Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Global Warming Conspiracy?
From the assassination of JFK to 9/11, conspiracy theories are almost always regarded as nutty paranoid fantasies imagined by those hopelessly out-of-touch with reality; unworthy of serious debate....unless, of course, we're talking about the global warming "conspiracy" theories circulating around right-wing America.No sooner did the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hit the news, calling on the world's leading industrial nations - especially the U.S. and China - to curb greenhouse gas emissions now, while something can still be done (on the relative cheap to boot!), that all the "junk-science" detectors come out of the woodwork to warn all of us poor idiots to beware of the "global warming conspiracy."
Two of the more prominent examples include CNN's Glenn Beck, who recently did an hour-long segment called "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," in which he predictably evoked Hitler and Nazism to smear anyone concerned about the environment. (For civics sake, enough with the Hitler references already!)
On the other side of the political spectrum, we have Alexander Cockburn offering a "leftist" contrarian climate change argument, disputing the existence of any link between CO2 emissions and rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
For the record, I didn't see, nor do I intend to see, "Inconvenient Truth." I was never subjected to any "save the earth" curriculum that my kids now receive. I do not belong to any environmental organization and, frankly, the upper-class, granola-bar-eating, healthier-than-thou, eco-fundamentalism characteristic of some "liberals" is about as attractive to me as growing up female under the Taliban.
I'm not a scientist - just like most people reading this right now. But like Bertrand Russell said: "Clearly, if you are going to believe anything outside your own experience, you should have some reason for believing it. Usually, the reason is authority... . It is true that most of us must inevitably depend upon (authority) for most of our knowledge." When it comes to global warming I make Pascal's Wager and put it on. It's better to believe the warnings of global warming scientists and adhere to the "precautionary principle" than not believe and suffer the consequences.
I'll put my money on the IPCC - the most authoritative body of climate scientists in the world, whose work is peer reviewed; unlike the mutterings of nonscientist ideologues who dismiss the work of real scientists who, we're told, secretly want to destroy capitalism, halt technological progress and keep the poor, poor. Apparently, with the global warming conspiracy crowd, climate science is filled with a bunch of Unabombers; a collection of Ted Kaczynskis. But instead of getting the koo-koo treatment, they get prime time?
And I don't buy the they're-in-it-for-the-government-money argument, either. Everyone knows that the real research money is in defense. And it's just absurd to think that corporations and governments want to give millions of dollars to scientists whose research indicates our entire way of living is a global threat.
But, when it comes down to it: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it," as Max Planck wrote in his autobiography.
So I don't care to argue much about global warming. I mean, John Maynard Keynes had a point - in the long run, we're all dead. But for me and my kids, when the climate change contrarians are dead, it's us who'll be caught up in the "long run." That's why recent polls have shown that young Americans - the long runners - are particularly sensitive to environmental issues, with 77 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds saying they favor the U.S. signing an international treaty requiring less emissions from power plants and cars, compared to just 48 percent of those 65 and older, as Benjamin Page and Marshall Bouton discuss in their book "The Foreign Policy Dis*Connect."
What we've gotta do, young America, is take over the environmental conversation and policy in this country. Matter of fact, the environmental opinions of anyone whose average life expectancy comes in, say, the next 20 years or so, should be considered irrelevant.
I remember being admonished sometimes by older folks to "mind my business when grown folks are talking." Well, on global warming and the environment, here's where we flip the script. This is the one conversation where we need to say: mind your business when young folks are talking.
Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and a syndicated columnist. E-mail him at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com.
© 2007 The Cape Cod Times
30 Comments so far
Show AllThe conspiracy is the one that has been suppressing this knowledge for 25 years. All of the effects we see today were forecast. For commercial reasons, the media conspired not to report these forecasts until they were confirmed by events and after it was too late to reverse course.
I could sum up your article by saying - most people 18-29 look at the world just like me, therefore, they should run things.
What if your 77% figure had a strong deliniation between race, or sex? Say you could bump it up to 95%, by excluding someone else?
1) people who are over 65 were your age once. You, on the other hand, have never been 65, so you are at a disadvantage.
2) most people who are over 65 have grandkids. Do you have any idea what mountains grandparents would climb, and what rivers they would ford, for their grandkids?
