Brexit: Because Jake wanted to know....

As a young person, which way would you have (or did you) voted and why?

I was one of the 48.1% that Cameron's strategy worked for.

I would only vote for Brexit if I had complete control over it in the first place.

Edited by Paianni 2018-12-27 10:07 PM

I see; any particular "something" that you feel strongly about in that?

It would involve a new pan-European empire centred in London.

LOL! Sadly I think the Commission think said empire should be run from Brussels, the French, Paris and the German's, Berlin... and the Commission is winning.

We have more chance of winning Eurovision at this point than ever having our way in the EU again.

Basically we needed time to find ways of compensating for >40 years worth of absorption into EU institutions. Brexit could not get my vote, me being aware the government was and still is no more clued up on the subject than I am. How anyone could have expected better from them beggars belief to me.

Do you think that what we had before 1974 works as a model?

If by 'compensating' you infer that our political classes and civil service had no longer got a clue how to perform those functions, I would agree. If you mean it as trade balance, then I somewhat agree.

The pre-1974 model barely worked back then as the economy was tanking and there was not enough natural resources for the UK to be a manufacturing hub in isolation. Today it is totally out of the question.

We agree there then. The nationalisation model had failed dismally and was responsible for the death of the economy, industry and exports. On resource access. I'm not in agreement as the UK is no different in that respect then or now to say Germany then or now. We imported what we needed, that's why we had the empire - to get access to what was needed. I'm not saying that we need an empire, no, no. We need trade with other nations to gain access to that on terms that aren't preferentially favourable to the German economy.

Britain wasn't able to industrially compete in isolation by the end of the 1900's, let alone in 1974. Especially now, as, in line with what I said in the essay. We have no primary industry.

While waiting for the #SchumerShutdown to end and for new data to be posted by NOAA and the USDA I realized that there are some small errors in the .jpg I posted here: https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=18533&po...

The temp, CO2 and crop yields are correct but the subscripts for 'record heat years' are scrambled. The correct order, 1st to 6th, is 2016, 1998, 2017, 2010, 2015, and 2018 using satellite data from the Univ. of Alabama - Huntsville. Finalized crop yields for 2018 should be in by Feb. and I will repost the page.

I assume that the point of the argument remains intact?

Absolutely. CO2 ppm is increasing, temperatures fluctuate but the trend, at the moment, is increasing, crop yields are increasing. Logic says that that there has to be a limit but what that limit is no one knows.

Edited by Mjolnir 2019-01-02 6:16 PM

As I mentioned above, we are militant in opposition to GM. How much of the per-cap yield growth do you think is down to GM?

It's hard to say really. Most of what I read points to the early 2,000s as the real jumping off point for GMO corn. Bt corn was approved in 1995 with Roundup ready soybeans in '96.
Corn per acre stayed fairly steady at 25/30 bushels/ac. from 1866 to 1930. Better equipment, planting techniques and abundant synthetic fertilizer lead to steadily rising production into the 1950's with better genetics (not altered) causing another jump into the 1990s.

Maddeningly, for me at least, is that we as a race, devote millions to growing the empty calories in sugarcane. Sugarcane constantly leads the World in production by tonnage.
Forgive me if I'm 'preaching to the choir' but, as you may know, both sugarcane and corn (along with sorghum) use C4 photosynthesis while the other grasses upon which we feed (rice and wheat) use C3. The C4 pathway being much more efficient is one reason that corn leads the pack in average calories per acre at +/- 15M with potatoes and rice fighting it out for 2nd/3rd at 11 to 12 million depending on whose doing the counting with wheat and soybeans coming in at very distant 4/5 spots.


Edited by Mjolnir 2019-01-02 7:13 PM