Gosh--I seem to recall that SOMEBODY was whining about college kids not studying science 'cause it's TOO HARD. Difficult to say how Tinsley would have gotten the impression that there's anything hard about science, since his attitude towards it can accurately and completely be summed up in the phrase "hur hur--them scientists with their book-learin' always walkin' round thinkin' they're so smart, but they're not."
Oh yeah, and you're STILL a pathetic drunk, Tinsley.
Look up Lake Chad. Or look at forest clearing for crops and the effects that has on making dry spells dryer and wet spells wetter. Flash flooding occurs in many places where plant life has been stripped and replaced with either flat fields or residences, neither of which is as efficient at absorbing excess water. Flaming walls occur in places where all previously natural, small, and controlled burns have been banned to save homes built near the wild.
There is a lot of evidence over the past centuries that even a simple low-technology human activity as farming or building will aggravate the water cycles to more extreme levels. But you have to look further than the 2 miles down the road in middle-Indiana and further back than last year.
Of course, how the straw caveman states it makes it sound completely absurd.
Dopey fuzzy-head liberals! Everybody know these things caused by little gods in rocks and clouds, and we must sacrifice kid every so often and everything fine.
I wonder how he'll spin it when the mangroves are gone and the next big storm does even more damage. I'm not anxious to know; I just wonder.
Ruben Bolling has his finger on the pulse of the deniers, as always, in his May 21, 2010 strip. "I never said there wouldn't be an oil spill! Anyway, what does the spill have to do with oil drilling?..."
WV - stroman [n]: feminine form of 'strawman,' e.g., every female depicted in the comic
Ah, the right-wing "Christian" mindset. Man is the complete and utter center of the universe, God's special little snowflake! We rule the world! Nothing is mightier!
But try to point out that our actions have consequences on the world, and suddenly we're all just so small and insignificant next to the potency and grandeur of nature.
It's like building your entire worldview on personal responsibility, then blaming the judicial system when you finally get nabbed on a DUI.
Tinsley's kids will pay the price for their father's denial of global warming.
It's one think to be a cheerleader for the Aristocracy and hatin' on the dark-skinned people and afraid of people with box cutters; he can be hoping that his kids will benefit by joining the white violent aristocracy. But the carbon pollution of our atmosphere will hurt them same was everyone else, so why does he back it?
To rewinn: when I ask wingnuts about this, their usual answer is that Al Gore is flying around in a jet, so... and that's about all they have.
Bonus hypocrisy from the right: when Al Gore (or Kerry, or Soros) is rich, then being rich is wrong. When Donald Trump (or any of the 99% of extremely rich people who lean to the right) is rich, it's because being rich is God's way of rewarding goodness...
Anonymous gave a nice example of The Gore Paradox, which neocons, smirking in their abject ignorance, think is an insurmountable catch-22:
If Al Gore does NOT live in a cabin in the deep woods, he is a hypocrite and no one should listen to his crazy shit. If Al Gore DOES live in a cabin in the deep woods, he is crazy and no one should listen to his crazy shit. Q.E.D.
...You know, as if "going green" is supposed to mean "going Flintstones." Similarly, when you talk about alternate energy sources, they crap themselves over bird kills at wind farms--ignoring bird kills by aircraft, and going on about how a little oil ain't gonna hurt no ocean.
It's always easier to chortle at caricatured, fundamentalist half-wits as the only opponents of AGW, but you might possibly want to open your minds just a teeny, tiny bit to realize there are a number of prestigious scientists who are very skeptical of the whole Al Gore bit, and for reasons having nothing to do with the bible or oil companies. Not saying that Tinsley understands the debate, mind you, only that the exaggerated approach most of you take is almost as silly as the duck's posture. I know, you don't like to hear that there might be different ideas out there, and I'm a dupe of the fossil fuel industry, but I do like to drop a little reality into this "debate" once in a while.
