Every time I mention the fact of global climate change, the denialists start sending me furious emails. (By the way, I know that AGW is “anthropogenic global warming”; what is CAGW?)
I think we can safely say that AGW believers are clinically psychotic
The psychosis of the CAGW cult is total. Rational thought is not possible. It’s like watching a freak show from the asylum.
Not ONLY must you never be near the reins of government, you should never come out of your padded room.
Right. So all the scientists who are citing the evidence and presenting the logic of greenhouse gases are the crazy ones, while the tiny fringe minority of TV weather presenters, angry Republicans who don’t want their industries regulated, and demented conspiracy theorists are the sane ones. It’s a topsy-turvy world for the denialists, isn’t it?
(Also on Sb)
Man, what did I do lately to piss people off? I’m getting a huge amount of hate mail today, much more than usual.
Hey Puss Zit
You disgusting jerk off, quit living off other peoples money and try to find a useful purpose on this planet.
How could you be such a fool?
I would like to ask all the hate-mailers to please be specific and tell me precisely what horrible thing I’ve done. Vague accusations of generic parasitism are neither informative nor entertaining.
Answer revealed: I made Marc Morano’s hit list for this post, and he has a Legion of Idiots wailing at me.
CAGW == “Consensus Anthropogenic Global Warming”?
My guess.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming
C most likely stands for cult. Letter writer is likely the kind of person who talks about SAM missiles, ignoring that the M in SAM means missile.
It stands for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Oh. So actually it stands for Caricatured AGW.
Reason #45,930 that the letter writer is not a doctor.
Total? This individual thinks mental illness is like a meter on a video game HUD.
“I swear, if I get cream in my McDonald’s coffee instead of milk one more time, I’m gonna—[Notices cream]—LIMIT BREAK!!!”
Right. What we need are long-tongued conservatives writing legislature with an eye on how it can best benefit the oil companies: those rich assholes aren’t going to lick themselves.
I discovered a few months ago that my da, the most wonderfullest and cleversome man in the (my)world…doesn’t believe in AGW. It still plays on my mind months later: how can someone as wonderfullist and cleversome as MY DA not understand AGW?
I didn’t tackle it at the time as my jaw just dropped and froze. I sat there blinking stupidly at him, making little: ‘buh…buh…?’ noises. What I meant was: But, Da, you’re the most cleversome man I know; you taught me about the stars, and how to cook, and that it was all right to be an atheist (if not in those exact terms), and about mythology and sci-fi and Cosmos and books books books books…and you don’t believe the scientific consensus that we’re killing ourselves and many, many other species at the same time with AGW.
I keep flitting back to it at odd, unexpected moments. I know that the NCSE is taking on the challenge in the US; I’ll be visiting the site later to take a look at their educational materials. I just have no idea whatsoever as to how to bring it up again.
“The psychosis of the CAGW cult is total. Rational thought is not possible.”
This is a true statement as long as CAGW is an acronym for “Case Against Global Warming”
–MAB
CAGW = World Wide Wrestling Entertainment. Not only are the climate deniers bad with numbers, but they’re equally bad with letters.
Emrysmyrddin:
Pretty much the same story. I got into an argument with my favorite brother when Dad showed us The Great Global Warming Swindle. Both my brother and my dad are honestly skeptical, but they go too far sometimes, believing shit like, “It’s a cudgel they’re using to keep African nations poor,” and, “The models just don’t work,” and, “But the sun is the cause — here’s a graph (which ends more than a decade ago) showing how the sun is causing it all!”
I’d brought all this up, and explained how the movie warps the data, all while ignoring the facts of AGW. They believe there’s just too much money involved for there to be unbiased research, all while ironically ignoring the fact that the oil industry is the one with the largest financial stake.
It’s frustrating, to say the least.
I love how arrogant these fuckers are. They genuinely seem to think they possess a 100% objective level of Spock-like rationality yet when asked for evidence they give none and just whine that AGW is a religion! Which is ironic, given that AGW deniers often deny because God tells them everything will be OK or the Invisible Hand of the Free Market would have fixed it by now if it was real but since the solution requires the incomprehensible evil of government regulation it just has to be a hoax. It is anti-environmentalism that is the truly faith based position.
CAGW?
Someone should warn the taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, too…
nigelTheBold: Do you think it’s a highlight of the tipping-point between skepticism and the Conspiracy Theory mindset? “The Government’s only doing it so they can tax you more…” “They only want more money out of you…” It’s all a bit implicative, trying to suggest some nefarious purpose behind AGW as a scientific theory.
