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AGCC / AGW
It's a religion based on "belief."
Though it claims it is basing its belief on (ahem) "science."
(Such as past observations inferred from archaeological records and recent weather records).
In this case, they are making conclusions based on "belief" in computer models - which have no proof of veracity nor can they be proved.
The net result is NOT science.
Consensus science = nonsense.
...
Frankly, the #1 "greenhouse gas" is water vapor, but no one dares regulate the "hot air" emanating from politicians whose self s-steam is at risk.
If Washington is going to regulate gas (methane) from cows, we should certainly regulate their hot air too.
Actually, I was surprised to find my memories so well supported.
Here's a capsule for you to swallow, too.
"An April 28, 1975 article in Newsweek magazine was titled "The Cooling World",[32] it pointed to "ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change" and pointed to "a drop of half a degree [Fahrenheit] in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968." The article claimed "The evidence in support of these predictions [of global cooling] has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it." The Newsweek article did not state the cause of cooling; it stated that "what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery" and cited the NAS conclusion that "not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions." The article mentioned the alternative solutions of "melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting Arctic rivers" but conceded these were not feasible. The Newsweek article concluded by criticizing government leaders: "But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies...The longer the planners (politicians) delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality." The article emphasized sensational and largely unsourced consequences - "resulting famines could be catastrophic", "drought and desolation," "the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded", "droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons," "impossible for starving peoples to migrate," "the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age."[32]
On October 23, 2006, Newsweek issued a correction, over 31 years after the original article, stating that it had been "so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future" (though editor Jerry Adler claimed that 'the story wasn't "wrong" in the journalistic sense of "inaccurate."').[33]
I tend to think that the modern climate change debate has become like a religion of sorts. It's ironic because many of the proponents of man-caused climate change deride the "non-believers" as bible thumping, religious fundamentalists who favor the old testament over science.
Yet I'd argue that much of the current climate change movement and environmentalism in general smacks of blind religious fervor as well!
The world, to early humans was largely incomprehensible. They invented stories to comfort themselves, stories that eventually contained the notion of gods who where in charge of this large, incomprehensible world. People had a degree of control over their fate with prayer and with following the precepts of whatever religion they subscribed to.
Now, we are doing much the same. For modern man, being utterly and completely at the mercy of the random events of nature is terrifying! We have control over so many aspects of our lives but not over
nature.
So now we have the climate change movement. We are SINNERS who have polluted the earth, we need to repent and clean up out act or face a catastrophic fate like something from the old testament. "Non-believers" are shunned, ostracized and marginalized because they represent the uncomfortable truth that we really DON'T have any control over nature.
The movement hides behind science as infallible, unquestionable and absolute. Things that science NEVER should be! As events like Climategate showed, science can be corrupted by politics, activism and dogma. In addition, a cursory look back at the many failed predictions of the science should be enough to raise doubt in anyone's mind.
With that said, I don't deny the need to be good stewards of the environment, I don't think these things need to be mutually exclusive. We can deny the religious fervor of the current climate change movement AND still care about how we treat the environment.
I actually tend to think people would be more engaged and active in protecting the environment if they weren't assaulted with this constant drumbeat of scaremongering, dogma and religious-like fundamentalism that is hallmark of the current climate change movement.
Excellent post. And, though we've known for years that the answer to the title question is yes, the "believers" have come through piling on ample supporting evidence of that....only took 8 responses to call you "dangerous", a term often associated with heretics. Today, the term is commonly applied to anyone threatening the harmony of the fringe left's group think.
Funny thing, on another forum here, the mere mention of carbon emissions brings the hordes of greeners in defense of their home state citing that volcanoes are the problem in Hawaii, not the people living there.
When it comes to their own backyards, everyone has an excuse.
Notice though, how few in the environmental concern community, especially those who say climate change is primarily a factor of human activities ever seem to take to task the very people in their midst who co-opt everything? Take Al Gore for example. Add some others who fly around in jets and trade carbon credits because it is so much easier to talk than do.
Carbon credit is one of the biggest scams ever created and it was done at the behest of climate change alarmists. Not one of them come forward to question why one person can buy carbon credits from someone else. Carbon credit should be on par with murder if you track with climate change groups. Not a word.
