Thank you very much, Zoe, but I am somewhat confused. Perhaps you recall that of the three main reasons I gave for not getting up in arms over global warming, the biggest and most troublesome is the apparent difficulty of getting believable information? I would think this would show that I have an open mind (or at least relatively so ), and that I would be amenable to paying attention to it if I were to be convinced that it was true. Further, I would think that my willingness to look at the sites that you and NurseCarmen and jshore have linked to would demonstrate this further. I’m not adamantly opposed to coming to the conclusion that global warming exists; I just want to be able to have faith that the information I’m getting is reasonable and accurate.
Still and all, though, this is outside the question posed by the OP and which I intended to answer with my original post to this thread. Honestly, whether I come around to believe as you and some of the others here do in this regard, it’s going to have zero effect upon the members of the conservative populace in general who have been skeptical of it for the reasons I mentioned. In other words, if 30 million or 40 million or 50 million or however many conservatives view the issue with the skepticism I outlined in my first post, my having found out differently isn’t going to make any difference. It looks to me like if the evidence for global warming is so incontrovertibly correct there shouldn’t be so much hooey about it being thrown around by the proponents of it, ala the errors and fallacies mentioned upthread in An Inconvenient Truth. In other words, how is the casual observer/voter supposed to get worked up about global warming when even the apparent crown jewel of the movement contains so many errors…and errors that don’t appear to be all that hard to spot at that?
My original point about Mr Gore had nothing to do with whether or not AGW is real. It has to do with whether or not Mr Gore thinks it’s real. An outside observer would reasonably conclude that Mr Gore personally thinks AGW is a crock. The reason for this conclusion would be that Mr Gore’s personal lifestyle consumes a huge multiple of a reasonable per-capita ration of carbon production. He clearly has not persuaded himself that there is a crisis serious enough to constrain his own lifestyle to a per-capita level which would be required to avert AGW.
Alternate conclusions might be that Mr Gore thinks that AGW is real, but that only others should actually stop doing the consuming which is driving AGW, or that nothing should be done except at a government level, or that buying carbon credits is a workable solution.
Nevertheless, it’s perfectly reasonable to look at Mr Gore and decide that he has not convinced himself that AGW is serious enough to obligate individuals to live at some far more reasonable carbon-producing level.
Mr Bush, his incompetence, and his observers have nothing to do with any of this and frankly it’s kind of stupid to counter criticisms of Mr Gore by pointing out how dumb or hypocritical Mr Bush is.
I think one can get some insight into the question posed in the OP by looking at the Duke Lacrosse hoax: Why did it have such huge symbolic resonance with the Left? It’s pretty clear that it was because the accused were so-called privileged elites; the alleged victim was lower class all the way.
Liberals seem to like stories that paint the wealthy as villains and/or absolve the lower class. In many ways, conservatives are the opposite.
An elegant distinction! Similarly, I won’t accuse you of being a dishonest, ignorant and intellectually lazy shill for the right-wing noise machine, nor will I strive to assert that position. I’ll simply seek to describe it by mentioning that that’s how I view you. Who could possibly be offended by that?
Then whom do you mean by “experts”, if not the people who actually have expert knowledge on the issue—i.e., the vast majority of professional climate scientists? If you don’t in fact think that such scientists are untrustworthy sources, why are you bitching and moaning about how there are no trustworthy sources out there?
Well, if you can’t be bothered to go out and search for the “straight scoop” yourself by seeking out reputable sources and educating yourself about the issues, you shouldn’t whine that nobody’s coming along to spoonfeed it to you. If you’re too indolent to make the effort to find out information beyond what you see “out and about on the intarwebs”, you shouldn’t be surprised that what you’re seeing is mostly biased and unreliable junk, on both sides of the issue.
Of course there are, and it’s a good thing that they’re contributing to the scientific debate. But they aren’t the ones making absurdly elementary errors of fact about the basic science concerning climate change issues. And that’s the kind of irresponsible behavior that Cullen was criticizing on the part of meteorologists.
Not at all. They are simply expected to refrain from misrepresenting mainstream science, sounding off in their official capacity on scientific matters of which they’re ignorant, or pretending that the uncertainties and controversies are greater than they really are. And that’s all Cullen is advocating.
Since, as usual, you are evidently too lazy to go and look up the actual sources of the information that you’re presuming to spout off about, allow me to present you with a link to Cullen’s actual blog entry where she made the statements that AGW deniers have been shrieking about so shrilly:
In other words, Cullen isn’t actually demanding the suppression of informed dissenting viewpoints on climate change, as the hysterical anti-AGW crowd likes to pretend. She is simply opining that weatherpeople credentialed by the American Meteorological Society should have a reasonable mastery of elementary scientific facts, such as the difference between weather and climate. The AMS is a scientific body, after all, and has a right to expect that people who represent it should be reasonably scientifically informed—especially on issues related to its own field, on which it has gone to the trouble of issuing official informational statements.
