reduce restrictive zoning laws for non-intrusive business. Manufacturing and retail should be zoned away from residence but other commercial enterprise should not be, especially not medical care. We should reduce legal protections for corporations. Corporations shouldn’t be legally treated as individuals. I don’t think they can sue and I don’t think they should be able to be sued. Individuals within the corporation should be sued, or even groups of defendants within corporations should be sued. Similarly, they shouldn’t be given freedom of speech. Individuals should be given freedom of speech only. We need better solutions to break the lobbying trade’s power. I don’t know them, but I would consider public financing of all elections or severe term limits. I’d need more study on the impacts of that concept. I can already see problems with both of those ideas. I would also suggest reducing patents and copyright to a minimum. Intellectual property is especially suspect because everyones thoughts influence everyone else. In the modern execution of patent law, only corporations are protected by it, not individuals. I’m open to suggestions but I will not accept any answers.

Scientists are comprised of some of the most gifted and intelligent people on the planet. They don’t need to be defended by the likes of Mooney, and they certainly do not need to be corrected by such pretenders.

You say, “The real problem should be the shrinking of the middle. Who cares how wealthy the top 1% are. I care about how few are left in the middle where the bills are actually paid.”

Yeah, well who do you suppose sucks out the middle more? Do you really imagine that those in poverty are responsible for that? How can you NOT conceive of the possibility that the wealthiest 1%, who wants ever more, have accomplished that hijacking? Who is in control of the money?

Don’t gimme any of that baloiney that absolves Republicans of their cozy relationship to wealthy corporate interests. That’s the typical deflection (I believe they call it “spin”, and Republicans are the acknowledged masters of it, or you must instead consider them incompetent, which I certainly do not). It is unarguably true that Democrats have their own corruptions, but when it comes to that particular championship, the Republicans win it hands down, and you KNOW it.

Evidently you’re about as good at reading comprehension as you are at comprehending the actual state of the nation.

Manipulate people means that the people still have freedom to choose otherwise.

“Exactly. My contention is that packaging, marketing and advertising are tools that actually take away people’s ability to choose. Why do you think accurate food labelling is so vehemently opposed by the food industry?
”

Because they want to take away the ability to make an informed decision, not because they have perfected mind control. We may be motivated by very strange things, but it isn’t mind control. You had someone two resumes which are essentially the same but on different clipboards and people will usually choose the heavier one. That is not a lack of ability to decide for ourselves, its an irrational motivator. Just because people are irrational doesn’t mean you can take away their rights, unless you really are elitist and think that we can decide better than all those people. In a planned economy, the first right that is taken is the right to fail. It will never be the last.

“Again, I disagree. Research has shown that if we buy more food than we need, we eat more than is good for us. And, as I note above, it is actually very easy for the food industry to make us buy what they want us to buy.

Consider this example. Many foods are labelled as “low fat” or as “fat free” or as “reduced fat”, and these are advertised in such a way as to plant the idea in people’s minds that they are good for us (or at least substantially better for us than the normal-fat-content versions). In reality, most of the foods carrying these labels have additional sugar, and the human body is most excellently efficient at converting sugar into fat. So, the net effect is that they are just as bad for us as the versions they seek to replace (or perhaps slightly worse, as they may increase the risk of diabetes by giving us larger sugar highs).
”

Okay… that’s a great argument except that I, and many other people, know that this is the case and yet I still decide to overeat and eat unhealthy food. It’s my choice to do so. I wish I didn’t. I don’t wish that someone would come in and make me to better.

“Which all relies on a stack of assumptions. Economics is an area in which reality has shown time and again that the models are wrong. Otherwise, the crash that happened a couple of years ago would have been predicted. Economic models assume that people are all rational (whereas in reality many are not). They also assume that raw materials magically appear from nowhere, and completely ignore the finite nature of them. But that’s a digression.”

