Global warming, debating beyond the logic not the science.
Global warming! A raging issue that has become one of the signature issues representing the metaphorical and philosophical divide fracturing America. On both sides the groups have sectionalized themselves off into factions that would make James Madison roll over in his grave. In the left corner the scientists and the environmentalist, railing against – what they see as – the further desecration of the natural environment and humanities pollution laden march to imminent apocalypse. In the right corner the Evangelical Christian Right and a few other patches of the Republican Party claiming that the science behind global warming is false and polluting the atmosphere does…no damage….to the Earth.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Clavos
"Clavos and Maurice are not very open to the possibility that they might be mistaken, even though their whole argument is that there is no proof of human-caused warming - not that there is definitive counter-evidence."
I never touched on the issue of definitive counter evidence.
There is ample evidence to support the cyclicality of GW, including ice cores, historical data showing much warmer temperatures at latitudes far above present day areas, sunspot activity, etc.
I'm sure Maurice has plenty of evidence to which to point, as well.
27 - handyguy
Our effect on the environment is far from benign. Many of the practices that fall under the heading of "going green" will benefit the planet whether or not GW itself turns out to be an exaggerated threat.
The fact that this issue divides along political, rather than scientific, lines makes me somewhat skeptical of both sides.
I do think, however, that the believers have basically already won the argument, in terms of ongoing and future public policy. So you can keep yelling. But even conservatives, led by John McCain and former Democrat Joe Lieberman, are starting to turn up in the believer camp.
28 - Michael S
To summarize and put things in basic terms, CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for upwards of a hundred years. Each successive year of continually increasing amounts of emissions builds on the hundred previous. If emissions aren't counterbalanced by sinks, the system is thrown out of equilibrium, resulting in changes to temperature, humidity, ocean alkalinity, and so on. Water vapor on the other hand, while being a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, is cycled through the atmosphere in a period of days.
As human emissions of CO2 have risen and continue to rise, the climate system is responding. The oceans, having not reached a saturation point, actually absorb about 50% of all human CO2 emissions. If this were not the case, the rise in atmospheric CO2 would be markedly greater than what has been observed to date. However, the continued rise of atmospheric levels of CO2 illustrates that the natural sinks can't keep up with global emissions. Rising temperatures illustrate that the negative feedbacks can't either.
The scary part being that at least two studies in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals (Science and the Journal of Geophysical Research) have found that the ocean's ability to absorb additional amounts of CO2 is slowing.
It's never been about the consensus but about the underlying scientific data that supports it. The issue with the skeptical crowd is the absence of a viable alternative explanation. At least they've given up the ghost of attempts to say there is no warming at all. However, criticisms abound with generic references to natural cycles with no specifics. If current warming trends cannot be attributed to manmade global emissions (the elephant in the room), to what can they be attributed? It's not solar cycles or galactic cosmic rays or orbital obliquities and eccentricities or tectonic plate shifts or volcanic activity or 1,500 year cycles (that are about 600 years off schedule) or ocean currents or dust storms, so what is the culprit? Still waiting for the skeptic crowd to provide a cogent and supportable argument that withstands scientific scrutiny over any reasonable period of time. None has been forthcoming.
29 - Dave Nalle
I wish this discussion hadn't gotten sidetracked into arguing the merits or questions about global warming. That's not what the article is about, and at this point I think it's largely a distraction.
People are so fanatical about the issue on both sides that no progress is likely to be made arguing over the scientific issues themselves. We're way past that point.
What seems relevant to me is the discussion of how to deal with global warming if it is the threat some believe it to be, and how to address those people who want to use it as a political issue to advance an agenda which may be more harmful than global warming itself.
Dave
30 - Cannonshop
Climate Change, Dave, is a fact of life on Earth. That is, the climate is GONNA change, sometimes it will trend warmer, and others colder. The core of the REAL debate is whether human beings can have a deliberate, as opposed to accidental, impact, and whether the accidental impact carries influence greater than the margin of variable change in nature.
Only an incredible optimist can assume that, if you do JUST THE RIGHT THING, the climate will remain static. It's a bit like assuming that if you pray the right way, and hard enough, the Black Death will miss your village in the thirteenth century, or that assumption that burning the heretics will cause god to have pity on your nation and withold the earthquakes.
The climate IS changing, it has always BEEN changing, it will right up to the end of the planet.
