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The Climate Change Climate Change (pg. 6)
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
Because regardless of whether or not global warming even exists, we are emitting far too much CO2 into the atmosphere, among other pollutants. |
every car, plane, train, ship, moped, ect. on the planet accounts for less than 2% of all the Co2 measured in the atmosphere which in itself comprises of 0.0384% by volume of atmosphere. thats the bottom line Clovis, not Clovis.
you can't (no one can) even begin to catagorize Co2 as a pollutant, much less anthropogenic Co2...UNLESS YOU LEGISLATE IT TO BE. i'm sorry but that is not science, it's politics - it's control. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
and look at them now, controlling the world. oh wait... |
don't be daft. Enron went down for completely different and unrelated reasons and you know it. or should. they were dirtier than Lewinsky's blue dress
if they were around today they'd be straight up Congressman Waxley's ass to get their piece of the trillion dollar pie.
| quote: | | well that's (kind of) my point. global warming measures will be "clearly damaging" to all kinds of things, which is why i dont buy this argument that the 'ruling' corporations are manufacturing consent for personal gain with regards to GW science. everyone's gonna pay somehow. |
it's not all about corporations imo. (maybe someone has a different take.) it's about government control over everthing including, again to an extent because not all corporations make their money the same way, corporate profits.
EDIT> my sentence structure is extra e today b/c im tired |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
don't be daft. Enron went down for completely different and unrelated reasons and you know it. or should. they were dirtier than Lewinsky's blue dress |
haha, of course. but you sensible TA users are missing the point. in d-res' world the corporations control and run everything are all-powerful and all-knowing.
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
if they were around today they'd be straight up Congressman Waxley's ass to get their piece of the trillion dollar pie. |
but that is a far cry from influencing the scientific debate about climate change and how it is represented in the media.
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
it's not all about corporations imo. (maybe someone has a different take.) it's about government control over everthing including, again to an extent, corporate profits. |
you certainly pick and choose your times to be a "less evil government in our lives" conservative :p but anyway, is it your assertion that the ruling class (whomever they might be) have distorted and/or controlled the evidence related to GW in a quest for personal gain? which is really what we're talking about here. d-res is arguing that GW is all about the elite controlling us and "manufacturing consent" (primarily) through their ownership of media (and presumably any and all scientific publications).
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
EDIT> my sentence structure is extra e today b/c im tired |
yeah, mine usually is because of the bong :) |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
Meanwhile:
| quote: | The Plum Line
Greg Sargent's blog
Poll: Only A Bare Majority Of Republicans Believes In Global Warming
The polling unit of The Washington Post graciously sends over the crosstabs of the paper’s new polling on environmental issues, and they’re fascinating:
They show that only a bare majority of Republicans believe in global warming, and that GOPers are surprisingly out of step with the rest of the electorate (independents included) on the issue. The crosstabs reveal:
* Only 54% of Republicans believe “the world’s temperature may have been going up slowly over the past 100 years,” versus 43% who don’t believe it. By contrast, 71% of independents say it’s been happening — almost exactly the same at the 72% overall who believe this. Obviously, an even higher number of Dems (86%) believe it.
* Only a quarter of Republicans believe global warming is a “very serious” problem, versus 43% of independents who believe this, nearly a 20-point difference. Overall, 44% believe it’s a very serious problem.
* Republicans are the only group where a minority (43%) believes that the United States should take action on global warming “even if other countries do less.” Majorities of independents (52%) and Democrats (66%) believe the U.S. should take action despite the actions of other countries. |
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/c...global-warming/
It's fascinating to me how this has become a political issue. Where is the ideological reason for climate skepticism, and why is it that Republicans are overwhelmingly skeptics? Is it the religion thing? I wonder if the idea of anthropogenic anything is anathema to many conservative's social beliefs. |
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| Krypton |
| If Rush Limbaugh says it, they believe it. That simple. |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
It's fascinating to me how this has become a political issue. Where is the ideological reason for climate skepticism, and why is it that Republicans are overwhelmingly skeptics? Is it the religion thing? I wonder if the idea of anthropogenic anything is anathema to many conservative's social beliefs. |
I think a lot of the entrenched conservative opposition to climate change science is purely reactionary: if the left believes it to be true, then it must be opposed as a matter of principle. We're probably kidding ourselves if we think we're going to find a rationale any more sophisticated than that.
