OK, micadelic has been at it again. Because I don’t blog all that much, I’m taking it out to the main page.
First, the soft ball:
And Michael, you should know that science is not based on “consensus, it’s based on facts. Politics are based on consensus and that’s exactly what this global warming scam is, politics. Socialists looking for another reason to tax the rich and give to the government.
This is, of course, completely wrong. As I’ve written about elsewhere, theories don’t become facts, facts become theories. A fact in science is something like “We measured the temperature at time t and it was 64.3 degrees”. That is a fact. Theories, even fantastically successful ones, like the universal theory of gravitation, are never considered facts by scientists. Science is absolutely about consensus, peer review, repeatability of results and all sorts of messy social constructs. Still, it is unbelievably successful, which is why your cell phone works and a billion other little miracles you now take for granted.
As to your point, yes, there will always be disagreements. No theory is accepted by everyone. There are people, some kooks and some not, who still argue with the universal theory of gravitation. The number of scientist who don’t accept gravity is tiny and the number of scientists who don’t accept human causes of global climate change is tiny. If you want to “listen to the science”, on the issue of global climate change, the only rational uneducated opinion is that human beings are influencing Earth’s climate, in a way that may be dangerous.
I just don’t fucking understand what is so hard to understand about that. We have billions of people, billions of cars, millions of smokestacks belching forth crap, what the fuck is so mysterious about human causes of global climate change? It is fucking obvious.
Now the harder one:
So, let’s sum this up: Here we have a major American politician who is calling for policies that would impose huge costs on society but appears to be profiting handsomely himself; who is leading an extravagant lifestyle while demanding sacrifices from ordinary people; and who is calling on the media to suppress the views of those with whom he disagrees, while at the same time urging more government regulation in the name of “fairness†to his partisan and ideological allies.
First of all, I can’t take all of this as fact without researching it and I haven’t had time. My point on Al Gore was simple: he is rich. Rich people use more resources than not-rich people. To compare the energy used by Al Gore’s mansion with the average home in Tennessee is dumb. Compare him to other millionaires and I bet he is not above average. Go run the math on Rupert Murdoch and get back to me.
On the issue of carbon credits, I think being conscious of and paying money to offset carbon release is better than not being conscious of and not making payments to offset it. That’s obvious. Again, go report on what Rupert Murdoch or Rush Limbaugh do to offset their carbon. I’ll tell you what they do: nothing. So Al Gore is already doing more than your average rich Rightie.
Is Gore profiting off of his movie and book? I suspect he is. Is the global climate change issue “good” for Al Gore? It probably is. Is he some tool who is making up a fake crisis to line his pockets? Of course not. That is the mistake the Right always makes on this issue: they attribute to the Left the same shallow, money-grubbing motivations that they are used to on the Right.
The notion that the Left is manufacturing this global climate change business for monetary reasons is completely, fucking insane.
I’m not a huge fan of Al Gore and I can believe that he is imperfect. But this whole story started because a the Right reported an absolute baseless hatchet job, comparing him to the average Tennessean, an area which does suffer from poverty, and that is obvious political bullshit designed to discredit global climate change, which has growing acceptance by the experts who study it, in spite of the fact that we all wish it wasn’t true.
The Right is completely politically motivated on this issue, they don’t even try to understand the science (go to the GCDIS for example, and read up a bit) and their newest tactic is also their oldest: character assassination, and it should be obvious to everyone.
lolife 
You make the mistake of characterizing all conservatives as some sort of homogeneous mass. Doing so shows an intellectual laziness on your part.. Saying shit like “conservatives realized there was more money fucking up the environment” also shows an intellectual shallowness. Believe it or not, conservatives are also fathers, mothers, grandfathers who do care for their children and families and do not wish to pollute the very environment in which they live. They also don’t favor things like welfare reform “because they “hate black people” or are because they are “racist.” Characterizations such as this does nothing to further your point. Just like Ann Coulter, you just pander to the hard-core and do nothing to convince the other side that your argument has merit.
Fore example, you won’t catch me saying that liberals want to “kill babies.” I am against abortion but I don’t think liberals actually want to kill babies. Your rhetoric is the equivalent of this and if you want to have a serious conversation, make a cogent point in an intelligent manner and I would be glad to respond. If you can’t do that, I’ve got no use for you. k?