Why is it that weathermen fail to predict the weather, despite us knowing so much about the climate? The crash (really disagree with this phrase since I can’t rationally call it a crash when people are still out buying so many iPhones and HDTVs that they are reshaping markets) was predicted, just not by the people who get listened to. Heck, Hayek predicted it 70 years ago, as well as the 70s stagflation and lots of other history. Economic models do not predict complete rationality. Keynesian, which got us into this mess, predicts that people are inherently irrational. Hayek suggests that they are mostly rational, but that planners aren’t smart enough to be able to plan the system entirely. What would you say to a person who told you they could shape the weather and the climate to be the way you wanted if only you’d let them plan it? The climate and economics have a lot in common because they are chaotic systems with an overarching order.

“OK, you may have a good point here.

But still they care very much about year-on-year growth, irrespective of what impact that has on people or the environment.”

That is true. That is why you have to make incentive to worry about the impact on people and the environment. One of the greatest incentives for any company is the image of that company. Look at BP trying to repair its image. Losing face has lost it 2/3 of its value. Of course it wants to improve image.

Banning tobacco from advertising failed entirely in this regard because they no longer have to worry about their image. They just rely on the addiction bringing people back. If they were advertising, it wouldn’t do anything to help them, really, and may hurt them as people are exposed to lies. If they lie, they suffer. If they don’t lie, they suffer.

Look back at the 1980s with people caring so much about toxic waste. That did more to clean up comanpies than the EPA really accomplished. The EPA can’t really incentivize cleaning up unless they can levy fines lofty enough to make it worthwhile. They can’t do this, generally, because the businesses have more pull with the Senate and the House than the EPA does.

@ Nigel (98): “I don’t get this.

How does a research group “sell” fear about AGW?

And how do research scientists “make money” off AGW? All of their grant income is spent on doing research. Yes, they get salaries, but most of them could probably earn more by working for the oil and gas industry. Scientists do not get paid big bucks. Consider any other profession that demands an equivalent level of expertise (say, law or medicine or finance or insurance) – the experts in other walks of life get paid substantially more than university professors.”

I absolutely agree with you that scientist do not get paid lots of money and I’m not trying to say that they purposefully skew results to get more fearful, but creating a sense of fear gets them more money to do their research that they do love. It is the research that is the incentive, not the cash. Scientists have to sell their research to generate interest in it. If not, Phil wouldn’t need to get corporate sponsors for his blog.

@ Nigel (100): “GW looks like being the biggest threat Britain has faced since 1940. The same can be said of many other parts of the world. What aspect of this shouldn’t dictate policy?”

The part where we base assumptions that changing weather patterns will lead to more harm. The part where the impact of trying to de-incentivize fossil fuels may be greater than the impact of global warming itself. It would be cheaper to build a dike around London than switch London to an all renewable energy dependency.

Even so, why is it that fission power doesn’t enter your list of alternatives? If we want to get off of fossil fuels with anything like the economic viability we need to survive now, it is the most attractive option until we get a better solar panel and battery technology or fusion power. Realistic alternatives rather than fear mongering. Creating incentives, not bashing heads. Show people why they WANT to do better, not take away the choice. You want a solution to Global Warming, develop a good energy alternative like some scientists are doing, which is as cheap and convenient as oil and coal, and people will flock to it and you’ll be on your way.

The massive accumulation of wealth by the top 1% of earners is not something that holds a party affiliation. It is supported and made possible by the system and the concept of planned economies. Economies are too complex to plan well, so the planners get lots and lots of money funneled to themselves. Those that are ‘altruistic’ get that money funneled to themselves in the form of government agencies that then waste the money and those that are ‘selfish’ get the money funneled to themselves as individuals, usually from the government agencies that are wasteful.

In my opinion, this is how it works. Republicans are helpful to business owners, from the small businesses to the very very large businesses. Democrats are helpful to the very lowest classes, government agencies, and very very large businesses. Those people in the middle have no party that support them, which is why more and more of them are voting independent. The real question shouldn’t be the accumulation of wealth by the very rich. I don’t care how much SOMEONE ELSE has. It’s none of my business. The real problem should be the shrinking of the middle. Who cares how wealthy the top 1% are. I care about how few are left in the middle where the bills are actually paid.