Just to show you that this is not a problem confined to the US, the (centre-right) opposition party here in Australia is currently divided over the (centre-left) government's proposed emissions trading scheme. One of the major causes of the disunity originates with a senator by the name of Nick Minchin (a noted climate-change denier), who recently had the following to say:
| quote: | | "For the extreme left, it [climate change] provides the opportunity to do what they have always wanted to do, which is to sort of de-industrialise the Western world. The collapse of communism was a disaster for the left and, really, they embraced environment as their new religion." |
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/ed...91111-i9wf.html
Now ignoring the almost comically conspiratorial element of this view (the "extreme left" have been able to infiltrate every major scientific body in on the planet for the sole purpose of "de-industrialising the Western world"? I mean, really?), I think it's a pretty revealing insight into the mind of a climate-change denier. There is this hysterical (yet common) delusion that any attempt to curb industrial emissions will result in an immediate and precipitous decline of economic activity, or - worse yet! - some trend towards the re-centralisation of economic production. The fact that such fears are unfounded (or - in any case - dwarfed by the economic costs of inaction on climate-change) is beside the point: these fears are prominent and a major motivation for the committed form of climate-change denial espoused by economic rationalists the world over.
Having said that, I think that we have to divorce this kind of hard-nosed, ideological opposition to climate-change science from the more prosaic forms that constitute the most major obstacles that we face with regard to generating any political action on the issue. As anyone who has ever studied behavioural economics ( :cool: ) will be able to tell you, humans are not the perfectly rational, self-interested agents imagined by classical economics, but rather agents that are riddled with a litany of heuristic biases that are useful enough for navigating our day-to-day world, but completely useless when it comes long-term decision making. Most prominent among these with regards to climate change include hindsight bias (an availability heuristic - "The climate has changed in the past and nothing bad has come of it: why should I worry now?") and hyperbolic time discounting (people are vastly more concerned about immediate gains / losses than they are about gains / losses that will occur in the distant future).
My dad is a pretty good example of this, and a reason why we shouldn't jump to simplistic conclusions about what is causing procrastination on climate-change. He is fairly left-wing politically, a scientist and non-religious (so a complete inverse of the stereotypical right-wing, scientifically-illiterate Christian which forms the core of the Republican animus towards climate change) but he's still a climate change skeptic (not an outright denier), largely on the basis of the hindsight bias that I mentioned above. On the rare occasions that I've ever discussed it with him, he has this unshakable idea that because the Earth's climate has likely been hotter in the past than it is today, there's no reason to suspect that the current warming of the Earth owes anything to human activity.
(He's a geologist, so he deals with vast time-periods every day, and so finds it difficult to imagine - I think - that the actions of human beings over a few centuries could have had such a perceptible impact on a climate that has been in a constant state of flux for billions of years. He also has absolutely no specific knowledge concerning climatology, which is why you should be skeptical about these petitions which claim to have the signatures of x number of scientists who oppose global warming: unless they're actually involved in the field, they likely have about as much expertise on the subject as the average layman. My dad is a case in point.)
