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Nearly Half of Americans Believe Climate Change Threat Is Exaggerated
US belief in climate science lowest since polling began 13 years ago, with 31% saying the threat is 'definitely' a reality
Public belief in climate science has seen a precipitous slide in the US, according to new polling that suggests fewer Americans are concerned about the threat posed by global warming.
Artist Vincent J.F. Huang's installation artwork "Suicide Penguins", a comment on global warming using glass penguins and a stuffed toy polar bear, hangs below the Millennium Bridge in London February 13, 2010. (REUTERS/Luke MacGregor)
Nearly half of Americans – 48% – now believe the threat of global warming has been exaggerated, the highest level since polling began 13 years ago, the poll published today by Gallup said.
It directly linked the decline in concern to the controversies about media coverage of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia climate research unit and a mistake about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 in the UN's authoritative report on global warming.
"These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the scientific consensus on global warming," Gallup said.
Half of Americans now believe there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Some 46% believe scientists are unsure about global warming, or that they believe it is not occurring. A UK poll last month showed adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44% to 31% over the past year.
"The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans' attitudes about global warming," Gallup said. "It may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect."
The poll feeds into fears among some environmentalists that the furore over the hacked emails has given new fuel to opponents of action on climate change, and stopped short the momentum in Congress for passage of a clean energy law.
A troika of Senators trying to draft a compromise climate bill that could get broad support said this week they may not be able to produce a draft until after the Easter recess, further reducing the chances of enacting legislation in 2010.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration faces lawsuits from Virginia, Texas, Alabama and a dozen business lobbies challenging its authority to act on greenhouse gas emissions through the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tim Wirth, a former Colorado senator who led the campaign against acid rain, told a conference call the science squabbles resembled a re-run of efforts to discredit that earlier effort for an environmental clean-up.
He said the scientists who worked on the IPCC report were woefully outmanoeuvred in PR by business groups which have the funds to employ legions of lobbyists and communications experts. "It's not a fair fight," he said. "The IPCC is just a tiny secretariat next to this giant denier machine."
A majority of Americans continues to believe that climate change is real, but they are less convinced of its urgency. Only 32% believe they will be directly affected by the consequences of a warming atmosphere, despite a major report by the Obama administration last year that climate change could bring flooding, heat waves, drought and loss of wildlife to the US.
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Show AllGood point. However, we all know that the only real aggies are the Univ Cal-Davis aggies.
Cal-Davis aggies? Never heard of them. The only University of California that I know about is in the good old working class Monongahela Valley.
Of course climate has changed in the past. No one denies that. The point is, it can be demonstrably shown that the earth is warming now. Something must be causing the warming. The Earth's orbit has not changed significantly over the past hundred years; volcanic eruptions have not belched out excessive amounts of carbon dioxide compared to other hundred year cycles; the sun has not heated up. There is only one "forcing" that explains global warming: human activity. Human activity in the broadest sense: pollution of the ocean, destruction of forests, burning of fossil fuels, desertification, urbanization. There is no debate about any of this. Your 17000 "scientists" are online nonentities or persons with fictitious credentials. The only scientists that count are those that publish in the field.
Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Timothy F. Ball, you know what I'm not going to name everyone I'd be here for a long time. The fact that's there's no debate is because the IPCC has shut the channels for debate down. Do your own research, learn to question everything.
k2annex, thank you for mentioning Fred Singer - perhaps the most dubious of all "experts" working for the denial industry.
From "Climate Change Denial"
http://climatedenial.org/2007/03/09/the-great-channel-four-swindle
"Fred Singer. Despite the caption on the programme, Singer has retired from the University of Virginia and has not had a single article accepted for any peer-reviewed scientific journal for 20 years. His main work has been as a hired gun for business interests to undermine scientific research on environmental and health matters. Before turning to climate change denial he has argued that CFCs do not cause ozone depletion and second hand smoke does not cause cancer. In 1990 he founded “The Science and Environment Policy Project”, which aggressively contradicts climate science and has received direct funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO."
From ExxonSecrets.org:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1
The organizations Singer has recently been affiliated with - Frontiers of Freedom, ACSH, NCPA, etc. - have recieved generous grants from Exxon on an annual basis.
