Climate Change - increasingly horrible disasters loom

I have no idea how to interpret this comment.

Is this your bitter way of acknowledging that your representation of a benign scientific consensus was completely wrong?

It sucks doesn't it ? When your lack of credibility is exposed ?

Edit: It's unbecoming of me to gloat. The truth is enough of a punch in the stomach. The truth is brutal.

What you don't get about my position in this is that I'm fine with you expressing your scientific assessment of the data. And I believe you're being totally sincere and forthright with it. Ditto with Bendall et al. It's when you et al start conjuring up reasons for why your peers don't agree with you, like they're all bought and paid for, afraid of losing their jobs, etc. that I take issue. That stuff sets my alarm bells off. And as I said earlier, that's a form of science denial as well that ultimately affects the credibility of science itself. And sure some of them are bought and paid for but that they all are or that most of them aren't trying just as hard to be sincere and forthright in expressing their interpretation of the data just like you. The scatter plots in that survey basically refutes the notion that they're all in some sort of lockstep to keep their jobs, since that sort of distribution of views isn't at all what we'd expect to see if they were.

I don't give them or you or Bendall any credibility at all when it comes to how society will react or respond to the consequences of global warming because that's outside your/their domain of expertise. What is going to happen and what we'll do about it are two separate and distinct issues.

The word "lockstep" implies some sort of agreement or conspiracy.

Survival motive is innate. It's not a conspiracy.

Scientists are people just like the rest of us. They need money to pay their bills and put food on the table for their families. They don't want to jeopardize that so they avoid taking bold stances which are effectively sticking their neck out.

At the end of the day, their funding comes from rich people.

I'll share a story with you.

**************************

Imagine that you get a call from the Hospital Emergency Room and your child has been admitted. The ER Nurse urges you to get to the hospital asap. So of course, you drop everything and race straight over. When you get there, they tell you that your child overdosed on alcohol and has Blood Alcohol Poisoning.

That diagnosis conveys a lot of information.

Blood is the LOCATION of the poison.

Alcohol is the NAME of the poison,

Poisoning is an unequivocal declaration of DANGEROUS TOXICITY.

Let's imagine an alternative where instead of telling you that your child has blood alcohol poisoning, the nurse tells you that your child has BODY CHANGE. This alternative provides no meaningful information. It's vague and non specific. You could be excused for wanting to punch the nurse for the lack of information.

Well .... this latter situation is exactly what the scientific community has acquiesced to with the term "CLIMATE CHANGE". It's completely vague and uninformative so that the public doesn't understand.

If climate scientists (Earth doctors) were to use the same standard of communication as medical professionals, they would instead call it ATMOSPHERIC and OCEANIC CARBON POISONING.

Atmosphere and Ocean is the LOCATION of the poison.

Carbon is the NAME of the POISON (over 90% of greenhouse forcing is from CO2 and CH4 (methane)

Like alcohol, carbon is an abundant material and we're fine as long as most of it is in solid form just like alcohol is OK as long as it stored in a container. But we can only survive with moderate amounts in the ocean and atmosphere just like we can only have moderate amounts of alcohol in our blood.

So ... I approached some climate scientists at the University of Utah who work at the Wilkes Center For Climate Science & Policy.

I said, why don't you name it the Wilkes Center For Treatment of Earth Carbon Poisoning ??

Do you know what they said .... they would have to check with their donor Mr. Wilkes who ponied up quite a few millions to get his name on the center.

Mr. Wilkes is a rich guy. He and his rich friends like being rich. They like the status quo. Changing the name of climate change to something which includes the word poisoning would alarm a lot of people. Rich people don't want us plebs to be scared while they are secretly buying up and stocking survival bunkers in places like New Zealand. If you don't think the people who are best informed know that we're in deep ****, then why is the survival bunker business so robust ?

The scientists at these universities understand that part of their role is to keep rich people happy so the money flow doesn't come to a halt. So .... they make believe that the problem is solvable in order not to spark civil unrest and disorder.

Follow the money.

Jem Bendell wrote a paper called Deep Adaptation. His work is in sustainability and the paper delved into the possibility that the sustainability profession as a whole was failing.

Despite not being something his paid sponsors were fond of, the paper struck a nerve and it caught on like wildfire. Now Jem Bendell makes money as an independent author and a public speaker and he can tell the truth because he is no longer financially dependent on the coercion of rich people. Hansen is basically too big a name after his landmark Congressional testimony in 1988. Several US administrations attempted to censor his public remarks when he worked for the government.

Here's a video of Carl Sagan testifying to the US Congress on the topic in the 1980's. Good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH...

Okay, I read it. He didn't engage his critics or the scientific criticism at all. He just explained it away by implying anyone who disagrees is either in denial, afraid of losing their job, or part of some broader scheme that doesn't want the truth to be let out for whatever reason. That's not engaging with the evidence, that’s dodging it. I mean, I get why those in power might not want to panic the public about a looming societal collapse. And sure, scientists might hesitate to risk their careers for various reasons. But none of that actually proves they did in this case.

MTG thinks cloud seeding is responsible for mass floods.

He's absolutely correct.

And let's face it John21 .... in this conversation, you are the one who is not equipped or prepared to engage in a scientifically critical discussion.

