Climate change deniers as flat-landers.
I think that one day our future descendants, (if that day ever arises for us to witness), will look at us just as we view the people of the pre-Copernican revolution, or those who believed that the world was flat before them, what I call "flat-landers".
All of this is in regards to the present day climate change debate.
If that is so, then we haven't made that much progress in terms of morality or ethical behavior.
But, it might not be "morality" or "ethical behavior" after all?
Maybe it is "education" that conditions the soul?
Yet, there are plenty of educated people who are climate change deniers...
So, what is it then if not an "education," "morality," or "ethical conduct"?
Will our descendants be that much different from us? Just as many climate change deniers are steadfast in their belief as were the flat-landers?
All of this is in regards to the present day climate change debate.
If that is so, then we haven't made that much progress in terms of morality or ethical behavior.
But, it might not be "morality" or "ethical behavior" after all?
Maybe it is "education" that conditions the soul?
Yet, there are plenty of educated people who are climate change deniers...
So, what is it then if not an "education," "morality," or "ethical conduct"?
Will our descendants be that much different from us? Just as many climate change deniers are steadfast in their belief as were the flat-landers?
Comments (41)
Unfortunately, some of the people who have broadcast concerns about AGW didn't point to best information and didn't take seriously the challenge of determining what we should do about it. Surrounding the issue with apocalyptic sermonizing gathered attention, but it ultimately sets the stage for apathy when people find out that the fireball generators didn't know what they were talking about.
They would understand that we were accustomed and committed to a vast use of fossil fuel ever since the industrial revolution began. Fossil-based industrialization was, indeed, the root cause of climate change.
They would understand that those with the greatest financial investment in fossil fuel--energy corporations and allied industries (transportation, chemicals, heating, electrical generation, agriculture, manufacturing, etc.) were loathe to give up their wealth.
They would understand the extraordinary difficulty of making horrific changes in lifestyle to benefit unknown people of the future.
They would understand that even though many people perceived that a solar/wind/nuclear power alternative was possible, it would not mean life could go on without total disruption in every aspect of life.
I'm not quite sure how we would have escaped our limitations, such that there would be historians 500 in the future with a good view of what happened to us. It's not looking very promising now. The recent Paris agreement falls way short of reducing CO2 enough to avoid catastrophic consequences. I assume that we will pump oil out of the earth until it is gone.
This is, I think, a very nice, clear summary of the situation. I think many people don't realize that the prosperity we enjoy is reliant on cheap oil, and that all the benefits of modern medicine that go with that prosperity are reliant on the production and consumption of megatonnes of cheap and ultimately useless shit, the affordable production of which is itself reliant on cheap oil.
When oil becomes a lot more expensive which it seems it inevitably will soon enough, then some of the alternative technologies may really come into their own. But by then we will all be enjoying much diminished prosperity. And that's the best case scenario!
Not "very nice" though...
No :’( .
I wonder what ethical or other argument can hold our actions responsible to future generations. Do we have a duty to the unborn, and if so, is there a limit, our children, their children, their children's children?
Our duties to future generations are limited by the length of the causal chain between our actions and the outcome. If the causal chain is long and there are multiple opportunities for intervention, then our obligations are diminished. A short causal chain confers more responsibility on the acting agent even if the time duration is long (the force of such an obligation will likely be negated by the affect heuristic). Part of the challenge of getting people to act on climate chain is a perceived ambiguity in the length of the causal chain. Scientists warn we are close to or passed a point of no return for action, indicating a short causal chain, and are also proposing long-term solutions that work on the scale of generations, which seems to indicate a longer causal chain for intervention. Those two are not mutually exclusive, but it can make it difficult to discern the scope of our present obligation. Another problem is that new technologies, even within view to us now, can extend the causal chain and diminish the obligation.
I said this some time ago:
Let's ask ourselves what "climate change denial" could mean:
- One could deny that the climate literally changes (which no one believes, except maybe people who have never seen daylight).
- One could deny that climate change is in any way affected by human activity.
- One could deny that climate change is largely affected by human activity.
- One could deny that we know enough to make a suitably informed opinion either way with respect to the human impact on climate change or that we have done enough to study it properly.
- One could deny that the effects of climate change are going to be as bad some people predict (given that lots of predictions have already failed miserably).
- One could deny that the government, of all institutions, is uniquely capable of "solving" climate change, whatever its origin may be (that is, one could deny that the government throwing money at the problem would lead to any substantive positive results, given its poor track record of trying to solve other problems with this method).
Leftists like to conflate all of these positions, so that they can brand anyone who doesn't line up exactly with their views on the climate an irrational science hater and pollution/corporation lover, but that's clearly not the case.
