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Besides the 'official' GPC site member blogs, there is this:
http://canadiangreens.feedcluster.com/
Which generally has both more volume and more of an assortment, and a number of people who always write more thoughtfully than what you get on the official site. The blog aggregator is handled by the dissident crowd. But it is ecumenical ,and the more mainstream bloggers there write better than what you get at the GPC blogs. And a lot of the better blogposts at the GPC site will be copy anyway to the independent sites and run in that aggregator.
Thanks Ken, went and had a look, and still was only Daniel's comment...
http://www.camillelabchuk.ca/2009/12/01/watch-elizabeth-may-and-george-monbiot-take-on-climate-laggards-in-tonights-munk-debate/
http://www.christindal.ca/2009/11/30/george-and-me/
have also been there all day.
May was uninspiring, but it's hard to argue in a debate when the fix is clearly already in. How many times can you say the science is unequivocal?
The Copenhagen conference hasn't been canceled. Does that mean that May won or lost?
Well here is a link to the actual debate. I find it interesting that Green Party blogs are seen as the go to source for post debate analysis.
It appeared to be close fought but I think that the deniers were exposed as frauds and liars. Lawson and Lomborg don't even agree with each other. Lawson still trying to argue that there has been no warming this century. As usual the deniers were on the defensive, forced to use straw man arguments and blatant falsehoods in a vain attempt to fight it to a draw.
Ya, I read those leads ken, never followed the links though as they were yesterday before the debates statements...stories....
So apparently then EMay and Monbiot lost....thanks HS
May's best point was when she asked why Lomborg wasn't standing in front of the economic bailout and asking if this was the best way to be spending money and revealing him for the hypocritical establishment propogandist that he is. But she should have stood by the principle and ethics of that statement (probably a new position for her to be in) rather than getting riled up by the debating tactics and engaging in a shouting match. You're right, hsft, the optics were not good and compromised her very excellent point. But the incident further proved that it is impossible to "debate" with a shadow puppet.
Monbiot was stellar throughout, but during the rebuttal period seemed struck dumb at the audacious claims made by his 'opponents.'
Personally, I think the reason people switched their minds to the Con side (although the Pro side still had a majority), was because of the way the Munk Foundation phrased the question in the superlative: "most pressing"? "defining crisis"? It might be, but if it is not, that doesn't mean that we have any more time to act.
I don't think that we can read too much into this result. What 1100 gliterati who paid big bucks to atend a gala event think means much less to me than the huge numbers that watched Monbiot on The Hour or heard the mini debate on CBC Radio. I think that the Munk attendees are probably very conservative and pre-disposed to the denyist camp. Nevertheless the pro side remains the majority.
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One struggle, many fronts.
Watched Monbiot on The Hour was unimpressed to the max....he should have stayed home and saved the environment....
Scott now you speak against the Monk, when it is apparent May and Monbiot lost....
slim majority.... that is probably decreasing.....
Here in the old DDR I had to stay up into the wee hours to watch the debate but it was worth it. While it is sad that May lost her composure at one point I thought she stood head and shoulders above the others both in her passion and intellectual rigour. It was my first chance to see her in action and I was very impressed: she is very sharp indeed, and quite fearless it seems. And she was right to cut through the nicey-nicey course the debate had followed to that point, and call Lomborg out as the corrupt, snake-oil salesman he is. Charismatic, smooth and utterly lacking in substance, his banal charm fronts the unspeakable suffering our carbon habit has wrought on other parts of the planet.
That the audience drifted slightly to the denier camp just confirms how woefully out of step some of my countrymen are on this matter and how deeply reactionary the Canadian political landscape has become. 'Let them eat cake' writ large, a thoroughly repulsive lumpenproletariat in fancy dress. There is an awful lot of work to be done.
Agreed, and the question itself was vague and loaded as Catchfire mentioned. All in all though, I think it is a positive that they had this debate. It certainly emphasized how climate change will hit developing countries the hardest, and we can't say that often enough.
Well, a lecture series would have been far more intellectually honest. Let Lawson and Lomborg sit in the audience and lob idiot-stick questions rather than give them a seat of privilege and equal footing.
Exactly catchfire.. which was my basic point on this from the beginning..
I'm watching the debate right now. I don't understand why May's mic was cut when it was Lomborg who interrupted her. Lawson is showing himself to be a real dinosaur when he's talking about oil supplies.
I thought it was unfair that they cut Elizabeth's mic. It sends a signal that she did something egregious, and then to hear the exchange between the two continue with her mic cut - bad optics. I wonder whether she realised her mic was cut. She seemed pretty miffed. I gather Elizabeth May can't stand Lomborg.
...it did not take me much longer than 15 seconds, at most, to realize the folly of her actions when Scott first posted this debate.
