Remember global warming? Why aren't liberals constantly bringing up the subject anymore, especially as the whole country is enjoying a mild, or shall we say, warm, winter?
OK, there are still true believers out there, but the sane among the left are probably a bit embarrassed for having bit on that issue. But they are not about to publicly announce a change of view, as that would be too embarrassing for most. Rather, they are just going to ignore the "issue" and hope it goes away. Kind of like those people who fell for the hopey changey Obama stuff the first go around.
A Wall Street Journal letter writer, one Irwin Romaner, makes an excellent point. The true believers argue that global warming is real and therefor their policy preferences must be followed. Romaner disagrees as follows:
Even if climate change is real and human caused, the global-warming argument rests and falls on a much broader set of assumptions:quantitatively serious global warming is in fact taking place and will continue to take place; global warming is a bad thing; it is entirely or mostly human caused; it is within "our" (the U.S. and Western Europe but not India and China's) technological capability to substantially fix the problem; and, it can be fixed cost-effectively. Every one of these assumptions is very much open to question, and if any one of them is answered in the negative, the whole global warming enterprise falls apart.
As I contemplate assumption #2 - global warming is all bad - and a vigorous bike ride in February in Wisconsin, well, a part of me wishes the lukewarmers were right.
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9 comments:
Who ever said a condition of a solution was it had to be "cost effective"?
I googled Irwin Romaner and found nothing substantive about him, his credentials or any particular reason why anyone should put any weight behind his assumptions.
What would possibly lead you to assume that this issue has gone away, because you don't hear about it on FuxSnooze?
There is certainly no shortafge of other news to draw our attention, but I don;t bring this issue up repeatedly because there is no point in beating my head against the wall of people who would rather place their faith in convenient pseudo-science than in reality.
Here ya go, read all about yourselves: http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/9871-rights-stupidity-spreads-enabled-by-too-polite-left
EXCERPT: Don't take my word for it. Listen to what two former Republican ideologues, David Frum and Mike Lofgren, have been saying. Frum warns that "conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics". The result is a "shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology" which has "ominous real-world consequences for American society".
Lofgren complains that "the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital centre today". The Republican party, with its "prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the "low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter". While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".
These are the perfect conditions for a billionaires' feeding frenzy. Any party elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed interests. A tax break for the 1% is dressed up as freedom for the 99%. The regulation that prevents big banks and corporations exploiting us becomes an assault on the working man and woman. Those of us who discuss man-made climate change are cast as elitists by people who happily embrace the claims of Lord Monckton, Lord Lawson or thinktanks funded by ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers: now the authentic voices of the working class.
Right from your own horses mouths. I couldn't have said it better myself!
A fair question BradK. Let me take a shot at answering that, though I am not the author of the quote. Perhaps what is meant by the cost effective is that cost of the solution is not greater than the benefits gained. For example, if the cost is discontinuing or greatly curtailing carbon emission producing machines etc.... which then results in massive starvation that kills 80% of the worlds population, then that might be considered a not cost effective solution. Of course I am not saying the 80% population wipeout is what would happen, I am merely using that as a hypothetical example wherein costs may exceed benefits, and hence not be cost effective.
Sean, your first instinct - googling Irwin Romaner - says much about your reasoning skills, none of it good. Romaner is irrelevant and I only included his name as a sort of courtesy. It matters not who wrote the argument. The argument is either good, bad, or mediocre independent of its author. That you need to rush out to confirm or deny his authority suggests rather strongly that you are unable to consider an opinion with your own brain. Would the same argument resonate with you had it been authored by Michael Moore, Al Franken or Nancy Pelosi?
Regarding your question concerning the melting away of global warming hysteria, perhaps here your googling instincts might come in handy. You know, you could probably find out whether and to what extent the NY Times has stopped reporting on the subject, or how the Obama has stopped using the term global warming or even climate change. As for me, I am just noticing way to many anecdotal instances which considered cumulatively suggest a fair amount less hysteria than in the past. Among those anecdotes, besides those I hinted at, are fewer challenges on the subject here at FR, and a reluctance to bring it up from my moderate sibling who once called me a flat earther for my views. Really, if nothing has fundamentally changed regarding the catastrophic nature of this problem, what would be the point of exerting any effort whatsoever to unseat Walker, for example, as that will have no bearing on the larger problem of humanity roasting to death. Indeed the change in liberal priorities gives the game away.
And lastly, have you tried beating your head against the wall? Nothing else seems to be working.
s, "I don't bring this issue up repeatedly because there is no point in beating my head against the wall of people who would rather place their faith in convenient pseudo-science than in reality."
Finally sean! Welcome to the world of real science. What lead to your deprogramming?
Warmest high priests falsifying data sets?
Growing number of scientists looking at the actual science and sprinting from the AGW cult?
(I wish I'd had that last link back when you were a believer, it pretty obliterates just about every quote from scripture you ever preached.)
All the computer climate models that you once new to be infallibile were shown to be, in fact, wrong?
Love to know. The information you provide could lead to a faster cult extraction of other poor, misinformed acolytes in the future.
Not much going on regarding global warming (climate change, cute polar bears drowning, whatever they call it these days.) It routinely shows up around 30th on any polling list regarding what is your biggest concern these days. Pretty much supplanted by explosive government growth, looming insolvancy (see Greece for a preview of coming attractions) trampling the Constitution (see ObamaCare).
But here is a question the likes of Sean have never been able to answer: If things are getting too hot these days, that means with all the moving parts in the universe there must have been a perfect temperature at one time. When was that? When Al Gore was being templated for Love Story? When Sean was running around in his back yard at age 10-ish during the summer of love? Isn't that kinda arrogant... thinking weez gots all this control? Liberal baby boomers really are world class self-indulgent navel-gazers.
Love this quote by Patrick Michaels:
“AGW theory functions best in a data free environment”.
Quick Sean, google Patrick Michaels.
Good idea Denis. You guys, and especially Nemo with his ludicrous links, are nothing but hapless pawns in the Replicons Global War on Reality.
Here is your "expert". Mr. Patrick J. Michaels is senior researcher in environmental studies at the Cato Institute; research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia; author of two books on global warming, The Satanic Gases and Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming; and editor of World Climate Report, a biweekly newsletter on climate studies funded in large part by the coal industry. According to a 1998 article by Institute for Public Accuracy executive director Norman Solomon, the Cato Institute has received financial support from energy companies -- including Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company, and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation, and Atlantic Richfield Foundation. According to his bio on the Cato website, Michaels is a visiting scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) in Washington, DC. The nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly calls the Marshall Institute "a Washington-based think tank supported by industry and conservative foundations that focuses primarily on trying to debunk global warming as a threat." According to an ExxonMobil report, the ExxonMobil Foundation donated $80,000 to the Marshall Institute's Global Climate Change Program in 2002.
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