You know, I would DEARLY LOVE to be COMPLETELY, UTTERLY WRONG about global warming. Nothing in the world would make me happier, and not even a million dimwitted wingnuts gloating could dull my happiness. And hell, who knows; science IS complicated, and maybe there's some crucial, poorly-understood factor that everyone's missing that would place the question in a completely different light. It's not completely inconceivable.
But I fail to see why I would want to actually BET on this being the case when the vast, VAST majority of scientists worldwide agree that it's a real thing, and all the ones who disagree seem to have transparently vested interest in doing so.
If I were this caveman, I'd be more worried about curing jaundice.
Anonymous, I don't think anyone disputes that scientific consensuses usually have doubters. Einstein denied quantum theory for a while, and Stephen Hawking recently lost a encyclopedia set on a bet. The consensus opinion could still be proven wrong -- it will no doubt be tweaked in the future as more evidence comes in -- but when you weigh the prestige of organizations and people who support the consensus vs. those who do not, the fact that there is a clear scientific consensus is undeniable. By the way, Al Gore is not a scientist.
There are decent, established scientists who are skeptical. No theory has ever had 100% support.
What might be surprising to the skeptics' supporters however is what that skepticism entails. The skeptics have respect for their peers they disagree with. They are usually embarrassed by their supporters, especially those who misquote, expect them to be angrier about the issue, or assume that their position that the data is inconclusive in a certain area serves as proof against AGW. And for some, the doubts are just personal if they're not actively researching climate change and they realize that doesn't mean much.
Yeah, like I'm going to listen to some neocon pinhead's lecture about being more open-minded.
What cracks me up about deniers are the "alternative theories," by which I mean, "comic-book nonsense pulled out of their anuses." Sunspot activity. Cow flatulence. Axis wobble. Wholesale changes in Earth's orbit. Everything up to and including the approach of the Rapture. Half-assed-research specialist Michael Crichton even came up with hippies practicing weather control. These clowns can't even agree, yet demand to be taken seriously. Granted, they aren't as preposterous as Birthers, but it's a close pie-fight.
But hey, the Wrong Wing's been spot-on about everything else, haven't they? Domino Theory. Laffer Curve. Star Wars. Ozone Depletion. Hell, even smoking. So, yes, by all means let's ignore those who deal in hard science and listen to those who put dogma above all else.
When we consider that "a number of scientists" include "the number zero", then we are compelled to admit the irrefutable logic of anonymous' claim.
It is true that there are sceptics; ALL scientists are sceptics; all science is scepticism - you get positively rewarded for questioning the evidence.
But it is also true that the "scientists" who are global warming deniers have their degrees and experience in fields other than climatology, except perhaps for one or two fossils in a small college somewhere who haven't bothered to keep up with things we've learned since the Nixon administration. Were it not for tenure or the money they bring in from the carbon pollution industry, they'd be sitting next to Tinshley in a bar doing "research".
The basic physics of AGW is simple: when you add insulation, less heat escapes. There's plenty of details and that's why true scientists, sceptics all, are continually improving what we know. People who don't know science thinks that that process "disproves" AGW which is does only in the sense that adding precision to any calculation "disproves" the prior calculation.
@Tog - let me put in a word for cow flatulence. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas and some amount of AGW is due to agriculure, e.g. cow farts and such. How much, I don't know but it's just one more reason to cut back on the meat-centric diet that isn't good for us anyway.
But otherwise, you're quite right. The same people who argued tobacco doesn't cause cancer are arguing in the same way that carbon etc isn't poisoning our atmosphere, and for the same reason: the aristocrats do it for the money, their followers do it because they are masochists - they genuinely enjoy being p1ssed on by their masters since it allows them to feel superior to everyone else.
Michael Crichton is surely one of the worst of the lot. His theory is that hippies seeking vast wealth invented incredibly powerful and sophisticated weather control devices so they would get more research money ... which completely ignores the simple fact that there would be a much bigger market for stuff like that in, let use say, the Middle East (...not to mention the Pentagon). The theory doesn't make any sense at all but of course the masochists positively enjoy the swill the more absurd it gets.
