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The Forum > Article Comments > The warning we are ignoring > Comments

The warning we are ignoring : Comments

By Keith Suter, published 9/11/2018

Gross domestic product (GDP), the measure of economic activity, for instance, will actually increase as the climate gets worse.

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What is this “trashing the planet” rubbish? The planet and everything on it are at the disposal of humans for their survival and betterment. Suter would have us believe that we are all vandals. He is, of course, a paragon of virtue, fully justified in sneering at and running down everyone else.

If you like being insulted, continue reading this 'trash’.
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 9 November 2018 8:44:47 AM
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Those who take offence at the consequences of their own actions deserve to be insulted.
Meanwhile the younger generations are well aware of the environmental degradation that is still taking place.
Posted by Aidan, Friday, 9 November 2018 9:13:30 AM
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Yep, some truth here. Looked at crudely. Australia is subjected to an outflow of manufacturing facilities to China, thus reducing environmental pressure at home.
China gladly accepted the gift and began a manufacturing bonanza. The true cost of this shift was towards their environment.

Moving on. Next, the huge profits for China were then shifted to past-manufacturing countries by Chinese FDI back into those countries.

This has been achieved by investing into real estate, both city based and the rural sector through investing into the farming sector, and whatever money can buy. Up goes our GDP index.
To a politician, all negatives will be ignored: However the thread of environmental degradation can be followed.
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 9 November 2018 9:28:17 AM
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This article is complete nonsense. Any global warming that occurs this century will be beneficial. It will benefit ecosystems and benefit the global economy, which means it will increase welfare and benefit mankind.
Posted by Peter Lang, Friday, 9 November 2018 9:41:57 AM
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The warning we are or rather the Author is ignoring is, thinking inside a fixed circle of ideas. Invariably for this Author with his typical constipated thinking? His only option after coal is renewables. He doesn't for instance factor in recycling. I men take metals, copper is almost 100% recyclable. And modern plastics, some manmade and able to be replicated by the transformation of seawater. Therefore endlessly sustainable!

Limiting economic growth is risible nonsense As long as there is poverty, hunger, and unmet need!

And for this Author and his antiquated constipated thinking, is always-always connected to population growth. Even as he stares at China, depopulating by the rule of law, able to sustain economic growth year by year in double-digit figures!

And because it eliminated the parasite class to begin with, as it prospered by actually making the business of improving your personal prosperity, far more inclusive than we in the west who seem to be going in the opposite direction and concentrating the only finite thing we have and that finite thing is wealth. We could treble it virtually overnight here in Australia, with far more inclusive cooperative capitalism!

Everything else is virtually limitless, but only if we include, walk away safe, MSR thorium energy, in the mix. And use this ultracheap, safe, clean, carbon-free energy as well as deionisation dialysis desalination.

Moreover, with that cheapest of all, energy. Able to add endless recycling to the economic paradigm, and grow the economy almost as much as we want! Absolutely!

Without adding to this planet's population numbers of drought-displaced refugees.

Addressing climate change is as simple as drawing down CO2 levels!

RATHER THAN ADDING TO THEM QUITE MASSIVELY, WITH THE MANUFACTURE OF WIND TURBINES AND SOLAR PANELS, ALL OF WHICH REQUIRE THE EQUALLY MASSIVE BURNING OF ANNUAL BILLIONS OF TONS OF COAL! AND WITH THAT BURN, MILLIONS MORE TONS OF CO2 TO ADDED THE ATMOSPHERE!

Wake up dosey, it's not a nuclear war that's has put the planet and all life in extreme jeopardy/on the brink of destruction. But manmade, CO2 caused, climate change!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 9 November 2018 10:21:43 AM
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"Any global warming that occurs this century will be beneficial".

Yes. You only need to look at a topographic map to seen the extra green patches created by the slight warming and extra CO2 that has occurred.
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 9 November 2018 12:16:00 PM
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From other articles I have read the Club of Rome's predictions have
been quite accurate. Resources are starting to present themselves as
a problem that will have to be tackled.
Rome declined because the silver mines in Spain were being worked out
and the slaves had become too expensive to work those mines and the
Italian farmland. To make matters worse the Arab & Nth African slave
traders had decimated the Roman sea trading ships forcing Roman
merchants onto expensive and slow land transport.
The slave traders raids on the European mainland forced up the price of slaves.

