Why no celebration?

WanderngFool · May 14, 2014

So... Scientists are admitting defeat. Antarctic glaciers will inevitably slide into the ocean. Not anytime soon - it will be at least 200 years. But conservatives don't seem to be celebrating their victory. Why not?

20 years ago polls showed conservatives and liberals were equally concerned about global warming. And then (personally I blame it on Fox News) there was a shift. Global warming became a liberal issue and Fox led the charge for conservatives against the liberals/socialists/communists/mother-rapers/father-stabbers. (Sorry Arlo, I got carried away).

Isn't it true that the vast majority of outdoorsmen are conservatives? Why they would be less concerned about changes in our climate than a bunch of social-networking-spending-way-too-much-time-online liberals makes no sense to me, but be that as it may. Conservatives making not a lick of sense is something I've grown accustomed to.

Anyway - getting to my point. Congratulations! The Koch brothers and everyone else that makes their fortunes from fossil fuels and generally f'ing up the planet we live on has won. Fox news, who makes their living from inciting people that would prefer not to think for themselves to the point of outrage has won. And Conservatives in general have won.

What exactly have you won? I'd love to hear it.

layoutshooter · May 14, 2014

Who was to blame the LAST time, not all that long ago, when there were no polar ice caps? That was only about 32 million years ago. A drop in the bucket, "G" time wise. WELL withing the 120 million years or so that the continents have been roughly in their current positions.

This has all happened before, and it will all happen again. There will even be ANOTHER time when the globe is covered in ice. Someday, there will again be only ONE "supercontinent" AGAIN.

The only thing that never changes is the fact that everything is always changing.

It was changing before ALGORE or the Koch Brothers were born, and will continue to change after they are all dead.

Of course, some may not believe it, BUT, in the REAL recent past there has been periods of open water at the North Pole, followed by iced up times.

Ice at the North Pole in 1958 and 1959 ? not so thick | Watts Up With That?

Turtle · May 14, 2014

WanderngFool said:
So... Scientists are admitting defeat.

That doesn't even make sense. There is no winning or losing with science. The truth wins. Reality wins. Science is merely the method used to find it the truth and reality of the natural world. When liberals and conservatives hijack science for their own purposes, that's not science.

layoutshooter · May 14, 2014

What it likely boils down to is that, "It are what it are". Speaking in "G" time, ice age periods, which we are still in, are kind of rare. Warm and ice free are more the norm over time.

Geotimes — March 2006 — Earth’s Fickle Climate

http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm

Pilgrim · May 14, 2014

Nothing in the OP makes any sense. Blaming global warming denial on Fox News and the Koch Bros. sounds like the typical parroting of talking points from the Reid and Gore playbooks. In 1975 we were being warned by hysterical weather soothsayers that the next Ice Age was already upon us. We all know how that turned out. Most everyone by now has figured out that Mother Nature pays little attention to politicians, scientists and businessmen.

"There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth"...

Newsweek on the cooling world

davekc · May 14, 2014

Turtle has it right. When something is looked at in a scientific fashion without any political agenda, then the chips fall where they do. In this case, there is no outrage or celebration because the actual known truth has been put out there. Nothing more than that.

layoutshooter · May 14, 2014

And then:

Florida's Land Then and Now

And then:

http://www1.fipr.state.fl.us/PhosphatePrimer/0/C0E6FF4202BB60D685256F77005D2847

If one REALLY wants to experience this, go out into the Everglades, in a dry year, like it was in 1973, and fall down. One would likely impale themselves on "Pinnacle Rock" which REALLY hurts! Pinnacle Rock is limestone, formed when most of Florida was underwater, due to the higher sea levels.

http://www.floridaadventuring.com/everglades-national-park-story.html

xiggi · May 15, 2014

There are no links to anything in the op. Share does this idea that scientists are admitting defeat. As normal with these things the story is twisted global warming is not the argument, the cause and the severity is and yes when the koch brothers are mentioned it is for sure regurgitated talking points.

