Abandoning rational discussion on climate change

[Belligerent Savant]

<—- Cogent observations.

Stickdog typed:

If we can't get well-meaning collectivists to own up to being marks for our con artist establishment on something as comparatively trivial as the COVID pandemic, is there any hope for awakening them to the perils of what ascetic rituals and deprivations will next be required of them to remain virtuous in the already proceeding "War on Existential Climate Change"?

Indeed.



[Edit to add: I happen to disagree quite significantly with Freddie DeBoer on covid, but appreciate/agree with the larger/broader points raised by stickdog]

[BenDhyan]

^ Agreed Belligerent Savant.

<-- Well said Stickdog

[Belligerent Savant]

@BStarr96522
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Dr. Murry Salby nailed it over a decade ago - the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 concentration is proportional to temperature anomaly. That puts the arrow of causation firmly in the direction of temperature driving atmospheric CO2, and not the reverse.

[stickdog99]

The reason that I cited Freddie deBoer is because his views are representative of the few well-meaning collectivists who have even bothered to try to come to terms with the profoundly destructive and senseless lockdown, vaccine mandate, mask mandate, school closure, small business closure, playground closure, culture decimating, social development decimating, authoritarian censorship enabling and especially billionaire enriching policies that they demanded or at least applauded from March 2020 until they finally woke up and refused the latest booster that the CDC directed them and all other healthy individual over 6 months old to take.

A significant minority of these well-meaning collectivists are still desperately clinging to their mass media induced COVID illness anxiety disorder delusions, even as all the rational people around them rolls their eyes at them.

However, the vast majority of well-meaning collectivists totally refuse to reevaluate their previous support for any of these intensely destructive policies. even in light of what we now know for certain occurred in terms of the historic transfer of wealth and authoritarian power to the top 0.01%. Instead, they still persist in declaring. "The authoritarian policies that were implemented and the even more heinous zero COVID policies that I further demanded were all eminently reasonable responses to a scary, deadly novel pathogen, at least at the time."

Freddie DeBoer is an interesting case because he goes a tiny step further than this, perhaps as required by his self-appointed role as a cultural critic of the establishment left. He is now willing to admit that demanding Chinese-style zero COVID lockdowns in 2024 is a bridge too far while double masking outside and forcing dangerous injections and young and healthy people at no risk of COVID may have possibly been totally minor errors in retrospect. But, of course, these trivial, well-meaning mistakes pale in comparison to the scourge of minions of rightwing anti-vaxxers daring to denigrate the Sanctity of the Holy Injections (without presenting sufficient evidence for their outrageous claims, no less)!

It's wild to me how little awareness "deep cultural thinkers" such as Freddie deBoer demonstrate about the actual negative effects of their Branch Covidianism. Note that nowhere in his long essay about "COVID still making people crazy (on both sides!)" did deBoer so much as consider the historic transfer of wealth and authoritarian power to the top 0.1% or any of the ill-effects of school and small business closures, especially on our society's most vulnerable minority communities. And nowhere did deBoer so much as deign to mention the negative effects of the precedent of restricting college, employment, cultural participation, and even free speech rights only to those willing to give up their medical autonomy while presenting state sanctioned documentation to that effect.

That he and our leaders clearly "meant well" in endorsing all of the above, to him, is more than enough to justify all of these negatives effects.

[Belligerent Savant]

Spot-on observations.
(in my view, at least)


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Couldn't resist sharing the below, here, as it aligns quite well with a subset of comments in the prior page.

Fellow disciples from the Church of Climate Crisis singing the same hymns:

@ChrisMartzWX

And there we go… as soon as I provide examples of a few scientists who more or less share my line of thought, the climate cultist predictably accuses said individuals of being funded by the fossil fuel industry. People like Alan like to make a lot of noise, but have nothing of value to contribute to the discussion. Empty cans rattle the most.

