How to create climate change skeptics

[TitanTiger 20,479]

First, I'm not here to really get into the weeds on climate change.  I just think that it's articles like this that fuels a lot of the opposition to climate change advocacy.  People that are skeptical get that way because they see an ulterior motive behind the movement that they feel has nothing to do with actual concern for the environment and livability on Earth, but rather is about an almost communist impulse to control the decisions and living conditions of everyone.

Unless/until the advocates for addressing climate change can purge this impulse from their movement, skeptics will continue to abound.

Quote

California’s Fires Prove the American Dream Is Flammable

If we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership.

By Kian Goh

DECEMBER 23, 2019

This fall, California residents awakened to a new reality of inconvenience and terror. In early October, the utility companies Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas and Electric, and Southern California Edison all announced precautionary power shutoffs for thousands of customers, prompted by especially hot, dry conditions and forecasts for strong winds.

Just days after the first announcement, a fire broke out in Los Angeles. The Saddleridge Fire burned through almost 9,000 acres in the northern San Fernando Valley, around the hillside neighborhoods of Sylmar, Granada Hills, and Porter Ranch. One person died; 88 structures were damaged, and 19 were destroyed. Although the cause of the fire has not been determined, initial reports pointed to SoCal Edison transmission lines. Then, in spite of the shutoffs in other parts of the state, the massive Kincade Fire broke out in Sonoma County two weeks later, consuming nearly 78,000 acres and destroying 374 structures. A PG&E transmission tower was noted as a possible cause.

Fires have dominated the California news cycle in the past, as the dry season dragged into October and the Santa Ana winds started to blow. But this fall seemed different. In the wake of November 2018’s Camp Fire—the deadliest, most destructive fire in the state’s history, killing at least 85 people—we entered what might be considered a year of climate change awareness, bookended by the news that we may only have a dozen years to contain global warming and the Global Climate Strike this September. News accounts about wildfires have taken on even greater urgency. As many commentators have noted, the changing climate and ongoing deficiencies in the regulation and management of utility companies present a new, dreadful normal.

Some have noted that rising housing costs have also pushed new development further into less populated, less protected areas. Elected officials and researchers have debated the costs and time lines of much-needed infrastructural upgrades. And there is now a campaign for a state buyout of PG&E, already in bankruptcy because of its liability for previous fires.

But few are discussing one key aspect of California’s crisis: Yes, climate change intensifies the fires—but the ways in which we plan and develop our cities makes them even more destructive. The growth of urban regions in the second half of the 20th century has been dominated by economic development, aspirations of home ownership, and belief in the importance of private property. Cities and towns have expanded in increasingly disperse fashion, fueled by cheap energy. Infrastructure has been built, deregulated, and privatized, extending services in more and more tenuous and fragile ways. Our ideas about what success, comfort, home, and family should look like are so ingrained, it’s hard for us to see how they could be reinforcing the very conditions that put us at such grave risk.

To engage with these challenges, we need to do more than upgrade the powerlines or stage a public takeover of the utility companies. We need to rethink the ideologies that govern how we plan and build our homes.

From the early years of this continent-wide republic, federal policies such as the Homestead Act of 1862 rewarded private home ownership and pioneering activities such as making individual claims on land. Programs such as the “Better Homes in America” campaign in the 1920s attempted to make private property ownership a moral issue in addition to a financial one, linking home ownership with upstanding citizenship and family values, as a presumed bulwark against communist class collectivity.

These views and policies were cemented across the landscape by the financial innovations of the New Deal—including Federal Housing Administration–backed mortgage insurance—and the expansion of the federal highway system. Not everyone benefited from these changes. In and around so many cities, new building technologies, racist lending practices, systemic criminalization of the poor and people of color, and uneven patterns of “creative destruction”—that is, cycles of investment and disinvestment across city centers and suburbs—favored one kind of residential development: single-family houses for those deemed qualified, which typically meant white, middle-class families. Expansionist, individualist, and exclusionary patterns of housing became synonymous with freedom and self-sufficiency.

This ideological geography keeps playing out in devastating and contradictory ways. Climate change generally impacts the poorest and most vulnerable people first. In Los Angeles, we see the impacts of increased heat on homeless people, the elderly, and the very young; in New York, some public housing residents must still rely on temporary boilers seven years after Hurricane Sandy. But in the Saddleridge Fire, the homes at risk were not those of residents pushed beyond the urban fringe.

