Mr Jolissant is a bloody idiot. A really stupid bloody idiot
18:38 Wednesday 10 Jan 07
Mr Jolissant, a Chrysler veteran who was recently appointed the chief economist for the German-US DaimlerChrysler Group……….[said] he had been shocked by the absurdity of European attitudes towards global warming.In response to a question from the floor, he said that global warming was a far-off risk whose magnitude was uncertain.
and which fools fell into line?
Neither Ford’s chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, nor General Motors’ chief economist Mustafa Mohatarem, who were on the panel with Mr Jolissaint, questioned his assertion.
FFS. Even GWB has a clue about global warming.
Mr Jolissant is quite obviously a man with his head far far up his corporate ass.
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1
Okay, I’ll bite. It’s magnitude is uncertain. You can look at previous global temperature fluctuations and guess that it’ll go up maybe 3 degrees at most and then shoot back down, but there’s no way to tell for sure. We don’t know why it happens or what makes it stop.
If it is uncertain, you can’t really say it’s a far-off risk… but then you can’t say it’s an imminent risk either. You can’t say for sure that it’s a risk at all. It’s a question mark. The good news is that this has all happened before, long before humans were ever around, and the world survived. Even the strongest proponents of behavior modification admit that human behavior can have very little effect on the trend. We’re along for the ride.
Honestly, it’s all about increased government control. Ergo why Bush is on board. The Kyoto Protocol, the Patriot Act — different inflated fears, same government-propping result. Go take a GWB speech and replace “Terrorism” with “Global Warming.” Then take an Al Gore speech and do the opposite. It’s the same song and dance. “Be afraid, and regard government as the solution to all the problems we tell you that you have.”
22:37 Wednesday 10 Jan 07
2
I’ve read a fair few books / articles and the year 2050 seems prominent. The fact is that cars are polluting, that the industry wants more cars, more roads, more subsidies, more profit and it is entirely in the interest of all the automotive companies to talk down anything that might impact their bottom line.
Govt control? If this were a US-centric issue I might agree but there are too many level-headed people across the world who do not think like the guy above. He is in the minority.
And I’m sure that the world has seen worse and I’m sure the dinosaurs were happy at the time but it’s us that are doing the damage and it is our children to who we owe our attention and to the world they will inherit.
Jolissant doesn’t give a flying f*ck about the planet – all he cares about is profit and shareholders.
22:53 Wednesday 10 Jan 07
3
> has all happened before, long before humans were ever around, and the world survived.
Mark J what is proven to be completely unprecedentedly is the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. No scientists disagree that climate change is a relate. People debate politics not science.
00:41 Thursday 11 Jan 07
4
What happens in 2050 (well, besides the last of the people making these predictions having died)? Global cooling (peak temperature)? I’m sure they’ll be warning of us the impending ice age when that happens… again. (scientists in the 1970s were alarmed at the trend of global cooling observed) You can take almost any 10-100 year period of CO2 concentrations or temperature fluctuations and make it look like we’re headed for the freezer or the furnace. And in 2050 we’ll probably look back at our current ideas about climate change and its causes and laugh at our stupidity. 2006 was supposed to have a whole bunch of “super-hurricanes.” Yeah, last hurricane in these parts was Katrina. Longer term forecasts haven’t been any more accurate.
Scientists and politicians who say the sky is falling (and blame us) will always have a bigger podium and audience than the ones who say that everything is boring, normal, and natural. No one is going to sell a zillion copies of “A Napworthy Truth.” That one is sitting in the discount bin next to “Terrorism is less deadly than swimming pools” and “HIV: why you’ll probably never get it and why it will probably never kill you”
And about fossil fuels… they’ll start to go away when a feasible alternative is cheaper. Recent high gas prices should give you encouragement there. Expecting people to give up something that has little-to-no personally measurable negative effect for something less convenient and more expensive is futile. People act in their own self interest. Fossil fuels are a finite resource, and “peak oil” is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. It’s just a matter of time.
06:27 Thursday 11 Jan 07
5
to Mark Jaquith:
(1) you are mixing up two things here: on one side the conspiration theory of governments-that-wants-to-control-everybody-and-restrict -our-liberties (I believe it’s a US speciality, as I am an European, and we do not have this kind of theories here), and on the other the scientific fact about human based global warming. The fact that you are always writing about ‘they’ll say that’, ‘they’ll do this’ is very typical. Who are ‘they’ ? the incompetent scientists teaming with the liberticide governments to put us on fear ? I am myself a scientist (physicist) and I do not team up with governments to control people’s opinion.
Can keep your fear about government control for you, but you have to realize that global warming is someting … global, not a US speciality. As a European, leaving in the Swiss Alps, I can tell you that global warming is something that we are experiencing for real – exceptional land slides, stronger hurricanes, less and less snow, very hot/dry summers, and I have seen this evolution myself these last 35 years.
(2) please, do not say that we do not know about climate evolution. Instead, say that YOU do not understand it. It is not because you have your doubts that it is necessarilty the opinion of others. So, seat and relax, and go to http://www.manicore.com, look at english version, about climate change, energy, etc… excellent pages, with quick FAQ and other facts, very well done.
(3) statistics: the global warming prediction only give trends, these cannot predict the number of hurricanes/year, or the amount of snow next March in North America, or whatever elsetoo specific. Today’s weather is the job of meteorologists, not climate evolution specialists. Anyway, we just nee to wait and see what’s going to happens in the next years. Actually, we already know, because the models have been proved to work very well to reproduce last 30 years climate change, so these models can be used to assess what’s next. And it’s no fun :(
(4)I am not related to Mr Jolissaint @ Chrystler, this incompetent imbecile (I wish I was, that would be easier to kick his ass).
09:47 Sunday 21 Jan 07