How many things are wrong with this video?
Let’s see some serious myth-busting in comments…
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Chris Mooney is host of the Point of Inquiry podcast and the author of three books, The Republican War on Science, Storm World, and Unscientific America. He was recently seen on MSNBC's "The Last Word" discussing "The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science," and recently wrote for The American Prospect magazine about how the reality-based community is moving to the left.
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October 1st, 2009 at 9:37 am
Everything! Where does one begin?
This is so clearly funded by the right it’s ridiculous. Sad anyone buys this crap. Ironic it shows healthy oceans given what extra CO2 is already doing to destroy them. Not sure that’s the worst offense of this campaign though.
October 1st, 2009 at 10:06 am
Cyanide is also not pollution. In fact the body produces it all the time. It’s also found in fruits. Let’s add cyanide to our food supply to give our body an extra boost!
And while we are at it, let’s also encourage people to breathe oxygen from oxygen tanks. Oxygen is so not pollution at all as we all know it is crucial for life.
October 1st, 2009 at 10:16 am
[...] (Via Sheril Kirshenbaum) [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 10:23 am
The simple fact is that CO2 is NOT a pollutant. It’s a naturally occuring gas that is essential for plant life. CO2 is not destroying the oceans. AGW is a politcal myth. Do your own research and find out for yourself instead of being an Al Gore parrot. Note that the ranks of very established and accredited scientists who are now finding fault with the AGW theories are growing daily, while there has been virtually no ‘deniers’ going to the AGW side.
The entire debate has be grossly politicized, and real science is the loser here. A false concensus is not science. The IPCC model is completely broken, and none of the dire predictions made have come true. The Earth has been cooling since at least 1998, with a massive average drop in temperature from 2006 to today of .75 degrees F.
This winter in the northern parts of the northern hemisphere will be very, very cold and wet. Thank the gods that the economic disaster that is cap-and-trade [tax-and-redistribute] is probably dead for good as we enter into a few decades of colder weather.
I look forward to the hoards of cork-sniffing elistists posting their usual rants about how us deniers are ignorant, stupid apes, and slaves of the fascist right-wing, etc. Those are always fun to read…
October 1st, 2009 at 11:10 am
Maybe humans will just evolve to accommodate the large amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Since the amount of oxygen we’ll be able to breathe will go down, the amount of CO2 in the body will go up, acidifying our blood. So maybe our great-great-grandchildren will have bodies that can handle a state of acidosis. OR, maybe we should fix this CO2 problem now before our children’s children turn into acid-blood mutants in order to survive.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:20 am
Michael,
I did my own Research. You are right. Gore is wrong. He has totally UNDER ESTIMATED the effects of AGW.
When I leave this world, I want to know that it will be a good place to live, for all my descendants, until the 7th generation. I guess you want to party now.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am
Well actually WaPo reports on the forces behind this, a veteran oil industry executive and a leading shareholder in the coal-mining business: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/AR2009092404797.html?hpid=sec-business
“They have formed two groups — CO2 Is Green designated for advocacy and Plants Need CO2 for education — with about $1 million. Plants Need CO2 has applied for 501(c)(3) tax status, so that contributions would qualify as charitable donations…”
These are the specific claims:
1. Congress is considering a law that would classify carbon dioxide as pollution.
The 1400 or so page Waxman Markey bill considers a lot of things but nothing as suggested here. The sense in which CO2 is considered a pollution is not by it’s immediate toxicity, but indirectly by it’s effect on the planetary environment by global warming effects.
2. This will cost us jobs.
Seems like a poor attempt at scare tactics to me. The bill proposes the creation of green jobs. There will be a necessity to invest in development and building of alternative energy sources. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect it will neither create nor cost jobs.
3. There is no scientific evidence that CO2 is a pollutant.
In the sense they are talking about it on their website no. Clean water isn’t a pollutant either in this sense, in fact you can’t even survive without it. Yet if I hold your head in it for half an hour, you will not live to tell. The difference here is not in the toxicity of the substance, but the effects it has on your well being due it’s place relative to you.
4. Higher CO2 levels than we have today would help the earth’s ecosystems and would support more plant and animal life.
Ecosystems are being wrecked already and biodiversity will diminish, which in turn contributes to the collapse of ecosystems to which the plant or animal belong to. Because of changes in seasonal temperature and humidity cycles fungi and diseases can spread more easily in certain insects, which can have devastating effects on insect-populations and in turn again on the ecosystems they are part of.