Woodview:
See also: Any thread on feminism.
I’m going to pull a quote from a lady on politics.ie, an Irish discussion forum, which I think get’s the nub of the denialist morons:
I like that. Not sure where she got the 150,000 figure, but considering all the scientists whose work has contributed to the IPCC and relevant studies in the various fields, she’s probably not far off.
CAGW: Critics of AGW.
Clearly it’s “Communist Anthropogenic Global Warming” because:
1) Anyone who believes in AGW is an America hating commie pinko bastard socialist who believes Obama is really American. Why do you hate freedom, commies?
and
2) Since AGW cannot in anyway be caused by the emissions contributed by right wing/libertarian/religious people (because MAGIC, that’s why) it must only be the emissions of lefties/commies etc. Why do you hate America, commies?
HTH HAND.
Louis
P.S. This post was brought to you using “FUNDEH-LAWGIC” and sponsored by the letters C, O and the number 2.
Emrysmyrddin:
I think you are pretty much correct. Both my dad and my brother distrust authority figures. I mean, that’s natural, right? You should distrust authority figures. But it seems they do so by replacing them with other authority figures, like the nice scientists from TGGWS who talked so sincerely about the lack of evidence for AGW, and even the massive amounts of evidence against AGW. I mean, it wasn’t as if that scientist worked for an oil corporation or anything*.
The fight with my brother was really a proxy for the argument I wanted to have with my dad, but couldn’t see how — which was unreasonable of me, as my dad is eminently approachable on things.
* Yes he did
We must have had Climate Change on the radar for at least 30 years now. On top of that this isn’t even the first time we’ve had to stop doing something because it was destroying the atmosphere.
Someone really needs to point these two things out to these utter fools who think the guvmint made Global Warming up out of whole cloth last year.
If you want to slap them across the face with an oil covered pelican as you do it, be my guest.
Well, all those elitist scientists made us stop using CFCs because they were destroying the ozone layer and we would all be dying of skin cancer by now. So they made the world give a cheap propellant for spray cans and a cheap air conditioning chemical and replace them with expensive ones that don’t work and guess what? The ozone layer is still just fine.
No you are all wrong
CAGW = moving the goal posts.
I’m glad that this person is entirely open-minded about the matter,
carefully listening to the other sideknowing better than to consider anything anyone else has to say.That’s how you become learned, you just listen to those who are right. I mean, why ever bother listening to those who are known to be wrong?
Glen Davidson
Ah, wurl, you see, my da can be eminently unreasonable when he’s made up his mind. Sort of why I have no idea about how to bring it up again. I have a genuine fear that he’s drifting towards libertarianism, and as he is cleversome, I don’t want all that cleversomeness to drain away down the Rand-hole into Aynblivion.
I horribly suspect that AGW-denial is the first tentative feeler towards that ideology. My inner child is quailing; I don’t want my da to become Just Like Everybody Else (e.g., anti-cleversome)…but it might be unavoidable.
http://www.theonion.com/video/nations-climatologists-exhibiting-strange-behavior,21009/
If it was, my mental illness would be a COMBO-BREAKER!
Or CMS system.
Is there any other kind?
Thanks for the laugh, Alareth, much needed.
Yep, as other have mentioned it’s Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming aka Moving the Goalposts.
It’s the latest deconstructionist meme from the pro warming PR machine. It’s not longer (completely) “It’s all a Hoax”. Now it’s “Ok, it’s warming, but there’s not going to be any major problems”.
Many true believers have been in that movement quite a while. I wonder how many have slid smoothly from “It’s not happening” to “It’s all a hoax” to “It’s cooling” to “It won’t be catastrophic” without even noticing how bankrupt their whole position is?
Incidentally there are murmurs that the CFC thing was unnecessary and some sort of conspiracy as well. Anything seen as Green has been subject to attempted discredit in recent years, right the way back to Rachael Carson and DDT.
I thought that got fixed because people like our letter writer didn’t actually have to, you know, do anything hard (like thinking) or self-limiting.
But look at what happened to the economy.
Every time you put a limit on a business person’s activities in any way, a True American™ loses the ability to buy another flag.
Canadian!
Canadian Anthropogenic Global Warming… it’s like, cold up here eh
poppaneedsanap
By george, I think you’ve got it!