I think you should save this article and pull it out when you are 65 years old and read it.
IF this does not bring you back to reality, maybe this will.
I think George W Bush, while old in years, behaves like a much younger man, and does not have some of the characteristics that an older man typically has. Though George holds the exact opposite political philosophy of a typical younger liberal, he is a good example of what happens when a youth is put in a position of responisbility before they are ready.
Oh, by the way, both Max Planck and Russell were relatively old men when they said what you have quoted. Of course they probably would have been in the 48% in favour of you environmental views.
I'll sign up as one who completely believes there is a Global Warming Conspiracy!
Al Gore proved it to me!
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm#Message54
Excerpt:
"CO2 levels have increased substantially since the Industrial Revolution, and are expected to continue doing so. It is reasonable to believe that humans have been responsible for much of this increase. But the effect on the environment is likely to be benign.
Greenhouse gases cause plant life, and the animal life that depends upon it, to thrive. What mankind is doing is liberating carbon from beneath the Earth's surface and putting it into the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living organisms."
Tech2: you seem to think that Sean Gonsalves is between the ages of 18 and 29. I think you've misread the article. I don't know his exact age, but he is a nationally syndicated columnist, so I've seen pictures of him. He appears to be somewhere between 45 and 60 years old.
In this article, as an older person, he is humbly reaching out to younger people and asking them to take leadership on an issue that he feels his and your generation are lagging on. He's not the naive youngster who you think he is.
Maybe global warming will turn the earth into a tropical paradise--Maybe. BUT WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG?
You know it is funny about these anti global warming people. It seems they don't even want to hear what the other side has to say.
We that really think Global Warming is happening let them speak freely.
A pity they never return the favor.
Yes, I enjoyed this article . The writer clearly has read up on what is happenning yet also must have listen to the otherside.
I guess the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaugh's of this country do not have enough faith in their ideas to just put them out there without damning the othersides.
They are always talking about Democracy if they would only practice it.
Oh yes I could Whammie Glenn Beck ,Limbaugh and the rest,but then I would be like them and most likely hate myself.
"Matter of fact, the environmental opinions of anyone whose average life expectancy comes in, say, the next 20 years or so, should be considered irrelevant."
I don't know how old Sean Gonsalves is, nor do I care. I am sick of ageism, though, and I agree with Tech2. Young people already tend to think I am irrelevant, simply because of my age. I have been an activist fighting for environmental sanity and social justice for three decades, working at crap jobs and living in poverty to make the world a better place. So, don't make me feel like my life wasn't worth a damn to make your point.
And yeah, my daughter is in that 18-29 age group, and I do care about her future, more than you can evidently imagine.
I believe in global warming also, but you can't let it get in the way of growing the economy. Of course maybe mitigating CO2 emissions is going to be the next big dot com--another big opportunity to take our booming economy to ever greater heights.
jon
Connecting the dots: from human behaviors to ecosystem decline
http://StudentsForTheEarth.org
Went to an Earth Day talk by David Durning, and there was virtually no one there without gray hair. And how old is Al Gore.
From what I have learnt, CO2 absorption bands cannot help but reduce the rate of heat loss from the earth. And the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more effective it is likely to be until all the absorption bands are saturated. It should be possible to get a handle on the effectiveness of CO2 as a "greenhouse" gas from knowledge of its spectrum; I am sure this has long since been done, but it doesn't seem to be readily available. Also, careful measurements of the rate of heat loss attributable to gases other than water (in all its forms) should be possible at places and times when the atmosphere is dry (and such measurements have no doubt been made already).
However, CO2 can't be particularly effective as anyone can verify by comparing temperatures on cloudy nights with those when stars fill the sky. But it might make the degree or two difference that means water instead of ice.
"Mars warming" is a time waster – no suggestion that it is connected with change in insolation.
The only plausible connection so far suggested between solar-modulated cosmic rays and climate is the production of condensation nuclei and this is well refuted in an article on realclimate.com
If you could see through the smog where you live, you would see that the Milky Way is getting more concentrated and brilliant. I can't see it in my lifetime, but it sure is distinct here in New Mexico where I USED to have a 200-mile plus view off a mountaintop.
