Real criticism versus fairy tales

One of the problems I have with debating with right-wingers these days is that they don't want to talk about policy.  They don't have real criticisms of President Obama; they only advance the conspiracy theories or distorted talking points.  An informed person might bring up the following:

Warrantless wiretapping:
The current administration has continued the policy of warrantless wiretapping, with the approval of Congress most recently in June, that the Bush administration began.

Drone strikes that sometimes kill civilians:
Some of the drone strikes the Obama administration uses to target Al Qaeda have been killing civilians, and some people strongly feel that it's an effective recruiting tool for the very organization the strikes intend to stop.

President Obama has proposed changes to Social Security and Medicare:
This administration has proposed some cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and a smaller cost of living adjustment for Social Security--thought his proposals do not even touch the degree to which the Republicans want to change these plans, which included complete privatization.  

This list could also include how Wall Street players ended up being part of Obama's administration, how the banks were bailed out but most homeowners were not, and other criticisms that actually have to do with policy.  One might notice that the links I included go to what would be considered left-wing sources, by the way.  I did that purposely, to show that our side will give criticism where it is due.

When arguing with Republicans, however, these criticisms do not come up in the conversation.  Instead I hear:

• Obama is stealing $716 billion from Medicare.  This number actually comes from what it would cost if the Republicans repealed the Affordable Care Act.
• Obama is not really a citizen of the United States.  This argument's latest manifestation involves his school records, which allegedly have him down as a foreign exchange student.  It's all part of the stupid and irrelevant birther conspiracy.  Get over it!  He's been President for almost a full term already; let's talk about policy and not about irrelevant conspiracy theories.
• Obama is secretly a Muslim.  Who cares what his religion is?  Can you demonstrate how his religious leanings have affected his policy?  

There are many more pieces of myth and misinformation out there, and it makes most Republicans and other people who consider themselves conservatives not worthwhile when it comes to political discussions.  It would be great if people would have informed opinions, even if I disagree with them or support a candidate in spite of certain flaws.  Obama has done some great things, but he's not perfect.  I just wish the criticisms I'd hear about him were real and relevant.  

Reflections on health care tragedy

I hadn't thought about Bob Brooks for awhile.  Bob was intelligent, humorous, logical, and interesting.  He was a brilliant speaker and activist.  He was a world traveler, and a true citizen of the world--not an egotistical American bent on the idea of exceptionalism.  When he spoke, the room hushed to listen to what he had to say--not that they had to quiet down much; Bob's voice carried well.  They listened because what he had to say was relevant, often funny, reliable if it was fact, and respected if it was his opinion.  People liked him.  I liked him.

Some years ago, Bob was diagnosed with cancer of the colon.   His treatment would have been lengthy, costly, and rough.  Rather than spend the nest egg he had accumulated through a lifetime of hard work, Bob decided to take his own life.  He spent his final week saying his last goodbyes to his friends.  In an email to me, he wrote:

My death is neither based on courage, nor cowardice. It is the logical conclusion of a rational mind based upon my values and circumstances. This is right for me, but that is my intellect, not my emotions. No, I am not brave, as I have been an emotional wreck all week since everything I do, and see, is for the last time. Cutting my ties to this world is not easy. However, my life belongs to me, not the doctors, preachers, or government, all of whom forbid my action.

I thought of Bob during a conversation I was having in The Young Turks' live chat, where we were discussing health care issues and a man who lost his job at Wells Fargo, and therefore his insurance, right before his child's scheduled surgery.  It was a heartbreaking story.  I thought about my own experiences with the health care system, then reflected on my dad, who had insurance but had doctors blow off his pain as the result of a fall down the stairs.  I thought about my Aunt Pam, who could not afford to go to the doctor because her employer did not provide insurance, who waited until the pain was so great that she had to go to the emergency room, only to find that her cancer had spread to her whole body.  She died not long after.

Then I thought of Bob.  It's the first time I'd ever made the connection, but Bob's death could have been prevented if we had universal health care--health care that would not have eaten up his nest egg.  I can't speak for Bob; he may have still gone through with the suicide to avoid having his family watch him suffer--or he may have gone through with treatment and put his cancer into remission.  Or, if his cancer was terminal, he may have decided to use hospice care.  In whatever circumstance, I think he should have had the choice.

