Dan Boyle: Well Grounded

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From top: Dublin city centre yesterday; Dan Boyle

I’m writing this on Earth Day. It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the first holding of the event. It is a wistful anniversary. The past five decades, despite increased awareness, has seen rapid denigration of the global environment.

The coming fifty years offer what may be our final opportunities to stop this rot. To stem the poisoning. To halt the madness.

At this mid point between awareness and action we find ourselves living in the most surreal of circumstances. The cacophony of what we have been encouraged to believe was normal life, has been silenced.

That silence, laced though it is with fear, provides pause for thought. For some there will be comfort in going back to what was. But we can’t.

Going back to what we had been doing is a return to insanity. That type of madness that Einstein described, in doing the same thing again and again while expecting a different result.

We need to better define what it is we mean by necessity. What is it that we need?

We are learning, in the most contrived of the situations, that there is much that we can do without.

In the near future advertising agencies will use all their sophisticated tools to convince us otherwise. When they do we should remind ourselves of the words Mick Jagger has been singing for the past fifty five years, that its all about “some useless information supposed to fire my imagination”.

And he went to the London School of Economics.

Of most need of reinvention is the science of economics itself. An entire new set of questions need to be asked. What is value? What are its inputs? How do we recognise such inputs? How do we ensure such inputs are used proportionately?

The old ways are gone, or at least they need to be banished. Our current indicators of success are flawed. In truth they are dishonest. They come nowhere near measuring our individual or collective well being.

As economics is currently structured it cannot put prices on many things of real value, and thus does not want to believe such things have value.

A child’s smile, a parent’s anecdote, a friend’s concern, can never be placed into any equation determining Gross National Product. And yet each contribute significantly to any sense of well being.

Over the past two centuries of economic prosperity, what we have defined as progress has come at a price. We have largely ignored this price because we have chosen not to define it.

The price has been mostly borne by the making available of environmental inputs as being cost free. To put this in more familiar financial terms, we have accumulated an environmental debt more acute and more deep than any monetary debt we have obsessed over.

Unlike the repayment of monetary debt, in meeting our environmental debt we benefit from doing things differently, which are better for being different.

A popular meme on the internet is a cartoon of a climate change conference, where a presentation is being made listing the changes needed to bring about a greener World. One delegate turns to another and asks “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better World for nothing?”.

This is where we are at now.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

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88 thoughts on “Dan Boyle: Well Grounded

  1. Clampers Outside

    Never mind the science of economics it has always been known to be fairly all over the shop, and environmental science is all over the shop too.
    And I’d certainly prefer that science cleaned up so that we can plan properly for a “better world” instead of sowing fear and anxiety in young people by telling them the world is going to end. Something I find despicable.

    Like Mr Taft said on here a few months ago. Nothing productive will come from instilling fear in the next generations.

    We need to be bigger than that.

    We need to teach the next generations a “can do” attitude towards solving difficult long game problems I stead of looking back from their pampered position at what past generations have done. And that’s something I’ve yet to see come from the environmental lobby, to properly promote in people better ways of doing. It’s there but it way down the ladder below the promotion of fear.

    In raising my own young fella, he won’t be raised with the paralysing fear of a ‘no future’ that environmental lobby groups push, but with Mr Taft’s approach of raising him with a “we can do this” attitude to these bigger than us all problems.

    The world won’t end, not in my lifetime, not in my kids, and not in his kids and so on…

      1. GiggidyGoo

        I watched an interesting program early this morning on the Smithsonian channel. (175 on Sky), and there were 5 ‘natural’ mass extinctions, and the question was whether we’re into a man-made 6th one now.Well worth a watch – It’ll be on again I’d think.

        (The last one was a Meteor hit – 6 miles in diameter which hit Florida/Texas region I think. It got rid of the dinosaurs)

        1. bisted

          …reminded of what Ghandi said when asked what he thought of Western Civilisation…said he thought it would be a very good idea…

          1. Steph Pinker

            … yea but Bisted, Trigger got his own back on behalf of Western Civilisation when he said that Ghandi only made one great movie then we never heard of him again!

