I don't care what god or gods you believe in.

I don't care what faith you belong to.

But I do care when your denial of reality impacts my life and my future.

America is the only major nation on Earth where almost half of the population denies the existence of anthropogenic climate change and religious fundamentalists have played a significant role in preventing action to mitigate climate change:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17173166/climate-change-perception-gallup-poll-politics-psychology

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-administration-sees-a-7-degree-rise-in-global-temperatures-by-2100/2018/09/27/b9c6fada-bb45-11e8-bdc0-90f81cc58c5d_story.html


http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/national-highway-traffic-safety-administrations-2100-climate-scenario/3218/


On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century.

A rise of 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.

But the administration did not offer this dire forecast as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed.


I don't care if you believe in the Rapture, Armageddon or some other ridiculous eschatological nonsense but leave the rest of us out of it.

What good is believing in “anthropogenic climate change”...

...when no one is wctually willing to change it?


Changing Fundie denials goes nowhere towards changing the neoliberal political/economic system that created and continues to enforce the problem.

Blaming Fundies for GCC is one of the sillier instances of scapegoating that is going on in our culture, in my opinion.

Human

I am certainly glad to read your post. It is great evidence that we are making progress on the problem of global warming.

The first stage was to deny it. ("It's a hoax!) Then acknowledge it, but only as a natural or "God" directed force. ("The climate has been always changing!) The third stage was to blame liberals for it. (Your post.) The final stage will be to put government to work on it. So we're making progress.

MarkJ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The final stage will be to put government to work on it.
> So we're making progress.

Sorry, that might have an impact on the short-term economic stats
and then certain people wouldn't have bragging rights.

First, an aside. You have a way with words: it is a pleasure to read what you compose.

On the substance, warming is indeed baked into the cake. It takes many decades, perhaps centuries, to alter greenhouse trajectories. Even in the best of circumstances, it probably makes sense to buy some ocean front property in Nevada.

I agree with you that it would be great if religious extremists (the view that global warming is not happening qualifies a person as an extremist) recognized reality. Consensus makes policy change a lot more likely.

If the world wants to stop the warming at today's level plus 4 (or even 8) degrees centigrade, there's little time to spare.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2018 02:10PM by Lot's Wife.

and people in power want to curry favor with these believers and other interests and that has prevented action in the past and the present.

Perhaps the result would be the same and it wouldn't make any difference -- but we don't know that.

Our only hope now is geo-engineering on a massive scale to pump C02 and NH4 out of the atmosphere by technological means.

Aside from sea level rise, it's the changing climate that will cause population disruption, crop failures, water shortages, and wars.

Mother Nature doesn't give a d***n about silly little lines that humans draw on maps.

BTW, thanks for the compliment :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2018 02:30PM by anybody.

My fear is that the global climate is such a complex system that humans are likely to do inadvertent damage if they attempt the large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Expecting people who have proved themselves incapable of foreseeing the consequences of their actions to get this right is more than I think is reasonable.

The winning strategy, if that is correct, is to accept that a great deal of deterioration is already inevitable and to try to reduce emissions as soon as possible in order to turn the tide by the end of this century or soon thereafter. The world would presumably then stabilize or perhaps return towards a more "natural" equilibrium.

It's a grim scenario, I admit, and yet even then perhaps too optimistic since something approaching political unanimity would be necessary to get the countries of the world to curtail their emissions let alone to agree on a program to extract gases from the atmosphere.

I don't need to "believe in" anthropogenic global warming .
It demonstrates itself on a daily basis.

My pond has dried up as has everyone's around me.

Maybe you want to talk to insurance agents about their hail damage payouts in recent years.

And don't confuse weather with climate.

Isn’t this just a problem taking care of itself? It is the first time a species of ape has caused climate change, but this same ape has both tools and opposable thumbs to build new habitat.

When you say "habitat" do you really mean planet ?

The obvious answer to that is that the earth will be fine. It's not the worst thing that has happened to it.

I call this "scorched Earth" environmentalism. Let the humans destroy their habitat and wreck the industrial economy upon which they depend. The planet doesn't care. Then thousand years after we're gone, it will be hard to tell if we were even here. Life will march on.

Personally, I like to put my hand on the thermostat every now and then to make sure my habitat stays comfortable for me. It's just that now we have to find and adjust the thermostat for the planet. Out of our own self-interests.

There have been five mass die-offs. They were caused by events far more disruptive than global warming. The seas will rise and people will have to build things again. And the fish will have new habitat, so it’s win win.

Lots of species destroy their own environment and die off. Put bacteria in a Petri dish and you'll sometimes see that: a population explosion that ends up destroying the resources the colony needs to survive.

There would be considerable irony if humans did the same thing on a greater scale: the first species intelligent enough to know it is destroying itself but not intelligent enough to prevent that outcome.

That is one possible solution to the Fermi Paradox - If the universe has the potential to create untold numbers of intelligent life forms, then where are they?

Maybe not one has yet figured out how to be technologically advanced without strangling their own progress with pollution and exhaustion of resources.

It could be a universal constant.

Yup. That's exactly right.

It presumably takes a LOT more intelligence to prevent climate destruction than to recognize it.

Science denial went bigtime with Creationism. Many government
leaders (the current Vice-President among them) decried that the
findings of science were being taught in our schools.

"What harm" they'd ask, "is there in teaching both 'models' side
by side and letting the kids make up their minds." There seemed
to be no real harm to society if people had a mistaken view of
what happened biologically on this planet in the distant past.

