Scott A. Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences
Selden, NY
Global Warming: Man or Myth?
My Global Warming Blog
Twitter @AGW_Prof
“Global Warming Fact of the Day” Facebook Group

RE 51,52,53:

Help me out with this, I am really confused.

Someone else has an opinion blog and they are blasting you, saying that you don’t have any business posting your opinion in your own blog?

From what I read of his blog, I really wouldn’t worry about it. His blogging style appears to the be the liberal version of the worst of the conservative talk show hosts. I can see why he blogs anonymously.

No, it’s not what the data says. It’s what your gut says. They’re different.

I always reach this conclusion because that’s what the data says. Wishful thinking can not change the data

Maybe you should ask yourself why your arguments always lead to the conclusion that we shouldn’t bother doing anything at all, and why you feel the need to scold anyone who thinks otherwise.

See, when you suggest a solution to a problem, it is usually useful to ask the following questions:

1. How much time do we have to solve the problem?
2. How much time until the proposed solution has the desired effect?
(3. Is the proposed solution implementable and is it going to have an effect?)

If we are talking about global warming, the answer to the first question is probably a decade, two at most.

The answer to the second question if we take your proposed solution is many many decades. So we have a problem here.

And not only is your “solution” not matching the timescale required, question #3 can not even be answer positively in this case. How exactly are scientists going to run for office if nobody is going to vote for them? They can still run, but if the majority of the population has a deeply rooted mistrust for scientists, very few if any will ever get elected. The same goes for the scientists-communicators – you aren’t going to reach the 50% fundies in this country no matter how good communicator of science you are because they aren’t going to listen at all. And once you look a little bit broader then the US (after you realize that these are global issues and not to be solved in the US only) you would see that it is even worse in about half of the globe.

Of course, once you actually look a little bit in depth at the issues, you realize that AGW is only a part of the sustainability problem, and that the sustainability problem as a whole can not be solved within the framework of the current sociopolitical system, dominant world view and set of values, so it will take a complete and radical reform in all of those to actually do something about it. Which I have no illusion that it’s going to happen, but at least we shouldn’t fool ourselves.

But where the environmental advocacy groups trip over themselves is when they use half truths to make their points. It makes them vulnerable to attack. The scare tactics that are not totally true make them lose credibility when they get debunked.

Specifically:

The idea of the Republicans waging a War on Science.

That is a half truth. The Republicans want to spend a lot of money on science. It is just not in the areas that you want them to. You don’t think Monsanto has a huge number of scientists working for them? They spend huge amounts of money for pharmacology research, weapons research, oil and gas development, coal development, civil engineering research, and many more areas. These are science as well. Just not the science that you want them to spend money on.

The Republicans and the Libertarians are rich and outspend getting the word out. Another half truth. The Democratic party has a huge number of the rich as well. They have just made a pretty good PR campaign convincing people that they are the “anti-elitists”. They have their own private jets and trust funds to play with as well.

You have to educate the people and not talk down to or try to bring out bogey men to haunt their dreams.