    1. Nigel

      The science describing both the environmental problems and solutions are well known and well understood and have been for a very long time. Any sense of the world ending comes from the staggering fact of decades of inaction that seem set to continue no matter what the science says. Your can-do attitude seems limited to scolding people who are trying to do something for not being optimistic enough in the face of massive vested interests preventing and even reversing progress.

      1. Clampers Outside

        “well known” and “well understood… for a very long time” is bullpoo! and one point I’m making.
        If it were well known and well understood the modeling would produce accurate predictions, but they haven’t which is demonstrated in the continuous guessing.

        “Any sense of the world ending” instilled in children – a point you’ve ignored – is not due to the reason you’ve given. The children are told it is ending due to the bad science in my first point.

        You’re talking nonsense, which only further proves my point of doom mongering claptrap.

        I’m with Mr Taft on this and will not be instilling such fear in any child, not just my own.

        1. Nigel

          You obviousy don’t understand modelling which is, in any case, only one aspect of environmental science and certanly not the one on which the scientific principles behind climate change actually rests, just the one that attempts to make predictions about it. Demanding perfect predictions of a phenomenon that is by its very nature increasingly chaotic shows you are not actually interested in understanding what is going on.

          The world is not ending due to bad science, it is ending due to people ignoring the science – often for similarly dubious and facile reason to the one you give above.

          I’m entirely sympathetic to your concerns about not instilling fear in your child. That’s good parenting. Meanwhile, Amazonian deforestation accelerates, ocean acidification increases, the Arctic seas are soon going to be entirely ice free during the summer months, more human-generated CO2 has been put into the atmosphere in the last 20 years than in the previous hundred, scientists are worried about the crawl to mass extinction reaching an irreversible tipping point, thousands die every year from air pollution, extreme weather events become more frequent, land masses burn in drought or drown in flood, and it’s the people who are still optimistic enough to use their can-do attitide to try to do something about it that you bother to attack. Protecting your kid from the grim realities while they’re young and vulnerable – good. Pretending it’s not happening – stupid and wrong.

          1. Clampers Outside

            First para – no one is demanding perfection. I’m certainly not, just some at least bit of discernible reliability. 

            There are plenty of failed dumb predictions based on what you call “well known… and well understood” science found with a quick googling.

            Second para – there you go again, predicting the end of the world. Shurrrrrrrup with your nonsense.

            I did not “bother to attack” those optimistic can-do individuals who work in the areas of environmental conservation that you listed. 

            I attacked the information, the bad science, and the lobbying approach of doom and gloom.

            When you read, don’t respond with what you wish you had read. Please respond to what was written, thank you. 

          2. SOQ

            My ‘prediction’ is that once this CoVid-19 thing is over- predictive modelling is going to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

            Time will tell but the estimated numbers have simply not happened and that is in both countries with a lock down and without. In the mean time, economies following these models have taken an absolute hammering which in turn will cost lives.

          3. Nigel

            ‘Shurrup’
            You literaly do not want to hear the truth because the truth is grim, as if because it’s grim it can’t be true. There IS a lot of very bad science out there – almost all of it devoted to climate change denial. Your ‘attacks’ are so vague non-specific and generalised they’re more like boilerplate than actual thoughts.

            If you think I’m not responding to what you have written, then I’m not sure you know how conversations work, let alone science. I think it’s because I don’t respond the way you want me to respond. Sorry for being so difficult.

          4. Clampers Outside

            My “attack” is not vague, it’s crystal clear what I said, that instilling a generation with fear and anxiety is not conducive to producing a problem solving future generation.

            You simply see it as vague because, as you demonstrated a few times already, you want me to have said something I didn’t so that you can attack that.

            Its been your tact in this site as long as I can remember you o here.

            My response to that is, please, will you simply stick that tired shtick of yours where the sun doesn’t shine and stop with your stupid attempts and insisting you know other people’s motives when clearly and demonstrably, you do not, nor care not to.

