"Should Global Warming/Climate Change discussion be banned?" Topic

I would vote an emphatic YES. Why?
Because this is a site dedicated to the discussion of MINIATURE WARGAMING.
This is not like music or sports or books, all of which have some ties to what we do here.

This is a topic that by it's very nature is political and agenda driven.
Martin from Canada will post charts and graphs and what looks like telemetry from Sputnik I.
Then Terrement will post something even longer and more boring, featuring skeptics.

I have often said that the purpose of science is to prove your grant proposal. Ha ha. Big woop.

Nobody will ever learn anything about Climate Change on TMP. Because the posters on both sides, including me, just go for zingers. Our minds are made up. It's like watching a "debate" on CNN or MSNBC or Fox.
Nobody talks to the other. They talk past each other and nobody is convinced of anything.

All such discussion on TMP accomplishes is to fill the DH. and it has nothing to do with miniature wargaming.

So I propose the following.
1) Anybody starting a thread on climate change, whether promoting or denying or skeptical be given an immediate 10 day DH.
That's ANYBODY and EVERYBODY. I don't care if I favor or oppose. I don't care if you favor or oppose. I don't care if the Editor favors or opposes. This applies to all.
2) anybody participating be given an immediate 3 day DH.
3) The topic is immediately nuked. Or locked so all can see their shame.

I am sick of this. My mind is made up and will not be changed. I am a skeptic and a cynical one at that. So too with all the others who start and chime in.

And there are PLENTY of other sites out there where this can be discussed. Why not go there?

Options:
1) I favor such a ban
2) I oppose such a ban
3) No opinion. I just want to view the results.

And let's try to get back to playing with toy soldiers and arguing over bricoles.

Just curious, but where are these climate chage threads of which you write? Never seen any before, but in general I agree with you that such threads shouldn't be part of TMP.

Only if gay people are getting married outside. Then yes.

I see climate change discussions as being highly relevant to miniature wargaming set in both Prehistoric and Post-Apocalyptic genres. If Martin and Terrement are posting stuff I don't want to read, I just don't read it. But modern climate change science (or psuedo science, depending on your point if view) discussions are increasingly important for "dawn of civilization" gaming, as older and older settlements are being discovered. Now, "human population coming to terms with global warming" is not just a modern campaign trend, but also a 10,000 BCE campaign trend :-)

And you should get a 10 day DH for bringing it up LOL

How about how the little ice age made war so hard.

I agree, put me in with the '1s.'

Jack

I think you were right in the first place, John. We don't need a proliferation of rules, just one big, consistent rule. Behave like an adult.

The editors should nuke any thread that turns snarky and nasty. There's really no need to doghouse the miscreants. After a while, they'll get tired of their carefully crafted prose disappearing in a poof, and move on to less passionately felt topics.

Only post about climate change from ten years ago or more, like with politics.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Winston Smith:
#2
So you would deny Science Fiction gamers the opportunity to discuss the reasons behind their post-apocalyptic desert worlds or steamy, septic urban slums? If they discussed Venus (the planet) and it's atmosphere in the context of a wargame you would dawg house them? If global warming is germane to a miniature wargaming topic then those who wish to discuss it should be able to do so.
The problem, as I see it, is that some posters make no attempt to relate their post to wargaming. To stop that rules will have no effect as fig-leafing will be used to get around such rules. Banning topics out right (unless they are truly anti-social topics) is not the answer.
Finally, no one has the right to not be offended. Some things which are posted on a forum will no doubt offend at least some in a large community, even if those posts are made in good faith and with no intention to cause rancor. But as long as the post is civil and not pejorative and is arguably related to the hobby, then just about all topics should be fair game. If the topic provokes anger, stop reading and move on. If the topic triggers angry and rude posts, punish those who were angry and rude.
Peace and Lead, brothers and sisters, that's what we need, not silence.
Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

Yes, Ban it.
Ban it I say !
Ban it till it glows !!!

I am never in favor of restricting free speech. I do, however, believe that Editor Bill may do as he please, since this is his forum. I do not think this is the proper forum for that discussion. Should someone bring it up, and Bill allows it, it should be ignored.

1) Ban it.

If you want to talk about it, there are a trillion other scientific/political sites you can go to.
I favor wargaming only on this site.

It's just the Science bit of the plus forums.
I barely remember they exist, let alone have 40 threads dedicated to arguing over something 99% of our posters are not qualified to say anything about either way.

What about conflict between the Greenland Norse and the Inuit in the worsening climate of the late middle ages?

What about the apparent chaotic collapse of the Anasazi due to drought? Possible cannibal gangs!

I am getting maps and pie charts all ready. Someone out there bitterly disagrees with me.

