are humans causing global warming?

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Robroy]

[Robroy]

[Big Mike 34]

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Robroy]

[Robroy]

[Robroy]

This may explain a lot about this whole issue. I just ran across it: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2049024/posts


Why do certain ideas in science become targets of social criticism and others do not?

It would be easy to assume that the controversy occurs when science challenges "ignorance," especially ignorance created by cultural myths and religion. This is very neat if you believe you are being scientific, but it doesn't pass the test.

For example, Darwin's idea on evolution and Freud's ideas of the mind and behavior were met with strong social and cultural opposition which could be interpreted as a contest between religion and science.

On the other hand, theories about the quantum nature of reality, the big bang theory of creation, physical causes of mental illness, and others have not generally raised conflicts between religion, culture and science even though all of these ideas have strong religious elements.

No, there is something more happening when a controversy is ignited other than a simple morality play featuring "logic" against the villain "ignorance."

Let's use global warming as an example. Why should a scientific theory be so embraced by some and so opposed by others? What is it about global warming that divides the population based on conservative-liberal leanings, or big vs. small government ideals, between different types of scientists, and even between religionists?

Why do some people feel their position on this issue justifies being untruthful or utilizing propaganda? Note a recent AP story about the White House "ignoring advice on global warming." First of all, the White House did not ignore the report, they simply refused to change the Constitution, the present form of government, and the nature of the American economy to comply with the report's suggestions.

In the AP story, the "dismissed" report was not produced by the usual White House advisers, it was produced by "experts," and they were not just any experts, they were "top experts."

This week we learned more Americans are likely "to suffer" from kidney stones because of global warming. Is it any wonder part of the population gets cynical?

Many ideas in science have become controversial because the scientists have left their science and jumped headlong into religious or political arenas, which insures that their names appear in the media and research money continues to flow. Then they act outraged when their involvement creates a religious or political response.

Freud, for example, used the stories and ideals of his own Western culture to explain observed behavior. He then rejected Western religions as being God-given because he could explain religious tenets in terms of his observational theories. This is a tidy little tautology that many nonreligious people use to bash their own culture without logically examining its premise.

If an idea is presented that the world is going to be destroyed, and destroyed by human action, then the people who always wanted to control and manage human behavior will gravitate to the ideas to justify what they always wanted to do.

If an argument can be made that the world is being destroyed by too much freedom, too much commerce, too much reliance on obsolete religion and cultural ideals, then the people who never liked freedom, commerce or traditional values will be attracted toward these ideas.

When these advocates are lauded as "experts" and "top" experts, which almost all intelligent people know is an exaggeration, and when much less than "top" intellects, like Al Gore, win Nobel Prizes for pushing propaganda, then it is little wonder that many people become skeptical about the theories.

When people who hate capitalism begin to use global warming as the blunt weapon to control it, and when others begin to use the same ideas to control freedom and further strengthen the power of the federal government and the failed United Nations, then it makes no sense to include opponents to global warming under the rubrics of ignorance. Bluntly put, you can't use a scientific theory as a weapon and still naively assume that people will not defend themselves.

Global warming is in part good science, part bad science, part propaganda and part nonsense. The larger problem, however, is in assuming that it is all science, or all nonsense.


The article really does a nice job of encapsulating at least some of my feelings (as opposed to thoughts) on this.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Big Mike 34]

[Big Mike 34]

[Robroy]

[Robroy]

[jon]

Some info on drilling off of Santa Barbara:

"Oil is still so plentiful in the region that it often bubbles uncontrollably to the surface, and shows up in the form of tar globules on some of the area's beaches."

"Allen is the president of a group called Stop Oil Seeps, which argues that additional offshore drilling could be used to prevent oil from bubbling up on to beaches."

"Natural seepage alone over a four-year period amounts to roughly the same amount of oil that spilled from the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska in 1989."

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/s ... aspx?guid={605CE503-B0D9-4951-8C86-19B0FB38CF64}&dist=msr_1