Faith, True Believers And Indulgences
It's interesting to watch the true believers flock here to try to "tip" me (that is downright funny, incidentally) or shout me down (and banned permanently) over the global warming issues I have been posting about. Their particular faith based initiative, that man has to be the cause of all that is bad in the world, is interesting to watch. So many of them are so very, very earnest. Others are mindlessly abusive. And so very many of them do not understand how badly they are being played.
The economic changes they are demanding of the West will strangle the economies of the countries they live in. China will happily move right on in and take up the opportunities that the West turn their backs on. (All the while happily echoing the true believer's words that it is all the West's fault and that the West must cut their collective economic throats to mitigate the problems. China, meanwhile will build more and more coal-fired power plants and demand per capita pollution rights).
They really don't even see the way the elitists - who have theirs, thank you very much - will cheerfully sacrifice the little people's futures. The true believers don't see that they, despite their beliefs, are very, very little indeed to those elites. The Al Gores of the world will fly in their private jets to lecture on carbon neutrality that they have absolutely no intention of living with themselves. They will buy the modern day indulgences that their faithful true believers force on the world. The true believers, meanwhile, will never be able to afford those indulgences.
Jay Reding puts it this way:
It’s typical hypocrisy — the very rich can afford to buy “carbon credits” while those of us for whom money is an object cannot afford to do the same. For all the talk about how the left abhors social stratification and pitting the haves and against the have-nots, that is precisely what this sort of thing does. It allows Al Gore to emit tons of pollutants directly into the upper atmosphere while preaching his Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Gaia message to the masses, then buy his way to a clean eco-conscience afterwards. Meanwhile, the rest of us are told that we have to make dramatic sacrifices to “save the planet.”
John Edwards is fond of saying that there are "Two Americas" while happily living in the largest house in the entire county. (It would be snarky to point out that Edwards owns a good portion of both of the Americas, wouldn't it? Good.) Well, there certainly will be if the true believers get their way. There will be the America (Or whatever other Western nation you care to name) that the elites live in. They'll buy carbon credits whenever they choose and will not alter their lifestyles one iota. Then there will be the America the rest of the people, including the vast majority of the true believers, live in.
And that one will be considerably more harsh.
H/T Anchoress and Instapundit for the links.
By kim, Tuesday, 13 February , 2007 @ 8:04 am
Don’t sacrifice my virgins for your superstitions.
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By kim, Tuesday, 13 February , 2007 @ 8:09 am
We quit blaming man’s actions for the sport of the weather gods once the Enlightenment showed us the disconnect. Now the Gorebellied Fool wants to forge the false link again? They should have taught him better at Seminary. Then again, what do they say about a little knowledge. And what do they say about the persistence of evil?
A meme this powerful that it glorifies sanctioning and suppressing dissent is both evil and overdue for collapse. What will they do when Solar Cycle #25, much weaker than usual, starts cooling the earth in the next score years?
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By Chet, Wednesday, 14 February , 2007 @ 10:44 am
The solar hypothesis has been discredited, guys. Earth’s insolation has been falling during the same period that global temperatures have been rising. We’re already in a solar cooling period, with no sign that it’s sufficient to retard anthropogenic climate change.
I agree that there’s no small amount of hysteria that surrounds the issue; but it’s the genuine hysteria of laypeople who respect science heeding the warnings delivered by scientists. Regardless, the science of global warming is sound and has withstood all scrutiny. We can debate the sociology that surrounds the issue, and don’t get me wrong, a lot of it is ridiculous - but that’s a different issue than the sound consensus science that underlies findings such as the IPCC AR4.
In a debate this important it’s crucial to get the science right. As it regards to this post - exactly what is wrong with buying carbon credits? Carbon sequestering is one of the leading proposals to combat greenhouse gases. Do you have some evidence that this practice is ineffective? Or is your sole criticism that it bears some surface similarity to a centuries-old practice in your religion?
By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 10:59 am
The sun is very slowly heating up, so insolation constantly gradually increases, varying in cycles, around that gradually rising curve. Solar cycle #25, weaker than most is coming up and will be felt over the next few decades. In addition, we are still coming out of the LIA to temperatures of approximately a millenium ago. Also, most recently, surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly affected by Urban Heat Islands have been rising, but not in the Southern Hemisphere. Ocean and atmospheric temperatures in both hemispheres is not rising.
I believe carbon sequestration is the classic response, and has been highly effective. Look at all the limestone around you. Carbon’s origin is vulcan, it’s virtually permanently sequestered by the action of the sun and biomatter in the form of carbonates and hydrocarbons, with only rare and unusual unsequestration. Water, in all its phases, is capable of either positive or negative feedback on the thermal regulation of the planet.
With insolation gradually increasing, and with carbon only appearing effervescently in the atmosphere, we are kept on the cusp of glaciation.
Is this the state of the science?