From Monbiot.com:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/05/10/junk-science
This is a fascinating article about a bogus claim by David Bellamy that the world’s glaciers “are not shrinking but in fact are growing". It turns out that this claim, also repeated by Fred Singer, was based on a *non-existent* paper supposedly published in the journal "Science".
More by Monbiot on Fred Singer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
You might be interested to hear this:
Rush Limbaugh, Michael Crichton, Fred Singer Nominated for First Annual Flat Earth Award - Award to Honor Recipient for Denial of Global Warming
Richard Lindzen - yes, this guy seems to have some pretty high standards - because he called Exxon Mobil as "the only principled oil and gas company I know in the US."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6595369.stm
If you seriously believe these chaps you mentioned, and are not a paid denier, I would sincerely urge you to check out their credentials better, and not get taken in by paid mercenaries. I don't know how else to call someone who lends his "scientific" background in the service of the tobacco industry, before moving on to "serve" the oil industry.
Ouch excellent point.
The IPCC merely summarizes published science, from *all* countries.
If these "deniers" are having trouble getting published, that's a problem with their credentials and research, not the fault of the IPCC.
Lindzen, for example, is a Professor at MIT and has no trouble getting published - it's just that climate science is not his field, so his papers trying to criticize a related, but different field, are easily shot down by subsequent papers. *That's* why he doesn't have much influence in the field.
Again, it has nothing to do with the IPCC.
As for people like Timothy Ball, he retired as a Professor of Geology in 1996 from the University of Winnipeg, but he did get a PhD in geography from the University of London in 1983, where he wrote a thesis analyzing historical weather records from Canada's north, so he's not a complete fraud. He taught geography at the U. of Winnipeg from 1988 to 1996. Since 1996 he has been a Public Speaker and columnist, so he has a lot more free time than real climatologists. For a retired, barely qualified climatologist, only the skeptic side would pay for his videos and articles.
The IPCC has not "shut the channels for debate" with this guy, because he doesn't publish anymore. He's retired. He *only* writes and speaks to earn money - that's his career, now. And you've heard of him, so how is the IPCC shutting down his "debate" ?
The "debate" is invariably scientists vs. political conservatives (some of whom are scientists) who don't like the business/economic consequences they imagine will occur with dealing with Anthropogenic Global Warming. There is no real "debate" in the scientific literature, because it's a done deal. The only unknowns are how quick, how bad.
This is buying into the denier talking points. They like to point to the changes that have occurred, but they refuse to admit that the changes occurred for a reason, not just because.
Nine hundred years ago it was about as warm in the North Atlantic as it is now. So far, no one has been able to show the same warming anywhere else in the world which makes it likely that it was related to some local phenomenon such as a change in the Gulf Stream. The 17,000 scientists that are claimed to be doubters are most decidedly underrepresented in climate scientists. As a matter of fact, a very large number of them have been shown to not be scientists at all.
"When confronted with so much contradictory evidence "
So far the deniers have not been able to come up with any contradictory evidence. All they've been able to do is pick around the edges at nonissues ( your message is a good example ), while ignoring the actual data. This is how the creationists operate. Ignore the data and attack the messenger. There is a reason that the two groups are joining forces.
"This is how the creationists operate. Ignore the data and attack the messenger. There is a reason that the two groups are joining forces."
That's scary lol. i think they just marginalized their cause. I'm sorry I'm not a denier I'm a questioner. I said earlier that my government and science has lied to me before in the name of policy and I just can't accept it outright but very good points people I do feel a little more informed than I did before but am still very confused.
I've heard the "17,000 scientists" claim before, usually from deniers. I don't know where it comes from or who the 17,000 are or where they published their findings. I haven't heard anything about that; just the "17,000" claim. Who are these people?
Also, where is there more info on scientists who "threatened legal action" to "get their names off the IPCC report"? The Club of Rome was wrong about the date of onset of the problems they identified. They were not wrong about the nature of the problems. Also, they have been transformed into a Rightwing conspiracy theory target, which you appear to be echoing. I have no way to independently verify your quote, which does not even include the beginning or the end of several sentences. Who knows what they were actually saying. But it is safe to say if we had taken their warnings more seriously we would not be neck deep in the shit that now threatens to choke the life out of us.
