A question about climate change/global warming.

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To be skeptical means opening yourself to charges that you don't believe in, say, evolution.

but this isnt a question of SKEPTICISM anymore; gore is hardly the only person talking about global warming. the evidence is on the table, and has been for 10+ years! i can't believe that people are still saying shit like "the jury is out" or "i'm skeptical of gore's claims" when a) theyre not GORE's claims specifically and b) the "debate" or the idea that one can be SKEPTICAL of this has been created ENTIRELY by the energy lobby and the politicians in their pockets. this is not a two-sided issue for scientists!

― max, Thursday, 22 March 2007 17:48 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm talking just normal citizens who do not work for the Hoover Institute, Exxon, etc.

people like don, for instance. the thing is - separating out hoover institute, exxon, etc. from "normal citizens" is exactly the sleight of hand that perpetuates the success of the massive investment in ~~propaganda~~ public relations ginned up by these huge stakeholders. normal people think there's "no consensus" or that "the science isn't conclusive" by a very simple process: vested interests spend tens or hundreds of millions on conferences, panels, PR events, and lobbying the government, all with the simple message that human contribution to global warming has not been scientifically established --> their views filter into newspapers and government --> "mainstream" opinion-makers repeat this PR as "part of the debate" --> it becomes conventional wisdom. enough, at least, to call the fundamental scientific consensus into question. adam curtis and bob somerby have it right. this is how women were convinced to smoke cigarettes and it's how gore became the butt of every joke. these things don't happen by accident AT ALL.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 22 March 2007 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Tracer OTM

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

It reminds me a lot of when Kunstler did his peak oil thing in Rolling Stone two years ago. FUCK YEAH was that alarmist, and dude was taking way too much pleasure in the oncoming downfall of civilization(hint: when you gleefully talk about how the only example to using shale oil was with nazis using jewish slave labor, you have a problem), but it still got the concept of "peak oil," that oil production and oil supplies were fixed, physical amounts that you could quantify and comprehend, out there to a lot of folks who either hadn't heard of the concept or of conceiving that particular system in such a way.

And that's the whole thing, innit? the fact that all these things _are_ systems. This blue marble we're all breathing on is a closed system. Shit that we put into the air doesn't go away, it either floats to the right or a little higher, but it's still up there. We dump enough shit out there and it will change things.

I like using the word "things" a lot.

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 17:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Tracer OTM, indeed. There is so much of this, that I even caught myself questioning global warming, until Reason's Ronald Bailey, free-market handjobber and industry apologist went from this to this.

― schwantz, Thursday, 22 March 2007 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link

There's no investment in public relations from environmentalists then, Tracer?

― Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:01 (seventeen years ago) link

not on nearly the same level as for the energy companies

― max, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link

oh yes, the powerful, uber-rich environmental lobby. wtf don.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link

If you truly believe that environmental groups' investment in PR is done solely for financially selfish reasons, then you are truly a cynical person.

― schwantz, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link

don't you know those Greenpeace executives drive around in SUVs, the hypocrites

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Don you never answered my question about what percentage of scientists constitutes "consensus" for you.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

That's a stumper Shakey. You've really got me on that one.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:09 (seventeen years ago) link

I think I'll go with a simple majority.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

oh donpaws

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

There's no investment in public relations from environmentalists then, Tracer?

Dandy Don Weiner on Thursday, March 22, 2007 2:01 PM (10 minutes ago)

Why do you guys even respond to him? Sheesh

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Because I am the Village Idiot.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

a) theyre not GORE's claims specifically

that's part of the thing, too. The obfuscation of the messenger with the message, and then attacking the figurehead. This is the same exact shit that happens with evolution; the vast majority of folks who know about are termed "Darwinists," as if they were as blindly, unthinkingly loyal and unquestionably obeisant(sp) of some authority figure as the fundie types are. Empiric science is rejected and you're left with two competing belief systems which are then dutifully reported by media types who either (1) don't really know what they're talking about enough to call bullshit or (2) have so internalized the bullshit claim of bias that they feel the need to listen to the disingenious.

A similar conversation happened on the email list for Bob Altermeyers book on Authoritarians, where somebody was trying to shed their follower past and wondered how this whole "listening to scientists" thing actually worked. Folks took time to explain that peer-reviewed theories are established by analysizing of empiric phenomena, that there is an objective reality that you can go out and find this stuff of for yourself.