Porter Ranch and adjacent Granada Hills North, at the foothills of the Santa Susana mountains, are among the more recent settlements in a wave of suburbanization that picked up pace across the Los Angeles region after World War II. It first spread through the San Fernando Valley plains, and then, in increasingly exclusive developments, up the hillsides. Porter Ranch—infamous for having been exposed to a methane gas leak from a nearby natural gas storage facility four years ago—counts among the wealthiest, and least dense, neighborhoods in LA. Its built environment, comprising large, single-family houses along wide, softly curved streets, represents the height of an idealized American dream.

These dreamy yet very real incursions into the wildlife-urban interface result in somewhat absurd conditions. During a visit to Porter Ranch in early December, a stretch limousine sat in a house’s driveway at the end of a street that abuts the gas storage hills, the separation of domestic affluence and chemical wildness demarcated only by a short wall. Nearby, Sesnon Boulevard, a three-lane road that’s wide enough for six, ends abruptly in a stub at Aliso Canyon—then picks up again on the other side, where a more recent housing development called Cagney Ranch Estates (after the actor James Cagney’s ranch) extends from the dead-ended road along the canyon. In the late 1980s, Porter Ranch residents protested the construction of a bridge that would have linked their side of Sesnon Boulevard to the other, believing easier access to their neighborhood would bring crime and drag racers. In October, the Saddleridge Fire raged through this area, licking the backs of many houses and completely destroying some. The severed boulevard left Cagney Ranch Estates residents with only one official means of evacuation: a long drive right through the least inhabited, more fire-susceptible part of the area.

The homes of LA’s most privileged residents may be vulnerable to fire. But the impacts are not equally endured. During the Getty Fire—which broke out in late October and threatened the wealthy Brentwood Heights neighborhood—the Los Angeles Times reported on the plight of residents’ housekeepers and gardeners who had not been told that they shouldn’t come in to work, and who were left stranded in the smoky hillsides by street closures and detoured buses. The art in the Getty Museum was kept safer than the workers.

This inequity is also seen in the more sparsely inhabited parts of California, where very large fires tear through smaller towns that lack natural or human-built barriers against the onslaught, as well as the resources to protect themselves. (In many cases, this would be impossible anyway.) Paradise, California, is a largely working-class town with roots in mining and railroad construction; it expanded as newer residents took advantage of the region’s natural beauty and its proximity to the agricultural economic centers of the north Central Valley. It was ravaged by last year’s Camp Fire, which claimed over 11,000 homes.

The valorizing of homeownership and property rights results not only in increased exposure to climate-change-fueled fires, but also in our inadequate responses to them. In a suite of 22 fire-related bills signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom this fall, only two are directed at the physical conditions of settlements. Both restrict their legislation to the “hardening” of individual structures, such as fire-resistant roofing and siding, creating “defensible space” around one’s house, and some measures around community preparedness. There is hardly any emphasis on more collective action or larger-scale spatial planning, except for reassessing traffic flow for evacuations. Any suggestion that we might discourage rebuilding on privately owned land is promptly tamped down.

Discussions have surged over the last two years about the need for coastal communities to retreat further inland as they face rising sea levels—a seemingly more imminent threat. How should we broach the more uncertain risks of fire?

Our homes and neighborhoods are suffused with memories and meaning. Scenes of scorched and charred hillsides and homes tear at us in visceral ways. And so, after each devastating blaze, communities and officials pledge to rebuild. After such trauma, it seems only reasonable, kind, and dutiful to support these efforts—even if they may be perpetuating the cycle. This is not an indictment of individual homeowners, who are only trying to find stability through the sole system that has been offered to them.

The vulnerable affluence of Porter Ranch and Granada Hills, and the exposed tranquility of Paradise, are two representations of the same westward-expansionist frontier thinking that underlies modern life in the United States. This is the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal, transmuted through the urban, petrochemical century. Cheap energy—both the monetary price of subsidized gasoline and the hidden costs of fossil fuels—and the idealization of individual homeownership have created the scorching landscapes we face today. Cheap energy is untenable in the face of climate emergency. And individual homeownership should be seriously questioned.