Rome did not decline because of material shortages. However we are
facing a longer term decline ourselves, in that at some time in the
future both oil and coal will become too expensive to mine.
Peak crude oil occurred in 2005 and we have been kept going by the
resurrection of the old technique of fracking. We got ten years relief
there but the warnings are that the shale, ie tight oil, companies are
all running at a loss.
Heed Royal Dutch Shell's CEO warning last year that his company is
planning its way out of the oil industry.
It looks like the energy industry will be the bellwether for all
industry.
I doubt I will see much of it but I can hear that tinkling bell
Posted by Bazz, Friday, 9 November 2018 1:34:20 PM
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"What is this “trashing the P-plater” rubbish? The roads and everything on it are at the disposal of humans for their survival and betterment. Suter would have us believe that we are all vandal drivers at intersections. He is, of course, a paragon of virtue, fully justified in sneering at and running down everyone else. "
Posted by nicknamenick, Friday, 9 November 2018 2:03:14 PM
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anyone prepared to do a little research on the club of rome will see how pathetically wrong past predictions from the 1970's were. No apologies, no money back just dig in with more idiotic predictions using pseudo science to justify outrageous claims.

The lessons from Rome should be taken into account. The moral degradation with the promotion of homosexuality and paedophille which is far more likley to see society collapse than the imaginery man made gw.
Posted by runner, Friday, 9 November 2018 4:14:46 PM
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When it`s all gone it`s all gone.
And ttbn`s mythological creator won`t be able to do much at all......
After all he`s/she`s done nothing yet.
Posted by ateday, Friday, 9 November 2018 7:14:27 PM
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Thank you, Keith Suter - voice of reason and common sense.

About "gross domestic product" -GDP. It is a flawed measurement, as it includes activities such as the clean-up of an oil spill as a part of the GDP. But such clean-ups after an environmental disaster are not really a "positive" product.

A better measure would be Gross National Well-being" - like the measurement used in Bhutan - Gross National Happiness
Posted by ChristinaMac1, Saturday, 10 November 2018 7:44:13 AM
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Ah Bhutan! We all want to be like Bhutan - look at the huge illegal immigrant problem they have. ;-) Sorry couldn't help myself. In one sense I agree with you that GDP is imperfect, but I haven't seen a workable proposal to improve it. You say that cleaning-up an environmental mess shouldn't go into the GDP figures, but where would you stop? Would maintenance qualify, or only maintenance that resulted from non-criminal activity, or activity someone deemed as ethical?

Beauty of GDP is that it can be measured accurately, and by not making exceptions we are sure we are comparing like with like. And if there is growth in GDP that can only happen if there are more productive rather than unproductive things happening in the economy. While a lot of activity is just churn or redistribution, there is also real growth.

Arbitrarily removing some measures from the GDP because we don't approve of the activity is going to make it impossible to measure the activity accurately and longitudinally. As for measuring happiness accurately - good luck with that.
Posted by GrahamY, Saturday, 10 November 2018 8:28:02 AM
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Graham: Good luck with winning an argument with a willfully blind idealogue like ChristineMac, whoever he is! Nothing that grows or is made, is not made, without an energy quotient.

Plants absorb raw energy straight from the sun, the rest by the absorption of water/minerals from the soil they stand in. We humans do something similar, by absorbing/converting food material from plants/animals into the sugars proteins etc. that we convert internally into energy or human tissue, as we add to our volume/energy.

Einstein's, Unified field of energy, contemplates an entire universe and all in it including us, you/I All else as just various collections of positive negative or neutral energy. everything.

Every time humanity has come up with a new source of energy, many slaves were liberated from bondage. With the advent of steam, we made carbon our slave instead of our fellow humans.

Now some of that trend seems to be reversing as some of us are so wedded to profits they turn a willfully blind eye to the harm we do with our choice of energy.

