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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:00 am Post subject: Climate Change Scepticism |
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It's fascinating, isn't it? But also rather disturbing the way people are burying their heads in the sand instead of rallying to deal with the problem.
Clive James isn't a climate change sceptic, he's a sucker
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There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.
A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there is solid evidence that the world has been warming over the last few decades has fallen from 71% to 57% in just 18 months. Another survey, conducted in January by Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US voters who believe global warming has natural causes (44%) outnumber those who believe it is the result of human action (41%).
A study by the website Desmogblog shows that the number of internet pages proposing that man-made global warming is a hoax or a lie more than doubled last year. The Science Museum's Prove it! exhibition asks online readers to endorse or reject a statement that they've seen the evidence and want governments to take action. As of yesterday afternoon, 1,006 people had endorsed it and 6,110 had rejected it. On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 in the global warming category. Never mind that they've been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on?
It certainly doesn't reflect the state of the science, which has hardened dramatically over the past two years. If you don't believe me, open any recent edition of Science or Nature or any peer-reviewed journal specialising in atmospheric or environmental science. Go on, try it. The debate about global warming that's raging on the internet and in the rightwing press does not reflect any such debate in the scientific journals.
An American scientist I know suggests that these books and websites cater to a new literary market: people with room-temperature IQs. He didn't say whether he meant fahrenheit or centigrade. But this can't be the whole story. Plenty of intelligent people have also declared themselves sceptics.
One such is the critic Clive James. You could accuse him of purveying trite received wisdom, but not of being dumb. On Radio 4 a few days ago he delivered an essay about the importance of scepticism, during which he maintained that "the number of scientists who voice scepticism [about climate change] has lately been increasing". He presented no evidence to support this statement and, as far as I can tell, none exists. But he used this contention to argue that "either side might well be right, but I think that if you have a division on that scale, you can't call it a consensus. Nobody can meaningfully say that the science is in."
Had he bothered to take a look at the quality of the evidence on either side of this media debate, and the nature of the opposing armies � climate scientists on one side, rightwing bloggers on the other � he too might have realised that the science is in. In, at any rate, to the extent that science can ever be, which is to say that the evidence for man-made global warming is as strong as the evidence for Darwinian evolution, or for the link between smoking and lung cancer. I am constantly struck by the way in which people like James, who proclaim themselves sceptics, will believe any old claptrap that suits their views. Their position was perfectly summarised by a supporter of Ian Plimer (author of a marvellous concatenation of gibberish called Heaven and Earth), commenting on a recent article in the Spectator: "Whether Plimer is a charlatan or not, he speaks for many of us." These people aren't sceptics; they're suckers.
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:29 am Post subject: |
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So, if the science is settled, which model have they settled on? Have they found a single reliable model yet? Don't we have 2 decades of cooling coming? Or not? Or have they only settled that the science is settled (because to not have the science settled would put research grants from organizations that believe the science is settled at risk) but not what the science has settled on? And if the science has settled, why has the demands not become mature? If we're on the brink of catastrophe, why do they mutter on about cap and trade and Kyoto, both of which will have no impact?
Lots of money sloshing around on this one. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| If we're on the brink of catastrophe, why do they mutter on about cap and trade and Kyoto, both of which will have no impact? |
The same reason we're talking about public options with triggers or state opt outs instead of going to single payer in the face of our health care catastrophe: because every time we have a problem, conservatives talk about how if any solution is enacted at all it will be the end of the world, demand compromise, and after the compromise is proposed they treat the compromise as if it were the starting point and demand more compromise. They algorythmically neuter solutions, it's what they do.
Even if climate change really were to be on the verge of causing a catastrophe, and really were man made, that wouldn't stop conservatives from demanding we not do anything to fix it and ignoring its existence, and they have proven they can more or less control the terms of the debate in both politics and in media. So I don't think political suggestions are worth bringing up as a point for or against whether climate change is really happening: we all know even if man made climate change is the case, the debate in media and political circles would be exactly what it is now. |
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doc_ido
Joined: 03 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:41 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| flareflareflarechaffchaffflarechaffchaff |
Case in point. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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| doc_ido wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| flareflareflarechaffchaffflarechaffchaff |
Case in point. |
For most discourses and theories, we have Foucauldian/Derridian deconstruction and are told, again and again, "there is no there there." All discourses have their own politics and all discourses serve only some interets and necessarily exclude others. The best we can do is perpetually deconstruct them to keep any hegemonic system that might emerge to dominate our thoughts forever off-balance.