5. More CO2 results in a greener earth.
It results in more rain in regions with already high humidity and longer droughts and less rain and stronger winds in extremely dry areas, expansion of deserts.
6. We all need CO2.
Humans and animals don’t need CO2 at all, but we are biochemically fairly immune to it in the concentrations it naturally occurs. Of course plants do, but they are very, very efficient at extracting CO2 from the air and have evolved to cope exactly with the cards they are dealt, as animals have. Like we don’t need any more oxygen in the air, which would in fact be harmful to our metabolism – speeds up cellular aging processes – plants don’t need any more carbondioxide.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:28 am
The central issue here lies in the definition of “pollutant”. The central idea of pollution is releasing something into the environment in harmful quantities. The crux of the matter lies in the quantity of the material released. The tiny amount of radioactive material in your smoke detector would not constitute a pollutant when you throw it away; a few pounds of hot rad waste fresh from a reactor core would certainly constitute a pollutant.
Thus, the question becomes, “Is the amount we are considering injurious to the environment?” On that count, the answer is clear. Global warming is unquestionably caused by CO2, and is unquestionably detrimental to the overall environment.
The ad claims that CO2 makes the earth greener. This is correct. An earth with higher CO2 concentrations will indeed have more net biomass. However, biomass is not necessarily a measure of environmental success. To advance civilization, we need the global environment to remain fairly stable. If sea levels rise, coastal regions are flooded, large regions become drier and other large regions wetter, the overall effect will indeed be more biomass, but it will also mean the loss of stupendous amounts of infrastructure and enormous social conflict. Who compensates the billion or so people who may lose their homes to rising sea levels? And if everybody else refuses to compensate them, will they not turn to violence?
Michael, if you are indeed well informed about AGW, then I ask you to cite statements in the National Academy of Sciences reports on climate change that you consider to be incorrect, and to explain why you consider them to be incorrect. If you know what you are talking about, you should already know that material and should have no problem quoting the parts that you find objectionable, and explaining why.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:41 am
Oy, why do you give matches to children like this? It’s pretty well-established that these online debates rarely change a mind. They simply cause even deeper entrenchment on either side of the issue.
I laughed pretty heartily at this clip, but at the same time I find it sad that somewhere along the line, a decision was made that this tripe would convince some people to contact their representative.
All that being said, I still harbor skepticism that the science is as solid as some would like us to believe. Unload your flamethrowers, kids, I believe in using less, but I also know that there are interests funding both sides of this argument. Let’s all just admit that there aren’t any untainted observers in this tableau, and maybe then it can get past political/idealogical slurs.
Trying to distill the workings of the chaotic system that is Earth into one or two discrete factors just won’t work. I hate to say this, but my weatherman can’t tell me the forecast for next month, so I find it hard to just accept that scientists know what the next 2 centuries will bring.
Again, I believe in being efficient, but let’s let science be science and not turn it into quasi-religious zealotry, on either side.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:51 am
Erasmussimo, you can’t say that something is unquestionably so until you’ve ruled out all possible alternatives. You’re treading the path to zealotry, and won’t win any converts.
The scale of this issue, the unique nature of it, all disallow speaking in absolutes. You cannot replicate the Earth and experiement on this replica, so we are left with any number of incomplete models from which to infer an answer. It is reasonable to conclude that increased CO2 concentrations could aid in rising temperatures. The science supports that. That, truly, is all the further you can go.
If you draw a line in the sand, you cannot be surprised that some will choose to be on the opposite side as you.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:56 am
OK, Doug, that’s fair. I’ll replace the first use of “unquestionably” with “almost certainly” and the second use of “unquestionably” with “very likely”. Fair enough?
October 1st, 2009 at 12:30 pm
How many things are wrong with this video? One: Politics. Tuesday night’s The Word on Stephen Colbert is appropriate.
October 1st, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I hope that was a joke.
October 1st, 2009 at 1:09 pm
That’s much more reasonable. I’m not going to be an idiot and say there’s no evidence, but in dealing with those who flatly deny any link between CO2 and increasing temperatures, we all have to avoid stepping into their arena and speaking in absolutes. It’s too easy to disprove an absolute statement.
Use less, it just makes sense.