The mere presence of some possibly contradictory evidence is not necessarily a reason for systematic denial, or even serious doubt. There are all kinds of oddities in biology and natural history that are difficult to explain; but we don't reject evolution on that basis (unless we are rigid religionists and/or clueless about the nature of scientific inquiry). Oddly, there is considerably less evidence for "peak oil", a concept you embrace, than for man-made global warming, a concept you doubt.
Anyway, it won't much matter what either of us thinks when the big bill comes due, as surely it will. But we won't be the first or the last people to spend our "golden years" in a disease-ridden refugee camp, defending our meager rations from rats and thieves with homemade knives. Maybe we'll call it "Camp Hope" or "Camp Change You Can Believe In".
"This ability to blithely and unapologetically change your mind for little or no reason seems uniquely American to me. We don't explain anything. We don't have to. We don't justify anything. We don't have to. One opinion is as good as another, because we have "free speech" in America, which makes all opinions equal, right?"
The problem isn't free speech, the problem is a reality denying "spirituality," being pushed heavily by the elite both on the Christian right and New Age left to dumb down Americans reasoning abilities and make them easier to control by the wealthy elite. Of course I can't prove it's being pushed but even if it's being adopted voluntarily by both these groups out of fear of objective reality (like global warming requiring behavioral changes) the effect is the same. I suspect these people abandon their solipsistic cognitive relativism of all beliefs are the same maaaaaaaaan if a grand piano is falling towards them from the second story, thus IMO no one is *really* a cognitive relativist they only pretend to be so because it's easier than a rigorous education. People with a rigorous education in basic principles of science would be able to see through the denier bullshit peddled by the MSM and thus wouldn't bend and sway with every trendy bit nihilism offered up by the corporations. For less educated more credulous people they need to be shocked out their infantile all beliefs are the same fantasy state, sadly the piano of global warming is falling towards us too slowly for it to snap people out of their childish beliefs. :(
Love the nature bats last quote from Earth First!, the environmental organization that actually non violently resists the corporations destroying the planet.
What, me worry?
Most people refuse to believe that fire is trapped inside wood, yet I can prove it.
OK. That one I would like to hear. Can you tell us about that Karlof?
Have you ever made fire, like when you were a Cub or Boy Scout, or perhaps as a part of a wilderness survival course? If you have, then you know how it's done and that fire is trapped in wood. If you're still stumped, then go here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_fire
Fire is trapped sunlight. Thats why you can read by it. Nonliving things have the ability to trap sunlight, and release it later as infrared radiation: heat. Only living things have the ability to trap sunlight, and release it later as... sunlight. And herein, I believe, is powerful evidence of the second law of thermodynamics working at the planetary, evolutionary scale. Every system tends toward equilibrium with its environment, i.e. is capable eventually of trapping light AS light, rather than as mere heat. What this same meme says about human expansion into near-space is, to me, quite positive, ie that its inevitable. Heck, we might have to go there just to avoid our unliveable planet.
Good metaphor but factually inaccurate. Fire is not literally trapped sunlight.
Where does its fuel come from?
Gary
"A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward."
-- Jean Paul Richter
Sunlight or fire?
Hey ubrew12--That fire is stored in wood comes from an old Coyote Legend told in various forms by the Natives in the Pacific Northwest. Here is a link to one version, http://udleditions.cast.org/CONTENT,how_coyote_stole_fire,1.html
I wonder how Coyote will solve Global Warming--In other words, what legends will humans tell millenia from now as the remains of industrial cities corrode into rust, dust, and sand. What new Flood Myths will be produced to explain the drowned remains of cities and the whereabouts of the people who lived in them?
Nearly Half of Dinosaurs Believe Climate Change Threat Is Exaggerated
Dinosaurs belief in climate science lowest since polling began 13,000 years ago, with 31% saying the threat is 'definitely' a realit...
Are we ever going to see a headline such as this one?
Nearly Half of Americans Believe Threats to National Security Are Exaggerated by Politicians and the Media
I brought my soapbox today.
Lesson 1: Everyone, every scientist and every lay person with even a few neurons, believes in the greenhouse effect. Without the greenhouse effect, our planet would cool to hundreds of degrees below zero every night. The atmosphere acts as an insulator much like the glass of a greenhouse, which allows light in or out but traps heat inside.