“My personal opinion is to worry less about Federal elections, and look at the state elections.”

Scientific progress, especially in basic research, the importance and value of which can be difficult to explain to laypersons, will grind to an abrupt halt without Federal funding. Local level action and community outreach is well-advised of course, but we cannot afford to “worry less” about Federal elections.

The new GOP leadership’s primary talking point right now is to “cut spending.” Combine this new-found power, the “cut spending” mantra, and the populist anti-science attitude under discussion here, and things are looking very grim for basic science research. We can hope that the GOP disappoints the electorate enough over the next two years to facilitate another major shift in the political landscape, this time toward moderatism, but at the moment I have to admit that I’m deeply discouraged by the current trends.

This stuff is probably blindingly obvious, but I’m glad my mom taught me anyway

Anyhow, if people put conscious effort and logic into shopping those pyschological “coercive” sales tactics wouldn’t work. *If* only people put in conscious effort & logical thought which, of course, rarely happens.

Even knowing the tricks and techniques that the supermarkets and edvertisers use to try to get you to buy stuff does not make one immune. Annoyingly.

Um, hasn’t it?

Are you and Chris Mooney kidding?

You know, as immense as the tonnaged inertia of the Ship of State is, it positively boggles the mind even more to discover people who so easily delude themselves into thinking that turning it about (say, to ‘starboard’) should be easier than to have been stuck with the continuation of the course set by Bush in the ghastly form of McCain and Palin.

I for one am not in the slightest surprised or upset by what’s happened in this election: it was totally foreseeable BECAUSE of a rotten-to-the-core tendency by Democrats (my preferred party, if only to thwart the forces of consummate evil) to adopt the idiotic propagandistic ‘techniques’ of the Republican party. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on this election in persuading voters to their cause to relatively little avail besides the usual “defense”.

If Dems were really serious and want to do as well as the GOP in that sordid business which churns out gluey opinions like hotcakes without any reasonable or demonstrable support, they have to get cozy with some billionaire like Rupert equally willing to manipulate the public and subvert the foundation of this country.

OR, they can – with far less money – embark on a little remedial education (noting that politicks is now so well festered within the commercial world) and provide continual supplemental education on exactly how this country is supposed to function.

But they did not do that. They let Faux News and the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his clones regularly cream the country. How have the Dems responded in these last two years? Oh, well, heck, we won. Period. End of story. Stewart and Colbert and precious little else picked up the slack. Good enough.

Next to nothing at all but laughs.

I have often been soundly ridiculed by my fellow Dems over the last several years for suggesting that the country might have been better served if McCain-Palin ticket had beat Obama-Biden, along with a Republican dominance in Congress 2 years ago. You see, the state of the nation would undoubtedly by now have become so much more unthinkably unbearable (following on the heals of Bush’s 30-odd percent approval rating and his administration’s dismal failure) that the situation would have been amplified and totally unambiguous to a vast majority of voters. They would have known without question who is responsible for exploiting and draining the life blood out of our country: corporations ever intent on making ever more money. The longer it lasts, the better it sticks in the mind of the public. Instead, what we got was a steady bombardment of distraction from interests who know precisely how to exploit a situation favorably.

That sort of horrendous condition quite evidently has to last long enough to penetrate deeply and unequivocally: if McCain-Palin hads gotten in, there would now be no ghastly ‘Tea-Party’. Their reason for being would have evaporated. Instead, people with authentic minds capable of thinking for themselves would have by now produced the antithesis of the Tea Party.

Alas, there ain’t no such animal in the zoo we call this country.

Unfortunately, it is the adopted national character of this country to follow stupidity, and in following along with the stupidity, automatically assume it to be “mainstream”. That, by stages, is how our condition ratchets down into the pit we’re headed for: in 1970, the wealthiest 1% held about 25% of the total wealth of the country. After Bush left office 2 years ago, the wealthiest 1% held over 75% of the total wealth. QUICK! Give that poor CEO a golden parachute! He’s suffered so!