Now, we are doing much the same. For modern man, being utterly and completely at the mercy of the random events of nature is terrifying! We have control over so many aspects of our lives but not over nature.
I guess that would be an astute observation, except that anthropogenic climate change has absolutely nothing to do with controlling nature. It has to do with losing what little control we do have.
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So now we have the climate change movement. We are SINNERS who have polluted the earth, we need to repent and clean up out act or face a catastrophic fate like something from the old testament.
I would tend use the term "petulant, arrogant, and careless slobs."
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"Non-believers" are shunned, ostracized and marginalized because they represent the uncomfortable truth that we really DON'T have any control over nature.
They're marginalized because they represent the idiotic notion that scientific fact and peer-reviewed proof is somehow a "belief."
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The movement hides behind science as infallible, unquestionable and absolute.
No, it champions the huge concern that we are slowly destroying our own habitat because we refuse to recognize what has been postulated.
Quote:
Things that science NEVER should be! As events like Climategate showed, science can be corrupted by politics, activism and dogma. In addition, a cursory look back at the many failed predictions of the science should be enough to raise doubt in anyone's mind.
How about all of the ones that were dead on balls accurate? Should we ignore those as well?
Quote:
With that said, I don't deny the need to be good stewards of the environment, I don't think these things need to be mutually exclusive. We can deny the religious fervor of the current climate change movement AND still care about how we treat the environment.
We can deny anything we want to deny. But, climate change isn't a religion and the average Joe doesn't have the capacity to think beyond their measly paycheck and the next game on TV.
Quote:
I actually tend to think people would be more engaged and active in protecting the environment if they weren't assaulted with this constant drumbeat of scaremongering, dogma and religious-like fundamentalism that is hallmark of the current climate change movement.
Nope. They'll just continue the same myopic death march. If recent history has proven anything, it's that the changes and "stewardship" will need to be forced.
Thank you for CONTINUING to prove my point. In the thunderous absence of any information/facts/data that support your point, you continue to attack the messenger -- in this case, me. Thanks ever-so-much! You've made me proud!
Of course, neither you nor I matter even one tiny little bit. Our grand-children are the ones who will have to "pay the piper".
-- Nighteyes
I advanced my personal opinion that I believe the climate change movement to be akin to a religious movement and I listed my reasons why.
I'm not here to debate the merits of the science of global warming, Nor will I get dragged into an internet pissing contest over which one of us can cherry pick scientific studies on Google faster.
I am simply reminding people that scientists and the scientific process are subject to politics, activism, dogma and greed just as an other human endeavor. We've seen ample evidence of such behavior with things like the hockey stick graph
and with Climategate.
It's like the computer programers say, GIGO- Garbage In, Garbage Out.
You, yourself said that :
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This matter has long since ceased to be a matter of personal confidence and credibility. It is now, SQUARELY, in the realm of hard reality.
Well apparently our government and the entities which study this don't share your level of confidence because we continue to allocate BILLIONS of dollars every single year for more research when we've been hearing for years now that the "science is settled" and the "debate is over". We rarely hear about this research being conducted on mitigating the effects of global warming. Every time I open an newspaper or read the news online, it's constantly a drumbeat of alarmism and breathless new studies which show that "It's MUCH worse than we thought!!!"
In my mind, if the science has been settled for YEARS now. ALL of that money should go towards studying ways of mitigating the effects!
So that leaves us with 2 possible conclusions…
1) They aren't really that confident in the science and need to conduct more of it.
2) It's a money grab at the taxpayer's expense, (I doubt that individual scientists are getting rich off of it but it creates an environment where lots and lots of money and funding is dependent on reaching a certain foregone conclusion so they can ask for more money next year and keep the anthropogenic gravy train rolling).
Call me a cynic, but I am partial to #2.
Last edited by illwalkthanks; 03-31-2014 at 09:40 PM..
My opinion on climate change is this. Speaking as an engineer, if 99% of engineers say that a bridge should be built a certain way and Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh disagrees, which side do you think people ought to listen to? I'm no climatologist, but I would expect them to respect the expertise of my profession and I would give them no less respect for theirs.
