A question about the debate of climate change

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Graz Tundrawolf	A question about the debate of climate change		Lead	[-]
Posts: 1371 11-05-09 11:32 AM Okay, Maybe more than a bit Rabid	Tags : None Reading back through multiple threads on climate change, I've noticed something. Of all of our debates, it seems to be the one most prone to hyperbole, straw man arguments and righteous indignation by the bucketful. This is not meant to be a rehash of those same tired arguments, but rather a question about why this issue has become so visceral. I mean really, contrary to what anyone likes to sling around, no reasonable person wants to either bankrupt the nation and return us to living in grass huts and even the most hands off types are not fans of pollution and don't pour battery acid into a stream for fun. So what is it about this discussion that causes the actual conversation to go off the rails? There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. - P.J. O'Rourke
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vizco		#1	[url]	[-]
Posts: 5713 11-05-09 11:34 AM Raid Peon	We are an excitable bunch here. "You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into." - Jonathan Swift
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Federiko EQ		#2	[url]	[-]
Posts: 4462 11-05-09 12:22 PM You can never have too many shoes. - Celine Dion	A political discussion prone to ridiculous hyperbole? No way.
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Ididar Tzan		#3	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3900 11-05-09 12:27 PM	Because its a mix of science and politics ... and many of us dislike shitty science and shitty politics. So, when you combine both you get a pretty amusing argument.
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Ersiusp		#4	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3904 11-05-09 1:06 PM 1-900-Santa	It's to the point of a religion. People that believe in it shout down any opposition to it, or even any expression of doubt. Carbon credits are basically tithes. This is not to say I'm against being environmentally responsible. I am simply against making sweeping statements of cause when there's still room for discussion, and masquerading political goals as environmental protection. "A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." -Ronald Reagan
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vizco		#5	[url]	[-]
Posts: 5713 11-05-09 1:15 PM Raid Peon	As serious response, it hits a lot of emotional/political/ideological buttons on a lot of people, especially because advocates on both sides of the issue are prone to hyperbole. "You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into." - Jonathan Swift
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Kayso Gnomehater		#6	[url]	[-]
Posts: 7313 11-05-09 1:38 PM BANNED email Brad for details	Ersiusp wrote: It's to the point of a religion. People that believe in it shout down any opposition to it, or even any expression of doubt. Carbon credits are basically tithes. This is not to say I'm against being environmentally responsible. I am simply against making sweeping statements of cause when there's still room for discussion, and masquerading political goals as environmental protection. It is like religion in two ways. 1. One school of thought is clearly (but not to everyone apparently) right. 2. In much the same way as the religious nuts want to compare the reasoned position of agnosticism/atheism to the belief in space fairies by calling it another "religion" of sorts, the anti-science crowd wants to equate the reasonable position supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community to their whacked out theories by "debunking" the theories using layman's logic and dubious "studies".
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Ersiusp		#7	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3904 11-05-09 1:40 PM 1-900-Santa	If you take the believer view to its extreme, you're dealing with the end of the world. If you take the opposite view to its extreme, you're dealing with regressing to the stone age and basically the end of civilization. It's understandable that people get excitable when the stakes are potentially that high. "A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." -Ronald Reagan
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vizco		#8	[url]	[-]
Posts: 5713 11-05-09 2:32 PM Raid Peon	It's understandable that people get excitable when the stakes are potentially that high. All the more reason to try to use facts and data to support ones position, it seems to me. It used to be the case (at least I'd like to believe it was the case) that it was true that "You can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts." That isn't the case any more. On all sorts of issues there are people who not only disagree with the other side's opinion, but believe in stuff that has been proved wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt: 9/11 Truthers, Anti-Evolutionists, Autism/Vaccine Nuts, Climate Change Denialists, conspiracy theorists of all stripes. As people continue to study at the University of Google, this will just continue to get worse: you can always find someone who agrees with you on the Internet. Or, to put it another way, "On the Internet no one knows you are a nut." "You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into." - Jonathan Swift
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Soygen		#9	[url]	[-]
Posts: 9563 11-05-09 2:52 PM 100% Soybean	Federiko EQ wrote: A political discussion prone to ridiculous hyperbole? No way. Sarcasm too, apparently. Don't worry, it's just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