What does the Left gain from it? How about what the Soviet Union failed to achieve in seventy years of supporting "Progressive Elements" world-wide? To enforce a Global Climate control, you must have Global Government, and to do so efficiently requires a Global Government that can ignore such minor inconveniences as personal liberty and personal property for a GLOBAL collective "good" enforced by a recognized "Elite" in the manner of Plato's Priest-Kings with what devolves to a form of absolute power-the power to determine the distribution of wealth, the power to assign work or consign workers to the bin, the ability to decide who eats, who starves, and who lives where.
31 - Dr Dreadful
What seems relevant to me is the discussion of how to deal with global warming if it is the threat some believe it to be, and how to address those people who want to use it as a political issue to advance an agenda which may be more harmful than global warming itself.
Which, Dave, is precisely what Winston Apple was trying to do a couple of weeks back. You shot him down.
32 - Michael S
I wish this discussion hadn't gotten sidetracked into arguing the merits or questions about global warming. That's not what the article is about, and at this point I think it's largely a distraction.
That's true on at least one side of the equation.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the skeptical crowd always resorts to discussions about politics, religion, conspiracies, and the like, because they can't sustain a viable argument within the scientific arena. This is why the primary voices of skepticism originate from "think tanks" and other political and economic minded organizations. (Did you see the list of sponsors of the "climate change conference" in New York??)
Substantial discussions of reactions and resolutions can only bear worthwhile fruit based on a concurrence that there is a valid problem with which to deal. The skeptic crowd pretending it doesn't exist by screaming as loud as possible to any media outlet that will hear them while being unable to establish a solid argument within the scientific arena is counterproductive.
But, then again, their interest has never been in actually solving the problem at all.
33 - Dan Miller
Dave Nalle, with whom I tend to agree more than to disagree, says:
"I wish this discussion hadn't gotten sidetracked into arguing the merits or questions about global warming. That's not what the article is about, and at this point I think it's largely a distraction."
To me, that is a problem. The merits should not be considered a distraction. Whether man-made carbon dioxide emissions and other human activities cause global warming and, if so, what can realistically be done about it, should be the central focus. The religious fervor with which advocates on all sides advance answers to these questions and pose solutions does not further the debate. Nor does the rather generous use of adjectives in the principal article advance the discussion. Both are distractions, and harmful ones.
Of course people generate lots of carbon dioxide which, allegedly, causes global warming. We, like all mammals, exhale more carbon dioxide than we inhale. There are lots of us, and mass genocide would be one answer; a very bad answer, obviously. Many of us eat meat, which has to be produced and the production of which causes substantial methane emissions. So, let's all stop eating meat? Unfortunately, there are environmental problems with vegetable production as well, and lots of resources previously devoted to the production of vegetables for eating (e.g, corn) are now devoted to growing vegetables for ethanol production as a substitute for gasoline. Apparently, ethanol is not all that environmentally friendly and the price of corn has gone way up -- not a good thing for folks for whom corn is a major part of their diet.
There are lots of easy answers. Turn down the heat and wear sweaters? Turn down the air conditioning and dress more appropriately for warm weather? (Where does that hot air exhausted by an air conditioning system go, anyway?) Drive a smaller car and take public transportation when possible? Walk? Ride a bicycle? Easy answers, but not what most of us are likely to do.
There are also lots of feel good answers. Go to a global warming concert, buy carbon credits, etc. Please be generous when the hat is passed. Right.
Unless and until the fanatics and religious zealots on both sides of the isle calm down, put aside ideology (and theology), and dispassionately reflect on the elementary principles of cause and effect, whatever problem there may be with "man made global warming" will not be ameliorated.
Dan Miller
34 - Tony
I'd love to know where all you people who think global warming is fake got your PHD's from. It's pretty amazing that you think you know enough about the science to debate even NASA.
I guess I focused on the greater scope of this debate, rather then the nuts and bolts, because I lump the people who argue against global warming in the same boat as those who argue against evolution. It's kind of like trying to argue with people who insisted the world was flat. I'm sure they, at the time, had some real "scientific" evidence to back that up also.
I yearn for the days when the Republican party focused on the Goldwater ideals of small government and lower taxes rather then trying to play scientist.
People complain because this has turned into a partisan debate. Well it only turned into that because the Republicans are the only ones currently causing these problems. While the left is annoying about many an issue, at least most of those issues are rooted in things like civil liberties and the like.
The republicans are the ones taking ridiculous stances so they can pander to their Christian Right voting base, so they are the ones who deserve the heat.
Remember the days when we elected Republicans to end wars (Korea and Vietnam) and to cut government spending? Remember when those were the issues they fought for? Well that was before they realize how easily manipulated the Christian right was and sold their souls for votes.