We are about to pass through the Great Plane of the Galaxy I'm guessing about the same time as the Mayan calendar ends. Our Solar System makes a complete cycle about every 70 million years through this plane passing through twice. Layers of the ice caps reveal that cosmic dust is deposited about every 35 million years.
I believe this could affect the Sun and the planets, but why should add to it?
More so, what strange effects will this alignment enable; with regard to time, space, gravity and… well getting from point A to point Z? Will we be visited?
So many questions I can't answer!
I think we are going to keep defeating ourselves if we surrender to the language of faith, i.e. whether we "believe in" or "don't believe in" Global Warming-- capitalized, like God.
Yes, there have been pre-industrial periods when the temperature of the planet rose, and yes, they do seem to happen cyclically. But no, they have never happened as quickly and as sharply as they are happening this time around. Denying the link between the burning of fossil fuels, an increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and rising temperatures is the equivalent of burying one's head in the sand.
Rad Mama:
I don't think anyone should bury their heads, and I do believe we should do everything logically possible to encourage environmental stewardship of our world.
When I see the Kyoto Protocols and see the wholly socio-political and economic agenda behind it, it just makes my blood boil! It's all about the bucks, and how to suck the bucks from America. Plain and simple. You can't say it's about the environment, because the world's biggest offenders walk away scott free!
Call me skeptical, but I see a global conspiracy based in the Socialist agenda that has hyjacked this Global Warming issue and is using it against us. I see the ultra-leftists as the vanguard of their world dominating forces, and the useful idiots who make up the brigades of environmentally concerned, but progressively brainwashed as their foot soldiers.
That's my take on this whole mess.
They say C02 fossil fuel emissions are the prime contributor to earth warming. They explain this by saying the C02 concentrates in the upper atmosphere and won't let poor infrared photons escape. Give me a break.
Now, those lonely C02 molecules "concentrated" in the upper atmosphere, if scaled up, would be like the equivalent of a group of 20 baseballs or so equally distributed say 100 feet in the air over Yankee stadium -- how high up doesn't really matter for this illustration. An infrared photon might be compared to a pop fly. Odds of the pop fly hitting one of those baseballs? Extremely remote.
This whole "science" of human-caused global warming is like the Left's version of the Right's faith-based politics: it takes too much faith in a terminally corrupt corporatacracy. And it's another excuse to redistribute working class wealth upward in the form of some global carbon tax that will end up subsidizing some world council staffed by wealthy elitists like Gore, Prince Whomever, and the Queen of the Netherlands. It will also harm US workers more than any other workforce.
The War on Terror, Weapons of Mass Deception, the Al CIAduh conspiracy...and now Human-Caused Global Warming. Where does it all end...
psilver58,
Your confusing ozone with carbon dioxide!
for what its worth..you can not put all the solar energy that was in the plants and what not that makes oil for over millions and millions of years ...back into the atmosphere in just a period of say 50 years and expect no reaction..if you imagine every car you see as a large fire..and every home as a very large fire..ect ..you get the idea..and this is happening all over the world..it does not take a genius to realize something has got to give..
In the combustion process, oxygen combines with carbon in the fuel to produce CO2. (2 oxygen atoms for every carbon)
A commercial jet flying accross the US puts out more weight in carbon dioxide that the weight of the jet itself!
NM Bill:
Then please correct, thank you.
thebob:
Interesting approach. But consider that most of the solar energy is either absorbed by the oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water or radiated back into space. Infrared is not like gas molecules: that is, infrared radiates out of the atmosphere as easily as it radiates into the atmosphere. Unless, of course it is absorbed, and most of it is absorbed by water.
The real point is that earth atmosphere and ocean temps are affected much more by fluctuations in total energy emitted by the sun than by any other single factor. By comparison, atmospheric C02 is a minor player. We are worrying about affecting future generations in some minor way while we continue to abort future generations by the millions. Not sure exactly what that means, but most assuredly helping "future generations" is not the prime motivator for the proposed carbon tax. It's just a pretext for a tax that will be used for global government and the diminution of national and personal soveriegnty. [please excuse typos]
As someone with postgraduate work in meteorology, I can say that there is at least a high probability (90% or more) that the increase in various greenhouse gasses is linked to a changing climate, and that each year the predictions about the changes being warming ones are more accurate. Also, please note that about half of the greenhouse gasses that human activities add are gasses other than water vapour and carbon dioxide, the two common naturally occurring greenhouse gasses.