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Graz Tundrawolf		#10	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1371 11-05-09 3:09 PM Okay, Maybe more than a bit Rabid	But why does it have to always end up at the extremes? We can all agree that conservation of resources is a good thing and pollution is a bad thing. We know that the position on the extremes of both sides of the argument will never get traction and never find any practical implementation. Options that impoverish one group of people or imposes untenable costs on society aren't viable. (You could believe they are necessary, but it's unrealistic to think they will ever be pushed through.) So what's are less radical options that are possible? What cost benefit can be done to figure out what's got enough of a payback to make it viable to the voting public? There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Ersiusp		#11	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3904 11-05-09 3:22 PM 1-900-Santa	Kayso Gnomehater wrote: Ersiusp wrote: It's to the point of a religion. People that believe in it shout down any opposition to it, or even any expression of doubt. Carbon credits are basically tithes. This is not to say I'm against being environmentally responsible. I am simply against making sweeping statements of cause when there's still room for discussion, and masquerading political goals as environmental protection. It is like religion in two ways. 1. One school of thought is clearly (but not to everyone apparently) right. 2. In much the same way as the religious nuts want to compare the reasoned position of agnosticism/atheism to the belief in space fairies by calling it another "religion" of sorts, the anti-science crowd wants to equate the reasonable position supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community to their whacked out theories by "debunking" the theories using layman's logic and dubious "studies". Thank you for a textbook example of trying to shout down anything less than full acceptance. "A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." -Ronald Reagan
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Gandol teh Pirate		#12	[url]	[-]
Posts: 5595 11-05-09 4:08 PM Time-traveling cultural Marxist	There are varying degrees of global warming anti-advocates. - some don't believe in the phenomenon, so nothing should be done - some believe it's real but don't believe humans are responsible, so nothing should be done - those who believe it's real and believe humans are responsible use China and India as an economic bogeyman-excuse for why we should do nothing while fiddling on as Rome floods (according to global warming adherents) It's a wide range of positions, which combined make for a very difficult sell for doing something, anything about GW. The other side is selling gloom and doom via science pretty much the same way anti-terrorism laws were effectively sold following 9-11; something, anything must be done! Buying into the idea of doing something about global warming is similar to how and why people choose to buy insurance; how much risk am I willing to accept vs. how much money am I willing to spend to protect myself from risk? Global warming theorists have put up their predictions and most of them are dire. Anti-GW's have put up their economic predictions and most of them are dire. The problem with the GW position is that you either do enough to do something about the problem, or it's not worth it. The antis are pretty much the same - anything done about GW will destroy the economy. And so we see a polarization of the issue that's effectively Boolean in nature, just like with the idea of God's existence, abortion, flat taxes, etc. It's not so surprising that GW has devolved to the same status. Gandol wrote: I'm a whiney little bitch Tom (and Diane)
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Kayso Gnomehater		#13	[url]	[-]
Posts: 7313 11-05-09 4:23 PM BANNED email Brad for details	Ersiusp wrote: Kayso Gnomehater wrote: Ersiusp wrote: It's to the point of a religion. People that believe in it shout down any opposition to it, or even any expression of doubt. Carbon credits are basically tithes. This is not to say I'm against being environmentally responsible. I am simply against making sweeping statements of cause when there's still room for discussion, and masquerading political goals as environmental protection. It is like religion in two ways. 1. One school of thought is clearly (but not to everyone apparently) right. 2. In much the same way as the religious nuts want to compare the reasoned position of agnosticism/atheism to the belief in space fairies by calling it another "religion" of sorts, the anti-science crowd wants to equate the reasonable position supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community to their whacked out theories by "debunking" the theories using layman's logic and dubious "studies". Thank you for a textbook example of trying to shout down anything less than full acceptance. Thank you for a textbook example of missing the point. There are, obviously, reasonable religious people. There are also some unanswered questions about climate change among legitimate scientists. I figured not qualifying this was a no-brainer. But much like in religion where there are 1,000 nuts for every nutty atheist, there are 1,000 climate change deniers for every nutty environmentalist who wants us all to live in caves. The enviro-whackos and atheist crusaders aren't worthy of consideration. But there are enough of the nutjobs on the other sides of both positions that deserve serious consideration. And by consideration, I mean ridiculed to the point they are dismissed by enough reasonable people to be reduced to a harmless status.
