CommonPrejudice

Socialism and Communism for Dummies

As many know by now Obama was recently asked by a New York Times Reporter whether he was a socialist. It is really difficult to properly relate how profoundly silly that question/topic is.  A return to pre-Bush level taxation while increasing spending during the most severe economic crisis of our generation is about as socialist as ..... global warming.

In New York today those who believe the earth is flat  climate change is not real are meeting to warn others about sailing off the end of the earth discuss the issue. And apparently the competition among world leaders to replace Bush as dimmest light bulb on the planet is heating up. Here for example is Václav Klaus:

... The organisers believe they have pulled off a great success by bringing in Czech and current EU president and Eurosceptic, Václav Klaus.

Klaus maintains that moves to reduce climate change are an attack on individual liberties.

Last night he said European governments are scaremongering and addicted to extreme environmentalists who want to set the human race backwards by some centuries.

He admitted that he was alone in this view but he received prolonged applause.

He said that the global warming debate has not moved forward and he is reminded of the dissatisfaction people experienced under communism ...

If there is one thing that is absolutely clear in the our battle to save our future on this planet it is that the greatest challenge is not technological nor strutural but simply overcoming our own idiocy.

Depressing

Kevin Drum on a new poll.

Via Andrew Revkin, the latest Pew poll on priorities contains grim news for those of us who think we're rapidly destroying out planet: the public couldn't care less. Global warming, once again, ranks as the lowest priority from a list of 20, and the more general category of "protecting the environment" fell 15 percentage points from last year.

And as if that's not bad enough, Revkin also points to a new Rasmussen poll, which finds that 44% of U.S. voters don't believe humans are the cause of global warming, compared to only 41% who do. That's even worse than last year's results...

There is the tremendous temptation to throw up your hands and say the hell with it, as a species we're just too stupid to survive. Some days I do. And while you may want to point to this lack of smarts as being predominant among the American people I believe it's the natural result of the insipid and consumerist culture, particularly the influence of the corporate media on this culture rather than the people themselves. This is why I'm not particularly optimistic. I find it difficult to imagine the fundamental nature of this culture changing in time to prevent climatic disaster. In 2009 more people in the United States believe that humans are not the cause of global warming than do! They didn't pull that out of the sky. Too many people of influence in this culture believe it.

On this Earth Day I Have Only One Worry ...

Are we going to be able to put enough people to death if the Democrats win the presidency?

So today is earth day.

We've got global food crises certain to get worse as will shortages of water.  The best and brightest scientists around the world warn that we may be past the point of no return in regards to climate change and the devastating effects this will bring about. We've got record temperatures - both high and low - all across the planet. There are record levels of storms and droughts. We've got a man-child heading what has been historically the world's leading polluter and he has only made things much worse. And we've got legions of flat-earthers decrying the uncertainty of the phenonmenon and still, unbeleiveably, referring to it as the "global warming controversy,"

There's also  a very important Democratic primary today in Pennesylvania, which if people could pull attention away from flag pins, might indicate where the United States will be going in terms of its environmental policy.

So what has LA Times columnist and certified nut Jonah Goldberg "melting away into real anxiety, even panic?" Simply that one of the justices of the Supreme Court believes that the death penalty is unconstitutional based on his life experience.

This is why we are screwed.

Now if I were to overhear drivel like this at a bar I initially would feel like mentioning to this person how deluded they were and how, while the U.S. faces wars, a devastated economy, environmental catastrophe and torture and eavesdropping scandals among other things, you decide to focus on this makes you a moron. But alas, I would probably just take a big drink of my beer and admit it's not worth it. The fact that it is a nationally syndicated columnist saying that this is what causes him great anxiety heading into the election makes this something you can't ignore no matter how much it deserves to be. If there a reasonable society an immediate court order would be issued keeping Goldberg from within a hundred yards of a keyboard.

But we know Goldberg has a national forum not likely to get taken away any time soon.

And this is why we are screwed.

At US Today another brilliant mind has this to say.

Earth Day is a Holiday for Liars

....There are several common attributes of environmentalism. High on the list is its barely hidden contempt for the human race...

Once more time:
This is why we are screwed.

As long as people so inarguably dim play an important role in the political discourse of the United States - a country that absolutely must be on board if we are to accomplish anything regarding climate change -  we can be assured that very little will be done to significantly counteract the severe damage we have already done to the planet. To be clear; their views and comments are so far beyond the pale that their mere inclusion in acceptable mainstream debate on climate change means we're screwed.

Label me a Cassandra if you'd like but for those who toss about the term without actually knowing the story you should be aware that in the end she was right.

Happy Earth Day.

See, It IS Flat!!!

Dateline September 23,1493, Cadiz, Spain:
On the eve of Christopher Columbus's second journey across the seas, the shape of the earth controversy is once again heating up. Recently someone came forward asserting that they had seen a ship "completely disappear" over the horizon. Round earth alarmists are now enduring a fault line in their argument, and anti-rounders have another arrow in their quill.

