I have a response stuck in moderation -> no idea why, it’s short… so really short -> yep, but you’ll like the slightly longer version better, it will help you understand my first one (and yes, your’s would be the third side, but I was trying to point out the provided “option” we’ve been told is the only one didn’t even work given only two”sides”, and the “concern” wasn’t real…) -> and I hate the whole “sides” thing when talking about science. I honestly never knew it had such before…

– yes, that too! And I assuredly only mean nature in the sense that I don’t need some bureaucrat telling me what I ought to be doing, sort of like the ship builder doesn’t need to pay head to the fool babbling about it being pointless. That guy wining about using up all the driftwood must be with the Government…

However, given a choice between nature and the idiots I worked for once, I’ll take my chances with nature if it comes to that!

Should the boat-builder stop building boats and instead give up the few boats he has to rescue people who plan to sit in them and whine about how they’re all doomed? Create, or redistribute?

I don’t plan to let nature sort it out. That’s where we started off, before technology and industrialisation, and it was horrible. I would plan to do something to rescue more people from the water – and people complaining that I was plundering the ocean’s finite supply of driftwood would receive a thorough ignoring.

But I doubt the other guy in the boat is going to be overtly interested in hearing how one of those dudes floating around him is more important, so he should just, you know, give up his seat and jump out so one of those more valuable types can maybe climb in…

There are going to be winners and loosers in any aspect of “living”, I’d rather nature sort it out then my government…

Everybody seems to agree that AGW will do whatever it’s gonna do, and that we aren’t saving anyone.

Now, normally I don’t begrudge people their coping mechanisms, but when it comes to matters of very likely significant mass death it makes me cranky. Serious problems do not become less serious by promising oneself that, well, people will just HAVE to stop things and save themselves! Because they don’t “have to”, or at any rate, they quite likely can’t. So the cornucopian fortune-cookies get really tiresome really quickly.

If two men are on a small lifeboat listening to the cries of thousands drowning nearby, beyond their capacity to save, it is in bad taste for one of them to suggest that maybe they’ll all learn to hold their breath longer, no matter how earnest he is. Accept what’s really happening or keep the delusions private.

So the answer is to throw the entire population of the world into the same abject poverty that leads to no options? Somehow I fail to see how this helps.

Alarmists don’t seem to have any issue at all about the millions who will die as a result of the termination of the energy flows that we are told is the only way to save everyone (and we simply can’t feed them without it, today’s farming is beyond dependent on energy at all levels, and the governmental rules don’t allow you to try to get out of such. I own a farm, so if you want to argue that you better have your ducks in a row…).

In other words, both sides basically agree we aren’t saving everyone, so the argument about one’s concern for all those poor people is only somewhat believable…

But a lot of human lives will.

The adaptationist-cornucopianist crowd remains as obliviously cocooned in their own privilege as they’ve always been. They don’t grasp just how tenuously many millions of people currently cling to survival and just how little adaptation those people are capable of or could survive. Any sudden environmental change would be a disaster for the world’s poor, and sloganeering about how awesome freedom is will not change anything for them. I’d almost rather these “glibertarians” would just ignore the whole thing, since they’re not helping.

Speaking of which, having seen Nullius proclaim that exact point–that if the neighborhood glacier melts away, why, the local water-starved people should “just” build a dam or “just” move away or “just” adapt, before, y’know, their babies die–you can include me out of the lovefest.

Thanks for coming back and contributing so much!

On “occupy” it depends on what you mean. Someone chooses to use a military meaning to imply that I regard us as aliens in our home. That is a way of making me look evil, and the approach demonstrates a fundamental dishonesty about the real issue, which is that we are trashing that home.

It was your phrase, so it depends on what you mean actually. My aliens comments was actually me being nice. I was actually concerned it was a anti-semitic statement, referencing the Israeli “occupation” of Palestine, though I’m sure that’s not what you meant.

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Our planet IS finite, and our population IS growing. It’s a case of an irresistible force (ever expanding consumption by an expanding population) meeting an immovable object (our earth and its atmosphere and dynamics). Sure it was hot before, but at that point it was inhospitable to mammals and many other forms of life.

The planets resources are infinite, but variable. Nullius makes a fantastic argument that chickens are infinite. The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. The horse age didn’t end because we ran out of horses. The carbon age won’t end because we run out of carbon.

You may also take now that the earth is in fact, a “moveable” object, in that it is in constant motion around the sun. Likewise, mammals were just fine in earlier hotter conditions.

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It takes fewer than a dozen full-time commenters to create an entirely false appearance.

Funny, I always say the same thing about climate scientists.

Why should good scientists (it takes skill, intelligence, and dedication to qualify in the field) waste their time regenerating responses to many thousands of times repeated questions that have already been answered? They have real work to do. For responses on multiple levels to popular fake skeptic memes, try this:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/

An excellent example is the original kerfuffle with Dr. Curry. She refused to answer straightforward scientific questions, with a combination of fudge and fluff, and after a while she became quite accusatory. As a witness of the original exchange, I was startled at the worn out tactic of attacking the questioner being substituted for thought and reflection. The polite and respectful way Dr. Schmidt treated her was then misrepresented multiple times. His respect was evident over at Collide-a-Scape and was the only thing that convinced me she was a qualified scientist. Her insistence that we all read Montford when we could be looking at much more useful literature, and that our refusal to do so condemned us, was revealing. It’s all too easy to collate denialist efforts and imply that they trump real hard work and world developments. How the accusations were shifted over to Dr. Schmidt was a study in tactics, but not a study in truth except the truth that the supposedly skeptic world is anything but.

I’m a huge fan of Chris Mooney, and will continue to look to see what he is saying; as to commenters one might point out incorrect or inconsistent views, but there is not much hope of changing their views. I’d recommend skepticism, the real kind that doesn’t give a free pass on one side and use a microscope on the other. The recent Spencer paper is a good example: all of a sudden computer models are good because he uses an inadequate one which others have exaggerated to make false claims.

I’m much more concerned about the way meaning is distorted in our world, and finding a way to get past it to the truth.

On “occupy” it depends on what you mean. Someone chooses to use a military meaning to imply that I regard us as aliens in our home. That is a way of making me look evil, and the approach demonstrates a fundamental dishonesty about the real issue, which is that we are trashing that home.

Evidence for that is all around you. I’m sick of the scream track that is now mandatory on our entertainment. The sensation indicated by the scream has no value after a second or two, and the money and material that goes into providing that sensation is leading us to a mountain of waste and ever-increasing consumption. Our planet IS finite, and our population IS growing. It’s a case of an irresistible force (ever expanding consumption by an expanding population) meeting an immovable object (our earth and its atmosphere and dynamics). Sure it was hot before, but at that point it was inhospitable to mammals and many other forms of life.

On RealClimate, I suggest people make up their own minds. As a regular lurker there (I’m not enough of a scientist to contribute to its real business, science) I go right through the comments and links and find a lot of learn. If anyone is interested in my opinion, I think they too could learn a lot there. If they are just interested in trashing it and me, be Chris’s guest (and others). Their comment policy allows a discussion between interested people. Any comment policy that does not remove irrelevant, repetitive, and ignorant material along with attacks, quickly becomes a hangout for the boring routine of denial, often anonymous (see DotEarth, Guardian, BBC). DeSmogBlog has wisely decided to clear this up a bit. It takes fewer than a dozen full-time commenters to create an entirely false appearance.