There are other options, in theory: Rental housing serves many cities around the world well, although we should be wary about perpetuating the power of landlords in this country without delinking ownership from wealth creation. There has been resurgent interest in government-planned and -built public housing, including recent legislation proposed by Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders that would shore up and invigorate the federal system. The Green New Deal invokes prior eras of government intervention, lending itself to revitalized thinking about the social value of public goods.

There is also the potential for new or reconstituted forms of cooperative housing. In New York City, cooperative apartment buildings have long been a norm. These kinds of ownership structures have often been deprioritized in federal housing subsidy programs and discouraged by standard lending practices in many regions. It is, by regulatory design, hard to do anything not consistent with the status quo. Community land trusts—nonprofit, community-based land ownership, with housing units that are typically leased in perpetual affordable status—are a promising model. There are now more than 240 community land trusts in the United States, and they are increasingly part of the consideration for those pursuing a more affordable and less market-reliant alternative. (Bernie Sanders, as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, was an early champion of the idea.) The idea of cooperative living—in both financial and social terms—needs room to breathe and grow.

If we can reframe debates about the future of cities beyond rote acceptance of property ownership, it will free up space for us to think about new, more just, and climate-attuned modes of urban living. Responding to climate change in just ways entails radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting against or adapting to climate change impacts, and doing all of it without further marginalizing oppressed groups of people.

In California, that would mean more than moving away from fire-prone areas. It would require planners, designers, and community members to consider planning for fire alongside issues of health and accessibility, social services, physical beauty, and other aspects of environmental sustainability and climate protection. “Defensible space” could mean protecting more than an individual structure; it could scale up to protect a neighborhood, or better yet, an entire district. At the same time, such zones of defense could be designed to address other aspects of climate change mitigation and adaptation: They could include green infrastructure for water infiltration and “soft” flood protection, as well as ecological linkages, such as drought-resistant, non-fire-fueling vegetation to protect biodiversity and lessen urban heat islands. These “green” zones could be planned around community centers and libraries, public institutions that have already become important places of refuge and mobilization in times of disaster.

Even with the threats of climate change and rampant fire looming, the ideals of the American dream that have been instilled for more than 150 years will be difficult to dispel. Those ideals have blinded us to other possibilities. Given the scope and scale of the climate crisis, it is shocking that we are being presented with so few serious, comprehensive alternatives for how to live. We need another kind of escape route—away from our ideologies of ownership and property, and toward more collective, healthy, and just cities.

https://www.thenation.com/article/california-fires-urban-planning/?utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=twitter

 

 

[DKW 86 7,419]

Kian Goh is a PHD with UCLA that has dedicated a substantial part of her life to using GCC as a tool to rationalize the ending of private property ownership...for the middle and lower classes.

She is not advocating the ending of private property for the Elites and Upper Income and Economic Classes. She has some great ideas about road access and design of neighborhoods etc for fire frighting and utility provision. I will openly admit that. The neighbors not wanting a second way into their area is exactly the poorest planning during a wild fire. You need multiple ways IN and OUT. Access to fight the fire etc. Great ideas! Safety and ability to stop the damage and loss of life. All good stuff...

But she is more advocating, with a wink and a nod, that private property needs to be talked down over the next few decades so that we can become more "manageable." Folks, most Americans have their home as their largest single wealth building asset. To take private ownership of real estate away from the masses will in the end make us look more and more like peasants. You work all your life to not generate anything for YOUR KIDS, while the Elites amass more and more wealth for theirs.  Your children cant generate any wealth either, but the Elite kids will. The family long consolidation and accumulation of wealth continues. Your family could become caste-ized. Stuck on one rung of the economic ladder forever.

