Letters to the Editor
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Hutman, Hutman, Hutman,...
To DeeGeeOh:
"It's definitely not a slam dunk,...Sham seems to be using a very backwards thought process that goes something like this: "I don't like the solutions to global warming, therefore I doubt the existence of global warming."
Hutman, your first mistake is the same one I'll charge the IPCC with making - an unwillingness to admit your conclusions could be a mistake: I don't "doubt the existence of global warming." Never have. As Camille says, "Cooling and warming will go on forever." I doubt it's humans who are doing it - or that The West has to do much about it.
This is right, though: I loathe the cultish, anti-humanist, rhetoric - and actions - taken in GW's "not a slam dunk" name. And, I think, to not recognize them as such in a 24/7 mediasphere (because it's in the service of an anti-war "noble cause") is to ignore history at our peril.
"Paglia brought her distaste for Al Gore into the discussion and then admitted that it so overwhelmed her that she declined to hear out his evidence,...I also would discourage people from making too much of Gore declining to debate people,...Gore's repeated point,...is that politics should be set aside when discussing scientific truth,...The debate is not about Gore."
Hutman, Camille mentioned "laughing" at Gore AFTER already indicating it was her "disgust at [AIT's] manipulations and distortions" as the reason she turned it off. I don't watch "Triumph of the Will" that often for the same reason: "manipulations and distortions" and a goofy leader. And if "Gore's repeated point,...is that politics should be set aside", then what's he doing there - when he's there? http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009552
"Show me real evidence that pokes real holes in the global warming evidence and I will re-examine my conclusions."
Now, try putting my "backwards thought process" on
that
sentence and we all might get somewhere,....
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How do you pronounce "Xrandadu"?
To DeeGeeOh:
"I,...recommend that everybody set aside their distaste for Al,...Gore and look at,..."An Inconvenient Truth," which in spite of being a documentary is a very entertaining and easy-to-sit-through movie. Then read all the books you can, or go to Wikipedia and type in "global warming" and click on links from there. At least do that much! So many people do not even seem aware of the basics of the arguments for global warming (Sam Sham doesn't). And, if after you've examined the evidence for a little while you still don't believe it, that's fine -- at least you understand what other people are talking about."
Hutman - where to start!?! "Set aside" my feelings for a politician? Not in this lifetime. My feeling about the movie is identical to CPs. And I read - books even. And Wikipedia, while useful, is (still) untrustworthy. There. Do I pass your test? Wanna stop patting yourself on the back long enough to acknowledge it?
"We've put a man on the moon, that we've dried up entire oceans (the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan is a prime example), that we've harnessed atomic energy enough to pretty much wipe out all human life on the planet, that our mining techniques result in the razing of entire mountains..."
Hutman, reminding a "progressive" that putting a man on the moon is "progress" is weird. "We" didn't hurt the Aral Sea. Atomic energy is safe, and - wow - we can wipe out whole mountains? Golly! Like Katrina wiped out New Orleans? Or the Ice Age wiped out those polluting Vikings? My oh my, I'll never sleep soundly again! Get ahold of yourself, man.
"I would hope that eventually everybody can set aside partisanship and "group loyalty" and what basically amounts to primitive tribal instincts -- whether related to the global-warming debate or issues of religion and nationalism -- and realize we're just humans trying to be happy and get along and survive. I don't think Sam Sham is probably a bad person, though I do think some of his rhetorical techniques are questionable,,...I don't care about how others see me, but I do personally care a great deal about whether what I believe in is true,...."
Hutman, if you really "don't care" how others see you, then, you've slipped, a bit, in your humanity already. No one's gonna "realize we're just humans trying to be happy and get along and survive" if we can clearly see you "don't care" how you're impacting someone you "don't think,...is,...a bad person". I, too, "care a great deal about whether what [you] believe in is true" precisely because I care about you - and me and all other humans - who I put proudly at the top of my concerns - and the food chain. (Not the planet, or animals, but us.) And, no, I will not "set aside,..."group loyalty" to America. To do so would be to not appreciate what we've done or what we have and, in both categories, that's too much to "set aside".
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Sham to Hutman
"I am still waiting for any evidence of a witch hunt."
Hutman, Professor Lindzen has said, "There is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis." http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220
And Professor Tim Ball has reported that "scientists who questioned mankind’s impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community. They say the debate on global warming has been ‘hijacked’ by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions." http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1468
It sounds remarkably like the world of medicine, where the authority of serious doctors has reduced them to begging for their fellow "scientists" and "doctors" to stop referring to water as a "medicine" to be used with "proper" care. Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick points out the blurring of the spiritual and scientific:
"The 'Barefoot Doctor', who writes a weekly alternative health column in the Observer, provides a comprehensive statement of his philosophy in a special supplement of the New Statesman on 24 June. He outlines a familiar list of environmental concerns - global warming, intensive farming, pollution, HIV, etc - and identifies an 'untenable void' resulting from the demise of 'our Judaeo-Christian spiritual life models'. This combination 'engenders extreme insecurity at the most profound existential level'. But 'darkness never comes without light', and illumination is at hand in the form of 'self-help systems' rooted in Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu traditions which offer 'a cultural base for alternative approaches to personal and social health'."
Do you want to discuss what you "believe" some more?
"It is always worth pointing out whenever any scientist is funded by a corporation or other organization with a conflict of interest.".
Hutman, I thought this was about science, and science alone?
"Can you name the year the wall fell?"
Hutman, people who follow this stuff put the year the wall fell around new age cult's much derided Harmonic Convergence in 1987. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_Convergence
As Colorado State University's Bill Gray says - unrelated, he probably thinks, to anything new age - "They've been brainwashing us for 20 years,..." http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807
Laugh if you want, but people believe in this stuff, and the saying goes "One believer is the equal of 100 seekers".
"It is fair to point out that you have leapt to a separate subject and realm. We're talking about climate science and you've switched the subject to hospitals,...hospitals are not scientific establishments,...there is some research done in hospitals,...(by the way, do you have any links or references to your examples?). I just don't think,...this side-issue in any way invalidates climate science,...the standards seem to have slipped, but ,...it's sort of like saying "one bad apple ruins the whole bunch".
Hutman, look at that "Barefoot Doctor" quote again. New agers are taking Too $hort's advice to "get in where you fit in" and the hip place right now is in science, climate or otherwise:
‘The task of climate change agencies is not to persuade by rational argument but in effect to develop and nurture a new “common sense”…. [We] need to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement…. The “facts” need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken,...ultimately, positive climate behaviours need to be approached in the same way as marketeers approach acts of buying and consuming…. It amounts to treating climate-friendly activity as a brand that can be sold. This is, we believe, the route to mass behaviour changes.’ http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1782/
Czech president Vaclav Klaus: "environmentalism is a religion,...Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. The IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment." http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=8342
"The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle—Al Gore's supposed mentor—is worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/
"Despite all the huffing and puffing, the truth is no one knows how much of the current warming trend is caused by man. Some of it surely is. And some of that anthropogenic warming is caused by the man-made rise in CO2. But how much is attributable to CO2 is not known. In the absence of that vital knowledge, people speak of a consensus of scientists. That's a way to get around the lack of knowledge and the inability to predict (which is the conventional proof of scientific knowledge, hence the usual emphasis in science on testable hypotheses.) Perhaps people and nations will choose to act on the basis of a claimed consensus. They have done so in the past, sterilizing their poor neighbors in the name of eugenics, gulping milk for their ulcers, downing antioxidants to prevent cancer, and soon. But all those behaviors were ultimately proven to lack a scientific basis — in other words, they are superstitions." http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2007/03/seven_answers_f.html