Posted on 08/28/2018 8:05:24 AM PDT by DeweyCA
If balance means giving voice to those who deny the reality of human-triggered climate change, we won't take part in the debate, say Jonathan Porritt... and 57 other writers, politicians and academics
We are no longer willing to lend our credibility to debates over whether or not climate change is real. It is real. We need to act now or the consequences will be catastrophic. In the interests of balance, the media often feels the need to include those who outright deny the reality of human-triggered climate change.
Balance implies equal weight. But this then creates a false equivalence between an overwhelming scientific consensus and a lobby, heavily funded by vested interests, that exists simply to sow doubt to serve those interests. Yes, of course scientific consensus should be open to challenge but with better science, not with spin and nonsense. We urgently need to move the debate on to how we address the causes and effects of dangerous climate change because thats where common sense demands our attention and efforts should be.
Fringe voices will protest about free speech. No one should prevent them from expressing their views, whether held cynically or misguidedly. However, no one is obliged to provide them with a platform, much less to appear alongside them to give the misleading impression that there is something substantive to debate. When there is an article on smoking, newspapers and broadcasters no longer include lobbyists claiming there are no links to cancer. When theres a round-the-world yacht race we dont hear flat-earthers given airtime: This is madness; theyll sail off the edge!
Theres a workable model for covering fringe views which is to treat them as such. They dont need to be ridiculed, just expected to challenge the evidence with better evidence, and otherwise ignored.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
My only problem with all of this is that either its a belief system, or it is science.
If it’s science, then pose a working theory and then build experiments to test.
If it’s a belief system, then we’re done here. It’s a Gaia cult.
Back to science, let’s start with how a CO2 molecule can rise to the top of the atmosphere, though it is heavier than other molecules in the air column. Given the amount of plant life in the ocean, it would support that CO2 sinks, else the oceans would be deserts.
If they can tackle this, and construct experiments to support their assertions, then you have a debate, and more.
I know that CFCs were banned due to simple lab experiments that proved undeniably that it was eroding the ozone layer. It wasn’t even an argument. They were legal, then they weren’t.
Global warming could go the same way. Build your experiments and prove your assertions, the world will follow.
That was easy.
Of course climate change is real! Does anyone claim our climate is the very same today as it was when dinosaurs roamed the planet? Of course not
What we oppose is the people that want to tax us or somehow charge us for it. The climate has always been changing and always will change. I am not going to pay the Government for it!
> We must not offer credibility to those who deny it <
There is no such thing as “settled science”. Every scientist can give you a hundred examples of “settled science” that turned out to be wrong. Aristotle’s very flawed theory of gravity is but one example.
Continuous, vigorous debate is what moves science forward. Every scientist knows that. Yet most of them are silent when there are calls to shut down climate debate.
It’s disgraceful.
The trick Gaia Worshippers/Envirosocialist Watermelons try to pull is to claim that anybody who does not adhere to their divine trinity is a climate change denier. You must accept all three lest you be branded a heretic:
1) there has been a warming trend over the last 100 years (reasonable. There has been. How much is open to some debate but there clearly has been a warming trend of about 1 degree on average over that time)
2) man is the cause ie anthropogenic forcing ie higher levels of atmospheric carbon is the cause (FAR less certain.)
3) WE MUST TAKE DRASTIC ACTION ABSOLUTELY RIGHT NOW!!!!!!.... or it will be utter catastrophe, cats and dogs living together, etc. (pure hysteria complete with doom mongering predictions which have repeatedly failed to come true).
Oh, and you are NOT allowed to talk about mitigation like carbon sequestration, improved scrubbers, spending money on sea walls, etc.
and dont you DARE note that warmer average temperatures in the past have been associated with human flourishing rather than disaster.
Question the orthodoxy in any way and you are akin to a holocaust denier! You evil capitalist you.
So did Al Gore. This is political science not normal science which is based on the “Scientific Method” and not opinion.
“...no longer willing to lend our credibility to debates ...”
A bit full of himself, I’d say. How can you lend what you don’t possess?
His credibility is all in his tiny little mind.
Sounds like 58 people whose grants are running out.
“...we won’t take part in the debate.” This is the point where it goes from science to a religion.
Religions must be accepted on faith, science requires proof.
In order to buy into the Global Warming/Climate Change politics of the Left, you have to believe ALL of the following:
1) There actually IS climate change that we can measure over (geologically) short periods of time;
2) Said climate change is largely, or very significantly, caused by the activities of Mankind;
3) Said climate change is wholly, or mostly, bad (For humans? For animals? For plants? For WHO, exactly?);
4) That putting into place draconian laws and regulations will stop, or significantly slow down said climate change in an expeditious manner;
5) That the economic effect of increasing the cost of energy (because that is not only the effect of the existing and proposed laws/regulations, it is their GOAL) in order to slow down/stop climate change will be of less consequence than not putting those laws/regulations into place; and
6) That we should trust the political Left worldwide to make this choice for everyone.
I’d say that each and every one of these propositions is, at best, doubtful. Some border on the metaphysically absurd (esp. #6). Combining the probabilities of all of these things (by multiplying the probability of each being true times all of the other probabilities), you end up with a number that is probably well under 1%, and certainly under 5%. So we’re going to risk a substantial portion of the global economy on an under 5% probability, and let the Leftists run the whole thing on top of that, is a guaranteed fustercluck of the highest order.
Besides, the very proposition that the Earth is warming outside of the normal swings in the climate is so absurd that those financially interested in pushing this narrative have had to fudge or entirely make up the numbers...numerous times, so many that they got caught on many occasions (and how many “scientific facts” that they’ve presented have been hogwash, but hogwash that wasn’t caught?).
They emotion-driven tyrant-wannabees can call me all of the names they want - I consider it an honor from the likes of them.
Thank you.
The greatest difficulty in dealing with the lying left is this, they control the media and frame all debates as settled before debate that way they can cast you as a “denier” and sanctimoniously dismiss anything you have to say all the while insulting your intelligence and more.
- Low sodium (under 3,000 mg and over 6,000 mg have higher mortality)
- Food-based cholesterol (you need 1,000-1,500 mg a day from food, or your body has to make it)
- High carbohydrate diets for everyoneespecially diabetics (worsens blood sugar for all)
- Saturated fat (doesnt cause cholesterol plaques)
Who’s denying that the climate is changing? Climate always changes. It’s never stable. Glaciers covered the top half of the USA down to around the level of New York. They are gone due to natural phenomena. The forces that accounted for the loss of the glaciers are still in action. Denying that is bad science.
I recently returned from an Alaskan Cruise. My god, the whole time, “Global Warming this.....” “Global Warming that....”.
I had a simple question that people couldn’t seem to answer about the retreating glaciers. “Why do you think the glaciers got so big in the first place?”
The fact is, we are still emerging from the last “Little Ice Age”, and that explains why the glaciers are returning “back to normal”.
Weve blown through about a dozen of their act by this date or it will be too late! deadlines. Our goose is cooked, its all over but the basting.
So much for the scientific method.
What is not real is that climate change is caused by humans. It is caused only by the Sun, which is million times bigger than planet earth, and is the only external source of heat for the planet.
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