quote:In Startling Reversal, Scientific American Counsels People to ‘Chill Out’ over Global Warming
by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.12 Mar 2018
Apocalyptic scenarios attributed to global warming are simply false and the human race will be able to accommodate whatever “climate change” throws at us, claims a remarkably sober new essay in Scientific American.
The essay, penned by John Horgan, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, analyzes two recent reports by “ecomodernists” who reject climate panic and frame the question of climate change and humanity’s ability to cope with it in radically new terms.
One of the reports, a work called “Enlightened Environmentalism” by Harvard iconoclast Steven Pinker, urges people to regain some much-needed perspective on climate, especially in the context of the overwhelming material benefits of industrialization.
Pooh-poohing “the mainstream environmental movement, and the radicalism and fatalism it encourages,” Pinker argues that humanity can solve problems related to climate change the same way it has solved myriad other problems, by harnessing “the benevolent forces of modernity.”
Separating himself from environmentalists who seem to detest modernity, Pinker asserts that industrialization “has been good for humanity.”
Could it be that sound thinking is finally beginning to reassert itself in mainstream science? We can only hope!
We need to get word to the European dupes of Global Warming that Trump was right to withdraw our country from the Paris accords.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
It should be noted that Horgan's essay -- or the two reports he mentions in his editorial -- do not dispute that man-made global warming is happening. Both reports merely point out that it's a mistake to be too defeatist about it, as we humans will almost certainly buckle down and try to find technological solutions to the problem once it becomes inescapable, even if those solutions are very expensive.
That's not, I suspect, what Breitbart would like you to take from the article. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
"Apocalyptic scenarios attributed to global warming are simply false" -- that is the message I take from the article. It is about time that the environmentalist movement, or at least the hysterical fringe part of it, was called on its anti-technology fanaticism.
Are the coasts about to be inundated? Despite pictures we have seen of sea water flooding some coastal streets, no one showed the same streets clear of water, after what turned out to be something temporary.
Are the polar ice caps about to melt away? Al Gore said there were be no northern ice cap by 2015. He was wrong. But has he returned his undeserved Nobel Prize? Nope.
So what is the real purpose of the Paris Accords? Is it not to hamstring industry, and force industry to pay lots of money to some tyrannical socialist authority?
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Are the coasts about to be inundated? Despite pictures we have seen of sea water flooding some coastal streets, no one showed the same streets clear of water, after what turned out to be something temporary.
if someone thinks that this disproves coastal issues related to global climate change and temperature warming, they're being a completely asinine moron, but what else is new
global warming isn't going to cause a coastal surge event that floods a coastal region and then inexplicably never goes away
it's going to cause more and more frequent surge flooding, paired with gradual sea level rise
so someone saying "aha, the storm surge WENT AWAY! gloooooooballl warrrrrrrming DISPREWEEEEEVVVEEDDDD" is just being an unintentional stereotype of
really bad
really dumb
global warming deniers
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
also color me completely shocked that breitbart, sterling example of fair and accurate reporting, desperately attempted to misconstrue and misrepresent a scientific american article, and that ron lambert bought it
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: "Apocalyptic scenarios attributed to global warming are simply false" -- that is the message I take from the article. It is about time that the environmentalist movement, or at least the hysterical fringe part of it, was called on its anti-technology fanaticism.
Are the coasts about to be inundated? Despite pictures we have seen of sea water flooding some coastal streets, no one showed the same streets clear of water, after what turned out to be something temporary.
Are the polar ice caps about to melt away? Al Gore said there were be no northern ice cap by 2015. He was wrong. But has he returned his undeserved Nobel Prize? Nope.
So what is the real purpose of the Paris Accords? Is it not to hamstring industry, and force industry to pay lots of money to some tyrannical socialist authority?
As someone whose city has serious, call-in-the-national-guard flooding nearly five years ago:
Sure, the flood waters go away in a couple of days, but the damage to homes takes months, and in many cases, years to fix (if you were my most unlucky coworkers.) Let's have this not happen.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
If they loved God enough to get good Republican leadership, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: So what is the real purpose of the Paris Accords? Is it not to hamstring industry, and force industry to pay lots of money to some tyrannical socialist authority?
posted
Yes. There are some people who fear and oppose allowing common people to have too much power. So they warp facts to support any idea which would seem to justify curtailing the power of people in general, except for those strictly under the control of the socialist tyranny that liberals foolishly favor. It also underlies the disproven Malthusian theory that earth is so terribly over-populated that drastic measures are warranted to limit the numbers of the lower classes. Here is the real truth: at the heart and foundation of all desires to curtail technology and industry and population growth, is elitism. The liberal, socialist elitists do not realize that they are really neo-feudalists.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
But it is the "captains of industry" who wind up literally multiplying the power of the common individual.
Who has given people the power to fly anywhere in the world in a few hours? Who has given people the power to be cool in summer heat and warm in winter cold, so that people can live comfortably in Florida in July, and in Alaska in January? Who has given virtually everyone the power to eat food grown in almost any part of the world? Who has given people even of modest means the ability to own clothing made of synthetic or natural fabrics with considerable style and utility? Who has made it possible for virtually everyone in America to own televisions sets that are flat screen and high-definition? Who has made it possible for the internet and social media to connect billions of people directly, so that is becoming more and more difficult for socialist tyrants to control the news? Who has given the world computers? Who has given the world medicines that cure thousands of diseases once thought incurable? Who is responsible for the general increase in longevity, especially in America? Who has made it possible for the results of nationwide elections to become known everywhere within a few hours, in most cases?