Those “cold fronts” are always “coming down from Canada”.
Muz:
Too true. I know folks who, two years ago, were strictly deniers. Now, they just riff on the new “hopeful” possibilities opened by the increased heat (hey, winters will be warmer in Europe!) and atmospheric CO2 (“plants will grow more”). Oh, and of course, Technology™ will save our asses! How? They don’t care to elaborate.
Many denialists object to (C)AGW for political and economic reasons. But they’re too chicken-hearted to admit it, so they whine about the science.
“Mommy, AGW scares me.” “Don’t worry about it, stick your head under the blanket and it’ll go away.”
the gentle, loving kind that will give us longer summers, to grow more crops and open up new arable land up North, as well as finally giving us the Holy Grail that is the Northwest Passage.
Because who needs Bangladesh, when you can have the Northwest Passage.
Our cold fronts are advancing into the US mainland as we speak, and there is nothing you can do aboot it!!! Mwaahaaa haaa haa. (except burn more fossil fuels)
Brownian:
I never understand the whole “the economy will be DOOMED!’ speak that conservatives spout off whenever environmental policy is bought up. Has clean air and water really destroyed the economy? Has conserving endangered species really caused millions to lose their jobs? Have third world countries become that way because of over zealous environmental legislation and not corrupt governments where bribery is rampant? I mean I have never heard of any recession that was caused by environmentalism, but plenty by conservative policies.
On a related note, if conservatives really thought the free market was the best solution to all these problems then why do they insist on stifling innovation by relying on fossil fuels? Surely a free market advocate should think it is proof of it’s inherent flexibility that it should easily switch to new energy sources.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Feral Fembeast:
Oh lawdy, the substance free whining and not so subtle misogyny of MRAs was absolutely hair pulling to witness. Kudos to all the regulars who managed to keep on arguing with these tools. Incidentally, PZ, Greta and Rebecca Watson have been great in educating people, including myself, on the concept of male privilege.
Brownian:
I never understood the whole “the economy will be DOOMED!’ speak that conservatives spout off whenever environmental policy is bought up. Has clean air and water really destroyed the economy? Has conserving endangered species really caused millions to lose their jobs? Have third world countries become that way because of over zealous environmental legislation and not corrupt governments where bribery is rampant? I mean I have never heard of any recession that was caused by environmentalism, but plenty by conservative policies.
On a related note, if conservatives really thought the free market was the best solution to all these problems then why do they insist on stifling innovation by relying on fossil fuels? Surely a free market advocate should think it is proof of it’s inherent flexibility that it should easily switch to new energy sources.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Feral Fembeast:
Oh lawdy, the substance free whining and not so subtle misogyny of MRAs was absolutely hair pulling to witness. Kudos to all the regulars who managed to keep on arguing with these tools. Incidentally, PZ, Greta and Rebecca Watson have been great in educating people, including myself, on the concept of male privilege.
I think we should start charging Canada a tariff on their weather exports.
Oops, double posted.
Good thing scientists do all their technology™ inventing during their off hours, when they’re not on the clock working for the NWO and the Illuminati.
I suspect that they just missed off the “God Bless” from the religious message of peace and love. The inability to correctly spell a 3 letter word is the most obvious giveaway.
@ Jadehawk #34:
Don’t forget the new bounty of accessible oil fields in the Arctic, to be
divided betweenbitterly disputed by the USA, Russia, and a few other Northern Hemisphere nations!But Louisiana and Mississippi are going to need some pretty big polders. Or massive population relocation.
Ugh I hate the “yay warmer summers” thing. When I hear about that my mind jumps to “shit…malaria and parasite populations are going to rise.
What I wouldn’t give for a blanket like that. How does it get rid of the heads? Does it lop them off somehow, or does it digest them like the wings of the Bat People from Beastmaster?
All I need is a gruesome and magic-seeming method of execution and my Reign of Terror will be good to go.
w00dview:
Obligatory reference:
“What if it’s all a hoax and we build a better world for nothing?”
Well, PZ is just doing this to get site hits…well, according to D.J. Grothe’ism that is.
Also: Lol…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/23/bjorn-lomborg-climate-thinktank-close
Ricardo:
Years ago, someone who grew up on a farm told me about the night vandals got onto the property. They spray-painted “FUK” on the side of the barn. Then they realized that was wrong, sprayed a line through it to cross it out, and started spraying “FUC,” which was still wrong but a step in the right direction at least. But then they thought
betterworse, crossed THAT out, and sprayed “FUK” again.The occupants of the farm nearly died of laughter.