Edit.
Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen different engineering problems with solutions that are completely against common sense. In fact, using common sense in any profession is a lousy idea. This is why we leave the treating of diseases to doctors, not priests or pastors.
I don't claim to know enough about climate change to engage in a debate with a denier whose too familiar with the various gish gallop tactics. All I have to say is if 99% of climate scientist agree on something, then it's good enough for me.
My opinion on climate change is this. Speaking as an engineer, if 99% of engineers say that a bridge should be built a certain way and Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh disagrees, which side do you think people ought to listen to? I'm no climatologist, but I would expect them to respect the expertise of my profession and I would give them no less respect for theirs.
Edit.
Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen different engineering problems with solutions that are completely against common sense. In fact, using common sense in any profession is a lousy idea. This is why we leave the treating of diseases to doctors, not priests or pastors.
I don't claim to know enough about climate change to engage in a debate with a denier whose too familiar with the various gish gallop tactics. All I have to say is if 99% of climate scientist agree on something, then it's good enough for me.
I generally agree, but I do have a few issues that gives me some doubt.
First, if you are unfamiliar, Google "science wars" or the "Sokal Hox." Occasionally academia will take a politically correct turn, and some of the normal protocols tend to go the the way sides. There is a feeling of a lack of objectivity starting to evolve in climate science. Like they have a higher obligation than just to report the results with neutrality.
Also I would note that the IPCC reports themselves use the language of uncertainty in many of their predictions, but for some reason the public discussion always assumes every question is neatly asked and answered. When they ask "is there a consensus on climate change," the only real answer can be that there is for some of it, and there is not for other parts. There are lots of hypothesis in the theory that one can agree and disagree with. More C02 in the air? Yep. Man made? yep. Is that going to account for a certain amount of temperature increase? probably. Will feedback effects amplify the termperature increase 5 fold?... that's not so certain. There is room there for legitimate people to have questions.
The climate is enormously complex. We don't really have our heads wrapped all the way around it.
Haven't you heard? Heavy snowfall is proof of global warming also
In fact, take any newsworthy weather event and someone somewhere will be pointing to it and calling it further proof of global warming.
It's like seeing an image of the Virgin Mary in an oil stain on your driveway, if you become invested enough in believing in something, your brain looks for excuses to see it everywhere. Just like religion.
Correct.
The very basis of scientific method is that a conclusion must be verifiable, repeatable and capable of being disproven. Global cooling/warming/climatechange (GC/W/CC) fails as science. Proponents of GC/W/CC first claimed that human activity was causing cooling. Later when that didn't pan out, they claimed that human activity was causing warming. When that didn't pan out, they settled on just calling their belief that humans were causing something, "climate change." Over time, their definition of what constitutes GC/W/CC has come to include:
Cold temperatures, hot temperatures, increased rainfall, decreased rainfall, a large number of storms, a small number of storms, an average number of storms, stronger hurricanes, weaker hurricanes, high amounts of snow accumulation, little or no snow accumulation, any weather that varies from average. Even no change in climactic averages over a number of decades is considered proof of their beliefs. Recently we've been told that GC/W/CC is still happening, and that it's been "on pause" for 10, 20, 30, even 60 years, and that it may be on pause for another 10, 20, 30 or more years into the future, but that it's definitely happening and it's definitely a real thing!
In other words, any conceivable weather pattern and even no change at all over decades is viewed as evidence of GC/W/CC. Therefore, it cannot be disproven. Therefore, it is not science. It takes a lot of faith to believe in something like that, and faith is a prime element of religion.
GC/W/CC fails the most basic definition of science, but meets many, if not all requirements for being a religion. It has a god (earth), sin (pollution), religious leaders (like Al Gore), believers, unbelievers, tithing/indulgences (carbon credits/offsets), salvation, faith, fear of hell/punishment for sin and the promise of paradise.
But as we've been told, we can't question this "science." It's a consensus! Our smartest politicians say so.
The basis of GW is the Greenhouse Theory, not climate models.
Come up with a better explanation than the Greenhouse theory, and you'll likely win yourself a Nobel prize.
Last edited by Joe90; 04-01-2014 at 01:36 AM..
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