The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[RedDevil]

Consumption burns wealth. I am not poor thanks to restraint and intend to get richer by reducing consumption even more.

Those who are poor and can't get loans are inhibited to consume a lot through lack of wealth, but that does not mean they are the same.

You cannot treat all kinds of consumption like they are one and the same either.
I'm paying off the mortgage on my house. Once that's done and I'm confident I can pay my kids education no matter what, I may start consuming more works of art or other forms of intellectual property.
So much more satisfying than consuming fuel.

[redpoint5]

I'm speaking in broad terms, not individualist terms. More wealth from a macro perspective = more consumption.

I'm a frugal saver also. I live well below my means and tend to consume less in day to day purchases. However, I've saved up quite a lot in a short time, and eventually I'm going to spend that money. This will likely be a bigger property and nicer house. That is consumption. Who knows, I always joke about how I'm going to buy a helicopter. If traffic makes me angry enough, I might get serious about my threats.

So it's possible that individuals have wealth but don't consume more physical resources, but it's unlikely, and not the norm.

Even if a wealthy person invests the money, that investment will be used to spur growth, which is consumption. The link between wealth and consumption is direct.

[Xist]

Ah, conspiracy theories. You periodically hear about people who invent something that would significantly reduce petroleum usage and the oil companies buy their patent, possibly suing them into bankruptcy first. While that definitely sounds like a conspiracy theory, I do think that it is possible.
While I was catching up on everyone arguing with Oil Pan, a lady came to visit Mom, and it seems like she was excited about a video she saw on Facebook. Some lady found out that her son with autism lacked a hormone called Secretin, they injected him with it, his symptoms reduced more and more, until he was "Normal." The full story is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Sokolski (except Wikipedia says improvements only lasted about six weeks and additional doses did not do anything)

This says there were sixteen placebo-controlled randomized trials demonstrating zero benefit from Secretin: https://www.quackwatch.org/04Consume.../secretin.html

I have not been able to find any pro-Secretin videos on YouTube, but I did find this against it, giving the same information as that webpage: https://youtu.be/JaR4zpdtvdk

The lady said "Of course the studies did not show any benefit! The pharmaceutical companies want to sell drugs!"

Couldn't they sell Secretin?

Here is a Princeton article about it: https://www.princeton.edu/~actin/doc...tACure_000.pdf

Basically the article seems to be based on this line:

I believe that the family of secretin receptors holds promise for developing treatments for autism. But because it is not normally found in the brain, more than likely secretin itself is not going to turn out to be the answer. Secretin is a clue, not a cure.

However, it seems the entire thing is just an explanation of what Secretin is and how it works.

Does this mean every parent should take his child to a physician for an “overdose” of secretin in hopes that the intestinal hormone will bind to receptors in the brain? I would say no. The pancreas is one of the most delicate organs in the body, and we do not know what the effects of repeated large-dose administrations of secretin on a child’s pancreas might be. Why take a “sledgehammer” to a child’s system when, if the secretin cousins do prove effective, pharmaceutical companies will be able to develop a ball peen hammer in good time?

Pharmaceutical companies to the rescue!

Aren't oil and pharmaceutical companies two of the largest political donors? Wouldn't it be in their financial interest to bury anything that risks their profits?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

Ah, conspiracy theories. You periodically hear about people who invent something that would significantly reduce petroleum usage and the oil companies buy their patent, possibly suing them into bankruptcy first. While that definitely sounds like a conspiracy theory, I do think that it is possible.

Ideas aren't easily contained. I suppose it's possible for someone to invent something disruptive, only to sell it to someone else who is unscrupulous, and never utter about it again to anyone, but it's exceedingly unlikely.

If I were an oil company and someone invented something that would put me out of business, I'd buy that thing and then get wealthy off it. If there was a technology that doubles fuel efficiency of an engine, it would hold enormous profit potential even for someone making a living off of selling oil.

Basically the only way for a secret to exist between 2 people is for one of them to be dead. Large conspiracies are nearly impossible to accomplish.

Regarding drug companies; we know practically nothing about human biology. Mapping the human genome is a recent development, and we know practically nothing about it. Understanding physiology is even more difficult than the insanely difficult task of understanding global climate change.

[Xist]

I consider medical science to be one of the least established sciences.

[RedDevil]

More deadly that the military. Their only excuse is that their victims are less well trained.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Consumption burns wealth. I am not poor thanks to restraint and intend to get richer by reducing consumption even more.

Gross Domestic Product right now pretty much equals Gross Domestic Burning since solar and wind represent only 3% of primary energy. And reducing personal direct consumption of energy by heating with wood and installing solar panels still leaves the majority of energy that we rely on embedded in the infrastructure of food production and delivery, roads and buildings, "jobs", internet, military, cruise ships, football stadiums, and luxury resorts.
.
Unless we move onto a local self sufficient homestead community where all food, clothing, housing, energy, comes from local renewable resources, and never ask for services from a hospital, police force, government, we are still using mass quantities of energy even with our new solar panels and electric car.
.
If everyone does a little by installing solar panels and buying an electric car, it adds up to... a little.

[sendler]

"Thus conventional “development” is best regarded as a form of legitimized plunder"
Some great stuff on Resilience.org these days.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2...o-think-about/

[NeilBlanchard]

Originally Posted by Xist

I consider medical science to be one of the least established sciences.

So, does smoking tobacco lead to more cancer, or not?

[oil pan 4]

If the study was paid for by the tobacco industry then it does not cause cancer.