Ing:
And more and more people who aren’t acclimated to year-round tropical heat will die if they’re too poor to have air conditioning.
Puss zits? A cat-borne infection?
Oh, noes! It’s that Caturday pic’s fault if PZ’s got feline microbes, now!! Why didn’t Our Host stick with the Cephalopods?
I was reading the quote from mudpuddles’ post @ 15, and I was reminded of how often I have noticed that the Grand Conspiracies(TM) of the conspiracy theorists are always ridiculously convoluted and would require a near superhuman level of guile, coordination and intelligence to pull off.
Whether it is the secret illuminati-esque world government brigade, the lot who think 9/11 was planned and executed by the US government/the Israelis/aliens in order to create a premise for a Middle Eastern territory grab/drag the West into a war against the Palestinians/distract everyone from an anal-probing spree, the crop circle true believers*, or the types who are convinced that AGW is all some kind of communist plot to destroy America’s economy – every single conspiracy theory put forward would require that the notional conspirators possessed;
1) A total ability to control all arms of the credible media (conspiracy rags aside).
2) Leave absolutely no verifiable evidence at any time (or have the services of ‘cleaners’ of such proficiency that they can remove any such evidence without trace and then silence/discredit those who ‘know too much’ without ever being caught).
3) Have total operational security such that no one with the ability to prove their claims ever broke ranks**.
4) The level of absolute coordination required to keep their activity secret and present the convincing illusion that a far more parsimonious explanation for the subject of the conspiracy theory exists.
5) The nearly unlimited material resources required to acheive 1 through 4, all sourced with no detectable paper trail.
And yet the conspiracy theorists always consider such a ludicrously elaborate scenario more likely than the far more rational alternative explanations, to the extent that some of them apparently consider those who do not buy into their unevidenced scenario to be ‘clinically psychotic’***.
And should you confront them with all these practical obstacles to their delusional conspiracy scenario? They will probably pull you aside, lower their voice to a dramatic whisper, and say;
“That just proves how powerful these people really are. The conspiracy goes all the way to the very top…”
There really is no reasoning with someone who is prepared to weave any objection you put forward into their crazed worldview – if you remain consistently sceptical, then they will simply declare that you must be ‘one of them‘.
—————————————————————-
* Yes, amazingly there are still people who refuse to accept that the crop circle stuff is debunked, and claim it was all a government coverup of alien landings.
** And yet somehow there are ‘key figures’ who slip this near impervious net, and yet never seem to have evidence for their claims or the kind of background and qualifications one might expect of a supposed scientist assigned to a ‘secret facility’ like ‘Area 51’/high level shadow government power-broker/black ops specialist. For some reason, they all seem to be far more likely to fit the profile of your average itinerant conspiracy nut – which is all part of their masterful cover, you understand…
*** Irony that concentrated just has to be bad for your health…
http://satwcomic.com/i-want-oil
There should be more beach-front property.
Once the corpses float away, that will be nice.
Won’t it?
My mind jumps to the massive increases in pollen production, including the ones that are common allergens, as well as increased oleoresin production among plants as diverse as poison sumac, poison ivy and poison oak. Lottsa fun.
“(By the way, I know that AGW is “anthropogenic global warming”; what is CAGW?)”
I’m sure someone’s said it already, but the C means “catastrophic”. It’s a way for the denialists to create extra weasel room. You see, if you point to gobs of evidence that global warming is happening, and that it’s man-made, they’ll say they never disagreed with that in the first place (after having vigorously disagreed with it). No, they just dispute that global warming will be “catastrophic”, a nice vague benchmark that’s impossible to quantify. Meanwhile, they operate under the premise that any attempt to mitigate carbon emissions will completely destroy our economy, in spite of the evidence showing that the costs will be minor, and that if the harm wreaked by global warming isn’t “catastrophic”, then surely we must not jeopardize our way of life. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll seamlessly shift allegiance to a completely different, in most cases mutually exclusive, set of arguments.
As someone who works for (well, I’m not entirely sure. I once asked a manager if we were government, and he asked some legal beagle in the PR department, and all we kept getting back was bullshit about the specific type of government agency that we were not, but for the sake of this discussion let’s say I work for the) goverment, my job would be a hell of a lot easier if the types of people who’d have to be complicit in such grandiose conspiracies were capable of such collaboration, rather than focussing on building their own little portfolio empires at the expense of other little pension Napoleons and resisting portfolio encroachment from same.
