Global Warming
OK, what is American Papist's deal with global warming? It seems like he links to every little article out there that is contradictory to or dismissive of claims of the existence of global warming and its consequences or that it is human-caused. This is the kind of thing that really bugs me, when Catholics integrate their political ideologies
( Read more... )
And this is one area where the global warming lobby bothers me. The evidence is solid enough to act upon. This is especially true in this case where most of the things that we would do are a good idea .. not just pragmatically, but from a Christian standpoint. Reducing the use of fossil fuels through conservation and better efficiency is one of the big ways that we can reduce CO2. That is good for other reasons: the less we use, the less demand and the lower the prices, especially important for the poor; our current usage patterns fall into the sin of gluttony; the less we use, the more of this finite resource is left for our children, our childrens' children, ad nausium; the less we use, the less we worsen the unstable places that provides large portions of our fossil fuels, less money to corrupt governments, less of our destructive, resource-concerned meddling; the less we use, the better we live up to God's call of dominion over the earth, a dominion that should be like his loving and caring dominion rather than the dominion of a tyrant; the more we develop and produce viable alternative fuels, especially those we can produce locally, the better economic health of our country; the more virgin forest left intact, the more habitat and natural beauty and wonder of God's creation remains intact. We have plenty of good reasons to act, we don't have to be indisputably certain about global warming.
And this is an important thing to remember. We don't need the global warming lobby's fear mongering. We don't need their slandering of dissent .. especially when scientific inquiry is going to be necessary if we are to react effectively to global warming. Nothing moves social policy like fear - we talked about this before with the Iraq war, how the administration resorted to fear of a phantom to get us to fight a very real tyrant - but we don't need fear of the imagined, reality is scary enough. All of the hyperbole is counterproductive, it robs our will to action of legitimacy, it could even prevent us from seeing the best course of action, and it could cause a negative backlash in the future if the threat is real but does not live up to the hype.
But still, lives at stake, I think we should favor doubt, just without dismissing our doubt while we do it.
Reply
Your comparison to the Bush administration may help me clarify what I think about each:
(1) It was acceptable for the Bush administration to utilize the public's fear of attack against a possible threat, particularly since that fear was not the only reason to deal with it. Likewise, it is acceptable for environmental lobbyists to utilize the public's fear of economic collapse and extinction against a possible threat, particularly since that fear is not the only reason to deal with it.
(2) It was not acceptable for some Bush proponents to state or suggest that Hussein or Iraq caused or helped cause the 9-11 attacks. It is not acceptable for some global warming proponents to resist debate, dismiss and mock dissenters, while preaching radical visions of doom and gloom that don't really match current data.
The two go hand in hand, I know. But there is a difference.
Reply
I don't think I agree. On the most basic level, the two are only equivalents if the threat of global warming turns out to be manifestly false .. because quite frankly, the threat that was used to stir up fear in Iraq was manifestly false.
But even so, I don't agree. I have serious problems with using fear as a motivator .. at least when the fear is being mongered upon the worst-case scenario. The dooms-day scenarios of global warming are all predicated on us not doing anything. But we will do something, no matter what we will react to it so as to stave off any impending doom. I favor acting before we get to that point, acting before we are forced to by mere survival. I guess that is why I have serious problems with fear as a motivator: either it is fear of a phantom, or it is fear of a reality and that means that we should have acted long since.
Reply
Or do you mean it was manifestly false he intended to use weapons of mass destruction against the US? He used them against his neighbours and his own people, so how can the idea of him using them against the US be manifestly false?
Or do you mean it was manifestly false that Hussein funded, planned or otherwise had any thing to do with causing the events on 9-11? Find me a single instance where the Bush administration actually claimed this and I'll concede.
Until then, I maintain the fears are equivalent. Especially since the same people who blame carbon emissions for global warming believe the earth warmed itself out of at least one ice age without our help.
Reply
Or do you mean it was manifestly false he intended to use weapons of mass destruction against the US? He used them against his neighbours and his own people, so how can the idea of him using them against the US be manifestly false?
He certainly had them, he certainly destroyed some of them. We don't know what happened to the rest. We've scoured the country since and cannot find them. But my point is that all of the evidence that we were offered of his WMDs at the time - aluminum tubes, mobile bio-warfare labs, yellow cake Uranium - turned out to be wrong. The administration did not stick to the rational conclusion of "there before, no proof of destruction" but relied on trumped-up and outright false evidence and conclusions.
