Off Topic Political Debate

I would hate to be in his position!

 

Time to start drawing a balance on the theme of refugees. My own town of Engelskirchen has now been allotted over 200 extra refugees (sent out here from Cologne which is our regional distribution centre). There are of course some (about a quarter) who are from the Balkans and will be sent back at some stage - in order to speed up this process the Germans have a new ruling called a 'Asylverfahrensbeschleunigungsgesetz`, so the poor souls have to learn 35 letter words on arrival ! Why the German language strings such long words together is beyond me. Anyway, the reasons for fleeing their homelands are sometimes surprising - and very disturbing. There are of course many who have run away from civil war, being bombed out etc. but along with these there are also others who can be considered as 'environmental' refugees eg. people who are from places where it has not rained for 6-7 years (parts of Afghanistan) - the same is also true for many refugees from Eritrea and also, unbelievably, Syria. Refugees also from Somalia, whose fishing waters have been permanently poisoned from the discharges from international container shipping.

Where do we stand on the refugee question when the cause is no longer Assad or Isis but rather our own Carbon emissions ? Can Britain continue to take only minimal numbers of these people (and that also under pressure from the rest of the EU !) and at the same time consume at such a rate that we would need the resources of 4 planets if everyone else consumed the same ? When our 9.6 tons of Co2 emissions, Germany's 11 tons (the USA. is much higher) per head, per year, become the main reason behind the displacement of millions of people Worldwide - will they still shake their collective heads and say 'not our problem`?

 

The use of statistics about Co2 emissions can throw up quite a new debate. Why for example is France producing half of Germany's output and less than the UK? Simple, they rely on nuclear power for the bulk of their needs. Should the world take this form of production at a much higher degree than at present to reduce Co2? There are many who would agree, while others will point out the dangers.

There are many schemes, small scale and very low cost, such as tree planting to provide shade, soak up Co2 and allow people living in barren landscapes to forge a living. Many of these schemes have been shown to work by charities, yet governments seem slow to understand that this could be the way forward rather than allowing official bodies in the poorer countries to take their part of the aid before using the remainder as they think. At last the EU is starting to debate how to help people stay in their own countries. I am sure that most of them would if they had some help to do so. Maybe the current crisis has been needed to shake up some of the richer countries to reconsider their place in the world and how their actions do eventually come back to haunt them if they are too self-centered.

 

Without having too many answers personally I'm firmly in the Theresa May camp. We cannot take unlimited migrants without causing huge problems at home. Although admirable the German government's attitude of welcoming migrants only increases the the already unsustainable rate of flow. I note the far right parties in Germany have already organised demonstrations and attacks on these unfortunate people.

 

We were discussing the situation in our French class in French last night.... No one could come up with any easy answers. Need to stop the war and enforce peace in Syria....
Sadly unlikely to happen soon as it is now a theatre for Russia - NATO tail wagging..... RAS-Putin could have helped... but no... needs to be macho man again

 

I don't think you can have read my last text on this - the question is, would your attitude change if those refugees were fleeing the effects of global warming - which some of them already are. Bearing in mind that we are amongst the main culprits in this.

 

No

 

To elaborate 'environmental refugees' are defined as those whose local environment is no longer able to sustain life.....eg. through increased droughts, desertification, sea level rises or disruption of seasonal patterns. The estimate is that the current number may be as high as 10 million, and that this will soon become the largest group of involuntary refugees - in the end far outnumbering those fleeing war or human persecution. These people are not the victims of Assad, Isis or any other human organization (which we armed) but rather the victims of our consume culture, our cars, our planes, our exotic foreign holidays, our stupidity in believing that growth can be without limits.

 

Jury is definitely out on CO2 now as a "global warming" agent, climate change is the new word as world temperatures are not changing outwith the normal noise/cycles. Even the link between CO2 and temperature change is now in question with fundamental science having been misinterpreted. Additional CO2 in the atmosphere actually increases global crop yields. My take on environmental migrants is no, as with political and all other "forced" migration I prefer to work on the factors at the point of origin causing the migration. At the end of the day in all these instances the war, the famine etc. are actually symptoms not the cause, the cause is always the political system in power at migration source and this is the point where effort is needed.

 

There is no jury out on this one. If you choose to believe the propaganda of the fossil fuels lobby as against the almost 100% scientific consensus that human activity is the prime motor of climate change then there is nothing I can do or say to change that.

 

We'll have to agree to differ as I am unchangeable in my knowledge that huiman activity is not the prime motor of climate change being out performed by the sun, volcanoes, natural cycles to name just three. I'll add to that that there is nowhere near a 100% scientific consensus on climate change, the models are known to be wrong and global warming fails the evidencial check demanded by science i.e. the models predicting change based on CO2 have been proven to not be accurate predictors and therefore invalid. Science is theory, experiment, results, compare if results compare well to model we can proceed in "believing" the theory if results do not follow then the theory has failed the scientific test and needs to be re-evaluated. I find it very arrogant of the human race to think itself as anything other than a part of nature rather than seeing itself as some kind of God controlling nature, it's vice versa, nature controls and balances us.

