[Split] On global warming and politics

[woodchip]

once again a cartoon which is more true than you suggest. Which of those threats is ONGOING, likely to harm the US proper and being ignored by large groups of Americans? Yup, the one Obama calls the greatest threat, and that is why he is correct.

Since the heat increase has flat lined for the last 19 years, I'd say Obama has it wrong.

[callmeslick]

Woodchip, your denials are rooted in utter ignorance. Those of us living on the coast can SEE the progression, and the warming. Someone just caught a cobia off a fishing pier on Cape Henlopen. Lobsters have moved to a center point 400 miles NORTH of Maine, tarpon are appearing in northern waters, islands in the Chesapeake are going under water, etc, etc........

[woodchip]

Show me the links as the last time I fished for tarpon was down in Flamingo and the the Keys.

[callmeslick]

from my local paper. Also, my cousin and another friend were taking tarpon last season of the islands of the Bridge-Tunnel across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/new ... /71785270/

[Sergeant Thorne]

...

He said there is the influence of fishery management actions, which sometimes favor one species over another or artificially inflate some populations through the introduction of hatchery-raised fish when a species gets in trouble. Efforts to rebuild striped bass populations and several shark species mean there are more big, top-of-the-food-chain fish, he said.

"We're protecting all the predators," he said.

Even with the shift, there are still plenty of fish to catch in Delaware waters, said Rich King, of Millsboro. He fishes every day and blogs about his and other people's fishing experiences.

"There have definitely been some pattern changes," he said. But when it comes to whether climate change could be the reason, King said he doesn't even want to go there. Shifts "happen all the time," he said. He points to this spring when there was a spectacular blue fish run that lasted seven weeks. "Those bluefish ate everything that moved."

...

[Top Gun]

once again a cartoon which is more true than you suggest. Which of those threats is ONGOING, likely to harm the US proper and being ignored by large groups of Americans? Yup, the one Obama calls the greatest threat, and that is why he is correct.

Since the heat increase has flat lined for the last 19 years, I'd say Obama has it wrong.

Sooooo the past few years containing the hottest months/seasons on record count as "flatlining" now? What was that you said recently about ostriches and sand?

[Ferno]

Sooooo the past few years containing the hottest months/seasons on record count as "flatlining" now? What was that you said recently about ostriches and sand?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_warming_denialism

This is the first year, where I live, where we had an actual, statistically significant drought, that was only offset by the monsoon-like rain we had about a week ago.

It's the first time I've seen plants DIE during the summer here.

I'm with TG. It's not "flat-lining". This is not a good record to break.

[Top Gun]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_war ... al_warming

Beautiful

[Sergeant Thorne]

So nice to have an ideologically one-sided source of "information" for anyone who wants to side-step the complexities of reality and get right to the meat kool-aid of the issue.

[Lothar]

The push to recognize the threat of Climate Change has the wrong messengers, providing the wrong message, using the wrong evidence.

What I mean by that: there's a ton of actually-good science out there about climate change. We know it's an enormous problem that could lead to global catastrophe if it's not resolved. But the people bringing the message to the American public in particular are almost entirely controversial politicians -- people who a large percentage of the American public simply don't trust. And the message they keep bringing sounds an awful lot like "raise taxes, especially on the rich and big corporations", which makes GW sound like an excuse for their pre-existing agenda. And the things they cite as evidence aren't things that ordinary people can easily grasp as significant. "Global temperature will raise by 2 degrees" is actually quite scary from a climatology perspective, but the average Joe sitting in his living room wouldn't mind if it was 2 degrees warmer, especially during the parts of the year when it's freaking cold -- and the data trendline is subtle enough that people like woodchip can persist in believing it doesn't exist, or that it's been manufactured from errors in measurement, or any number of other excuses.

We need better messengers with a better message and clearer evidence. We need Obama and Gore to STFU. Not because they're wrong, but because as long as they're talking, they draw the spotlight away from people with better credibility. We need military officers front and center talking about how climate change affects military planning and operations. We need farmers, ranchers, and fishermen talking about changes they've had to make in their practices in response to changes in growing season, fish migration patterns, etc. We need firemen talking about the difficulty in battling larger and more wildfires, and how that's going to get worse. We need sailors and dock workers talking about how changes in the ocean affect their routes, their work routines, etc. We need people whose families have lived in the same area for generations who can point to large-scale shifts in coastlines. In short, we need people who can credibly point to the practical issues involved in climate change to talk more, and people who are easily mistaken for leftist shills (including some who are actually leftist shills) to get out of the spotlight.

