We all know that the scientific consensus on global warming is that humans are causing most of it. The Creationist consensus is that humans aren't causing it. But just as their are divisions in the Creationist camp between Old Earth and Young Earth Creationists, they are divided on why people believe that humans are warming the planet.
Creationist Julia Gorin thinks it's to avoid thinking about the threat from fascist Islamonazi Hitlers
Freud called it displacement. People fixate on the environment when they can't deal with real threats. Combating the climate gives nonhawks a chance to look tough. ...
While the hawks among us worry about preventing the Armageddon that's coming, our modern-day hippies just want to make sure the planet is pristine when it does. In fact, the more menacing terrorism becomes, the more some people seem to worry about the weather. Scared and unsure how to fight terrorists, they confront "climate change," which only requires spending trillions of other people's dollars on something that may not need fixing or may not be fixable.
So the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997 as a displacement activity to avoid dealing with the threat shown on September 11, 2001. It's a good thing the hawks didn't do any displacing like invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on September 11.
The rival theory is offered by Creationist Mark Steyn. He thinks it's because they want to restore feudalism:
I'm slightly depressed at the way climate hysteria seems to be so impervious to reality, what with Al Gore's hit movie A Inconvenient Goof and Tom Brokaw's documentary A Convenient Scare and both guys feuding over who's the more devout climate jihadist. I guess if you're assuming that you'll still be zipping everywhere by private plane and it's the other folks who'll be on the bus it all makes sense. At the heart of environmentalism is distaste for democracy: In the old days, "resources" were wielded by a few absolute monarchs and their courtiers. Now anybody willing to do a bit of work can have a pleasant home and a private carriage and the Gore-Brokaw retro-feudalists resent the vulgarity of it.
I think Freud called that one "projection".
My thanks to Tim Blair for finding the Steyn quote.
So people who believe in anthropogenic climate change want a return to feudalism ... hummm ... Tim, does this mean you're a monarchist? Are Australian environmentalists closet monarchists? Well, I guess Prince Charles will be happy!
I'm not a monarchist, but Steyn is.
and both guys feuding over who's the more devout climate jihadist.
I mentioned this before, but we really need a term for Godwin's law as it applies to Islamo-(fill in blank) or some other I-hate-Ay-rabs/brown-paypul term used by rubes to marginalize environmentalists.
I nominate Ian G or z to chair the Committee to Nominate a New Godwin's Law Term. (CoNaN GoLT).
If for nothing else to save Tim's bandwidth.
Best,
D
I doubt the Evangelical Initiative on global warming could have happened if there was a creationist consensus against it, given how many Evangelicals are creationists. I could expect a creationist majority doubting warming, but no consensus like the level we have in the scientific community.
I've been hearing predictions of the rise of religious environmentalism for many years without seeming much result, but I think maybe, maybe, it's finally somewhat happening. I'll take allies anywhere I can find them.
"At the heart of environmentalism is distaste for democracy" This is a complete lie.
Countries with open democracies have the strongest environmental protection laws and countries with repressive governments have the weakest. Why would environmentalists dislike the system of government that allowed them to advance their political goals?
Its the same old corporate/conservative slur machine tactic.
From the great Steyn:
"Question: Why do most "global warming" advocates begin their scare statistics with "since 1970"? As in, "since 1970" there's been global surface warming of half a degree or so.
Because from 1940 to 1970, temperatures fell.
Now why would that be?
Who knows? Maybe it was Hitler. Maybe world wars are good for the planet.
Or maybe we should all take a deep breath of CO2 and calm down."
Thanks for the cite, MarkR.
As you've pointed out, Steyn has outdone himself in dumbness by (a) starting with a pseudo-quote, then (b) revealing that he has never heard of sulfates.
What a maroon.
It is also worth noting that if you take 1940 instead of 1970 as your reference point, it reduces the amount of warming seen over the time period by less than 0.1 C. (See http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ or http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif )
Joseph O'Sullivan: in general, it's a lie that environmentalists are antidemocratic. However, there are exceptions. I'll share some of the ones I've met lately, on The Oil Drum, a pretty respectable peak oil site:
"And I do NOT think that our electoral, representative "dumbocracy" will be able to address any of this in any meaningful way."
