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- smoothmedia, on 10/12/2007, -29/+77@murrayev
While Crichton raises some interesting paralels between environmentalism and religion, this does not mean that it IS a religion. The concept of not ruining something good that you possess is human instinct. Environmentalists realize that they are a part the environment and depend on it for survival. It therefore makes logical sense than humans should make every effort to sustain that environment, and thus sustain their own existance. Unlike the christian faith, the environmentalist "doomsday" is not a prophesy, it is the FACT that if humans damage/polute the environment to the point where it becomes uninhabitable then humanity cease to exist.
Think of it this way. An environmentalist and a christian are both trapped in a submarine at the bottom of the sea. Water begins pouring into the submarine from a tiny hole in the hull. The environmentalist notices that the submarine is filling up with water, and realizes that if the leak is not stopped then the sub will be completely filled in a few hours and he will drown. The christian doesn't worry about the hole because he believes that a UFO will abduct him in exactly 20 minutes, and he will be taken to a utopian planet to live for eternity. The environmentalist tries desperately to mend the hole, even trying in vain to convince the christian to help him. The christian decides he'd better comb his hair, he wouldn't want to look bad in front of the aliens!
"One of the problems with man made global warming is that it really does not *yet* stand up to the scientific method. There needs to be experiments that can prove or disprove the theory. Right now there is too much contradictory evidence, despite how many times the politicians start their arguements with, "There can be no more disputing this."
The scientific community has overwhelmingly accepted man made global warming as a reality. You know its bad when Exxon has to offer a $10,000 bribe to any scientist willing to argue otherwise. That being said, scientists don't pretend to know everything about the current global warming trend and more research will continue to be done. Would you rather have man-made global warming turn out to be false after we have invested trillions in changing our practices, or have man-made global warming turn out to be true after we've worsened the damage for each year we failed to act?
The evidence we have right now suggests that global warming is largely due to humans. We should therefore focus our efforts on remedies and contingency plans, until evidence no longer supports the theory. - EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -22/+61Some religious groups are actually taking the whole "shepherding the planet" thing seriously. It's the ones who perpetually think the End is Nigh (and would like to rush it along) that are the real problem.
- smoothmedia, on 10/12/2007, -6/+37@rasterbator
You clearly failed your STATS class.
95% of Democrats believe in man-made global warming, 2% do not.
13% of Rebulicans believe in man-made global warming, 84% do not.
How is it NOT a partisan issue? - EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4113%?
I think that's about the same percentage of Americans that believe anything said by Congressional Republicans. - totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -16/+40Wonder how many of them believe the Bible is the "literal truth."
- monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -12/+36none. It's just their marketing tool.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+35So we have murrayev claiming that environmentalism is a religion and that global warming doesn't yet stand up to scientific scrutiny. We have cliffzdude complaining that skeptics of anthropogenic global warming are being shut out be a giant scientific conspiracy and repeating an old lie about the flat Earth in order to say "scientists were wrong once, therefore they are always wrong". And finally we have johndi accusing the SCIENTISTS of using ad hominem (I think my irony meter just exploded).
Yet none of these people can seem to find actual, published data that supports the view that global warming is not largely human-caused. None of them can find useful climate models that support their view. Why is this?
Another interesting thing is that the rhetoric of these three is extremely similar to the rhetoric of creationists. We have close homologues to "evolution is a religion", "evolution is a nice idea but without solid support", "creationists are being shut out by orthodox scientists", "scientists were wrong once and so consensus on evolution means nothing", and "scientists keep saying nasty things about me, just because I accused them of being Nazis!" - EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -47/+70@Cliffzdude,
The question is not WHERE are the skeptics. The question is WHEN were the skeptics. You missed the boat, son. The issue was open for scientific debate for most of the last century, before the facts were so clear. Debate during that time was fairly constructive and informative. But I doubt you were even aware of it then.
