The great global warming swindle

[komodo]

like i said; they aren't jumping, they're being pushed

[chilli]

like i said; they aren't jumping, they're being pushed

Yeah, well I definitely hope that is the case, but it usually seems to me that it is the big corporations pushing the consumers, not the other way around... is there documented reasons for why you say this, or is it just how you see it? (probably a pointless disclaimer, but not being a smartarse)

[komodo]

my reasoning is explained two posts back, it was given as a gift not an argument-set-piece, so i'd appreciate not being asked to provide references/documentation, as if that's the standard requirement of a post in this forum having validity. how about you explain your conclusions and how you reach them instead of asking me to justify mine by reference to peer-reviewed publications? would be more interesting to read and i think a lot more constructive.

Edited July 16, 2007 by komodo

[chilli]

my reasoning is explained two posts back, it was given as a gift not an argument-set-piece, so i'd appreciate not being asked to provide references/documentation, as if that's the standard requirement of a post in this forum having validity. how about you explain your conclusions and how you reach them instead of asking me to justify mine by reference to peer-reviewed publications? would be more interesting to read and i think a lot more constructive.

Like I said, the disclaimer was probably pointless...

I wasn't asking for peer-reviewed publications, just suggestions for further reading... I'm trying to learn more about it. If you can't or don't want to supply information that supports your your ideas, then that's fine, but there's no need to be so rude.

[komodo]

i don't think i was rude, was a pretty level post. don't know why i should supply information on request, unless i feel warmly toward the individual requesting it, or feel i need to have more authority for an idea than my own thought processes. for the record, i just make stuff up. if i feel i need peer reviewed support, usually only when engaging in a hard nosed and kind of unpleasant academic argument, i find there is usually other research and writing that agrees with me; it's just having an informed opinion. of course, its not hard to search the net and find material of some substance that agrees with just about anything.

[excerpt from an article on ISO 14000]

For instance, green consumerism is viewed as a powerful marketing force, which in well operating markets drives environmental innovation and prompts firms toward environmentally responsible behavior. It is certain that corporate environmental awareness mainly emerged due to the apparant growth in number of these green consumers. By showing their support for environmental protection issues through their marketing of green products, organisations can pursue a distinctive way of competing. While there has been emphasis on the use of market-based instruments in environmental policymaking, firms are not readily perceived as being strongly environmentally friendly, nor are firms aware that they are merely attacking the symptoms of the problem (Kilbourne, McDonagh & Porthero, 1997; Levy, 1997).

[review of "Global Spin"]

According to Sharon Beder, the answer lies in a massive corporate response to the threat of costly environmental regulations. Corporate executives soon came to realise that environmentalism was, in their own words, "the life and death PR battle of the 1990s." The objective, one consultant told the oil and gas industry, was to "put the environmental lobby out of business", to render it "superfluous, an anachronism". Likewise, a consultant told a meeting of the Ontario Forest Industries Association: "You must turn the public against environmentalists or you will lose the environmental battle as surely as the US timber industry has lost theirs."

the face of environmentalism being tried on by corporations today is not a conspiracy, it's a capitulation. however, the surrender thus far is symbolic, a surrender of the dialectic of anti-environmentalism, we're still waiting on the enforcement of this symbolic shift (and most corporations will need to be forced, their machineries of psychosis don't respond to calls for understanding and sympathy). i would like to see more government regulation directly outlawing environmental abuses, the introduction of punitively high taxes on abusive products like phosphates, oil, aluminium and coal, and mandatory limits on the quantity/efficiency of cars, landscaping, heating/cooling, etc. this is where australia is hopeless right now - our government is weak and permissive on environmental abuse. from my perspective this reflects flaws in the national character, as i believe many people who do not act to protect the environment from human excess are coming from a place of small mindedness or greed.

Edited July 17, 2007 by komodo

[chilli]

i don't think i was rude, was a pretty level post. don't know why i should supply information on request, unless i feel warmly toward the individual requesting it, or feel i need to have more authority for an idea than my own thought processes. for the record, i just make stuff up. if i feel i need peer reviewed support, usually only when engaging in a hard nosed and kind of unpleasant academic argument, i find there is usually other research and writing that agrees with me; it's just having an informed opinion. of course, its not hard to search the net and find material of some substance that agrees with just about anything.

Your first version was a little nicer. Obviously you don't have to supply information on request, all I asked was if there was a reference for further reading. Again, no one mentioned peer-reviewed articles. Thought I explained all this? I think your tone was quite rude, and once again you came off sounding a bit hypersensitive. Your idea that your thought is purely original and not derivative is a bit naive I think.

I agree with much of what you say, and after your unedited post I was going to continue this, but I'm getting a bit sick of the bad vibes so I don't think I'll bother... I know, you're indifferent ;)

[komodo]

yep, i'm focussed here on the criticism/response on environmentalism and not fixating on perceived slights/interpersonal dynamics.. deja vu.

in case someone new to the thread might get the wrong idea from the post above this one, i'm not at all indifferent to intelligent ideas/criticisms/debate about climate change and environmentalism and am indeed staying tuned to this thread for more dialogue on topic

Edited July 19, 2007 by komodo

[chilli]

yep, i'm focussed here on the criticism/response on environmentalism and not fixating on perceived slights/interpersonal dynamics.. deja vu.

in case someone new to the thread might get the wrong idea from the post above this one, i'm not at all indifferent to intelligent ideas/criticisms/debate about climate change and environmentalism and am indeed staying tuned to this thread for more dialogue on topic

I'm not fixating on those things either (okay, a bit), but it is clear to me that if there are personality difficulties then dialog will be impeded, as we have seen nearly every time we have gotten involved in a discussion.

