# Is the doom and gloom environmental movement another expression of moral/religious anxiety? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 14, 2015, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827 "2015-08-14T12:18:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![anthonymortadella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@anthonymortadella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anthonymortadella)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/61 "2015-08-26T23:46:55Z")
Maybe this question could be turned into a poll. There’s certainly enough interest in it. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/62 "2015-08-27T01:38:52Z")
The only movement I’ve seen that fits the OP, IMO, is apocalyptic peak oil. They’re the ones who believe that the post disaster world will be better; climate change scientists think the exact opposite. ---
**Author:** ![anthonymortadella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@anthonymortadella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anthonymortadella)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/63 "2015-08-27T02:06:07Z")
"And you know this how? You have studied it at length and concluded that climate change is a hoax. Or you’ve concluded that the global average temperature will go up a few degrees but we will somehow adjust? That the drought in California is just a random blip? Not saying it couldn’t be, but why can’t you pay attention to the people who have spent their lives studying it? " (Hari Seldon) What I have studied is John Cook’s global warming consensus study (called 97 percent something or other), and his public presentation. He claims to be a scientist of some kind (a social scientist, I think), and he’s spent his life studying how to create propaganda, apparently. That so-called study is so hypocritical and twisted it makes me want to shout from the mountaintops that no one should trust this man. Nor should you trust his website, Skeptical Science. Not because what it says is or isn’t true, but because you can’t trust the creator of it. If someone was willing to put so much effort into putting out propaganda like his consensus study, who knows how he twisted all the facts in Skeptical Science? (I’d like to point out that the reason I looked at that 97 percent consensus study so intently is because I read Jose Duarte’s very dense essay of criticism directed at it, and besides actually viewing the Youtube of Cook’s presentation, all I really did was fact-check Duarte’s essay. I encourage everyone to read it, maybe print it all out and take it in one paragraph at a time. It’s reeeeallly long.) And my point is… I don’t think Dr. Cook is an anomaly. I think there are a lot of university professors who output papers with twisted facts and outright lies. So no, Dr. Seldon, I am not content anymore to believe those people who claim they have spent their lives studying one topic or another and take them at their word. I’m not stupid; laypeople are not incapable of understanding logic arguments simply because they are not in the enlightened golden circle of the tenured. Especially with something so crucial to the world as AGW, I want it explained to me, bit by laborious bit, no matter how complex. And I’m nothing special; there must be plenty of people out there who feel the same way I do. So there’s definitely a viewing audience for this TV program that keeps running in my head: (cue the trumpet solo) Nova presents… Anthropogenic Global Warming 101… How Man’s Activity is Warming Our Beloved Planet to Dangerous Levels… (more serene music) …made possible from support by viewers like you… thank you… Ever since I heard of global warming as a political issue, I’ve been waiting for this program, something dumbed down just a little for laypeople, that explains fundamentally and incontrovertibly, from A to Z, how artificial activity has affected the Earth, and the evidence for it. I’m still waiting. ---
**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:** [August 27, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/64 "2015-08-27T16:10:10Z")
Can someone translate \*\*anthonymortadella’s \*\*stream-of-consciousness post, please? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/65 "2015-08-27T17:23:19Z")
Apparently he wants someone, anyone, to laboriously explain AGW to him. However he’s opted to not trust the people that have studied the issue extensively because they have a vested interest in the conclusion that AGW exists. Quite the quandary n’est pas? ---
**Author:** ![anthonymortadella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@anthonymortadella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anthonymortadella)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/66 "2015-08-28T09:58:58Z")
> [@anthonymortadella](#): > > "And you know this how? … > I’m still waiting. One of the things I meant was, if anyone were willing to prove AGW to me, and provide some evidence for it, then I wouldn’t care who they were. Another thing I meant was, since global warming is such a hot political topic, some revered and trusted PBS program like Nova should have done the above already, and they have not, which raises alarm bells for me. ---
**Author:** ![anthonymortadella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@anthonymortadella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anthonymortadella)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/67 "2015-08-28T10:08:21Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Apparently he wants someone, anyone, to laboriously explain AGW to him. > > However he’s opted to not trust the people that have studied the issue extensively because they have a vested interest in the conclusion that AGW exists. > > Quite the quandary n’est pas? I’ve opted not to trust the AGW scientific community anymore because I’ve spotted this one flagrant liar in their group. Isn’t that a valid reason to be skeptical? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/68 "2015-08-28T12:30:30Z")
It’s a definite sign of something. ---
**Author:** ![anthonymortadella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@anthonymortadella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anthonymortadella)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/69 "2015-08-29T16:57:51Z")
Grude, emphatic “yes” to your OP, but I can’t come up with anything not already expressed above. ---
**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:** [August 29, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/70 "2015-08-29T19:39:09Z")
Here you go: [Global Warming for Kids.](http://www.explainthatstuff.com/globalwarmingforkids.html) Written by a guy name Chris Woodford, who doesn’t appear to directly benefit, financially, from AGW. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/71 "2015-08-29T21:13:29Z")
