Bob- You calling me an 800 pound gorilla?!?! Joking, I don't know how many share your view here, but I appreciate your stance and share it almost completely. Some kind of metaphor that equates global climate change "feet draggers" with "knuckle draggers" comes to mind...but I would not want to offend gorillas! -Don
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:55:38 +0000 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [ENTS] Re: Even if you think it is a hoax Lee, Don, Steve, et al: There is another element to add to the discussion mix that can shed light on our collective evaluation of climate change science in this country and our evaluation of the credibility of the champions of climate change. The element is the role of religion - the often unaddressed 800-lb gorilla in the room, not to be discussed within polite circles. Fundamentalist religious views held by a substantial number of Americans tend to bias them against the accumulating scientific evidence for climate change as tied to CO2 emissions and therefore the collective impact of humans on the planet. There is a fundamentalist element in our nation (includes a few scientists(?)) that believes that "God" is a capitalist and consequently just won't let anything inconvenient like global warming happen to us. Members of this group are represented in all professions and often make it to the top of the political heap. Can anyone think of a governor or two? Members of the fundamentalist religious sector believe that humans are here with direct orders from the Deity to replenish the planet and nothing is going to convince them otherwise. The most deeply committed members outright reject the 4.5-billion year history of the Earth. They think the Earth is something like 6000 years old because Bishop James Usher came to that conclusion a few centuries ago. The fundamentalists reject evolution processes as anathema to their religious convictions. Predictably, they are almost always ignorant of the actual histories of the great religions and their tortured paths to gain converts, and more to the point, hold absolute power over the minds and hearts of the faithful. Deeply held religious convictions demonstrate how easy it is for the human mind to compartmentalize. A person can be brilliant in one area, exhibiting the highest level of cerebration, and be dumber than a box of rock in another. History is full of examples. Ego is another great hindrance to clear thinking and evaluation of scientific evidence. I remember when the great chemist Linus Pauling got stuck on vitamin C as a cure-all for everthing from cancer to in-grown toe nails. Pity. What went wrong in his otherwise brilliant mind? Once ego becomes involved, clear thinking goes out the window. Now, if fundamentalist leanings are combined with ego, you have a closed and often belligerent mind. In terms of climate science, the mounting evidence for global warming that is being spurred on by CO2 emissions from all areas of the globe seems to me to be simply overwhelming. How many people who claim tro evaluate the data really do so? When people "reject the climate data" as biased, which data are they rejecting? More to the point, whose partyline or talking points are they parroting? As has been pointed out, the climate change data are flowing in at such a rate and from so many diverse, credible, and unconnected sources that it would take a 24-hour commitment to stay on top of it. So when critics poohoo the data, exactly which data and from what sources are they poohooing? Basically, I think a lot of good people (religious and non-religious) who reject the scientific evidence for global warming underneath are just plain scared, but they haven't quite come to realize it. So rather than face their fears, they turn to skepticism and anger. Shoot the messenger. Basically, they don't want to change their consumption habits and they perpetually fear for their jobs. They dismiss environmental science as what they believe to be a green conspiracy to lock up all natural resources and return us to scavenging and eating roots and berries. In the case of thenreligious, rather than face the need for change, it is easier to trust to a benevolent Deity to insure everything works out in a big picture context, i.e. seven billion humans pumping out wastes at an ever increasing rate really won't have an impact. We all can understand soiling our immediate environment, but the fundamentalist rejects the impact of large scale pollution because that would interfere with the free flow of commerce and God will countenance no such interferences. Actually, maintaining a high standard of living while simultaneously living green presents us with our best course of action to finally get it right as a species. Combining good high tech comfortable living with green living points the direction to regaining the technological lead that we've frittered away in the global economy. By regaining lost ground, we could turn a handsome profit in the process. But the way forward isn't letting polluters off the hook by trading in carbon credits and continuing to rely on fossil fuels. And the right course certainly isn't just pretending nothing is happening on a global scale and trusting to politicians like James Inhofe (tied to big oil) and loud-mouthed demagogues like Rush Limbaugh to tell us what is what. Of course, they tell us that climate change science is a hoax -which brings me to the last point in my acknowledged ramble. One indirect confirmation of the validity of the evidence for climate change is to scan the opionins of the nuts on the far right. If you position yourself 180 degrees removed from the views of the rightwing nuts, your odds of being right dramatically improve - regardless of the subject. As a final comment, if the views I've expressed above should lead anyone to believe that I am not religious, or atleast not spiritually committed, nothing could be further from the truth. I totally reject the pseudo-scientific position that the physical world as we know it and we humans are the result of several billion years of random events. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lee Frelich" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 9:26:56 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Re: Even if you think it is a hoax Steve: Based on this excerpt from your last posting, I finally figured out what you and Don Bertolette have been talking about. Steven Springer wrote: > > My experience regarding this “consensus gathering” has been limited to > those boots on the ground colleagues in the Forest Service, at the > Federal and State level (remain un-named to protect the innocent!). If > one chooses to research this issue deeper, there are many in the > scientific field at a world-wide scale that are very skeptical and > will not mince words in calling those who are convinced as fools! > That's absolutely true. During February I presented at a conference on carbon markets to a Society of American Foresters audience of about 100 people. We gave them clickers so that they could respond to questions asked throughout the day and the results would display within a few seconds on the screen in the front of the room. During a session on the science of climate change we asked how many believe in global warming and whether it was caused by people--36% said no. I was surprised it wasn't more like 50%. Foresters are particularly conservative when it come so accepting new ideas. However, the consensus that CO2 is the main cause of global warming and that humans are the main agent of change in CO2 and climate, is among those scientists with primary expertise in climate science, not among all scientists in the world. It takes decades for consensus in one scientific community to diffuse through other fields of investigation. 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