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[ladyelaine]

The topic today was "Global Warming as a Religious Crisis." The last article was Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites. The class quickly proceeded to prove Mr. Pilmer correct, without even realizing it

Comments

[nous_athanatos]

Brooks on Plimer -- not good

RealClimat on Plimers

But I'm less interested in Plimer's argument than in what you make of it. I pissed off just about everyone by saying that nature was going to do what it would do, no matter what we did--and that our meddling could very well make things worse. Your fuzzy conception of nature here goes against what Plimer is arguing -- that the failure of Climate Science is a failure to grasp system dynamics. You take up Plimer's conclusion, but you immediately create a distinction between nature and human input (I note here your characterization of our "meddling" -- which is impossible since we -- and everything we do -- are contained within and inextricable from the system). You can't make Plimer's system argument at the same time you are falling back on romanticism as a trope. They don't play well together

[ladyelaine]

we -- and everything we do -- are contained within and inextricable from the system

But that's why I think there's only so much we can do. Like I said in comments above, I don't not care. I wish we could fix it, but I honestly don't think we can, and I'm afraid of making things worse. I would rather let things run their course, and adapt ourselves, using our handy-dandy ingenuity, than try to adapt the climate.

We're part of nature, which means that it's bigger than us. There's always going to be stuff we didn't factor in. Global warming has become global climate change, because the climate is doing things we didn't expect. How can we "fix" things if every climate model we have will eventually be obsolete? Especially when politics and religion and ideas about how things ought to be keep getting in the way?

Or maybe my problem is just that I'm a child of the Godzilla era.

[nous_athanatos]

First thing -- distinguish between attempting radical solutions and reducing anthropogenic impact.

First thing to do when you are in a hole is stop digging. That means cleaner, more efficient consumer goods and less fossil fuel consumption. That means less driving and more public transportation. That means smaller, more compact cities and fewer sprawling suburbs. That means more birth control. None of those things are going to cause any additional environmental problems. All they do is make privileged, selfish, foolish people whine.

[ladyelaine]

I think you just solved my problem in a nutshell. Acting directly on the environment gives me the heebie jeebies. Changing the culture does not.

[nous_athanatos]

Okay, but -- for the record -- I'm arguing that there's no real difference. Plowing a field *is* acting directly on the environment. Saying we shouldn't act ignores the fact that everything we do does act on the environment. Me typing this reply acts on the environment by using up even more fossil fuel produced electricity on a machine that classifies as hazardous waste. So I need to try to reduce my net impact in other ways -- like walking to the store. There is no difference between acting directly and changing culture.

Sounds like what you are actually nervous about is single, large-scale interventions meant to alter parameters in place of many small scale interventions meant to reduce footprint.

[ladyelaine]

You are probably right about that. Although I trust the scientific method to produce reliable results, I don't trust human nature (including either balls-out ingenuity or desperation) to use that information correctly. I'd rather be a turtle and just hunker down.