Took the city six fucking months to repave a 2.2 km section of road by my house using private contractors. When were the Freemasons supposed to have started wiring the twin towers with thermite? Sometime during the Civil War?
The cynical part of me nods and thinks, Yup, and if most of the impact is outside of the US, Australia, Europe, and favoured third world vacation hotspots, it won’t be considered catastrophic. But that’s just the cynical part of me.
Specifically I imagine vectors and diseases having their territory expanded north and southwards into areas where the local squishy humans do not have history with them and do not have a robust immunity.
Imagine the nightmare of the areas where malaria is endemic growing larger…now imagine if it gets into areas where the population lacks sickle cell trait because their ancestors lived for so long away from malaria.
Among the itty bitty little beasties that global warming is likely to spread to higher latitudes, malaria is the big one. And then, there’s dengue fever, West Nile virus, chikunguya… And then, there are worms and other parasites, and the poisonous “red tides” caused by blooms of Cyanobacteria. Yay, more continuing education for our health care providers! And at last, Westerners should find it easier to empathise with the population of Third World countries!
@Irene
According to Guns, Germs, and Steel; they hypothesized that the reason why Europe, Russia, America, actually became the developed world in contrast to the third world or primitive world is because the geography allowed for ample agriculture while avoiding endemic plagues.
CAGW stands for “Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming”
An example would be the claim that the North Pole will be ice free in 2013.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/10/climatechange.arctic
Another example is the claim that GW will cause malaria or other disease outbreaks-
http://www.nature.com/news/global-warming-wilts-malaria-1.9695
Now, that one’s interesting. Because the Earth’s temperature waxed and waned at lot in the last million years, and because human populations do move around a lot, different mutations have evolved in different populations who have historically been living in zones with endemic malaria, that help give at least partial immunity. There’s sickle cell in Africa, and then there’s thalassemia around the Mediterranean and in parts of Asia. In countries where malaria has been all but eradicated, like Greece, thalassemia is nowadays just a hereditary disease. But in olden times, it probably conferred partial immunity to malaria in heterozygous carriers.
Let’s say that the most the Earth gets warm, the more effect this will have on the genetic make-up of our species, in the long term.
Y’all are missing the main point. See, Al Gore was a proponent of AGW, and he’s kind of an awkward public speaker and sighed too much in the debate with GWB, and besides, he’s said some things that if you take totally out of context and then distort beyond all recognition can be seen as lies or at least gross exaggerations (he invented the internet!). So obviously AGW is wrong.
Also, Newt once did an AGW ad with Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi!
QED.
Damn, I NEVER get e-mail this entertaining. I guess I’m just not “doing it right”, (sigh).
Added nightmare. Our food livestock have pretty much been developed into a monoculture. And any such trait that would have been disease resistant but is now a genetic disease would have been bred out.
If malaria moves northward–there’ll be a lot more money spent on malaria research. But then, the US is mostly supposed to get drier, so we’ll produce less food, yet much of the US won’t be threatened with malaria, so it’s all good.
Still, God has carefully designed P. falciparum to continue to sicken and to often kill humanity, so who can be sure what the future holds? Maybe anopheles mosquitoes and malaria will take over arid regions, too, if the God Behe worships really does control life.
Glen Davidson
Ing, you are mistaken here. Agriculture was the reason for many of the great plagues, illnesses jumping from the livestock to the humans. The descendants of the survivors had better immunity. The agriculture of the middle east won out because it was much easier for their methods to move laterally as opposed to the maize of Mesa-American moving from the south to the north.
Also, until modern immunization, the southern part of the US was a place of illness for people from the north.
Brownian @ 54;
I used to work for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (for the non-Brits who may be reading, it is the UK tax authority), a favoured target of UK based conspiracy theorists, and I can say from first hand experience that the organisation might, possibly, be able to organise a knees-up in a brewery.
On a good day.
If it first hired some event organisers.
The conspiracy theorists have an answer (of sorts) to our experiences – you see, neither one of us actually worked in the real organs of state of our respective countries. We just worked in fronts that are intended to be slow and incompetent, in order to create the impression that the idea of a super powerful, all-knowing and infallible government agency is ridiculous, and thus lull the populous into a false sense of security such that wearing tin foil hats is seens as odd, rather than an essential item of urban survival gear required to block the mind control rays beamed down from cloaked government satellites…
timgueguen @3:
And they also say A T M Machine ?