Nowhere has Cullen advocated that people who discuss the actual scientific controversies about climate change should be discredentialed. There are tons of well-informed people out there with particular criticisms or doubts about particular parts of climate change science, and Cullen is not trying to muzzle them in any way: she has in fact discussed these issues with some of them in the media. She just thinks that AMS “Seal of Approval” recipients should be sufficiently well informed to understand, and explain to laypeople, such basic facts as why climate scientists consider the (still admittedly uncertain and disputed) phenomenon of global warming to be something different from mere “cyclical weather patterns”.
It’s all too apparent that you don’t know what is, so let me explain it more simply. What I was referring to as your antiquated information was your erroneous (or at least long-obsolete) statement that Coleman is the CEO of the Weather Channel. I never made any claim, explicit or implied, about the date of Coleman’s comments on global warming.
I work in the Semiconductor industry and have for over 25 years. I know the history. I was just noting that something as ubiquitous as the PC wasn’t invented in some evil corporation’s lab and then foisted on an unwilling populace. Perhaps that sort of things happens now and then, but it’s the exception, not the rule.
Sorry, it sounded like you got the PC and microprocessor reversed, talking about Intel. My mistake. Now, strictly speaking the IBM PC was invented in an evil corporations lab. But the Homebrew stuff was done with no focus groups, and least not any run by marketers.
I wonder how many major innovations were inspired by market research? Incremental changes, definitely.
I think the OP is somewhat misguided. Like others have said, not all conservatives disbelieve global warming, but the vast majority of disbelievers are conservatives.
And again, a large part of the skepticism that many conservatives view AGW with is due to the people it’s coming from, historical knowledge about past “catastrophes” that didn’t come to pass, and a healthy measure of doubt about exactly what contribution mankind is making vs. any solar or orbital contributions.
Finally, at least on my part, I think there’s a certain “Chicken Little” mentality or mantra that seems to be associated with the pro-AGW types. I mean, people talking about speeding toward brick walls, and millions of deaths, etc… tend to make people skeptical about something that has only been in the public eye for 5-10 years at most.
I think most conservatives aren’t quite as frightened and are willing to take some time to analyze it and possibly let market forces take care of it and/or come up with a plan, while the perception is that the liberal types are more than ready to wield the government regulation lash to stop this problem, without doing what seems to be due diligence to identify and quantify the problem.
That’s the impression I get from friends and family. That, and the fact that Al Gore is preaching to them turns them immediately off the subject. They should have had him pair up with someone respected in conservative circles for this message - kind of like the Clinton/Bush tsunami relief stuff.
When an entirely new type of technology is invented, a company does have to figure out a way to explain to the consumer what the technology will do for them, true. This is because the consumer doesn’t have the knowledge required to figure it out for themselves. But still, there has to be a clear benefit and the consumer has to understand what the benefit is, or they won’t bite on it. In the auto industry, as a contrast, the industry tends to ride waves of trends…they don’t care if people buy SUVs…a lot of companies developed SUVs based on the demand (did you ever think Porsche would make an SUV?). They are just going to build the styles of cars that people seem to want. In areas where they have major breakthroughs, such as the hybrids, the problem is that there isn’t always a clear enough benefit to get people excited about it. The car may use less gas, saving money and helping the environment, but is it underpowered? Are there any other drawbacks? What if saving money and helping the environment aren’t major benefits to me? Then, I’m not going to buy a hybrid, no matter how much marketing you do, unless you can convince me either that there are no real drawbacks, or that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks by a lot.
I’m not following you here. In the context of this discussion, I wouldn’t call that “invented in an evil corporations lab”. We were talking about evil corporations (I love that term, btw) inventing random stuff and then creating demand for it. There was demand out there and IBM ran like mad to catch up with it. Same with Intel. The microprocessor, like you said, was invented for calculators. Even the inventors didn’t see the potential. The PC didn’t get invented because Intel was trying to push the 4004 on people who didn’t “need” it. So, yeah, the IBM PC was cooked up in its lab, but not until people had realized what the PC could do and they wanted a “real” company to supply it-- not some silly company named after a fruit.
In all probability, you won’t see any benefits, in fact, its more likely to be a pain in the butt for those of us who live at the top of the food chain. Approaching certainty.
Who will be hit hardest, first? Subsistence farmers, who are entirely captive to the environment. But agribusiness is vulnerable as well. I often imagine that the US is just a great conspiracy by corn for world dominaton. We have narrowed the very nature of corn to survive and thrive in an environment of plentiful water and very thin margins of temperature. Higher temperatures are very, very likely to mean less water in the snowpacks, less meltoff, thinner, more polluted streams and rivers. You think fights over oil are shocking, wait till you see the fights over water. People will squabble over oil, they’ll kill for water.
Its going to be a damned hard sell, Hugh Betcha! Because it will not benefit you, or I, directly in the slightest. It will require inconvenience, at minimum, and sacrifice is not at all unlikely. Which is why I carry this portable pulpit around with me. Would I rather not? Very much so. Will I do it anyway? Here I am.
Hey, man, don’t look at me…I was using “I” in the hypothetical sense. I’m great at conservation, because there is a benefit to me…it saves me money, and I’m cheap. Plus, I don’t like to waste resources…we in the US use much more than our fair share as it is. I was only trying to give a little perspective on how the evil corporations do their marketing.
