# I'm sorry, but this is unspeakably dumb... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 5, 2007, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993 "2007-02-05T22:35:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anise/32/21721_2.png) [@Anise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anise)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/1 "2007-02-05T22:35:27Z")
You know, I can’t really do a good pit, so I’ll probably be fairly civil about it. I don’t think there’s really a forum for exactly how I want to put this, but this is the closest thing. Okay, so global warming IS happening, and is almost certainly caused by human activity. We don’t really need to argue about this, do we? If so, it’s all at: [http://www.ipcc.ch/](http://www.ipcc.ch/). Certainly, there isn’t any room at ALL for debate on the fact that it’s HAPPENING. But on the Tennessean forums… twitch… ack… well, first of all, the head of the Wilson County Republican Party said this: > [@](#): > > “I can’t see it, myself,” A.J. McCall, head of the Wilson County Republican Party, said of An Inconvenient Truth. "I’ve read too much about the global warming, and there’s no basis for their conclusions, there’s no science around it. It’s just all politically motivated. I think what that tells us is that the Nobel Prize is a prize for being liberal, and not for doing anything that is productive. > > “I think it’s a dubious award, in my opinion,” said McCall, president of D.T. McCall and Sons furniture stores based in Carthage. So there’s that, but it DOES get worse. Someone else said that they don’t think global warming is happening in the FIRST place, because “it’s been so cold in Nashville the past few days”!!! These people are making us all look stupid in Tennessee!!! Someone is going to read this and think we marry our cousins and don’t wear shoes. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/2 "2007-02-05T22:38:21Z")
Is Tennessee so remarkable in this regard? I’m sure you would hear something similar from leading Pubs in a **lot** of states. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/3 "2007-02-05T22:40:32Z")
It’s currently about three degrees where I live, and I said just this morning, “Global warming, my ass!” That was hyperbole, though, honest. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/4 "2007-02-05T23:07:14Z")
Yeah, because there is so much more evidence for global warming than there is for evolution. How can anyone possibly be surprised? Evolution has only been around for 100 or so years and it appears that a lot of people still believe creationism. Global climate is complicated topic that we have trouble accurately modeling which gives the impression of what’s that word? errancy? No… anyway, you know what I mean, and media fear-mongering does little but feed fuel to the no-change people’s fires, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![essell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/5 "2007-02-05T23:25:45Z")
Maybe if people didn’t yell about Global warming… (almost said ‘support global warming’) …yell about global warming for political reasons then the rest of us would listen to the evidence supporting it, rather than putting our fingers in our ears and going “la la la la la la” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/6 "2007-02-05T23:33:30Z")
The right wing nuts are going to have a tough time on this one, as I’m fairly confident that Anthropogenic Climate Change is going to be a big issue in the 2008 election and even the Republican Candidates will be addressing it. They may have different policy proposals for how to deal with it than the Democrats do, but I don’t think any of the serious GOP contenders are ACC doubters. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/7 "2007-02-05T23:40:53Z")
Look on the bright side. The nice thing about Global Warming is that there WILL be evidence to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt that even the yokels can’t deny. Real Soon Now. ---
**Author:** ![Sweetums](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Sweetums](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweetums)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/8 "2007-02-05T23:49:19Z")
No that much of a shock really. ``` Was listening to Matt Drudge last night and he was putting forth his usual argument against global warming of the "It is cold somewhere on earth today, so global warming isn't happening." So more than a few people are willing to buy into this argument. Then of corse there are the ones who MIGHT be willing to admit the existance of GW, but say that like the last ice age it is all part of the natural process and since it isn't humanity's fault, we don't have to change our habits. It begins to worry me that this issue, and evolution, have begun to make science into a liberal vs conservative issue. Wacko conservitives like the politician in the OP, Matt Drudge, and Anne Coulter have begun to act as if anyone who studies the sciences is a liberal and the enemy. Not only a dengerous idea, but one that I think would come as a shock to a few rather conservitive PHD's I have known. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2007, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/9 "2007-02-05T23:58:12Z")
[QUOTE=Anise] Okay, so global warming IS happening, and is almost certainly caused by human activity. We don’t really need to argue about this, do we? If so, it’s all at: [http://www.ipcc.ch/](http://www.ipcc.ch/). Certainly, there isn’t any room at ALL for debate on the fact that it’s HAPPENING. [/QUOTE] Actually, there’s a whole helluva of a lot of room for debate. Start here: [Chill out over global warming – The Denver Post](http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807) Then go here: [The Global Warming Scam - LewRockwell](http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sanandaji9.html) Then here: [http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html](http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html) We’re going through the same Chicken Little crap that the libs pulled in the 1970s, except back then it was global cooling and the nuclear winter, etc. But, hey - why let facts get in the way of a good rant and the chance to make some money? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/10 "2007-02-06T00:37:56Z")