It won't do to convince some of the people or even some entire countries, but we must convince the vast majority of people not only of the truth of the matter but also of the urgency. Of course the longer you sit in a burning house the faster you will have to run to get out once you stop ignoring the heat.
I care that the banksters have stolen trillions of dollars from hard working Americans. I care that 45,000 of us die each year for lack of medical care. I care that our tax dollars go for murdering innocent people overseas. I care that our justice system is racist on every level. Hell I care that many women are still denied access to abortion and that most states do not allow gays to marry.
However, it all pales compared to the damage we do to the environment, not that our many problems are entirely separable, but environmental degradation is the mother of all cares. If it's not global warming, it'll be water pollution or species extinctions or topsoil depletion or perhaps some unforeseen consequence of our rampant consumption. Because of the possibility of a positive feedback loop quickly putting an end to all animal and plant life, global warming does seem like the most threatening of our impending environmental disasters. Furthermore, all environmental problems can be solved by similar means.
Lesson 2: Not all insulators are created equal. Fiberglass makes a good insulator. Water not so much. Air is somewhere in between. Indeed water may rather be considered a conductor on what may be called the "insulator/conductor continuum." In other words, best to put fiberglass in your walls and ceiling to insulate your house and better to leave the walls empty than to fill them with liquid. 70 degree Fahrenheit air feels warm. 70 degree water feels cool.
There are three ways to save our environment:
don't make money,
don't spend money,
and don't have kids,
and really that's only two since the first two look the same from outer space. Everything else is either immoral or ineffective.
If you can't do these three don'ts, try your best. Live close to your loved ones and to your work if you must work. Don't buy any more stuff. Barter. Remember that having more than two biological children is the most selfish act imaginable. Never fly. Bike. Walk. Eat less.
Solve the homeless question (not problem) by looking every homeless person in the eye and saying "thank you." Homelessness should become a life style respected and desired, especially for young to middle-aged adults (15 - 50). Others could take shelter as necessary, and use heat when absolutely necessary. Sleeping on the street may not be necessary but homeless like folks in the military or students in dormitory-style housing. Perhaps "houseless."
Do not give money to try and help combat global warming. Any money that remains in circulation will just exacerbate the problem. Consider what happens if you pay somebody in South America to not cut down the rainforest. They will pay somebody else to cut down some other rainforest. That's the nature of human consumption. It's the exact same problem with carbon credits in the garbage cap and trade proposals being pushed by Gore et al..
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/01-10
"Sky is falling" arguments do make climate change sound like an atheist's end-times scenario, and every good religion does need an Armageddon. I do not rightly know how to counter this line of argument by deniers except to say yes, when you look at it objectively, we could be wiped out.
Lesson 3: Carbon dioxide insulates better than oxygen. Every time you light a fire, every time you drive your car, or indeed every time you breath you create carbon dioxide from oxygen. The green stuff in plants, chlorophyl, can convert carbon dioxide back into plant matter and oxygen with the help of light.
Science is fundamentally about prediction. Some physicists still doubted Einstein until we showed that light was bent by gravity when it passed by the moon. Nobody doubts the existence of gravity, even though we can't account for it in theory, because it is so predictable. As the predictions of global warming begin to come true people will stop the denial routine. I had a dream that my grandchildren asked me "You mean you kept driving even after the hurricanes came?" (Note that would be the stronger, not the more frequent, hurricanes.)
Monbiot made some excellent points in his article:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/09
That regular folks including non-academic scientists are not allowed access to the scientific literature in the information age is a travesty of epic proportions. However, that one scientist's vocabulary sounds like gobbledygook to another scientist is totally wrong. The more science you know, the more it all makes sense. Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etcetera are all based on the same principles and described by similar kinds of mathematics. The reason cognitive science or the like
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/21-0
sounds like gobbledygook to scientists is because it is not science at all.
If something cannot be explained in a simple way, it is more than likely bullshit (the famous quote by Einstein that went something like "for every problem there is a solution that is simple, straightforward, and wrong" notwithstanding).
Lesson 4: Positive feedback loops are not positive. Negative feedback loops keep things like the earth's temperature on a relatively even keel. If the earth warms and trees burn and that makes the earth warmer and more trees burn and so on, we will suffocate.