I consider myself a Pragmatic Communist. Communism is the IDEAL way of life. No doubt. Everyone fed, everyone cared for...blah blah blah. No one unhappy. Except the leadership. In Cuba, China, USSR, Venezuela, etc we see the leaders wildly prospering. there is only one thing wrong with the communist model...PEOPLE. People are still people and we dont seem to be "Evolving." 😉

Everywhere Communism has been implemented there are always true believers that think that they will be Righteous in their leadership. Right...Then reality sets in. Even the good leadership is overcome by the greed of others. In Stalin's Russia, in Mao's China, etc anyone that got in the way was simply jailed, killed or maybe exiled. They were made "An enemy of the State" and done away with. Stalin even did in his family members, son was killed, and his wife was allowed to fall into bad health for speaking out for the commoners. In Cuba, the Castro family is said to be worth $100Ms. Forbes figured their wealth at $900M years ago.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithflamer/2016/11/26/10-surprises-about-castros-extravagant-life/#764ef5a06d76

In Russia, the leaders drove Lincolns, owned multiple Dachas, lived in luxury hotels. The people lived in hovels and industrialized apartments with few amenities. In Cuba, the Castros lived in unbelievable wealth and multiple mansions. In Communism, there is a very small, highly concentrated accumulation of wealth AND the rest of the nation are essentially slaves with healthcare. Afterall, the modern govt must take care of their "property." When Elian Gonzalez was demanded back by Cuba, they didnt ask for the return of a citizen. Cuba asked for its property back. 

Quote

 

Kidnapped my kid? I am not passing judgment on this guy (Juan Miguel Gonzalez). He could be 
the greatest father in the world for all I know, but he will not get a 
chance to be a father because the Cubans have already said this boy is 
the property of Cuba, not Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez will do what he is 
told.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2000-pt4/html/CRECB-2000-pt4-Pg5374.htm

 

Elian went back the farm where he worked for the Cuban Govt, not living with his sperm donor. And eventually, that would be the fate of most Americans. It would not be quick, maybe two generations? 40 or so years? Where does all this lead?

In China, Mao killed over 65M during the Cultural Revolution. 
Stalin killed 23M or so by simply starving the Ukrainians. 
Venezuela was the most prosperous country in South America and is now in ruins. 
N Koreans are now called on to cry on command for their love of their leaders. They are starved and live in the dark. But they have healthcare...lol.

Meanwhile, the Elites in everyone of these nations live like Kings, and prosper and thrive while the nations slowly die.

Now for the "yea, but..." In Educated Economic Circles there is a phenomenon that mature capitalist countries go thru where the they freely give up wanting kids, mainly because they do not need kids. In China, they have no SS. The parents rely on their sons to care for them when they are older. These parents NEED to have kids. In every mature capitalist society adults volunteer to not have kids and live wealthier lifestyles. Many couples choose to remain childless. It just happens. In Europe, many European countries have negative birthrates. Other than immigration, they would be declining population-wise. That leads to a whole new set of problems. So why not wait and let nature take it course over the longrun and let the population choose to shrink and become more climate friendly? Because the Elites want their part of the wealth NOW. 

Communism, its a great idea except for one thing....PEOPLE are still flawed and will always be flawed. If we could have truly righteous leaders, Communism would be awesome. But we will never have that. So, Democratic Capitalism is the best we have for now. And as Titan pointed out, GCC will be used to rationalize the marginalization of the greater part of society while the Elites party on the fuel guzzling private jets and fuel guzzling private yachts...

[AUwent 3,748]

2 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Kian Goh is a PHD with UCLA that has dedicated a substantial part of her life to using GCC as a tool to rationalize the ending of private property ownership...for the middle and lower classes.

She is not advocating the ending of private property for the Elites and Upper Income and Economic Classes. She has some great ideas about road access and design of neighborhoods etc for fire frighting and utility provision. I will openly admit that. The neighbors not wanting a second way into their area is exactly the poorest planning during a wild fire. You need multiple ways IN and OUT. Access to fight the fire etc. Great ideas! Safety and ability to stop the damage and loss of life. All good stuff...

But she is more advocating, with a wink and a nod, that private property needs to be talked down over the next few decades so that we can become more "manageable." Folks, most Americans have their home as their largest single wealth building asset. To take private ownership of real estate away from the masses will in the end make us look more and more like peasants. You work all your life to not generate anything for YOUR KIDS, while the Elites amass more and more wealth for theirs.  Your children cant generate any wealth either, but the Elite kids will. The family long consolidation and accumulation of wealth continues. Your family could become caste-ized. Stuck on one rung of the economic ladder forever.