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vizco		#14	[url]	[-]
Posts: 5713 11-05-09 4:32 PM Raid Peon	There are varying degrees of global warming anti-advocates. There are also people on the other side who believe stupid things. I'm constantly annoyed by people who believe global warming is going to kill us all tomorrow but have no interest in any solution to it that involves anything they don't like, such as nuclear power or geoengineering. You also encounter a lot of believers who to varying degrees think it's the way to destroy capitalism, or patriarchy, or the automobile, or meat-eating, or some other boogeyman they dislike. The problem is that on the global warming denial side, there are about 10,000,000 people who don't know anything (but believe it fervently) for every principled scientist who doubts the reality of AGW. Many denialists have heard only from the idiots on the AGW side, the ones who say we have to return to a hunter-gatherer existence or stop technology or give all power to the government to solve the problem. So, they figure if these are the advocates for doing something about AGW, then screw the whole idea as they are clearly morons. When Al Gore turns out to be the most reasonable face of AGW activism that people see, you know you've got problems. "You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into." - Jonathan Swift
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Kiaora		#15	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1501 11-05-09 4:39 PM Alien Pod Person	maybe we just have a far too high opinion of our own personal deductive reasoning capabilities. coupled with the horrible fact that science is and has never been about facts, just hypotheses and evidence. the problem with environmental science appears to be that there are so many variables involved it's pretty hard to come up with some test that would disprove a theory.. without waiting however many decades to find out. What causes the panic is as you say, the stakes. on the one side, if we wait x years to be sure, it's too late, and on the other, we spend an indeterminate amount of time castrating economic development, never knowing if the dire prophecies failed to occur due to our prompt action, or because it was never going to anyway. My position incidentally, is that of those two outcomes, the former outcome is so much more risky that we might as well do something now, and improve our environmental predictions later. some people just don't get old they just gain experience points
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Physic FormerlyHasRez		#16	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2047 11-05-09 5:28 PM	>But why does it have to always end up at the extremes? these conversations don't end at the extremes, they start at the extremes-within the first 5 posts. conversations on global warming around here have the same basic conversation pattern as threads about moral relativity-which is pretty sad.
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Graz Tundrawolf		#17	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1371 11-05-09 5:54 PM Okay, Maybe more than a bit Rabid	It just makes me wonder about the zealots on all sides. They are in effect causing inaction because of the rhetoric on the issue and causing no meaningful dialogue to take place. Is it so enjoyable to roll around in the muck of a crusade versus actually finding common ground and realistic/affordable items? Who's gaining by just having a heated shouting match? There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Morkenlar		#18	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3247 11-05-09 6:04 PM	One school of thought is clearly (but not to everyone apparently) right. There are also some unanswered questions about climate change among legitimate scientists. I figured not qualifying this was a no-brainer. You figured wrong. You said that one side is clearly right. That certainly implies, very strongly, that you don't think there is any room for legitimate disagreement. The qualification, was absolutely necesary, based on your initial wording. Mork "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul"
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fatesdefiance		#19	[url]	[-]
Posts: 5053 11-05-09 6:35 PM Community Member	I don't think anyone would disagree that the general global temperature trend over the past century or so has been upwards. That's a fact in evidence. That the trend will continue upwards, though, is only a projection based on correlations drawn from past evidence. It is not anything resembling a fact. It's a hypothesis that has some decent science supporting it, but there are still holes in it big enough to drive a semi through. There is too much uncertainty to claim that "the science is settled" or "the real debate is over". It's too complex a system to predict with sufficient accuracy for that. My problem with the whole discussion is that everyone trys to pigeonhole you as a "believer" or a "denier", just so they can throw abuse at you. My position is that it is prudent to take reasonable steps to limit our pollution output and otherwise try to restrain our impact on the environment. That does not mean passing expensive and ineffective garbage measures like cap and trade, nor lofty carbon cap goals that would set our economy back decades. But effective steps to move away from fossil fuels toward nuclear and other alternative energies certainly have my support. Regardless of whether anthropogenic climate change is an actuality that we can realistically alter. Hunter Tarryn Valewalker -- Twisted Fates (Prexus - Retired) Nightshade Tarryn Valewalker -- Kingfisher Brigade EQ2 - Unrest Tarryn of Dale, Hunter -- Dies Irae LotRO - Meneldor
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Kiaora		#20	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1501 11-05-09 6:51 PM Alien Pod Person	science is never settled is the point i was trying to make some people just don't get old they just gain experience points
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