Actually, while Lakoff's piece you referenced is indeed gobbldygook, the field of cognitive psychology (unlike some other psychological fields, such as Freudian psychology) is fairly well-grounded in testable hypotheses and experiment.
Yeah, at least behavioral scientists still use double-blind experiments, unlike most "hard" scientists. Makes me suspicious when the possible "negative" result is left out of the design.
Besides there is plenty of gobbdygook in regular science despite claims to the contrary. Read _any_ issue of Nature or Science or Physics Today.
Gary
"Don't wish me happiness -- I don't expect to be happy. It's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor -- I will need them all."
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The reason cognitive science or the like sounds like gobbledygook to scientists is because it is not science at all.
-----------------------------------
Oh, it's science.
It's just that higher-order living creatures don't have fixed behavioral repertoires, the way planets, steel, rocks, etc do. Our repertoires are learned, and subject to modification on the fly through the interpretation of experience.
That makes us 'moving targets', as it were, comparable to, say, a rock watching another rock getting smashed by a hammer and deciding that, when its turn comes to be hit, it won't resist and therefore the hammer will sink into it instead of smashing it. How easily could physics come to conclusions about rocks in that case?
The methodology would remain the same--it'd still be science--but the subject of investigation would have so much inbuilt variability that it would be really hard to draw tight conclusions...especially if only some rocks were bright enough to resist the hammer by not resisting.
Thank you American News Media. We need to spread the truth in a medium dumb Americans will understand. Maybe misspelled protest signs?
http://texasvox.org/2010/03/04/climate-change-what-do-you-believe/
http://texasvox.org/2010/03/09/on-global-warming-the-science-is-solid/
"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow"
"We need to spread the truth in a medium dumb Americans will understand. Maybe misspelled protest signs?"
Why not. We've tried everything else. Maybe this, finally, will get us on Faux News: 'Jest say No, to Global Worming!'
"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow"
Since not everyone is going to know this, why don't you give attribution for your quote?
T.S. Eliot. I am one pro science guy who also reads his poetry. :)
I liked the articles. This stood out to me:
>>• • Heat-trapping gases are very likely responsible for most of the warming observed over the past half century.
There is no question that natural causes, such as changes in energy from the sun, natural cycles and volcanoes, continue to affect temperature today. Human activity has also increased the amounts of tiny, light-scattering particles within the atmosphere. But despite years of intensive observations of the Earth system, no one has been able to propose a credible alternative mechanism that can explain the present-day warming without heat-trapping gases produced by human activities.<<
Gary
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."
-- Winston Churchill
if you believe climate change is not happening and so continue to drive around in your suv, shopping till you drop, stay glued to your tv ok.but think about the stakes we are playing for here, and see if you think that's a smart bet.
if it should turn out that climate change is real, then by the time you figure this out we will all be doomed, because that's what climate change means- stop consuming like maniacs or there will be no more earth left to consume.
now on the other hand you could say it's probably wrong but we cannot risk the life of the planet making such a bet. so we will act like it's real- get tiny cars, use alternative energy, and not even much of that and so on. 20 years from now it turns out climate change was not real after all. but we are all healthier, the water and air are cleaner, and most especially the planet is still alive.
it seems very simple to me, very obvious. when the stakes are this high, you don't gamble, you play it safe.
I work in a scientific campus environment, and I've served on a few pan-disciplinary science panels. I get to spend time with with fellow scientists who are trained in fields completely different to my own.
What I'm finding, and it is pan-disciplinary, is that scientists are getting tired too. Everyone I talk to believe we are in deep do-do, there is consensus, and it's only the mechanisms and time scales that the models predict that are under discussion. These scientists are tired of being attacked, having to defend science and its rigors, sometimes being threatened and family harassed.
More and more I hear scientists are preferring to remain silent.
This is way more serious than any of you believe.
I guess its burn baby burn!
Ignorance wins, the mythical gods rain down their vengeance on the sinners, helpless unintellectual victims of predestination.
So what if burning less solves so many other problems too? There are hungry corporations to feed, and those elite people will be insulated from catastrophe.
And still they will not be able to take their money and luxury with them when they go, and only their polluted sty will remain as their memorial...