[ March 21, 2018, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Enabled. Given if they can afford it--and when large screen, flat screen, high definition TVs can be purchased for as little as $100--then most can afford it. You do not have to be rich to fly from New York to Los Angeles--or London, etc. Think how much it originally took to follow the Oregon Trail--and how long it took! Look how the average lifespan used to be about 50 years. Look at all the diseases that used to kill huge amounts of people!
Anyone who thinks that these things are somehow undesirable, is an enemy of humanity. If everyone really loved other people, there would be no socialists. Socialism is based on coveting the possessions of others. A socialist government can only be made to seem like it is working until you run out of other people's money to spend. Then you have to wage wars of aggression, to loot the wealth of neighboring nations. God forbade coveting in the tenth commandment, because He saw that coveting is the cause of most crimes, and of all wars of conquest. 1 John 3:4 defines sin as the transgression of the Ten Commandments. So socialism is based on sin. This is why most socialists fear and hate Biblical Christianity, and it is why all communist governments profess atheism.
[ March 21, 2018, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
You really don’t know much about socialism, but such conversations invariably run into your fanaticism and dishonesty, so there’s not much point in that.
It’s worth pointing out that many of the advances you praise-particularly the medical ones-were accomplished in the teeth of objections by men like you, Ron-sometimes violent. It’s worth pointing out that these advances which you credit to these captains of industry were by no means at all accomplished by them alone, ever, and were frequently built on the backs slavery, theft, and exploitation. That scores or even hundreds of years later standards of living improved doesn’t make these men worthy of praise for their concern for human welfare, though their ambition and willingness to work hard are certainly worth praise. (Ambition, though, ooofff, not the highest Christian virtue).
And unless you’ve got an answer for the war of not just conquest but extermination on the Bible being not simply permitted but *commanded*, your remarks on covetousness are laughable.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
The world you think you see is not the world I live in.
Clifford Connor makes an excellent point in his "A People's History of Science":
quote: The contributions to the history of science made by socially subordinate and illiterate people have not left the paper trail that historians customarily depend on for evidence...
The development of the peasant's knowledge...is impossible to trace by archival research, and the same is true of much of the scientific knowledge produced by artisans who were unable to read and write...
Sailors and fishermen...provide a cogent example. Their precise knowledge of the relation between the moon's position and the tides, which they recorded in accurate tables, had helped them safely reach port for many centuries before Galileo erroneously denied the moon's agency and instead attributed the tides to the earth's rotation...
It is by the testimony of Bacon and Boyle, of Gilbert and Galileo, that a strong case for the significance of the 'illiterate mechanicks' can be made.
Literally the opposite of the world as you see it.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
No, it is just the dishonest and biased professors you have had who brainwashed you into believing a totally false narrative of history that makes you think the world is different from the one I have been describing faithfully.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Scholarship is for chumps, White Whale. What you need is a good stiff dose of revealed truth and authoritarianism to enlighten (no, that's a bad word) illuminate you. Bacon and Galileo? Hacks.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I see now the error of my ways. Who is the authoritative authoratarian I should spend my time studying? Please provide citations.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
basically you can only cite ron lambert and any kook that hasn't yet crossed his wires harder. ron lambert is so performatively triggered by dissent that he launches into epic tirades about other people's dissent.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It should be noted that Horgan's essay -- or the two reports he mentions in his editorial -- do not dispute that man-made global warming is happening. Both reports merely point out that it's a mistake to be too defeatist about it, as we humans will almost certainly buckle down and try to find technological solutions to the problem
It should also be noted that Horgan's piece is an opinion piece. And he wrote this opinion piece about opinions, which is pretty meta.
In both articles his position is less about the reality or magnitude of global warming, and more about how our reaction to it affects the effort to solve the problem. For example, he states this opinion on Al Gore:
"OPINION: Al Gore's efforts to counter global warming have hurt that cause by associating it in the minds of many Americans with a liberal political perspective. "
It comes just a bit below this opinion:
"OPINION: Optimism is a more constructive approach than pessimism to countering the climate change and other threats to humanity."
This, ironically, is pretty much the same perspective Gore provides in "An Inconvenient Truth." Both authors are basically arguing that it's important not to be all doom and gloom, because the people listening to you will arrive at a defeatist depression, and stop trying (if they were trying to start with) to solve the problem.
It's not an issue of whether it's "a mistake to be too defeatist about it, as we humans will almost certainly buckle down and try to find technological solutions to the problem" but that being defeatist might actually prevent us from finding those solutions. As Eisenhower said: "Pessimism Never Won a War."
Horgan and Gore are in violent agreement with each other on all counts. Pretty much the only merit to Horgan's opinion of Gore's accomplishment is the fact that Gore is, in fact, a liberal politician. But were he not, there would still be the backlash against the science of global warming, for the simple reason that fixing the problem requires keeping highly profitable fossil fuels in the ground, and the fossil fuel industry has and will continue to promote the notion of climate controversy. Climate denial is political, only because of economics. If it weren't Gore's political background, it would be something else that gets scapegoated.
And I strongly agree with them. But my feeling is that we DO need to be aware of the doom and gloom scenarios, but we need to see them as risks, rather than inevitabilities. It's a very bad gamble to just assume that "we humans will almost certainly buckle down and try to find technological solutions to the problem" rather than actually bucking down and finding those solutions. Even if it's likely that humanity will make it through unscathed, the mere risk that we won't find solutions is too great.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