The most generous assessment is that you're in denial. I'll roll with that.

Bendell's departure from orthodoxy is no different than Copernicus or Galileo when they were proving that the Earth is not the center of the universe or even the solar system.

As children, we learn the fable of the Emperor Who Had No Clothes .... all the people ooh-ing and aah-ing and some random child blurts out that the emperor is in fact, naked.

The Earth is finite.

The stock market requires perpetual growth.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to comprehend that we're heading for a collision. A child can understand this.

I must be, because Bendell’s Ideological Manifesto Deep Adaptation allows for only three possible explanations as to why anyone might disagree with it:

1. I can’t be afraid of losing my job for exposing The Truth since I’m not a scientist, which I’ve repeated, and for some inexplicable reason you keep repeating back to me.

2. I don’t own a survival bunker, which, as you noted, if I did, would prove I’m in cahoots with the powers that be working to keep The Truth suppressed.

3. I’m in denial when confronted with the idea that humans could go extinct or close enough, which prevents me from seeing The Truth he has awakened to.

So yeah, by process of elimination, I must be in denial, because apparently there are no other possible reasons for questioning The Truth he's peddling.

If this is 'The Truth' then one thing we can be sure of is that isn't anything much to do with the truth. No need to be offensive to children.

Which unfortunately doesn't make the conclusion false.

It doesn't take a professional scientist in order to become educated about climate science. All it takes is a willingness to be educated by others who can grasp the simplicity of it.

It is not your lack of scientific credentials which is the evidence of your denial ..... it's your unwillingness to be educated about the truth of it.

The only way people can remain in denial is by looking away from the evidence.

It's a very difficult truth to embrace. That we are all seemingly trapped in a system in which the actions needed to sustain ourselves today are simultaneously destroying the future habitability of the planet for our progeny.

Nature doesn't have favorites. It will beat the living daylights out of any species which doesn't have the humility to respect that nature is the alpha. Humans don't have a get out jail free card.

Nature is giving us an ultimatum .... change the system or perish.

It's not a difficult 'truth' to embrace. It's a very easy 'truth' to embrace which is probably while it is being peddled.

It's not anything much to do with truth.

Some might think easily sold nonsense in support of the correct side of the argument is a good thing. i'm not so sure it doesn't undermine us but that isn't clear. It does directly lead to a departure from reality which I dont think we can afford. The correct side needs to push solutions that align with reality.

It's not an easy truth.

We are wired to seek the best for our children and presented with a conflict. What we do to help them get through today is simultaneously destroying their future.

Anyone who doesn't feel that conflict is an evolutionary aberration.

Denial is simply the way we carry on because we can't bear the truth of the conflict.

That's climate change in a nutshell.

A conflict of interest between near term and long term survival. The system of human governance today doesn't offer the citizens a way out of this conflict.

We are caught in a trap of our making.

How do we untrap ourselves ??

It's an easy 'truth' aimed squarely at people concerned about their children and grandchildren

It competes with short term concerns but that may be the least of the problems with such easily digestable nonsense in the face of such a real threat

It's really tough and we may not.

If we're going to make it then science and and reality will have to go our way. Good politics can really help get us there. Pushing green energy and tech while reducing pollution/etc are the way to go and we should be going for it massively harder (and should have gone much earlier).

These of course will lead to growth - probably explosive growth - so pushing the no growth thingy when we could be selling a far better future is a very suspect idea.

Kinda nitpicking but this is wrong.
Earth is finite but we are developping/developped ways to add to this finite earth.
By bringing stuff from outside, space.

Mining asteroids, the moon or whatever.

"Growth" is a word with great nuance.

Growth in raw material consumption and resultant deadly waste products is the kind of growth we need to avoid.

Growth in wisdom and sustainability and quality of life is preferable in my view of things.

I confess that I am not a great salesman. I know that what most people desire is something different than the truth. A good salesman appeals to people's desires.

Eventually the tipping point will come .... when the threat becomes more imminent and evident to a critical mass of citizens. Because the thing we desire most will always be survival.

The truth may not be popular .... but it doesn't change as a result.

Indeed the truth is not impacted by that 'the truth' nonsense.

You may not be a good salesman but you have been sold a pup by someone who is.

The people whose work I follow put their work up for scientific peer review. They put it out there for the whole world to kick the tires.

These people don't resort to name calling and insults to try and win arguments. They use evidence, mathematics and the scientific method.

You stick with empty insults .... I'll stick with science and math. A terrain you seem to be uncomfortable with.

You don’t say.

But you have an instinct for analogies that lay people can get their head around. The alcohol comparison is a great way to convey urgency without all the apocalyptic baggage. The problem isn’t the idea; it’s the delivery. It leans too heavily on Bendell’s style: conspiratorial framing, absolute certainty, the impulse to pre-emptively attack anyone who disagrees. That doesn’t build trust or confidence that you're giving them an objective account of the issue.... because you're not. And you don’t have to be a salesman but you also don’t need to be so certain either in what you're saying or why you think people question it. There's no reason you can't use credible voices to increase your credibility, even if you don’t fully agree with them. In other words, give people the info, perspective, etc. and allow them to draw their own conclusions. That’s how minds actually change.