Let’s face it, in the US we need to do a whole lot more than sell hybrid cars to people to really make a difference. People are going to have to be willing to change their lifestyles, and I just don’t see that happening.
When I first heard that GW would mean the downfall of Napa as a wine producing region, I was ready to sign up and buy a Prius. But then I heard that’s only half the story. The best wine producing areas will simply move closer to the coast, and we might find that places like Berkeley will become the new Napa. Then I said, hot damn! Berkeley is closer to where I live then Napa. Gonna buy me a Hummer so I can get up there in style!!
Just kidding, of course. I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those Hummers. My take is much like Sarah’s, although I’m not averse to doing a little good for my fellow hoo-mans now and then. I hate waste, and I like the idea of being “off the grid” in some respects. I’m going solar pretty soon, and hope to be selling all you folks some electricity instead of buying it from PG&E (an “evil corporation” if ever there was one). Getting those funny looking light bulbs, too. And, as someone said upthread, there’s nothing good about the idea that the atmosphere is a giant sewer into which everyone is free to dump their shit.
Well, I think we are moving in the right direction here in the US. Like I said up thread, I think the train is just starting to leave the station as far as cleaning up our act goes. And I love the fact that it’s mostly voluntary and market driven…companies and individuals are all starting to become not only aware of the potential costs of CO2 in the atmosphere, but the very real cost of gas/oil and the reality that the days of cheap gas are done. Myself, I’m certainly thinking along those lines. For instance, like John, I plan to purchase solar for my home sometime after the first of the year. I also plan to replace both of our current vehicles with hybrids sometime next year (and I’m looking into buying something like a Mini-Cooper for driving about in town…40 mpg AND fun to drive! What’s not to love??).
Am I doing this to save the planet? To save all those poor subsistence farmers eeking out a living in semi-arid parts of the world? While I’m not adverse to helping out my fellow humans or singing squirrels/birds/wolves or animals who say RIIIICCCKKKKEEEYYYY!, I’m doing it because it makes economic sense…I’ll save money by having solar (plus I have some plans to play with the system and tinker with things a bit to see what else I can use it for), and I’ll save money driving higher efficiency vehicles and using plug in hybrids (I did the funny light bulbs 2 years ago, as well as added extra insulation and such).
What I’d like to know is…how are we going to get China on board? They have now taken over the top spot for CO2 emissions, while the US has pretty much leveled out and has even started to decrease a bit. China’s train has ALSO just started to leave the station, but it’s not going in the same direction as the US…in fact, it’s going in almost the opposite direction. Is it even realistic to think that China will change…CAN they change and keep their economic growth? I think not (JMHO)…and so I think we need to start thinking along the lines of ‘what are we going to do as the climate continues to shift’.
We need the right velocity, though, and that’s a vector-- magnitude and direction. I’m far from convinced we’re moving fast enough.
It’s going to be tough to get China on board. The only way I can see that happening is through technology. But don’t get too hung up on CO2. There are other, more damaging greenhouse gases, like methane. There’s less methane, but it’s more damaging and still causes about half the damage as CO2.
We will have to agree to disagree. I think we are moving as fast as we could reasonably be expected to move. And I think that the train will pick up momentum in the next few years and get really rolling well. The signs are all there for me at least. You can hardly watch a cable show these days without one company or the other doing a commercial about going green. Chevy has a new series of commercials touting their 5 part strategy in new vehicles, and at least 3 car companies are advertising for hydrogen powered cars that will be available by 2010 (if the world is ready for them then). BP is an old standby for green, but I’ve noted that Chevron another energy company who’s name escapes me are also jumping on the bandwagon. The font of evilness, Walmart, is making huge strides in going green. Hell, even the rinky dink little company I work for has gone to florescent light bulbs, put in more insulation and upgraded our support fleet with newer, more efficient vehicles. We are also talking about switching from diesel generators for our monitoring trailers to a solar power arrangement.
The momentum is just starting to reach critical mass to get this thing off the ground…I think it will continue to accelerate in the months and years to come…and it will drive us in new directions of technology that aren’t even on the drawing boards today.
To move any faster at this point you’d need to have the government dictate by fiat what we need to do (and then enforce those rules). You’d have people (like me) fighting those intrusions…instead of voluntarily going along with them. You’d have special interest groups on both side bending and shaping those dictates for their own purposes and agenda…and politicians and actors putting in their two cents on how they think things should be. You’d have, in short the circus like cluster fuck we generally get when this kind of thing is pushed down the publics throats…as opposed to letting the public figure out what they want with perhaps a nudge of guidance here or a small bump there.
Ummm … before you get too hung up on methane rather than CO2, you should note that the methane levels in the atmosphere have stabilized in the last decade, and are no longer increasing.
), and that I would be amenable to paying attention to it if I were to be convinced that it was true. Further, I would think that my willingness to look at the sites that you and NurseCarmen and jshore have linked to would demonstrate this further. I’m not adamantly opposed to coming to the conclusion that global warming exists; I just want to be able to have faith that the information I’m getting is reasonable and accurate.