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist] How can anyone possibly be surprised? Evolution has only been around for 100 or so years and it appears that a lot of people still believe creationism. [/QUOTE] Straight Dope pedantic quibble: The Theory of Natural Selection to describe the mechanism to produce evolutionary change (already accepted by many scientists) was first published in 1859 by (separately) both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The hypothesis that the burning of carbon based fuels would create a “greenhouse effect” on the Earth was first published by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/11 "2007-02-06T00:44:49Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump] We’re going through the same Chicken Little crap that the libs pulled in the 1970s, except back then it was global cooling and the nuclear winter, etc. [/QUOTE] Actually, there was nowhere near the consensus on global cooling as there is now on global warming. Most of it was hysteria drummed up by journalists… and yet it’s trotted out every time there’s a debate over global warming. [QUOTE=Clothahump] But, hey - why let facts get in the way of a good rant and the chance to make some money? [/QUOTE] I’ve never quite understood this argument, personally. 1. Publish a paper implying anthropogenic global warming 2. ??? 3. Profit! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/12 "2007-02-06T00:45:55Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump] …We’re going through the same Chicken Little crap that the libs pulled in the 1970s, except back then it was global cooling and the nuclear winter, etc… [/quote] Lemme help you out here, **Clotty** , old top. You see, the nuclear winter thingy is about nukes throwing up clouds of dust that would prevent sunlight from getting through. Hence “nuclear” winter. (Am I typing too fast for you?) It has squat all to do with global warming. Zero, zip, zilch, nada damn thing. > [@](#): > > …But, hey - why let facts get in the way of a good rant and the chance to make some money? Well, just recently heard about oil companies offering money for global warming debunkers. If its so clearly erroneous, why would such a thing be necessary? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/13 "2007-02-06T00:52:52Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Lemme help you out here, **Clotty** , old top. You see, the nuclear winter thingy is about nukes throwing up clouds of dust that would prevent sunlight from getting through. Hence “nuclear” winter. (Am I typing too fast for you?) It has squat all to do with global warming. Zero, zip, zilch, nada damn thing. [/QUOTE] You’re missing his point entirely. He’s not tying it to global warming, he’s just pointing out that nuclear winter was another lefty enviormental scare that didn’t pan out. Remember when we had that global thermonuclear war, and how nice the next summer was? Proof positive that the liberal science establishment was just making shit up. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/14 "2007-02-06T00:57:09Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Actually, there’s a whole helluva of a lot of room for debate. There’s certainly room for debate on the details of how climate systems work and the relative importance and impact of factors involved in the current warming trend. However, AFAICT there is no longer any serious scientific debate on whether the earth is currently experiencing a comparatively rapid warming trend (of unknown duration and magnitude) which **has not been satisfactorily explained in terms of any non-anthropogenic climate forcing mechanisms**. Unless and until some climate-change skeptic comes up with such a non-anthropogenic factor that successfully explains the **observed** warming, that debate is over. > [@Clothahump](#): > > Start here: [Chill out over global warming – The Denver Post](http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807) Well, this is an op-ed piece by someone who, according to his own statement, “admittedly possess[es] virtually no expertise in science”. He does quote a couple of actual scientists, Bill Gray and Roger Pielke Sr. He doesn’t mention, however, that their arguments have been severely criticized on the quality of their science. Here, for example, is [one critique](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/gray-on-agw/) of Gray’s theories. > [@Clothahump](#): > > Then go here: [The Global Warming Scam - LewRockwell](http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sanandaji9.html) Another poorly-informed “skeptical” interpretation of a few scattered climate-science facts for a libertarian-leaning popular audience. The authors seem to think, for example, that they’ve rebutted concerns about shrinking polar ice by pointing out that ice loss on the edges of the ice sheets is somewhat counteracted by increased precipitation in their interiors. Actually, though, the increase in interior precipitation is quite well recognized (and long predicted) by climate scientists concerned about the shrinking ice sheets, and does not negate or cast into doubt their conclusions about global warming. Here’s [a _Nature_ article](http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/050516-10.html) that discusses the combined effect: > [@](#): > > The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that sea level is currently rising at about 1.8 millimetres per year, largely through melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets as a result of global warming. But the panel also expected that climate change would trigger an increase in snowfall over the Antarctic continent, as increased evaporation from the oceans puts more moisture into the air. […] > > The thickening of the eastern ice sheet should not be seen as a long-term protection against a rise in sea level, warns Vaughan. Glaciers in West Antarctica are accelerating, releasing more and more icebergs into the sea. And the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches towards South America, now regularly hits temperatures above 0 °C in the summer, leading to direct melting of the ice there. > > What’s more, snowfall over East Antarctica will not continue to increase indefinitely in a warming world, Vaughan