It went apparently, though I cannot watch the debate, worse than what I figured/suggested about this.
That she and Monbiot did this foolish foolish thing when this controversy is happening, is almost picture perfect coincidence eh?!
And she is still blaming everyone but herself for this foolishness, which is a "at best" statement. The timing is almost too perfect.
I thought we spoke well and very approriately to the show's audience. Strombo was very supportive. The way Monbiot dealt with the climategate e-mails was classic. I am at a loss as to why you think it would have been better if he had stayed home.
No. I support the idea of the debate itself. It was giving a lot of credence to the opinions of the studio audience that I objected to. I know the debate was fixed to a certain extent but it is not a winning strategy to abandon the field to your opponants.
That is not apparent at all. I think that May/Monbiot won it and exposed some of the deniers lies in the process, as I have explained above. Why do you say they lost? Have you watched the debate?
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One struggle, many fronts.
We don't debate Holocoaust deniers because to do so legetimizes their argument which is repugnant. That is why we don't denate climate deniers.
I do not oppose scientists engaged in scientific debate, but this was political debate for entertainment. The issue has been set back years.
She was quite impassioned, to the point where her passion got the better of her. Still, I thought that both she and Monbiot did a better job of presenting their arguments. I was a bit surprised that the Munk people included a guy who was sanctioned in his own country for academic dishonesty.
The one question they missed asking of this pair is this: If you're (Lomborg & Lawson) so concerned about helping poor people now, then maybe you could point to something you've written arguing for more aid that didn't deal with climate change. I'm guessing there's nothing.
remind, anyone who's read Babble for a while will know that you never miss a chance to slam the Greens and will interpret your comments accordingly.
Although I watched with special glasses (being a huge Monbiot fan and having quite a bit of respect for May), I thought the debate went well (but for the mic thing). Lomborg struck me as extremely nervous at the beginning, and weak throughout. By his tone and demeaner, it seemed like he wasn't even convinced of his own arguments - he was just playing a part (for his own personal benefit I assume.) Lawson didn't seem credible at all. May was better than I expected - she conveyed a lot of information and was sincere. Monbiot was solid. Funny about that audience though. I suspect it consisted mostly of people with a huge personal carbon footprint. Voting CON allows them to sleep better at night I suppose.
Yeah, really. Just when we were looking so good in Copenhagen and all.
Reefer, never doubted that for a second, as it is the same but opposite lense through which I view your posts, as well as scott's and HSFT's... May can do no wrong..
when the wrong she did was huge, like FM said:
and it is a typical EMay move that actually harms the environment, not helps it...
If healthy debate harms your position, maybe you didn't have much a position to start with. I learned a lot from watching the debates and I think there should be more of them, not less.
Your claims that "this was political debate for entertainment" is hyperbole and the statement "the issue has been set back for years" is completely unsubstantiated.
It may appear that way on this board but I am equivocal when it comes to May and the Greens. I do find myself having to come to the Greens defence as a way of balancing the slanted perspectives of an overwhelmingly partisan NDP crowd.
Healthy debate? Yes we should have more maybe they can convince everyone there is no man made climat change just as they convinced those at the Munk Centre to change thier minds...
It is not hyperole, there was absolutely no point to it other than entertainment.... nothing could be accomplished from it unless it was to destroy the crediility of man made climate change occuring.
Are you stating that was the purpose?
If people watching the debate last evening changed their minds, imagine how many more are today after viewing it, or rethiking it,and how many more will in the future...
That you cannot see the eroding pattern established is mind boggling to me..
No sadly it is not, people's minds were changed to the negative, they were NOT changed to the positive.....
not sure what you Green Party people are not getting about that....
Post #4:
"Scott:
"What could happen is that the deniers are trounced publicly, on the eve of Copenhagen, and the LibranoCon stoogocracy is seen to be allied with the losers, publicly embarrassing the country before the world."
But what it is SET UP to have happen (it's a setup, or why Lomberg, and why the world's largest gold mining corporation's connection) is that technology will be seen as the saviour and we can carry on growing our exploitation of Earth, including its biosphere, confident that Homo sapiens economicus will prevail. I just hope Monbiot can amass the evidence to contradict this."
An even split in audience reaction is not bad. That that percentage of our species has moved on from wishful thinking to real time isuggests we may be at the cusp of recognizing something's up. But! Changes in lifestyle!!!!! (What, I have to do THAT?) are in the back of the mind of all, in this, and why the "Borgs" and the "Munks" play this psychological game.
So you would support a public debate on the holocaust? Who would you suggest, Daniel Pipes and Ernst Zundel? "Two haters, one topic", we could call it.
Hyperbole is what you do. I offered a supposition supported by the poll demonstrating a very narrow support of the climate change by the audience. What do you have?