Nowadays, the only people trying to debate climate change are idiots and paid deniers. It's time to move on to solutions. But you can keep your head in the sand. We can do it without you. - carve, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27Global warming isn't a belief- it is something you do or do not accept the evidence for.
- Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23This is what happens when they stop thinking and tow the party line, which itself is towed by campaign contributions by big oil. I hate this mentality that holds as dogma that nothing advocated by a liberal candidate could possibly be correct. Unfortunately for us, the view that global warming is either not happening, not human caused, or that we can do nothing about it has long since crossed the line from scientific debate into religious warfare and clash of dogma. May those who had a hand in the deception be damned!
- orp2000, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21According to politics. Unfortunately not according to science. But thanks for playing our Reality Show. You can pick up your consolation prize on the way out, as you head back to fantasyland with the rest of your Republican buddies.
Science speaks and Bush answers - here's $10,000 to shut up, you're inconvenient to to my oil buddies. Yeah, the Right certainly has no bias. - RockTheWall, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18From sourcewatch.com:
Dr. Timothy Ball is Chairman and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP).
Previously, Ball has been identified as a Canadian climate change sceptic who is a "scientific advisor" to the oil industry-backed organization, Friends of Science. - ryogahibiki, on 10/12/2007, -20/+34That means 87% of congressional republicans are being paid lobbying money by big oil.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19I'm curious as to what you believe here, antifederalist. Do you think the UN has some sort of plan that goes as follows:
1. Make up data to support global warming
2. Trick all scientists
3. Convince world that global warming is real
4. Get carbon taxes passed in the industrialized world
5. ???
6. World government!
Seriously, you've been making this claim on every global warming story on Digg. So just what do you imagine the link between science and world government is supposed to be? - pauljaroszewski, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21These republican douche bags actually call themselves conservatives...haha, what a joke.
- fatfinger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Only 13% Of Congressional Republicans Believe In Global Warming because the other 87% all watch Fox news. If you watch Fox (I am forced to watch it here in the NOC) you know what I am talking about.
- KiloCharley, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Yeah, screw the grandkids, I'm cold now!
idiot! - Shiftgood, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15It is? thanks burger boy. I heard so much debate, but you made it crystal clear for me.
Has the scientific community contacted you? have they tapped into your infinite wisdom? You obviously ran a series of tests that prove your hypotheses before making that statement right? I think I see a Nobel prize in your future. - orp2000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I just love it when people on the Right politicize and polarize an issue and then complain that it is too polarized. C'mon, the responsible scientific community (and no, that does not include Tim Ball and his lying ilk) says "here are the facts." The Right says "we don't like facts that might cause our oil friends some discomfort." And all the Right wing idiot fringe who has no connection to oil but just hates the left on principle, marches in lock step. It's really getting friggin' old.
- sagefool1975, on 10/12/2007, -12/+22And 100% of scientists. ;)
- orp2000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Ok, lets see some of your evidence. The last thing that was presented on this site as "evidence" against global warming was a bunch of crap by Tim Ball who has been shown publicly to be a liar (Google "Tim Ball" and "Dan Johnson" together) and presented no evidence whatsoever in the article. It was a bunch political crap that every Right wing non thinker jumped on and claimed as it as their holy grail of "proof" that there is no global warming.
- MacParrot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9dfick,
Soooo, because he doesn't completely agree with you he should never post on digg again? Interesting. So no dissent is allowed? No contrary views are permitted?
Something this important being left to Democrats (who really don't give a crap about you except when you vote) and Republicans (who also don't give a crap about you)? If you really believe that anyone in the US Congress gives a good goddamn about you or global warning, you're kidding yourself. Both sides are taking money from any company willing to give it. Professional whores that sell their opinions to the highest bidder.
Is the earth naturally warming or is it because of man's destruction of large parts of the environment. Or maybe some combination of the two. Show the evidence that is conclusive based on long term studies, not a knee jerk reaction.