Come now two particular discourses and theories (I shall set the antiAmerican world-affairs discourse aside for the moment): evolutionary biology and anthropogenic global warming. Apparently discourse analysis cannot apply here. These particular theories represent clear, true science, and objectively report physical realities. There is, in fact, a there there in these two cases. Moreover, those who question, challenge, or dissent are antimodern, religious fanatics, and thoroughly uneducated. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| The same reason we're talking about public options with triggers or state opt outs instead of going to single payer in the face of our health care catastrophe: because every time we have a problem, conservatives talk about how if any solution is enacted at all it will be the end of the world, demand compromise, and after the compromise is proposed they treat the compromise as if it were the starting point and demand more compromise. They algorythmically neuter solutions, it's what they do. |
Oh come on. The Dems control everything right now. If they wanted single payer, you'd get it. But they don't. What they really want is money from insurance firms that they will use to finance elections. The Republicans are non-actors in the health debate this time around.
| Quote: |
| Even if climate change really were to be on the verge of causing a catastrophe, and really were man made, that wouldn't stop conservatives from demanding we not do anything to fix it and ignoring its existence, and they have proven they can more or less control the terms of the debate in both politics and in media. So I don't think political suggestions are worth bringing up as a point for or against whether climate change is really happening: we all know even if man made climate change is the case, the debate in media and political circles would be exactly what it is now. |
So, propose policy like cap and trade that will have no meaningful impact other than 1) making Goldman's and Gore billions of dollars and 2) raising vast funds for the federal government. Who benefits?
Someone please show me which models predicted the last decade of cooling. If the science is settled, we have reliable models, no? The article compared the science to the tobacco-cancer link. You can model that, with fairly tight margins of error. If it is similar, show me. Of course, they can't. The climate is far to complex an organism to be modeled, and all the attempts will fail. CO2 has been much, much higher in the past and the earth much cooler. The historical relationship isn't there. Further, a more warm world may very well be better for human life. Also, we're emerging from an ice-age. The globe is supposed to warm as it emerges from an ice age. And the "hockey stick" showing rapid warming has been exposed as a lie. Even if the earth is to become warmer, there is no evidence (other than models) that it will proceed at a pace outside the normal boundaries of a trend from the earth emerging from the ice age. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
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| The same reason we're talking about public options with triggers or state opt outs instead of going to single payer in the face of our health care catastrophe: because every time we have a problem, conservatives talk about how if any solution is enacted at all it will be the end of the world, demand compromise, and after the compromise is proposed they treat the compromise as if it were the starting point and demand more compromise. They algorythmically neuter solutions, it's what they do. |
Oh come on. The Dems control everything right now. If they wanted single payer, you'd get it. But they don't. What they really want is money from insurance firms that they will use to finance elections. The Republicans are non-actors in the health debate this time around. |
While I definitely think insurance money plays a role, I think your willingness to act like the propaganda that the Republican Party and their newspiece Fox News have spread on the topic and the effect it has had on the mindset of the American population is a non-factor is unreasonable.
Insurance money certainly plays a factor, but it's by no means the only factor. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's the Conservative propaganda on the topic that allows the sell-out Democrats in question to justify their position. Instead of seeming like idiotic sell-outs, they can play it off as bipartianship.