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link

i just wonder when people - let alone reporters - are going to get sick of being deliberately lied to. by massive entities whose only loyalty is to their own bank accounts, particularly on an issue with stakes as high as this one has.

the convergence of this "issue" (weak laugh) with the inevitable drying out of oil and gas resources really does, as a horribly correct-sounding article i read recently put it, have the potential to make future generations turn their backs entirely on the entire concept of free market democracy. if free market democracy creates a leadership - political, economic, what have you - that is unable to deal with these twin problems - which rank right up there with the geostrategic problem of nuclear weapons as the greatest and most ominous problems humanity has ever had to face - what good is it? it was only 70 years ago - easily within living memory - that powerful western industrial nations were saying democracy was a utopian farce that couldn't deliver what people really wanted (haha is it obvious i have been watching "century of the self"?)

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

also, the transcript mentioned on this post is interesting reading

― Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:16 (seventeen years ago) link

I know I initially brought it up as a strawman to annoy Don, but the AIDS-HIV parallel seems WAY more apropos to me than something like evolution. If you think about the history of the science behind AIDS and how it was attacked and misused politically because people didn't want to acknowledge a) its implications for global disaster (which have by and large come to pass), and b) required changes in people's personal behavior. We had this same see-saw argument about the science being innacurate, or being deliberately misrepresented for political gain, tons of misinformation, entrenched lobbies who didn't want to acknowledge it, hysteria and fear drummed up, etc. etc.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link

There's no investment in public relations from environmentalists then, Tracer?

haha don your naivete here is endearing but unconvincing

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link

and look at what a startling success global AIDS policy turned out to be... its okay though, at least a bunch of pharmaceutical companies responded in time to make a shit ton of money, right?

hurrah capitalism.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:21 (seventeen years ago) link

ok, my post ain't too coherent, but hopefully the idea comes across.

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:23 (seventeen years ago) link

"global warming opponents are just fattening the wallets of michael moore, the sierra club and a million 'greentrepreneurs'"

i mean if we really have a political/nformational/economic/journalistic system that allows us to revel in this kind of dumbness it's hard to think we don't deserve what's coming to us

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:24 (seventeen years ago) link

never mind that Michael Moore hasn't even made a movie about global warming.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Pols long ago realized that declaring a crisis = money and microphones.

interesting how only the lefty ones seem to do this, though. why have the wingnuts not seized this market opportunity?!

if we should ignore politicians on this ground, I suppose we should ignore newspapers too. and churches. and personal trainers. investment advisors. doctors. parents.

― gabbneb, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:28 (seventeen years ago) link

"global warming opponents are just fattening the wallets of michael moore, the sierra club and a million 'greentrepreneurs'"

if so, perhaps the market is telling us something

― gabbneb, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:30 (seventeen years ago) link

that was one of the things I found so sad about Inhofe's complaining = "omg someone's trying to MAKE MONEY off of this!" Um, duh, would you prefer that everyone just lose money instead? wtf, how else would you want a market to respond to a crisis. He should just admit that his issue is jsut that all this energy policy-related money is showing the potential to move from one set of pockets to another - and that he prefers the old, existing pockets. Even though they are filled with holes.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:33 (seventeen years ago) link

interesting how only the lefty ones seem to do this, though. why have the wingnuts not seized this market opportunity?!

GAY MARRIAGE WILL BE THE RUIN OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
TERRORISTS WILL MARRY AND SODOMIZE YOUR PURE DAUGHTERS IF THIS BILL DOESN'T PASS

etc

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I think gabnebb was making a (rare) display of sarcasm there.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:37 (seventeen years ago) link

gabbneb always has plenty of sarcasm for me...all I have to do is show up and post my inanities. Actually, I think he's quite a bit more sarcastic that you give him credit for Shakey.

I never intimated that declaring a crisis was an exclusively leftist tactic...how else the fuck did we get ourselves into Iraq (or any number of other misadventures)? I'm not saying it's a reason to ignore politicians, I'm pointing out (as I did in the beginning of this thread) that the end result is that declaring a crisis typically polarizes the issue.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 22 March 2007 18:57 (seventeen years ago) link

being pointyheaded typically polarizes the issue too

― gabbneb, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:01 (seventeen years ago) link

things that motivate one group of people are usually polarizing to another. this is kinda a truism of politics.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:02 (seventeen years ago) link

And Americans typically(and humans generally) don't do shit 'til the dramatic happens, like we actually lose a city or something

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:11 (seventeen years ago) link

does that mean that compromise can only come through submission?

― Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

does that mean that compromise can only come through submission?

what are you talking about. It means that our really comfortable society has great difficulty in addressing a problem in advance, or even admitting that it is a problem that might require energy or a change in ways.

