I'm serious here when I say that I'm tired of people considering me worse than Hitler because I don't completely buy the Global Warming consensus. If this is a scientific fact, then why is it not open to healthy, scientific skepticism? Instead, I get this:
At the Live Earth concert in New Jersey last month, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denounced climate-change skeptics as "corporate toadies" for "villainous" enemies of America and the human race. "This is treason," he shouted, "and we need to start treating them now as traitors."
Some environmentalists and commentators have suggested that global-warming "denial" be made a crime, much as Holocaust denial is in some countries. Others have proposed that climate-change dissidents be prosecuted in Nuremberg-style trials. The Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen has suggested that television meteorologists be stripped of their American Meteorological Society certification if they dare to question predictions of catastrophic global warming.
A few weeks ago, the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Marlo Lewis published an article opposing mandatory limits on carbon-dioxide emissions, arguing that Congress should not impose caps until the technology exists to produce energy that doesn't depend on carbon dioxide. In response to Lewis's reasonable piece, the president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, Michael Eckhart, issued a threat:
"Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America."
Oh yes, I SO want to throw in with these guys. Let's all get on our high horses and have us an old-fashioned pogrom! Dontcha know them Global Warming Denialists make a pretty good bonfire?! Hey, what should you throw a drowning Global Warming Denialist?! His wife and kids!! Oh, we're so funny!
People get on the conservatives for trying to legislate morality. I don't see how this is any difference. These people want to intimidate nature into compliance with their world view. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. In true science there is always room for skepticism.
These people above seem to forget that there was once a time when questioning religious beliefs was considered treason, a criminal act, and subject to death. Had we allowed the same reaction they're calling for we would still believe the flat earth is the center of the universe, and that anyone studying astronomy should be burned.
The more things change the more they stay the same. If you were wanting to bring me over to your way of thinking you might have considered NOT declaring war on me first. Now I'm tempted to close my mind as tightly as you have yours. What's the point of studying it out for myself? You've already decided that if I don't just blindly accept everything you say I'm worthy of death. Thank you. And in 20 - 50 years if we don't see any of the predicted signs, can I put YOU to death? Please? It's only fair!
And before you answer that, you're wonderful scientific certainty already declared that a natural consequence of global warming is an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes. That didn't happen, so suddenly you find a NEW study that says "uh, actually Global Warming will result in FEWER hurricanes."
How much more of your theory is based on such shaky science? You're willing to kill me over this, so make good and sure you really, really know what you're talking about.
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2 comments:
"Now I'm tempted to close my mind as tightly as you have yours." That's the worst part of the whole matter. Most people blindly accept ideas without even questioning them themselves in the first place. And when other people disagree with them they just cannot accept it. They cannot admit that they were wrong and, worst of all, that they never ever thought about the possibility of being wrong. The worst thing is that this behavior makes other people want to act as blindly as these guys do. That's a thing I have experienced and that I terribly hate, because it happens to me too frequently. Sorry for the bad english...really liked your blog post anyway!
Bad English? I didn't notice any.
Thanks for the comment. Just for the record, I'm not against many of the things they want us to do to ward off global warming. It only makes sense to explore alternative energy sources, cut down on pollution, and recyle. I can back many of the actions that are being called for without accepting the reasons they claim we should be doing it for. So why am I so evil just because I don't agree with their reasons for doing the right thing?
What bothers me is how the various "save the earth" movements are actually working at contrary purposes, but no one in either camp seems to notice or care. For example, I've seen articles that suggest that organic farming actually releases MORE carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than more mainstream farming techniques. Why is no one concerned about that?
Anyway, thanks for reading!
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