Ding! I worry that the politics pushing one doomsday scenario is taking away effort and funding from far more important issues. As I've said before, moving away from oil burning and coal plants is indeed the right course of action, scaring people into doing it with some sort of righteous crusade against warmth under the guise of science just seems like it is going to really confuse people about what science is and does, because it already has.
Global warming is scientific fact. You do not know better than 98% of the world's climatologists, or as I said before, at this point just
observable events.Nobody has ever said we shouldn't focus on things that do not directly cause climate change, but: A. The vast majority of these things are either majorly advanced by or even directly caused by climate change, B. It is irrational to think a successful ecological ethic would not include them, and C. With the possible exception of ocean acidification (majorly advanced by CO2 content) climate change is the biggest problem and the one most likely to cascade.
It's very difficult to make someone believe something when their salary depends on them not believing it.
Terrifying that you so casually talk about "making someone believe something" and toss in corruption allegations, I wish I was being paid for not believing things I don't know to be true, fuck that would be the best job ever.
It's not a conspiracy. People who should know better while pushing creationist textbooks are also out there saying they believe it. There are secret atheists who run major churches and people who secretly accept climate change who hold stock in Exxon-Mobil. The exact form of rationalization or just not giving a shit varies between people and isn't really the important part here.
The only people who are actually paid by big business to deny are their think tanks, which unfortunately are very good at what they do.
>.> I've been following this topic for most of my life (which will enter year 36 tomorrow), literally, you can't pull this on me.
I literally can. Your claims of watching and, if I'm remembering right, "disproving" climate change by doing an experiment in your garage or something, are meaningless. They directly contradict everything we consistently have shown to be true. If you really could demonstrate anything like that in a way that knocked out the mounting evidence of a doomsday scenario you'd be fucking rich dude. It's the same as all the people who say they can disprove evolution. They aren't the next name remembered in biology for centuries and yours isn't the one for climatology.
It wasn't even until the late 80's and early 90's that they first started getting any attention, and it was 1995 specifically that they were able to get governments to take them seriously,
Ba-Ba-Bullshit. As you may have heard, the first study demonstrating the dangers of anthropocentric climate change was done in the late 19th century. But fine. Maybe you don't think that's significant enough, and maybe, given that it was only one and very little instrumentation existed at that time. However, you have completely ignored the existence of the conservationist movement, the effective founding of modern ecology with the Blue Marble photograph, the deep concerns of overpopulation and population control movements of the 60's and 70's, the mass renewable boom of the 70's that was then systematically destroyed by the Reagan administration to back up their buddies in big oil, the acid rain conflict and eventual solution via the original cap and trade program, the discovery of peak oil in 1956, and oh yeah, Silent Spring. You can also go ahead and count the anti-nuclear movement since they had the same basic ethos (don't destroy everything).
Yeah, you're right, governments didn't listen until the 90s, and then only grudgingly. It isn't because they rationally assessed the poor idealist environmentalists and said "come back later, champ!". It's because it's a problem so severe and contrary to our way of life up to this point that the response most of the time is outright denial if not rage.
just saying, the situation is a lot more complex than "HE DOESN'T BELIEVE, WHAT ABOUT THE POLAR BEARS, HE MUST BE EVIL UNLIKE ME" type stuff,
Wow! This poisoned well is a 2001 Gore! That's some fine vintage.
calm down man, I don't hate the planet, I would love to get funded by rich oil tycoons because fuck those guys, gimme dat cash, but I'm not.
I can rationally disagree with you about this subject, afford me the same courtesy? I'm not interested it getting into a big search for charts and data and whatnot, because it won't accomplish anything, I already tried that here, I've done it for years before, I'm done wasting time trying to change beliefs with facts, it's insane on my part at this point, but while you're looking at extreme droughts and hurricanes, google "cat 5 drought" next.
You know what's not rationality? Setting yourself up as the persecuted intellectual who's just trying to shine the light on the worming carcass of "big bad politically-backed science". I wish. If the governments of the world actually did take this shit seriously, then you really would have something to worry about.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If I found out that the conspiracy theories about the government putting contraceptives in the water and sending the EPA to arrest major business owners were true, I would be relieved. Because as ham-fisted and flawed as that would be, it would at least, at
least indicate that the people at the top of society actually do understand the magnitude of what we're facing and were trying to do
something about it. As opposed to my growing horror that these guys who have their finger on the pulse of the world really do believe their "jobs and growth for eternity" spiel and pray to Jesus to preserve the Earth.