October 1st, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Here is one man’s method of dealing with the kind of people who created and believe that video:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/09/25/notes092509.DTL
October 1st, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Unfortunately the climate debate is 100% politics and 0% science.
The rules of science are very simple and so the point above is easy to prove:
1. In the history of science the vast majority of models and theories produced by scientists have been proven wrong by experiments, only a tiny fraction survived.
2. Due to 1 trustworthy scientific predictions can only be based on those theories and models which repeatedly passed experimental verification.
3. So far there is not a single climate model which has been shown to make accurate predictions concerning average global temperature on timescales relevant to global warming problem (5-100 years), in fact we don’t even have a model which passed such test once and for a model to be considered experimentally verified it has to pass it many times. It is easy to see that it will take considerable time before we have such a model due to timescale involved.
4. From 2 and 3 it naturally follows that there are no credible scientific predictions concerning future average global temperatures.
5. To prove an effect of a certain perturbation on a complex system one has two options: experiment or simulation. If one choses experiment one has to perform it at least twice, once without perturbation and once with it and then compare results (actually it has to be performed many more times if the system is not 100% deterministic, but that’s not important).
6. Due to 1 if one choses a simulation one has to use experimentally verified model for the results to be trustworthy.
7. Applying 5 to the case of establishing the effect of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on global climate we find that we cannot rely on experiment since we cannot “run it again” without anthropogenic CO2, we are therefore left with simulations, however those are ruled out also due to 6 and 3.
This simple reasoning shows that science has no role to play in the whole global warming/climate change issue until climatologists develop a successful climate model which passes experimental verification in other words is shown to reliably (with acceptable level of error) predict climate on the timescale of decades.
I’ve already posted a variant of this some time ago but it’s worth repeating since many people are quite confused as to what science can and cannot do. Some confuse the things scientists say with science, others have an idealistic notion that science can answer almost any question. In reality science is quite limited. It works so good where it does because it follows one simple rule – experiment decides everything. From it comes it’s great strength – objectivity (not perfect but the best we can get), yet it is also a great limitation in many areas in which experiments are difficult to perform, control or interpret or are simply impossible.
This leads me to a general rule of scientific credibility – the harder it is to set up experiments in a given branch of science the less trustworthy it’s results are.
In climate science experiments are pretty much impossible.
October 1st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Oxygen is more poisonous than CO2. The ad puts a completely misleading spin on the nature of CO2. As for climate change, I don’t think there’s any doubt that CO2 levels have been increasing and that man has caused them to do so. I am much more skeptical about computer models since I work in a field (computational chemistry) where even “simple” models routinely fail. With something as complex as the climate I wouldn’t put much trust in those computer models. Therefore what exactly should be done and what it would do the climate is far less clear than the cause.
October 1st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Arrow, your reasoning is flawed in many ways. For example, in your first step, you claim that the “vast majority” of models and theories produced by scientists have been proven wrong. What do you consider a model or theory? A quick suggestion at a conference? An idea broached over lunch? Something that gets written up as a paper? What we’re talking about here is a gigantic intellectual edifice that has been built and tested by literally thousands of scientists. I don’t think your comparison is applicable here. For example, the basic mechanism of AGW has been endorsed by no less than the National Academy of Sciences. They have a written record of their declarations stretching over 140 years. And not one single pronouncement of theirs has ever been shown to be wrong.
2. The overall AGW hypothesis has been subjected to literally thousands of tests. It makes predictions regarding the change of thermoclines in the oceans — predictions that have been verified. It makes predictions regarding sea ice in the Arctic Ocean — predictions that have been verified. It makes predictions regarding damage to coral reefs — predictions that have been verified. It’s not the case that the overall hypothesis has not been tested. It’s just that you don’t know the verifications that have been found.
3. This argument turns on your use of the term “accurate”. How much accuracy do you require? I should think that the level of accuracy required is that needed to reasonably demonstrate that significant damage will be wreaked upon humanity. And the climate models have indeed been accurate enough to support that conclusion.
4. Since 2 and 3 are incorrect, 4 is also incorrect.
5 & 6: You’re way off the mark here. You don’t need to perform experiments on the entire system — you need only carry out experiments on parts of the system. For example, our national security with regards to nuclear war now rests on scientific conclusions based not on actual nuclear detonations, but on very careful laboratory tests that measure specific ramifications of a bomb design. Hence, it’s a combination of theory and experiment that decides the issue. In our case, it’s a combination of theory and measurement. And the evidence derived from advancing theory and amassing measurements continues to support the basic AGC hypothesis with increasing levels of confidence.