@alangnixon

No there aren't Chris. It's real low numbers. In a relevant field, even less. That actually do the science, virtually none. I think all of them are proven shills. They take money from fossil fuel companies to lie about climate science.

....

@theoldmanWally
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Chris, there's no point. Climate Change is not about science, it's about religion. To someone of the true faith like @alangnixon the evil of CO2 is self-evident.

https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/17752 ... 72151?s=20

EDIT To Add: I don't align with all of @ChrisMartzWX's positions on 'climate change', but broadly we share a view that CO2/human-sourced factors as PRIMARY cause of weather fluctuations is not sound science, and as such, climate-based austerity measures is a form of quackery/propaganda/further efforts to implement control over populations.

[DrEvil]

That the premiere was sponsored by the CO2 coalition and the Heritage Foundation should be a big hint what's in store.

This tells us all we need to know about this piece of industry propaganda.


The regurgitation of fossil-fuel industry propaganda here is disturbing.

No. The lack of openmindedness of anyone of either side of this (or for that matter almost any "polarizing" issue one can think of) to consider that maybe these issues are incredibly complex and they are not completely omniscient is disturbing.

When the response to any alternative views of your strongly held beliefs is to reflexively demonize your opponents, that is the very definition of groupthink.

Next, you will move to censor any "disturbing" view you disagree with and finally to criminalize it. Because all good billionaires know that the the only way to save us from the evil fossil fuel billionaires is by allowing only billionaires to use fossil fuels.

Heritage is infamous for taking oil money to spread lies and propaganda, they're the CIA of the skeptic movement. Why the fuck would you trust anything associated with them on this topic? The default position should be: Heritage = Bullshit. They earned that distinction long ago.

"Next, you will move to censor any "disturbing" view you disagree with and finally to criminalize it."

Obviously. Everything I don't like should be illegal.

[DrEvil]

Also, can I just point out the irony of you writing this:

... for the last ~couple decades is the tripe about human-generated CO2 having a significant impact on 'climate change' (up until recently it was called 'global warming', though that canard can no longer sustain itself).

... immediately followed by a table from the IPCC report saying the opposite. You can't even stay consistent for twelve hours.

Here, again, you show your dishonesty in debate tactics, or are otherwise too obtuse to see the flaws in your counters.

I shared the IPCC charts because it indicates, in essence, that climate-based austerity measures will not resolve weather fluctuations, because the IPCC does not observe [in their reporting] human-caused factors -- beyond natural variability -- in most types of extreme weather events. THIS is the primary issue. The IPCC isn't the only entity making such claims, and in any event no single source is infallible.

Did you look at the full report that I linked (fair warning, it's a 2000+ page pdf), or read the excerpts I posted? And the IPCC isn't a single source, it's all the (scientific) sources bundled up into one. That's the whole point of it: look at all the current science and summarize it. They don't do any science themselves. A single source would be a Tweet by Pielke.

I fully understand the IPCC has a different view on CO2. As I mentioned in my prior post above, I don't rely on a single source for my info. I appreciate that my take is not the position held by many of the oft-cited regulatory bodies and/or governments, for a variety of reasons. I understand my current position -- that human-based CO2 is NOT a significant factor in 'global warming' -- is not a popular take right now.

Yes, because it goes against basic science. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we release about 35 billion tons of the stuff every year. There's nothing else that can explain the warming observed. Maybe one day we will discover that it was some completely unknown natural driver all along, but as of right now we haven't found it. What we have found is that as atmospheric CO2 (and various other things in smaller quantities, like methane) goes up, so does temperature.

I also observe that the general midwit response is to simply scoff at this position with proclamations that only those fooled by the 'oil industry' can subscribe to such notions.

That's fine -- this is anticipated and expected.

