Novelist Michael Crichton said that environmentalism had all the trappings of a religion: “Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday.” I never took such claims entirely seriously. But then I heard this statement from a Montana writer, Jim Robbins, interviewed by the “sustainability reporters” of government-funded Marketplace Radio:
There’s a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. I think there’s something along that line happening here. I mean, there are still some people who refuse to believe it. But I think there’s been an erosion of that disbelief and it’s changed pretty dramatically.
Darned if he isn’t using terms like “atheists” and “disbelief” in a
discussion of global warming. Almost as if he were, you know, a
theologian.
Reporter Sarah Gardner, by the way, says that “in my own lifetime,
average temperatures in this country have gone up more than 2 degrees.”
That doesn’t sound like that much — maybe like moving from Washington
to Richmond? But anyway, unless Sarah is about 200 years old, she seems
to be exaggerating.
For a different view of global warming — not that of an atheist or
even a skeptic, just a non-fundamentalist or non-apocalyptic — see this short paper or this book by climatologist Pat Michaels.
Even a three year old can grasp the beauty of nature and understand the ramifications of pollution and global warming.
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OPINION: Global Warming is Now a Religion
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"Deniers," "Flat-Earthers"
In today's Washington Post, Dana Milbank demonstrated the sneering self-superiority of Global Warming Adnerents against any who disagree with them.
His "Washington Sketch" was titled, "A Senator in a Hostile Climate," and began, "It must be very lonely being the last flat-earther." The second sentence explained that: "Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, committed climate- change denier found himself in just such a position Tuesday. . ."
At least he didn't suggest that Inhofe be burned at the stake.
- Jack Rafuse
October 28, 2009 12:11PM
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Isn't it funny
When Religious people denigrate science by calling it " religion "?
It implies that any "religion" is "probably a lie."
I'm inclined to think that if Real Religion didn't exist, global warming denialism wouldn't be all that popular. I mean, there is no real GW denialism in the scientific community... It's all from the "free marketeers" or religious folks.
What's funny to me is that within GW denialism, the objections are based in pretending they need more "proof" when if the level of evidence and "proof" they demand were to be required of everything... Criminal convictions would be far less common and we'd still be debating whether "radio" and "light" Are "really" the same thing and why visible light can't pass through a plastic wall but radio can.
We know Global Warming is happening, it's not "in your face" obvious, but a result of the scientific process and spending more than just a few minutes reading denialism blogs and actually using good science
- Rice klowN
October 28, 2009 2:07PM
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Wrong.
"I mean, there is no real GW denialism in the scientific community... "
There are 30,000 scientists, including 9,000 PhD's that believe man made global warming is bunk. But of course, all 30,000 of them are just cooks, right?
- LagerHead
October 29, 2009 8:34AM
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No, there IS consensus...
... in the scientific community that is relevant to climate science , but still an overwhelming majority of all scientists are either with AGW or don't offer an opinion.
However, as for your claim of 30,000 "scientists" deny GW, I have a rebuttal:
1) that petition (known as the Oregon Petition) contends that man has not contributed to global warming , not that global warming itself is a farce. It also claims that reducing man made emissions of green house gases would be BAD for the environment ! (WTF!?!)
2) the OISM (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine), the corporation that is responsible for starting and continuing that petition, is also one of the groups that claims there is no science proving smoking leads to cancer .
3) there are 2.7 Million "scientists" in the US alone. If the signatories were only in the US, that would mean that 1.2 percent deny that man has contributed to global warming. However that petition boasts international scientists, so that 30,000 (which is actually just over 31,100) is from a potential pool of an estimated 63 million "scientists" making the percentage dismally low (like one ten-thousandth of a percent)
4) Of the "Oregon Petition" signatories, almost 10,000 of them are engineers, 4700 are chemists, almost 3000 are in Biology or Agriculture, and just over 3000 are in medicine . This implies that their criteria for "scientist" is only that the person have a "degree in science" which can be a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, or a Bachelor of Science in Structural Engineering. In other words, anyone with a BS, MS, or PhD qualitifes as a "scientist".
5) Of the signatories, only 578 are involved or credentialed in atmospheric sciences. Of those, only 154 are involved in climatology or atmospheric science. Over 300 are meteorologists (weather not climate). So the intellectually honest number for that position is that of the hundreds of thousands of scientists that were asked to sign that petition, only 154 that have the relevancy required to honestly sign the petition, actually signed the petition. This is similar to the Wedge Petition with 700 signatorees "denying" evolution when only a single signatory was actually a biologist, Micheal Behe, and he was the author of almost all of modern Intelligent Design arguments. All of Behe's arguments have been debunked by the scientific process.
5) a very small random polling (30 of 1400) of the PHDs relevant to climate science among the original petitions signatories (original had 17,000 signatories) only 1 actually researches climate, several didn't remember signing it and 6 would not sign again.
A well sourced write up is here: http://cce.890m.com/scientific-consensus /
Another debunking here: http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2009/08/02/152-oism-scientists-cant-be-wrong /
And for good measure: http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/what-if-the-oregon-petition-names-were-real /
I never used the word "kooks", I call them denialists, although misinformed would be acceptable too.
I consider them to be in the same class of denier as those who fought heliocentrism after the science proved them wrong... Not kooks, just wrong and in denial of evidence.
But the most important factor is that petitions or polls of scientists does not determine what is "the consensus" among scientists. "The consensus" is determined by a full review of published peer-reviewed research which is what the IPCC report is. "The consensus" can be "up for debate" if new research survives the peer review process properly (I.e. The right reviewers, the right kind of journal, and positive reviews). However, the mere publication of research doesn't break a consensus necessarily until the research is reviewed in the public square positively and then the research will usually be given the real test of duplication.
After all that, only then can the "consensus" be said to be broken or under serious challenge.
The first link I posted mentions one report with over 600 authors from many different countries that addressed 30,000 comments and came to the consensus that AGW is real.
Currently, no dissent has survived the scientific community's review, making Anthropogenic Global Warming the "Consensus" view.
- Rice klowN
October 29, 2009 1:19PM
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