It's funny, because it doesn't matter what people think, that doesn't change reality. Well, I guess the majority of people are going to be in for a BIG surprise, and the rest of us will just end up getting dragged down with em.
the debate on climate change needs to end immediately, and we need to start discussing conservation tactics instead. if people are unable to accept that their actions cause damage to the planet, perhaps they CAN understand that their actions have immediate effects on their own personal health and that of their children. people don't NEED to believe in climate change in order to believe that pollution causes disease and harm to themselves, their families, and the environment.
pointing out the benefits of conservation - now - is the solution.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/USE-HALF-NOW-CAMPAIGN/316473176497?ref=mf
This is better journalism than most, but it still fails to answer the obvious question: How many reputable scientists believe in global warming? (In other words, how big is the "scientific consensus"?)
The answer, according to a Pew 2009 study, is that 84% of polled scientists believe in global warming. Note that these are scientists in general, not just climate experts, which probably decreases the overall percentage. Note that it is a huge consensus - just compare the 84% to the 89% of scientists in the same poll claimed to believe in evolution.
Asking the experts in the scientific disciplines is far and away the best approach to understanding this phony controversy. And yet our media is either too corrupt or too stupid to look it up. Never do we see this information reported in the media.
As other posters have mentioned, it doesn't really matter what people think. These people have been brainwashed by conservative hacks and disinformed by the media. This is of course depressing, but reality still exists and the scientific consensus remains strong.
Among climate scientists the ratio is about 95% (believe AGW). But its important to poll ALL scientists because a common GW skeptic suspicion is that the climate scientists are just in it for the money.
In it for the money ? Seriously ? The money to be made in AGW is given to people who advance skepticism.
Big business is into climate research for the money. They have more than a few dollars at stake in the shaping the outcome of these "debates".
Big Business has not been able to use their money to produce an alternative theory that is published and advanced in the peer reviewed journals. They counter this failure to produce scientific data to back their monetary concerns, by throwing money at the MSM to confuse the people. The confusion has worked very well for them.
The snow cone media. Now just lick your snow cones folks. See your tongues are cool now. That shows you there's nothing to worry about. Look, oh look! A snowflake! Brrrrrrr! Earth is cooling! Glenn Beck told us it was so! Not to worry dearies cause we have CLEAN COAL! And the "peaceful" atom too. Oh my, hope we can count on! Iraq is free!! They have elections just like us, and I bet they don't worry about global warming. That's cause they've become a DEMOCRACY! America is the greatest democracy on earth, (everyone learns that in school so it's true), and America will make certain that even primitive places become more like America. It's the American way (and way good business)! Let's go to Walmart! That way we can live better even if it does get warmer. We'll just by some cheap fans!!
My view...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses,
And all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
No longer a riddle- because Humpty Dumpty is not an egg- it is this planet- the life that is upon it- that includes humanity and every living thing. The Earth will not crack- but what is upon it is fragile and dying- not even slowly. A genocide of untold proportions is taking place- and we sit, we pray and we conjure and we debate and we do everything but try to prevent the final fall- making it seem so inevitable. We blame our leaders because they are corrupt- and many are- not merely corrupt but lacking wisdom and an awareness beyond their greediness for power. But most of all we need to blame ourselves.
This however is not theology- this is not original sin or guilt- actions can be taken, our words have an effect and we can fulfill our responsibility to life on this planet- to ourselves- and every sentient being- to all life. Nor is this idle intellectualism. This is a struggle for our humanity, because the more we destroy- the less of ourselves remain.
This is not rich versus poor- the poor care the most about nature and the environment. It is the rich, who addicted, care most about losing what they think they love- the dead material things that fill the emotional vacuums in their life.
This is not about truth versus lies- because the former will always prevail over the latter.
This is not about action versus inaction. Inaction is a form of action.
This is not about transformation. Either we become more human or we become the machines we create.
This not about jobs and economies. This is about the future- future generations. It is about what truly makes us wealthy.
This is about compassion- compassion for all life. If we forget the children, we forget ourselves. If we forget the poor, we forgot ourselves. And if we forget ourselves, we cannot remember our connection to nature- for this forms the basis of who we are.
This is not the Left versus Right. This is not a media blitz. This is the lives of your children and your children's children. This is the next seven generations. Listen to your children- they know the truth you have forgotten. They have a right to live.
"This is not about truth versus lies- because the former will always prevail over the latter."
Sounds good. But if this is true, then it is definitely not true in the short time. By the time truth does prevail, its often too late, as will be the case with global warming.