To the point of, instead of liberating the "slave class" we are once again forcing them into bondage as cogs in a mindless machine, designed only to transfer wealth from those among us with the least. To those among us with the most.

As for growing the gross national product?

Just add endlessly reliable, Cheap safe clean carbon-free nuclear energy and with it, endlessly reliable water. Couple that particular energy-related paradigm to cooperative capitalism, watch as our economy heats up, goes into overdrive.

That makes the Chinese Economic miracle just a pale shadow in comparison to what, free market, private enterprise capitalism is actually capable of! If rolled out as almost replicating the first model of cooperative capitalism as presided over by progressive conservatives,

The like of who abolished slavery/child labour, just to name a couple of what we were capable of when we really did adhere to the golden rule of ethical Christianity! None of us, poorer for it!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 10 November 2018 12:20:33 PM
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The reference to Rome is appropriate.
Romans, once the most powerful people in the world, began 'living the good life'.
We are, or clearly have begun that same journey.
SSM is just one such example.
Roman men engaging in sex with other men AND small boys.
So sodomy and pedophilia were the norm back then, and look where they ended up.
Allowing the 'nut jobs' to run the asylum, may be politically expedient, but it is most definitely wrong.
This is what has been happening in Australia for decades.
Politicians giving in to stupid people and their stupid selfish, self serving demands.
I expect mature, level headed men with common sense and the ability to reason.
If these factors were in play over the years, we would not have seen the stupid laws we have and the changes to the constitution.
Why do we have parents, that deny their children frivolities such as candy, going out at night, and demand they are respected?
Instead of realising it is in the interest of them ALL if they do as their parents say.
It's so obvious, it would be laughable if not for the fact so many girls have died at the hands of 'baddies', that would still be alive today had the system not given children the right to 'think'?
Discipline has been discarded by such vial things as PC, and virtue signalling.
The latter of these you can shove up your a&$#.
All virtue signalling does is give the signaler the false feeling of thinking they are siding with someone they don't have the courage to disagree with openly and publicly.
In other words those who practice virtue signalling are not only lying to themselves but everyone else as well.
So the mainstream SSM YES voters were not actually in favour of voting Yes, but felt obligated by a lack of courage and a fear of alienating their peers, who also did not know the 'true' mindset of their friends.
Given that Australian politicians are just scum who derive from the people, what does this say about the Australian people?
Posted by ALTRAV, Saturday, 10 November 2018 12:42:23 PM
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The shortcomings of GDP are exaggerated by its detractors.

GDP is a measure of economic activity. If it rises after a natural disaster, it means there is more economic activity following the disaster. That is of course a plausible scenario - people must be paid to clean and fix things. But if there was not so much economic activity before the disaster, it's indicative of economic mismanagement.

A long slow disaster like the climate getting worse will not increase GDP at all. Money will be spent, but it's money that could be put to better use. Ultimately productivity will suffer.
Posted by Aidan, Saturday, 10 November 2018 9:31:22 PM
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Imagine Adian, how much more economic activity the would be if we emulate mother nature herself and just recycle everything. And I do mean everything

. All that prevents just that! Is a source of reliable dispatchable power. That's not chained to the variables and vagaries of wind and sunlight.

And there on demand day or night at the flick of a switch. Moreover, never dependant on rainfall numbers to fill and overflow dams. It sort of narrows the field quite dramatically doesn't it? Even more so if the business case and basic economics demand that it also has to be both affordable and earn a return that enables it to be self-sustaining and profitable.

Perhaps even as China and similar developing economies experience a continuing 30% wages inflation, renewables will continue to get cheaper?

Perhaps with some real abracadabra magic, say?

Failing that what is the only remaining alternative and one we will never ever run out of?

And to qualify, it has to be on demand and 24/7!

You are a very clever chap, and have access to links some of us can't find or have never ever heard of? So put your thinking cap on and see what else you can find that we could deploy inside the next seven years.