I haven't decided it for myself yet, but I'm certainly not going to take the word of Reps and Dems on either side of the argument. - illcendiary, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Misleading title alert. Only 13% of Congressional Republicans believe in MAN-MADE global warming, not global warming itself. There's a difference, and it's debatable how much global warming we actually cause, anyway.
- murrayev, on 10/12/2007, -82/+91And Environmentalism isn't a religion? Michael Crichton had some very good points about this:
"Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith."
(http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/speeches_quote05.html)
One of the problems with man made global warming is that it really does not *yet* stand up to the scientific method. There needs to be experiments that can prove or disprove the theory. Right now there is too much contradictory evidence, despite how many times the politicians start their arguements with, "There can be no more disputing this." - RoflcopterFUEL, on 10/12/2007, -14/+22"I guess it essentially boils down to the war between religion and science. Religion is telling the republicans that the effects of global warming are acts of "God" while scientests have established an intellectual approach to the problem."
Oh STFU!!
Republicans are more prone to sympethize with big business interests, AKA Oil/Auto/Fuel companies. Do you honestly think anyone in congress believes in god? - smoothmedia, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10It's called "global warming" for a reason, not "anectodal localized warming".
Average global temperatures are rising, but its not just that simple. It's total climate change; while the north pole warms at an alarming rate, other places are experiencing cooling due to changes in ocean currents and the jetstream. - meanreal, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12I'm not surprised - same folks believe that they can win the war in Iraq.
- Hale, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The question asked of them was not whether or not they believed in global warming, it was whether or not they believed man is the cause the cause of global warming. If you don't see a difference, you don't understand the argument.
- brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12diesel tractors are probably more economical than a Ford Expedition
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10It doesn't even take a scientist to look at a thermometer, and record temperatures, and realize that the average global temperatures are rising over a given amount of time.
The real argument is what/who is causing this effect. Personally I think it includes a number of factors, including human activity (obviously), but I don't think it's the only factor. - idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10@anamanaman
I read through that article, but he did not seem to ever actually present some sort of evidence against global warming. However, I did see him talk about his college degree, famous people that agree with him, how much experience he has, and how he is totally not getting paid to say any of it.
edit: wow, look what happens in 4 minutes - siszam, on 10/12/2007, -11/+18First, not all Christians are Republican. I'm so sick of people making that assumption. All the Christians I know believe in global warming and we believe is our place to care for the earth. I think it's very narrow minded and bigoted to say there is a war between religion and science. You are confusing the greedy Republican extremists with all Christians and it's insulting. The Republicans who say they don't believe in global warming are the same people who would rather spend money to kill people than help them. Their views on things are shaped by greed not religion. They only use religion as a shield hide behind while they do evil. You're confusing fake Christians (warmongers, Bush) with real Christians (those who love peace and actually try to live like Christ)......again based on bigotry and ignorance.
Don't blame it on religion every time someone disagrees with you. It's just stupid. - Shiftgood, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Obviously a good reason to ***** on our planet.
- Shawnosaurus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8This story should dredge up every knee jerk digg commenter possible. If it says republican, democrat, global warming or denier it gets either an automatic bury or digg. It's as bad as the console fan boys bury/digging each others articles in a frenzy all December and January.
- erkokite, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Republicans have no platform to run on that people will accept. So they make up some sky-is-falling "war on terror" and fear people into voting for them. What a vacant, failed ideology...
btw... Almost all scientists across the world have reached a consensus that climate change is real. This has nothing to do with the Democratic party. If you don't believe me you can go look at the IPCC report on global warming, which was collaborated on by hundreds of scientists from around the world and approved by 113 nations.
You republicans just don't get it. You live in your own little world. Everything that you don't agree with is instantly some sort of liberal conspiracy, but I guess you can't dismiss the fact that the American people voted your asses out of offices across the country last November.
Cheers. - skytimelapse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Sounds like you know everything huh.
- smoothmedia, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Actually, Timothy Ball is being paid off by Exxon and other oil companys to hide behind his impressive education and spread his pseudoscience. I invite you to take a look at "the other side" of the story.