You figure it out. Be honest. Try to find how corporations do NOT dictate and control the course and policies of the United States of America. Then try to persuade yourselves that the Republicans have so much less to do with it than the Democrats. Continue to entertain the idiotic notion that the tiresome mantra of “less government” doesn’t have the underlying implication of MORE CORPORATE CONTROL over your government. See if you can’t develop an independent opinion apart from the lunacy constantly barked at you.

Then take two aspirin and sleep off the nightmare. But when you wake up, you had better WAKE UP.

I’m not sure I agree that we “can’t do anything to stop” AGW, but even if that is true it still might not be a bad idea to stop making it worse.

Agreed. Since the Earth has already warmed some, and since CO2 in the atmosphere has a half-life of several decades, it will take time to redress what is already happening, even if we were to cease emissions of greenhouse gases today.

However, there is a great deal we can do to lessen the impact of GW.

Switch from fossil-fuel power generation to so-called renewables (hydro, wind, wave, solar, tidal, maybe with hydrogen as an energy-dense transport fuel).

Stop using lime-based cement and use magnesium silicate instead (although it has not yet been shown to be as strong as lime cement).

Sequester and store CO2 (this is a bit more controversial, as it looks expensive and there’s no precedent to show that the engineering is sound).

Engage in various other geoengineering projects (these range from the simple – e.g. increase the land area that is forested – to the simplistic – e.g. use sulphate aerosols to reflect sunlight and hope the resulting acid rain isn’t too severe – to the downright science-fictional – e.g. huge mirrors placed between the Earth and the sun to reduce insolation).

@ Daniel J. Andrews(90): I certainly agree with that point. AGW seems the logical theory from my decidedly non-climate scientist perspective (hell, I’m a world politics guy) but I don’t see demonstrated evidence that this is either a good thing or a bad thing. In fact, an argument made to me that makes a lot of sense is a blanket comparison of the number of people who die each year from cold versus the number that die of heat. That doesn’t mean I think AGW is a great thing, it just means I don’t think its a ‘end times’ issue. I do think that eliminating bio-diversity is a huge problem. I do think that paving over a swamp in order to put of a Walmart is another problem. I don’t know that AGW, which we can’t do anything to stop, should decide our economic policy for the next century. It should be a factor, not the deciding factor.

OK, the link isn’t obvious, but I’ll try to give you some of the highlights . . .

Increased temperature of atmosphere and of oceans will supply more energy into weather systems. Thus, even if weather patterns were to remain unchanged, we should expect stronger winds and heavier rainfall.

However, the distribution of the increased temperatures will not be even. Therefore, GW is likely to lead to changes in our weather patterns. Some of the models predict shifts in seasonal patterns like the Gulf Stream and the Indian monsoon. Consequently, areas that are currently good arable land will become more arid and crop failures may become even more frequent in some parts of the world. Conversely, some relatively dry areas may become wetter, but if they don’t have fertile soil this won’t help in the growing of food crops.

Melting glaciers and land-based ice sheets will lead to rises in sea level. Several of the world’s largest cities are built on low-lying land and may be threatened. A great deal of the world’s arable land is low-lying, and may become unusable due to sea-water contamination.

Thermal expansion of the oceans will also lead to a rise in sea level.

How large the rises in sea level may be is difficult to predict accurately, but AFAIK all of the models show sea level rising. The figures I have seen vary from about 1 to 4 metres over the course of the century. To put this into perspective, a 1-metre rise in mean sea level will render parts of London underwater at high tide. A 4-metre rise in mean sea level will pretty much inundate London and a good deal of New York. The same applies to other cities around the world. Several thousand square km of England are less than 4 m above sea level. IIUC, several thousand square km of Belgium and the Netherlands are less than 2 m above mean sea level. IIUC (again), much of Florida and Louisiana are similarly placed.

