Skepticism: Healthy vs. Unhealthy
An analogy.
Man and wife in car, gas gauge on empty, gas station up ahead, last gas for 20 miles.
Healthy skeptic: We better get gas here because we’re on empty and the next gas station is 20 miles up the road.
Unhealthy skeptic: I doubt we’ll run out of gas that quickly. These gas gauges are never 100 percent accurate.
I would posit that “global warming skeptics” fit the second example.
The global warming skeptic turns the concept of caution on its head, ie. that we should be “cautious” about accepting global warming as fact.
The problem with following this type of “caution” is that it means we should continue to conduct our activities in a way that could spell disaster if the science of global warming accurately predicts the consequences of our ongoing actions.
Expressing “caution” in this sense is in fact the opposite of caution. It is the act of engaging in potentially disastrous behavior based solely upon the chance the disaster will not materialize.
It is analogous to expressing caution about the accuracy of your car’s gas gauge — rather than expressing caution at the prospect of running out of gas miles from the nearest gas station.
January 31, 2007 at 3:10 am
Hi Kennebec,
Read your comment on Tamino’s blog.
You from Maine? I graduated from UM with civil engineering degress–that may be why I an so scientifically illiterate. ha!
I don’t think the issue at hand is global warming. (I was around in the 70s when we had scientific “evidence” of a coming ice age). The scepticism is at the promotion of it as a means of political or monetary gain. It’s exploitation in other words. Twice in history we had used up all of the world’s oil (Not sure how old you are, but I was around to remember the “crisis” both times). Y2K was going to see all the satellites fall from the sky, all modes of computerized transportation stopped in their tracks, power grid failure worldwide, and fortunes wiped out of electronic accounts. All of these issues supported by “scientific evidence”
Ok, a couple of things to thing about. Take this story for example:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece
Cow emissions produce more CO2 than all automobiles combined. Since we are running helter skelter through the streets screaming at the top of our lungs that the sky is falling, what do we do about it? I happen to like this blogger’s solution to THAT problem:
http://earthchurch.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/saints-be-praised/
Now based on one’s ideology I can understand why one person would want to believe one kind of “science” above another (there are credible scientists and scientific data that suggest that global warming is not particularly a result of man–just a cyclical anomaly–I mean, there was an Ice Age at one time wasn’t there? Was it man-made CO2 that made the earth come out of that? Or just some very big mastadons with gas problems?) Me, I’m to old to run, panic, do anything about a situation that 9 out of 10 people have no idea what they are talking about.
Finally, mind if I ask you a few personal questions?
1. Do you drive car with zero emmissions?
2. Do you own a house devoid of plastics, or for that matter, do you refuse to buy anything packaged in, made of, or produced in connection with it?
Of course I am being a little facetious, but the reality is, that unless one stops consuming the products produced by so-called CO2 producers, then we will continue to have those emissions.
Here’s a start.
Don’t buy gas. To do so, would be unprincipled. Bicycling would be the only really principled way to travel, as even electric modes of transportion produce environmentally unfriendly batteries.
Instead of insisting on paper (instead of plastic) at the grocery counter, don’t request a bag at all. Trees absorb CO2 and cutting them down to produce paper or for any other reason is irresponsible.
Don’t shop Walmart, Target, Sears, or any other store that carries CO2 producing merchandise. They are a part of the problem.
Of course you get the idea
Kennebec, I’m really just picking at you to have fun. But in terms of the issue, looking forward to the day that reality sets in and the issue becomes a rational one, and the hightened and panicked emotion that is prevelent within today’s debate disappears. Of course as long as we have people like former Vice President Al Gore out there making millions on scare tactics (I remember watching a movie as a youth called the “Burning Hell” it was designed to scare a person into converting to Christianity by showing graphically how bad hell was–It was very similar to “An Inconvenient Truth”), and governmental opportunists like our politicians who play upon the fears of the ignorant masses to further their own power bases or global power mongers like the U.N. who would gladly accept the funds and role as “protector” of mother earth.
Money and politics at this point of the game.
Btw, if you get a chance checkout all the articles on http://www.earthchurch.wordpress.com.
Regards,
-Jack
January 31, 2007 at 8:42 pm
El Nino?
February 12, 2007 at 2:18 am
Hi KB!
Interesting article.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
-Jack