At any rate, here's http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032207.shtml about both Inhofe and what happened when FoxNews had the Dutch Statistician from that NYT hit piece on H&C last night

Inhofe informed Gore that scientists are "radically at odds with your claims." Displaying a photograph of icicles in Buffalo, Inhofe demanded: "How come you guys never seem to notice it when it gets cold?”

and, about the foot vs 20ft change in sea levels that gets talked about a lot:

Of course, as we’ve noted, Gore was talking about what will happen if the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets break away. By contrast, the UN report was predicting future sea levels if the ice sheets don’t break off. (For the record, the UN report said that sea levels may rise by as much as 23 inches if the ice sheets remain intact.) Lomborg’s presentation is baldly deceptive—a bald-faced scam on the American public. And no, it really doesn’t make sense to think Lomborg doesn’t know this.

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:27 (seventeen years ago) link

OK, this really bothers me:

I think it's way too early to do anything like that, but I think research should continue. What's fascinating though is how much environmentalists hate the idea. Why? Well I think part of the answer is that what they like about global warming alarmism is that it encourages us to change behaviors and undermines the legitimacy of capitalism. I think it's analogous to the hatred some on the left have for SDI/Star Wars. They wanted the threat of nuclear war to scare us out of our supposedly warlike worldview. They wanted that fear to make us abandon the Cold War etc. Any talk of actually protecting ourselves from nuclear weapons was the wrong path (this isn't to say that there weren't or aren't good substantive objections offered by many, but this philosophical objection definitely played a role too).

Does Goldberg really mean that changing "behavior" means undermining "the legitimacy of capitalism"? Isn't financial wherewithal supporting intellectual endeavor one of the great virtues of capitalism?

And why use Al Gore as a strawman for supporters of the 1980's-era nuclear freeze? What's the connection? My own skepticism rests largely on Gore's inability to make a convincing case, but it's got fuck-all to with the science.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 22 March 2007 19:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Notice how Goldberg discusses the issue in purely ideological terms. That is the problem with this class of people.

His diagnosis makes no sense.

I think it's analogous to the hatred some on the left have for SDI/Star Wars. They wanted the threat of nuclear war to scare us out of our supposedly warlike worldview. They wanted that fear to make us abandon the Cold War etc.

WTF? Are you kidding me?

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:19 (seventeen years ago) link

I think that Goldberg's bit, like with most of the deniers, is that we've gotten to where we are thru rugged individualism and free markets and yadda yadda yadda, i.e. the way we got our money is moral and thus the way we do things this year is moral and just and good. ANY attempt to change how we do things is "interfering with the market" i.e. disrupting the invisible hand and going against Nature, which is bad and to be avoided. Market idolatry is a good name for it.

Like i mentioned before, almost _every_ conversation comes down to the point where changing anything we do or trying to enforce environmental standards will cost too much money => interfere with the "market" => is bad/evil. It's like these guys believe their own press, that the way we do things now is the way they should be done and those who don't like that are jealous failures, angry at their lack of success. Which is more corporatist than capitalist, but these guys don't tend to make these kinds of distinction.

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:19 (seventeen years ago) link

the fact is the market itself disproves that argument: the $$$ to be made combatting global warming > $$$ to be lost if we continue business as usual.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean look at the demand for "green" technologies and products - its through the roof!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:22 (seventeen years ago) link

And the thing about SDI is that he SERIOUSLY has no idea what he's talking about. Like, no fucking clue, and clueless enough to make you wander about a system where pundits are continuously employed due to their idealogical purity versus, y'know, ever actually being fucking right for once.

I mean, like David Brooks clueless, to the point where dude appears to have never actually read any complaints that "the left"(or, like, anybody not as much as a blind follower as he) has ever made.

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link

And Goldberg actually believes global warming is a real threat!

As far as the SDI analogy....I mean, wow. It doesn't even occur to him to wonder whether Star Wars opponents questioned a system of steadily escalating armaments leading to the ultimate annihilation of one or both superpowers (not nto mention everyone else). Fuck, even his beloved Reagan believed this!

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:29 (seventeen years ago) link

xp

This is what i mean by the corporatist vs. capitalist thing, except that the distinction is blurred and the latter is almost always used to excuse the fuckups of the former. Changing the institutional inertia of bureaucracy is something that not many want to do.

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 20:43 (seventeen years ago) link

ignoring potential 20% reduction in growth vs. admitting algore might be right

― gabbneb, Thursday, 22 March 2007 21:25 (seventeen years ago) link

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/Shelton_C20070321.jpg

― kingfish, Thursday, 22 March 2007 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link

http://jewishworldreview.com/strips/pc/pc032307.jpg

HAW HAW HAW SCIENCE CHANGED IN 37 YEARS WE CANT TRUST ANY OF IT

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/strips/mallard/2000/MFT20070322.jpg

― kingfish, Friday, 23 March 2007 00:18 (seventeen years ago) link

this won't cost anything btw

― gabbneb, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:33 (seventeen years ago) link

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/Shelton_C20070321.jpg

^ this is kinda of genius!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/GoodnightVCover.jpg

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:48 (seventeen years ago) link

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