I consider myself a Pragmatic Communist. Communism is the IDEAL way of life. No doubt. Everyone fed, everyone cared for...blah blah blah. No one unhappy. Except the leadership. In Cuba, China, USSR, Venezuela, etc we see the leaders wildly prospering. there is only one thing wrong with the communist model...PEOPLE. People are still people and we dont seem to be "Evolving." 😉

Everywhere Communism has been implemented there are always true believers that think that they will be Righteous in their leadership. Right...Then reality sets in. Even the good leadership is overcome by the greed of others. In Stalin's Russia, in Mao's China, etc anyone that got in the way was simply jailed, killed or maybe exiled. They were made "An enemy of the State" and done away with. Stalin even did in his family members, son was killed, and his wife was allowed to fall into bad health for speaking out for the commoners. In Cuba, the Castro family is said to be worth $100Ms. Forbes figured their wealth at $900M years ago.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithflamer/2016/11/26/10-surprises-about-castros-extravagant-life/#764ef5a06d76

In Russia, the leaders drove Lincolns, owned multiple Dachas, lived in luxury hotels. The people lived in hovels and industrialized apartments with few amenities. In Cuba, the Castros lived in unbelievable wealth and multiple mansions. In Communism, there is a very small, highly concentrated accumulation of wealth AND the rest of the nation are essentially slaves with healthcare. Afterall, the modern govt must take care of their "property." When Elian Gonzalez was demanded back by Cuba, they didnt ask for the return of a citizen. Cuba asked for its property back. 

Elian went back the farm where he worked for the Cuban Govt, not living with his sperm donor. And eventually, that would be the fate of most Americans. It would not be quick, maybe two generations? 40 or so years? Where does all this lead?

In China, Mao killed over 65M during the Cultural Revolution. 
Stalin killed 23M or so by simply starving the Ukrainians. 
Venezuela was the most prosperous country in South America and is now in ruins. 
N Koreans are now called on to cry on command for their love of their leaders. They are starved and live in the dark. But they have healthcare...lol.

Meanwhile, the Elites in everyone of these nations live like Kings, and prosper and thrive while the nations slowly die.

Now for the "yea, but..." In Educated Economic Circles there is a phenomenon that mature capitalist countries go thru where the they freely give up wanting kids, mainly because they do not need kids. In China, they have no SS. The parents rely on their sons to care for them when they are older. These parents NEED to have kids. In every mature capitalist society adults volunteer to not have kids and live wealthier lifestyles. Many couples choose to remain childless. It just happens. In Europe, many European countries have negative birthrates. Other than immigration, they would be declining population-wise. That leads to a whole new set of problems. So why not wait and let nature take it course over the longrun and let the population choose to shrink and become more climate friendly? Because the Elites want their part of the wealth NOW. 

Communism, its a great idea except for one thing....PEOPLE are still flawed and will always be flawed. If we could have truly righteous leaders, Communism would be awesome. But we will never have that. So, Democratic Capitalism is the best we have for now. And as Titan pointed out, GCC will be used to rationalize the marginalization of the greater part of society while the Elites party on the fuel guzzling private jets and fuel guzzling private yachts...

Social democrat is what I like to call myself.

Sick of the binary thinking people have that we can only have either "capitalism" as it exists right now, or "socialism" as in USSR/Cambodia/Venezuela.

[homersapien 11,370]

2 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

Unless/until the advocates for addressing climate change can purge this impulse from their movement, skeptics will continue to abound.

 

Such politicization of climate change is inherently irrational.  Climate change has nothing to do with politics, it is solely a matter of physics.

In other words, anthropogenic global warming exists regardless of the range of proposed responses, which may include extreme (unworkable) propositions at the far range of the curve. (In fact, denial of the problem - "skeptics" - is likewise an outlier position.Unfortunately, such radical positions are not uncommon.) 

It is not for those who accept the reality of AGW to "purge" or censure those with radical or unworkable response proposals in an attempt to convert skeptics. Skepticism will be changed only through education, experience and personal cognitive development. 

 

 

 

 

[TitanTiger 20,479]

39 minutes ago, homersapien said:

It is not for those who accept the reality of AGW to "purge" or censure those with radical or unworkable response proposals in an attempt to convert skeptics. Skepticism will be changed only through education, experience and personal cognitive development. 

Until you deal with the politicization of AGW, you will never win over people who see it through this lens.  They don't trust the science because they think it's being used and skewed to these kinds of ends like a Trojan horse.