Skeptic I've come across: a geologist who works in geodesy. They based their doubts on the fact that the recorded rising of sea levels is on a length scale that falls into the error of margin for some instrumentation, or is the same as measured/predicted effects from other changes such as the location of Earth's center of mass, land rising, location of the moon, and the effects of plate tectonics. This is their field and their experience.
However, their conclusion was not to throw out all AGW as a possibility, but to instead propose more precise measurements over a larger area. Those whose work has already linked sea level data AGW want the same. This scientist has doubts in only that particular area, and does not account for other factors. For them, the rest is left to the experts in other fields to debate regarding atmospheric physics and modeling and they refuse to make comments about it in an official capacity. And like 99.99% of the scientists who are not corporate, they've got too many other non-AGW-related projects to juggle for pay to worry about their exact stand in the political environment.
So, skeptic? Yes. Corporate shill? No. Proof positive that AGW is a farce? Hell no. Avoids talking to the anti-AGW crowd due to their tendency to cherry pick and run away or accidentally accuse him of falsifying data because the data sets are usually shared, and prefers to discuss these doubts with the AGW scientists in similar fields. They also recognize the shortcomings of the limited analysis and mention these with any official presentation of their analysis. And they're still for green energy.
22 comments:
Gosh--I seem to recall that SOMEBODY was whining about college kids not studying science 'cause it's TOO HARD. Difficult to say how Tinsley would have gotten the impression that there's anything hard about science, since his attitude towards it can accurately and completely be summed up in the phrase "hur hur--them scientists with their book-learin' always walkin' round thinkin' they're so smart, but they're not."
Oh yeah, and you're STILL a pathetic drunk, Tinsley.
Wow. What a DUMB statement.
Look up Lake Chad. Or look at forest clearing for crops and the effects that has on making dry spells dryer and wet spells wetter. Flash flooding occurs in many places where plant life has been stripped and replaced with either flat fields or residences, neither of which is as efficient at absorbing excess water. Flaming walls occur in places where all previously natural, small, and controlled burns have been banned to save homes built near the wild.
There is a lot of evidence over the past centuries that even a simple low-technology human activity as farming or building will aggravate the water cycles to more extreme levels. But you have to look further than the 2 miles down the road in middle-Indiana and further back than last year.
Of course, how the straw caveman states it makes it sound completely absurd.
So it's "climate change season," Batshit? Is that what you're trying to suggest without saying it outright, Mr. Intellectual Coward?
Oh, Pat Buchanan must be so proud of you. But I'm still wondering whatever happened to Evil Sun and cow farts.
Dopey fuzzy-head liberals! Everybody know these things caused by little gods in rocks and clouds, and we must sacrifice kid every so often and everything fine.
I wonder how he'll spin it when the mangroves are gone and the next big storm does even more damage. I'm not anxious to know; I just wonder.
Ruben Bolling has his finger on the pulse of the deniers, as always, in his May 21, 2010 strip. "I never said there wouldn't be an oil spill! Anyway, what does the spill have to do with oil drilling?..."
WV - stroman [n]: feminine form of 'strawman,' e.g., every female depicted in the comic
Ah, the right-wing "Christian" mindset. Man is the complete and utter center of the universe, God's special little snowflake! We rule the world! Nothing is mightier!
But try to point out that our actions have consequences on the world, and suddenly we're all just so small and insignificant next to the potency and grandeur of nature.
It's like building your entire worldview on personal responsibility, then blaming the judicial system when you finally get nabbed on a DUI.
Liberals, and Conservatives, the Early Years:
Liberal Caveman: WE need build wheels, fire, weapons, so we advance society, make better place for future.
Conservative: No, wheel, fire dangerous, God hate! Make weapon, stop!
Word Verification: Untew, tew is the state of not being as evil as possible, and Tinsley is untew
Liberals, and Conservatives, the Early Years:
Liberal Caveman: WE need build wheels, fire, weapons, so we advance society, make better place for future.
Conservative: No, wheel, fire dangerous, God hate! Make weapon, stop!