adds. Conversely, every extra degree of temperature rise will continue to accelerate glaciers and cause more melting on the western side of Antarctica, swelling the world’s oceans further. > [@Clothahump](#): > > Then here: [http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation...2/reg15n2g.html](http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation...2/reg15n2g.html) This cite is the best of a fairly unimpressive bunch, since its author Richard Lindtzen is a genuine climate scientist and professor at MIT with a body of well-respected work in the field. But that doesn’t automatically make him right, and in fact Lindtzen’s credibility in the climate science community has been shrinking in recent years as he continues to nitpick anthropogenic climate-change theories without producing any valid hypotheses of his own about \*\*non-\*\*anthropogenic climate forcing mechanisms that would explain observed results as well as the anthropogenic hypotheses do. See **jshore** ’s remarks on Lindtzen’s ideas in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8224390&postcount=64). > [@Clothahump](#): > > We’re going through the same Chicken Little crap that the libs pulled in the 1970s, except back then it was global cooling and the nuclear winter, etc. As **jshore** has repeatedly pointed out in threads like [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8223771&postcount=57), for example, there was nothing in the 1970s even remotely approaching a scientific consensus on the existence of “global cooling”. Attempting to compare popular scare-buzz about those issues in the 1970s with the overwhelming agreement in **peer-reviewed published scientific research** on climate change today is a strawman argument. In any case, whatever the uncertainties and debatable points on the details of temperature trends and climate models, the OP is absolutely right in noting that it is monumentally stupid to attempt to argue that global warming is a myth simply because it happens to be **unusually cold someplace or other at some particular time**. Nobody who would buy such an argument counts as a credible spokesperson for any kind of scientific debate, in Tennessee or elsewhere. And anybody who thinks that the science is unimportant or suspect merely because the issue is surrounded by political controversy, as in the OP’s example, is a cretin, and a dangerous cretin at that. Yes, everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but they’re not entitled to their own version of the facts. Nor are they entitled to assume that the facts must be inaccessible or irrelevant simply because there’s a lot of dispute in popular opinion. Justifying one’s ignorance about scientific issues on the plea that “it’s all politically motivated” is delusionally stupid. It conceivably could (and I sure hope it doesn’t) turn out to be one of the most catastrophically stupid things that human societies have ever done. And if so, we can’t say we weren’t warned. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/15 "2007-02-06T00:59:36Z")
“We could have saved it, but we were too lazy and stupid.” - Kurt Vonnegut ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/16 "2007-02-06T01:00:04Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Lemme help you out here, **Clotty** , old top. You see, the nuclear winter thingy is about nukes throwing up clouds of dust that would prevent sunlight from getting through. Hence “nuclear” winter. (Am I typing too fast for you?) It has squat all to do with global warming. Zero, zip, zilch, nada damn thing. [/QUOTE] Yabbut – yabbut – yabbut why didn’t it HAPPEN, then? Back when – that TIME, when we had that all-out nuclear exchange with the Soviets, and allatha BOMBS 'n stuff went kaBLOOOOOIEEE!!! And kerFWOOOOOSSSSHHHH!!! And kaPOOWWWW!!! And everything blowed up REEAAALLL GOOD! How cum we didn’t get a nuclear winter that time, hah? HAH??!!??? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/17 "2007-02-06T01:12:08Z")
**Miller** , you bastard. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/18 "2007-02-06T01:14:46Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump] We’re going through the same Chicken Little crap that the libs pulled in the 1970s, except back then it was global cooling and the nuclear winter, etc. But, hey - why let facts get in the way of a good rant and the chance to make some money? [/QUOTE] People, you’ve got to be careful with your thread titles. Using the phrase “unspeakably dumb” makes **Clothahump** rise up from the floor like an evil spirit. It’s like that Bloody Mary/Biggie Smalls game kids play at slumber parties. Granted, he doesn’t kill anyone – he just says something painfully stupid and blames everything on the liberals, but it’s still quite annoying. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/19 "2007-02-06T01:15:09Z")
Someone explain to me why the right wing (including my entire fambly) is so dead set against accepting even the possibility of global warming. Because I don’t grasp it. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993/20 "2007-02-06T01:17:54Z")
Besides, the major panicmongering intellectuals of c. 1970 were NOT going on about an upcoming Ice Age (as mentioned, that was just a fringe, but one that got great traction in sensationalist outlets). They were ranting about exhaustion of resources… y’know, running out of raw materials by the end of the 1980s, population outstripping production, mass famines, etc. The problem was, the determinant factors that would make or break those doomsayings were not based on hard physical science data, but on zero-sum economic policy preconceptions that were off the mark. Now, folks like the ones we are discussing here, given voice through our esteemed **Clothalump** , have concluded from that prior history that EVERY instance of someone bringing up an alarm that our industrial model is heading us for some disaster, it must be presumed to be based on an ideological agenda to attack capitalism, and to make money selling books and raising funds for NPOs. (Because, of course, the only reason anyone does anything has to be to make money or gain power… and they say it’s the libs who are caricaturing capitalism…) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sorry-but-this-is-unspeakably-dumb/390993.md?page=2)