Here’s what causes global warming: we’ve been breathing since the Pleistocene ice age ended 165 million years ago.
Isn’t it cool how mentioning a specific date and geological epoch make you sound so smart, except when you get them all completely wrong?
for context, here is the original letter:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letters/send/s_461958.html
That’s where you’re wrong, PZ. How can you possibly forget about all the methane from the enchilada combos that were consumed since the dawn of mankind? It’s an even stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and it seem that we’re getting more and more of it from the likes of whoever wrote that letter to Pittsburgh paper and Peggy Noonan.
Why are people so eager to deny global warming? I really don’t understand it.
They’re either energy-industry shills / hirelings, other corporate shills / hirelings worried about the cost of cutting carbon emissions, or “White Suburban Middle Class Man” who’ll give up his giant SUV when you pry the keys from his cold, dead hands.
Why are people so eager to deny global warming? I really don’t understand it.
Posted by: j
Because you are either against Al Gore or you are with the terrorists? Between this and the debate in the House about overriding the veto I’m really convinced that the democrats need to start realizing that the average American is a bit on the mentally challenged side of things and can’t understand a real message and should start planning on campaigning accordingly. I personally find this response to the original letter to the editor to be worse. The smug arrogance of the stupid again?
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letter/s_462717.html
I’m almost embarrased to admit this, but Mr. Casey is from my home town. Mr. Engel, whose PitTrib letter sparked the discussion, comes from one municipality over. So very sad….
They say you can’t go home again. With neighbors like that, why would I want to go home again?
md
Other ways to explain away global warming:
1) The “it’s not global warming it’s something else” approach:
“…it is global sinning, and not global warning which is causing the upheaval of nature.”
2) The “it’s out of our hands if you look at the really big picture” approach:
The earth doesn’t much care what is happening on the surface it is pretty much happenstance anyway judging between the major occurences that we humans describe as catastrophe. Sometimes some life is left, after cataclysmic occurences sometimes not yet it will begin again, life upon the surface, and evolve, until the planet becomes another Mars. In between that time continents will shift, sometimes drastically because of constant geological fluxuation. The occurences may keep the population under control, they may not and eventually humans may completely over run the earth and destroy all the natural resources which we have been provided with as a species. The planet body is supreme under God and will decide our fate as humans.
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/forum/read.html?id=4451
I think people deny global warming because they don’t want it be be true. You see, in other areas of their lives, such as getting into heaven, they are convinced that what they believe is very important, so they take the same approach to environmental problems. They probably also find that having unshakable faith in their belief also helps them win arguements over which football team is the best, which band truly rocks, and which beer is more filling. Unfortunately rising sea levels don’t really care about anyone’s beliefs.
Christianity: If you don’t accept Christ and follow the Commandments in the Bible, you’re going to hell, a very scary place.
Global warming experts: If you don’t accept global warming and start cutting your carbon emissions, your town will be underwater, a very scary thought.
Not that different, actually.
Except one of them is actually based on evidence.
Perhaps I am still too naïve and idealistic, but it astonishes me every time to see the extent to which people will go into denial in order to continue living in blissful ignorance.
I think the US state most vulnerable to global warming would be Florida – and then the low-lying Atlantic coastline ….
Is there any diiference in the percentages of opinion as to the reality of GW in those areas?
( Ans can the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor, have Florida back, please, then you can have the freehold of the US embassy in London….)