Anyway, the point of all this is that those fighting for action on climate-change are fighting a losing battle, and the main adversary isn't the right-wing, reality-denying demagogue, but rather the average person who has been poorly equipped by evolution to rationally consider the science of climate-change and the (deferred) dangers of inaction. So long as we have partisan idiots running around fanning the delusion that action on climate change may threaten our immediate economic well-being, it's going to be very difficult to convince people that such action is necessary from a more long-term perspective. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
I think a lot of the entrenched conservative opposition to climate change science is purely reactionary: if the left believes it to be true, then it must be opposed as a matter of principle. |
yeah, this is my belief too. and as much fun as it is watching the Liberal party implode over the debate, it is rather depressing that such a large percentage of the opposition party still have their head in the sand. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| well, what a ing joke our Liberal party turned out to be. they've just assured themselves of losing the next 2 elections. abbott is a fool who couldn't lead a conga line. he's gonna get torn to shreds for his denialist views. |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Anyway, the point of all this is that those fighting for action on climate-change are fighting a losing battle, and the main adversary isn't the right-wing, reality-denying demagogue, but rather the average person who has been poorly equipped by evolution to rationally consider the science of climate-change and the (deferred) dangers of inaction. So long as we have partisan idiots running around fanning the delusion that action on climate change may threaten our immediate economic well-being, it's going to be very difficult to convince people that such action is necessary from a more long-term perspective. |
Good post, I read all of it.
You're giving up?! You are willing to accept defeat on that battle even considering the consequences of no action? For you it seriously comes down to people are stupid so what's the point in trying. ing depressing man.
The partisan idiots have always been there for everything, that is not going to change. They are not the ones that need convincing, nor is any individual person. The change will come from convincing the larger powers that be and the population centers as a whole. I actually think there has been significant progress on those fronts and depsite perceived bumps in the road (ie hacked emails), the trend is definitelly toward action vs inaction. |
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| Fledz |
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki made a good point a few days ago about climate change. Basically, what he said was that if you take all of the actual climate change scientists, most if not all of them agree that man is having an effect, probably even a significant effect on the environment.
Then he pointed out that if you look at all the scientists that don't agree with the theory that climate change is caused by man, most of them are not actual climate change scientists. Are they scientists? Yes. Are they specialised in climate change? Nope.
If you had something wrong with your heart, would you go see a cardiologist or an ophthalmologist? They are both Doctors correct? So aren't they both perfectly qualified to talk about the heart?
Anyone see the quite valid point here?
Personally, regardless of the policies, emissions tradings systems and all the political and business bull, it still amazes me that people can come out and just blatantly deny any existence of climate change as if there's no evidence to support it.
I agree with those who say we need to look at sustainable living regardless of climate change. It just makes sense to do things more cleanly and efficiently. Overpopulation is going to cause us significant problems in the next few decades but that's a different discussion.
The key here is to do things together. We absolutely must reduce pollution as a planet, not as individual countries. I didn't support the ETS here in Australia because there are no safe guards. If I need to make a sacrifice and pay a bit more money to reduce carbon emissions, I'm prepared to do that but not if that can just be made up in another country like India, China or somewhere else. Then it's just hurting the economy and costing us more money without actually having an impact on the world as a whole. If one country reduces it's emissions by 20% but another takes up the slack, well then we haven't achieved anything.
I believe increasing numbers of people are prepared to make sacrifices, but they want tangible and clear results.| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
well, what a ing joke our Liberal party turned out to be. they've just assured themselves of losing the next 2 elections. abbott is a fool who couldn't lead a conga line. he's gonna get torn to shreds for his denialist views. |
I don't agree. The ETS was not supported by the public.
A form of carbon control was by 2/3 but far less than half supported the ETS in it's current form and that comes down to what I just posted about above. Nobody in this entire country knows exactly how the the ETS would work, and yet douchebag Rudd over here just wants to rush it through so he can be an even bigger pompous jackass in Copenhagen and boost his ego, when in fact Australia is a small player in world politics and frankly nobody gives a about us.
At least Abbott is prepared to represent the public on this issue. If you pay attention, you will see that he does actually support some form of ETS, but not the current one and certainly does not support rushing it. Why are we rushing it anyway? What's the point?
Will he re-unite the Libs? Who knows, but at least the Coalition has a much stronger chance of actually winning the next election. |
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