7. This point is also demolished by the argument regarding points 5 & 6. Science is nowhere near so simple-minded as requiring the reproduction of an entire system in the lab. How do you think we know about the interiors of stars? We’ve never been there, we have never even seen them, but we’ve had a pretty good idea of stellar interiors since Chandresekhar 70 years ago.
October 1st, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Erasmussimo, I think the comparison with stellar interiors is not very valid. We know much more about stellar interiors than we know about all the very diverse components influencing climate change, especially the chemistry of soil and the exact interaction between the climate and the biosphere. Plus I am not sure chaos in stellar interiors (with respect to the average final outcome) is as pronounced.
Your analogy with nuclear weapons is also not entirely valid here. The laboratory experiments which you mention are based on the actual tests that were done. Data from these tests was collected in computer codes and these codes were then used to evaluate laboratory testing. Plus, a significant number of scientists are very skeptical about the results of these lab tests for precisely the same reasons (not that I am advocating going back to testing). And again, the global climate is far more complex than a nuclear weapon.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Erasmussimo,
more CO2 will not necessarily make the Earth greener. Plants need other things besides CO2 to grow. This is not 21st Century science – it’s 19th Century science – check out ‘Liebig’s Law of the Minimum’.
One thing that increased CO2 may do is disrupt the growth of plants:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17617-wheat-gets-worse-as-cosub2sub-rises.html
October 1st, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Sorbet, I wasn’t equating either stellar interiors or nuclear weapons with global climate; I was confuting this claim:
To prove an effect of a certain perturbation on a complex system one has two options: experiment or simulation. If one choses experiment one has to perform it at least twice, once without perturbation and once with it and then compare results
In fact, scientists have been able to evaluate plenty of difficult situations using indirect data. That’s the key point here: you don’t need to literally reproduce every detail in order to obtain reliable results. You can test a few key indicators and, if they support your hypothesis, you can reasonably conclude that the rest falls into line. That’s what has been done with stellar interiors and nuclear explosions — and climate models.
The complexity of the system doesn’t make it inscrutable. Our best evidence here is that there are multiple models of the complex system using completely different approaches, yet they agree on the broad outlines. Those areas in which they disagree remain questionable. But when all the models agree that global temperatures will be rising in the next century, we can place a great deal of confidence in them.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Eamon, I was composing my previous response when you posted. You’re right, it’s not an iron law that more CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to more biomass. However, I think it fair to project that increases in CO2 concentrations will lead to increases in overall biomass. It’s true that some species, especially those that are tightly tuned to their current environmental conditions, will suffer from changes in atmospheric CO2. But other species will prosper. Of course, the distribution of species that benefit and lose from increased atmospheric CO2 might be inimical to our interests. We could well get lots more weeds and lots less wheat.
October 1st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
So don’t complain when you are assessed an exhalation tax for polluting the atmosphere with your toxic fumes.
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:21 am
@Sarah: evolution works too slowly. If an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere were an immediate threat to individuals, more resistant humans would survive while the rest die off, but that would be due to mutations which may have happened quite some time in the past and which didn’t hinder humans. Fortunately for humans (as far as breathable air goes), CO2 concentrations would have to rise to about 10,000ppm or more to be really bad. If we can push the atmosphere to about 2,000ppm humans will have perpetual ‘sick building syndrome’.
So there’s no threat as far as breathing is concerned, but the world as we know it can change drastically long before we get to even 2,000ppm.
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 am
I wonder how Michael is related to Morano.
“The Earth has been cooling since at least 1998, with a massive average drop in temperature from 2006 to today of .75 degrees F”
AWRK! Polly want a cracker? Wow – talk about parrots. Aside from the ‘facts’ being outright wrong, the claim of cooling is utterly ridiculous if one merely looks back 30 years to see how much cooler the globe was then.
AWRK! Do you own research! AWRK!
I just have to laugh at those people who parrot “do your own research – I did and …”; it reminds me a lot of religious zealots who swear they were once godless fornicators who were saved one day …
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 am
@Doug: So who’s funding the pro-global warming club? It’s pretty obvious who’s funding the “there’s no such thing as AGW” club. And what would be gained by the pro-warming group?