Some people have shut down about all this stuff because they are overwhelmed by bad news. Aside from global warming, there is soil loss, invasive species, plastic in the oceans, drugs flowing across porous borders, people dying left and right from gun violence and drug overdoses, new diseases (Zika, West Nile, AIDS, Ebola, etc.), failure of the economy to improve the wellbeing of a majority of Americans, pandemic obesity, and so on and so forth.
The majority of people, though, recognize that climate is changing. Your average American can't do much about plastic in the ocean because a lot of it is coming from SE Asian countries that simply don't have the infrastructure to deal effectively with solid waste. Flimsy bags blowing around a Walmart parking lot in Iowa, Texas, or Massachusetts are not ending up in the ocean, for the most part. A lot of problems are simply out of people's individual control.
I think that you are framing the whole situation the wrong way.
Comparing people hundreds of years ago denying the facts of geometry and people today not heeding ecological and meteorological reality is comparing apples and oranges.
An apples to apples comparison can be found in books like Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress. Wright shows how people in earlier civilizations such as Easter Island and the Maya saw the red flags of impending ecological collapse but? were no match for the powerful in their societies who had a vested interest in the status quo (sound familiar?).
The problem, Wright says, is that unlike earlier civilizations our ecological crisis is global in scope.
Therefore, future generations may not live to judge our response to our present ecological crisis. If humans and civilization do survive they will likely repeat the cycle of building a progress trap and then collapsing ecologically. Or civilization may become an archaeological footnote and some new form of social organization may emerge.
Better swimmers?
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Thorongil
It could mean putting someone in charge of the agency responsible for climate change, who has a long track record of disputing the evidence - in fact, denying climate change. It could mean taking down the many inter-agency reports on climate change from the EPA's website. It could mean instructing all your staff not to use the term 'climate change' in communications with journalists. It could mean letting go a lot of scientists who are engaged in researching climate change. And all of these things have been done, by the current US administration, during 2017.
Further references here.
What we are up against seems to be an inability to even suggest a solution. Pushing for greener energy will help delay the change, but I've never seen a suggestion for an actual way out of this mess. I don't have one myself except possibly the wild-card of the AI singularity.
Had the Australian Liberal-National coalition not politicised the issue and demonised the carbon tax, Australia would have been well on its way to meeting its Paris obligations. As it is, it doesn't have a credible program at all in this area, and only generates more hot air talking about it.
Global and regional climate patterns do change and have changed during the timeframe mentioned. So I have no problem with this part of the definition. It's self-evident.
Here's where I am a bit more skeptical, not because I wish to deny the claim, but because I don't know enough about it to have formed a definite position. Climate science, like most other forms of science, is in fact rather complex. I certainly think humans have had an impact on the climate (how could they not?), but as for whether our burning of fossil fuels is "largely" responsible for global and regional climate change, I don't know. Most scientists say that this is the primary cause. But some of these scientists' research is paid for by ideologically driven interest groups, which is somewhat suspicious (though does not in itself invalidate said research). Scientists are also discouraged from research that might be critical of the consensus view, a profoundly anti-scientific practice, given that all major scientific breakthroughs and revolutions in the past have occurred due to some individual or individuals challenging the consensus view. That, too, is somewhat distressing.
A minority of scientists disagree with the consensus view and publish research in opposition to it. Some of these scientists' research is paid for by ideologically driven interest groups, like the fossil fuel companies, which is suspicious (though, again, does not in itself invalidate said research). Other scientists have risked their reputations by challenging the consensus who are not paid for by any such groups. They seem sincere in their pursuit of the truth, but they are in the minority. In sum, I am not one to normally be skeptical about what most scientists take to be the case, but I find this particular issue to be so politicized and complex that I cannot in good faith assent to the claim in question. That is to say once more, I can neither affirm nor deny that climate change is to be "attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels."
As far as facts go, I think this graph from NASA is pretty unequivocal:
That's cool, and probably true, but not the whole truth, as I think there has been considerable fear, uncertainty, and doubt generated by various left wing political groups and by blackmailing tactics in academia, the aim of which is indeed to make the issue politicized and complex. So I hope you'll forgive me for being a skeptic. That being said, I am opposed to pollution and hunting and in favor of conservation and environmental sustainability.
Is that 'skepticism'?
The fact of the concentration of CO2 in the environment is empirical science. It's not the consequence of a left-wing conspiracy, and the suggestion that it is, is part of the attempt to discredit the science. There's been a lot of this misinformation put about, and it is having effects.
Yes.
Quoting Wayfarer
This is a clear bait, and I'm not taking it. I explained my views as thoroughly as I can and so will leave it at that.
