Seriously, what the actual ****? http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/11/politics/sean-spicer-hitler-assad-gas-chemical-weapons/index.html
Jewish, communist, Romani, disabled and homosexual Germans obviously don't count as "people" to the US Secretary of State.
Heh. You know what he meant in this case. That Hitler didn't actually use gas in military combat. But yeah, Spicer's not too sharp. And his job is also pretty much impossible having to explain Trump all the time. So maybe the pressure got to him. I'm happy every time these guys stumble in a press conference, a tweet, or whatever that doesn't directly damage anything. The more Americans and people around the world see how stupid it's gotten, the better. Maybe we still don't stop it, but can't say we weren't emphatically warned. Trump has kicked Bannon out of NSC, McMaster is infinitely better than Flynn, he is apparently listening more to Ivanka and Jared Kushner which I have no idea why but it's better than his other two sons and the Breitbart loons.
How many about-turns is that now.? Not that I disapprove of the apology, far from it. It's the original foot-in-mouth moments that get me. They are so regular with this administration.
The yanks, god bless em, have to endure 4 years of ineptitude and idiocy from the Whitehouse. Not sure I can see any end to the ****-show that is currently playing out in Westminster.
Can you imagine what it's going to be like if Scotland actually end up leaving the UK? Effectively the end of democracy in England!
It won't be that. Despite Jeremy Corbyn's best efforts to permanently marginalise the Labour Party, the Tories will not stay in power for ever. But our first past the post election system is, in my opinion, no longer fit for purpose. It's especially ironic that the first coalition government in the UK since WWII should have resulted in the virtual annihilation of the smaller partner. It's hard to be optimistic about the future of politics in this country for all sorts of reasons, but I don't envisage the end of democracy, not in the long term. In the short term though, it's hard to see how democracy can function well without an effective opposition. The short term political and economic outlook for the UK is extremely depressing. As it is for Greece, Italy, Spain and France (though I don't think Le Pen will ever be president). But so long as we don't destroy ourselves and our planet - and we haven't yet - history suggests that humanity will continue to progress in positive ways, and society will become fairer and more equal over any prolonged period of time.
This to me is the biggest issue over the next 20-30 years. It may be an age thing but I really worry what damage we are doing to our planet. Once it's screwed up, there is no hopping to another to recolonise (yet). All the climate policies are important - over the last 100 or so years industrialisation has given us great advances, but also begun to destroy the delicate balance of the planet. Global warming, ozone etc is important to the balance of the environment. It's a lonely solar system out there and we are the only planet that because of an amazing set of circumstances has developed and maintained intelligent life. Let's not ruin it. (I do apologise, but for some reason I really am on my soap box today!)
Just remember that we are doing nothing to the planet that the planet cannot handle. Earth will endure and do very nicely thank you. It's the self inflicted damage we do to our own habitat that's the key. Already, we have done too much, in the sense that certain habitats will disappear. We are very close indeed to triggering runaway climatic changes. For example, underneath and within the permafrost in Siberia are vast quantities of methane. Methane [CH4] is a very powerful organic greenhouse gas. [Click Here, to look it up] If the permafrost starts to melt significantly then trillions of tonnes of methane will be released causing irreversible climate change at least to the same degree of another hundred years of burning fossil fuels. That permafrost is in the process of melting. As yet the science isn't in as to whether we've heated the planet enough to trigger this on the vast scale. The thing is, the climate reacts both quickly and slowly, depending upon the medium which is being influenced, such as air, water or sub-surface ice. And that's just one example. This is not cloud cuckoo-land, it is a very, very real danger and it will happen as long as we keep putting up those gasses to insulate the planet. That's all aside from putting up the gasses to poison ourselves [remember good old ordinary pollution.?]. Once again, because the data isn't precise enough yet to know exactly whether we've heated the planet enough, we may already have sealed our fate. Part of my Environment BSc back in the mid 90's covered this area and my concern went back at least a decade or more before I went to Uni, so I came into contact with many professionals and experts back then who were already quite twitchy that too much had already been done. The data had finally come in that man-made global warming [which became climate change, so MMCC] was real, but the ordinary populations were still to be convinced, and newspaper headline stuff like 'the End of Mother Earth' just got laughed out of the arena. It was too much to take back then. Now MMCC is accepted world-wide [although I believe Trump has recently called it a hoax, so we could be back to square one] ordinary people may accept that trigger points are about to, if not already have been, tripped. It's then we'll realise that Mother Earth is just a planet. It won't look after us, because it never has [that idea is cuckoo-land], but will adjust itself, through its various systems to find equilibrium. The only human part of the equation to the planet's equilibrium is how much stuff we chuck into the environment. So when the planet finds an equilibrium outside of our ability to survive, we are gone.
What people don't always realise is that global warming doesn't mean we will get nicer summers etc. The nice white ice on the poles melts, therefore the albedo of the earth changes and less sunlight is reflected back into space. This heats up the planet. However, we then get increased cloud (as more water vapour in the air), this will keep the heat in and we heat up more. The cloud will reflect more sunlight back though (in theory cooling a bit the planet), but we just have to look at Venus to see what the cloud cover does. Venus is completely covered in cloud and reflects back a lot of sunlight, but has surface temperatures of over 460 degrees in a runaway greenhouse effect. Venus reflects about 75% of sunlight, the earth about 30-35%. We'll be up there with Venus in a few years and we'll all have to move underground.....
It's lovely and sunny today, the air is clear and my garden has flowers everywhere. Luckily I live 500 miles from the coast and when all the bastards polluting the earth have drowned my peonies will still come out every April
It won't happen. We won't kill the planet. I'm not in any way a Climate Change denier, just an optimist. Technology will save us. Here's just one example: Scientists have created a sheet material ($0.50 per square metre, so remarkably cost effective) that cools the surface beneath it to a staggering degree without using power. The end result could be to reduce the power needed to cool buildings (6% of US power consumption) to pretty much zero (low pressure pumps to move warm water about rather than refrigeration pumps). Even better, the heat isn't just dumped into the air - it radiates off into space. Reducing power usage in every hot country in the world by a significant percentage will reduce worldwide carbon emissions significantly.* No, it doesn't solve the problem completely (but no technology is going to). Add in better batteries (10x higher energy density in the lab now, doubtless in production soon so a car might do 1,500 miles on a charge rather than 150). Add in the huge improvements in solar cell efficiencies over the past few years. Add in that even in the USA, wind farms are spreading and becoming efficient enough not to need subsidy. The add in all the things that we just don't know about that are coming (who thought a year ago that we might cut US energy consumption by 5% with the cheap technology above?) and I have no doubt whatsoever that in fifty years we'll look back and say "yes, we were right to be worried but that worry led to solutions". Then again, I expect us to thump Man C so my optimism is boundless. Vin *http://www.economist.com/news/scien...-watching-how-keep-cool-without-costing-earth
I'm impressed Vin! How much would it cost to cover the polar caps with that material? Could Trump get the Mexicans to pay for it?
Trump can do terrific things, real terrific, wonderful, super things. Terrific, great things. One thought of mine, by the way. That film emits 93 watts per square metre, more at night (how much more I don't know). Co2 forcing is around 3W/m2 in daytime. Covering an absolute maximum of 3% of land mass with the film (or just the beads) would cancel out forcing completely. I'm ignoring myriad possible side effects there and, of course, it doesn't get rid of the cause, just mitigates the effects. Vin