There’s nothing wrong with being skeptical about new ideas or new theories. After all, a strong critical thinking skill set is an important part of science. But there’s a time when skepticism turns into living in a state of denial. (which is not just a river in Africa, btw)
@Janine
Thank you for the correction.
I don’t recall seeing so succinct a description, PZ.
———
I think the vague, grammatically incorrect (more than one people?) second part was supposed to parse:
You disgusting. Jerk off. Quit living on other peoples, money; and try to find a useful purpose off this planet.
@janine:
You guys are violently agreeing (kind of). Ing is right that everything else being equal there are more, and more virulent, diseases in the tropics. You are correct that higher population densities cause both more disease and more disease resistance. These are not mutually exclusive theses.
One of the weathermen on the denial list had this to deal with last night:
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/01/birmingham_city_crews_dispatch.html
As well as our massive tornadoes of 4/27. But you know, nothing to see here, move along.
Yes but I was miss remembering the book in question.
It is not even violent, daniellavine. Though Ing had no need to thank me, it makes me feel funny. But Diamond’ss main point was that agriculture created diseases that killed off those peoples that did not practice agriculture (The so called primitives) and that the agriculture of the middle east had the easiest route to be adapted by other cultures because of the lateral movement, there was not as much of a need to change because of climate and growing seasons.
The common human reaction to being corrected is to take offense and it is common for people to invest more belief in a claim when confronted with contradicting data. I want to care more about being right than feeling right. Public thanks of this indicates that I want people to correct and be corrected and hopefully works to assure others who might have an aversion to confrontation that such factual corrections won’t lead to that.
Also it feels weird not to acknowledge it, that would be rude and make it seem like I’m ignoring people.
Deep
riftsagreements!!!and possibly hugs.
Ing:
Good book! But IIRC, it was more along the lines of:
The geography and natural resources allowed Eurasia to get a head-start in agriculture (presence of many plant and animal species amenable to domestication) and metallurgy (metal deposits, plus availability of animal labour for mining, commerce, etc.), thus to build the first civilisations. Agriculture enabled them to grow large populations, while big domestic animals (horses) and metallurgy gave them an edge in war.
The convergence of large population densities and of farm animals coexisting with humans made these early civilisations a fertile ground for endemic infectious diseases like smallpox, flu, TB, measles or cholera. In consequence, these populations also developed partial genetic resistance to the most common diseases. This made their encounter with groups of humans who had never evolved resistance to such diseases so devastating, most notably in the Americas, where the big killer wasn’t war or even slavery, but contagion.
Coupled with the difference in technology (lack of metallurgy, gunpowder and beasts of burden), it explained the rapid downfall of high civilisations like the Inca and Aztec empires.
++++++++++++++
Now, said, the other continental masses, Africa, Australia and Papua New Guinea, fared not very differently in their encounters with Europeans: the gap in technology was also too wide, and the microbes had their role to play. Sometimes in reverse: endemic malaria and sleeping sickness made Africa an inhospitable place for Europeans, and in fact stopped them to come far inland until the mid-1800s, when medicine and technology had progressed enough to make mass-production of anti-malarial drugs possible.
It’s one of the reasons the European companies from the 16th to the 19th Century engaged in the transatlantic slave trade: the economic routes from inside Africa to the coast were already there, established by Arab traders, so the Europeans only had to go to the sea-ports to buy the Black slaves.
Still, up to around 1750, Western Europe wasn’t the most developed civilisation on the planet: China, India and the Muslim world had similar (or even better) technology and standards of living. They also were surrounded each by satellite countries and zones of economic and political influences. Where Western Europe lucked out was that after the Black Plague of the 14th Century, they had a few centuries without major epidemics, climate disasters or invasions. Asia wasn’t so lucky by comparison, with more plagues, and large movements of populations from the Steppes toward China, India and the Middle East. It was the beginning of the Ottoman empire, and the end of several Chinese dynasties.
But Europeans also benefited from their internal competition: where China or the Mogul Empire in India were large but more or less stable cultural units, Europeans stayed divided in independent countries, each with the power to keep its neighbours in respect. This probably accelerated not only technological advances, but the ability to adapt to circumstances, and spurred the intellectual innovations in commerce, in politics, in science… Colonisation wasn’t only made possible by gunboats, but also by capitalism and by the treaties among European powers to divide between them the riches of other continents.