| mises wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Even if climate change really were to be on the verge of causing a catastrophe, and really were man made, that wouldn't stop conservatives from demanding we not do anything to fix it and ignoring its existence, and they have proven they can more or less control the terms of the debate in both politics and in media. So I don't think political suggestions are worth bringing up as a point for or against whether climate change is really happening: we all know even if man made climate change is the case, the debate in media and political circles would be exactly what it is now. |
So, propose policy like cap and trade that will have no meaningful impact other than 1) making Goldman's and Gore billions of dollars and 2) raising vast funds for the federal government. Who benefits? |
The same people who always benefit when we "compromise" with so-called conservatives: big business and the ultra-wealthy. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| While I definitely think insurance money plays a role, I think your willingness to act like the propaganda that the Republican Party and their newspiece Fox News have spread on the topic and the effect it has had on the mindset of the American population is a non-factor is unreasonable. |
Which congressmen support single payer? How many? Give MT's piece a read again:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/1
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| The same people who always benefit when we "compromise" with so-called conservatives: big business and the ultra-wealthy. |
The Dems are the (same) party of big business and the ultra-wealthy. Do you think Rahm is a populist? The Republicans are the party of broke as hell whites with chips on their shoulder. Barney Frank, the poster boy of liberal Democrats singlehandedly gutted derivative legislation last week. He did it by himself.
The Republicans aren't the bugaboo this time. |
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jhuntingtonus
Joined: 09 Dec 2008
Location: Jeonju
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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I'm a skeptic. I don't think we can even conclusively know that a) Earth it getting warmer, let alone b) the warming is caused by humans, further let alone that c) [those evil, avaricious] Americans are the culprits. Climate change is one of those issues, such as American racial progress and the current status of women, that is so politicized that objectivity is effectively impossible to see in the writings of others.
As for my view, the planet's climate has changed a great deal, in different directions and back and forth again, over the past million years. It weighs 6.6 sextillion tons and is highly subject to changes within a gigantic, tremendously hot celestial body 93 million miles away. Average temperatures have actually decreased over the past ten years. Small changes in annual numbers, as in spreadsheets, coupled with even mild extrapolation can cause huge differences in values projected for 50, 100, 200 years out. Pack journalism has created the illusion of much more of a consensus on the issue than their really is. And as for exceptions - does anyone honestly and non-ideologically think George Will, a fellow skeptic, has a "room-temperature IQ" ? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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I think you're seeing this because Americans don't want to pay for their sacrifices, especially when their jobs are already in jeopardy. Go to the Midwest and talk to people holding good, steady jobs (i.e., those requiring some education to get). These people aren't worried about gays taking over or about global warming, they're worried about losing their jobs.
The Dems have sold their green push as a job-creating machine, which is easy to do when you're doling out Stimulus dollars (and it doesn't help their credibility that Dems backed the ethanol boondoggle). But now that the money is gone, its time to create the tax, and that's cap-and-trade. Personally, I have less compunctions concerning the tax than the Stimulus, the gov't needs the money badly, and even in a worst case scenario (the entire scientific community is fooled! gasp! we were okay all along!) the gov't would still be getting something by discouraging the emissions of a gas that would have at best a neutral effect on the environment. But that's not how most Middle Americans see it. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
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| While I definitely think insurance money plays a role, I think your willingness to act like the propaganda that the Republican Party and their newspiece Fox News have spread on the topic and the effect it has had on the mindset of the American population is a non-factor is unreasonable. |
Which congressmen support single payer? How many? Give MT's piece a read again:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/1 |
Far fewer than would if the Right hadn't twisted basic, reasonable single player into evil communism in the minds of many Americans. Most Democrats are simply afraid to even talk about single player seriously, because the debate is so ridiculously slanted and unrealistic at this point that doing so pretty much takes you out of it entirely, and it's not liberals that created that ridiculous slant.
| mises wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The same people who always benefit when we "compromise" with so-called conservatives: big business and the ultra-wealthy. |
The Dems are the (same) party of big business and the ultra-wealthy. Do you think Rahm is a populist? The Republicans are the party of broke as hell whites with chips on their shoulder. Barney Frank, the poster boy of liberal Democrats singlehandedly gutted derivative legislation last week. He did it by himself.
The Republicans aren't the bugaboo this time. |
No, the Republicans are the party that utilize the broke as Hell whites with a chip on their shoulder to get elected and then work against said group's interests.