> [@anthonymortadella](#): > > One of the things I meant was, if anyone were willing to prove AGW to me, and provide some evidence for it, then I wouldn’t care who they were. > > Another thing I meant was, since global warming is such a hot political topic, some revered and trusted PBS program like Nova should have done the above already, and they have not, which raises alarm bells for me. The alarm bells are for the missing information, what usually happens is that your sources are willfully ignorant of how old this issue is and the research that was done, This documentary was shown on PBS NOVA (one reason why this was not apparent is that it was a NOVA/FRONTLINE production: > **[Retired Site | PBS](https://www.pbs.org/retired-site/)** > > This Content is No Longer Available Since the show was from 2000 (!) only excerpts are available: (The conclusion was that indeed global warming was going to be a big problem and alternate sources of energy are suggested. And currently the news are better on alternative energy) It has been noticed in the FAIR media watchdog group that ever since the Koch began to fund NOVA a lot, then the documentaries on the subject have almost disappeared, and the recent documentaries on the issue are not titled in a way that it would be easy to look for. Yes, they did called it "Extreme Ice" (sounds like a sport documentary) but that title now seems inappropriate as it does deals with how climate change is accelerating the ice cap loss. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/72 "2015-08-29T21:20:08Z")
> [@anthonymortadella](#): > > I’ve opted not to trust the AGW scientific community anymore because I’ve spotted this one flagrant liar in their group. Isn’t that a valid reason to be skeptical? You miss the point of the site, it is called Skeptical Science because one has to be skeptical also of the science the deniers are pushing. And because what contrarians are doing is usually wrong or they misrepresent the published science they are the ones that should be not only skeptical about, but the deniers that publish a lot of nonsense in their blogs need to be put in the same column as creationists. > **[Here’s what happens when you try to replicate climate contrarian papers |...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-papers)** > > Dana Nuccitelli: A new paper finds common errors among the 3% of climate papers that reject the global warming consensus > [@](#): > > You may have noticed another characteristic of contrarian climate research – there is no cohesive, consistent alternative theory to human-caused global warming. Some blame global warming on the sun, others on orbital cycles of other planets, others on ocean cycles, and so on. There is a 97% expert consensus on a cohesive theory that’s overwhelmingly supported by the scientific evidence, but the 2–3% of papers that reject that consensus are all over the map, even contradicting each other. The one thing they seem to have in common is methodological flaws like cherry picking, curve fitting, ignoring inconvenient data, and disregarding known physics. > > If any of the contrarians were a modern-day Galileo, he would present a theory that’s supported by the scientific evidence and that’s not based on methodological errors. Such a sound theory would convince scientific experts, and a consensus would begin to form. Instead, as our paper shows, the contrarians have presented a variety of contradictory alternatives based on methodological flaws, which therefore have failed to convince scientific experts. > > Human-caused global warming is the only exception. It’s based on overwhelming, consistent scientific evidence and has therefore convinced over 97% of scientific experts that it’s correct. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/73 "2015-08-29T21:31:44Z")
Oh, and BTW, many of the ones criticizing Cook are the ones with the creative accounting or as in the case of the contrarian blogs, they are pulling their data out of their ass. > **[Climate contrarians accidentally confirm the 97% global warming consensus |...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jun/05/contrarians-accidentally-confirm-global-warming-consensus)** > > Dana Nuccitelli: A new paper by GWPF's Richard Tol accidentally confirms the results of last year's 97% global warming consensus study > [@](#): > > In reality, as our response to Tol’s critique (accepted by Energy Policy but not yet published) shows, there simply aren’t very many peer-reviewed papers that minimize or reject human-caused global warming. Most of the papers that were reconciled ‘towards stronger rejection’ went from explicit to implicit endorsement, or from implicit endorsement to no position. For abstracts initially rated as ‘no position,’ 98% of the changes were to endorsement categories; only 2% were changed to rejections. > > That makes sense when you think about it, because less than 3% of all climate papers reject or minimize human-caused global warming. There’s no reason to expect 55% of incorrectly rated ‘no position’ papers to reject the consensus – in reality there just aren’t that many rejection papers. I asked Tol about this point, and he responded, > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > "I indeed use the marginal distribution of error corrections rather than the conditional ones. There are not enough observations to estimate all the conditionals." > > > > ``` > > However, the ‘no position’ category was the largest in our sample, and was the main source of Tol’s mistaken calculation, as shown in the figure below. The top frame illustrates the result when calculation is done correctly using the actual reconciliations for each category, while the bottom frame shows the result using Tol’s faulty assumptions. > [@](#): > > In any case, Tol’s critique explicitly acknowledges the expert consensus on human-caused global warming is real and accurate. Correcting his math error reveals that the consensus is robust at 97 ± 1%, consistent with the results of previous consensus studies. > > While the consensus may be an inconvenient truth for those who seek to obstruct and delay the implementation of global warming solutions, it’s nevertheless an indisputable reality; one we’d be better off if people learned to accept. As it was shown in GD Thread, the levels of the consensus are way over 90% in many different surveys and studies. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827/74 "2015-09-02T14:16:01Z")
> [@anthonymortadella](#): > > I think there are a lot of university professors who output papers with twisted facts and outright lies. Cite? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-doom-and-gloom-environmental-movement-another-expression-of-moral-religious-anxiety/727827.md?page=3)