King Ferdinand has rightly noted that the ship is no longer visible. Nevertheless, Columbus and the pro-rounders are still swallowing a bitter pill.

They should not be permitted to brush aside this new information, which makes their claims harder to prove. The fact that we can't see the ship any longer proves the earth is flat, that there is no obvious sign of roundness.

Ever since we became aware of this ship disappearing on the horizon, the pro-rounders have tried to downplay its significance, insisting for example, that the disappearance merely amounted to "us not being able to see it anymore due to the fact it is very far away." It's true that the ship disappearing from view is not a very dramatic occurrence. But the optics are.

Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. Imagine the shrieking of the rounders if we had previously thought that ships that had disappeared had fallen off the earth, but then discovered that in fact they were simply very far away.

They would insist that the revised data would prove their case. They would blitz every map maker and town crier. They would demand to be allowed to indoctrinate school children on the shape and size of the planet.

It's tough to make a case for a round earth when the earth was in fact rounder twelve months ago. Nevertheless, I haven't heard the town crier in weeks. Pro-New World hackers have quickly shut him up.

Real scientists would rejoice at being corrected.

Honest sailors would rejoice that the earth has limits.

But Columbus and his ilk long ago stopped being real sailors, and Ferdinand and Isabella are too emotionally invested in their new round-religion to call off the voyage because of something as trivial as the facts.

[Paraphrased from the highly enlightened screeds of Lorne Gunter, David Silverberg and Ezra Levant. Note: see here, here, here and here to see what utter horseshit these people are peddling.]

The people that promulgate this nonsense are disingenuous morons, whose presence in the media is a disgrace and, due to their potential to influence, exceedingly dangerous. Take this Newsweek poll for example:

A recent Newsweek poll found that more than half of Americans don't think the greenhouse effect is felt today. Some two-fifths still believe there is "'a lot of disagreement among climate scientists" on the basic question of whether the planet is warming.'"

The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate, working for over 6 years, has had hundreds of the best scientists in the world, from hundreds of countries, produce thousands of reports and has concluded :

•     Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
•     Most of (>50% of) the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (confidence level >90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.
•     Hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century.
•     The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.
•     World temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 °C (2.0 and 11.5 °F) during the 21st century and that: Sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 cm (7.08 to 23.22 in); There is a confidence level >90% that there will be more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall; There is a confidence level >66% that there will be an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides.
•     Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium.
•     Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values over the past 650,000 years

To the absolute buffooons like Gunter and Levant and the countless American flat-earthers along with, of course, those who would like to learn about some of the basic technical aspects of climate change here's a link (pdf).

For the love of this planet, I'm begging these fools to educate themselves before they ever even dare to open their mouths to comment on climate change. This isn't a fucking game.

A Brief Foray into Foxville

I can't yet find the transcript, but last night I was channel surfing and - horrors of all horrors - I paused on Fox News long enough to hear Sean Hannity comment on a new study on the melting of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro (as well as, of course, tossing in a dig or two at Al Gore)

The study contradicts the claim made by Gore in Inconvenient Truth that the disappearance of the mountain's icecap is evidence of global warming. Of course Hannity's ridicules Gore's portrayal with the obvious intent to call into question the whole premise of the movie and the notion of global warming itself. And without a hint of irony Hannity goes on to make some general statement about the need to listen to scientists regarding these climate issues. Finally he notes how Gore won't have to worry as he still had all that money coming in from inventing the internet.

Now it isn't exactly a newsflash to highlight how incredibly dishonest Fox news is. However what sometimes still amazes me is how one can stop and watch 30 seconds of their nonsense and hear the most shameful transgressions of basic fact and logic. Even more unsettling is the realization that millions of people will believe it and repeat it until those who still maintain some semblance of being informed are invariably confronted with these statements while having a cold one at the local pub.

To begin with Hannity's cracking wise on the old "Gore invented the internet" is not only well passed any humor shelf life (even it had some degree of truth, which of course it doesn't), given the uncountable number of lies Bush and company have told, this type of joke is simply pathetic. Secondly and much more egregiously, is Hannity's calling into question the "environmental extremists" (his words - best translated as "round earthers" for those of us who consider the sky to be blue) claims about global warming in general. Indeed, it does appear, as climate scientist Philip Mote states, “Kilimanjaro is a grossly overused misexample of the effects of climate change..." However, shockingly, Hannity does not tell the rest of the story.

Mote is concerned that critics will try to use the article to debunk broader climate-change trends.

He hastens to add that global warming is, indeed, responsible for the fact that nearly every other glacier around the globe is melting away. Kilimanjaro just happens to be the worst possible case study.

In fact, the danger of invoking the study as some sort of evidence against global warming is considered so great by one of the authors of the 2004 study on Mount Kilimanjaro - George Kaser - that Kasar decided not to have his name put on the article on Mount Kilimanjaro that will appear in the July/August issue of American Scientist. Climate scientist Douglas Hardy adds more.

