Climate Change

[canpakes]

Did someone say “Trump”?

Gunnar, that was darling.

Yeah, he has opinions about the issue.

[ceeboo]

Good morning, C

And yes, this is a good micro sample of a conversation based on how bad a side is where credibility is assumed and not earned.

(Bold mine)

Seven words (the bolded ones)

Is it even be possible for a mere seven words to completely capture a really complex topic/issue? Can these seven words be an adequate answer to an entire laundry list of questions? Are these seven words significant enough to offer a sufficient explanation to a deeply serious topic like climate change?

Yes. Yes. And Yes.

Credibility is the 600 pound gorilla in the room - End of story. The question, in my opinion, is do we see the 600 pound gorilla sitting right in front of us?

Business relationships, often, are founded upon credibility. Relationships/friendships (valuable ones) are dependent on credibility. Marriages (strong ones) require credibility. Jurors (almost always) make decisions based largely on credibility. Sales people (most of the good ones) succeed directly because of their credibility. And in all cases, credibility is something that is earned (as you so efficiently and effectively point out in your seven words)

Climate change is no different - If certain people are going to ask an entire nation (or the entire world) to get on board with a proposal - to make serious sacrifices and/or significant changes, they absolutely must bring the 600 pound gorilla (credibility) with them when they ask. If not, they will simply be dismissed or ignored and the collective body of people will not unite and get on board. Rather, without credibility, they will divide. Simply put, as things stand now, there is a severe credibility problem within and around the entire climate change discussion.

Cultellus, for what it's worth, I found these 7 words (your words) - "where credibility is assumed and not earned" - to be extraordinarily valuable and deeply profound as it relates to this entire discussion.

Bravo!

[Atlanticmike]

The Earth is getting greener, which will benefit us in the coming years. The population is skyrocketing and a greener earth will be beneficial at helping us feed the world.

Not if slightly elevated temperatures put the brakes on crop yield:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00544/full

Or mess with the interaction between plants and soil biota:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 59F667A03F

Or if crop range changes cramp US farmers while shifting production and food choices to overseas:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/clim ... crops.html

Is global warming real, yes it is. But, like I said, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe you need to step back and start thinking about why you're so scared of global warming.

Why would taking precautions about warming trends be any different in spirit than having flood or health insurance, wearing seatbelts, or learning firearms safety? Do you commit to those precautions because you’re scared, or smart?

And PROGRESSIVES are using global warming to scare the chit out of people so they can control their thoughts and actions.

Control for what purpose?

Are you actually serious when you ask "control for what purpose?". FEAR!! Politicians know that fear can manipulate voters into voting a certain way. Franklin D Roosevelt said it best "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". There's political cults on the fringes of both the right and the left. The progressive left is trying to scare the livin chit out of all voters, young ,old, black, white, male, female they don't care. The progressive prophets are all in on scaring people everyday, never letting up, so they can build an army of brain dead voters who feel dependent on a handful of politicians who they feel have the ability to make sure their worse fears never come true. You're in a cult canpakes! Wake up!

[Atlanticmike]

It won't matter if people are hit by climate policy in totally equitable and fair ways, there will still be plenty of opposition for being hit at all.

People don't want to pay 2 cents for something that doesn't affect them. Things will probably be okay for their lifetimes, iffy for their children's lifetimes but maybe still okay, but the grandkids? No matter, since the grandparents will be long dead before the suffering happens, they'll never know about it.

This is a scenario where the policy cost for any given member of society is likely greater than the gain. The most important gains are outside of every living person's lifetime. Zero incentive.

It's hopeless, and so I tend not to dwell on it much. Look at it this way: Vaccination is a direct benefit to virtually everyone, but even then, the patron Saints of the Right are those who stoically die in the hospital surrounded by prayer warriors rather than get a shot.

If people can't accept a pin prick to save their own lives, there's no way in hell they'll accept emission restrictions that affect that old truck they love, where they will never benefit from the discomfort.

This is total frickin bullcrap! And it shows that you jumped from the Mormon cult think, straight into PROGRESSIVE cult think, congratulations!! Most people I know know, no matter party affiliation, want to help keep the earth clean and livable for generations to come. But of course, the PROGRESSIVE cult thinks they are the only group that can help us solve our climate problems and anyone who opposes them and their wacky views needs to be demeaned and ridiculed. I don't remember exactly when, but sometime in the mid 80s I remember Ted Danson being interviewed on TV and he said 99% of all scientist agree that global cooling will make our oceans disappear in 20 years, for some reason that interview has stuck with me . Global cooling was big in the 70s, 80s, we also had people saying acid rain was going to kill everything. Then it was the hole in the ozone. Then global warming. Now it's the all-encompassing phrase "" climate change"" you are latched on and suckin the titty of of your PROGRESSIVE prophets and I'm starting to believe you enjoy the constant flow of disinformation you keep gulping down. Wake up!! You're in a cult!