"I think that all our current governmental models will be entirely discredited, as having been the enablers of the nastiness of the entire traumatic situation [...]"
"[...] government at whatever level, if it is to retain any relevancy, must be able to operate within a generalized long-term perspective, always incorporating an understanding of the impacts of their actions on generations yet unborn. Elected government is inherently incapable of doing this."
These are all from one poster. I'm about the only one objecting. One reply:
"Amen. Very few people are as clear-sighted as you when it comes to the real nature of "democracy" in our time."
Regarding procreation, another poster wrote: "Allowing free choice [with or without 'education'] is a gene pool disaster "
And The Oil Drum is not a particularly extreme site. Most people there are sensible, but most people there also don't speak up against this sort of thing. Decent, freedom-loving environmentalists must take a stand on such things, and say a loud and clear _no_. Instead, I see people going into a debate with these kind of people whether democracy wouldn't be a better option after all! Since the decent folks wouldn't even be allowed to _propose_ that if the antidemocrats had their way, I don't think that's enough.
Joseph, the sad part is that I think these attitudes are the top of an iceberg. There are a lot more who sympathise with these kinds of views than there are who dare to front them, just as there are many people in my country who would like to see all immigrants thrown out or shot, for instance. Left or right, I think it's our duty to smoke out these kinds of opinions, and show that they are not accepted. The fundamentalist christians don't see the beam in their own eye on this...
(On a side note, there are exceptions to the rule that democracies have better environmental policies. I believe one of the dictators of the Dominican Republic was rather environmentally conscious, in addition to being an opressive tyrant... The point is, of course, is that while an "enlightened" despot might occasionally give the people a better government than they deserve on one area or two, there's no way to ensure that the good policies continue and the bad ones are removed.)
These attacks on democracy are perennial attitudes from both the left and the right. There is an inherent tension between the stances of the politically active and the operation of institutionalized mass democratic systems.
I would like to thank Harald for the incredible amount of links offered that would allow the rest of us to see the quotes in context. Such a helpful lad!
I guess I should point out that complaining that today's democracies are not really democratic is not really dissing democracy! Now I have no idea of the quotes offered are doing that or not, since I have no easy way to see those quotes in context.
Do you really need more context to see that these statements are bad, Dominion? I dropped the links because I didn't want to draw attention to particular individuals, but to the general trend. A google search would have given you the links if you really wanted them, but since you ask:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/5/22/235450/987#15
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/7/13/92514/2271#347
Be prepared to wade through a lot of doomer talk.
Yes, I've seen very similar technocratic attitudes among "deep greens". It's common among political activists generally.
Steyn has a habit of saying stuff completely off the top of his head, with the only evidence being some anecdote or other, then next week forgetting what he said and arguing something contradictory. It's rarely worth chasing up.
Thank you. In the future, you might worry less about drawing attention to people who post to AFAICS a public webboard, what the person might have to "wade" through, and perceived "badness" of statements and more about providing context, since context is always important when you quote.
Obviously I needed more information, since for the first statement I had no idea if the person was saying "Democracy is bad", rather than "Democracy, as practiced today, is not Democracy". For the second, I had no idea if this is a serious statement, or one made in humor.
See, context does matter. Thank you for the links and please don't concern yourself with what I have to wade through. More information is better no matter how deep it gets.
As a statistician, it is my opinion that there is not enough evidence that man is SOLELY creating the warming, strictly based on the fact that our instruments of measurement were less precise yesterday than the ones used today. Therefore making a comparison of today's surface temperature verses yesterday's is not as accurate as I think many believe.
Now, call me heartless and scientific, but, I honestly don't see the problem whatever the "true" answer is. The earth warmed and cooled a hundred times over before man, and it will do the same when we are gone, whether we are causing global warming, expediting it, or we simply annihilate ourselves in some other fashion. The only thing we are hurting is ourselves - the earth will be just fine.