Finally, don't mix up the facts and science of climate change with the political effects of minimizing or dealing with said warming.
OFF-TOPIC BUT A MUST SEE:
http://nationalinitiative.us/
What's interesting about this article is the application of Russell's observation to the global warming phenomenon. I frequently make the same argument: I'm not a scientist but, as a citizen, I have to decide about a scientific matter, so what should I do? "Consult the scientists" seems like a reasonable solution.
But the skeptics reply, "Which scientists?" and, with the help of the Internet, bring up no end of evidence refuting the science of global warming, some of it from seemingly benign sources, such as PBS.
I feel that instead of throwing our handfuls of science at each other, we non-scientists would do better to look at the numbers of scientists pro and con, the types of publication their work appears in, etc. "Scientists say" becomes meaningless in a blizzard of scientists saying.
Ironically (in light of our author's nose wrinkling), the best presentation of this aspect of the controversy is "An Inconvenient Truth."
Gonzalves' arguments either represent an attempt at humor or are mere ad hominem fallacies: the merits of our views are entirely independent of any contingent facts about our lives. He is (no doubt, unwittingly) employing the same illogic as those who would condemn the view of, say, Al Gore, not because they are mistaken or incomplete, but because he is male, over 50, a "liberal," etc.
Although this was a schizophrenic article, with the unnecessary derogatory tone against older people, the author made one valid point. Anthropogenic global warming is still being debated, but why not err on the side of caution. If we really are causing climate change (Obvious to me) the consequences of inaction are disastrous. A simple risk/benefit analysis gives the obvious answer.
The big carbon producers (automobiles and coal plants) are also the big pollution producers. Nobody is debating that particulate matter, arsenic, and mercury cause health problems. Why not reduce carbon dioxide for those reasons, alone?
There is in fact very little doubt about climate change. Most of the doubt has been injected by Exxon Mobil funded "think tanks" such as American Enterprise Institute. Common sense alone would tell you when looking at burning coal and traffic jams that it's simply wrong.
It is so very interesting how those in power, and apparently a lot of slavishly loyal voters, find it so easy in this country to accept the view of the minority when it comes to something like global warming. Why is that? On issues like immigration, media reform, progressive taxation of the ultra wealthy, free education, and on and on and on, the minority opinion is basically blown off as lefty lunacy. However, on the issue of global warming, a scientific issue that enjoys a a majority agreement in the scientific community that is virtually unheard of, the minority is totally embraced by the ruling class. Scientists - the real skeptics, mind you - almost never agree in the 90% range on ANYTHING, EVER! In the case of man-made global warming patters since the industrial revolution, scientists are in agreement at that level. So why is the government so willing to take the view of the minority naysayers? Hmmm, maybe because it will indeed be expensive, and there will be winners and losers if we actually address climate change the way we should. These days government could give two shits about social equity, proper crop cultivation, endangered species, invasive species, anyone living below the Sahara, or anyone who doesn't turn a profit in the global economy.
Alas, those companies and industries who have lived as though there is no penalty to gluttonous ravaging of our natural resources since the dawn of the last industrial revolution are going to be eaten for lunch at the negotiating table of the new industrial revolution.
One last thing: So what if there is not 100% agreement on whether or not global warming is such a huge issue! LaGuardia built bridges in New York when there wasn't any work right? Why the hell shouldn't we be doing the same think in America? Why shouldn't we be building the next industrial revolution around windmills, solar panels, efficient cars, efficient buildings, pre-fab ecohousing, and so on? Who are these idiots that insist that business as usual is going to continue to make life in America better? It hasn't and it never will! Wake up! Look around at the disappearing middle class stupid!
psilver:
Carbon dioxide levels stand at 379 ppm (parts per million). That level represents a 36% increase from the pre Industrial Revolution days. Is your lack of concern for global warming based on the mistaken idea that carbon dioxide density is too low to have an effect on climate? It is true that water vapor in the atmosphere has a more profound effect on trapping heat than CO-2, however. the increased levels of CO-2 cause an increase in atmospheric water vapor, so that a powerful positive feedback loop is in place. With no carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, the Earth would be a sterile icebox. With too much CO-2 it would be an uninhabitable Venus. Many factors come into play to make our planet life-supporting. The Earth is small and fragile; the impact of 6.6 billion humans is enormous. I would abandon the idea that nothing is harmful in small amounts. For example, the toxic dose of dioxin is measured in parts per trillion.
jstevens and others:
Thanks for your thoughtful replies.