 

A Well-Regulated Militia

     The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

     The Founding Fathers did not want a standing army.  They believed it was too expensive.  They had fought the American Revolution with militias made up of men with their own weapons, defending their own lands (that they stole from the natives who were on the land before them, but that's another issue for another day). They wanted people to keep their own weapons in case they had to call men to arms quickly to repel invasions.  Communications weren't instant then.  There were no radios, no aircraft, no motorized vehicles--no way to move troops quickly from a base to an invasion point.  Having citizens (white male property owners over the age of twenty-one, at that time) own guns made sense, in terms of national security.

     The times we live vastly different.  We have a standing military.  If we did have a military invasion, the average citizen would not be able to repel it; we would need the United States military arsenal.  Perhaps there are people out there who think their personal arsenal of automatic weapons, if joined with other such arsenals, would be enough to repel an invasion, but this idea is pure folly.  The most one could hope for out of several citizen-owned arsenals would be guerrilla warfare.  The "well-regulated Militia" part is certainly outdated.

     So...since the citizens no longer constitute a well-regulated militia, should we prohibit guns?  Plenty of people do sport shooting on ranges, which does no harm to anyone.  Some people hunt and eat the game animals they kill, which doesn't harm humans, and, in the case of deer, helps control a population of animals that do not have natural predators anymore (due to humans killing timber wolves, for example--yes, we're solving a problem we caused).  Some people, such as real estate agents, who work on their own and don't  know who they're meeting a good amount of the time, keep them for personal protection.  Besides, the Constitution says the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, right?

     What the Constitution doesn't say is what type of arms the citizens may have.  What's the limit?  Is it wealth?  The Koch brothers could certainly own their own private military, complete with aircraft--they have the money.  Should they be able to hire mercenaries from Academi (formerly Blackwater, who killed citizens seemingly for sport in Iraq and confiscated weapons from citizens after Hurricane Katrina) and have a few fighter jets for air support?  Should the average citizen be able to own a nuclear weapon?  Chemical weapons?  Biological?  Should a wealthy person be able to hire a private navy, with ships that can hit targets several miles away?  Should missiles be available to the average American?

     Most reasonable people would put some limit on what arms should be available to the average citizen.  Why then, should we not talk about regulations for gun ownership?  Why not restrict the size of the magazines available for guns?  Why not put mental health screenings in place as a requirement for gun ownership?  Prohibition of guns could have the same result as the drug trade--in fact, those who have made billions from the drug trade could certainly diversify into illegal arms sales.  However, nobody is talking about prohibition.  Indeed, not many elected representatives are talking about imposing any limits--but perhaps it's time to talk about mental health screenings, in light of recent shootings in Aurora, Colorado and the Sikh Temple outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

     My personal opinion is that people with certain mental health issues should not have firearms, especially automatic weapons and other military-grade equipment.  However, the Second Amendment, as many gun advocates will say, does not allow for an infringement on the right to keep and bear arms.  Here's a compromise: let's do mental health screenings, but let people with mental health issues get guns.  Then, put them on a watch list.  Watch how many guns they buy, what kind of military-grade equipment they secure, and how much ammo they purchase.  If they start accumulating the aforementioned items, put them under surveillance.  When they leave the house with it, have a SWAT team or other law enforcement officials follow the person with guns pointed directly at his (because so far, all of these mass murderers have been male) head at point-blank range.  If he continues to his destination, make sure the law enforcement officials take him down as soon as he pulls a weapon and points it at someone.  He still owned his guns right up until he did something illegal, and now law enforcement call pull them from his cold, dead hands before he was able to do damage to a large number of innocent civilians.

Abortion for eugenics and other reasons

     Recently, I was asked if I thought it was intolerant to believe abortion was wrong, even in the cases of rape, incest, or saving the mother's life.  My answer was that you're intolerant if you force that belief on others, by which I mean legislating your beliefs or intimidating or bullying people into your way of thinking.  You have a right to believe however you want.  However, there are a few things we touched on that bear consideration.

     To get my stance on abortion out of the way: I see abortion as an equality issue.  I've written about the subject before; I used to be emotional about it because I'm adopted, but as I matured, I realized it wasn't about me and my perceived right to exist--it was about women and the right not be an incubator for a life that might kill them, or for the children of men who might have raped them, or  the offspring of relatives who had sexual relations with them, or the babies of guys who may have pressured them into sex and won't stick around.  The pregnancy might be a mistake born of drunken revelry, or it may be that the urge to have sex was strong and the woman didn't think about the possible consequences.  It might be the result of the rare circumstance where birth control didn't work.  It's also about the fact that women who think about the life-long consequences of having an unwanted child get scared.  Scared women might poison themselves, grab a twisted coat hanger, or find some other means to terminate the pregnancies themselves, and allowing that reality to exist again is wrong.  It's about women making private decisions with their doctors about their own health.