Its frighting how anti-science this country has become. And we wonder why our economy is crumbling, the euro and yen are destroying us, and we're losing our status as a world economic power. I guess thats what we get for electing a President who proudly admits he doesn't read books or newspapers.
This country will only be saved when we can find a person who combines the democratic social consciousness with the republican economic sense. Instead the democrates are atrocious economically and the republicans are trying to turn us into a theocracy. And the whole time both parties manipulate the people so much that they actually believe they know something about science when they are regergitating someone else's findings. Amazing.
35 - Marcia L. Neil
There's another, "underground" perspective about global warming, that involves mental telepathy and a mental set of 'special' historical palm trees. The mental set shows the trees when they were baby trees. Each tree in the set is located in a specific region of the earth, and there has been a sort of stampede into those sub-tropical regions causing catastrophes and wars -- the trees are located in areas considered to be topo-graphically hazardous yet have a mild climate.
36 - Stormy
I think the title of this article is very telling, "Global Warming: Is There Really Even A Debate?" Perhaps it should be entitled, "Global Warming: Has the Debate ever Occurred." The answer is a simple, emphatic, "no", despite the fact that Gore and company have claimed "the debate is over" for 15 years or more.
The article itself was completely off the mark as it set the stage as "science" against the "fringe right/evangelicals." Did I miss something? I thought, Richard Lindzen of MIT, the premiere Climate Scientist of our time (and dozens and dozens of other climate scientists) were actually scientists, not members of the Evangelical clergy. If any side of this issue acts with blind faith and religious fervor, it's clearly those pushing the warming agenda on extremely weak science and even weaker climate models. What is also very telling in a number of posts is the confusion over "pollution" and "global warming", two mutually exclusive phenomena. Clearly the result of greenwashing and posturing by extremists, who have done everything possible to create new jargon, such as the phrase "Global Warming pollution" and "CO2 pollution." Basically, that's an oxymoron, but it has become accepted vernacular these days. A lie repeated often enough becomes accepted as the truth, and clearly, that's an excellent example of the practice. You now have people confusing real enviro issues (clean air and clean water with global warming). Truly astounding.
The real problem here is attacking a fictitious threat (man-induced global warming) and spending trillions to fix this non-existent threat. That said, where you will find common ground on both sides is the pursuit of alternative energy sources, which will move us towards energy independence. Clearly, both sides of the issue would be happy with that outcome if we could wean ourselves from the petroleum addiction. However, that's where the commonality ends. One side is hell bent on spending ridiculous sums on carbon sequestration, carbon trading schemes, etc., all of which have no tangible benefits other than making people "feel good" fighting a phantom boogie man. You might as well flush the money down the toilet. Personally, I'd rather take those dollars and point them towards clean air and water if you want to make a difference in enviro quality. For the record, my background is not climate science, although I've studied it as a hobby since the early 1990's - I'm a Mechanical Engineer, which requires an understanding of the physical sciences and an application of real science in real life - not speculation about pseudo science in a netherworld.
37 - Tony
So, again I ask the question. If global warming is not real that we can just pump whatever we want into our atmosphere and nothing will happen? I mean you really, seriously believe that?
In that case why don't we just revert back to the industrial revolution and burn black coal in our plants?
38 - Clavos
"So, again I ask the question. If global warming is not real that we can just pump whatever we want into our atmosphere and nothing will happen? I mean you really, seriously believe that?"
Tony, you're not paying attention.
Not one of the skeptics who have posted on this thread has said anything remotely like what you say here.
Not one.
39 - Dave Nalle
Tony, reread Stormy's comment. It's the most cogent thing on here, including your original article.
The question is not and has never been whether global warming is real. The question is how best to keep the air, land and water clean, provide for public safety and expand energy independence.
The problem is that the global warming promoters have chosen to use this issue as a lever to pursue an agenda which is about political power and social engineering rather than addressing our real environmental and energy issues.
Dave
40 - Chris
It's interesting to note the comment policy here forbids personal attacks, including attacks against groups. I guess if you're a Christian that doesn't apply.
This commentary is so misinformed on so many levels I could almost write a book to fully document all that is wrong with it. First and foremost, CO2 is NOT a pollutant. It is an atmospheric trace gas essential for plant life. Secondly, there is overwhelming evidence that CO2 is not the cause of global warming. Third, there is overwhelming evidence that there is no global warming at all.