            Gaaaawd you’re not “difficult” as in posing difficult responses, you’re difficult like a tiresome child insisting their own wide of the mark interpretation is all that needs said. It’s pathetic, poor lad.

          5. Nigel

            SOQ – if you mean opoortunists will seize on discrepancies, decontextualised data and outright disinformation and the economic cost to argue that we shouldn’t take the drastic actions we will need to take against climate change, I fear you are correct, but it isn’t as if they aren’t doing all that all the time anyway.

            I like your attitude of ‘time will tell but the estimated numbers simply have not happened.’ You’re making yourself an easy target there.

          6. Donnchadh

            FAO SOQ: when you say that the estimated numbers haven’t happened, which models/ predictions do you have in mind?

            Perhaps the most-discussed model has been the one produced by Imperial College London – it made a number of different predictions, each based on specific assumptions about what the UK would or would not do in response to the virus. Their prediction for the most comprehensive response they consider, which is pretty close to the actions which were actually taken, was 20,000 deaths in the UK. Current figures suggest that prediction will broadly accurate (probably an underestimate).

          7. SOQ

            @ Nigel

            No, the estimates for CoVid-19 have been revised downwards on a number of occasions and we now know that the number of asymptomatic carriers was very under estimated- therefore the actual % fatality rate in the opposite direction. In fairness, the true picture of infection will not be known until it is over.

            It all depends on what you mean by modelling, Sometime like risk or even transport planning is very logical meaning that you could work through the various scenarios on a spreadsheet yourself so- it is actually just a labour saving tool.

            But once AI (fuzzy logic and neural networks in particular) comes into play with its probability and weightings etc, there is no real right or wrong answer- at least not one that can be manually verified.

            And that I suspect is what most environmental models are using.

          8. Nigel

            SOQ In the current pandemic it isn’t as if we aren’t surrounded by people dying all over the world, and in the case of climate change it isn’t as if we aren’t surrounded by collapsing ecological systems and increasing global temperatures with drastic and disastrous consequences. Deciding the models must be completely wrong without seemingly knowing what the models are saying and without waiting for the data to be properly understood is the equivalent of the old lie going round the world a few times before the truth gets its socks on.

          9. Nigel

            Clampers – Vague in the sense that it’s impossible to avoid the fact that the science suggests things are a bit doomy and gloomy if we don’t take action and not enough people in power see prepared to take that action, therefore anyone who talks realistically about it is going to be open to this damning eccusation, a bit like people who were giving out warnings during the Celtic Tiger but were dismissed as doom and gloom merchants.. You can pretend otherwise, and get offended when people are unimpressed that you’re more concerned about tone-policing environmentalists than dealing with the the actual actions being taken to destroy the world around us, but hey, I’m familiar with your weird priorities.

          10. Clampers Outside

            Again, you are missing the original point.

            All that you say in the comment I’m responding to now can be achieved without instilling fear in children.

            And I say again, you keep omitting that point about I stilling fear in children and instead are responding to a point not made in order that you can respond in some manner to your own desire.
            It’s like being on a roundabout with you sometimes, having to repeat myself so much :)

          11. SOQ

            @Donnchadh- my disclaimer is that I have never worked in this area so possibily off the mark but, even as an outsider, the actions of Johnson going from stay at home for seven days to a complete lock down two days later because of what was happening in Italy, had little to do with modelling- and a lot to do with what he was seeing with his own two eyes.

            The only way an AI model can be fully accurate is if it has a full data set of something similar from the past. The UK / Ireland models were just feeding off Italy which was only so many weeks in advance. I am not saying they are of no use but the garbage in garbage out rule still applies. That said would be of some use in running through various scenarios but even those will be returned with a % weighted probability.

            @ Nigel- I never said they were entirely wrong, I said they were not entirely right which is how AI modelling works. As above- rarely will they return a 100% certainty- that is the whole point.

            My criticism is as usual, more to do with how the media report the results than the models themselves of course.

            People who work with such AI models are always at pains to state that this is the most likely outcome rather than- this is what will definitely happen.