But now the anti-science movement has metastasized into climate-
change denial and anti-vaxxers. Those things do have a real,
immediate impact. And the growth of the flat-earth movement
doesn't give me confidence that going to be getting better any
time soon.

IF the world (earth) heads into another ice age, which it periodically does well beyond any human input or control, you will not be able to get anthropogenic to kick in hard enough


Funny how you link the problem of anthropogenic global warming to religious zealots because it is the biggest sham to control and subjugate the population since the sham called Christianity

I love the smell of tin foil in the morning.

awesome!

because you can keep your tin foil hat on all the time and even eat some tin foil to suit yourself while you tell everyone all about how LD$ Inc was less cult like and less controlling and less dictatorial in the 1960's, when they still had mock throat slashing and overt death threats in their MORmON temple ceremony, than they are presently .....and all about the high powered intellectual and academic that you consider yourself to be.

Wow. It's subtle, but I think I follow what you did there. Let's see. . .

I said you are a conspiracy theorist who needs tin foil for your hat. You then retorted--and this is where it gets really intricate--that I am a conspiracy theorist who needs tin foil for my hat.

Did I get that right? I hope so, since it is SO much better than "I know you are but what am I."



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2018 02:02AM by Lot's Wife.

It is NOT my fault that ( thanks to your assistance) it takes so very little (in addition to your actions) to display you so short of the intellectual and academic dynamo that you (so mistakenly) consider yourself to be.

You make preschool level attempts at being insulting .....that as miserably misapplied then miserably fail, and then you attempt to blame me for your epic (hardly subtle) blunders/ failures, and then you follow up by accusing me of not be able to operate above a preschool level (that you invoked).

any other personal failures that you need to attempt to project to others ?? ....anything else that you need to be wrong about ???

> It is NOT my fault that ( thanks to your
> assistance) it takes so very little (in addition
> to your actions) to display you so short of the
> intellectual and academic dynamo that you (so
> mistakenly) consider yourself to be.

It breaks my heart that you find me (so very) lacking. It (really) does.





> You make preschool level attempts at being
> insulting .....

I believe it was you who resorted to "I know you are but who am I." It hurts me to admit that, naturally, since I would so like to take credit for your tour de force.




> that as miserably misapplied then
> miserably fail, and then you attempt to blame me
> for your epic (hardly subtle) blunders/ failures,
> and then you follow up by accusing me of not be
> able to operate above a preschool level (that you
> invoked).

See above.




> any other personal failures that you need to
> attempt to project to others ?? ....anything else
> that you need to be wrong about ???

Nope. I don't need to blame my failures and shortcomings on anyone else. Do you?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2018 02:42AM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > It is NOT my fault that ( thanks to your
> > assistance) it takes so very little (in
> addition
> > to your actions) to display you so short of the
> > intellectual and academic dynamo that you (so
> > mistakenly) consider yourself to be.
>
> It breaks my heart that you find me (so very)
> lacking. It (really) does.
>
>
>
>
>
> > You make preschool level attempts at being
> > insulting .....
>
> I believe it was you who resorted to "I know you
> are but who am I." It hurts me to admit that,
> naturally, since I would so like to take credit
> for your tour de force.


>
>
>
> > that as miserably misapplied then
> > miserably fail, and then you attempt to blame
> me
> > for your epic (hardly subtle) blunders/
> failures,
> > and then you follow up by accusing me of not be
> > able to operate above a preschool level (that
> you
> > invoked).
>
> See above.
>
>
>
>
> > any other personal failures that you need to
> > attempt to project to others ?? ....anything
> else
> > that you need to be wrong about ???
>
> Nope. I don't need to blame my failures and
> shortcomings on anyone else. Do you?


You are giving yourself and your actions (failed attempts) WAY TOO MUCH credit ....... which is NOT my fault either.

You know, as I reread my last post I don't see where I took credit for anything. I merely underscored a few of your points.

But putting that aside for the moment, the beauty of conspiracy theories is that they are impervious to evidence. This is how it works.

Premise: climate change is a global conspiracy to control people and their actions.
Problem: there is tons of evidence and analysis suggesting that climate change is real.
Solution: the evidence was produced by the conspiracy.

It is a tidy little epistemology and has the advantage of answering every objection that could possibly arise. It is also a system of thought that many of us would recognize. For example. . .

Premise: God created the world 6,000 years ago.
Problem: There is tons of evidence and analysis suggesting the existence long before of dinosaurs.
Solution: God put took the dinosaur bones from other planets and placed them on earth to test believers' faith. In this sense the bones are actually proof of God.

Or. . .

Premise: The BoM says Native Americans came from Israel.
Problem: Archaeology and genetics indicate that nothing like that ever happened.
Solution: God changed the DNA to make the Native Americans look like East Asians in order to test modern people's faith. Again, the very absence of evidence for the BoM is proof of it and of God's existence.

Forgive me for being so cynical, but it appears that you have simply substituted "global conspiracy" for "God." The insouciant disregard for science and logic, the insistence that you have the secret to a higher knowledge that other people lack, remains the same.

Some of us try to live empirically. That approach sometimes leads to error but it is generally a better guide than following "the evidence of things not seen." You may have renounced Mormonism, but in at least some areas you are still looking for faith-based solutions to complex problems.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2018 03:10AM by Lot's Wife.

I might have thought that smirkorama and anon the great were the same person, but he/she never used the word "assumptions".

And AtG is less enamored (!) of PARENTHESES, exclamation points, and (random) CAPitalIZAtion!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2018 02:07PM by Lot's Wife.