++++++++++++++
Excuse the long digression, probably oversimplified and sketchy in places… Human ecology is one of my pet subjects, and so is history.
What you guys are missing is that Al Gore is fat. Therefore, your argument is invalid.
I should say thought that my choice of words “endemic plagues” was poor. I meant less of actual plagues and more of just endemic parasites and diseases that lower the standard of living and productivity of people.
Oops, while I was blathering on, janine stepped in and went straight to the point!
More violent agreement, then ;-)
But Irene, you provided more details and facts.
I hate you for that!
*raspberry*
@Ing:
This is such a great attitude to have.
@janine:
IIRC, Diamond also suggested that Ing’s point was a partial explanation for disparities in the states of civilizations as well. But yes, the explanation you’re describing was a far more important one.
@chigau:
Definitely hugs!
The area where I live now (southwestern Ontario) was malarial up until the late 1800s, and as late as the 1830s, workers building the Rideau Canal were dying of endemic malaria. P. vivax malaria, but still. I think I started worrying about malaria resurgence in the area about 10 years ago; it hasn’t happened yet, but it hasn’t happened yet, if you get my drift.
They’re wasting perfectly good electrons on these messages. I propose that they conserve electrons and pixels and adhere to the internationally agreed insult of choice:
Poopy-head.
Warmer summers = more heatstroke deaths, too.
I will probably take some abuse for this since I am actually going to take the Doctor’s question seriously for a moment.
In the field of climate change there are numerous schools of thought. While detectable rises in global temperatures have been observed in the last century not all practitioners in the field agree that the rise can be solely attributed to the added input of Tyndall gases (greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere. The consensus in the field, however, is that a significant component of the observed warming can be attributed to increases in the concentrations of Tyndall gases in the atmosphere (the most intensely debated being carbon dioxide). Moreover, this increase can be readily attributed to human activities. This consensus view is known as anthropogenic global warming (AGW). It would be difficult to be considered a serious thinker in the field if you did not accept the reality of AGW.
Now given the reality of AGW; the next research issue to be addressed deals with the sensitivity of the atmosphere/biosphere to increases in Tyndall gase concewntrations. There are numerous areas of debate regarding the sensitivity of the global systems to increases in concentrations of Tyndall gases and the most extreme on the warming side are those who believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW). These individuals feel that a tipping point will be reached at some still-to-be-defined concentration of Tyndall gases in the atmosphere causing a positive feedback loop that will result in cataclysmic heating. The result will be a substantial change occurring over a very limited time frame (in tens of years rather than hundreds or thousands of years). Proponents of CAGW insist that the tipping point is nigh and that we must decarbonize ASAP or risk probable extinction as a species. Unfortunately CAGW proponents can be just as inane and annoying as those people who insist that global warming is not happening.
I see nothing to make me believe that we will escape much of the predicted effects of Global warning. we show no sign of coming to any agreement on any action to mitigate the climate change or modify our behavior to reduce or slow climate change. The “idea” that it will be good or at least not so bad is pathetic. There are other diseases to worry about besides human diseases or animal diseases there are pathogens that can attack our few food crops that could be very exciting to watch spread. All in all it is going to be an interesting time which if things go like normal will happen sooner than expected.
on another note I was wondering what the alternative history of the world would look like if the Bison had been domesticated. Columbus may have had a different experience as would Cortez.
uncle frogy
RealClimate recently had an excellent series of posts debunking the “Oh Noes! Catastrophic methane release from the Arctic is about to kill us all!” meme.
However, those concerned are far fewer, far less well-funded, far less influential, and far, far, far less dangerous than the denialists.
I’m more bothered about the change in weather slowing the plants growth. It isn’t just monoculture, America has a corn belt and if the usual season shifts north or south all corn yields are going down. That means less exports, higher food prices across the board and problems again with ethanol. I hear American farms are already struggling in a lot of places.
How does one “move” a corn belt after all?
Indeed. If I ever lose my mind entirely, I like to think I’ll be able to write better incoherent hate-mail than that. Witness:
(Bonus points for anyone who spots the Blackadder reference.)
And on a larger scale, a few degrees rise in some parts of the world will make a difference between habitable (just, at least for my heat tolerance) and utterly unliveable. Where are the current inhabitants to go? Is it going to be a nice well organised relocation? Or perhaps a massive invasion as an entire nation marches north (or south I guess for some places) to take over some other country. What if the movers have nukes? What if they’re (oh noes!) brown people wanting to go somewhere where nice pasty-white people live?