Word Verification: Untew, tew is the state of not being as evil as possible, and Tinsley is untew
Tinsley's kids will pay the price for their father's denial of global warming.
It's one think to be a cheerleader for the Aristocracy and hatin' on the dark-skinned people and afraid of people with box cutters; he can be hoping that his kids will benefit by joining the white violent aristocracy. But the carbon pollution of our atmosphere will hurt them same was everyone else, so why does he back it?
To rewinn:
when I ask wingnuts about this, their usual answer is that Al Gore is flying around in a jet, so... and that's about all they have.
Bonus hypocrisy from the right: when Al Gore (or Kerry, or Soros) is rich, then being rich is wrong. When Donald Trump (or any of the 99% of extremely rich people who lean to the right) is rich, it's because being rich is God's way of rewarding goodness...
This is a surprisingly apt description of how religions started, but Mallard manages to go over his own head and miss it.
Anonymous gave a nice example of The Gore Paradox, which neocons, smirking in their abject ignorance, think is an insurmountable catch-22:
If Al Gore does NOT live in a cabin in the deep woods, he is a hypocrite and no one should listen to his crazy shit. If Al Gore DOES live in a cabin in the deep woods, he is crazy and no one should listen to his crazy shit. Q.E.D.
...You know, as if "going green" is supposed to mean "going Flintstones." Similarly, when you talk about alternate energy sources, they crap themselves over bird kills at wind farms--ignoring bird kills by aircraft, and going on about how a little oil ain't gonna hurt no ocean.
It's always easier to chortle at caricatured, fundamentalist half-wits as the only opponents of AGW, but you might possibly want to open your minds just a teeny, tiny bit to realize there are a number of prestigious scientists who are very skeptical of the whole Al Gore bit, and for reasons having nothing to do with the bible or oil companies. Not saying that Tinsley understands the debate, mind you, only that the exaggerated approach most of you take is almost as silly as the duck's posture. I know, you don't like to hear that there might be different ideas out there, and I'm a dupe of the fossil fuel industry, but I do like to drop a little reality into this "debate" once in a while.
@Anonymous,
Do you have a credible link or at least some specific information you'd like to share with the group?
I take your point about coarse characterization. And yet you make a claim about "prestigious scientists" with no proof. And that is just as bad.
Please feel free to cite who these scientists are so we can evaluate their prestige and/or ties to groups with a stake in the outcome.
That said, the existence of dissenters proves absolutely nothing.
All that matters is the science and in this case overwhelming evidence is that we have a serious problem.
You know, I would DEARLY LOVE to be COMPLETELY, UTTERLY WRONG about global warming. Nothing in the world would make me happier, and not even a million dimwitted wingnuts gloating could dull my happiness. And hell, who knows; science IS complicated, and maybe there's some crucial, poorly-understood factor that everyone's missing that would place the question in a completely different light. It's not completely inconceivable.
But I fail to see why I would want to actually BET on this being the case when the vast, VAST majority of scientists worldwide agree that it's a real thing, and all the ones who disagree seem to have transparently vested interest in doing so.
If I were this caveman, I'd be more worried about curing jaundice.
Anonymous, I don't think anyone disputes that scientific consensuses usually have doubters. Einstein denied quantum theory for a while, and Stephen Hawking recently lost a encyclopedia set on a bet. The consensus opinion could still be proven wrong -- it will no doubt be tweaked in the future as more evidence comes in -- but when you weigh the prestige of organizations and people who support the consensus vs. those who do not, the fact that there is a clear scientific consensus is undeniable. By the way, Al Gore is not a scientist.
There are decent, established scientists who are skeptical. No theory has ever had 100% support.
What might be surprising to the skeptics' supporters however is what that skepticism entails. The skeptics have respect for their peers they disagree with. They are usually embarrassed by their supporters, especially those who misquote, expect them to be angrier about the issue, or assume that their position that the data is inconclusive in a certain area serves as proof against AGW. And for some, the doubts are just personal if they're not actively researching climate change and they realize that doesn't mean much.