   The most we men might be legally obligated to do in regard to an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy is support the child financially.  We don't have to go through the physical changes involved.  We don't have to go through the pain--I'm told the epidural medication helps, but afterwards, there is soreness, hemorrhoids caused by the pushing, possible mental issues, lack of sleep, an inability to work for a time and to find affordable child care when it is time to go back, difficulty finding a job that is flexible with the things that go along with having children...we men don't have to stick around for the non-physical issues women have to deal with when they decide to carry a pregnancy to term.  Be that as it may, so many of my gender want to make it a moral issue about killing babies.  That's what this article is really about.

     What bothers me so much about those who believe that abortion is about murder is not their belief; it's two moral contradictions that usually go along with it.  First, there's the legislation of "sin".  If you believe abortion is murder, that's your belief--it's not necessarily shared by everyone.  Is it your right to stand in judgment of everyone else and force them to refrain from "sinning"?  Is it your right to make it so that scared women endanger their own lives by terminating pregnancies by homemade methods?  I think legislating morality is, in itself, immoral; forcing people to live according to your beliefs speaks of arrogance and totalitarianism, not of moral conviction.  I had a friend say recently, "You can't legislate morality," and I agree with him.

    The second moral contradiction, quite frankly, is the one that infuriates me the most.  Most people who want to legislate away the right to safe and legal abortion also have no desire to pay for the results of unwanted pregnancy, even if that unwanted pregnancy is the result of rape, incest, or saving the mother's life. Most never talk about the difficulties of keeping a child when you're not financially stable and too young to have begun a career.  Most don't want to talk about helping with child care.  Most don't want to provide health care--and there can be dire financial consequences when a pregnancy has complications when the mother has no health insurance.

     There is a third moral question I want to bring up, and this part will explain the title of this article.  The person who asked me if I thought he was intolerant brought up his child with Down Syndrome, and said people were having abortions to avoid the potential of having a special needs child.  I have a special needs child myself, so I can relate to the emotion involved.  I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything, but there are some considerations we need to take here.  Children with special needs require special care.  Not all day cares will take children with special needs, and my child's autism comes with behavior issues that make it especially difficult to find adequate child care.  She can't mainstream in school for the same reason, even though she keeps up academically.  Now, if I had known my child was going to have autism, would I have tried to persuade my wife (now ex) to have an abortion?  No, probably not.  However, it would certainly have allowed me to prepare some more for all of the therapy my child needs, especially the financial resources.

    I am fortunate enough to have a job that provides benefits.  Even so, the co-pays add up quickly.  Child care is still extremely difficult to find, and since my child stays with me, I understand the difficulties of being a single parent.  People who are qualified to take care of children with autism have services that are cost-prohibitive.  Now, I understand that if I made less than half the salary I make now, I could get services through Medicaid.  Whether those services are totally adequate, I don't know.  What I do know is that those who are above that income level where they can receive services and below mine will have a really difficult time finding adequate help for their special needs children, and those without benefits will find it cost-prohibitive to do so (I find it cost-prohibitive, and I only have to pay co-pays!).

    So now...knowing the difficulties that go along with having special needs children, what does it say about people who think it's morally wrong for a woman who knows her child will have special needs to get an abortion and also is unwilling to fund the services necessary to help that mother and her child with therapy and child care costs?  If you're willing to legislate away the right of women to a safe and legal abortion, then be willing to fund the services for women who have children with needs they did not plan for--even if the pregnancy was wanted.  My wife and I planned our child.   We did not plan on her having special needs.  We didn't even know for the first couple years.  In any case, I don't have a desire to legislate away the choice of women to have an abortion, whatever the reason.  Do I think some instances may be immoral?  Sure.  I think if  you want to terminate a pregnancy because the resulting child will have brown eyes instead of blue, or black hair instead of red, or some other such reason, you're probably not the kind of person I'd want to be around.  Will I legislate access to abortion away because I feel this way?  No.  And special needs...it's hard to look at my daughter and say it's okay to abort a child if you know the child will have special needs...but any choice regarding pregnancy, especially one with unplanned consequences, is difficult.  I think it's better to carry the child to term and give him or her up for adoption if you find out the child you're expecting is going to have special needs, and you can't handle the costs and stress involved, but again, I am not going to make that choice for women--especially when the people who want to take that choice away would rather not provide assistance for the mothers who have those children.