(Note the correlation between this and my first comment in the thread about Kim Davis -- as long as "that bull★■◆●", in this case partisan figures making anti-business statements using global warming as the backdrop, persists, then "this bull★■◆●", in this case people denying global warming because it appears to be an excuse for an agenda rather than an independent and real phenomenon, will keep happening.)

[Sergeant Thorne]

We could just hang everyone with political interest in the debate by the neck until dead and throw "climate change", "global warming", and "carbon tax" in the trash where they belong before we start a fresh discussion about the real local and national implications of changing weather patterns.

[Vander]

I can see why you guys want to remove the political aspect. There is a requisite serving of crow waiting for Republicans joining the conversation. Climate change, as an issue, is biased towards Democrats. Not only have they staked their claim by identifying it as an important problem, they are not vehemently opposed to the government regulation that will be required to deal with it. There’s simply no Ayn Rand approved method of dealing with this issue for Republicans to promote.

Heritage (I think) came up with the cap and trade scheme as a market based approach to dealing with this, but Republicans have gone so far off the rails that it has been left to Democrats to promote it. Too much has been invested in kicking Al Gore to acknowledge that he may have valid worries.

Republicans need to suck it up, dip that crow in some hot sauce, and dig in. Until then, it will be Democrats leading the way on this issue.

[callmeslick]

[Ferno]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/PRATT

[Sergeant Thorne]

I can see why you guys want to remove the political aspect. There is a requisite serving of crow waiting for Republicans joining the conversation. Climate change, as an issue, is biased towards Democrats. Not only have they staked their claim by identifying it as an important problem, they are not vehemently opposed to the government regulation that will be required to deal with it. There’s simply no Ayn Rand approved method of dealing with this issue for Republicans to promote.

Heritage (I think) came up with the cap and trade scheme as a market based approach to dealing with this, but Republicans have gone so far off the rails that it has been left to Democrats to promote it. Too much has been invested in kicking Al Gore to acknowledge that he may have valid worries.

Republicans need to suck it up, dip that crow in some hot sauce, and dig in. Until then, it will be Democrats leading the way on this issue.

A fair assessment from a compromised (and generalized) perspective. We're dealing with poison-laced crow. A fair-minded approach to the issue of changing climate would look so different that it would be unrecognizable, IMO. There are so many vested interests and half truths, that if the issue is going to be dealt with fairly it must absolutely be separated from those politics which have in no uncertain terms galvanized and driven it. It blows my mind that you and Lothar (not to equate your viewpoints, necessarily) essentially deny the potency or extent of the poison in being willing to try your hand at filtering (they're very nice filters) the water instead of disregarding the source altogether. Apparently there is some status to be had in working from the same source as everyone else? I'd say you're both victims of a subtle fallacy. There are powers that conspire to manipulate government to an end they deem superior (as always throughout history), and for them to succeed people must see fit to accessorize the appropriate yolk/shackles which would otherwise seem superfluous or downright contrary to their interest. As throughout history, the yolks or shackles are not so easily laid down as taken up, and many people have suffered and died to ultimately prove (disprove) stubborn theories based upon the deceitfully adorned interests of far too few.

[Sergeant Thorne]

It troubles me that when reading through the article Slick posted (Delaware) one is prompted to throw the briefly/shallowly-covered and cosmetically linked ecological trends either behind "Climate Change!" with all its baggage, or to suspect someone of collusion. I'd say door number 1 or door number 2 are both achieved by dint of an unhealthy jump to conclusion. I also think one has to recognize that there is usually a degree of fear-mongering going on, both to drive the political interests of "Climate Change" (more often to distinguish the author among the faithful in so doing), and to drive the stories/articles themselves.

[callmeslick]

I only posted that specific article because Woody asked about the tarpon moving north, and that was the most recent article I had on the matter. I didn't see it as anything of great significance in terms of facts supporting climate change.

[Krom]

:words:

Spoken like a politician.

Are there any scientific bodies who would agree with your words? . . . Oh right:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_war ... al_warming

[Sergeant Thorne]

I only posted that specific article because Woody asked about the tarpon moving north, and that was the most recent article I had on the matter. I didn't see it as anything of great significance in terms of facts supporting climate change.

I thought it was a pretty good argument for a warming trend (still potentially cosmetic). I don't find it believable that "Climate Change" leaves that on the table in favor of more potent evidence elsewhere. I find that sort of thing very interesting, personally. If anyone is going to talk climate I would prefer they stick to the facts/specifics with regard to specific agricultural and ecological adaptation, and leave the catastrophic predictions and political machinations to people who believe they can predict the future based on a weak grasp of the present and a very creative grasp of a projected past.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Spoken like a politician.

