Heh, heh. I get this angry, too.
Do those people on Fox 'News' realize how ridiculous they sound? How could they not? Yeah, it's cold outside - today, in the middle of winter - therefore global warming is a hoax. Uh, huh. I'm sure scientists, with their fancy degrees and evidence and stuff can't top that, right?
This is faith-based thinking. Republicans have decide what they want to be true, and that's what they're going to believe. Period.
Hey, if you're not completely insane, yet you still vote Republican, you're an enabler. There aren't enough crazy people, even in America, to make a majority. And they're getting fewer and fewer (which is one reason for their increasing hysteria).
But...but...Rush said it 's all a hoax. :)
ReplyDeleteMy mom told me she read somewhere online that the ice in the Arctic is decreasing, but the ice in the Antarctic is INCREASING. Have you heard or read anything about that possibly happening?
Sure, Jeff. But ask your mom if she thinks that climatologists somehow overlooked that,... "somewhere online."
DeleteIt's like when creationists bring up some simple point they think disproves evolution. Do they really imagine that they've stumbled upon something all the biologists in the world have just... missed? Or could it be that scientists, working within their specialties, know a lot more about it?
I don't mean to criticize your mother, but this is why I always accept the scientific consensus - if there is one - rather than random claims online.
I don't normally bother even looking these things up, because you know that, if something this simple disproved global warming, the scientific consensus would change. But here's one website I found on a quick Google search.
I have no idea if this is the best explanation or not. I don't even know if it's valid. After all, I'm not a climatologist. But I know enough about the scientific method to know that any climatologist who could disprove global warming would be celebrated as a scientific hero (not to mention a corporate hero).
In general, evidence-based people are grateful when they're proven to be wrong. They may not be happy about it - no one actually likes to be wrong - but they want to be proven wrong if they really are wrong, because they want their beliefs to match up to reality.
And the way to really get ahead in science is to demonstrate that other scientists have been wrong. That's what every scientist dreams about. (Of course, you do have to demonstrate it. Unsupported claims won't do it.)
I don't think my Mom brought that up to disprove global warming. If anything, it was to point out the imbalance that currently exists in our climate.
DeleteNo, Mom is NOT Republican by any stretch of the imagination. She's been around me too long. :)
I confess that I still retain George Carlin's fatalism about the environment ("The planet is fine....the PEOPLE are f****d.").
I know this is heresy, Jeff, but there are some things I don't like about George Carlin - especially his fatalism. He often discouraged voting, for example.*
DeleteAs you know, saving the planet isn't meant literally. Sure, the planet will still be here, no matter what we do. Heck, there will still be life on the planet, too - some kind of life - no matter what we do.
But we're talking about maintaining a decent environment for human beings (and, to a lesser extent, for other species). Global warming isn't going to affect the planet in the slightest, but it will affect those of us who live on the planet.
* PS. IMHO, fatalists are fundamentally wrongheaded because they fail to recognize what enormous progress we've made. Heck, we used to have slavery. Now we've got a black president.
We used to burn witches alive. Now we've got freedom of religion and women's suffrage. We've got child labor laws, we protect the environment to at least some extent, and our elderly don't starve to death (despite how much Republicans hate all of those facts).
We've progressed because most people weren't fatalists. It's been difficult, and we haven't progressed fast enough - there is still much to do - but it only happened because people worked for it.
No, I may get depressed on occasion, but I'm never a fatalist. That would be a gift to the people I most disagree with. Once we give up - and in a democracy, that means voting, among other things - we'll never get anywhere.