Even though the mountain presents an interesting scientific puzzle, it’s an anomaly compared to what’s happening with other glaciers, said Douglas Hardy, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Massachusetts. The new article will be seized on by “global warming naysayers” and could give people the mistaken impression that it calls global warming into question, Hardy predicted. “What value to society does that serve?” he asked.

This is really Mickey Mouse stuff. All one has to do is read the rest of the article to understand how the study of Mount Kilimanjaro has nothing to do whatsoever with the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding global warming and the contributions to it made by humans. It is surely a massive insult to one's intelligence to portray the study in any other way. However this is precisely what you get when you accidentally pause on Fox News for thirty seconds.

The Stupidest Argument in the History of Time

Glen Greenwald said:

Although it is a heated competition, I think the single dumbest and most intellectually dishonest rhetorical tactic -- wielded most prominently by Drudge but with plenty of followers doing the same -- is from those who cite cold weather conditions on a given day in order to impliedly discredit the worldwide consensus of climatologists and other scientists on global warming. It would be as if someone constantly linked to individual obituaries as proof that world population is not really growing. It is that dumb and dishonest.

I profoundly disagree. It's far dumber than that.

 

I've Got Some Good News and Some Bad News ....

Well, apparently we don't need to concern ourselves about global warming and climate change after all. It turns out that the heat comes from .... the sun.

Whew.

And not only that, but God is up there if we need her.

From that dispenser of wisdom, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) speaking on the purveyor top notch journalism, Fox News:
(via ThinkProgress)

Now look, God’s still up there. We still have these natural changes, and this is what’s going on right now....

...By the way, there’s all kinds of new things. Gretchen, you’ll enjoy this. Get your violin out and get ready. They came out with a great discovery just a few weeks ago. And this came from the geophysical research letters and you know what they said? Hold on now! They said the warming is due to the sun. Isn’t that remarkable?

It turns out it was George Soros and the Hollywood elitists who are responsible for this enormous hoax.

Wait, wait...

Uh, oh.

There's a problem.

Can it get any dumber than Inhofe? It's a good thing he hasn't had any power or anything. .... Oh, sorry, I guess he has. He's the outgoing Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Pretty scary country that old U.S. of A., but not for the reasons the fighting keyboarders like to believe. 

Dealing with Climate Change: It's not the economy, stupid.

We all know how the United States is the world's leading polluter. Well, according to a study done by a German environmental group of 56 countries, the other economic giant in the world, China is not doing any better when it comes to climate change. While the United States places 53 out of 56 countries, China places 54. While hardly surprising, this is an absolutely intolerable development (China dropped from 29th in the previous survey)

Opposition to enforcing global standards on emissions and enacting serious measures to deal with climate change usually focus on the economic ramifications for both developed and, especially developing nations. What is interesting about the list is that the top ten are a mixture of highly developed countries, including some that regularly land near the top of UN's Human Development Index and some developing countries:

....At the upper end of the scale, seven European countries -- led by Sweden, Britain and Denmark, respectively -- and a trio of developing economies -- Argentina, Brazil, and India -- were deemed among the top ten, it said.

Others in the top ten were Malta, Germany, Hungary and Switzerland, while France ranked 12th, leading the group to call for Europe to take the lead in global efforts to combat climate change.

Sweden can claim to have the best record against climate change and place 5th on the human development index while Argentina can go through its worst economic crisis in its history just 5 years ago and place in the top ten on the climate change list. While China's environmental standing plummets, the other emerging Asian economic power, India, finished in the top ten.

Resisting measures against climate change for economic reasons is a complete cop out, demonstrating an unimaginative, greedy approach that, given the perils of global warming, is a crime against humanity.

The report concludes pessimistically:

At the same time, he [policy director Christoph Bals] lamented that even the efforts of the top scorers were not enough to effectively curb and reverse global warming.

"There is no winner," Bals said. "The leader, Sweden, is only the one-eyed king among the blind."

The Downside of BioFuels

And the idiocy and selfishness of driving gas-guzzling SUVs. Gwynne Dyer:

... the amount of ethanol needed to fill a big four-wheel-drive SUV just once uses enough grain to feed one person for an entire year.

Btw, Dyer notes in the article that for the 6th time in the last seven years humans consumed more food than they produced.

Planet Hottest in 12000 Years

Some happy news to start the day:

The world's temperature has increased to levels not seen in at least 12,000 years, U.S. climate scientists report in today's issue of "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." Rapid warming has occurred in the past 30 years, the researchers said, and there is little doubt that human activities are the primary factor.

Furthermore, the warming in recent decades has brought global temperature to a level within about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius) of the maximum temperature of the past million years.

"That means that further global warming of 1 degree Celsius defines a critical level," Hansen said. "If warming is kept less than that, effects of global warming may be relatively manageable."

During the warmest interglacial periods, the climate was "reasonably similar" to today, Hansen added.

"But if further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know," he said. "The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 80 feet higher than today."

Yes, but I'm sure we'll be fine. No need to do anything rash.