The Shooting in Aurora, Colorado

     As I'm sure just about everyone not living in a cave knows, a man named James Holmes entered a crowded theater showing The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, threw down smoke bombs or tear gas (I have heard conflicting reports on this), and began to shoot people in their seats.   He killed 12 and wounded 38 people.  Police arrested him outside of the theater, and his apartment was booby-trapped.

    Those are the facts out there.  From a great many sources, however, there is speculation.

     Some people speculate he was a member of Occupy Black Block, which is a violent anarchist movement that participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement condemn.  The sources for this speculation, of course, tie Occupy Black Block to the Occupy Wall Street movement--which is a good reason for movements to actually have a coalition with leadership, even if it's by committee, rather than just have anyone show up--but nobody has cited a source of information regarding an actual connection between James Holmes and this group, so this speculation is unfounded as far as anyone knows.

       Others think he will turn out to be a right-wing Christian evangelical, though nobody has presented a good argument why they think this way, other than pointing to people like Timothy McVey and abortion clinic bombers.  I can explain why McVey bombed a government building in Oklahoma City (his anti-government ideology--he wasn't an evangelical, as far as I remember) and abortion clinic bombers (they believe abortion clinic "murder babies" and think their acts will prevent it), but why go to a crowded theater and kill people watching a movie?  What point does that make?  And why make any point with violence?  It just turns people against your cause, if they weren't against it already.

.  Still others think he might be a Batman fan who didn't like the choice of villain.  There is even some speculation that he was re-enacting a Batman comic where a man goes and shoots people in an adult theater after listening to a song forty times.  Who knows?  It sounds more plausible than the other explanations so far, but we don't know for sure.

    A corollary to this incident is the idea that Holmes' mother knew his son was disturbed, and she should have done something about it.  Even if she did know something was wrong with her son, what mother wants to admit there's something wrong with her child? .  Imagine how difficult it would be for a parent to believe his or her child would be capable of mass murder.  Come on, folks!  Don't put this on Holmes' mother, because you don't know her situation.  If it comes out later that the parents were abusive or something, then that discussion can happen, but you're speculating at this point, and it's not fair.  You're not in her shoes, and I'm sure at this point that if she has any hint of empathy, Holmes' mother is heartbroken to an unimaginable degree.

     There's speculation that if more people carried concealed weapons, this shooter would not have gotten away with putting bullets into 50 people.  There are three things about this speculation that make it clear that the people who believe it aren't thinking it through.  The first is the fact that Holmes threw out smoke bombs or tear gas first.  It would cut down on visibility and increase confusion.  It would also increase the likelihood that anyone trying to shoot Holmes would instead shoot an innocent bystander.  If several people shoot, then they may shoot each other, thinking that another shooter was the original shooter.  The second aspect of this case that defeats the conceal-and-carry argument is that it's a theater--if you are standing with your back to the screen, it is very difficult for other people to see anything but your silhouette.  Throw in smoke and such and your silhouette is camouflaged.  However, you can see everyone in the theater quite clearly.  If there is such a thing as an usher in your theater, ask that person--you can see every face from front to back pretty clearly.  Or hell, next time you're in a theater, sit in the front and look back at the rest of the people when the previews start.  The third aspect of this incident that makes the idea that someone shooting the shooter highly unlikely is that people who were there reported confusion about the location of the gunfire--some even thought it was coming from the cinema next door.

    Finally, there is speculation that stricter controls on automatic weapons (one of four of the weapons Holmes used was thought to be automatic) would have prevented this tragedy.  What would have prevented someone like Holmes from making homemade pipe bombs or bringing Molotov cocktails?  If we want to have the gun control debate, we should stick to talking about what things stricter gun laws would actually prevent.  Take away guns--even if it's just from this guy through a mental health screening--would not necessarily prevent mass murder through other means.