[Alf'Omega]

It won't matter if people are hit by climate policy in totally equitable and fair ways, there will still be plenty of opposition for being hit at all.

People don't want to pay 2 cents for something that doesn't affect them. Things will probably be okay for their lifetimes, iffy for their children's lifetimes but maybe still okay, but the grandkids? No matter, since the grandparents will be long dead before the suffering happens, they'll never know about it.

This is a scenario where the policy cost for any given member of society is likely greater than the gain. The most important gains are outside of every living person's lifetime. Zero incentive.

It's hopeless, and so I tend not to dwell on it much. Look at it this way: Vaccination is a direct benefit to virtually everyone, but even then, the patron Saints of the Right are those who stoically die in the hospital surrounded by prayer warriors rather than get a shot.

If people can't accept a pin prick to save their own lives, there's no way in hell they'll accept emission restrictions that affect that old truck they love, where they will never benefit from the discomfort.

This is total frickin bullcrap! And it shows that you jumped from the Mormon cult think, straight into PROGRESSIVE cult think, congratulations!! Most people I know know, no matter party affiliation, want to help keep the earth clean and livable for generations to come. But of course, the PROGRESSIVE cult thinks they are the only group that can help us solve our climate problems and anyone who opposes them and their wacky views needs to be demeaned and ridiculed. I don't remember exactly when, but sometime in the mid 80s I remember Ted Danson being interviewed on TV and he said 99% of all scientist agree that global cooling will make our oceans disappear in 20 years, for some reason that interview has stuck with me . Global cooling was big in the 70s, 80s, we also had people saying acid rain was going to kill everything. Then it was the hole in the ozone. Then global warming. Now it's the all-encompassing phrase "" climate change"" you are latched on and suckin the titty of of your PROGRESSIVE prophets and I'm starting to believe you enjoy the constant flow of disinformation you keep gulping down. Wake up!! You're in a cult!

There is no "Progressive Cult Think" beyond simple rational human beings logically deciding what's best for human society at large. Your loyalty to the actual cult, Right Wing Conservatism, is what triggers this wrong-headed, and ironic defensive reaction to scientific facts. For you they can't be good if they in some way forward a "progressive agenda." You know, like saving human lives.

You are engaged in idiotic hyperbole and beating straw men arguments because that's what people do when they have no facts on their side and they belong to a cult. Conservatism in America rests on the underlying premise of "What's good for me and me alone, and I don't want change."

This is why people detached from society in rural areas tend to be Republican, or Republicans in metro areas aspire to move out to the boonies at some point. They don't want progress or change. They want things the way they are. They want to be left alone. They want to live in denial about anything that challenges what they know by "faith" to be true. They hate any efforts to make America more inclusive, which is why they're so invested in these imaginary culture wars. (i.e. the imaginary war on Christmas, the Great Replacement theory, etc) Abortion was believed to be wrong in all cases 200 years ago because we had an infantile understanding of the development of the human body and so we attributed much of it to the invisible man in the sky and called anyone who did it a murderer. It isn't a coincidence Republicans have an antipathy towards science and progress, because it regularly calls on us to reevaluate what we thought we know and to change accordingly. In most cases in challenges their preconceived beliefs based on their Religion. Republicans don't like change. The ones I know who never come to the city think we're still living in the 1800's when only a few million people were spread out across the entire countryside. Obama had it right when he alluded to scared people who cling to their guns and religion. Back in the 18th-19th centuries there was plenty of free land and free resources to survive off the land if you wanted to. That's not possible today with a country of more than 330 million people most of whom are consolidated in large metropolitan areas. We are changing as a society in that we are becoming more and more diverse and consolidated and it is driving Republicans absolutely insane.

[ceeboo]

Obama had it right when he alluded to scared people who cling to their guns and religion.

Here is Obama's full quote about people in small-town America that you reference.

"They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

It's interesting that you think "Obama had it right" when he made this demeaning and bigoted comment.

As to the rest of your very special post here, after thinking it over, I used great personal restraint and made a decision to simply pass.