Sent from my - Fisher Price ABC - 123

AMonger · May 15, 2014

Why? Because AGW is pure unadulterated BULLSPIT. It wasn't just false, it was a hoax from the beginning, designed, like everything else in politics, to transfer both wealth and power from those that have it to those in power that want it.

Though, LOS's kabillions of years time frame might be wrong (and then, it might not, depending on how literal God intended Genesis), he's right about how much of what we consider normally frigid was once tropical. Instead of the Arctic, I usually cite Alaska, which was once tropical.

He's also right about us still technically being in an ice age--being that we have ice at the poles and glacial activity on the continents. Well, what do you think happens when you emerge from an ice age? Uh, IT GETS WARMER. That was in caps, in case the board changes it.

runrunner · May 15, 2014

The planet Earth has gone through many changes over it's life,no denying that. To say that mankind cannot have an effect on those changes and put those cycles off balance is absurd. It is a closed system. The question has never been if Climate changes,the question has been,is the burning of fossil fuels and other pollution having a negative effect on the natural state of those changes. Do you remember leaded gasoline? Was leaded gasoline bad? Do you know why lead was put in the gasoline in the first place?

If most people are blind to the power of nuclear weapons because they never see them, they are blind to climate change because they see weather every day. Weather's unfortunate overlap with climate makes every trip to the grocery store an opportunity to internalize faulty data—and Senator Ted Cruz doesn't help matters when he opines with a straight face that "there's never been a day in the history of the world in which the climate is not changing." The grocery store experience, combined with the Cruz experience, has encouraged many a layperson to reason in this specious fashion: "Weather changes so fast that nobody can predict it, plus it's snowing, so climate change is fake. And I have nothing to worry about."

A modest proposal on climate: Public disengagement | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

layoutshooter · May 15, 2014

C02 IS 100% natural. It is constantly being stored, released, stored and released. Can mankind have an adverse affect on things? Sure. Has mankind totally disrupted billions of years of cyclic warm and cold cycles? Very unlikely.

Does that mean we should not continue to clean up our act? Not in ANY way, shape or form. Does that mean we should deny the FACT that, in the United States, we have done much to clean up air and water, and continue to do so? NO, we should ALWAYS be pointing out the progress that has been made.

Part of the problem over mankind's history is we run into "new ideas" headlong, full bore, without looking at what the long term results will be. That is not as much due to "greed" as so many like to try to point out, it is primarily due to the fact that Man is a very short lived creature and only sees things in that light.

We can clean up even more than we have. It has to be done, SMART. Gutting mountain tops for wind generators is not help to the environment, it destroys habitat, disrupts natural wind patterns. It takes energy OUT of the atmosphere? Wind generators have adverse effects on the migratory patterns of birds, which is bad for the environment.

There are solutions. The problem is that government has decided what they are going to be, whether they work, or not. Once government is involved, progress stops. The answers will likely come out of a garage in some small town. The idea that a few hundred people, and arguably not the brightest our society puts out, are better to solve problems than 300 million is absurd.

layoutshooter · May 15, 2014

The "Koch Brothers" are not the problem. ALGORE is not the answer. Want to see the REAL cause, AND, solution to ALL of Man's problems? Go into your bathroom, stand facing the mirror, and open your eyes. Because until every man, woman and child are doing EVERYTHING they can to "live clean", NOTHING will change.

Don't complain about energy use if your windows leak, your furnace is old and you have never put solar panels on your roof. Don't complain if you put fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides on your lawns. Don't complain if you water that lawn or mow it with a gas or electric powered mower.

The list is endless. YOU are the problem and only YOU can solve it. Until YOU are doing EVERYTHING YOU can do, don't tells others what they should do.

Just as it is with most problems mankind faces, the solutions are personal and individual.

muttly · May 15, 2014

runrunner said:
The planet Earth has gone through many changes over it's life,no denying that. To say that mankind cannot have an effect on those changes and put those cycles off balance is absurd. It is a closed system. The question has never been if Climate changes,the question has been,is the burning of fossil fuels and other pollution having a negative effect on the natural state of those changes. Do you remember leaded gasoline? Was leaded gasoline bad? Do you know why lead was put in the gasoline in the first place?