I will have to assume that the author is completely oblivious to the large cooling that has happened over the past year, along with the fact that the snow and ice pack over North America and the Arctic is at its highest level in over 40 years. It's also safe to assume he is unaware of all the other evidence against man made global warming, including the ice core data that shows CO2 concentration is a function of temperature and not the other way around. In other words, temperature in the long term record has gone up hundreds of years before CO2 did, and temperature subsequently fell hundreds of years before CO2 concentrations did.
As for motive on the part of global warmers, how about research dollars, new job opportunities in the bogus field of man made climate change, and the Nobel prize, no less. More importantly, the globalization/nanny state/socialist movement others have mentioned. What better way to gain power than to scaring people into buying in to global warming so they will agree to numerous new rules and restrictions, with the US and it's citizens at the whim of other countries? By the way, ask the developing countries how they feel about getting saddled with treaties like Kyoto.
Finally, the cost of believing in the global warming religion is not zero. Given there were so many absurd ideas put forth in the commentary it's hard to pick a winner, but the zero cost assertion may be it. The estimated cost of Kyoto alone is in the trillions.
Do some research next time before you just decide to spout more insults at a particular group.
41 - Clavos
"It's interesting to note the comment policy here forbids personal attacks, including attacks against groups."
Actually, Chris, the comment policy only prohibits attacks against other posters on this site.
It does not forbid attacks on groups, politicians, movie stars, pundits, etc.
42 - Tony
I'd also like to note, Chris, that this was not an attack on Christians. It's an attack on a group that thinks they have a monopoly on Christianity and is determined to enforce their personal views on everyone else by way of polluting the Constitution with their theology.
Not that it should have any bearing but I am actually a Catholic (who many on Christian right have stated publically they feel are not Christians, but thats a debate for a different day).
43 - Tony
Really I dont even like the terminology of attack. My effort here was to show that the Christian right is constantly used by the right wing for that party's own political purposes when in many cases they have no real interest in the issue.
In my opinion these people are the furthest thing from actual Christians. They hate everyone who is not like them (gays, people of any other religion ect) and attack all that does not fit into their personal ideology. Sounds a long way from the core teachings of love that are supposed to be the base of christianity.
44 - alessandro
I present you two tiny but powerful Italian words:
Cui bono?
45 - Dr Dreadful
#35: I think 'Marcia L. Neil' must be an AI bot. Everything she/it writes is perfectly correct in terms of grammar and syntax, but makes absolutely no logical sense.
46 - Irene Wagner
Tony -- I was a real Christian when *hangs head in shame* I voted for Bush in 2000. Jesus said, "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." We're all works in progress, you know? I had, and still have, a long way to go in the shrewdness department.
Here's what I know for sure: "...the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." You might be mad as hell at "single issue" Christian voters who are used by politicians who make promises they have no intention of keeping, but no amount of ranting is going to change the minds of manipulative and conniving politicians. You have to change the minds of the people--some of them truly good people who think they're doing the right thing--who are voting IN these pond scum specimens. Ranting and making yourself sound like a dang New Atheist is going to make Christians dig their heels in further.
To convince someone you've got a way of thinking that will serve them better, you've got to find common ground. Stick to one issue at a time (golly, he says he wants to school me about global warming, now he's going on about evolution and...and gays...) There's so MUCH that has you angry at the Religious Right voting bloc (by the way, that includes pro-life Catholics) that you haven't had time to narrow down your focus and do proper research on any single issue. This is evidenced by the fact that most of the criticism you've been getting about your views on global warming is from people who don't even identify themselves as being Christians.
I understand what you're trying to do--it's just that you're going about it in the wrong spirit, and on the wrong issue.
47 - Dr Dreadful
Irene... you did WHAT in 2000??!??
God said to look for him in the burning bush, not the son of Bush!
;-)
48 - Clavos
"I think 'Marcia L. Neil' must be an AI bot. Everything she/it writes is perfectly correct in terms of grammar and syntax..."
Not quite.
Topographically is not hyphenated.
49 - Baronius
"So the question finally evolves to the point where the root understanding, the true motivation behind the debate, can be discovered."
Tony asked that question about his opponents. It's always easy to question your opponents' motivations. He doesn't think of asking it about his own side. Doug answered it dead-on: it's about control. That's why environmentalists are called "watermelons": they're green on the outside, red on the inside.
State-centered economies don't work. The Soviet communist experiment failed; so did European socialism. Market economics took center stage for about ten years, then global warming came along. Tony, surely you've noticed that all the same groups who supported industrial policy in the name of economic growth now support it for green causes?