          12. Nigel

            Well, I wish people who campaigned for nuclear disarmament hadn’t instilled fear in me when I was a child oh no wait the reality of living in a world threatened by total destruction in the event of a nuclear war instilled that fear in me. You have a problem with the reality of the world we live in, not with the people trying to do something about it. I feel for you as a Dad, I really do, but you’re not even shooting the messenger because the message is coming from everywhere, you’re shooting the people who want to fix it.

          13. Clampers Outside

            Nope. Shooting the message of fear in kids, as I’ve repeatedly said.
            Anything else, is just you making stuff up as if you’re pretending to be me, and assuming to know me while dismissing what I actually said.

            Disingenuous argumentation is at best all you have done in your responses to me today. Quite pathetic really, in fairness.

          14. Nigel

            Well, I wish people who campaigned for nuclear disarmament hadn’t instilled fear in me when I was a child oh no wait the reality of living in a world threatened by total destruction in the event of a nuclear war instilled that fear in me. You have a problem with the reality of the world we live in, not with the people trying to do something about it. I feel for you as a Dad, I really do, but you’re not even shooting the messenger because the message is coming from everywhere, you’re shooting the people who read the message and want to respond to it.

          15. Nigel

            SOQ – expecting models to be entirtely right shows a distinct misunderstanding of models. As I understand it, every model is wrong, but you need lots and lots of wrong models to get some idea of what’s right.

          16. Donnchadh

            SOQ, your suggestion about Johnson’s reasoning may be correct, but that does not seem relevant to your original claim, which was that the estimated numbers have not happened. Were you thinking of any specific examples (bearing in mind that for a prediction to turn out wrong, it would have to assume more or less the policies a given government ended up adopting)?

            Of course you are right that a predictive model is dependent on the data going into it, and it may well turn out that the data, especially from early on in the outbreak, was flawed. This is a limitation on all modelling, and indeed in all government policy-making in response to the virus. It applies equally to any alternative plans that governments could have adopted – they would equally have been based on limited data. This is something which some critics of lockdowns have been slow to acknowledge.

          17. Nigel

            Yeah, you seem stuck on this idea of ‘shooting the message of fear in kids.’ It’s not somthing you’re willing to actually discuss, develop, explore, expand, examine, it just kind of sits there like a commandment from on high – Thou Shalt Not Instil Fear In Kids, which I guess just means you haven’t got to the ‘teaching them how to cross the road’ stage.

          18. Clampers Outside

            It’s simple, stop telling kids the world is going to end.

            There is nothing to explore, expand or whatever in that. It is straight forward.

          19. Nigel

            By the way, Clamps, your very first and original point was that ‘environmental science is all over the shop,’ and it is the tone and substance of that ridiculous statement that has informed most of my responses. How you handle imparting the facts and the science to your children, or shield them from it, isn’t going to change the facts or the science.

          20. Clampers Outside

            It is not ridiculous to say that much environmental science on climate is all over the shop.

            Much of it is, and it is debated, even among those who agree on an environmental priority.

            How I impart won’t change facts, but it will encourage an attitude capable of at least attepting to fix problems instead of living in fear of them.

            ………….

            Anyway, why am I discussing what is and is not “all over the shop” science with a numpty who believes in Self ID, that men can be women, and women can be men just by “identifying” as one, hah!
            How silly of me :)

            … Oh you internet…. you great time waster. I love you :)

          21. Nigel

            ‘Stop telling kids the world is going to end.’
            Ok. We will, however, continue to educate them about the environment, which cannot be done honestly without showing how it is being catastrophically damaged, and climate change, which cannot be done honestly without showing the serious future consequences if nothing is done.

          22. Nigel

            As I have said before, the science and mechanics of climate change are well understood and not in serious dispute, and nor is the danger they pose. Further debate, new conclusions and discoveries are not a sign of ‘being all over the shop,’ that’s just how science works.