Were we to abruptly stop processing petroleum, stop burning coal, switch to a 95% vegetarian diet, sharply reduce manufacturing, begin massive reforestation projects, reduce total world population, and so on we might bring global warming to a halt -- not instantly, but in a century or so. Some side effects of this approach would probably include: Economic collapse; massive social upheavals including revolutions; extreme dislocations of population; increased deaths due to exposure to heat and cold (not in the same places at the same time); a loss of health care infrastructure; and so on, and on.
"Severe disruptions" should not suggest inconvenience; it should suggest hell on wheels.
If we were to take the extreme measures and stretch them out over a century of time, then we would probably not achieve a stabilization or reduction in global warming. The consequences of not controlling global warming include: rising sea levels and flooding; the loss of trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure; more severe and more erratic weather; major environmental changes making food production much more difficult; increased insect disease vectors would result in several tropical diseases becoming much more wide spread (like malaria). Food production (meat or vegetable) would decline as a result of heat, resulting in widespread starvation. There would be massive migration and severe social conflict.
So, either way we're screwed.
Not only do most scientists who have a relevant expertise in climate science, or atmospheric physics, believe that the enhanced greenhouse effect if largely responsible for recent global warming, the consensus is that this human contribution is somewhere around 110% of the observed temperature increase (from the latest IPCC assessment). It is thus more likely than not that the natural contribution was a mitigating, albeit short term, cooling effect. This is mainly due to the solar irradiance having dropped slightly since 1960.
Over the long term, the current natural tendency also is a cooling effect due to the Milankovitch cycles. Those cycles have been responsible for the recent glacial/interglacial transitions and for the slow cooling that occurred since the Holocene Climatic Optimum 6,000 years ago. Over the last 150 years there occurred a sudden reversal of this long term cooling trend and an accelerated pace of warming that tracks total atmospheric CO2 concentration (which is now higher that it has been in the last several million years and still increasing rapidly). The way global temperature is thus tracking CO2 concentration is in very good agreement with climate models.
Not all scientific progress is progress of the revolutionary sort. There is also progress of the "puzzle solving" sort that happens during what Kuhn called episodes of normal science. Contemporary climate science is indeed "normal science". Scientists tend to be critical of individuals who seek to overthrow the consensus wholesale and promote a scientific revolution. This is not distressing. Before a scientific revolution has occurred, the proponents of the revolution often are seen by the mainstream scientists as fools or crackpots, and indeed this negative judgement is correct most of the time.
There is a very small minority of scientists who have a relevant expertise in climate science, who aren't crackpots, and who purport to be highly critical of the consensus. I am thinking of Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, John Christy, Judith Curry, S. Fred Singer, and a handful others. It is hard to see them as promoting a new revolutionary paradigm, though, since their arguments are very weak and all over the place. They all agree much more with the basic science endorsed by mainstream climate science than they do with each other; and their advocacy efforts mainly center on attempts to sow doubts throug highlighting cherry picked results. They do agree with each other on the ideology, though, since they all seem to be ultra-libertarians who believe government regulations and taxes to constitute the highest form of evil the world has ever seen.
We probably are screwed to some extent but that is no argument for inaction. It might be extremely difficult, at this stage, to limit global warming below 2°C (above preindustrial value) by 2100. But we still have a choice between aiming at stabilisation not too much above this value after 2100, on the one hand, or exceeding 3°C or 4°C by 2100, with temperatures still increasing rapidly, on the other hand. Either way, the Greenland ice sheet will probably melt over the next few centuries, but the fate of the much larger Antarctic ice sheet is up to us. And so is the amount of ocean acidification, which is also a significant threat to fisheries.
Your "either way we're screwed" philosophy assumes that we must chose between the yellow and red lines. But our choice really is between the blue and green lines, since this is what is consistent with foreseeable scientific progress in renewable energy production and reasonable political will.
"Screwed either way" because the rank and file of the world's population won't be making the decision. Almost certainly those who will decide will have the most to lose -- the ones who own the carbon producing infrastructure (which is huge).
I am heartened that city, county, and state level governments in the US, at least, (Europe seems to be better coordinated and China has a command economy apparatus) are moving forward on wind and solar energy while the Feds are burying their heads in a coal pile. Other countries -- in Africa, for instance -- are also using wind to good effect. Carbon salvation isn't just around the corner, but there is hope.
http://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/videos/climate-change-is-already-happening-now-what.html
It is pretty clear temperatures and CO2 levels correlate well over the long term. It is also clear we have had a dramatic and sudden rise in the atmospheric CO2. Are we past the point of no return, in some ways yes but failure to take action will only exacerbate the problem. They are many other reasons to try decrease dependency on carbon fuels.
The glaciers and polar caps are melting, the sea level is rising, the corals are dying, the permafrost is thawing and releasing trapped CO2 and methane (a more powerful greenhouse gas), severe storms and weather events are increasing. You will never convince everybody (there are always skeptics and conspiracy theorists) but we can't wait for them.