No

Not only has this poll already been proposed, but it will run any day now.

When discussing wargaming during the Little Ice Age (or the big one)-

-Or some environmental catastrophe that sees a strange new world rising from the old: a world of savagery, super science, and sorcery-

-Fine. But that's not what Martin is selling. Which also has nothing to do with wargaming- so, '1'.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post, we have both Stifle and Ignore functions for people who are just too upsetting forvother people to handle.

It depends – are we talking about climate change today, or the climate change that created the conditions for the Vikings to wreak havoc on Europe?

Is this the only non-wargaming topic that should be banned or should all of them be banned? If not all, why just the ones that bother someone, even if it is a very small group?

It was rather warm today, but cooler tonight.

No one puts a gun to your head and requires you to participate. Some people cannot exercise even the remotest self-control and so, because they can't, we all have to suffer. An emphatic NO!

Nyet, nein, no…

If the subject is banned, how can the pre-emptive strikes on China, India, and possibly Brazil to eliminate their world killing CO2 emissions be discussed?.

Very much a scenario that fits within the Ultra-Modern or SF topics.

Punkrabbit, you said – "increasingly important for "dawn of civilization" gaming". I would disagree with your selection of time period.

The medieval warm period which created a wetter warmer climate in Europe, had a different effect in Northern Peru. In the middle of the 13th century the canals created by the Chimu to allow them to grow plants in the desert, began to dry up, thereby reducing their ability to feed themselves from their own land. Their chosen solution to this was to invade their neighbours to the north and east, and take food from them.

Therefore, climate change is actually a valid subject to be discussed on TMP as it has directly influenced military activity in the past.
There are also claims it is influencing military activity now. As without climate change, the rural Syrians would not have moved to the major cities and become the great unwashed and unfed that partially initiated the Syrian Civil War. Which in turn, of course, allowed IS to grow and expand.
There is also a valid argument for it being featured on ultra-modern or sci-fi boards (do we have any of those?). James Lovelock said a few years ago, that earth had passed the tipping point and there was no longer any point in trying to prevent climate change. We should be preparing for the next phase, which is mass-migration. He predicted that in 2040 most of the world would be at war as mass-migration becomes a problem for most of the planet.
And of course, looking at the Mediterranean today, it has started already.

Why do you humans agonise over such issues, so much?

No one is forced to read anything here beyond a glance at a title. Freedom is a value so often forgotten.

Phillius – Can you find a single thread posted on the board about the military impact of climate change though?

Those conversations COULD be had but they aren't.

It's like how people love to insist that Ultra Modern is totes about gaming but nobody posts gaming stuff there.

Yes. I favor such a ban.
Tom

Couldn't it all just go on UM instead? Then we could ignore it.

Banning stuff works really well, as history repeatedly demonstrates.

2.

Banning discussion of "a threat greater than ISIS" seems unwise, and unwarranted to me, especially since our military, and bank accounts will be adversely affected by this "major concern".

Phillius, your analysis is wrong.

Those African and M.E. migrants aren't fleeing global warming, but they are fleeing radical jihadis, and the death and destruction they're wreaking on the civilian populations where they operate.

As debates on this subject will always become more political than scientific: Yes.

This would seem to come under the "no politics within the last 10 years" rule.

If it is banned, what will we replace it with, for the next brouhaha?

I'm sure there is another. There always is, but inquiring minds want to know.

I am unsure, as I have yet to see an example of this discussion. All I have seen is discussion of the people who conduct climate research – they're infallible saints, or they're dirty liars.

Who wants to discuss their favourite seventeen degree of freedom (or higher) atmospheric dispersion model and the challenges and implications of acquiring data for and interpreting the results of the same?

Seriously. In the other discussions on the various boards here, "Historian XYZ says ABC." is (nearly?) always a jumping off point to discuss the substantive matters of the event and the analysis of the event, not some absolutist statement about the topic.

It was a poorly worded OP.

I'm not averse to having science discussed on the Science board. AGM is a scientific issue and therefore is a good topic for discussion. The problem is that, with the exception of "Martin from Canada", no one has any training or education in any form of Climate Science. Therefore, the only issues discussed are the political implications that politicians and governments are contriving. Therefore politics is discussed on the Science board, contrary to Bill's rules.

I'd like to see that pushed to the Fez, where it belongs.

The problem is that, with the exception of "Martin from Canada", no one has any training or education in any form of Climate Science.

Been through everyone's CV, have you?

no one has any training or education in any form of Climate Science.

Not true. For 10 years I evaluated and processed atmospheric data. Climate science is not science without data. But, yes ban this stuff. I hate when the last 5 minutes of some TV science shows brings it up.