philosophy
Posts: 5284
Joined: 2/15/2004 Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY I reserve my condemnation and contempt for the people who argue for AGW from an ideological perspective, not at people who simply believe that current scientific evidence seems to support the theory of AGW. ....fair enough. Twue believers of any stripe tend to be irritating. However i have a hypothesis for you. Which i'll get to in a bit..... quote:
At times, it isn't always easy to distinguish the difference, but I've found the use of the term and concept of "deny" or "deniers" an excellent pointer. .....in my opinion that's a pretty useless pointer. There are those who deny that the evidence on this subject supports the conclusion of a man made impact on global warming, or that the evidence is even good science. They seem to do so from an ideological perspective.....so we could say they are twue skeptics, the opposite of twue believers........and thus almost certainly just as wrong. Me calling them deniers is, in my opinion, merely pointing out a truth....... quote:
Since I know it's impossible to read everything that any individual may have posted on a specific subject, or remember it if they can, I'll reiterate a few points of what I believe the science supports: 1. Tentatively, the preponderance of the evidence seems to support a gentle rise in average global temperature over the past few decades. ...yup, although the word 'gentle' in this context is a bit misleading. As far as i understand things climate is a dynamic in constant tension. A small change in one of the values governing it can have a big change as it works through. quote:
2. Mankind's industry and technology have increased the amount of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere. ....yup, although i have heard some 'deny' even that self evident fact. quote:
A non-scientific observation that I make is: 3. There is a strong political and ideological component to both sides of the argument about whether or not the increase recently of human released (read: returned to the biosphere) CO2 may or may not effect the environment. ......i almost agree. There certainly can be such an ideological component...but not necessarily so. Well, this is a little complex. Everything is, ultimately, political.......however some, maybe even most, are arguing about this issue without an additional agenda. i'm absolutely not anti-industrial. Without industry we wouldn't be having this debate as i type away on my device of glass, rare metals, delicate electronics and specialised plastics. However, as i do believe that the balance of probability is that we are negatively impacting the environment and we ought to do something about it.....i am forced to the conclusion that industry will have to have a few years of being less profitable while it retools its processes to impact the environment less. i further believe that if we do it quickly it maybe a bit more painful in the short term, but will save a lot of pain in the medium/long term. Problem is, the solution i favour seems indistinguishable from that advocated by those who really are anti-industry. At least in the short term. quote:
I think pretty much everything is open to discussion, and when people start claim to know "the truth", I tend to take the opposite point of view, if for no other reason than I'm a contary son-of-a-bitch. ...well, duh! So, my hypothesis time. That contrary streak of yours is in danger of making you a twue skeptic......blinding you to when someone is coming to a problem with eyes wide open rather than tightly focussed, yet coming to a conclusion different to yours. i'm not asking you to stop being skeptical.......far from it.........but that test of yours is rubbish, lumping in the twue believers with those who sincerely think there may be a problem that we need to deal with. There are deniers on both sides.......characterising those who point this out as being zealots is counter-productive and shuts down a reasonable debate.
|