I would like to point out the reason I keep saying that (and why I keep getting so exasperated) is that over the last twenty+ years I've seen pretty much every oil-funded denier talking point brought up and shot down repeatedly, and over the last couple of years you've been speed-running the whole thing. I don't doubt that you genuinely believe what you're saying, but I'm pretty sure you didn't just spontaneously arrive at your beliefs overnight, they were informed and shaped by information you encountered, and what I'm saying is a lot of that information is bullshit, originally cooked up by people funded by oil, then spread, mutated and assimilated by contrarians and skeptics all over the place until it took on a life of its own, which was the point all along. You can now find plenty of skepticism with no obvious oily fingerprints on it, but if you start tracing it backwards you almost always end up at the same handful of think tanks and large fossil fuel companies.

If nothing else you have to agree that it's in the oil industry's interest (as in trillions of dollars worth of interest) to delay the phasing out of fossil fuels for as long as possible?

Tl;dr: I think you severely underestimate the scope of the disinformation campaign they've engaged in for the last fifty years.

(It should also be noted that many of you that currently subscribe fully to the 'human-based CO2 is the PRIMARY driver of global warming' narratives are also largely the same persons that fully subscribed to much of the narratives Re: covid, and perhaps to some degree, continue to subscribe to portions of these lies/faulty 'science'. You were deeply fooled/misled, in other words. Consider that you are also being fooled/misled about the role of human-based CO2. I am willing to accept that my position may turn out to be wrong, at least in part. Are you willing or able to entertain the same? I anticipate not. Ardent believers are rarely capable of such things.)

I would absolutely love for my position to be wrong. There is literally nothing I want to be wrong about more than this, but all the evidence tells me otherwise, and I have yet to see any compelling argument or information to the contrary. At best you have pointed out the occasional individual piece of the puzzle where our information could be better, but the overall picture the puzzle creates stays the same, and it's not pretty. We're very obviously fucking up every other aspect of our world, with loss of bio-diversity, emptying the oceans, logging, toxins and chemicals left and right, so why is it so hard to consider we might be doing the same to our atmosphere?

[stickdog99]

OK, let's posit that human activity is ruining Earth's atmosphere and all discussion that this may not necessarily be the case is derived from fossil fuel propaganda.

What next? Does your acceptance of this lead you to support austerity measures for world's lower and middle classes? Personal carbon allowances enforced by CBDCs? The outlawing of pets and non-centralized agriculture? The banning of meat production and personal travel? Blocking the sun? Eating ze bugs? The outlawing of personal car ownership? The implementation of climate lockdowns? The restriction of all electricity to centrally-approved IoT devices?

Do you agree with the WEF on all of this?



if so, do you agree with them that "disinformation and misinformation" (you know, like the kind evil people like me keep spreading) is the biggest problem facing humanity in the near term? If so, how can you not support censoring of any discussion and the criminalization of any protests against all of the above?

Or do you instead have any prescriptions for dealing with this ongoing climate emergency that decentralize power, lessen oligarchic control, and distribute wealth more fairly? If so, what are they?

[DrEvil]

First off - fuck right off with your endless straw-men. Try arguing in good faith for once, it's good for you.

Second: nationalize the oil companies, set firm dates for winding them down and use all that sweet oil money to shift to as much renewable as possible and invest in storage solutions. Insulate houses, subsidize solar and EVs, tax the rich to the gills (fun fact I just learned: all the current billionaires under thirty inherited their wealth), build out public transport, make sure everyone has access to cheap high speed broadband, carbon tax with progressive rebates, etc.

If that's too complicated for you, here's the mindlessly simplistic (you seem to like dumb, binary propositions) tl;dr: crush capitalism.

[Belligerent Savant]

What do you mean 'crush capitalism'?

Perhaps I'm missing something as I'm just breezing through the last couple comments here, but:

You DO realize that 'netzero', ESG, 'carbon credits', solar/wind/EV tech, et al. IS, indeed, all EXCEEDINGLY Capitalist (at least in outcome for the ones driving this 'climate alarm' industry), yes?
As in: all those at the top (and even many of those in the mid-range sections) of the pyramid promoting 'climate alarm' are, indeed, RAKING IMMENSE profits.