     Speculation, speculation, and more speculation...I can forgive it to a degree, because people are trying to make sense of a tragic and senseless event.  For all we know, Holmes was the kind of person Alfred described in the Batman movie before this one; he could be a person who just wants to watch the world burn.  We just don't know.  What we do know is that there are families of 50 victims, 12 dead and 38 wounded, who are mourning over this horrific event.  Let's set aside our views on gun control, party affiliation, religion, and disturbed comic book fans and keep that in mind today.  Have some empathy for them and stop speculating about the shooter's motives.  Leave that to investigators and let the story come out when it will.

More archived argumentation on climate change

Here's some more information from a five-year-old debate on climate change I had on a message board.  Enjoy!

I'm so tired of this "global warming is a religion" nonsense.  It's nothing but a smear.  With all of the polls concerning scientists and their religious leanings demonstrating that scientists are NOT religious, by and large, how can one say that they're applying magical thinking in the case of global warming?  If you read the actual science (some of which is contained in the articles you posted, actually), you'll see that scientists are more cautious about their predictions than, say, Al Gore, or non-scientists who are active in the environmental movement.  As with many Atheists who try to argue about evolution with scant knowledge of biology, many environmentalists know very little about the environment.  It's not surprising.  There's a lot to know.  The point is to leave the science to the scientists.  The media and activists for both the environmental and the free market ideological movements (if you want to talk about a religion, let's go there; people think that utopia will magically appear if everything is owned, it seems) want to cause alarm or suppress the facts to stop action from being taken, depending on what side they take.  The media typically reports that one side thinks one thing and the other thinks the opposite, not only presenting false dichotomies at times, but also creating controversy when a little research of the facts would give one side or both less clout, ending up somewhere in the middle.

That said, let's examine the articles Al presented to see if they back up his assertion:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

The Sunday Times is the source for this article.  I'm going to try to forget for a moment that Rupert Murdoch owns the paper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunday_Times_(UK)).  I'm also going to forget for the moment that Murdoch issues talking points to his news organizations that, shall we say, strongly encourage his employees to give a conservative slant to every story.  I'm just going to look at the story and see where it takes me.

From Times Online: Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Here's a tidbit on Jonathan Leake: http://www.randi.org/jr/052104uk.html

Here's another: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2001%20December.htm

From the above site:

Post-science Journalist of the Year is Jonathan Leake of the Sunday Times. He has published so many stories revealing the triumph of imagination over scientific evidence that it seems invidious to pick out one. However, one of his many global warming stories is head and shoulders above others, see Leaf Mould in November. A subsequent analysis (aptly entitled Making the News) showed that all four graphs used in the story benefited more from creative imagination than they did from the original scientific data.

Jonathan Leake's credibility (or lack thereof) aside, the article from the Times Online says:

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.
In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet's temperature.

Here we have a scientist saying that the mechanism on Mars is different than the mechanism on Earth.  How is this article an argument against anthropogenic global warming again?

Here's the rest of the article:

Fenton's team unearthed heat maps of the Martian surface from Nasa's Viking mission in the 1970s and compared them with maps gathered more than two decades later by Mars Global Surveyor. They found there had been widespread changes, with some areas becoming darker.
When a surface darkens it absorbs more heat, eventually radiating that heat back to warm the thin Martian atmosphere: lighter surfaces have the opposite effect. The temperature differences between the two are thought to be stirring up more winds, and dust, creating a cycle that is warming the planet.

Once again, I'm not seeing anything here that would constitute a blow to anthropogenic global warming.  I would also argue that two studies of Martian surface temperature in thirty years do not provide enough data concerning the climate on Mars to draw any sort of parallels to the patterns on Earth.  The high and low temperatures on Mars are wildly different.  There are no heat exchangers like ocean currents to moderate the climate.   There is far less moisture, and most of it is frozen.  To draw the conclusion that Mars is warming for the same reasons as Earth (as Al seems to be doing) just because both have had temperatures rise by the same amount (never mind that Mars could have warmed and cooled a few times in thirty years--how would we know otherwise?) is similar to drawing the conclusion that bats and birds have a common ancestor because they both have wings.   Let's stick to comparing apples to apples, and not oranges.

The next site we have is http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Jay Pasachoff, an astronomy professor at Williams College, said that Pluto's global warming was "likely not connected with that of the Earth. The major way they could be connected is if the warming was caused by a large increase in sunlight. But the solar constant--the amount of sunlight received each second--is carefully monitored by spacecraft, and we know the sun's output is much too steady to be changing the temperature of Pluto."

Do you read the whole article before you post it as evidence?