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 am
Erasmussimo, your reasoning is flawed in many ways.
I’ll quote myself and your answers below just to show you how bad your reasoning is and how you misrepresent what I say:
Arrow: “1. In the history of science the vast majority of models and theories produced by scientists have been proven wrong by experiments, only a tiny fraction survived.”
Erasmussimo: “in your first step, you claim that the “vast majority” of models and theories produced by scientists have been proven wrong. What do you consider a model or theory? A quick suggestion at a conference? An idea broached over lunch? Something that gets written up as a paper?”
If you don’t know what models and theories mean look it up instead of winding up a silly rhetoric.
A: “2. Due to 1 trustworthy scientific predictions can only be based on those theories and models which repeatedly passed experimental verification.”
E: “2. The overall AGW hypothesis has been subjected to literally thousands of tests.”
My second point doesn’t even mention AGW.
A: “3. So far there is not a single climate model which has been shown to make accurate predictions concerning average global temperature on timescales relevant to global warming problem (5-100 years)…”
E: “3. This argument turns on your use of the term “accurate”.”
No, it relies on the fact that there was not enough time since the models where developed for their predictions to be repeatedly tested.
A: “4. From 2 and 3 it naturally follows that there are no credible scientific predictions concerning future average global temperatures.”
E: “4. Since 2 and 3 are incorrect, 4 is also incorrect.”
You have yet to show they are incorrect.
A: “5. To prove an effect of a certain perturbation on a complex system one has two options: experiment or simulation. If one choses experiment one has to perform it at least twice, once without perturbation and once with it and then compare results (actually it has to be performed many more times if the system is not 100% deterministic, but that’s not important).”
E: “5 & 6: You’re way off the mark here. You don’t need to perform experiments on the entire system — you need only carry out experiments on parts of the system….”
Since Sorbet already answered those points, I’ll get to your next reply:
E: “Sorbet, I wasn’t equating either stellar interiors or nuclear weapons with global climate; I was confuting this claim:
To prove an effect of a certain perturbation on a complex system one has two options: experiment or simulation. If one choses experiment one has to perform it at least twice, once without perturbation and once with it and then compare results
In fact, scientists have been able to evaluate plenty of difficult situations using indirect data.”
The claim is of course correct, the key is the word “prove” with indirect experiments you cannot prove much unless the system is simple. If it is as complex as climate you have to make hundreds of assumptions to try to deduce anything from fragmentary or indirect data, this makes your conclusions completely unconvincing to those who don’t buy your assumptions.
E: “That’s the key point here: you don’t need to literally reproduce every detail in order to obtain reliable results…The complexity of the system doesn’t make it inscrutable. ”
You do need to reproduce every detail if the system is sufficiently complex (unless you can *prove* the detail to be irrelevant). Complexity is the key. If that was not the case we wouldn’t need chemistry, material science, biology, sociology, climatology, etc because we would be able to derive all of their results from physics. In reality we need them because when a system reaches a certain level of complexity it ceases to be a simple combination of it’s constituents and completely new qualities emerge.
Anyway Errasmussmio, I don’t expect to convince a global warming zealot such as yourself, so I probably won’t devote any more time to this pointless discussion.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:59 am
Arrow, in an effort to be brief, I’ll address only a few of your points, although I could, were I inclined to burden the readers with a mountain of text, address the entire thing. But let’s focus on what I think are your most important mistakes.
The single biggest mistake you make is that you desire proof. There’s no such thing as proof in science. Proof is a logical concept that can be applied to logical or mathematical theorems. It can’t be used in science. Nothing in the history of science has ever been proven. Plenty of things have been disproven, but nothing has been proven, or could be proven. So by demanding proof, you establish an unrealistic criterion. What really happens in science is that hypotheses are offered, poked at, modified, refined, and those hypotheses that don’t take a body blow are eventually accepted by the majority of scientists. And what is the criterion for acceptance? The opinion of the majority of scientists. A lot of non-scientists seem to think that science is some sort of mathematical game in which experiment leads inevitably to proof or disproof. They’re wrong. It’s just a matter of scientists as a group coming around to accepting an idea. Read the classic work by Thomas Kuhn, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”.
On the matter of AGW, the opinions of the great bulk of scientists are very clear: the basic AGW hypothesis is sound, and if we continue on our present course, by the end of this century civilization will face environmental problems that will be hugely expensive to cope with.
