for my brother, part 2
From my point of view, my brother has a tendency to vehemently support the opposite side of obvious. He is passionately vitriolic about a number of subjects and has a brain packed full of facts to support his opinions.
One of his most ‘angry’ topics is climate change. He doesn’t believe there is any evidence to support the notion that man-made fiddling is altering our climate beyond what may be natural cycles. In order to educate me on this subject, he thoughtfully buys me books I’m not interested in, such as ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’ and ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’. I did try to read both these books but didn’t get past the opening chapters. I am not a good scientist. (I am not a scientist at all.)
So, here is an outline of my common sense (not scientific) approach to environmentalism:
- I love animals and plants. I love to be in areas of the world that are subject to minimal fiddling by humankind. I want people to stop throwing litter, chopping down trees, ripping out wild flowers, polluting water and driving smelly cars because, at the most basic level, it will increase my enjoyment of my surroundings.
- Cities are cleaner and nicer in recent years as technology has improved the level of emissions from vehicles. On a grander scale, it seems obvious that the world is cleaner and nicer if all industry reduces emissions.
- If the climate change data that we are being presented is indeed all rubbish, what’s the worst it can achieve? If the climate is changing only due to natural causes what’s the worst that the actions being taken will accomplish? It’s encouraging people to take responsibility for their immediate environment and be concerned about, and take action to prevent, ‘natural’ disasters around the world.
- So, even if all the facts available could convince me that most of the world’s scientists and leaders are hopeless duped about this, and little old me and a few other ranters know the truth, I wouldn’t be unduly concerned that the consequences of such a belief could even begin to be negative.
Anyone got anything to add?
While I may be a bit more passionate about the environment than you (just judging from your tone in this post) I think I agree with what you’ve written: what’s the harm in taking extra precaution to protect the environment? I feel like it’s safer to err on the side of caution, especially with this issue.
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Exactly! It makes total sense to always take care of things. And more than that, I can’t see that most of the experts in this area have a motive to lie (or not want to see the truth) about this.
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“He doesn’t believe there is any evidence to support the notion that man-made fiddling is altering our climate beyond what may be natural cycles”
Actually incorrect yet again.
My position is mainly that:
1) The climate models used to forecast future warming hugely overestimate the effect of CO2 for a variety of reasons
2) The historic climate reconstructions which have attempted to show unparalleled warming, particularly those depending largely on tree rings are utterly unreliable again for a variety of reasons
3) Human CO2 is altering the climate in a way that will warm temperatures distinguishably by a small margin (on top of climate variability) and in anything but the very long term the likely effects for humanity will be positive
This is a problem best handled quite far in the future.
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Did you read my post? If you and the three other people who agree with you are correct, what harm comes to the planet? If the thousands of experts who disagree with you are correct, what harm has the heightened interest in taking care of the planet done?
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Yes I did read your post, the very first thing you said about my opinion was incorrect. The rest is just standard nonsense which is debated to death elsewhere on the web, why bother responding to that, when you don’t even bother listing the standard “skeptic” responses to your questions in the first place, never mind detail your own objections to them. I’m not going to persuade you anyway because to be persuaded you actually have to dig through a lot of minutia, something you quickly get too bored to do.
The rest of your yes crew are probably the same, too lazy to look into the details for themselves, or just read a realclimate response without cross checking that. History is going to be harsh on the current crop of climate scientists. Especially if the earth continues to warm, because by dogmatically defending such clearly flawed work, they’d have DELAYED a genuine understanding upon which there would be less disagreement.
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No offense to your brother, but to not believe 98% of all climate scientists is just being a dickhead.
In the age of information ignorance is a choice. Your brother has clearly chosen unwisely.
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No offense taken. He seriously has the most truly bizarre take on any given subject. And he’s sincere.
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“In the age of information ignorance is a choice. Your brother has clearly chosen unwisely.”
I did not choose, I was persuaded, that is to say I changed my mind on the matter after having made a fairly time consuming effort to understand the details enough that I could make my own conclusions on whether significant skeptic criticisms were valid.
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Reading None’s comment structure reminds me of someone.
PeW! what’s that whiff?
That’s a cracking bee shot, btw
Looks crappy small but blown up it’s the business.
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Nice spot of noticing! PeW and my brother have very similar thought processes, but PeW was much better mannered and socially aware.
Looks crappy small??? Although thanks for getting back on board with the picture praise. 🙂
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No, Pew is not better mannered. Dont be fooled by the smarmy git replies of blogland’s No1. prat with a theological thesaurus up his backside.
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Where is PeW, anyway? I tried to be nice to him for a while and he just ignored me. Perhaps I should send roses.
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I suspect he’s completed his research for his new book ‘How to beat atheist arguments with logic and magic tricks’ and has no further need for us. Ark really misses him though, it’s sad.
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Skepticism is healthy. In general. It is true, that if we start to struggle whith problems that do not exist at the moment it is going to waste resources.
However, all of the climate change skeptics I have encountered (and I have run into alarmingly many) have had nothing concrete to base their skepticism on. Just that there were some few dissidents among the scientific community whose opinions better suited their hopes and fears. An emotional response to a major threat any single person is unable to controll.Their motive seems to be obviously just, that they are people who do not want to have a sore conscience about a lifestyle they are not going to change. So, as John pointed out, they choose willfull ignorance and faith in a rather silly sounding conspiracy theory or theories. The general idea that they offer seems to be, that no climate change is happening and even if there is such a change going on, it is not because of us humans and especially it is not because of our cars (or what ever energy consumption is “vital” to the individual). Having had this conversation, that allways seems to lead down the same path over and over, I am forced to be skeptic about the possible reasons Violet’s bro could have to present about his case of skepticism for climate change. But I consider myself reasonable chap, and I am interrested, if he recognizes himself among the group of climate change skeptics I described abowe, or does he have better reasons, some I have simply not heard of from the other climate change skeptics.
Looking at motives it seems silly how often these climate change skeptics make the claim, that the scientists who say there is a high risk of human induced climate change do it only to get money for their research. When in reality, if they took the opposite view, I bet it would be a lot easier for them to find funding from powerfull energy companies. But the scientific conclusion comes at the end of the research not before it. So, if there is a conspiracy of scientists who side with the warning about the risk of the possible climate change, they must have a nother incentive, than money. What might that be? Or are they all just simply mistaken?
But who knows, perhaps there is an even grander conspiracy of scientists going on. The creationists and intelligent designer people have for years on claimed that there is a world wide conspiracy of scientists to deny the truths of the Genesis account of the Bible. Maybe these same scientists are at league whith the ones trying to change the western lifestyle by warning us about our cars and energy consumption. Unlike gods conspiracies are an actual verifiable phenomenon, that we really can recognize. Perhaps there are also a legion superheroes clad in tights fighting a secret war against this conspiracy of evil scientists…
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I love a good conspiracy theory! It’s an exciting possibility that the ‘scientists’ who bring us intelligent design are also behind the climate change drama. Maybe they’re also the aliens who built the pyramids.
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