Perhaps we could line the entire equator with solar panels in the knowledge that part of the equator will always be in full sunlight then transmit the power we'd create through marine cables then charge the end user, say 2cents per KwH

. And if you can't do that then you and your every like-minded renewable enthusiast can dig deep into their own pockets ALONE, to provide a subsidy that will make it so!

Pity though, if you can no longer afford food clothing and housing or medicine, at least the solution would be both green and pure?

And no, I'm not the one being completely ridiculous, that my friend is your particular forte.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Sunday, 11 November 2018 8:49:38 AM
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"like the measurement used in Bhutan - Gross National Happiness"

OTOH since:

"Bhutan is becoming a destination for sex tourism for people from the West and India ."

maybe it should be renamed the Bhutan Gross National Happy-ending index.
Posted by mhaze, Sunday, 11 November 2018 1:39:34 PM
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Ah yes, Mhaze. Gross national happiness. there is nothing finer for putting the food on the table and a roof over the head. Educating the ignorant and healing the sick and or dying.

And as thousands of homeless underfed folk wander aimlessly through the night looking for a tourist to root for a few cents more or a rubbish bin to raid for some tasty titbits, or yesterday's news to pack inside their meagre rags so as to try and stay warm.

They can all break out into song with tha well-known classic, Don't worry, be happy. Or the other ones, smile though your heart is aching, even though it's breaking. Or, all you need is love. Or, livin on sunshine.

Now if only we could teach the world to sing and adopt a happiness index instead of fundamental economic well being, we could possibly drive humanity all the way back to the stone age and cave dwelling!? Such practical people aren't they, the tree-hugging greens?

I mean, only the most impractical dreamers on the planet could dream up stuff like that or suggest that all we need do to feed the world is print mountains of money and grow the national debt by a trillion or so a year to (feed the poor or) grow the real economy.

Maybe they're on to something? I mean that approach seems to be working for D Trump and the ultra-right-wing conservatives?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Sunday, 11 November 2018 2:25:36 PM
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Alan B.,
> Imagine Adian,
Close - at least you've got the letters right!

>how much more economic activity the would be if we emulate mother nature herself and just recycle everything
I imagine the increase would be less than 1%. Some materials would get slightly cheaper but not enough to revolutionise anything.

>All that prevents just that! Is a source of reliable dispatchable power.
I don't know where you got that ridiculous idea. It's labour costs, not power costs, that are the biggest obstacle.to recycling more. Indeed recycling typically uses less energy than mining.

As for the rest of you suggestions, I can explain why you're being completely ridiculous if you like, but despite your denial I think you already know.
Posted by Aidan, Sunday, 11 November 2018 4:44:06 PM
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Come on Aiden, you are at it again.

Recycling, just like global warming, sounds great if you don't think too much about it.

However apart from the recycling of materials at the factory that makes stuff, domestic recycling is totally waste.

It takes much more energy & materials to gather, sort, assemble in quantities, & redistribute, before remanufacturing with rubbish, than is saved by using the stuff. That's why most of it was shipped to China before they wised up & rejected the stuff.

Like all things green, you don't have to look too deeply to find another catastrophe, once a greenie is involved.
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 11 November 2018 6:00:39 PM
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"Put simply, thorium-based reactors are still not economically viable for the most part...The result is that at least for now thorium reactors are unlikely to gain the upper hand over uranium reactors. It’s possible that thorium reactors could become more dominant in the future, but a lot of work will have to be done to get to that point.

This is an updated version of an article originally published by the Investing News Network in 2015."

Experts say that molten salt uranium reactors will be cheaper to run.
Posted by nicknamenick, Sunday, 11 November 2018 6:10:08 PM
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At what again, Hasbeen?

>It takes much more energy & materials to gather, sort, assemble in quantities, & redistribute, before remanufacturing with rubbish, than is saved by using the stuff.

Do you have any evidence at all for that claim? It runs contrary not just to what's normally claimed, but also to common sense as starting with partially processed material avoids a lot of the energy intensive processes that starting from scratch would involve.

>That's why most of it was shipped to China before they wised up & rejected the stuff.