          23. SOQ

            @ Donnchadh

            Ok here is one from Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Washington from the beginning of month- which I picked at random. The data set was updated and the fatality numbers revised downwards.
            https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/coronavirus-model-now-predicts-many-fewer-u-s-deaths.html

            The problem with saying modelling is or is not accurate is that the goal posts keep moving. By that I mean that each time the input data is refreshed, the output also changes and in the case of CoVid-19, usually that means downward fatalities.

            For example: if my neural network system predicts a 50% chance of rain tomorrow morning and then it is updated with the knowledge of a clear sky tonight. I run the model again and the output is revised downward to a 25% probability- which result should be measured for accuracy? The exact same question should be asked of CoVid-19 and environmental models.

            Then there are other issues like when you build in an assumption of total lock down = lower fatality rate. We don’t yet know if countries which focused on locking down only their vulnerable early was an equivalent or even more successful strategy. 69% of CoVid-19 fatalities in Ireland to date were people in nursing homes after all.

            It’s not an exact science by any means which brings me back to my original point- they should be taken with a pinch of salt and they certainly should not be replacing human experience.

          24. SOQ

            @ Donnchadh

            Oh and one other C19 point- the data from other countries was flawed or at least not consistent. The base testing per million varied greatly and then there is the ‘with’ or ‘from’ issue.

            The only certainty that came out of Italy early was that it killed old people but it shouldn’t have taken a computer model to tell you that you should be taking preventive measures to protect that particular demographic.

          25. Donnchadh

            SOQ, thanks, that’s a nice example, and you are right to note the importance of new data in updating the models and revising predictions.

            I think it’s important to not place too much faith in any one model, or even an aggregate of them – I agree with you on that score. But equally thay are useful tools for comparing different possible scenarios given adjusted parameters. That kind of comparison is crucial in deciding on policy, whether models are used or not. And the plain fact is that everyone, early on in the outbreak, was working from limited data and having to make decisions on the fly. So decisions which were reasonable given the data available might not make sense when more and better data is available – but it would be a mistake, imo, to think on those grounds that the original decision should have been different.

            It will be extremely interesting to see, for example, whether different countries used substantially different models, and whether this played any part in the different outcomes. I’ve seen references to Sweden’s medical experts making decisions based on their modelling, but I haven’t seen any details of the models they’ve been using – they will be very interesting to see if they are ever made public.

          26. SOQ

            You are very welcome Donnchadh but as I say this is not my area and I am only applying my limited knowledge of neural networks to what I suspect they are using. They may not be employing AI at all of course in which case it is straight down the line number crunching.

            As more testing occurs, the % number of fatalities is bound to go down mind. I mean if some dies they are dead but someone else tests + then they may not know until so the unknown is mainly those who are asymptomatic or mild.

            That in turn will be reflected in all models going forward.

    2. Old School T

      Why the emphasis on teaching the ‘next generations’? The current generation needs to be taught environmental responsibility first – rather than leaving it to the ‘next generations’; which this generation and previous ones have been doing – “sure that’s all in the future, let someone else solve it …then”.
      The world may not end, but our place in it and our lives will change.
      If you thought wars over fossil fuels was bad, wait until you see wars over water. Water shortages are happening now. You’ve seen the protests over abstraction of water from the Shannon to Dublin. What happens when India diverts Himalayan water away from China. Chinese interests in Tibet are not (just) ideological. They are looking at securing their water supply. This is not fear mongering, but a real source of concern.

      1. Clampers Outside

        Can’t we do both without instilling fear of the world ending.
        It was assumed, maybe foolishly, that if advocating a “can do” approach in the next generations, that those teaching would also practice what they preach, and do better also.

        1. Nigel

          A ‘can do’ approach and a proper apreciation of the enormity of the problem and the nature of the the consequences of inaction are not incompaltible. Whining about the tone of people trying to warn you of the seriousness of the situation is actually kinda the opposite of ‘can-do.’

          1. Clampers Outside

            Again, you avoid the original point of instilling fear in children.

            Yep, this defo like some roundabout :)

          2. Nigel

            I’ve adressed it in two or three other comments, and since you haven’t disagreed with what I said you either agreed with what I said or have no response at all, but pretending I ignored it is knida dishonest.