When Democrats work in favor of big business at the expense of their constituents, they're being fraudulent, unethical sell-outs. When Republicans do it, they're doing exactly what they made it clear they'd do in the first place. That's a substantial difference. That doesn't mean I excuse Democrats who do sell-out; quite the opposite, I find them even more loathsome than Republicans doing the equivalent. It's a minority within the respective Democratic caucus', though, that are doing this, not a majority. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:10 pm Post subject: |
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| jhuntingtonus wrote: |
| I'm a skeptic. I don't think we can even conclusively know that a) Earth it getting warmer, let alone b) the warming is caused by humans, further let alone that c) [those evil, avaricious] Americans are the culprits. |
With regards to:
A: Sure we can. We have temperatures on record, and we have visual indicators as well (such as certain ice deposits). It's clear the Earth is getting warmer on average. It's just a question of whether or not it's part of a natural cycle, or due to our actions.
B: This is harder to know, but anyone intelligent with as much at stake as we have at stake knows playing it cautious is the smartest way to go, especially when playing it cautious will result in us doing many things we should probably be doing anyway.
C: Who says it's purely and only America's fault if it's happening? I've seen portions of blame put squarely on the shoulders of other countries. Hell, I've read articles about how third world cooking fires could be substantial contributors. I don't think anyone worth taking seriously is laying the blame purely and only -- or even mostly -- the shoulders of America. However, as Americans, we can only decide our own policy, not the policies of other nations. Within the bounds of that discussion, our contribution to the alleged problem is what matters, and as such, it's what sees the most discussion.
| jhuntingtonus wrote: |
| Climate change is one of those issues, such as American racial progress and the current status of women, that is so politicized that objectivity is effectively impossible to see in the writings of others. |
I don't agree at all. Racial progress and the current status of women are much less quantitative in nature than global warming, and much more open to interpretation. Global warming is almost purely quantiative: either the real, uncorrupted data shows it's happening, or it doesn't. Politics only come into play insofar as some people will either downplay or outright lie about data (regardless of which side you feel is the one doing that, or if both are). Nothing is stopping you from gathering your own data on the subject -- which will surely be objective in nature if you feel you are looking at the issue objectively -- and coming to the true conclusion.
| jhuntingtonus wrote: |
| As for my view, the planet's climate has changed a great deal, in different directions and back and forth again, over the past million years. It weighs 6.6 sextillion tons and is highly subject to changes within a gigantic, tremendously hot celestial body 93 million miles away. Average temperatures have actually decreased over the past ten years. Small changes in annual numbers, as in spreadsheets, coupled with even mild extrapolation can cause huge differences in values projected for 50, 100, 200 years out. Pack journalism has created the illusion of much more of a consensus on the issue than their really is. And as for exceptions - does anyone honestly and non-ideologically think George Will, a fellow skeptic, has a "room-temperature IQ" ? |
Strange that it's usually the people who feel global warming should be written off that try to claim there's no real scientific consensus. Even stranger that they'd be willing to gamble the well-being of our entire species on their doubts.
I don't think global warming opponents are stupid. I do think they're playing a dangerous game, though. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Far fewer than would if the Right hadn't twisted basic, reasonable single player into evil communism in the minds of many Americans. |
I don't think the evidence of how this thing played out supports your conclusion. MT makes a very good case that the whole thing was sabotaged by the Dems from the start. What the Democratic voters want and the Democratic funders want are exactly opposite. The insurance firms wanted a mandate, and they got it.
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| When Republicans do it, they're doing exactly what they made it clear they'd do in the first place. |
The Republicans claim to support the market economy. When they instead sell out to corporate interests, they aren't doing exactly what they said they would do. The use the market as ideological cover.
