My question is why conservatives think it advances their purpose to continue this demonstrably wrong adherence to climate change denialism. This isn’t like, say, evolution. Scientific evidence of evolution is quite strong and will only continue to get stronger, but that growing evidence won’t be ever more obvious to the layperson. Birds, for instance, won’t start evolving faster and faster until it’s frighteningly clear that evolution is real and all those deniers were, in fact, cranks.
But the planet is getting warmer, and people are going to notice. Will can talk about global cooling all he wants, but arctic ice is actually disappearing. Snowpacks are shrinking. Droughts are intensifying. Sea-levels are rising. And this isn’t going to stop.
Climate change denialism is like arguing at three that in two hours it won’t be five. However convincing you think you are, you will ultimately be revealed as a fool and a charlatan.
Link via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.
Well lemme think why one would have a problem with the GW conversation to date? And how does this differ from Darwinism?
1. The initial study from the committee organized by the UN was passed from the scientists to the bureaucrats and fundamentally changed in it’s conclusions by a bureaucrat unattributed – i.e. nameless. This single action has done more to pollute rational conversation than any other.
2. The accusations of cherry picked data were never addressed in any way the scientific community would recognize. This hasn’t helped.
3. The political tenor of all discussion since has resulted in the purging and vilifying of any scientist who didn’t toe the line. This has truly resulted in funding shifts and career ending actions. Truth goes out the window when politics climbs out of the toilet. Informally and off the record, Jet Propulsion Labs thinks it has more to do with solar activity, but you will NEVER get them to say so out loud in this climate.
4. Every *green* solution in search of a problem crawled back into the headlines attached to GW, whether it had anything to do with GW or not.
5. The *science* of *solving* this problem we do not understand is being fought in the headlines, not the research halls. By politicians whose staffers are looking at *alignments* rather than science to fundamentally change our society, our fiscal relationships, and our lives. Based on the headlines.
6. No one yet has anything like a *solution* and are not talking about one. We are instead fighting over whether there is a problem. One of the criteria for changing anything so monumentally fundamental as our entire society should be based on the cost-benefit analysis of the solution. There isn’t one on the table to discuss. There is no magic number for *ideal* greenhouse effect on the atmosphere. Some is necessary, but how much? Ideal for what? Agriculture? Human life? Polar bears? So we have one group running toward change based on *shoulds* that have been repeated since the ’70s, while another is vilified for asking what this is going to cost and what it gets us. Well so far what it gets us the fulfillment of an age old agenda – with no KNOWN impact on GW. I resent that as much as I resent any agenda being stuffed down my throat because the political *might* is available.
7. The entire issue has been so politicized today, that if the underlying cause of GW turned out to be jawbreaker candy, we couldn’t do anything about it because the answer is unacceptable politically. And to date all anyone is talking about is carbon emission, despite the FACT that this is but one contributor to the greenhouse effect and may or may not be the biggest/most fundamental/best one to change. The Butterfly effect may apply here, we do not know. We may never know, because today if you want funding you better apply to study carbon emissions on the atmosphere and you know in advance what your results better conclude.
8. If Darwinism is fundamentally flawed it will not make a single fundamental difference in how you go about your daily life. Not true with the environmentalist / GW agenda – which will fundamentally change *everything* about your daily life.
9. Perhaps a better comparison than Darwin should be examples with an equal level of politicization, and equally clear consequences and impacts like abortion or gun control. Despite numerous reputable studies that clearly show negative emotional and psychological effects on those who would use abortion as birth control, clearly a misuse; I will fundamentally oppose any limits on availability of birth control.
Because I fear.
I know this is an arena highly politicized with groups with strong agendas.
Just like gun control. Wherein perfectly reasonable legislation is opposed because of fear that it is but the nose of the camel of a group with a very strong agenda.
I fear.
I fear mostly because the political process that used to find middle ground in these issues is fundamentally broken, the parties are pursuing power at any cost, the individual politician is busy running for his next campaign based on fund raising, not his constituents opinion of him. And the actual power to make these changes has shifted to people who do not answer to me. Who are not elected, and who have no interest in middle-ground solutions. They are paid to be extremists.
And so I fear the changing of my life and the world’s economy by power groups I cannot control, that fixes a problem we only vaguely understand, going toward a goal not set, with benefits undefined; and bankrupting my children’s future in the process by establishing an economic model that may not work.
All in a climate wherein stating any part of these fears or concerns in public has ALREADY labeled me a *troll* and *denier* unworthy of participating in any conversation.
Maybe the first climate change we need to address is the climate of public discourse.
Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack someone else’s blog. I’ll go back to shutting up now.
You are welcome to grace these pages any time you like Emmett.
Everyone else is too.
You are a kind and gracious host, Ken. And I hope none of my comments appeared to reflect on your hospitality, which has invariably been warm and even-handed.
But, in a way, isn’t global warming the kind of thing that requires Pascal’s wager? There is abundant evidence (I would say conclusive, you Emmett I presume aren’t so sure, but there is a lot of evidence in any case that the climate is warming). If it is a significant warming, there will be serious ramifications (there already are serious ramifications among say Rocky Mountain forests).
Pascal, as I understand it, said it doesn’t matter if there is a god or not, it’s unknowable. But he’d wager that there is a god because if he’s right he has much to gain and if he is wrong, no matter.
A Pascal wager with regard to global warming would say, we don’t know, but if the doomsayers are correct, the ramifications are overwhelming. We should make some changes at least in how much CO2 we produce. And if the climate is changing solely because of non-anthropomorphic reasons, no matter because we are living on borrowed time with fossil fuels anyway.
Furthermore, world history is replete with examples of intellectual polarization. When exactly has there ever been polite, even-handed, objective discussion of any major new development in history? All disagreements are colored by personal interest, which translates into political interest.
I don’t think there is any question about whether we are warming.
I also strongly feel where things that can be done also align with things that are desirable for other reasons – such as working toward energy independence – we should go forward. I have long said that oil is way too valuable for other things to burn it.
But before setting up anything as drastic as carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes, we might look to the alternatives. The alternative thought might go along the lines of science is fundamentally cheap compared with the changes we are talking about. Lets fund all of it for a decade and actually look at the results. But atmospheric science is in it’s infancy. A decade of great funding would do wonders to solidify the science.
I’d certainly feel less like I was throwing money down a rathole. The Danes took great credit for erecting windfarms, disregarding that the existing ones aren’t paying for themselves, and the new ones aren’t either.
The EU patted themselves vigorously on the back for cap-n-trade before discovering they were actually fleecing the treasury and the public.
I’d like to save us some of this foolishness.