          3. Clampers Outside

            You addressed it by stretching the point beyond what I actually said, as pointed out already.

          4. Nigel

            I’m so sorry i have a different pont of view about these things, and have my own thoughts to share, it really seems to offend you.

          5. Clampers Outside

            Pffft, I state that I’m bored with the roubdabout, you contend I’m offended.
            Gaaaawd lad, your continued misrepresentation is laughable to say the least :)

          6. Nigel

            I mean, all you do is complain that I’m responding to you outside of the strictly controlled paramters that you have set for the conversation. I get it, you don’t like being challenged, you don’t like other points of view, you don’t want to talk about the subject, you want to talk about how I talk about the subject. Your statements and arguments are set in stone and not to be broken down or built upon or explored, there’s no need for context, there’s no need for other ideas, there’s only one voice in these conversations, its yours, anything I say is stuff i just make up that you have no interest in. Sorry. I bet you think you’re good at critical thinking, and all.

          7. Clampers Outside

            I love a challenge, I love other points of view, but I am to be challenged, it should be on what I said.

            The rest of your comment is you throwing your toys out of your pram… pffft :)

          8. Nigel

            Stating my own points of view is not misrepresenting you. If you want something else, talk to the mirror.

          9. Clampers Outside

            Oh sorry, yes Nigel, you know when someone else is offended because in Nigel land you know all.

            Poo off ya scamp.
            Offended me botty, ya bleedin’ silly.

  2. max

    I made the mistake of watching micheal moore’s lastest docu planet of the humans on youtube, about how green “green tech” is. Now i dont know what to think.

    1. Clampers Outside

      Haven’t seen it yet. Does he mention the issue around recycling of windmills and solar panels, something not being addressed properly at all yet…?

  3. Gabby

    I used to think hillside windmill farms were an ecogreen solution to our energy problems. Nowadays I hear of alternative energy companies furtively making deals with farmers and colonising scenic areas with giant windmills that disturb families with ‘white noise’ and kill the wild birdies. Eco puritanism has its side effects.

  4. Nigel

    Do you have something other than a YouTube clip to back up this extrordinary statement? A scientific study or a report or preferably lots of them from creditable sources? Have the seas secretly repopulated themselves in the last fifty years? Has Australia recovered miraculously from the wildfires? Is the Chernobyl area not currently burning? Are they replanting the Amazonian rainforests? Air pollution is down all across the globe due to quarantine but is there any indication it won’t come back, redoubled, once the pandemic is past?

    1. Nigel

      I gave my partial list above. Your response is bare-faced denial. The seas are fine? If being choked with plastic is ‘fine.’Fish is plentiful?’ Holy moses, fish populations are a fraction of what they used to be. Coral is fine? Jaypers, they’re dying of acidification. Whale populations are growing? Yes, some species are back from the brink of extinction, thanks to the whaling ban, but that is not ‘fine.’

      Rather than tax anyone other than the rich and all industries that rely heavily on fossil fuels, I’d settle for an end to all oil subsidies, exploration, drilling and extraction and the conversion of all infrastructure to renewable energy resources with an emphasis on public transport, walking and cycling, a revolution in farming practices that encourages the preservation and expansion of biodiversity and setting aside vast natural reserves for rewilding. Ocean cleanups and the cleaning of sites left toxic and poisonous (usually in areas of high poverty, naturally) as well as civil and even criminal liabitilities for polluters would also be great, thanks.

      1. Nigel

        You’re ‘looking at it,’ are you? And you can’t see any plastic? And you haven’t heard about anyone talking about the level of plastic in the oceans? Haven’t seen any pictures, read any reports, listened to oceanographers? Just ‘looked’ at the Atlantic Ocean. Wow.

      2. Clampers Outside

        An end to all oil…

        Again, “ALL” oil?

        Really, have you thought that one through.

          1. Nigel

            I wished I lived in your land where fossil fuels weren’t causing massive climate change, along with all the other environmental, social and cultural damage inflicted by the oil indutry.