Like a politician? What about it exactly?

Are there any scientific bodies who would agree with your words? . . . Oh right:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_war ... al_warming

No! Not in the box!!

[Ferno]

fear your government, they very scary.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Ferno you should suspect anyone with even a modicum of power.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Also I notice a brief trend here against dealing with what I've written as-written...

[Ferno]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

[Sergeant Thorne]

Noted. Should we begin by proving the existence of conspiracies where power is concentrated, or can we skip that and just say you're being dismissive?

[Krom]

In one sentence you actually further politicize the subject while complaining about how politicized the subject is.

[Ferno]

Noted. Should we begin by proving the existence of conspiracies where power is concentrated, or can we skip that and just say you're being dismissive?

well, you're the one who suggested concentrated power conspiracies, so the onus of proof is on you.

[woodchip]

I only posted that specific article because Woody asked about the tarpon moving north, and that was the most recent article I had on the matter. I didn't see it as anything of great significance in terms of facts supporting climate change.

Well slick I looked a bit into it and you might want to re-evaluate whether the climate has induced them to move north or if they have been for years:

Tarpon are wide-ranging found in shallow coastal waters, bays, estuaries, mangrove-lined lagoons, and rivers in the Eastern Atlantic: Senegal to Angola, with occasional sightings off the coast of Portugal, the Azores, and the Atlantic coast of southern France. In the Western Atlantic they are found in: North Carolina, USA to Bahia, Brazil, with occasional occurrences off the North American coast in Nova Scotia and Canada.

http://www.tarponunlimited.us/tarpon_range.htm

http://woodsandwaterguides.com/FishingG ... ter=tarpon

Nonetheless, tarpon are regularly caught by anglers at Cape Hatteras and as far as Nova Scotia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_tarpon

You can find more info if you wish. Lets just say that using the Tarpon as a example of climate warming because they are in Delaware is fallacious.

[callmeslick]

except, Woody, I only responded to your comment saying you only thought they were a Florida species and seemed interested to hear about them
making it this far north. I merely tossed them into a LOT of other bizarre changes in recent years, and PUZZLED(note, different from drawing firm conclusions) why they all seemed to indicate a movement of warmer waters.
I was not, therefore, putting Tarpon range expansion forth as some cornerstone argument for global warming, at any time.

[Sergeant Thorne]

In one sentence you actually further politicize the subject while complaining about how politicized the subject is.

"Complaining?" Such an idiotic representation doesn't at all do justice to what I was trying to say.

Wishful thinking or altering perspectives isn't going to make a deeply, politically-rooted object into one concerned only with the scientific reality. I'm saying this is very political, with the intent to manipulate large populations of people. I do not wish that "Climate Change" would become non-politically-motivated, Lothar does/did. I wish that any legitimate environmental concerns be addressed entirely on their own merit and topic, while "Climate Change" is prosecuted for the charade that it is. You may call me a separatist, if you want to put a label to it. I don't believe "Climate Change" merits the purifying efforts of people with a clear perspective on environmental shifts. I don't believe Al Gore, et al, were well meaning and simply misguided--I believe they were motivated by things which do not merit intellectual sympathies (unless you find yourself with an interest in coddling a lie).

[Sergeant Thorne]

I was not, therefore, putting Tarpon range expansion forth as some cornerstone argument for global warming, at any time.

"Cornerstone" being the escape word...

Woodchip, your denials are rooted in utter ignorance. Those of us living on the coast can SEE the progression, and the warming. Someone just caught a cobia off a fishing pier on Cape Henlopen. Lobsters have moved to a center point 400 miles NORTH of Maine, tarpon are appearing in northern waters, islands in the Chesapeake are going under water, etc, etc........

[Sergeant Thorne]

Noted. Should we begin by proving the existence of conspiracies where power is concentrated, or can we skip that and just say you're being dismissive?

well, you're the one who suggested concentrated power conspiracies, so the onus of proof is on you.

Onus of proof?

... There are powers that conspire to manipulate government to an end they deem superior (as always throughout history), and for them to succeed people must see fit to accessorize the appropriate yolk/shackles which would otherwise seem superfluous or downright contrary to their interest. As throughout history, the yolks or shackles are not so easily laid down as taken up, and many people have suffered and died to ultimately prove (disprove) stubborn theories based upon the deceitfully adorned interests of far too few.

fear your government, they very scary.

Ferno you should suspect anyone with even a modicum of power.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

Noted. Should we begin by proving the existence of conspiracies where power is concentrated, or can we skip that and just say you're being dismissive?

What do I need to prove, exactly?

