Bill: "We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy" to Fight Globa

[athena glaukopis]

Article Here

"Everybody knows that global warming is real," Mr. Clinton said, giving a shout-out to Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize, "but we cannot solve it alone."

"And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada -- the rich counties -- would say, 'OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.' We could do that.

"But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world's fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

"And guess what? The only places in the world today in rich countries where you have rising wages and declining inequality are places that have generated more jobs than rich countries because they made a commitment we didn't. They got serious about a clean, efficient, green, independent energy future… If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She'll give it to you. She's got the right energy plan."

WHATTTT? I hope nobody in the audience actually believed that rubbish!

Someone needs a lesson in economics *paging Von Mises*

[Capitalism Forever]

Unfortunately, these views are completely mainstream today. The sky is falling, we need to destroy our economies (= lives), and that consumption (= destruction) is the solution to our problems. All these things have been said (not in these words) by people like Al Gore and John Maynard Keynes.

Edited February 1, 2008 by Capitalism Forever

[softwareNerd]

Sometimes, I wonder if -- apart from being "the rational animal" -- man is also "the worrying animal".

Doomsayers seem to have an appeal, and every century seems to have its popular doomsayer-myth. Global warming comes on the heels of Malthusian doomsaying: we were all going to breed ourselves into over-population and famine. Billions of dollars and man-hours have been spent, and the rights of millions around the world have been curtailed, because of that Malthusian view. The global-warming doomsday myth has the potential to do just as much harm.

[Capitalism Forever]

Sometimes, I wonder if -- apart from being "the rational animal" -- man is also "the worrying animal".

I guess some men are rational, and some other men keep worrying.

Being perpetually afraid of things is the natural state of those who hold the premise that man is not capable of living on Earth. Since they don't trust reason, which is man's primary means of survival, they are left with the image of a creature that is constantly facing challenges (as man indeed is) but has no means of overcoming them. Hence their longing for going back to "living in harmony with nature"--to be a species that does not use reason and does not do any of the "dangerous" things that reason has led man to accomplish. Of course, if he gave up reason, man would be left without any sufficient means of survival and die--but since the worrying animals don't think man can live on Earth anyway, their concern is not to ensure man's survival but to at least save other species from the effects of man's hopeless attempts to survive.

BTW, I like your new signature--it goes well with mine!

[D'kian]

Being perpetually afraid of things is the natural state of those who hold the premise that man is not capable of living on Earth.

Hear, hear!

Because there isn't a doomsayer per century, but every other year or so. Since the 1970s I recall :

the coming Ice Age

the alignment of the planets (don't ask)

Halley's Comet

Overpopulation

Pollution of various stripes doing all sorts of things

AIDS (it is real, but it won't wipe out humanity)

Global Warming (of course)

Climate Change (because sometimes it does get cold)

Remember the spectacular 1991 Total Solar Eclipse? it was one of the great spectacles our world is lucky enough to see. I know people who shut themselves in their homes and offices, curtains and blinds drawn, to ward off, well, something or other. They missed seeing day turn into almost night, the eerie cool breeze, the stars in reverse position (relatively), seeing Mercury and Venus rather high in the sky, not to mention the Sun's Corona.

And let's mnot mention the various Falls of Capitalism. We're in the midst of one right now. the one in 2001 was pretty bad, too. But of course the 1987 Crash was supposed to wipe off Wall Street off the face of the map.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

....And now there are a number of nutter books out claiming all hell will break loose in 2012. Everything from massive earthquakes to asteroid strikes to more terrorism... And at least some of it is based on the supposition that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012.

[adrock3215]

the coming Ice Age

the alignment of the planets (don't ask)

Halley's Comet

Overpopulation

Pollution of various stripes doing all sorts of things

AIDS (it is real, but it won't wipe out humanity)

Global Warming (of course)

Climate Change (because sometimes it does get cold)

Don't forget Y2K.

[D'kian]

Don't forget Y2K.

Well, that was a real problem. I know because I fixed it for the company I worked for (a small business at the time, fortunately).

But you're right. The potential real consequences of letting it go unfixed were serious, but hardly catastrophic. I mean, a nuke won't launch itself because it has the wrong date (if anything, the nuke won't allow itself to be launched, ciphers are often related to dates).

[DragonMaci]

Because there isn't a doomsayer per century, but every other year or so. Since the 1970s I recall :

the coming Ice Age

the alignment of the planets (don't ask)

Halley's Comet

Overpopulation

Pollution of various stripes doing all sorts of things

AIDS (it is real, but it won't wipe out humanity)

Global Warming (of course)

Climate Change (because sometimes it does get cold)

You forgot to mention the Y2K armageddon that was meant to happen. I knew it never would and that was with less than half the computer knoweledge that I have now. I knew it was easy to fix computes to have the right date and that even if they didn't have the right date it wouldn't cause so much death and destruction. Many idiots thought otherwise though. One of my neighbours shouted, "Woo hoo! We aren't dead!" as soon as 2000 came around, not realising that 1) the armaggeddon stuff was a loud of crap, 2) it wouldn't of happened that quickly, and 3) it was only 2000 in New Zealand, not the rest of the world. Number one is by far the most important of course. The other two don't really matter, but they do illustrate how he was not only silly in thinking it'd happen, but when it'd happen, ie, immediately.