Okay, what if there are increases in C02 levels. But good comes from that as well. More C02 means more plant metabolism and increased 02 expiration for us to breath. That's another feedback loop to consider. Also, scientists have shown that elevated C02 levels follow -- not precede -- periods of global warming. That would inidcate C02 is an effect, not a cause, of global warming. The world has been heating and cooling long before we got here.
Now, even IF today's C02 levels are something to respond to, I don't support global government and carbon taxes as a proper response to this global "problem." I DO support alternative energy research for lots of reasons, and this would inevitably help with the C02 "problem."
Some of you have said "leave the politics" out of the discussion and stick to the science. Well, okay then. Let's stick to the science and tell the politicians "No" on a global carbon tax mandated by some global governmental agency. Keep the politics and the politicians (Gore) out of the science. You can't have it both ways, folks.
Now, if you are TRULY worried about future generations, then start worrying about the genetic re-engineering of Homo Sapiens. Do you really want the same pathetic arrogant prima donna tekkie geeks who brought you Windows XP with all of its "hot fixes" and "service packages" tweaking the family jewels of future generations? Why so silent on this matter!
If we were allowed to pick our poison I would definitely choose isolated, local warming. However, we can't choose, and what we have is GLOBAL warming; it demands a global solution. The world has never worked together on anything so, of course, this is an unpleasant and overwhelming task. The necessity of global cooperation is the scariest aspect of the challenge the world faces, but to not even try is unthinkable.
Let us break this all down to kindergarden level. Once upon a time the mature tree to human ratio was (let's say) 1000 to 1. Before long the HUMAN to mature tree ratio will be 1000 to 1 (if it is not already).
Trees expel oxygen, (can you say OXYGEN) and absorb Carbon dioxide. People expel carbon dioxide and breathe in(absorb) oxygen.
Now for the question of the day. What happened to the astronauts on Apollo 13 when their CO2 filter went bad and would no longer absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? (maybe that is why bush and cheney are losing their minds)
Wake up People, we are floating on a sphere in outer space. Look up at the night sky sometime and remind yourself of this REALITY.
psilver58: genetic engineering, especially of humans, is indeed a real threat. But that's changing the subject...and I'd point out that the arrogant decision to risk the future of the species on a whim comes from the same place as the arrogant desire to risk the future of all species to preserve a way of life.
As to the ageism of the article: I've gone to an awful lot of environmental gatherings over the last 30 years or so. At first, most of the people WERE young, like me. But in the last ten years, it's been discouraging to see the same people, middle aged and older, with almost no young people coming in to replace us. If we leave environmental defense to the young, we'll be in real trouble. Maybe young people care more than others about the environment--but they're not showing it by supporting environmental organizations, or driving less...not the ones I see, anyway, INCLUDING my own kids. With a very few cheering exceptions, young people seem to be much more interested in finding good jobs in this challenging economy than in playing a part in defense of the Earth. But I live in West Virginia--maybe it's different somewhere else.
mwildfire:
Well I guess my point is that I'd like to see equal time for equal problems. In my "humble" opinion (ahem), having worked on grant proposals for high profile genetic engineering companies in Silicon Valley, the threat of genetically tweaked corn, yeast, animals, and even humans actually outweighs the far off threat of human-caused C02 levels. The honey bees are already dying off, apparently from ingesting GM pollen. And without honey bees to assist in pollination, you have crop shortages right there.
When I see the Global Warming leaders at the top of the corporatacracy giving equal time to genetic engineering and deforestation I'll take them, and their subsidized scientists, more seriously. Kudos to all the thoughtful participants in this thread.