I can't help noticing that the anti-GW comments on this thread are far better argued than the original article. Also, the only person who seems to be conflating religion and climate change is Tony.
50 - Dr Dreadful
Not quite.
Topographically is not hyphenated.
Unless the bot had reached the end of the line and discovered that 'topographically' was too long to fit.
I'll try copying and pasting 'Marcia' into the comments box and get back to you...
51 - Dr Dreadful
Nope. 'Topographically' fits comfortably. Go figure.
52 - Clavos
My experience with the comments box is that it moves the entire word to the next line, rather than splitting and hyphenating.
53 - Dr Dreadful
Mine too. I need to stop 'The Mystery of Mad Marcia' from bugging me, don't I?
54 - G Alston
Hmmm.
Global warming belief = left = smart = good.
Skepticism = right = christian = stupid = bad.
Bush! War for oil!
Gee, this must be the millionth time some self-nominated faux intellectual has tried to paint evangelicals as typical right wingers (therefore anyone to the right of say Stalin must be a flat earther) in a Herculean strawman effort. The scrotal torsion alone from this kind of spin could sterilise an elephant.
B.O.R.I.N.G.
Can you think up anything original? Could it possibly be THAT hard?
Besides, you forgot to include references to NASCAR, fried chicken, trailer homes, and a handful of other redneck attributes that are usually standard for this genre. I'm docking points.
55 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Crapping on Jesus and his adherents isn't going to make the CO2 go away, that's for sure. There are two scientific issues involved with global warming.
One is the proliferation of greenhouse gases that have changed the atmosphere in such a way as to increase the earth's temperature. The second is "global dimming" caused by particulate pollution of the air. The net effect so fare of the global dimming has been to prevent the rise in temperatures that the greenhouse gases would cause.
The bottom line here is that the bio-sphere is much more sensitive to tampering than we have realized hitherto, and that a lot of real changes will be needed to prevent a searing of our lives in the oven of our own pollution.
One can argue that believing in a messianic redemption makes one not care about the environment. The argument here would be "Jesus is gonna' clean it all up anyway - why should we bother?"
This is a nice Christian argument, fit for those who cannot see that man is a partner to Creation, and all the areas where G-d allowed slack in that Creation, where bad things and mistakes can happen, and where the Evil Inclination can rule (like the inside of just about every bank on the planet), are there for us to attempt to correct.
To put it differently, this is the reason to attempt to correct the problems in the environment, as G-d's partners in Creation, and not to regard it all as G-d's problem. A good steward does not think that way. A Jewish approach to all this is tikkún 'olám repair of the world. This is the approach you have just read in this comment.
But there are others who need to be blamed in the issues of pollution, both gaseous and particulate. There are the corporations, for whom it does pays not to give a damn, and most important, there are ourselves. When we pour paint into the drain, or use chemicals to attack weeds and insects, we ourselves pollute G-d's green earth that is supposed to provide us with life. When we drive from one shopping mall parking lot to another, we do the same thing, polluting the air with gasoline, lead, etc.
So, looking in the mirror would be a better solution than crapping on Christians....
56 - Michael S
The issue with the skeptical crowd is the absence of a viable alternative explanation. At least they've given up the ghost of attempts to say there is no warming at all. However, criticisms abound with generic references to natural cycles with no specifics. If current warming trends cannot be attributed to manmade global emissions (the elephant in the room), to what can they be attributed? It's not solar cycles or galactic cosmic rays or orbital obliquities and eccentricities or tectonic plate shifts or volcanic activity or 1,500 year cycles (that are about 600 years off schedule) or ocean currents or dust storms, so what is the culprit? Still waiting for the skeptic crowd to provide a cogent and supportable argument that withstands scientific scrutiny over any reasonable period of time. None has been forthcoming.
Tony, Stormy, Well?
57 - Maurice
Dave #29 - Don't you ever get tired of being wrong? The title of this article is an effort to stir up an argument of the merits or questions about global warming. It is nothing to do with how to deal with global warming if it is the threat some believe it to be.... It is an in your face; of course its true; now what are you going to do about it kind of article.
I just have to point out some of the errors helpful environmentalists have made in the past:
DDT - turns out it is the best solution for preventing malaria. Thousands died because of its ban. Now being used again.
Asbestos - reviled by some but recognized as the best fire retardant and absolutely safe when used properly.
Super Fires - last season we experienced forest fires that man caused by not allowing controlled burns. These files were so immense they could be seen from outer space.
