Turn everything on its head time. People who take climate change seriously are in denial!!! Says the Federalist.
I, a (distinguished) gray-haired, middle-aged man, was a speaker at the conference. My topic was “The Need To Believe In The ‘Solution’ To Global Warming.” I don’t know if Johnson took note, but it was folks like him that I had in mind. Lot of people who aren’t up on, say, radiative-transfer physics and model-cloud parameterizations, to name just two of dozens upon dozens of need-to-know subjects, are convinced the world is going to end in heat death, because why? Because they desperately desire the proposed solutions—even in the absence of a problem. And what are the solutions? The usual: increased size and scope of government and furthering corporate cronyism.
People who take climate change seriously desperately desire the solutions? The hell we do. The solutions are horrible. What we desire is to avoid destroying the climate needed for humans and other animals to go on living on this planet. That’s it.
This brings us to the crucial question: how do we reach educators like Johnson? We can’t do it with reality. Temperatures aren’t increasing, storms are down in number and strength, sea levels aren’t chasing folks from beaches, droughts are not increasing, parts of the world are growing greener.
I don’t have the answer. Do you?
Did anybody ever say that all parts of the world would turn brown because of climate change? I don’t think the fact that parts of the world are growing greener is very decisive.
Of course they don’t worry about climate change. Some John Galt type will come along and solve everything. Or at least will build a survival dome where the common folk won’t be allowed.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial#Taxonomy_of_climate_change_denial
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Greg Laden offers a convenient summary of recent climate developments, with the effrontery to contradict “a (distinguished) gray-haired, middle-aged man”* at an actual conference, for crysake.
Many other fact-based rebuttals can easily be found.
*And probably – dunno why he left these out – a white heterosexual one too, maybe even Christian!
We don’t need distinguished people to put their gray hair or their penis on the table, as if those are magic qualifications with their usual shamans or spirit guardians. How about some peer-reviewed relevant scientific papers? What is it now? About 20-30 papers versus about 12,000-20,000 papers? It’s going to take the distinguished crowd a lot of magic shaman spells to overcome their gap.
Maybe their oil company buddies can pay to build some straw airplanes and straw airports to summon John Frum and the cargo cults? That seems as promising as these science deniers are going to get.
Besides, this guy talks about being up to date on radiative transfer physics! What? Did E = h * nu suddenly change last year and I missed it? Is Planck’s constant no longer 6.626* 10^-34 Joule*seconds?
But seriously, is he implying that thousands of peer-reviewed papers are wrong in the basics, and that the whole system of scientific publishing has broken down catastrophically, and rather than ratting on them to the journals involved, he instead waited until he could announce it at a conference where he could show his hairs to best establish his credibility? Because none of the authors of the thousands of papers with faulty radiative physics were males with gray hairs?
And if gray is good, is bald better, or is it disqualifying? What fraction of scalp needs to be gray and not bald to establish credibility on this scale?
Bruce,
I think it’s an attempt to intimate that he himself is familiar with these concepts and, by extension, versed in climatology.
It probably plays well with those who imagine the science is still in dispute.
Projection, indeed.
I’ve never seen a clearer explanation of the deniers’ motivations. “I love the solutions, so here’s the problem” is the reversed image you’d see in the mirror if you projected “I hate the solutions, so I refuse to see the problem.”
“Furthering corporate cronyism” is the solution that we are forced into because people like this prevent us from enacting the capitalist solution, which is a Pigovian tax. It’s certainly not the go-to solution of the people who recognize the problem and think we should do something about it.
“Sea levels aren’t chasing people from the beach?” Really? Perhaps he should ask the people of the Maldives, Tuvalu, or Kiribati about that.
Except that the position of most scientists on the matter, as I understand it, is that ‘solution’ is no longer an option, and ‘mitigation’ is the best we can hope for. And people like this are fighting as hard as they can against even that much.
An even more fundamental principle, applying to all human discourse, is that nothing but obfuscation is served by straw man arguing, and flippant misrepresentation of an opposing case.
The sea does not have to rise at a rate sufficient to “chase folks from the beaches” in order to confirm global warming. It just has to RISE, which it is doing.
(http://sealevel.colorado.edu/)
Sea level can only rise because of polar/glacial ice melt, thermal expansion of sea water, or both. Whichever way, it indicates that for better or worse (and probably the latter) the planet we all live on is warming: spelt W-A-R-M-I-N-G.
But I am surprised that this smartypants galah (or should that be ostrich?) did not trundle out the most powerful denialist argument of all: it could not possibly be happening, because if it was, it would be bad for established business. End of story.
Libertarian crazies WILL do their Libertarian craziness. From the republicans to Spiked.
@1. timgueguen :
Not that familiar with (TOS) Rand’s rantings but didn’t Galt’s story end with the Galt nutter blowing himself and other people up? Ultimately wasn’t “Galt” as much as wrecker as a builder and also given his lack of empathy and care for others basically verging on being a sociopath too?
I wonder how “the Federalist” would argue with these graphs? :
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/15/1014151/ten-charts-that-make-clear-the-planet-just-keeps-warming/
Or with recorded declines in Arctic sea ice, observed seasonal shifts in floral and faunal behaviour, et cetera ..
Sure would be nice if Global Overheating* weren’t true. Unfortunately as someone famous once sorta said, science is the art of not fooling ourselves even when we may wish to be fooled..
* Because”warming’ s a misleadingly mild and pleasant word for the reality of what is happening.
^ yes I know that’s from 2012 but things haven’t gotten any better since – see also :
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/07/1399794/-This-Is-What-Global-Warming-Looks-Like?detail=emailclassic
Plus :
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/04/global-warming-hasnt-paused-study-finds
In addition to :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OBCXWAHo5I
Among sovery, very much more ..
***
“I like ice also as an indicator of climate change for its political neutrality.
Ice asks no questions, presents no arguments, reads no newspapers, listens to no debates. It is not burdened by ideology and carries no political baggage as it crosses the threshold from solid to liquid. It just melts.”
– Dr Henry Pollack, geophysicist, University of Michigan.
Source : “Watts Up with Sea Ice?” Youtube video by Greenman3610 esp. 1 minute 14 secs to 1 minute 51 seconds.