Now why would you want to interfere with the natural regulatory mechanisms of the climate by trying to wring significant amounts of energy from the sun, the wind, and the water. Don’t you know everyone’s downstream?
And why would you want to presume about my religion?
I think I’ve never heard so loud,
The quiet message of a cloud.
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:04 am
Well you asked a specific question. You are naive to believe that buying carbon credits will help more with carbon sequestration than it will hurt with decreased effeciency of access to energy.
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:09 am
So tell me, is ‘genuine hysteria’ OK, as opposed to say, ‘ersatz hysteria’. You sound like you at least give lip service to reasoned debate. So what’s with the ‘hysteria’?
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:12 am
I’ll make it simple: the science has not shown that the recent rise in carbon dioxide, almost surely anthropogenic, is not merely the post hoc of rising temperatures but also the propter hoc.
See? Simple.
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:20 am
Mann’s Crooked Hockey Stick surely is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. His bristlecone pine tree ring series, key to his hysteria inducing fraud, is actually a proxy for the fertilization effect of increasing carbon dioxide. So it is a tautalogy.
Believe it or not, on that fallacy and tautology hang the Kyoto Accords and all the social injustice inherent in them. Sure, sure, you can sneer at ’sociology’, but everytime that Gorebellied Fool opens his mouth, somewhere something sentient freezes.
Take that Kar, ma, and drive it to meetin’.
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:29 am
See, that corrupted crackerbarrel gets my goat. He’s been to seminary for God’s Sake, or someone’s. His family heritage is journalism. He should know that it is evil to get the story wrong.
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:35 am
All I know is what I read at Climateaudit.org and what I see with my own eyes as I wander from hither to thither. Hat tip to Wiley Post’s crony.
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:39 am
So really, you know, letting the rich buy carbon credits, letting the traders become meta rich, will really just be grinding down the poor with the increased inefficiency of energy access. You don’t really want that, now do you?
Do you? Who are ‘you’?
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:42 am
The idiots are more useful, and powerful, when they are hysterical.
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By kim, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 11:44 am
Do you see a resemblance to a nearly two hundred year old ‘religion’? Marx misconstruing Hegel?
Naw, probably not.
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By Chet, Thursday, 15 February , 2007 @ 12:30 pm
Um, no. The sun is not slowly heating up; it’s been slowly cooling since 1990 at the same time that the bulk of the recent warming has been occurring.
Solar cycles aren’t responsible for the warming. That’s pretty basic logic.
Ocean and atmospheric temperatures in both hemispheres is not rising.
Again, I’m not sure where you’re getting your information. By half a dozen metrics - direct temperature measurement, plankton cover, etc - both the ocean and the atmosphere have experienced dramatic warming.
You are naive to believe that buying carbon credits will help more with carbon sequestration than it will hurt with decreased effeciency of access to energy.
I don’t understand how planting a tree decreases anyone’s access to energy, unless you think we’re pulling down power lines to plant these trees.
the science has not shown that the recent rise in carbon dioxide, almost surely anthropogenic, is not merely the post hoc of rising temperatures but also the propter hoc.
The ice core data shows the connection. It’s as dramatic a demonstration as flipping a switch and a light goes on. The first time? Yeah, maybe it’s coincidence. But the ice core data is like flipping the switch on and off for 650,000 years, and seeing the lights go on and off every time.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc? The first time, that’s a reasonable question. But the same thing happening for 650,000 years of observation? At that point, asserting that it’s an unknown whether or not this switch controls those lights is just being absurd.
By kim, Saturday, 17 February , 2007 @ 7:24 am
The sun as a reactor is gradually increasing its energy output, insolation. Your short term trend since 1990 is a tiny blip.
Show me your data that the atmosphere’s temperature is rising.
It is simplistic to believe that planting a tree surely helps. As a response to the theoretical question of the effeciency of markets, it is mirth provoking. Sure, cover the earth with trees.
Explain your ice core bright idea, please?
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By kim, Saturday, 17 February , 2007 @ 7:33 am
Look, Chet, I have a unified theory. You have a set of programmed responses, which you faithfully believe. First, check out what the big boys say about atmospheric temperatures, and then see what the sun is doing, It is steadily increasing in energy output. In addition, you are hampered by the belief that skepticism about the anthropogenic component of any global warming has a religious basis. You need to lose that attitude if you want to talk to the big dogs, of which I’m not one. They hang out at Climateaudit.org, and allow me the occasional layman’s sophomoric comment.
Most of the hysteria about global warming is faith based, and not supported by the science. Do your own homework.
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By kim, Saturday, 17 February , 2007 @ 7:38 am
Since I’m baffled by your ice core comments; I’m not sure that this question fits with your analogy, but suppose the switch does have causal connection to the light being on or off. Then what, in the past, has caused the the switch to go on and off. Surely not man?
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