If most people are blind to the power of nuclear weapons because they never see them, they are blind to climate change because they see weather every day. Weather's unfortunate overlap with climate makes every trip to the grocery store an opportunity to internalize faulty data—and Senator Ted Cruz doesn't help matters when he opines with a straight face that "there's never been a day in the history of the world in which the climate is not changing." The grocery store experience, combined with the Cruz experience, has encouraged many a layperson to reason in this specious fashion: "Weather changes so fast that nobody can predict it, plus it's snowing, so climate change is fake. And I have nothing to worry about."

A modest proposal on climate: Public disengagement | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The Global Warming community do this all the time. Everything is blamed on it. From a major tornado outbreak , a heat wave, or pretty much everything else, I remember Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' say (paraphrasing) Of course climate change exists. It's all around us. You can FEEL it.

I guess that settles that. A list of 'effects' from GW:

warmlist

xiggi · May 15, 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...cCarthy-style-witch-hunt-academics-world.html

Sent from my - Fisher Price ABC - 123

cheri1122 · May 16, 2014

Does that mean we should not continue to clean up our act? Not in ANY way, shape or form. Does that mean we should deny the FACT that, in the United States, we have done much to clean up air and water, and continue to do so? NO, we should ALWAYS be pointing out the progress that has been made.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.
"We" have done much to clean up the air & water only over the kicking screaming protests of those who were forced to stop polluting it. They didn't much care for government forcing them to clean up their act, [and consequently make a bit less profit, usually temporarily] and stop poisoning people. They denied acid rain was harmful, and cigarette smoke, too, as long as they could get away with it.
Now, we are wondering about what GMOs are doing to our food, and us, and why is Monsanto so dead set against labeling it?
Do you know what happens if the honeybees die off? It won't be pretty, trust me.
We need real information: science provides it. Right now, science seems pretty sure that climate change is real, man made, and potentially devastating.
Big business disagrees, but that's their MO, to fight even when they know they're wrong, as long as profit keeps rolling in.

muttly · May 17, 2014

Science that is manipulated isn't real information.

cheri1122 · May 17, 2014

Since the world's most respected scientists believe that climate change is real, and potentially disastrous, whom do you believe is 'manipulating' science?

Turtle · May 17, 2014

cheri1122 said:
Since the world's most respected scientists believe that climate change is real, and potentially disastrous, whom do you believe is 'manipulating' science?

The data shows unambiguously that we are in the midst of an abnormal and rapid state of climate change. It is confirmed by every branch of science. That humans are a contributing factor, especially since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, is not really even up for debate, as everything within an ecosystem affects the system. But what is up for debate, and what is being manipulated, is the degree to which humans are a factor.

RLENT · May 17, 2014

muttly said:
Science that is manipulated isn't real information.

Science that is "manipulated" (in the manner you mean) ain't really science ...

cheri1122 · May 18, 2014

Turtle said:
The data shows unambiguously that we are in the midst of an abnormal and rapid state of climate change. It is confirmed by every branch of science. That humans are a contributing factor, especially since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, is not really even up for debate, as everything within an ecosystem affects the system. But what is up for debate, and what is being manipulated, is the degree to which humans are a factor.

While science decides whether humans are responsible for the change, [and frankly, given the evidence, I don't see what other cause there could be - what else even could change the ecosystem to such a degree?] I think we can agree that if it needs to be reversed, or at least slowed down, only humans can do it.
The Koch Bros have spent a lot of money over a lot of years to change the conversation and the outcome, but science doesn't lie, and the time to make changes [even if they have a negative effect on the Koch's business interests] is running short. While the debate rages on over whose fault it is, what happens when we pass the point of no return? When the honeybees go extinct? When the extreme weather events become the everyday norm?