As I enjoy some time in my native land it is always nice to see that there's plenty of flat earthers here too.
This is from respected scientist ... climate researcher ... columnist ... hack Lorne Gunter.
In a move that stretched credibility to the breaking point, some environmentalists tried to score points for their climate-disaster theory by blaming the deadly waves on global warming. Most insisted later that they had merely meant that the destruction had been made worse because global warming had killed off protective forests and marshes along the shorelines of the 14 countries affected. But at least initially, a few got so caught up in their belief that man-made warming was threatening the planet that they claimed the tsunamis were caused by carbon emissions before thinking through whether that was even possible.
Yes it's all about "scoring points" for our side. This attitude - equating arguing issues and defending ideology with winning a competition is pervasive in our political discourse. It's why now you have folks like John Cole raging against those who call out Obama for, you know, doing bad things. As Greenwald continually documents, there are many American liberals justifying such Obama positions as holding terrorism suspects indefinitely without charging them or continuing and expanding Bush's policies of government secrecy and lawlessness simply because Obama is on their side (note: what I am saying has nothing to do with actually voting for the so-called lesser evil. That is a justifiable position, though that issue itself for those who feel they are not represented in the current political realm is a complex one) The overwhelming tendency to treat politics as a game and support and defend your team at all costs, especially for progressives, simply enables the status quo to continue and removes from consideration what really this is allabout, that is, our values and morals along with careful consideration of the facts that are known.
But this is exactly how shallow and simple people like Lorne Gunter approach the issue of climate change. It is the other side trying to "score points," to win the game and to take power (the conspiracy theories flat-earthers come up to with to describe climate change activists' and scientists' motivation in delineating the vast dangers of global climate change are, to say the least, colorful). It is politics as a sport - or better put in the American superficial culture- an episode of American Idol. And it is why that stunning level of ignorance and close-mindedness pervades political debate not only among the masses, but even more so in the media.
Of course I am no scientist but I try to listen people who have the experience and knowledge of the subject they are dealing with when I form my opinions. I'll research the topic to the best of my ability and while never accepting conventional wisdom as gospel I will most certainly avoid being a contrarian for contraian sake. And I don't play for any "team." To me this seems like the obvious sensible approach, and I believe few would deny that. But you'd never guess that by listening to our media or the average person defend their bias and prejudice.
On this specific question of the relationship between global warming and tsunamis and earthquakes there is clearly much we don't understand. But equally clearly there does seem to be a relationship:
..."Climate change doesn't just affect the atmosphere and the oceans but the earth's crust as well. The whole earth is an interactive system," Professor Bill McGuire of University College London told Reuters, at the first major conference of scientists researching the changing climate's effects on geological hazards.
"In the political community people are almost completely unaware of any geological aspects to climate change."
The vulcanologists, seismologists, glaciologists, climatologists and landslide experts at the meeting have looked to the past to try to predict future changes, particularly to climate upheaval at the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago.
"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis," said McGuire, who organized the three-day conference.
David Pyle of Oxford University said small changes in the mass of the earth's surface seems to affect volcanic activity in general, not just in places where ice receded after a cold spell. Weather patterns also seem to affect volcanic activity - not just the other way round, he told the conference....
Gunter's column is titled "Blaming earthquake on CO2 shows idiocy in many quarters." Yes...yes it does...especially from those who have no idea what they are talking about yet somehow are actually paid to write about issues that are obviously beyond their grasp. I kinda like Stewie's suggestion for Gunter:
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