[No_One]

if markets are using environmentalism to sell products it's an outcome of a changing culture of ideas, not a driving force

This is how I mostly see it as well, as an interplay bewteen consumers and the corporations that pander to them via analysis of market trends. Admittedly, it does lead me to be fairly cynical, I just can't shake it in relation to advertising campaigns by big business/big government.

They call this following the market trend(s), it's fundamental to any business - as Komodo said earlier the activists/the ones keeping it real have finally made it through the glass ceiling into the mainstream, if a business wants to supply a demand that resides in this mainstream then its in their bottom lines best interest to present an image of themselves befitting the expectations of these mainstream consumers.

Look at any period through history and you'll find business marketing it's product to the mentality of their target market, IMO they pretend to think like their target market and claim to share the same oppinion as them on what is cool, if you think like someone you generally trust them and if you trust them your more likely to buy something of them - they portray this image through their advertising.

At the moment "Green" is the flavour of the month so we're seeing businesses shift the image they sell of themselves (through their advertising) to appear more "Green".

I personally feel that "Green" is still only at "Fad" status for the majority, hopefully people start taking it more and more seriously till eventually they wisen-up to the wrongs of their current ways and make the changes required to their lifestyles/mentalities to slow down the trip to wherever it is we're headed.

Peace

[tassiejd]

my quick thoughts on this, warming is happening on other planets in the solar system not just earth, mars is seeing melting of the ice caps and other planets have noted jumps in temperature over the last 10-20 years, looking at the solar system not just earth, the sun is in the middle of a couple of cycles that will be ending within 50 years or so, then we should get a shift back to cold again, next is the magnetic field around earth which is over due for a flip which will see the polar caps on earth move and mass flooding and warming, there will be ice where there was desert and desert where there was ice, just to add to the gloom and doom of this post 2012 seems like a good estimation for at least some of these things to happen. Basically i am of the opinion that what we are doing at the moment is not good but there are many more factors in play that most people like to ignore, like calling co2 the cause of all evil when there have been 1000s of nukes let off and tested all over the earth, under ground, in the atmosphere, under the ocean, just about any where you can think of they have tested these things, not all that long ago scientists heated something up to 1/3 the heat of the sun, sure it was in lab conditions but we know so little about all of this we have no idea what we are really doing, the next real big one is they are going to try and recreate the big bang under lab conditions here on earth.

A lot of it to me comes back to the first nuke they tested, one of the theory's was that it would cause a chain reaction of atoms splitting and split every atom in existence and hence destroy absolutely every thing, while it didn't, before it was let off there was a thought that it might. We know so little about what we are doing and what we have all ready done that i think a lot of people get wrapped in the whole climate change thing on such small scales that they are missing a lot of the bigger picture and forgetting to look any further than earth and oil for the answers to this problem.

[chilli]

They call this following the market trend(s), it's fundamental to any business - as Komodo said earlier the activists/the ones keeping it real have finally made it through the glass ceiling into the mainstream, if a business wants to supply a demand that resides in this mainstream then its in their bottom lines best interest to present an image of themselves befitting the expectations of these mainstream consumers.

Look at any period through history and you'll find business marketing it's product to the mentality of their target market, IMO they pretend to think like their target market and claim to share the same oppinion as them on what is cool, if you think like someone you generally trust them and if you trust them your more likely to buy something of them - they portray this image through their advertising.

At the moment "Green" is the flavour of the month so we're seeing businesses shift the image they sell of themselves (through their advertising) to appear more "Green".

I personally feel that "Green" is still only at "Fad" status for the majority, hopefully people start taking it more and more seriously till eventually they wisen-up to the wrongs of their current ways and make the changes required to their lifestyles/mentalities to slow down the trip to wherever it is we're headed.

Peace

Yep, that's mostly what I was saying... it's annoying when companies that fought against certain environmental reform laws then flaunt their compliance with those laws as if they are being green, when in fact they are just being greedy. On the other hand, I accept that the popularization of environmental responsibility should perhaps ultimately be viewed as a good thing... at least it is getting people thinking and talking about the issues at stake.

[komodo]

hi tassie

you bring up a lot of different discussions there; solar cycles, extraterrestrial planets temperature, possible magnetic polar flip (doesnt effect rotational axis btw, eg. icecaps), fallout from nuclear testing, fusion reactions, and presumably the CERN project. kinda difficult to have all those discussions at once! but i hear what you're saying in that you feel CO2 pollution and it's effect on the earth's temperature isn't something we should be so worried about.

i definitely don't agree with you though. we can do something about carbon pollution as individuals with our consumption patterns, so if we want less carbon pollution we should take direct action on that. same goes for nuclear research, if you want to shut it down, don't vote for pro-nuclear parties or work for industries that lobby for uranium. the point being that you take action not on one thing or the other, but on all those fronts simultaneously.

also, the anti-carbon momentum that is getting going worldwide is a serious and thoughtful action to protect the environment, it requires a change in role from purely profit based exploitation to a grudging admission that we also are required to act as caretakers of terrestrial ecosystems. this is a cultural and conceptual revolution that helps in other fields too; when people start to realise that our actions and attitudes as a dominant globalised species on earth have serious consequences, that our appetites are exceeding our limits, and we can no longer stick our heads in the sand and pretend we can do as we please all the time.