CFCs - This is the fairy story that first caused me to look at GW fanatics as memebers of the Church of Global Warming. Once again we lose the use of a valuable product.
Jehovahs Witnesses believe blood tranfusions are bad. Jews don't eat pork. Catholics eat fish on Friday. Members of the Church of Global Warming believe our cars are evil.
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. H. L. Mencken
58 - Tony
Michael S,
I wrote the piece; I'm not one of the skeptical crowd.
59 - G Alston
"The issue with the skeptical crowd is the absence of a viable alternative explanation."
Indeed. Let's use your logic -- Phil sees tracks in his yard. His claim is that these are from aliens. Bob sees the tracks. It's up to Bob to prove to Phil that his hypothesis is incorrect by offering an alternative. Given that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, it's up to Phil to prove he's right.
Skeptics don't have to submit a #$#% thing. It's not up to skeptics to prove you wrong. It's up to you to prove yourself correct. Everyone in the USA is affected by the law, which is premised on reasonable doubt. It's a foundation of our existence. Except of course, subjects you care about? Invariably, failing the proof test, the typical alarmist argument then shifts to the precautionary principle, which is a half-witted, muddled up corruption of Pascal's Wager foisted upon the rest of us by those who simply can't understand that it's not the same thing (in Pascal's Wager there is no downside.)
***
Tony -- as noted in #54, what passes for logic and thought in your reality? Do you really think that all you have to do is make accusations and silly claims and the rest of us are to do your homework for you and prove things to you? Are you really this lazy?
60 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Maurice,
Just a couple of words about asbestos, Maurice.
Bruce Vento.
He died eight years ago of mesothelioma, a cancer you get from exposure to asbestos.
In 2003, his widow Susan wrote a piece about her late husband, including how he died.
She wrote in part:
Rep. Bruce Vento, a popular high school science and social studies teacher who went on to serve the people of St. Paul, Minnesota for three decades as a State Representative and Congressman, died on Tuesday, October 10, 2000 from what the press widely reported as "lung cancer."
On October 13, 2000, the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation (MARF) issued a statement clarifying that the cancer which took Vento's life was not lung cancer, but malignant mesothelioma.
While lung cancer is usually associated with smoking, mesothelioma is caused by asbestos exposure. The tumor aggressively invades the lining surrounding the lungs, heart or abdomen.
Vento did not smoke but was exposed to asbestos from his work as a laborer in his youth. Weeks before his death, he filed a lawsuit against 11 companies that allegedly supplied or installed asbestos products at job sites where he had worked as a state-paid laborer as a youth.
According to press reports that I heard on MPR and elsewhere, he had worked only one summer exposed to asbestos. It was enough to kill the man.
You have enough sites cited above that you can see just how dangerous the stuff is for yourself.
Have fun!
After you've had a good think about which is worse - death in a fire or death from asbestosis or its related diseases - think carefully about all those other substances you complain have been removed from the market by "helpful environmentalists" in the past "by error".
61 - Maurice
Ruvy,
fire is dangerous. Used properly it is not.
Asbestos is dangerous. Used properly it is not.
Eating pork is dangerous. Prepared properly it is not.
The point of my post #57 is the correlation between religious superstition and the Church of Global Warming.
62 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
The point of my post #57 is the correlation between religious superstition and the Church of Global Warming.
Maurice,
Go to the link in my comment #55. Read the transcript and pay close attention. There is no "church of global warming". There is a reason that global warming does not appear to have an effect, and it is discussed carefully in the link on "global dimming".
Then, when you are done, go to the links I gave you in comment #60. I've done plenty of work in the past concerning asbestos and its dangers - enough to know that it is a substance that kills.
63 - Irene Wagner
#47 Dr.Dreadful, you son of a pun! Cents of Twain from a Christian: If we protected the natural world long enough to examine its bounty, we'd probably find what we needed to cure most (many? all?) diseases and feed the world without disrupting ecological balance. It's possible the world really is a gift from a benevolent Creator, who for some reason allows Evil to exist. He's designed elements in nature to counter the corrupting influences on creation, and given us the intelligence to find them. George Washington Carver, a biologist who considered the needs of people AND the land when he developed hundreds of agricultural alternatives to the soil-depleting cultivation of King Cotton, was a modern-day pioneer in this kind of work. (A Christian, he was a vocal critic of the theory of evolution, by the way. Whether you agree with him on this point or not, his views on origins certainly were not an impediment to his biological research.)
