The reason I refer you to these comes under the heading "Its the economy Stupid" Privatised planet documents how the post WWII globalization treaties (WTO, IMF, World Bank) were designed to ensure that British and US corporations had unfettered access to international markets. The Economics of Arrival points out that since 1970 we have been going backwards - the promises of unlimited economic growth have simply not been delivered. So what does this mean for climate change? One indication is the trend to environmental or ecological gentrification. In the Emerites they are building vertical farms that will supply enough fresh food for the rich and the militia to protect them. We have created a world where the rich can shield themselves from the worst impacts of climate change. The hunger Games have arrived!

BAYGON links would help, what am I trying to do?
Not sure myself, but knowing the ice is melting extreme weather is taking place
Maybe I am looking for confirmation [not of man made climate change] but of change its self
Hard not to see we are seeing change
And what are the impacts of that change
NSW Stockton Beach, Newcastle, lost two and a half meters of sand in one week
So that is one change of higher and heaver seas
Winter was milder here [good thing] harsher in other areas
What can we expect in the new normal?
Last? can we even agree the climate is changing?
What of the link? UN data says last five years hottest on record

Part of the perceived problem with a changing climate (and its always changing) is that man, quite naturally, assumes that the current or recent climate is normal and therefore any change is abnormal. So if the climate in my mid-life is different to the climate of my childhood (and it almost always is) then we assume its bad or potentially bad.

But what if the climate is merely reverting to a more normal state and the climate of the recent past was abnormal?

I mentioned earlier that temperatures appear to be returning to those that applied during medieval times while we think that, because they've risen from the mid 19th century this must be bad. But what if the temperatures of 1000AD were normal and those of 1850 we abnormal?

At the very least we know that the temperatures of 1000AD were better for human society than those of more recent centuries.

A similar notion can apply to rainfall and drought. The current drought is a pipsqueak compared to the federation drought at the end of the 19th century. But following that and particularly through the mid 20th century, rainfall was much higher than now and more widespread. So farmers expanded in to areas that became conducive to agriculture. But who's to say that those areas are normally conducive to agriculture. Maybe that good period in the mid-20th century was abnormal - good but abnormal. Maybe we are now reverting to normal.

But always we read that change is a problem. Why can't it be an opportunity? We now have the know-how and technology to adapt to any change, up or down, good or bad.

Instead of spending giga-sums on trying to halt the change, spend those same sums on adapting to it and indeed benefiting from it.

But its just not human nature to look at it like that.

Some people look at the Mona Lisa and see the smile. Others see the cracks in the paint.

Baygon wrote :"The Economics of Arrival points out that since 1970 we have been going backwards... "

Actually, the Economics of Arrival CLAIMS we have been going backwards. Well lets ask the coupla billion people who've been saved from abject poverty, famine, and an early death in that period if they agree with the assertions that we've been going backwards.

Also wrote :"... - the promises of unlimited economic growth have simply not been delivered."

Well I'm not sure how that can be proven when economic growth continues. We don't know that growth is unlimited as a matter of fact and never will. But we do know that there is no indication of growth stopping any time in the near future.

Its all just the same old Malthusian assertions which never ever come to pass.

G'Day there LOUDMOUTH...

Hi Joe

I agree with much of what you've said. I know bugger all about most things. Something I do pride myself on, I'm a pragmatist. In my view, there Planet we're on, will change as it has, since the beginning of time. Short of an immense nuclear war, I don't think we can do anything significant, that may hurt it.

We can assist in stopping local influences on the weather, like the smogs that regularly envelope Los Angles & other major cities around the world. Other than that, as a former detective, I smell big, big money being made, on this myth of climate change.

How do I know? Simply, my friend, you can't 'bullship a bull shipper'!

Dear mhaze,

I just can't stop laughing at the stuff you write. Typical engineer I tell myself. As thick as a brick.