E.G. Truth did not prevail for the Iraqis - not in time for the invasion. And had the USA not gotten caught smuggling chemicals into Iraq via Kuwait after the invasion, then GWB would have "found" his justification, and the truth would NEVER have prevailed.
Before reading any of the comments, I am going to bet that over half of them will be by deniers who have no idea of what they speak, but are speaking anyhow. I saw an article the other day where studies have shown that evidence has almost zero effect on people's beliefs so when the deniers are faced with the facts (melting Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, rising temperatures, fewer days below freezing, measured increasing annual rise in ocean level, etc.), they deny them. Reminds you of the dwarfs in the Chronicles of Narnia or the Liberty University students at the Museum of Natural History. They have their beliefs so don't bother talking to them.
The question they fear most is "What evidence would convince you?" because they know in their hearts they are on the wrong side of the evidence, and if they responded, that evidence is likely to appear. Then they would have to admit their error, which they will not do under pain of cognitive dissonance.
Ah yes those wonderful Monopods, a.k.a Dufflepuds. We are a nation of them now.
Originally, I did not think that the oil and coal industries and their climate deniers would not get far. I was wrong. But with hindsight, this is the outcome that I SHOULD have expected.
On one side we have people with money which has been used to purchase a persuasion industry, and on the other side we have scientists. Even climate scientists believe that winning over public minds is not their job. By and large they do not do politics. Their job is to do science.
So this is how it pans out:- In the red corner we have motivated professionals. In the blue corner we have distracted amateurs. I would put my money on the motivated professionals any day.
which is why its scary to see the degree to which the 'persuasion industry' has worked overtime recently to paint the 'motivated professionals' as actually being 'distracted amateurs'.
I never thought character assassination could be so brutal. Push the fossil fuels industry hard enough, and they will turn to actual assassination, I have little doubt now.
" Push the fossil fuels industry hard enough, and they will turn to actual assassination, I have little doubt now."
That's an established practice. Look up the "Battle of Blair Mountain":
August 1921: Sid Hatfield, police chief of Matewan,WV and a long-time supportor of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was murdered on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse. He was shot 17 times by agents of the Baldwin-Felts private detective agency which worked for the mine owners. The killers were identified but never charged.
September, 1921: Private mercenaries hired by mine owners with the assistance of local law enforcement - and Federal military forces using aerial bombardment with gas and explosives - battled West Virginia mine workers who wanted to form a union. The miners lost the battle with over 100 killed and many survivors were jailed. Over the next few years, union membership in other areas of West Virginia dropped by 80%.
Full union recognition was not achieved until 1935, yet another occasion of great indignation by capitalists who continue to hate Franklin Roosevelt for allowing it to happen.
Scientist are science professionals, but have no persuasion expertise and are distracted from persuasion activities by their real work. Thats why I called them distracted amateurs.
The persuasion industry tends to have their degrees in psychology, and have persuasion expertise, and are financed to do persuasion as their job. Thats why I called them motivated professionals.
Let us be quite clear; there are more than a few pro-GWers in the persuasion industry motivated by fame and fortune, who have done a lot of damage by casting doubt on the credibility of the science and act as a lighting rod for deniers.
Al Gore comes to mind. Never, ever have an egotistical ex-politician push your agenda.
You may be right in that climatologists have been slapped again and again with every mistake they made, and even private email conversations they had. But I must add the following:-
UNLESS you have the media on your side. Then you do not have to be accurate or pedantic. Then your claims will be trumpeted, and then quietly forgotten when they have been disproved, and perhaps even used again at a later date when everyone has forgotten that they were disproved. Then there is no need to tiptoe pedantically, afraid to speak, in case they say something inaccurate.
Did you ever noticed Bush (or Bill O'Rielly) or Blair or Howard being accurate or pedantic with the facts when pushing the Iraq war, or the Christmas bomber, or the Anthrax, or the aluminium tubes or whether Saddam kicked out the inspectors. I did not. Were they discarded by the media the first time they misspoke? They were not.
Do you ever see the climate change deniers being accurate and pedantic with the facts. I have not. They dont need to be. They may at one moment claim that the earth is cooling. If you prove that the earth is warming, they may then claim that it is warming only due to action of the sun.