-------
Sceptic in demand
Closer to home, one of the 19 Canadian signatories to the skeptics letter is Tim Ball, a retired professor of climatology from the University of Winnipeg, now living in Victoria. As a global-warming sceptic, he is in high demand by the front groups sponsored by the fossil fuel industry.
Ball's particular niche is the argument that since 1940, the world's climate has actually been cooling. The conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reached by over 2,000 climate scientists, that the world is heating up is wrong, he says, because it used "distorted records."
Undistorted records in hand, Ball is promoted by the National Center for Public Policy Research ($225,000 from Exxon Mobil), and Tech Central Station (which also receives support from General Motors). He's a hot topic on the Coalblog web site, sponsored by the coal companies. In the past year, he's given policy briefings to the Fraser Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg.
You could have found him and Baliunas at a conference in Ottawa in November 2002, just days before parliament ratified the Kyoto Protocol. That conference, urging the government not to proceed with ratification, was paid for by Imperial Oil (Exxon Mobil's Canadian subsidiary) and Talisman Energy and put together by public relations firm APCO Worldwide.
APCO's assignment for Imperial Oil was to bring together a roster of climate change skeptics to reveal Kyoto's "science and technology fatal flaws."
An APCO specialty is supporting rogue scientists who are financed by industry and purport to challenge established scientific thinking. APCO organized The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which was originally funded by the Philip Morris Company, to attack epidemiological studies which implicated environmental tobacco smoke in slightly increased rates of lung cancer in non-smokers. Such studies could not be allowed to stand, given the tobacco industry's claim that harm from smoking was regrettable but due to individual choice, not second-hand smoke. This work was essential in Philip Morris' efforts to limit the impact of passive smoking regulations. APCO then widened the financial catchment to include other companies with poisoning or polluting problems. The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was so successful that it was assigned a lead role in opposing Kyoto.
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2006/05/02/PaidtoDenyGlobalWarming/ - smoothmedia, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8$10,000 says you can't back that claim up with anything scientific.
- eyggg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6What does the congressional republicans' stance on global warming have to do with Christianity or religion in general? I really don't get the connection. Their objection is fueled by economic concerns, not religious. Just because it's against the grain of the scientific establishment doesn't mean it's necessarily fueled by religious convictions.
- earthtoandy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7what a stupid thing to be a basis for political difference.
it all comes down to money - sizbo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7This political rift really says something about global warming: it's undeniably a politically charged debate. This means that, like abortion, flag burning, and drugs, it appeals to human emotions, and politicians can turn it into yet another "us against them" issue.
Democrats get to feel like they're ahead of the curve scientifically, whereas republicans get to feel like they're not buying into democratic scare tactics. It is *so* following formula... - uberkling, on 10/12/2007, -4/+987% of Congressional Republicans are morons who shouldn't have a hand in running the country.
- cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -53/+58Where ARE the skeptics? Is it not part of the scientific process to take a theory and poke and prod it with the skeptical mind? Human induced, catastrophic global warming is a pseudo-science based not in the scientific process but rather in consensus. Consensus is not science, the world was not flat when the consensus said it was. The world was not headed into another ice age as the consensus told us in the 70's. But not the consensus says we have produced catastrophic, human induced atmospheric condition.