[DKW 86 7,419]

1 hour ago, TitanTiger said:

Until you deal with the politicization of AGW, you will never win over people who see it through this lens.  They don't trust the science because they think it's being used and skewed to these kinds of ends like a Trojan horse.

Its like you are speaking a foreign language...

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

8 hours ago, homersapien said:

Climate change has nothing to do with politics, it is solely a matter of physics.

 I live the same basic lifestyle as you, yet I am not convinced by your "science".  Brother Homer you have told me that a change in the way I vote would help prohibit climate change. How can you say it is not political?

[homersapien 11,370]

14 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

 I live the same basic lifestyle as you, yet I am not convinced by your "science".  Brother Homer you have told me that a change in the way I vote would help prohibit climate change. How can you say it is not political?

Physics is physics, no matter how you vote.

[homersapien 11,370]

21 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

Until you deal with the politicization of AGW, you will never win over people who see it through this lens.  They don't trust the science because they think it's being used and skewed to these kinds of ends like a Trojan horse.

My point is you will never "win over" people who see it through this lens, period.

Skeptics are skeptics because they refuse to accept reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth (classic denialism).

Deniers will always find something to fuel their denialism, even if it's only a moderate increase in taxes or having to make relatively minor sacrifices in lifestyle.

The example you presented illustrates this perfectly - abrogation of private real estate to address AGW is an absurd proposition from a given radical individual - an outlier - which shouldn't be taken seriously.  Yet, you (correctly) suggest that deniers will use such a outlier proposal as an excuse to keep denying the reality of AGW.

Yet, there are literally hundreds - if not thousands - of realistic measures that can be taken to address the problem of AGW, but to a denier, none of them are acceptable as they all represent change.

Meanwhile, polls tell us a majority of Americans who accept the reality of AGW as fact.  Their need to take advantage of their political power asap to change our leadership. 

Your premise is correct to the extent that realistic solutions need to be emphasized and unrealistic measures should be ignored.  But that seems self-evident to me. 

But trying to persuade deniers by trying to convince them only a little painless change will be required is a fool's errand.  We are already beyond that.  And the longer we wait, the more radical the required change will be.

Bottom line, deniers can only cure themselves, which - given the inevitable manifestation of reality - they will. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[autigeremt 6,606]

If the issue of pollution had continued to be front and center after the creation of the clean water act and the EPA we’d be in a better place today. Instead the elites of the green movement decided to alter their focus and all it did was create a lack of understanding and skepticism. 

[bigbird 60,520]

If we truly wanted to help the global effort and stop the uncontrollable polluting and emissions, we should invade those countries and make the people subject to our laws, right? It would be for the betterment of the world.

[TitanTiger 20,479]

10 hours ago, homersapien said:

My point is you will never "win over" people who see it through this lens, period.

Skeptics are skeptics because they refuse to accept reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth (classic denialism).

Deniers will always find something to fuel their denialism, even if it's only a moderate increase in taxes or having to make relatively minor sacrifices in lifestyle.

The example you presented illustrates this perfectly - abrogation of private real estate to address AGW is an absurd proposition from a given radical individual - an outlier - which shouldn't be taken seriously.  Yet, you (correctly) suggest that deniers will use such a outlier proposal as an excuse to keep denying the reality of AGW.

Yet, there are literally hundreds - if not thousands - of realistic measures that can be taken to address the problem of AGW, but to a denier, none of them are acceptable as they all represent change.

Meanwhile, polls tell us a majority of Americans who accept the reality of AGW as fact.  Their need to take advantage of their political power asap to change our leadership. 

Your premise is correct to the extent that realistic solutions need to be emphasized and unrealistic measures should be ignored.  But that seems self-evident to me. 

But trying to persuade deniers by trying to convince them only a little painless change will be required is a fool's errand.  We are already beyond that.  And the longer we wait, the more radical the required change will be.

Bottom line, deniers can only cure themselves, which - given the inevitable manifestation of reality - they will. 

I think it's shortsighted to on the one hand gripe that not enough people are getting onboard with the climate change science, and thus we aren't addressing the causes and such - then on the other hand say we have no responsibility to deal with the obstacles to them coming around and just let it fester.  Either you want to persuade and effect change or you simply enjoy lording superiority over people.  But the two seem fairly mutually exclusive to me.