[Chap]

... certain people are going to ask an entire nation (or the entire world) to get on board with a proposal - to make serious sacrifices and/or significant changes, they absolutely must bring the 600 pound gorilla (credibility) with them when they ask. If not, they will simply be dismissed or ignored and the collective body of people will not unite and get on board. Rather, without credibility, they will divide. Simply put, as things stand now, there is a severe credibility problem within and around the entire climate change discussion.

Oh dear. The poor scientists have a problem, don't they? They qualify after a huge amount of really hard study, then compete for academic posts, then do research for years, they argue with one another, they do experiments and gather data, send articles to scientific journals, revise them following referees' comments, wait for their colleagues to read the published version, then do more work in the light of the debate that follows ... and this goes on for years and years, failure and success alternating in varied proportions depending on their cleverness and sometimes plain luck.

Eventually, as in the case of climate science, they reach a stage where an overwhelming consensus is reached amongst professionals in the field that things are a certain way - as for example, special and general relativity really do tell us how the universe behaves. Or in this case, the climate is getting steadily hotter worldwide, mainly caused by the hugely increased emission of greenhouse gases (primarily CO2) into the atmosphere by human activity since the industrial revolution began. And it is possible to predict that unless we cut those emissions fast, the bad things that are already happening (more intense heatwaves, melting icecaps, fiercer storms, more frequent floods, widespread forest fires) are going to get worse and worse. It took decades of work to get there, but they have done it.

Congratulations, climate scientists! Thanks for explaining what is going on and telling us what has to be done to reduce the scale of the disaster threatening us all! Without your work ...

Oh, wait: there is a credibility problem. People find your conclusions inconvenient, bothersome, even costly in some ways. And because they don't actually know much about science, they feel quite comfortable ignoring what the scientists say, and instead they listen to Fox News instead, who tell them it's all a liberal plot to seize control and stop them eating hamburgers and driving 4x4s because they hate America.

It was all a waste of time, then. Forget about it. Sorry we spoke.

And this is the scientists' problem?

================
We are on the deck of the Titanic.

A sailor stares at the horizon through binoculars, then races down from his look-out post to the bridge.

Sailor: Captain sir! There's a big white lump out there, big as a mountain, I think it's what us sailors call an 'iceberg' and if we hit it the ship will sink!

Captain (smiling indulgently): Son, I have passengers on board who need to get to New York on time. They will be really annoyed if I change course just because we tell them there is a big white thing out there. It's what we call a 'credibility problem'. They simply don't find that kind of stuff convincing. So either you find a way of getting them to believe in - what did you call them, 'icebergs' ? or the ship will continue on course.

Sailor: Wow yes, captain, I should've thought of that ... sorry to have bothered you.

[canpakes]

That is to say - science has provided more than enough data and information for any reasonable and level-minded person to be able to acknowledge the problem we all face concerning climate change. The solution will come from innovation, period, in my opinion

I agree about innovation. And yes, this is a good micro sample of a conversation based on how bad a side is where credibility is assumed and not earned.

We will have innovation because some folks are willing to consider what science has shown us about the issues with climate change, and some folks will act on it.

In a way, both of you are acknowledging the issue, but are waiting for someone else to take action.

[canpakes]

Control for what purpose?

Are you actually serious when you ask "control for what purpose?". FEAR!!

Yet, you're the one with all of the exclamation marks and ALLCAPS in this conversation.
; )

Who is depending on fear? Who is trying to control you? The folks that would tell you that there's a potential problem and that we should look at it to decide what action, if any, we might take, or the fellow screaming on the internet that acknowledging the problem means that 'THEY' are coming to control you!!1!

If you want to pretend that we can't put ourselves into difficult or challenging situations, how will you ever be prepared to get yourself out of one when it happens?

The real fear is being spread by the folks who want you to shove your head into the sand while they tell you about others wanting to 'control you', because, apparently, they believe that you're too weak-minded to deal with 'things'.

[ceeboo]

Hey C

Good call Ceeboo.

Ya think?

I gave Alf the benefit of doubt that maybe he has never been to America.

That's interesting because I was wondering if Alf has ever been to planet earth.

If he has, and he still writes that crap, he is just a mentally ill bigoted POS. But lets see what he says, maybe he is just ignernt.

If I had to guess - I would go with ignernt!

It just makes it more obvious every day how little people actually matter to them.

Man, I hope you're wrong - but I really can't say you are with confidence.