GW looks like being the biggest threat Britain has faced since 1940. The same can be said of many other parts of the world. What aspect of this shouldn’t dictate policy?

I kind of doubt that, what with the number of people Chris has banned from commenting at his blog who would have something interesting to contribute to such a discussion.

Ooh, this sounds like a case of sour grapes if ever I heard one.

Care to back up your assertion with some evidence?

It gives some research groups money to sell fear about AGW. Both sides make money off of it and meanwhile the news media makes money off of both by keeping doubt alive.

I don’t get this.

How does a research group “sell” fear about AGW?

And how do research scientists “make money” off AGW? All of their grant income is spent on doing research. Yes, they get salaries, but most of them could probably earn more by working for the oil and gas industry. Scientists do not get paid big bucks. Consider any other profession that demands an equivalent level of expertise (say, law or medicine or finance or insurance) – the experts in other walks of life get paid substantially more than university professors.

I kind of doubt that, what with the number of people Chris has banned from commenting at his blog who would have something interesting to contribute to such a discussion.

I certainly agree that tobacco is a perfect example of a corporation acting like a criminal outfit. I don’t see how people being influenced by supermarkets is coercive, though. If it was coercive to influence others, than only hermits would be free of coerciveness. Your points on this forum are then coercive.

Perhaps you are correct to some extent, but there are differences:
I’m not selling anything, for a start. All of the information I type is in the same font and the same point-size. I try not to hide information, I try to be objective (I’m sure others will have noted that I don’t always succeed) and I try to persuade people to think for themselves from an informed position.

Information is, I think, the key difference. Being aware of the information empowers people to make an informed choice.

People make a decision at the supermarket to buy something, even if it was a dumb decision, it is THEIR decision.

Actually, research in psychology has shown how easy it is to manipulate people. Do you think the food industry would choose not to use this information to sell us more crap?

Taking away that decision doesn’t protect them, it harms them.

Exactly. My contention is that packaging, marketing and advertising are tools that actually take away people’s ability to choose. Why do you think accurate food labelling is so vehemently opposed by the food industry?

Buying the item helps the individual, if they make use of what they bought.

Again, I disagree. Research has shown that if we buy more food than we need, we eat more than is good for us. And, as I note above, it is actually very easy for the food industry to make us buy what they want us to buy.

Consider this example. Many foods are labelled as “low fat” or as “fat free” or as “reduced fat”, and these are advertised in such a way as to plant the idea in people’s minds that they are good for us (or at least substantially better for us than the normal-fat-content versions). In reality, most of the foods carrying these labels have additional sugar, and the human body is most excellently efficient at converting sugar into fat. So, the net effect is that they are just as bad for us as the versions they seek to replace (or perhaps slightly worse, as they may increase the risk of diabetes by giving us larger sugar highs).

It helps the market. It helps the supplier. And it helps all the poor Keynesians with their squiggles that prove ANY movement in an economy is better than none.

Which all relies on a stack of assumptions. Economics is an area in which reality has shown time and again that the models are wrong. Otherwise, the crash that happened a couple of years ago would have been predicted. Economic models assume that people are all rational (whereas in reality many are not). They also assume that raw materials magically appear from nowhere, and completely ignore the finite nature of them. But that’s a digression.

I also disagree about the point that shareholders only care about the dividend. Many shareholders are investors that care about long-term viability. That is why tobacco acted the way they did; to push off the inevitable devaluation of their stock (which was first issued before anyone knew that tobacco was dangerous), not to make a quick buck. If tobacco could find a way to make cigs safe and still cheap, they most certainly would.

OK, you may have a good point here.

But still they care very much about year-on-year growth, irrespective of what impact that has on people or the environment.

Children, especially, should be left home whenever possible and taken shopping with you only on the condition of “good behaviour” with them understanding that they’ll be negative conseqences for them if they breach that promise.

That’s supposed to read :

Children, especially, should be left home whenever possible and taken shopping with you only on the condition of “good behaviour” with them understanding that there’ll be negative conseqences for them if they breach that promise.