And your response to my comparing the earth to my body… Duh, I’m not as stupid as you believe, of course radioactivity. or a particularly lethal virus is one thing and a common cold virus in another. Of course radioactivity would be harmful to the environment as a whole or a flu pandemic could be devastating to the human population. You do nothing in your post to demonstrate that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity is the equivalent of a human body being infected by an ebola virus. To draw such a comparison, in my view, is ridiculous.
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conservatives, long ago, were conservationists..until they realized they was more money in fucking up the enviornment. They are about to switch back because very soon the big money will be in cleaning up the dung pile they created.
you comparison of the earth to your body?? partially believable…until you think about what a few particles of radioactive shit will do or huff up some ebola…doesnt’ take much of that to make a guy mess his drawers….so I guess it is “what” germs you “get on you”….and thus “how we fuck up the earth.”
we are not talking about tossing beer cans in the ditch here…we are talking about shit melting at significant rates…we are talking about a rapid rate of change hither to not experienced…
it might be worth paying attention to??
it might be a topic that we don’t rely on Fox News to give us the answers? or Bush or Cheney…
and I actually think Gore is kind of a dick, but he has been pounding this issue for a long time
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Yes, science can be wrong. But it’s mostly right. We are very lucky to have a bunch of scientists working on this issue for us and the last thing we should do is ignore them. Consensus is the best we ever have, with all its flaws.
It’s possible that what you say is true. It’s possible. I’ve been pretty consistent in terms of saying: we need to do the science and have a plan in case we forecast a catastrophic event. The Right, apparently, doesn’t want to consider this at all! Why is that?
Also, I’m not saying that the rich *should* use more resources, just stating the fact that they do. My point is also that we would be better off with more Al Gores than more Rush Limbaughs.
There is more we can argue about, of course, but Al Gore’s electric bill is not really germane to the issue of global warming. I suspect he will be a much better example in the future though!
This issue to me is very much like the debate on evolution. A whole bunch of people who know nothing about the science having ridiculously strong opinions based on their political (or religious) goals.
Science is not partisan. Scientists can be, perhaps, science is not. Period.
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PS: I don’t think anyone has yet to explain to me the simultaneous melting of the Martian polar icecaps. Seems like a pretty weird coincidence.
If the ice caps on Mars are melting because the Martian climate is getting warmer, doesn’t it make sense that the Earth would be warming too as a result of the same root cause?
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First of all, I’m not completely wrong. What I am saying is a consensus does not equal a fact. At one time the consensus was that the earth was flat and the center of the universe, both of these consensus views have been proven false.
In the 70s, the consensus view was that we were headed for a period of global cooling, another ice age. This consensus view turned out to be false also.
I understand about peer review, and consensus, and how facts become theories. Facts do become theories but consensus does not equal fact.
As to your wonderment of how someone cannot understand how billions of people and millions of factories could possibly not affect climate change, it’s a matter of scale. We’re a big planet and the atmosphere is a huge system. Compare it to my body, can you believe that I could be infected by millions and billions of germs and bacteria and not get sick? How could anyone possibly believe that?
The climate of the earth has fluctuated wildly over billions of years. In fact, we are in a relatively cool period right now so it make sense that the earth should be warming. There was a time that Antarctica was free of ice. There was a time when Chicago was covered by ice. And you think that we should be able to control the client within a margin of 1 or 2 degrees. THAT is insane.
Answer this for me, what is the proper temperature of the earth and how do you propose to maintain that temperature indefinitely? What if we start heading into another ice age? How do you propose we (or future generations) ward that off? I think that saying we can control global climate indefinitely by controlling carbon emissions is flat out stupid.
And no, the left is not manufacturing this crisis for monetary/business reasons, they are manufacturing it for political reasons. It’s about power and the defeat of the evil right. As I said, global warming is the trojan horse of socialism.
And your statement to the effect of “of course Gore uses more carbon, he’s rich” or something to that effect is surprising. The richer you are, the more you get to pollute the environment? There are lots of really rich people who also walk the walk. People who build green homes and actually live an eco-friendly lifestyle. Darrel Hannah, Ed Begley, etc. Have you ever been to the high desert of New Mexico? Lots of super rich (and not so rich) people who have built “earth ships” that operate off the grid. In fact, if Al Gore was so concerned about carbon emissions, he could build quite an environmentally friendly estate and live off the grid. His wealth would actually allow him the means to do this. But apparently, he doesn’t believe that carbon emissions are the problem, or else he would lead by example instead of practicing the hypocrisy of privilege.
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