This whole exercise reminds me of the subject of the book I'm writing on a certain political operative (real, not fictional).  He read James Madison's letter to Jasper Adams, in which he says, "Christianity is the greatest religion in the world."  My subject uses this statement as a quote to demonstrate the religiosity of one of the most well known Founding Fathers, in a book about how separation of state and church is a myth.  Madison may very well have meant what he said, or he could have said it tongue-in-cheek, but whatever the case, he goes on to mention that Catholicism is a mixture of church and state, and it represents the worst form of government on Earth.  He says later on that Jews, Muslims (Musselmen), and Atheists should not be taxed for that which they find repugnant.

   

So far, I've gone through two articles, and in both cases, information contradicting the apparent conclusion we're supposed to draw has been found.  We're supposed to think that obviously, because a few of the planets are also warming, the sun must be responsible and anthropogenic global warming is simply myth.  Instead, we're finding that warming is occurring on a few planets for reasons other than why it's occurring on ours.

This excerpt is from the article on the Science Daily site (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070428170229.htm):

In agreement with most other climate researchers, the Lund group is not concerned about a complete shut-down of the Gulf Stream as envisioned in the apocalyptic film "The day after tomorrow". However, future warming induced by anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions may influence the system.

We don't know with certainty what will happen. Some attempts at measuring ocean currents suggest a recent weakening of the Gulf Stream, and the transport of heat to the North Atlantic region may well decrease in the future as a result of increased precipitation. Such a scenario might lead to less warming in Europe than predicted by the IPCC, but we will probably not face an arctic climate, summarizes Svante Bjorck.

From what I know of global warming, all we're looking at here is another factor to take into account when predicting the effects of anthropogenic global warming, not an argument against its existence.  Because of this seesaw effect described in the article, some places on Earth may not experience as much warming as others. 

Finally, we have this article:

http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html

Reid A. Bryson's statements have already been addressed in the article and video I posted earlier.  As these items were also in "The Great Global Warming Swindle", I will address them one by one with evidence from other scientists, if I do get time to complete that full refutation (I'm working on it).   I do say "refutation" at this point because it's the same few people making the same few arguments against anthropogenic global warming, and they've all been refuted by people more qualified than I.  I am working through some of the scholarly work on the subject to put it into my own words.

  

Now we're on to the "spirituality" of global warming.  Al Gore did disappoint me when he made global warming into some sort of moral issue in the religious sense.  It's not a moral issue.  It's a survival issue.  He's being a politician here; he's trying to appeal to the emotions of people who would never understand the science involved.   It's the same tactic people use when they call the inheritance tax the "œdeath tax", going on to say that people will lose farms that have been in their families for generations.

  

Politicians and celebrities are not the best spokespeople for what to do about global warming, especially since the first thing politicians--acting in their own self-interest--want to do is regulate through legislation, and celebrities do not have the academic credentials to face the critics of their movement.   They care and they mean well.  Hell, they might even be extremely well-informed.  They are still not scientists.

To address anthropogenic global warming, we need innovation, not legislation, and an embracing of science, not appeals to emotion.

As for Al Gore: he's a religious guy.  A religious guy is going to reconcile his faith with what he knows about science.  It's unfortunate, but you have to remember that Al Gore is not the person who made up the idea that the planet is warming and we humans are to blame for some of it.   He's just a guy who really cares about the issue and is religious.  I see the same people in the separation of state and church movement; religious people who actually defend the United States Constitution do exist among those of use who want the total separation of state and church.  The head of Americans United For Separation of Church and State is a minister.  I'm going off on a tangent now, sort of, but I want to add that unless religion diminishes among the citizens of any country, it is impossible to separate state and church, because religion is nothing but appeal to emotion, and people will vote based on such appeals.  I want the religiosity out of the environmental movement (in which I haven't even been active) as much as I want it out of the separation of state and church movement.   

Archived message post about climate change

Five years ago, I got into a debate with someone on a message board over climate change.  He linked me Senator Inhofe's site on how global warming is a hoax.  Here a is a partial tearing down of Inhofe's links:

First of all, posting anything from Senator Inhofe should raise alarm bells.  He has an unmistakable bias.  He also doesn’t have enough of a grasp on science to draw any conclusions on anything.  He’s a Bible-beating fundamentalist who denies evolution, thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old (give or take a couple thousand years), and buys into the Christian Nation movement’s historical revisionism.  He’s one of the Senators I can put in the same room with David Barton of Wallbuilders several times over.  His credibility is shot with me from the beginning.