So why would a non-scientist such as yourself reject the considered judgement of the bulk of the scientists? It cannot be because your scientific judgement is superior to theirs; clearly, you’re an amateur denying the judgement of the professionals. What would motivate somebody to take such an illogical position? I can’t say what the answer is in your case, but I can say that the majority of AGW deniers that I have spent time with eventually reveal their reasoning. It goes something like this:
1. I’m a member of the right-wing tribe.
2. My tribe opposes the left-wing tribe.
3. The left-wing tribe thinks that AGW is true.
4. Therefore, my tribe thinks that AGW is false.
5. I am loyal to my tribe.
6. Therefore, I conclude that AGW is false.
7. I’ll concoct a morass of rationalizations to create the impression that I arrived at this conclusion by logical means.
I don’t know if this is the reasoning in your head, but I know of very few AGW deniers who DON’T follow this reasoning.
October 3rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Oh, I must add that there are also plenty of people who follow this line of reasoning:
1. I’m a member of the left-wing tribe.
2. My tribe opposes the right-wing tribe.
3. The left-wing tribe thinks that AGW is true.
4. I am loyal to my tribe.
5. Therefore, I conclude that AGW is true.
6. I’ll concoct a morass of rationalizations to create the impression that I arrived at this conclusion by logical means.
The way to differentiate this kind of thinking from the truly rational approach is to determine the degree of knowledge that the person has about the topic. Have they read the IPCC reports? The NAS reports? Do they understand the basic underlying science? Are they familiar with the primary arguments from both sides?
October 4th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Next time you hear someone insist that climate change doesn’t require immediate action, ask them to sign away all future benefits for themselves and all progeny in perpetuity from any publicly-financed programs that will combat climate change effects. That includes seawater rise, more intense tropical storms, drought impact on food prices, wildfire damages, disease-carrying mosquitos, skin cancer, etc., etc.
Secondly, models don’t matter anymore. We are already locked into loss of glaciers and surface ice sheets that must set in motion permanent temperature and sea water rises that will feed on themselvs. Even if all causes were reversed to year 1850 levels, it would require thousands of years to re-form those lost sun-reflecting areas. And if the methane trapped in Greenland and the most vulnerable portins of Antarctica get released, we are talking about an additional 5 degree rise globally, because CH4 has 38 times the impact of CO2.
But suppose the wingnuts really wanted to offer up a credible argument against reducing carbon emissions. Well here’s one free of charge:
There’s a good chance mankind has already dawdled too long. Then, it could be too late to act if we’ve gone past the point of no return. If so, we’d be throwing good money after bad with carbon sequestration or emission taxes that reduce our standard of living and economic growth rate. We be poorer and still not save our decendents from destitution or worse (an uninhabitable planet). So, wingnut and lobbyists — if you are struck by a miraculous bout of sanity or ethics, use that argument. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow our grandchildren will die.
Tim Lehay rapture nuts could even advocate hastening the process of climate changing emission so they could experience the 2nd coming in their lifetimes. Those folks in the Middle East are taking too much time fulfilling the biblical prophesies: the holier than thou fanatics are beginning to fear that Obama fellow might get a peace treaty and de-nuke things, spoiling all their fun. So Plan B is help things along to ensure the rapture occurs before they die from all that fried food and obesity.
October 4th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
EconProf, I don’t believe that global warming will render the planet uninhabitable. It will be hotter in many areas, yes, and there will be inundations. I suspect that most of the damage will come from wars triggered by the social upheavals created by global warming. But even these won’t kill everybody. Yes, we’ll see a grinding down of economic standards — perhaps even a collapse of civilization. But there will still be plenty of people.
October 5th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
I have a sincere question. Warming is most during winter rather than summer, during night rather than the day, and in cold places rather than in warm places. Why then is this not a good thing for people living in cold places?
October 6th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Well, it can certainly be a good thing for people who don’t like the cold, but it might not be good overall for them. For example, a number of villages in Alaska have to be relocated. They were built on what’s called permafrost: wet, muddy ground that’s frozen solid and stays rock-hard all year round. It’s warming up now and their houses are sinking into the mud. So the entire village has to be abandoned and a completely new village has to be built for them on solid ground. That’s very expensive, and it’s happening in many places in Alaska, Canada, and Siberia.
There are a lot of other examples, and this is just one.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:20 am
Nice one.