The banks are going to make a killing on cap and trade. "Green" is just an ideological cover. Whatever remains of the middle class will see their costs increase and the banks will see their profits increase. Where have I seen this story before... |
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jhuntingtonus
Joined: 09 Dec 2008
Location: Jeonju
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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See //inline//
| Fox wrote: |
| jhuntingtonus wrote: |
| I'm a skeptic. I don't think we can even conclusively know that a) Earth it getting warmer, let alone b) the warming is caused by humans, further let alone that c) [those evil, avaricious] Americans are the culprits. |
With regards to:
A: Sure we can. We have temperatures on record, and we have visual indicators as well (such as certain ice deposits). // Selected facts. // It's clear the Earth is getting warmer on average. // No, it isn't! Not over the past ten years! // It's just a question of whether or not it's part of a natural cycle, or due to our actions.
B: This is harder to know, but anyone intelligent with as much at stake as we have at stake knows playing it cautious is the smartest way to go, especially when playing it cautious will result in us doing many things we should probably be doing anyway. // "Playing it cautious" by slashing industrial production and other things contributing to happiness will cost tens of trillions of dollars and vast amounts of misery. //
C: Who says it's purely and only America's fault if it's happening? I've seen portions of blame put squarely on the shoulders of other countries. Hell, I've read articles about how third world cooking fires could be substantial contributors. I don't think anyone worth taking seriously is laying the blame purely and only -- or even mostly -- the shoulders of America. However, as Americans, we can only decide our own policy, not the policies of other nations. Within the bounds of that discussion, our contribution to the alleged problem is what matters, and as such, it's what sees the most discussion. // I think it's often been implied that Americans are most to blame, and it has been often used as a club to attack American prosperity, in particular. //
| jhuntingtonus wrote: |
| Climate change is one of those issues, such as American racial progress and the current status of women, that is so politicized that objectivity is effectively impossible to see in the writings of others. |
I don't agree at all. Racial progress and the current status of women are much less quantitative in nature than global warming, and much more open to interpretation. Global warming is almost purely quantiative: either the real, uncorrupted data shows it's happening, or it doesn't. // Perfectly correct data can be selected to support either side, and often is. The trick is ignoring that supporting the side you don't agree with. // Politics only come into play insofar as some people will either downplay or outright lie about data (regardless of which side you feel is the one doing that, or if both are). Nothing is stopping you from gathering your own data on the subject -- which will surely be objective in nature if you feel you are looking at the issue objectively -- and coming to the true conclusion. // Agreed - the problem is believing what others have written. //
| jhuntingtonus wrote: |
| As for my view, the planet's climate has changed a great deal, in different directions and back and forth again, over the past million years. It weighs 6.6 sextillion tons and is highly subject to changes within a gigantic, tremendously hot celestial body 93 million miles away. Average temperatures have actually decreased over the past ten years. Small changes in annual numbers, as in spreadsheets, coupled with even mild extrapolation can cause huge differences in values projected for 50, 100, 200 years out. Pack journalism has created the illusion of much more of a consensus on the issue than their really is. And as for exceptions - does anyone honestly and non-ideologically think George Will, a fellow skeptic, has a "room-temperature IQ" ? |
Strange that it's usually the people who feel global warming should be written off that try to claim there's no real scientific consensus. Even stranger that they'd be willing to gamble the well-being of our entire species on their doubts. // As above, taking this position is not exactly free. //
I don't think global warming opponents are stupid. I do think they're playing a dangerous game, though. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:49 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Far fewer than would if the Right hadn't twisted basic, reasonable single player into evil communism in the minds of many Americans. |
I don't think the evidence of how this thing played out supports your conclusion. MT makes a very good case that the whole thing was sabotaged by the Dems from the start. What the Democratic voters want and the Democratic funders want are exactly opposite. The insurance firms wanted a mandate, and they got it. |
The staunch Democrat supporter types on here just can't admit that they've been outright lied to, because then they'd then have to admit they've been duped all along (in other words admit they're wrong). For some reason this is hard for some people to do.
Not sure why exactly - back before I knew better, I used to support Democrats like Clinton and rail against Bush. Typical. Then I realized they're all a pack lying crooks working against the American people and selling us out the banks. The more I study it, the more it is confirmed to be true beyond any doubt. Yet even in the beginning it was easy for me to admit it and change my views accordingly. Not naming names, but some people on here just seem incapable of facing up to reality - that our country is run by a pack of criminals.
Last edited by visitorq on Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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