The Starbucks weekend intellectuals have jumped onto the global warming band-wagon, but I fail to see its been put through the ringer that many here have put the thought of a higher power through. Skepticism is a good thing when it comes to science, it makes for stronger science. Skepticism regarding global warming is welcomed with less acceptance than an atheist trying to become the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+16@dfick
I still can't find ANY global warming skeptics on Digg, so I hardly see how they can be bashed. I see lots of people using cherry-picked data, deliberate misrepresentations, logical fallacies, and outright lies in order to deny global warming and in order to deprecate climatologists, but that's not really skepticism, now is it? - joel8x, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Is it? It seems pretty cut and dry to me. Prior to the industrialization for the world by humans, the warmth of the planet followed a cyclical seasonal pattern, and every once in a while we experienced an ice age that had to do with the world's weather patterns getting out of sync. If the problem we were facing was another ice age, I may agree, but we have been going in the opposite direction ever since we began living the way we have in the past 100 years. The world as we know it has never shown a pattern of such high average temperatures as we are seeing now. What is the harm in adjusting our lifestyles now? You don't notice the difference in a few degrees now, but that does not mean it isn't making a huge change in the world. It makes me frustrated that people think this is some sort of scam. There is nothing to gain by anybody in acknowledging global warming - nobody is going to be making a fast buck off of you if you decide to by a car that has decent fuel economy. If anything you save money. The people who are against it seem to be reluctant to learn about it, yet they still hold a strong opinion about it. That's just ***** up.
- javip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5LOL
Sorry but that has to be the funniest thing I've ever read... I can't stop laughing. - zanzzz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's amazing to me how so many people are convinced that human caused global warming is completely without foundation! People post opinions that are complete rubbish. You have never studied the science and have no viable informed position from which to vehemently reject the idea. Of course skepticism is fine but don't feel to secure in it. We are conducting a vast experiment to find out what happens when you double the concentration of a certain gas in the atmosphere. The results are bound to be complex and in the short run a few surprises are likely to crop up. Stay tuned kids, we're almost there. When the results are in those who guessed wrong can apologize or ask for more studies.
- starclaws, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Iraq is not a war. Its a police movement by our country. Similar to vietnam.
- superman7648, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5illcendiary is right, if it's one thing that annoys me about digg users is their gullablility, don't believe everything you hear kids, yes that includes the internets
- sdsurf, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12@EntropyMan: Pretty obnoxious statement that anyone debating human-caused global warming is an idiot. I'm a geophysicist and I don't buy a lick of this claptrap. Call me an idiot if you will, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that I have a little more knowledge on the subject than you do. Listening to Al Gore rant about the polar bears floating off into the tepid Arctic Ocean does not make you an expert on the matter.
What you seem to be missing is that all the while that it was "up for debate over the last century" the environmentalists have changed their tune a hundred times. In the 70's they weren't hand-wringing over global warming - it was global COOLING they were convinced was going to kill us all. If you don't believe it, that's your prerogative, but there were articles about it in some little-known publications like Science and Time and no one paid any mind to it then either - you can look them up. In the 80's it was the hole in the ozone layer that was going to be our demise, and that we were causing it. We're not. And as it turns out, it has almost completely closed up just 20 years later. Amazing. Also, the concept that our CO2 emissions are causing the warming is a farce, it happens to be the other way around. The CO2 production in the atmosphere occurs AFTER the temperature increase. Sorry, causation has to happen before the effect. Anthropogenic CO2 emisisons account for something like (maybe) 1-5% of the overall carbon cycle, and that amount of CO2 could easily have been generated by events like the oceans of the planet outgassing following the Little Ice Age. What it boils down to is that the human-caused global warming hype is just that - hype. The problem is that global climate changes happen on a scale just a little longer than we've been on this earth, and to think that humans are the ones creating the climate change because "well, we're here, and the temperature is going up.. it must be us doing it" is not scientific, at least not by any method I've ever been privvy to. Al Gore standing on his back porch and recording that the temperature is higher today than it was yesterday is not proof of global warming.
Let's not forget that there was the above-mentioned Little Ice Age as well as a Medieval Warm Period - these are scientifically accepted climatological periods - accepted by the same people who say that the current warming cannot be just another phase of natural climatological oscillation. Now THAT's idiotic, if you ask me.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of these people who denies that the climate is changing. To be sure, it is. This is a measurable fact. And it is completely normal. What I am disputing is that humans are causing it and that we need to change our behavior to alleviate the "problem".
So label me an idiot, if you will... but I don't care. -
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