ITYF that has a lot more to do with China's low labour costs than energy costs.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Alan B.,
Bhutan's Gross National Happiness indicator is not an excuse to neglect basic physical needs. Indeed physical wellbeing is part of it.

I suggest you take a look at what Bhutan's GNH indicator actually involves. After that, you're welcome to declare it to be useless propaganda (or whatever else you regard it as being). But until then, please don't diss what you're too lazy to try to understand!
Posted by Aidan, Sunday, 11 November 2018 7:48:13 PM
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Well done Dr Dr Dr Keith
May I add to the discussion about the use of GDP by pointing out that the OECD Chief Statistician who prepares the GDP figures has led the development of a complementary and/or possibly alternative statistics on "Wellbeing". Refer to https://www.oecd.org/gender/Durand.pdf

Her work on the "OECD Better Life Index" is published at http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction/
She posted a contribution I made to her Paris workshop in February 2017 on "Well-being opportunities" at: http://www.oecd.org/statistics/Workshop-on-Measuring-Business-Impacts-on-Peoples-Well-being-Paper-Turnbull.pdf
Posted by Shann Turnbull, Sunday, 11 November 2018 10:41:59 PM
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Aiden, I have to say that after many years of following this 'recycling' circus, and being involved in the engineering and transport industry, I have, over time, begun to realise, with the information and the actual physical and cost analysis, it is becoming more and more difficult to justify recycling in many products, not all, but many.
Enough to either find newer and more cost effective ways of handling the process of recycling to the point where either some new, cost neutral method is found or we have to consider giving some, or most of it, up altogether.
The greens and like minded are just not the ones to be giving advice on this topic.
They are not educated enough and certainly not experienced enough to give advice on this issue.
They lack the commercial and economic credentials and experience to even begin to offer ANY commercially viable or credible ideas or suggestions.
As has been the MO of the greens and Co, they virtue shame people into making themselves out to be the virtuous ones, when all along they are redundant and ineffective, to the point of being dangerous and irresponsible.
If we want to increase our GDP and our individual well being, firstly let's get rid of the greens.
Then when they are dead and buried, never to darken our doorsteps again, we can move forward with a positive vision, and clear minds uncontaminated by the greens and the like, to come up with new ideas, and ones that work, for everyone!
Posted by ALTRAV, Sunday, 11 November 2018 11:25:42 PM
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ALTRAV,
I suggest you direct your criticism to someone else. My reply to Hasbeen related to energy use, not commercial viability. The person who thought recycling everything was an energy problem was Alan B.; I explained why it wasn't.
Posted by Aidan, Monday, 12 November 2018 12:43:31 AM
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Aidan, sorry, I appologise unreservedly.
To Alan, I am not against the idea of recycling.
I am against the idea of recycling, at any cost.
This is a fools reasoning.
Humans do not take kindly to being told they have to spend money to fix anything.
They have become used to a particular routine and don't change, even when it is for a good cause/reason.
It's like the electric cars.
I reject them because they cost more than 5 times the equivalent of their petrol or fossil fueled cousins.
They travel less than their fossil fueled cousins and take forever to recharge.
There's more but it'll do for now.
So you can see that until the cost of purchase and running such cars comes down it is not a good idea.
And so it is with recycling.
Posted by ALTRAV, Monday, 12 November 2018 2:11:06 AM
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No Altrav, electric cars are more like twice the price of the IC equivalent.
Even at that they are too expensive. They are about $20,000 dearer
here than the same car overseas.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 12 November 2018 8:40:31 PM
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But don't you fools realise that electric cars have be more economical than conventional cars, because the fairies come out at night and pedal their hamster-wheels flat-out, in order to make virtuous, carbon-free energy ? That electric cars are innocent of any accusation that their electricity is generated from coal or oil or gas ? That whoever owns an electric car is, by definition, virtuous ?

Maybe I had that wrong. Maybe electric cars are powered exclusively by renewable energy sources ? Which, in turn, have been produced using only renewable energy ?

Twenty thousand extra ? Serves those goat-cheese wnakers right.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 14 November 2018 3:59:35 PM
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