So, once again, its liberal hypocrisy. But what if the hypocrite is telling you the truth?
Take LBJ, just to grab one. LBJ was steeped in racism down to his very bones. He was never comfortable with black people, for instance. Yet he recognized the necessity of civil rights legislation, even if it came at enormous sacrifice for the Dem party.
Al Gore is a climate-change hypocrite? OK, so what? Moral failings have no impact on scientific fact. Newton was a notorious ego-driven prick, his equations still worked. Facts do not have moral qualities, only people do. If HRC says that Trump plays fast and loose with the truth, the sincerity of her motives doesn’t change the fact.
The logical phallus here is ad hominem, addressing the character of the advocate rather than the truth of the advocated position.
Well he finished his polished turd of an Op with this bit:
[QUOTE=Great White Dope]
He’s right, you know. Among the most telling signs this whole movement is a charade is that those who are behind it don’t behave at all as if they believe it.
[/QUOTE]
So who are these people behind the so called “charade”, I would think he meant the scientists and activists that have been trying to get the message out before its too late. These people are overall making changes in their own lives.
Unlike burning and polluted rivers it is far harder to get the average citizen concerned with the very slow in human terms of Anthropogenic Climate Change. Dirty highways and rivers, fishkills and smog alerts were fairly easy sells as people saw and were affected by them immediately. The fact that the really bad effects of Climate Change is decades away is tough to get people worried and alarmed about.
On a lesser note we had a steady push-back from oil industry in the early years. Fake studies put out by Exxon-Mobil among others.
Well then, I don’t think I need to bug you anymore.
That seems quite reasonable.
Except maybe for the “Yes” part, seeing as how I consider the OP to be a troll and general fuckwit.
Exhibits: **[The OP]: **“**fraudulence **of the climate change industry” “this whole movement is a charade”
But leaving aside that those are the OP’s actual opinions, your own opinion, as stated above, seems quite reasonable.
Unfortunate that you chose the context of this thread to make them.
As to the bolded part: let us hope they do.
Keeping in mind that there is precedent indicating republican/government obstinacy in that regard.
Like forbidding even the mention of climate change. (Not the freshest news story, I grant)
Just to note that I offered two concrete challenges, two chances to fight my ignorance and provide info which the OP must have had to justifiably make the claims to begin with, and the best the OP could offer was an excuse for why he’s not going to bother. C’mon, you speak with such certainty, surely you can back up your assertions, right?
I agree with both of these statements. But the truth of climate change is different than expecting people to change their way of living. Sort of like “I know Climate Change is real. But this guy warning me of the dangers hasn’t done anything to lower his impact on the climate, but he wants ME to? If it was such a danger, then he would be doing what he could in his own life to lower his impact.”
I believe that is what the author of the article referenced in the OP is saying.
But simply refraining from abortions for most people doesn’t involve a total redirection of ones entire life. Perhaps the analogy should be that true anti-abortionists would volunteer to take care of any and all unwanted children that would otherwise be aborted, or volunteer to be surrogate mothers for unused embryos from fertility clinics every 9 months.
There are many who lower their impact in little ways. Combining trips, not going out as often, turning down the thermostat, using a more fuel efficient car.
These are not huge and obvious to the observer, but they do have a measurable impact. Unfortunately, even if we got every single person who believes in the realities of climate change and their consequences to do the same, it would not be nearly enough.
Industry puts out far more Co2 than individuals. Other countries are becoming major emitters. There are more things out of the control of individuals (even if all made the same individual decision to conserve) than in their control. Even moving to an amish lifestyle, which is not sustainable at all as they use far more acreage per person for food and living space than a modern urbanite, so if we want to go to amish style living we also need to kill of the vast majority of the population.
Ultimately, the best thing that you can do for the planet is to stop consuming resources entirely, so the OP’s thesis might as well have been that you won’t be taken seriously as being concerned about the climate unless you kill yourself, as that is ultimately the best thing you could do for the planet.
That’s true, but not, in my opinion, the argument put forth by the author of the article. He doesn’t say if everybody did something it would solve the problem.
But that is why it has to be noted that it is, when looking at the big picture, a red herring.
It is an argument usually coming from the same kind of people that insisted we should not do anything because China and India were not involved. When China and India reported that they are involved in reducing emissions the same people jumped to other reasons why not to do anything.