Yeah, like I'm going to listen to some neocon pinhead's lecture about being more open-minded.
What cracks me up about deniers are the "alternative theories," by which I mean, "comic-book nonsense pulled out of their anuses." Sunspot activity. Cow flatulence. Axis wobble. Wholesale changes in Earth's orbit. Everything up to and including the approach of the Rapture. Half-assed-research specialist Michael Crichton even came up with hippies practicing weather control. These clowns can't even agree, yet demand to be taken seriously. Granted, they aren't as preposterous as Birthers, but it's a close pie-fight.
But hey, the Wrong Wing's been spot-on about everything else, haven't they? Domino Theory. Laffer Curve. Star Wars. Ozone Depletion. Hell, even smoking. So, yes, by all means let's ignore those who deal in hard science and listen to those who put dogma above all else.
We are also not responsible for the smog during smog season.
When we consider that "a number of scientists" include "the number zero", then we are compelled to admit the irrefutable logic of anonymous' claim.
It is true that there are sceptics; ALL scientists are sceptics; all science is scepticism - you get positively rewarded for questioning the evidence.
But it is also true that the "scientists" who are global warming deniers have their degrees and experience in fields other than climatology, except perhaps for one or two fossils in a small college somewhere who haven't bothered to keep up with things we've learned since the Nixon administration. Were it not for tenure or the money they bring in from the carbon pollution industry, they'd be sitting next to Tinshley in a bar doing "research".
The basic physics of AGW is simple: when you add insulation, less heat escapes. There's plenty of details and that's why true scientists, sceptics all, are continually improving what we know. People who don't know science thinks that that process "disproves" AGW which is does only in the sense that adding precision to any calculation "disproves" the prior calculation.
@Tog - let me put in a word for cow flatulence. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas and some amount of AGW is due to agriculure, e.g. cow farts and such. How much, I don't know but it's just one more reason to cut back on the meat-centric diet that isn't good for us anyway.
But otherwise, you're quite right. The same people who argued tobacco doesn't cause cancer are arguing in the same way that carbon etc isn't poisoning our atmosphere, and for the same reason: the aristocrats do it for the money, their followers do it because they are masochists - they genuinely enjoy being p1ssed on by their masters since it allows them to feel superior to everyone else.
Michael Crichton is surely one of the worst of the lot. His theory is that hippies seeking vast wealth invented incredibly powerful and sophisticated weather control devices so they would get more research money ... which completely ignores the simple fact that there would be a much bigger market for stuff like that in, let use say, the Middle East (...not to mention the Pentagon). The theory doesn't make any sense at all but of course the masochists positively enjoy the swill the more absurd it gets.
Skeptic I've come across: a geologist who works in geodesy. They based their doubts on the fact that the recorded rising of sea levels is on a length scale that falls into the error of margin for some instrumentation, or is the same as measured/predicted effects from other changes such as the location of Earth's center of mass, land rising, location of the moon, and the effects of plate tectonics. This is their field and their experience.
However, their conclusion was not to throw out all AGW as a possibility, but to instead propose more precise measurements over a larger area. Those whose work has already linked sea level data AGW want the same. This scientist has doubts in only that particular area, and does not account for other factors. For them, the rest is left to the experts in other fields to debate regarding atmospheric physics and modeling and they refuse to make comments about it in an official capacity. And like 99.99% of the scientists who are not corporate, they've got too many other non-AGW-related projects to juggle for pay to worry about their exact stand in the political environment.
So, skeptic? Yes. Corporate shill? No. Proof positive that AGW is a farce? Hell no. Avoids talking to the anti-AGW crowd due to their tendency to cherry pick and run away or accidentally accuse him of falsifying data because the data sets are usually shared, and prefers to discuss these doubts with the AGW scientists in similar fields. They also recognize the shortcomings of the limited analysis and mention these with any official presentation of their analysis. And they're still for green energy.
It is all really kind of anticlimactic.
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