Integrated Pest Management develops agricultural applications of the remarkable interplay between plants and "pests." Western Medicine (which, give it its due, has kept a lot of people alive with synthetic cures) is finally recognizing the validity of some Alternative Medicine, wisdom gleaned from nature by "primitive" cultures. We've just begun exploration of solar-, wind-and water-power for modern energy needs.
Not every technological advance has been harmful, at least in the short-term; however, those who take the long view are looking to nature for ways to address energy, health, and food needs. Global Warming is a small and, YES, debatable subset of a host of other ecological and sustainability issues that are harder to ignore. This sturdy old world (it's at LEAST several thousand years old, after all!) will probably take a little more abuse while we work--in a hurry and TOGETHER--to find and develop sustainable and natural alternatives to short-term solutions. Those who have other priorities will come around if there are cheaper natural alternatives ready to use.
Yeah, there are those who, protecting their mammoth industrial rice bowls, THWART this research. I don't imagine most of them care about anyone, including God, except themselves. Let's sic the Atheists (some of whom respect Evolution's Nature as a god-replacement) on THEM.
64 - heather
I think you are wright irene about global warming
from
heather
65 - Clavos
Aaah, Irene,
I'm rapidly becoming a fan of yours, yet I often disagree with your ideas; what a quandary!
Nonetheless, you write eloquently and with good humor, (#63 is a prime example), so I read every word.
And, this time, I find little with which to disagree, therefore will not even mention my quibbles; which you can probably surmise anyway.
Like Maurice, I have differences with congregants of the Church of GW, and like you, I agree we should stop abusing and especially, should seek alternative means of powering our industry and our selves ASAP.
Among those currently investigating and experimenting on a large scale are the holders of the most "mammoth industrial rice bowls," the energy companies.
Given that they naturally have the greatest expertise in that science, I think this is good, and should be supported, whether with grants or, preferably, with tax breaks for directed R&D focused on alternative renewable fuels; especially hydrogen, which I think shows the greatest long term promise.
66 - Irene Wagner
Ruvy in Jerusalem, Jews as well as Christians need to remember Messiah might not get back for a thousand years or more. Maybe even the resettling of Israel will have to be put on hold while Jewish brainpower is fully exploited to address Global Warming/Dimming. Maybe what happened in 1947 started the first of what will be many modern (perhaps peaceful?) advances of the Jews toward their Zion. Moses and the Jews spent years wandering in the desert around Mount Sinai before they were allowed to settle the Promised Land.
If global warming will damage England as much as the Global Dimming link claims it will, imagine what it will do to The Rose Blossoming in the Desert.
Heather, thanks, but I was actaully wishy-washy on global warming. I said that though it is debatable, we need to move full-speed ahead on energy alternatives anyway. If the conclusions drawn in the study on Global Dimming (Ruvy's link in #55) are true, there is an explanation as to WHY the debate on GW continues. The development of alternative energy sources cannot be delayed.
67 - Irene Wagner
Clavos, that's for sure there are many good-hearted and cerebrally endowed (and experienced!) workers in the traditional energy industry. I guess the biggest problem I see is: who is going to coordinate all this effort? Who is going to make sure the money from the grants and tax breaks end up going where they're supposed to go? (The UN? NEVAAAH. Just kidding, sort of.)
Something for smarter people than me to figure out. Trying to eliminate some of the grass-roots bickering is the way I try to help out. I am fueled by your encouragement and Dr. D's daily dose of puns.
68 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Irene,
There are many things I don't talk about here at BC. Among them are efforts to develop alternative fuels and ways to end pollution. There is a lot of technology out here looking for funding for massive applications that can end forever dependence on fossil fuels for use in running automotive vehicles.
Petroleum will still be necessary to manufacture plastic boxes to hold non-food items (like the guts of a computer), and as a lubricant for engines, but much can be done to do away with it otherwise.
Also, try to remember that silicon abounds here in the sand and rocks.
Finally, as a matter of religious doctrine, while only G-d knows when the time for the messianic redemption will be right, it is believed by many many rabbis to be likely finished by the year 2030 (5790 according to the rabbinic calendar). If this doesn't occur and the reading of the Talmud has been wrong all these centuries, it is believed that messianic redemption will occur by the year 6000 on the rabbinic calendar - 232 years from now.
I'm glad to see that Clavos is coming to appreciate your writing, as I do, even if, like me, he doesn't necessarily agree with what you say.
