Posts by BenWilson
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81st, your concession that they're only looking for negatives is enough for me. I don't care what it 'reeks' of. I have my opinion and my reasons for it, which I have given. There are no hidden agendas. I've said I think we should control climate change, because even if the probability was weighted towards positive effects, the chance of negative effects is too high to just wear. I just get tired of hearing the equating of climate change with certain doom. It is far from certain. Until people seriously investigate the alternative scenarios and how we might be able to manage under them, the likelihood of doom is utterly unknown, rather than being a scientific fact or even a scientific likelihood.
Kyle
I don't know what it is you think my 'theory' is. How plants propagate is surely not what you are disputing. So you must have some conception of what you think I mean that I'm not following.
We were talking about extinctions - not some Lord of the Rings scenario where whole forests just up and move. And I was pointing out that plant species can actually survive a lot of change.
Sure, there will be some extinctions from climate change, although I highly doubt that anyone could easily predict which species, unless that species exists in tiny numbers. There are extinctions all the time, from human and non-human causes - that's evolution. There could even be a lot of extinctions all at once, but none of that means certain doom.
I guess a lot of the extinctions would be a lamentable loss to science and Gaia (if you believe in that), but would humanity suffer much more than that? Every species upon which we depend would survive, at least in seed form for plants, and probably en masse for animals.
Disaster could happen. That's surely enough argument to try to control climate change. We don't need to pretend we know for sure that it would happen.
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Forests can "migrate" in geological time. But they can't cope with change this rapid. Animals find it easier, but there are usually significant barriers to migration, both from topography and from people. Basically, we're looking at a significant mass extinction event.
And again I say, I don't see how you can be sure this will happen. I can't be sure it won't either. That's all I'm saying. Spores and seeds can travel great distances on the wind or carried by animals.Tiny unnoticed colonies can spring into full bloom. The only thing you could really say with confidence is that things would probably be a lot different. But different bad or different good? Or just different? I guess it depends which species you were in the first place.
Of course I also fear change. The possibility of, say, a dramatic drop in the rainfall in NZ would be quite disastrous in the short term for this country. Whereas a massive increase would not really add that much that could be immediately exploited.
I just refuse to accept that we know for sure that climate change would create a living hell for humanity, or decimate life on earth. I'd rate it as almost equally likely that the long term effect could actually be positive for humans. The geological timescale suggests that life on this planet will scarcely notice that humanity had ever been here.
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But we can be sure that the climate change will be more rapid than evolution can cope with (given the limitations on mobility imposed by geography and by human land use).
I don't see how you can possibly be sure of that. Not in any quantifiable way. Yeah if the sea rose 40m in 1 hour there would be mass extinctions. But a gradual process over decades? Erosion has the same effect on shorelines. It's not hard for most species to move 40m over that time period.
"Potential fertility" means very little if half the species of plants and animals have been killed off in the process.
Maybe. Mass extinction just creates holes in the ecology that are rapidly filled by other species.
Again, I'm not advocating we push it, I'm just saying we can't actually be sure that things will get worse from climate change, except in so far as we can be sure our very long term plans will get mucked up.
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Notice too that we have gone from Global Warming to Climate Change and the latest version is Climate Variability.
The phrase is moving away from any sort of warming at allWell I guess that warming isn't going to seem that bad to people from cold places. Whereas 'variability', and it's even more scary synonym 'volatility' both contain that 'actually the problem is we DON'T know what will happen' which more neatly encapsulates the human fear of change. If we knew what the change was going to be it wouldn't be so bad. A warmer climate with more CO2 in the air might actually be more conducive to life on the planet. But 'it could go really, really hot, or really cold' seems much more scary.
I'm not rubbishing climate change in saying this. I'm merely saying that we fear the unknown. I remember when I worked at a stockbroker that any time they massively cocked up a client's orders and failed to execute a trade, about half the time the client actually benefited because the market went up when they were selling, or down if they were buying. But they were not actually happy half the time, because the feeling of your money being out of your control is not at all pleasant. I think this is coming to be humanity's position on climate variability - we can't actually be sure we won't end up in a more fertile world. But to even have the chance that it will get worse way outranks the possible benefits. Our plans and infrastructure are all set up around the current climate.
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Ben, Eric the RED is a WAIHEKE LEGEND. come on.. you've never seen him? In summer barefeet? a turban around his head?
No, I really have never seen him. But I'd believe he's there, really fits the bill. I see the Wiki suggests there may be TWO of him, one is an imposter. Which did we see and how would I know?
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Ah, just watch Media 7. Bloody good, Russell. I could see you were more relaxed than last week already. Good panel, nice to get a bit of clash - they all agreed with each other a bit too much last week.
Got only one small criticism...the gesture of pointing at the finger! It's for when you are going to enumerate. Picky, I know, but I think that kind of message goes straight to the subconscious, and I kept expecting the 'and the second point/question is...'. But overall your body expression was really good.
Cracked me up when you cut Hickey off for blabbing on when he was asked to give a number - well done, assert yourself. It's your show.
There was one follow up question I really want to hear you give Ganesh. "OK, so reporting the good side of things is unfashionable. How about you tell us the good news.". Ah well. But certainly his position is an outlier at the moment and Bernard was quite rightly making the money points.
The quote of the day had to be the strange redbeard lying on the side of the road smoking a j and saying with a straight face that the Gulf News had gone to pot. Was he for real? I've gone to Waiheke since I was 5 years old, and I don't recall ever seeing the guy. I feel sure I'd remember such a character.
It equally cracks me up that Boag's rag gets such a big pickup rate. I'm sure few Waiheke folk would pay for it, on principle, but their inability to resist reading it, reminds me of my sick addiction to Kiwiblog.
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Toiling day and night in the underground comment mines...
Where unpaid child labour forms the bulk of the work.
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No, they were heavy with the weight of 400 Years Of Slavery ...
Wow, that is heavy. I pity the fool who wears that around his neck.
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But one constituted on an irrevocably evil basis, which is how the whole world eventually came to see it.
Yes, the problem with SA under Apartheid was they were so open about their racism. Everywhere else gets away with it by being a lot cleverer. You don't make a color bar, you make a language bar, or something else similarly devious. We prefer our racism thinly veiled, thanks.
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Isn't physical media going to be obsolete in 10 years or less?
Seem to remember hearing that 10 years ago.
It's the hour every morning to put it on, and then more time in the evening to clean it all that was bizarre. He must have been _really_ slow at putting jewelery on.
Yes, that sounds more like a woman doing her hair than a tough rapper/bouncer/action hero/professional wrestler. But come to think of it, his chains never seemed to bounce around when he ran - maybe he glued them on?
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