[DKW 86 7,419]

2 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I think it's shortsighted to on the one hand gripe that not enough people are getting onboard with the climate change science, and thus we aren't addressing the causes and such - then on the other hand say we have no responsibility to deal with the obstacles to them coming around and just let it fester.  Either you want to persuade and effect change or you simply enjoy lording superiority over people.  But the two seem fairly mutually exclusive to me.

Bravo

[AUDub 11,147]

3 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I think it's shortsighted to on the one hand gripe that not enough people are getting onboard with the climate change science, and thus we aren't addressing the causes and such - then on the other hand say we have no responsibility to deal with the obstacles to them coming around and just let it fester.  Either you want to persuade and effect change or you simply enjoy lording superiority over people.  But the two seem fairly mutually exclusive to me.

It's practically always possible to find some random whackjob whose opinions can be associated with your opponent's school of thought.

Denialism isn't going to go away no matter how much little ol' Homer and I try to police the movement. If it wasn't this, it'd be something else, quite possibly something far more innocuous.

Homer and I have spent a lot of time arguing AGW on this forum. Nice to know an instance of nutpicking instantly annihilates that effort. 

[AUDub 11,147]

4 hours ago, bigbird said:

If we truly wanted to help the global effort and stop the uncontrollable polluting and emissions, we should invade those countries and make the people subject to our laws, right? It would be for the betterment of the world.

We begin rounding up the conservatives for reeducation in the the Agenda 21 prison camps tomorrow.

[TitanTiger 20,479]

6 hours ago, AUDub said:

It's practically always possible to find some random whackjob whose opinions can be associated with your opponent's school of thought.

Denialism isn't going to go away no matter how much little ol' Homer and I try to police the movement. If it wasn't this, it'd be something else, quite possibly something far more innocuous.

Homer and I have spent a lot of time arguing AGW on this forum. Nice to know an instance of nutpicking instantly annihilates that effort. 

I'm not so much singling out you and homer.  I'm calling out the movement in general. There seems to be an awful lot of time spent belittling people, dismissing their concerns as "slippery slope" thinking or exaggerating, and very little effort spent on dispelling notions like this and condemning them.  And from what I can gather, it is one of the primary concerns of climate skeptics - that the climate change banner is being used as cover for a different motive altogether.  

It's not unlike the way that some dismiss religion completely because of charlatans like Joel Osteen or reject conservative views on practically everything because of the way that certain prominent folks like Jerry Falwell, Jr and Franklin Graham entangle it with Christianity to a sickening degree.  But if I want people to see the reasonableness of Christian ideas and thought and want them to come to know Christ, then I have to deal with those errors.  I have to push back against them.  I don't just remain silent or laugh it off when someone points to them as a stumbling block.  I address it.  I oppose those "leaders" publicly when appropriate.  I counter their wrong ideas with the right ones.

Just seems normal to me if the goal is to change people's minds.

[homersapien 11,370]

12 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I think it's shortsighted to on the one hand gripe that not enough people are getting onboard with the climate change science, and thus we aren't addressing the causes and such - then on the other hand say we have no responsibility to deal with the obstacles to them coming around and just let it fester.  Either you want to persuade and effect change or you simply enjoy lording superiority over people.  But the two seem fairly mutually exclusive to me.

 

2 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I'm not so much singling out you and homer.  I'm calling out the movement in general. There seems to be an awful lot of time spent belittling people, dismissing their concerns as "slippery slope" thinking or exaggerating, and very little effort spent on dispelling notions like this and condemning them.  And from what I can gather, it is one of the primary concerns of climate skeptics - that the climate change banner is being used as cover for a different motive altogether.  

It's not unlike the way that some dismiss religion completely because of charlatans like Joel Osteen or reject conservative views on practically everything because of the way that certain prominent folks like Jerry Falwell, Jr and Franklin Graham entangle it with Christianity to a sickening degree.  But if I want people to see the reasonableness of Christian ideas and thought and want them to come to know Christ, then I have to deal with those errors.  I have to push back against them.  I don't just remain silent or laugh it off when someone points to them as a stumbling block.  I address it.  I oppose those "leaders" publicly when appropriate.  I counter their wrong ideas with the right ones.

Just seems normal to me if the goal is to change people's minds.