          2. Clampers Outside

            Where did I ever say that they didn’t cause damage?

            Jesus, shhhhtop will you. Just stop, you’re getting really ridiculous now.

  5. Cian

    Your NASA video is saying that the earth is getting “greener” as in “there are more green-leafy things growing”.

    A lot of this seems to be related to polar regions becoming greener. The warmer temperatures mean less snow, longer growing seasons, and more plant life. I’m not sure if this is a good thing…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi8SFOJffFA

  6. Cian

    This video is saying that the earth is “greener” as in “there are more green-leafy things growing”.
    A lot of this seems to be related to polar regions becoming greener. The warmer temperatures mean less snow, longer growing seasons, and more plant life. I’m not sure if this is a good thing…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi8SFOJffFA

      1. Nigel

        I mean, if civilisation plunging back into a prehistoric pre-Ice Age state ISN’T your idea of doom and gloom, then…okay, I guess? Retreating glaciers mean water shortages for millions, to say nothing of the direct consequences for the plants and animals in their range, but hey, millions of years ago there used to be a forest there, so cheer up!

        1. Clampers Outside

          The world is going to regress into, no sorry, “plunge” into a “prehistoric pre-ice age” world…. Hahahahaha

          Please don’t ever give out about tabloid sensationalism when you engage in the same rhetoric yourself.

          Jaysus lad, listen to yourself.

          Mad max type world… here we come! LOL

          1. Nigel

            Oh, excuse me. Then how exactly DOES the discovery of evidence of prehistoric life in the area now occupied by a retreating glacier counter the ‘doom and gloom narrative?’

          2. Clampers Outside

            Wow, way to misrepresent there pet :)
            Posing a question as if it were a direct response to something I said.

            You said we are plunging into a prehistoric pre ice age.
            I laughed at that ridiculous image of that.

            You then respond with a question about how a pre ice age discovery due to retreating glaciers is a “counter” to the doom and gloom narrative….

            What are you on ffs :)

          3. Nigel

            I realise the original comment about the archaelogical discovery under the retreating glacier has been deleted, and that you are selective about which jokes go over your head and when to ignore obvious irony, but to pretend I wasn’t responding to it is, again, dishonest. You could clalrify as to how that discovery ‘doesn’t suit the narrative of doom and gloom’ or you could carry on with your favourite topic – how I’m being horribly unfair by saying things you don’t approve of and can’t really answer.

          4. Clampers Outside

            “Approve of” what? >_<

            Just stay on point when responding to a comment. Do you know how to stay on point with anything without adding tangential arguements that make your so called points of response uselessly lost in the noise.
            You too often throw everything but the kitchen sink into you responses, often ignoring the main point of a comment you're responding to. And intentionally so.

            You've been doing that for years. I've seen numerous others argue this point of your discussion style with you.

            That tangential approach of yours is not expanding, it side steps with you.
            And it is disingenuous in discussion beyond anything anyone else ever engages with on here.

            Uber-meh :)

          5. Nigel

            That’s a lot of verbiage to avoid any explanation of how that link went against the doom and gloom narrative.

          6. Clampers Outside

            It was you that made that assertion. Don’t ask me to argue your assertions ffs :)

          7. Nigel

            Quote Clampers Outside April 23, 2020 at 1:08 pm: ‘Put that away, it doesn’t suit the narrative of doom and gloom.’

          8. Clampers Outside

            And, so? What’s your point? What are you suggesting that meant now exactly?

            This should be interesting.

          9. Nigel

            At the risk of repeating myself, I’m asking you what you meant. How did that link ‘not suit the narratvie of doom and gloom?’

          10. Nigel

            1. Who says people can’t live in warmer climates?
            2. Do you think there will be no negative consequences of melting ice caps and (in this case) retreating glaciers?
            3. How does the archaeological discovery show this?

      2. Nigel

        Millions rely on glaciers for their water. Glaciers are shrining and retreating. For example, the one in your link.

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