Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote (skeptic @ April 26 2008,01:55) | ok, a couple of quick points. first, how are prehistoric CO2 levels irrelevant in this debate, if that is indeed what you are saying? The idea that CO2 levels have changed dramatically throughout history reinforces the robust nature of climate to withstand variability. Please tell me what I'm missing here.
Also, to fully explore my lack of faith in possible climatic tipping points we'd have to go into the computer models and their inherent limitations, the current level of confidence in the climate system as a whole and here I'm mainly referring to the role of moisture and the degree to which we can infer where we are dynamically and historically in relation to a prospective tipping point. Certainly there is probably more to do it any justice but just one of those three points would require a serious investment of time to be fair. An investment that, IMO, would be wholly and utterly wasted on my part because Louis isn't really interested in those things. He's just looking for a sound bite and a cheap shot and a opportunity to hit CTRL-V and repaste his favorite rant. To be fair, if I was more involved or had some real interest I might still slog on in the face of the coming onslaught but for me GW is about as relevant in my daily life as who's going to win the Stanley Cup. I have a favorite team but I never watch the games anymore and if they win I'll enjoy it for the length of time it takes me to read the article online. I'm not saying that GW and the Stanley Cup are actually of the same importance just in my life. I really only get worked up by the use of GW as a political tool to motivate or shame people into conforming to an agenda. Maybe if I believed in the urgent threat as reported then I might feel differently, I dunno...I find malaria much more threatening than GW but that's just me. |
So close yet so far. You almost bothered to support your claim.
1) What are you missing? An ability to read for comprehension and think at a grade school level.
No I don't in anyway claim or think that prehistoric CO2 levels are irrelevant, read it again. The point I'm making very simply is that reducing the situation to a soundbite "CO2 was higher then, so it can't be dangerous now" misses the subtleties, misses the details. It misses the fact that CO2 concentrations alone are not the be all and end all, despite the drivel in the media. It is a false dichotomy. Ignoring the details is the error that the media/politicians/beardy weirdy greenie tree huggers/climate change denialists make. The devil is in the details.
This is why I repeatedly keep trying to get you to support your point. You'll find that the minute you examine the details you'll see it's more complex than you've been sold (by either "side"). Trust me, I get more annoyed by some tree hugging fucknuckle droning on than I do some corporate shill who denies everything. Why? Because the tree hugger SHOULD know better and is playing into the denialist's hands.
I've said this so often I'm almost amazed it hasn't sunk in. None of this is about "teams" or "sides" or what have you, it's about the evidence. People who misrepresent the evidence in order to maintain their biases annoy the fuck out of me, worse than that they actually do harm to any useful aspects of any cause they claim to support. It doesn't matter if I agree wth them or not. Try to understand this.
2) Yes discussing those topics involves a time investment. An investment I and others are not only demonstrably willing to make in general, but also HAVE made repeatedly (not on this topic per se, just in the past on a myriad of topics). It always comes back to this with you Obliviot, you always cry persecution and make your inadequacies someone else's fault. Why on earth you think such obvious evasions deserve even a modicum of respect is beyond me.
Claiming I'm not interested in those things is in error. Demonstrably so. However mean or unpleasant I am, I am the only person trying very very hard to get you to engage in intellectual activity beyond "I said so". Your evasions and bloviations fool no one, if your massively arrogant ego is too fragile to cope with that then stay the fuck out of any intellectual discussion. Whether you like it or not Obliviot, no discussion that you have entered into here has got off the ground floor. Why? Because when questioned on the support for your claims you run away and create these standard red herrings of yours. It is not only transparent why you do it, it is utterly predictable.
Oh and I don't cut and paste my rants, they are hand tooled rants, individually tailored by master rant craftsmen with decades of rant experience and training. The similarities arise from the fact that the things I'm ranting about are pratcically identical. In your case that would be your lack of intellectual rigour, honesty or effort. You're big on claims but tiny when it comes to supporting them. Change the behaviour and the rants will change, or more likely disappear.
I've done this before and I'll do it again: I am more than happy to cease berating your for your shennanigans and being abusive towards you for you asinine behaviour but such loveliness comes at a price. That price is that you make no more strawmen, make no more evasions, deal with the evidence, and make an intellectual effort to at least follow an argument. This involves work on your part. Work that I and basically everyone else here is already putting it to varying degrees as the situation demands it.