Anyone imagining (I was going to say ‘thinking’ but thought doesn’t come into it) that the world will gently and peacefully get a little bit warmer evenly, everywhere, needs an appointment with a clue bat.
Depends. If you’ve gotten corn fatter, you have to buy a new one. If you’ve lost corn weight, you can corn drill a new corn hole.
Walton #90
Where would you like your sniny new internet delivered to?
walton
You did that without using the word “strident”. A-
You’re right. That’s a serious omission. On further consideration, replace “…the hateful and militant content of your so-called…” in the first sentence with “…the hateful and strident content of your so-called…”.
walton @ 90;
I got more than a few chuckles out of that post. I second ‘Tis Himself, OM.’s award of a sniny new internets to your good self.
This post made me laugh because yesterday, on the post about weathermen who deny climate change, I made the comment that news organizations are often reluctant to even mention climate change because, every time they do, they get flooded with angry, incoherent letters from the rabid right.
One of my favorite things about pages like Pharyngula is that, unlike commerical media, they don’t have to worry about pandering to the kooks and pretend like both sides have equally valid arguments.
“It’s not warming, and it’s not our fault, and it’ll actually have advantages, and doing anything about it would ruin us all, and it’s too late to do anything about it, and look – it hasn’t warmed, at least not since the extra-hot year 3 years ago which had nothing at all whatsoever to do with global warming!”
I don’t think I’ve seen all of these claims in the same sentence, but it’s close sometimes.
Awesome. Bookmarked.
“[…] to
elimeelemikill a man.”– typewriting that appears live on the screen at the start of Hot Shots 2
“The complete lack of evidence is a sure sign the conspiracy is working.”
Awesome.
A comment: “In Soviet Russia, oil drills YOU!”
Win.
Full-on 18th century! Thread won. *congratulatory handshake*
Or rather:
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments les plus distinguées.
Generally speaking, people who rant about the “free market” don’t usually mean “free” like “unfettered,” they mean “free” like “someone else bought it for them.”
#49 Gregory Greenwood
And yet they cannot silence/discredit all those wised-up deniers. You’d think such a massive, well-coordinated operation could find and take out some dweeby little nobody, exposing “the truth about the CAGW conspiracy” from his basement in Smalltown, USA.
@ walton:
This, sir, is a thing of beauty. *bows*
Man, Morano is a grade A idiot. He even linked back to the wrong website. :((
Some of the gonzo weathermen try to make up for bad hair with worse steroids:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2011/02/joe-bastardi-explains-why-the-cold-miser-is-winning-the-climate-change-showdown
Still, there are worse things than ‘roid rage on view at WUWT :
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/ippndh.jpg[/IMG]
You misspelled “squid”.
Well, it’s obvious. We use Technology™ to build more Gun™ in order to control overpopulation in the world of limited and waning resources. See? Everything will be alright. All problems can be solved by applying more Gun™.
Thank you Technology™!
@Emrysmyrddin
Slighty off topic, but so much this. My dad taught me so much about science and the wonder of the world around me, and I love him for it, but then he goes an says some stupid racist shit and I lose so much respect for him. And unlike everyone else, where I’d challenge it, I just can’t beyond a feeble, pathetic attempt… :(
And unlike everyone else, where I’d challenge it, I just can’t beyond a feeble, pathetic attempt… :(
it’s hard to have reasoned arguments with people you are close to.
but, the answer to your problem lies right in what you just said.
…unlike everyone else, where I’d challenge it….
what does that suggest to you?
GW deniers – “There is no global warming!”
+
Mounds of irrefutable evidence that average global temperatures are climbing
=
AGW deniers – “OK, sure, but it’s not human activity causing it”
+
Mounds of evidence that it is CO2 from fossil fuel burning that is the main thing causing temperature increases.
=
CAGW deniers – “Ok, sure, but there isn’t going to be some major catastrophe as a result.”
+
Famine, sea level rises, disastrous weather events, major extinction level event,…
=
?????
It’s remarkably like the “God of the Gaps”, isn’t it?
What will it take for these deniers to change their minds? How many years of increasing flood and storm damage and animal die off before they see the trend lines clearly?
What will it take for these deniers to change their minds?
deniers rely on peer-based authoritarianism.
you will have to get their peers to tell them the truth.
Good luck.