69 - Michael S
G Alston:
The problem is that we have seen a 1.5 degree F rise in just over 100 years, which is quite substantial. If it's natural and not due to the rise of GHGs (the elephant in the room), the cause should stick out like a sore thumb. Simply stating "it's natural" under the pretense that no specifics are necessary to explain it is a cop out.
By your analogy of tracks in the yard, no one is pointing to aliens. They're pointing to the 4x4 sitting just off the yard with muddy tires every day. And your response is either, "Tracks just happen," or "I don't know what caused the tracks, I just know it definitely can't possibly be that muddied up 4x4!" When the tracks keep happening with increasing frequency, at some point, you better find out where they're coming from and stop ignoring the truck.
70 - Clavos
"I guess the biggest problem I see is: who is going to coordinate all this effort? Who is going to make sure the money from the grants and tax breaks end up going where they're supposed to go?"
That, of course, is the crux.
The facile answer is the government. I have problems with that, which I have enumerated frequently on these threads, but it may well be the only answer.
And after all, the young NASA DID put a man on the moon per Kennedy's vision...
71 - Tony
Irene,
Regulating the tax cuts for clean energy is easy. Since we are spending nearly 275 million a day in Iraq we could stop building little Iraqi children schools and start worrying about our own citizens and economy by creating a government division to to enact this process. We could go a step further and eliminate the IRS and the Federal Reserve (since they are arguably unconstitutional anyway) and replace them with a much smaller organization that investigates the companies clean energy claims and then awards the incentives based on a merrit system. Even better, the government could contract out private companies to do these investigation pumping more money into the economy. Lots of options, lots of ways to make it work, especially if we start using American tax dollars for the benefit of Americans instead of Iraqis. The only necessity would be total transluceny on the level of public reporting stating which companies received the incentives and which critera they met.
72 - Clavos
Tony,
I have a problem with your idea of letting the government administer the allocation of funding, given that the government is easily the most corrupt and inept organization in the US.
These are the same people who misdealt with the Katrina aftermath, and who run Medicare and the Department Of Homeland Security. They involved us in Vietnam, and now in Iraq.
While I don't see any other organization we could turn it over to, turning it over to the stumblebums in the government is truly scary.
73 - Baronius
We shouldn't be coordinating efforts to find renewable energy. There are a half-dozen possible energy sources that kind of work (not that well) on a small scale. We don't know which of them, if any, will be successful on a large scale. For the time being, we need to have lots of uncoordinated efforts.
I think solar energy is our best answer, by the way. But we haven't found an efficient way to store the power from it. I hope we figure it out, because it's so readily accessible. But I wouldn't want to see government or the private sector invest all of their effort into it, because wind power makes a lot of sense too. So does geothermal, and the power of the mighty atom. Et cetera.
In the case of NASA, we all pretty much agreed where the moon is. We had a fairly specific goal in the 1960's. Beyond that, you've got the fundamental difference between left and right. The left thinks that global warming is so important that the government should be in the forefront. The right, even those of us who are skeptical about global warming, think that energy is so important that we need to keep the government away from it.
I think that Tony and Winston are both trying to make a valid point. They're trying to bridge the gap and say that this is a win-win issue. But they have no idea how to talk to the right, or even what the right is thinking. I mean, religious nuts obeying corporate puppetmasters? It's hard to believe that Tony is serious when he says that, but that's how he reads the politics of GW. It's like Bart Simpson learning Spanish during his flight to Brazil. He's trying to speak our language, bless his heart, but he doesn't even know what language it is.
I'm sure that my description of the left sounds alien to the lefties on this site. And I'm sorry about that. Part of the problem is that I don't understand you; part of it is that I think you're wrong. But I can bridge the gap this much: your religious nuts scare us the same as ours scare you. You ignore the hippie nature-worshippers at your table, but they freak us out. We don't even notice the (few) anti-science people on our side either, but I guess they terrify you.
It's more than that, though. We're always going to walk away when you start talking about multinational coordination. You're never going to listen to us when Exxon sponsors our conferences. We both need to figure out how much of this barrier is bad communication and how much is legitimate difference. We also need to figure out how much of the GW debate is blind distrust on our side, or bandwagon mentality on yours. Maybe then we can start talking.
74 - Baronius
Clavos, every time I type something, I see you've stated it first and pithier. Jerk.
75 - Clavos
I do the same thing, Baronius; I'm forever reading down a thread to a particularly juicy comment that begs to be answered, and jumping on it only to discover after mine is published, that someone else already did, better.
Nonetheless, I'm flattered, my friend.