Please tell me you don't actually believe the primary drivers pushing 'alternative energy' are all doing it primarily because they all care so deeply about the world and its inhabitants...


Oh dear.

It appears some of the earlier programming may have altered minds irrevocably...

[stickdog99]

Nationalize the oil companies and use all that sweet oil money to shift to as much renewable as possible and invest in storage solutions.

Storage solutions? Like what?

Subsidize solar and EVs,

Are these options actually any better for the environment in an overall sense when you include the mining, transportation, and battery energy expenditures?

carbon tax with progressive rebates

How is this going to work in practice?

crush capitalism

With whose fist?

By the way, I just wanted to congratulate all of us well-meaning collectivists on our finally managing to convince our entire technocratic establishment of the imminent direness of the climate emergency facing humankind, despite the inexorable efforts of fossil fuel propagandists who continue to spread the exact disinformation and misinformation about this issue that the WEF currently ranks as the single greatest risk facing humanity in the near term. Luckily, now that all elites finally stand 100% with us on this issue (against all odds and certainly in capitalism crushing solidarity), we can doubtlessly trust them to effectively, efficiently, and equitably address this crisis with only our public interest in mind (just as they addressed COVID).

[Belligerent Savant]

Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki
@MatthewWielicki

There is NO consensus on the forcing associated with anthropogenic GHG emissions on global average temperature. This is how you lie with statistics. These consensus papers are a new phenomenon and absolutely not scientifically rigorous. Turn 1.59% into 97%. Magic.

https://x.com/MatthewWielicki/status/16 ... 5758968832

[Belligerent Savant]

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[Belligerent Savant]

@Ceist8

This chart is from Happer & Wijngaarden's unpublished non-peer-reviewed 2020 manuscript
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.03098

Yet their model shows each doubling of CO2 results in 2.2K to 2.3K of warming (within IPCC range) & refutes Happer's claim "CO2 doesn't make much difference"




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@lomcovaks
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Happer is correct, CO2 doesn't make much difference. Estimates of climate sensitivity are not predictions of future temperature rises. The effects will take hundreds of years to play out, perhaps a thousand years. It's pointless spending vast sums now on non problems.
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@Ceist8
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Are you saying Happer’s 2020 manuscript is correct when he says that each doubling of CO2 causes 2.3°C temperature increase or when he lies in interviews that it “doesn’t make much difference”?
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@lomcovaks

Happer is absolutely correct and he's not lying. The process could take upwards of a thousand years to play out. Climate sensitivity is not the same thing as a prediction of future temperatures.

https://x.com/lomcovaks/status/1747495874908029187

[Belligerent Savant]

…because it goes against basic science. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we release about 35 billion tons of the stuff every year. There's nothing else that can explain the warming observed.

….

We're very obviously fucking up every other aspect of our world, with loss of bio-diversity, emptying the oceans, logging, toxins and chemicals left and right, so why is it so hard to consider we might be doing the same to our atmosphere?

It’s not ‘basic science’. It’s a form of programming using ‘science’ constructs.

There are PLENTY of other factors and explanations for climate fluctuations over time other than CO2 as primary driver. Despite your insistence of keeping your eyes and ears shut when SCIENCE-based positions are presented that are counter to your firmly-held belief systems, this is NOT ‘settled science’. To the contrary, it will eventually be seen as quackery, just like the notion that my own medical decisions have any impact at all on those around me is sheer quackery.

I appreciate how years of programming have instilled numerous erroneous presuppositions into the brains of many, and I further anticipate there’ll be no near-term ‘awakening’: it will be generations before this current era is recognized as another iteration of the Dark Ages.

Of course, you and others will disagree with this take, and that’s fine. It’s irrelevant to what’s true or not.

Am I right or wrong about this?

Time will tell. Eventually.