3) First famine now malaria? Anything is more important than climate change, I wonder why! Forgive the sarcasm. Of course malaria and famine are very important so are a myriad of other issues. Your lack of understanding of this topic, brought on no doubt by your self confessed lack of interest, skews your perception of the urgency of it. Presenting these things as monolithic soundbites "climate change" "malaria" "famine" etc is falling into the anti-intellectual media trap. These are complex (often linked) issues that REQUIRE effort to understand. If you aren't interested or aren't persuaded that you should be interested then why post on the topic? Why inject your self admittedly ignorant opinion into a discussion at all? Especially if, when asked to elaborate on or explain that position you evade doing so in a series of manoeuvers that would make a tapeworm proud of their spineless sliminess.
As always Obliviot, the choice is yours. You can continue to evade, bloviate and obfuscate, and I will continue to call you on it in a variety of unpleasant ways. Or you can engage in those topics about which you choose to post in a more rigourous manner. If you can't be bothered to do the work necessary to support your claim, then say so. I and others will never complain about the answer "I don't know" or "I can't be bothered", the problem for you is that either of those answers immediately removes your right to comment in a useful manner on those topics. So stop! If you want to comment on a topic and discuss the issues around a topic the price of admission is that you must support, or be able to support, your claims and opinions regarding that topic.
4) You'd be wasting your time by presenting evidence eh? Bullshit. I'm banging on because you DON'T present evidence. You presenting evidence is what I want. Projecting your tendancy for obfuscation and uninformed bloviation onto others is pathetic, dishonest and yet another transparent evasion on your part. Not only do we have a long record of my honest and effort laden engagement in a myriad of topics on this board, but we also have a similarly long record of your lack of honest and effort laden participation on any topic on this board. The evidence, as usual, demonstrates the falsity of your claim. ETA: Cheap shots? Never! They are always expensive. You'll find out how little I care about what you call "cheap shots" the minute you support your claims. Soundbites? LOL I'm too long, too short, too wordy, too glib. Make your mind up! Just goes to show what a red herring this is from you. Whatever suits your purpose is right eh Obliviot? I suggest you stop projecting your own issues onto others and start making the effort to support your claims.
5) Aside to All: Incidentally, for anyone that thinks any of this is irrelevant to the topic of this post, it isn't.
Relying on media sources for information about complex scientific topics is an error. As I've mentioned. Refusal to take a topic seriously enough to do the basic investigation (and there is no shame in this btw, there are myriad topics about which I am similarly uninformed and uninterested), removes your ability to make informed contributions to any discussion of that topic. Full stop.
That doesn't mean "shut up you have no right to speak" that means "your self confessed ignorance about a topic precludes you from making useful contributions to it". Add to that the fact that no one, informed or otherwise has a right to their claims being unquestioned. Level playing field, everyone is open to the exact same scrutiny. The difference between the informed and the uninformed is that the former has a basis for their claim that the latter does not.
The political and sociological kerfuffle we see in all public debates, not just the one over climate change, is largely due to the comparative lack of informed people discussing the topic in the public domain. Why do creationist canards persist? It certainly isn't because those people informed about evolutionary biology credit them with any intellectual worth, evidence based, logic base or otherwise. It's in part because they are the meat and drink of people hugely uninformed about evolutionary biology. Obviously it's more complex than this, but that this the part relevant to this discussion about the CC politics/CC science divide.
Obliviot's behaviour is the demonstrable problem with the public debate. It's the issue in a microcosm. Ignorant, proud of it, and evasive and dishonest when asked to correct that ignorance. It's frankly pathetic. It's inexcusable from a self-confessedly clueless and ignorant denialist like Oblviiot, it's fucking criminal from anyone who should know better. If Obliviot thinks I'm hard on him, wait until you see me take on someone on my own "side" (for want of a better term).
The real problem we face is not climate change or malaria or war or famine or comets from the Oort cloud wiping us from the face of the earth, the real problem is more selfish, more immediate. The real problem is our own stupidity and primate nature. If we as a group can overcome that to any extent the other problems immediately become a lot more soluble because we can deal with them in an intelligent and rational evidence based manner. Climate change, war, famine, and perhaps even the comet (although that's debatable!) are not problems for "earth" or "nature" or "life" they are problems for humans and especially modern human societies. To the "earth" or "nature" or "life" these are incidentals, nasty but not fatal.
Louis
ETA: I done did and editorialisation. I still probably missed lots of stuff. Oh well.
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Bye.
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