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/28/global-warming-is-still-on-the-great-shelf/ Interesting read....

 

You are unchangeable in your opinion not your knowledge. What scientists have seen over the last decades is a gradual decrease in energy being re-radiated back into space - the amount arriving has not changed. It is known that greenhouse gases act as a blanket which keep the World warmer than it would be without - humans are adding to this by burning fossil fuels and by their present agricultural practices - there is further evidence that our presently rising temperatures are caused by that increased Co2. Or would you deny that the ice caps are melting ? Can you explain to me why the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry have given so much money to those groups denying climate change ?

 

Try asking the polar bears if they agree with this - or the towns now being regularly flooded on the alpine fringes because the glaciers are all melting.

 

I deliberately used the term knowledge to express my belief which I deem to be knowledge based on fact rather than an interpretation of models. The amount of energy arriving has actually declined a bit therefore your comment re re-radiation into space is in fact an understatement as the degree of blanket is greater than temperature change would indicate. Present temperature rises do not correlate to CO2 to the extent proposed and the worst offender in greenhouse gases is not CO2 it is methane, methane emissions are significant from the increasing bovine herd that meets the food needs of an ever increasing population which by the way also emits significant CO2 by breathing. I would question whether the ice caps are melting to any greater extent than normal climate cycles, particularly comparing to Roman times when the caps were much smaller than at present and when sea levels were also vastly different but we were not burning coal oil or gas and had a fraction of the current population gracing the planet. I can't talk for the Koch brothers or the fossil fuel industry any more than you can justify the funding of "green" organizations such as Greenpeace and their motivation for supporting certain technologies such as windfarms that destroy the environment and kill more wildlife than the oil and gas or nuclear industries. I respect everybody or any organization that behaves in a non hypocritical way, people such as yourself who have a well rounded view of the world that is unambiguous and based on your own interpretation are a healthy addition to the human race. What I cannot abide is sensationalist greens who in one breath point at fossil fuels as the worlds evil whilst supporting damaging technology, using bird kill for sensationalist headlines when their technologies kill more than fossil fuels, do not present a believable model regarding climate and natures control loops, use petroleum derivatives in their lives, ignore the fact that life expectancy, health, human comfort are all direct results of an improvement enabled in society by fossil fuels.

 

I am not saying that all of the temperature increase is as a result of our emissions, but some of it certainly is. I know that there are natural climactic changes - medieval warm period (hence the vikings journeys in the north) etc. and that we may be entering another one now even without our emissions. Temperatures have been gradually warming for about the last 300 years without our interference - but we are adding to the problem. Also you are right in that methane is more aggressive than direct Co2, nitrous oxide is even more aggressive so the fertilizers which go onto our fields are proportionally worse than the cars being driven. A full blooded attempt to lower emissions to the levels of the 80s would have far reaching effects not only regarding our mobility and freight transport, but also our agriculture and rubbish disposal, together with the creation of 'cleaner' electricity. The mistake is to believe that this is possible through simply replacing one technology with another ie. wind and solar energy, electric cars etc. a kind of techno fix solution - it isn't, only a full scale change in our consumption practices will help. No party can however win elections by telling people that they have to give up everything which they like doing. Even if the chances that we are adding to the problem of global warming only stood at 60% of so I would still say that this justifies radical change on our part, because the first duty of every person be they left, right, religious, atheist, whatever is to give the World over to the next generations.

 

Going back to your original subject of migrants, it is unsustainable and undesirable for Europe to accept them at anywhere near the present rate. They must be actively discouraged from trying. It is heartbreaking to witness the tragedies and hardship of these individuals but resources must be employed in or near their own countries.

 

I agree

 

We assume that there are 3 different types of supposed refugee - there are those who have come from 'safe' Balkan countries, who will eventually be sent back but who still need to be processed first - call them economic migrants if you like. The real refugees come either because they are in danger at home or because their home no longer exists, either destroyed by man or by nature (earthquake, climate change) - realistically very few of them will ever go home. This sounds negative but how many of those who escaped from Nazi Germany went back there in better days - very few. Your suggestion is that they should be kept in neighbouring 'safe' countries - but why should those countries be expected to take the burden alone. Jordan and Lebanon already have a ratio of about 1 refugee to every 4 citizens, Turkey has over a million refugees. The biggest receiving countries for refugees are Iran and Pakistan. This has been the situation for a long time now and those countries have received precious little financial help from us - it has been a case of 'out of sight, out of mind' for too long.

 

I would hope that these receiving countries can and will be financially supported by the rest of Europe, this would be cheaper in the long run and avoid some of the social consequences if inundated with migrants.

Your idea of sharing these people around member states would only encourage several million more migrants to hand their life savings over to crooks in return for a life threatening trip.