My point is you will never "win over" people who see it through this lens, period.

Skeptics are skeptics because they refuse to accept reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth (classic denialism).

Deniers will always find something to fuel their denialism, even if it's only a moderate increase in taxes or having to make relatively minor sacrifices in lifestyle.

All you have done is post a single position by someone who clearly doesn't represent the majority of people who take climate change seriously.  Just like you have done with Jerry Falwell and others, I - as someone who accepts the science along with it's implications - have rejected her opinion and called her out as being irrational and irrelevant.

What more do you want from me?

And I suspect Dub feels the same way.  What more do you want from him?  What more do you want from the millions of others accept AGW theory and feel we need to do something to attenuate it's effects.

AGW per se' is not a organized religion or a political organization. 

Having said that, there are elements who have dedicated themselves to combating misinformation and ignorance about AGW.  To whit:

https://skepticalscience.com/

And I am sure that as AGW starts to be addressed by political parties and the government (post Trump) there will be efforts to or manage false, irrational, or otherwise counterproductive propositions exemplified by your OP.

But will that change the deniers?   Naaaaah.

(Unless they have a beach house. )

 

 

 

 

[homersapien 11,370]

2 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I'm not so much singling out you and homer.  I'm calling out the movement in general. There seems to be an awful lot of time spent belittling people, dismissing their concerns as "slippery slope" thinking or exaggerating, and very little effort spent on dispelling notions like this and condemning them.  And from what I can gather, it is one of the primary concerns of climate skeptics - that the climate change banner is being used as cover for a different motive altogether.

Who's in charge of "the movement"?

Who's in charge of enforcing reality?

And you - of all people - shouldn't be surprised there are many unscrupulous people who are trying to co-opt AGW science for their own personal reasons.  That's just an unfortunate part of the human condition.

It is the individual's responsibility to educate themselves on the science and engage rationally with other rational people on possible responses. 

If deniers seriously and openly engage with "the movement" - i.e: serious, thinking, rational people who accept the fact of AGW and are willing to discuss possible solutions - then the problem of irrational denialism will take care of itself. 

 

 

[metafour 4,969]

On 12/27/2019 at 1:07 PM, TitanTiger said:

Until you deal with the politicization of AGW, you will never win over people who see it through this lens.  They don't trust the science because they think it's being used and skewed to these kinds of ends like a Trojan horse.

Exactly.

By default, I am skeptical of anything that is a political ideology masquerading itself as something else. I have also made it my life's mission to believe the exact opposite of whatever Hollywood and mainstream media is parroting, because quite frankly you'd have to be an idiot to not see that you are a serf being fed your daily orders. This whole thing has become a circus, but I'm the "crazy" one for pointing out the insanity of some 13 year old autistic girl being jettisoned around the world like a puppet to influence global policy LOL. That is about the point where my internal BS meter starts going into the red.

AGW might very likely be entirely real, but even under that reality you are entirely powerless. Humans will either perish or evolve past Earthly matters. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. I don't even see what people like Homer are so worried about: you'll get your global climate initiative, don't worry about it.

[homersapien 11,370]

I rest my case.

[I_M4_AU 7,810]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

I rest my case.

He really does have a point.  Whether you believe in AGW or not, what is any government going to do about it?  How did prohibition, the war on drugs and the war on poverty work out under government control?

I believe science will come up with an answer, but it won’t be because any government decided to mandate how we live. 

[homersapien 11,370]

53 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

He really does have a point.  Whether you believe in AGW or not, what is any government going to do about it?  How did prohibition, the war on drugs and the war on poverty work out under government control?

I believe science will come up with an answer, but it won’t be because any government decided to mandate how we live. 

Yeah, how could an organized approach possibly help. 

[I_M4_AU 7,810]

2 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Yeah, how could an organized approach possibly help. 

An organized approach to solve the problem, yes. Not a government cram down by people who don’t fully understand the problem and won’t see it through.

[johnnyAU 3,630]

[AU64 10,122]

On 12/28/2019 at 9:39 PM, bigbird said:

If we truly wanted to help the global effort and stop the uncontrollable polluting and emissions, we should invade those countries and make the people subject to our laws, right? It would be for the betterment of the world.

you mean the truly big polluters like India and China ?   Sure...that would do it …..