GK
How does being a statistician qualify you to comment on the accuracy of meteorological instruments? I only ask because we have some other statisticians about that also make pronouncements about climatology without so much as any training or experience in the field. Are statisticians the new engineers?
How does being a statistician qualify you to comment on the accuracy of meteorological instruments?
It allows one to obfuscate and dissemble with numbers.
Best,
D
Is GK arguing that we shouldn't be worried about wiping out the human race as long as the Earth is ok?
It is the job of a statistician to determine and quantify randomness, which is the point above. The measurements of old, at least that I have seen and analyzed, have been shown to have such a high variance that using them in theories may not be a sound practice.
Now, I cannot deny that statistics has been used incorrectly to mislead, but this is usually done by scientists and ESPECIALLY non-scientists, i.e., Creationists and politicians, misusing statistics and numbers, rather than statisticians themselves.
And I am saying nature will take its course, and that includes us as animals being part of nature.
GK - as a statistician myself, I can say that your first paragraph indicates that you need to study some statistics. Less-precise historical readings would lead to a loss of power; as new instruments were brought online, any systematic biases would have been eliminated
(during the overlap period). Which, BTW, would lead to further loss of power (perhaps corrected with some interrupted time series). And that's assuming that you have even the faintest clue as to the accuracy of the instruments involved.
Your second paragraph indicates that you're pretty ignorant of quantitative modeling, and common sense; this objection that the natural world bounces up and down ignores (a) the effects of that, and (b) the fact that we're introducing a very, very quick forcing.
Shush GK
Not in front of the children.
They stiil believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.
Barry,
I'm not sure that what you said is any different than what I said. From what I have seen, the rate of change in temperature has shown to have increased, but not at a significant level corresponding to the actions or presence of man. The reason for the lack of significance may be due to there not being a "real" change in rate of global warming, or because of the little power due to the high variance of previous measurements. My point was that it is because of the latter.
GK
Now you are not really a statistician are you? I don't know any statistician who throws around the word significant in such a cavalier manner. I suggest you examine the literature, I would recommend a text by von Storch and Zwiers called Statistical Analysis in Climate Research. Then, since you seem to be uncertain if the trend is real, download the global temperature time series from GISS or CRU and determine the statistical significance of the trend.
Ah, this explains the confusion. God's fooling the believers!
"God accordingly has not attempted in Scripture to correct the scientific "notions which then prevailed" but rather accommodated his revelation to them. Increasing the dominion of humankind over the natural world through the advance of scientific knowledge is our divinely delegated responsibility.
"In summary, in order to avoid obstacles to communication which might
become stumbling blocks, and to respect the divine decision to delegate to
humankind the responsibility for the discovery of natural knowledge, Scripture
is accommodated in Gen 11:1-9 (as well as in Gen 1 and Matt 12:42) to the lim-
ited geographical and anthropological knowledge available at the time. This is
in accord with Calvin's understanding of accommodation for he showed in his
expositions of Ps 72:8-10 and Gen 2:8-14 that he believed God accommodated
his revelation to the limited knowledge available at the time. In addition, in his
exposition of Gen 1:16 he broke with the old Augustinian belief that Scripture
reveals modern scientific knowledge. He believed Scripture was accommodated
in the realm of natural science to mere phenomenal appearances. But he also
showed in his expositions of Jer 10:2 and John 17:12 that he believed Scripture
could be accommodated to false conclusions which might be drawn from mere
phenomenal appearances. It is thus in accord with the principles of Calvin's doc-
trine of accommodation to believe that Scripture is accommodated not just to
phenomenal appearances, but to the limited scientific knowledge of the times,
to the scientific "notions which then prevailed."
"I would only add that this divine accommodation which we find in Scripture to the scientific "notions which then prevailed" does not reflect negatively upon God's character as Truth. It is logically invalid to equate accommodation with making an error or lying. Temporarily allowing a prescientific people to hold onto their ingrained beliefs about the natural world is not at all the same thing as lying to them. Rather, it is following the principle of becoming "all things to all men." It is a manifestation of amazing grace."
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/T…