Letters to the Editor
-
CRL
"Consider the alternative, global warming is not taking place/is not anthropogenically driven. If we put in place the laws, technology, etc. we think will avert global warming when it is not necessary, the worst case scenario is that once we figure out it isn't really happening, we can remove the constraints on fossil fuel burning, etc. and go about our business."
Sure, after wasting billions or trillions of dollars - for nothing. While hampering everyone's ability to function in a myriad amount of ways. You're whitewashing this, as most believers do.
"Standards of living, may or may not be negatively affected by our pointless efforts to curb greenhouse gases. (To take one small personal example, I bicycle to work, in part to lower fossil fuel consumption, but I don't see that it reduces my standard of living.)"
Like we're supposed to live by bicycle? Completely unreasonable. We don't all live like you - or want to - especially if it's bullshit.
"Some efforts to curb CO2 emissions might be standard-of-living neutral or even beneficial, e.g., reducing our dependence on foreign oil."
You want to buy my (very expensive) electric car? Buy my (very expensive) lightbulbs? Our dependence on foreign oil is the only good reason to move in this direction. But that's not what we're being sold: we're being sold DOOMSDAY. It's a crime.
"In any case, since the risk of doing nothing is potentially so catastrophic and the evidence for warming is quite strong, it makes much more sense to me to do what we can now even if we later decide we erred to much on the side of caution."
It'd be better to get some truth.
Anonymous
The first thing I look for, when looking for cultists, is the rush to the "quantum" argument.
CaptainGroove
"The Left has co-opted natural climate change and using it as a tool to dismantle Western Industrial Capitalism. This is part of a calculated strategy in their relentless quest to establish their vision of a Global Socialist Utopian Society."
HEL-LO!
"I can assure you that no one on Mars is operating coal fired power plants or driving gas guzzling SUV’s."
AMEN.
"The sun is causing a small increase in climate temperature and there is absolutely nothing that you or anybody or anything can do about it. It does so in cycles that astronomical scientists are only just now beginning to fathom. It does this again and again over thousands of years. Period."
Captain, you've got a new black friend.
The Annoyed Man
I'm with you all the way.
CRL (again)
"We scientists are in the empirical, reality-based community. It doesn't make us infallible, but the conclusions of the scientists of the IPCC cannot and should not simply be written off as Left inspired propaganda for some hidden agenda. That is an insult to our best efforts to try to understand the world as it is rather than as we would wish it to be."
And the world 100 years from now, right? Based on models that everyone agrees are flawed?
And why did the 1995 IPCC report get changed? From "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes." to "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate."?
In the same report? What's going on, man?
-
If you read any message in this thread....
....please go read CRL's letter on page 37! It is straightforward, level-headed, and based on the first-hand experience of an actual scientist.
-
whoops -- I typo'ed
I wrote: "the sun being at the orbital center of the universe;"
I intended to say "solar system," dammit.
I'm not that stupid.
-
Glad to oblige, CRL
Yeah, CRL. Google the phrase sun getting hotter. Then start reading.
Then, after you have enlightened yourself, Google the phrase mars ice caps shrinking.
-
10 minutes
So lady Camille watches ten minutes of "An Inconvenient Truth" and finds that sufficient to dismiss Gore as a con man? Does Paglia take the same approach to scholarly research I wonder? Does she start rolling her eyes 10 pages into a book or 10 lines into an article and start snorting and rolling her eyes? How are we supposed to take this woman seriously on any topic when she confesses to such intellectual shallowness?
-
Sham Scam....I'm getting more and more convinced you're a troll or something
Sham Scam Sam writes:
"Sure, after wasting billions or trillions of dollars - for nothing. While hampering everyone's ability to function in a myriad amount of ways. You're whitewashing this, as most believers do."
I'd like to see you explain how "reducing consumption of petroleum" or "reducing the clear-cutting of forests" is equivalent to "wasting billions of dollars." I'd also like to see you admit that not everybody who believes in global warming is advocating a set of hard-line, dictatorial solutions.
"Like we're supposed to live by bicycle? Completely unreasonable. We don't all live like you - or want to - especially if it's bullshit."
The writer, CRL, was providing a personal example of one small lifestyle choice he has made. He was not saying everybody should follow it. Nor was he saying he gave up his car.
"You want to buy my (very expensive) electric car? Buy my (very expensive) lightbulbs?"
You're wrong on both counts. Low-wattage lightbulbs cost the same as regular lightbulbs and save the consumer electric costs. There are probably some fancy lightbulbs on the market that do cost more, but this is probably mostly a supply-demand issue rather than an issue of using more expensive materials to create the bulbs. As for electric cards, you should see the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" sometime. By all indications, electric cars (were they mass produced) could be priced comparable to their oil-using counterparts. Check out the costs of hybrids like the Prius. Not too shabby for something that gets 60-70 miles per gallon (saving the consumer literally hundreds of dollars each month or so.) My point is that many solutions -- freely chosen solutions, not dictated -- are actually beneficial to the consumer.
"Our dependence on foreign oil is the only good reason to move in this direction. But that's not what we're being sold: we're being sold DOOMSDAY. It's a crime."
Not everybody is talking "doomsday," but they are talking "rational concern." What do you object to? That people are concerned about messing up life on this planet? Should people pad their communication with niceties in order to avoid turning you off?