Exactly, he is not looking for people to achieve results, but to make an ineffectual show of it instead.
Unless you have a tire fire in your backyard, the difference between your footprint and the footprint of the Amish is pretty insignificant, when compared to the footprint of industry and the rest of the world. (If you have a tire fire in your backyard, go ahead and put it out.)
So, he is not telling people that if they want something done about climate change, that they should not do something themselves, but that they should do these exact prescribed steps that he outlines, that would do very little, and would destroy the economy in the process.
He completely ignores that we are doing things, many of which have a greater impact than we would have if we all gave up our modern lifestyle.
If the title of his piece was “I won’t take climate alarmists seriously until you put out the tire fire.” He’d have a point, and I would agree.
As his piece is saying that we have to perform an ineffectual, but utterly disastrous action in order to appease those who would give us permission to push for actual solutions to the problem, it can be discounted as naive at best.
That’s not how I read it. I think he is saying that people that are warning about the dangers of Climate Change are not actually living their lives as if they believed in those dangers. At least, the people he is talking about, not everybody obviously.
For one, people like al gore, who they complain about flying around and having a large house, is actually conscious of the impact heis having, and does do what he can to alleviate it. Now, his “huge” house costs more than my house to heat, but it’s not a linear relationship. A house twice the size is not going to use twice the energy to keep it warm. There is also the likely possibility that his insulation is better, and his furnace and forced air system more efficient. So, even though his house may be ten times the size of mine, it probably only uses twice the energy.
Now, what does he do with his house? Does he just sit there in his pajamas and set tires on fire? No, he has meetings, he has groups over, he plots and schemes, and plotting and scheming require more floorspace than just living.
He flies around, but he flies around to educate people about climate change, so, presumably, the net effect of the people he talks to changing their ways is greater than the fuel used to go meet them. If not, their votes to get the govt to make some changes probably will.
And in any case, he is conscious of his carbon use, as he voluntarily pays a carbon offset tax, paying into renewable energies or other environmental causes.
I would say that he does far more good to raise awareness of climate change than he would from some amish barn, so insisting that he live as the amish would actually be a net detractor from our efforts.
My point is that this author, and the OP, are very ignorant of the steps that people like those they are complaining about take to curb or offset their emissions, and in their ignorance, make demands that are counterproductive at best. The steps that Al Gore takes probably do far more for preventing climate change than if he changed to an Amish lifestyle, but the author and the OP want the optics, not the results.
Shalmanese already pointed out OP’s major misconception.
I’ll just amplify this point with some examples, Al Gore, often ridiculed by the Ignorati for burning carbon when he travels by airplane, has helped increase worldwide awareness of the problem; this has done far more to attack the problem than the harm done by the CO2 (even ignoring his “offsets”) that his education efforts have created. Right-wingers insult their own intelligence when they can’t even figure that out.
And in general, the claim that people should act in accord with best public policy is a fallacy. Warren Buffet advocates increased taxes on the rich, but does not make voluntary donations to the U.S. Treasury. (And again, many right-wingers are proud to expose their own mental incompetence by suggesting that he’s a hypocrite if he doesn’t.)
Similarly, many Trumpists want to repeal measures of Obamacare, e.g. insurance for pre-existing conditions. Does OP think those calling for repeal who’ve received insurance under Obamacare are guilty of “obvious fraudulence” and “charade” if they don’t voluntarily cancel that insurance?
[Full disclosure: I haven’t even bothered to read the whole article. Because I don’t think I can hold my nose long enough to dig through that pile of shit.]
Seems clear to me that the main message of this bullshit article is “climate change is a hoax and those warning about it are liars and/or hypocrites.”
[Bolding mine.]
Seems clear to me that this is also the OP’s interpretation of the article.
But you don’t share those beliefs, do you?
But, well, you do what you please. I don’t think it will impact the environment much.
Then you should find the OP and his bullshit article horrible, as both are claiming, as did Trump, that climate change warnings are a hoax. x2
Even Trump’s pick for head of the EPA has echoed such sentiments.
So if you believe that ignoring climate change and environmental detriment, and mocking climate scientists and activists is wrong (not quite sure you do, but anyways), you should understand how deplorable this kind of smear article is.
The **Great White Dope **has bought right into it. (Or at least his troll persona has.)