This is the difference, and why I think they aren't equivalent fears. The essential fear of global warming is based on the consensus of scientists about scientific inquiry that may not be 100% correct, but is overwhelmingly there. The fear of the threat of Hussein was based on legitimate threats, but largely on manufactured threats and intelligence that didn't even have the support of our own intelligence agencies, much less consensus of worlwide intelligence agencies. If the administration had stuck to the evidence that was verifiable and legit, the fears might have been equivalent. But since that fear was based so much on faulty evidence, even if there was a legitimate threat not based on that faulty evidence, they are not equivalent situations.
Find me a single instance where the Bush administration actually claimed this and I'll concede.
I'm going to go ahead and take this one. Never came out and said it, but implied it all over the place. In polls immediately after 9/11, only about 1% of the American population thought that Hussein was involved in the attacks. However by 2003, polls showed 50-60% of people thinking that he was. At the same time, Cheney was claiming that Iraq was the "geographic center" of the terrorist attacks and Bush was frequently claiming links between Hussein and al-Queda .. for example, in his State of the Union address. (Cheney's claim has had *no* evidence to back it up and al-Queda had actually been plotting to overthrow Hussein because bin Laden considered him an infidel.) It is arguable *how* the American populace got their misconception; however, even if you don't believe that the drum beat of Iraq-9/11-Iraq-terrorism-Iraq-9/11 caused it - incidently, I think it was a major part of the reason - then it was still at least disingenuous, negligent or outright deceitful to make those kinds of comments in public addresses. No, the administration never came out and claimed it, implying was all they needed to do.
Reply
This argument is too convenient. The UN would not be convinced by its own data to enforce 17 of its own resolutions. They publicly chided the US to come up with something better. That the administration chose to scrape the bottom of the barrel rather than shut up and sit in the back of the class is hardly enough for me to call it conspiracy.
However, I must concede it was nonetheless a blow to their credibility.
The essential fear of global warming is based on the consensus of scientists about scientific inquiry that may not be 100% correct, but is overwhelmingly there.
I agree with the first half of your statement. The essential fear is based of the consensus of scientists. What nobody seems to realize any more is that consensus of the intelligentsia is not evidence. So far, the only evidence for GLOBAL warming I have EVER got from science article, news or friend is tantamount to "Because they say so."
the drum beat of Iraq-9/11-Iraq-terrorism-Iraq-9/11 caused it
There was a philosophical connection between 9-11 and Hussein. Before 9-11, the going assumption was that the United States was inherantly protected by the oceans. After 9-11, enemies who threatened us before - enemies like Hussein - were suddenly more tangible. They can strike us. Reiterating this paradigm shift is not dishonest.
Cheney's comments about Iraq being a central front in the war on terror were not inaccurate, though it really depends on your point of view. If you think the central front is where the most organized terrorism is, then he's dead wrong. But if you think the central front is where the US has the best chances to set up base, kill some bad guys, and start a democratic revolution to ripple out from a geographically central location, then he's on to something.
That the public believed something that was never actually stated says more about the public. But I won't say it's impossible the administration capitalized on that. It wouldn't be the first time. Perhaps a more intelligent citizenry would be in order.
Reply
The UN hardly enforces any of its own resolutions. If it did, the US would be in serious trouble. The US is in violation of several UN resolutions. Israel is in violation of more than Iraq was.
There was more to go on, but the US administration went with scary falsehoods instead of the heinous truths. The US had run out its credibility by that point, and that was the problem .. but this is a conversation we have had before. If the US had had any credibility with the international community at that point, the human rights violations and war crimes of Hussein would have been enough.
Cheney's comments about Iraq being a central front in the war on terror were not inaccurate.
But that's not what I'm talking about. He claimed that Iraq was the geographic center of the *9/11* attacks, not just the central front in the war on terror. He outirght said that the 9/11 terrorists were based in Iraq. Bush claimed connections between the organization responsible for the attacks and Hussein. And *neither* have been substantiated.
That the public believed something that was never actually stated says more about the public.
It certainly does. And when a government capitalizes on misconceptions and reinforces them rather than confronting the truth, that says a lot about that government.
Reply
Leave a comment