Next, I know this is an exercise in futility, but I figured I would go and see what the scientists mentioned in the article you posted ACTUALLY said.  Of course, if your posting history is any indication, you’ll just ignore it, deny it, or simply insult me as some sort of rabid believer.  I would take a look at whom you’re trusting for your “evidence” before criticizing anyone.

Let’s take a look at what Dr. Claude Allegre ACTUALLY said: http://blog.nam.org/The%20Snows%20of%20Mount%20Kilimanjaro.pdf

Some of it gets lost in translation (the last paragraph is kind of awkward), but what I’m getting from the article is that he’s telling scientists to be cautious of jumping to conclusions about climate change and how it manifests itself, and about man’s role in it.  That’s fine.  He’s a scientist, and if he weren’t skeptical to some degree, it wouldn’t be healthy.  He also says that it is likely that there IS climate change.  He’s not saying that man ISN’T causing it, but he IS saying that scientists should be cautious about pointing the finger.  I’m more than comfortable with that statement. 

The press elaborated somewhat on what he said, but they could have taken it from a different source.  He says (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2f4cc62e-5b0d-4b59-8705-fc28f14da388) that environmentalists should be more practical in coming up with solutions to what they perceive to be the problem, rather than doing it through changing government policy or through demonstrations.  I HEARTILY agree with him here.  Of course, the solutions come at a price to the energy industry, which means big oil and big coal will resist the change.  How do they do it?  They lobby politicians and buy patents that they will NEVER use to ensure their future, rather than letting the market decide. 

Bruno Wiskel is a conservationist, but not a climatologist.  He teaches courses on energy efficiency at the University of Alberta (he is not on the actual staff of the university).  They’re not university degree courses, but adult education courses; he teaches them because he’s an author and the builder/owner of an energy-efficient home.  He is critical of Kyoto, but I can’t find anything on him critiquing the IPCC.  I am also finding several articles that say that he presents no evidence at all for his conclusion that anthropogenic global warming is a myth, but I’m not finding anything detailed.  I’m not buying his book to find that it’s full of empty, misleading, or ill-conceived arguments. 

Some of us might remember Dr. Nar Shaviv from “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, which was a swindle itself.  That little blot on his record aside, I have read some articles from him, and, unlike the paid shills in the propaganda film, Shaviv is an actual scientist.  Like Allegre, he is cautious about anthropogenic global warming.  He does not deny that carbon dioxide COULD be a cause of anthropogenic global warming; what he IS saying is that his reading of the IPCC report tells him that nobody knows the signs of anthropogenic global warming, that indirect aerosol effects (like emissions from smoke stacks) are unknown, and that the sun COULD be an alternative explanation.  He does NOT say that carbon dioxide is not the culprit and that the sun is; he is merely saying that we don’t know enough about the role of carbon dioxide in global warming in the 20^th century.  It is worthy of note that he begins by saying that carbon dioxide is more likely to play a role in the 21^st century.  Here is the article:

http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar

Next, let’s examine the actual words of Dr. David Evans: http://www.freedom.org/news/200705/03/evans.phtml.  Again, we have a cautious scientist who is being used to say that global warming is a hoax, when all he is saying is that the causation of global warming is not entirely understood.  What IS understood—and it is in this article—is that carbon dioxide IS a greenhouse gas.  There are other factors that COULD cause global warming, and—he makes a great point here—politics have played a part in under-funding the research of other possible causes, such as industrial pollution and cosmic rays.  However, he does NOT say that carbon emissions are NOT responsible, only that they might play less of a role than other causes that are not entirely understood at present. 

Anyone else getting tired of the spin yet?  I sure am.  People like Inhofe grasp at straws to try and support their claims, but once his sources are investigated, we find that they’re not quite what they appear to be.  So many global warming deniers say that the sun is DEFINITELY the cause, but the scientists that they say support their claims are not as sure as they are.  That’s good to know, because science is all about caution, skepticism, and not jumping to conclusions.

I’m going to stop here.  It appears that many of the scientists are cautioning policymakers not to make policy on science that is not fully understood, but most think that there is good reason to diminish use of fossil fuels.  I can understand that position.  Adopting policy on global climate change before all factors are understood could lead us down the wrong path.  I have been arguing that policy isn’t the way to go, anyway; innovation is the best option—as long as it isn’t hindered by oil and coal interests.