Although thinking of children as :

“they’ll be negative conseqences ..”

works as sound advice in another very different context!

Anyhow, if people put conscious effort and logic into shopping those pyschological “coercive” sales tactics wouldn’t work. *If* only people put in conscious effort & logical thought which, of course, rarely happens.

Mea Culpa too natch. I do know how easy it is to forget or fail to follow this common sense.

Research has shown how little choice we actually make when it comes to shopping, especially in a supermarket. For example, how many times have you gone into a supermarket and only bought precisely what you intended to? If it’s more than one, that makes you unusual.

Okay, suggestion for everyone when going shopping :

Step 1 – make a list of what shopping you need & intend to buy,

Step 2 – Work out approximately what it will cost, budget for that & just a very little bit more just in case some things are a fraction pricier than you expect.

Step 3 – Go shopping seeking out and purchasing only the items on your list and calculating as you go how much things are costing. If you can’t afford something, decide to either not buy it or cut something else out so you can pay for it if it truly *is* absolutely essential. If something catches your eye that you decide you really have to have but haven’t budgeted for, make a note of it & its cost and put it on the list for next time or a separate later specific return trip.

Step 4 – Pay at the counter – in cash. I, for one, neither have nor want a credit card and use debit one that only allows me to take out money I already have in the bank instead of letting me purchase with money I don’t have. Try to save up, hard as it is, & if in doubt, do NOT buy. The best way to save money is to keep it in your pocket.

Step 5 – Additional points :

a) Shop by yourself wherever possible to avoid pressure from others to “impulse buy” extras that aren’t on the list. Children, especially, should be left home whenever possible and taken shopping with you only on the condition of “good behaviour” with them understanding that they’ll be negative conseqences for them if they breach that promise.

b) Never give into “pester power” or tantrum threats because that sets the precedent and teaches them that’s how they’ll get their way. Toddlers should NOT be allowed to go shopping with you if it can be avoided at all. Kids old enough to understand and follow “the rules” can be given instructions on what items to look for & help find *only* those items or allowed to wait at designated places, eg. book shops, CD shops and “come back to” later.

c) If there are gambling machines set up anywhere think hard first and ask yourself : whether the owner put those machines in order to lose money or make money. If you do choose to play (& I advise against it) then set yourself strict limits and expect – know – that you’ll lose.

This is really all just “common sense” although the problem with “common sense” is sadly its just NOT that common.

Oh &, yes, I’m not perfect by any means and slip up sometimes with not following this method too!

Speaking of funding, why aren’t there any science foundations debunking global warming? The fossil fuel industry has very deep pockets indeed and could fund major research centers around the world, and pay scientists several times the pay they get at universities and science academies. Instead, we have some isolated figure, almost always speaking outside of his field of expertise, and a host of people without any science training at all, and just enough education to be able to read a teleprompter (or their hand) without stumbling over the words (usually).

Sort of like why aren’t there any creation research labs doing ground-breaking work on the age of the earth using radioactive isotopes, especially when radio-dating first started being used–you’d think they’d have been all over that one to at last prove the earth was young.

Excellent point, and one I’ll be sure to remember in future. They won’t fund it because they know it’s a hopleless cause. It would be a bad business decision, and ultimately one they wouldn’t be able to justify to their shareholders. CEO at AGM: “We spent $3 billion last year trying to disprove AGW… and the study came to the conclusion that the Earth is warming… and that we’re causing it.” No, the fossil fuel companies’ money goes much further on sowing FUD and lobbying. Even better if you can dupe astroturfers into joining in on the fun at no cost to you!

Basing economic policy on any one deciding factor would be foolish. Leaving one out of the equation because you think you can’t completely deal with it (or pretending the gorilla really isn’t in the room) would be just as bad.

I’m not sure I agree that we “can’t do anything to stop” AGW, but even if that is true it still might not be a bad idea to stop making it worse.