[Lothar]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ferno_do_y ... _standards

FTFY

It blows my mind that you and Lothar (not to equate your viewpoints, necessarily) essentially deny the potency or extent of the poison in being willing to try your hand at filtering (they're very nice filters) the water instead of disregarding the source altogether

I don't think the source is tainted. I think the poison is coming in downstream, so to speak, and all we need to do is move the poison factory away from the river. There are good scientists out there doing good work.

Climate change, as an issue, is biased towards Democrats. Not only have they staked their claim by identifying it as an important problem, they are not vehemently opposed to the government regulation that will be required to deal with it.

Republicans need to suck it up, dip that crow in some hot sauce, and dig in

I don't think it's even that hard for a party to eat that crow and the voting public to completely forget about it by the next election. Do you remember the Republican platform of 1980? Remember that thing about health care costs rising too quickly? Me neither; I had to look it up.

The problem isn't that Democrats are leading the way and Republicans are uninvolved. The problem is that politicians are leading the way and people who actually know what they're talking about are only marginally involved. Yes, eventually, solutions will need to be political -- but you can't sell a political solution if people don't trust you to credibly identify the problem in the first place. From time to time you'll hear people say "global cooling", which really highlights that credibility issue -- Democrats have finally gotten it right, but only after proposing the same solutions to fake problems in the past, so people who don't know enough about science to be able to evaluate are stuck questioning their credibility, and meanwhile the problem is getting worse. If they'd step out of the limelight and really shift the emphasis toward the practical -- how farmers and firefighters and fishermen and naval officers are having to adjust -- we'd be in a better spot. We could increase the number of ordinary people willing to support large-scale intervention of the right sort.

[Ferno]

What do I need to prove, exactly?

Let's start with this.

There are powers that conspire to manipulate government

[Sergeant Thorne]

It blows my mind that you and Lothar (not to equate your viewpoints, necessarily) essentially deny the potency or extent of the poison in being willing to try your hand at filtering (they're very nice filters) the water instead of disregarding the source altogether

I don't think the source is tainted. I think the poison is coming in downstream, so to speak, and all we need to do is move the poison factory away from the river. There are good scientists out there doing good work.

Fair enough.

What do I need to prove, exactly?

Let's start with this.

There are powers that conspire to manipulate government

You must mean you want proof that there is a conspiracy of power driving the Climate Change agenda, because as a general rule manipulation is what powers do without a very specific moral compunction to the contrary, and certain things are only possible through cooperation.

There is no specific "proof", that I am aware of. What there is is suggestive evidence and strong possibility--what can be likely will be if there is a good reason. Climate Change concerns everyone's survival or well-being, and so whatever it requires everyone would be motivated to give/give up. I think it should be obvious to everyone that this advantage has already been taken, politically, and that's the reason for this topic/argument. What we disagree on is how far it has gone and is wanting to go, and whether the means are truly justified.

My position is that means inconsistent with individual liberty or God-given rights are not justified. The American constitution and bill of rights does not need to be sacrificed to save the planet (in word or in spirit).

[woodchip]

What do I need to prove, exactly?

Let's start with this.

There are powers that conspire to manipulate government

One word...Lobbyist.

[Vander]

My position is that means inconsistent with individual liberty or God-given rights are not justified. The American constitution and bill of rights does not need to be sacrificed to save the planet (in word or in spirit).

My position is that the Earth's ecosystem cares not one whit about individual liberty, the constitution, or the bill of rights. While I value those things, I value sustainable human habitation on this planet more.

[Sergeant Thorne]

I don't think you know how to value either, Vander--that's a very confused statement.

Liberty from the tyranny of other men is ultimately at least as important as survival. How can you value life over quality of life? Aren't they two parts of exactly the same thing? Do you know what happens when liberty and human rights get trampled? People die. Plain and simple. Usually a lot of people. Or are you confused enough that you think you care for the earth more than your life? That's actually impossible for a sane person to do, logically speaking.

Is there a term for the mental acrobatics involved in caring about something to the exception of that very same thing? To me it just says that it is not, in fact, the primary underlying motivation.

To care about liberty and humans rights is to care about life. To care about the environment is to care about life. Are we going to be foolish enough to ask which is more important?

[Krom]

When it comes straight down to it, survival wins over everything else. If the ecosystem collapses all the liberty and freedom in the world won't fill your stomach.

We aren't saying you should give up liberty, but reminding you that it comes with responsibilities or you will lose it not to the rules of man but to the rules of nature.

[Sergeant Thorne]

What you guys need to appreciate is that if liberty and human rights are a given, then it becomes part of the same fight, and not a potential casualty in the fight. You are both compromised.