Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Climate Change - A Young Clamourer

A Reader Writes

I'm pretty sure, I'm going to tick this one off shortly, or already did. Don't take it personally G Johns. It's not about you. It's about the rhetoric.

This comment, which is in the indents below, from G Johns came to my recent piece on Climate Change. I will excerpt it and comment back:
I corrected it on Ms. Gyapong's blog and I will correct it again. The speaker (who is far from foolish), said "We want government to change our laws." Laws, not lives.
I don't know if Deborah got it wrong. She is pretty smart, and has been a journalist for more than a few weeks, so I'm sticking with her reporting. However, let's say the speaker said what the commenter wrote me. If you don't think that the laws of this land, and those that the alleged smart ones who want to fix what their parents busted, want enacted will change our lives, continue to delude yourself. I have almost 60 years of service to this land and planet in, as does Deborah, so I am not impressed either way.
The planet is going to be ok. Your grandchildren and even children are the ones to be worried about. Sadly, recycling, and CFL bulbs, and an aversion to gas guzzlers is not even marginally enough to address the problem at hand.
I don't recall saying that it would address "the problem at hand." By the way, what is the real "problem at hand?"
I challenge you to find any "settled science," period. Perhaps other than laws like gravity. In the case of the climate crisis, it would appear that you need to actually review the science and also identify where the funding comes from for any of the very few dissenting pieces.
Mr/Ms Johns your delusion is showing, also your background in arts, rather than sciences. There are not a few dissenting pieces. There are a lot of scientists who have spoken out about the real science, not the junk science of Al Gore, whose honorary Ph.D in Climatology stands for Piled High and Deeper. Inconvenient Truth was more Inconvenient than True. Wake Up Call, Yes. Fact, not as much.

The scientists, who have not been shut up for disagreeing with the alleged settled science, seem to believe that 95% of CO2 emissions are in nature, and that the sun and earth's placement have a more significant influence on temperature than CO2 for starters.

When we are force fed a certain diet of stuff about Climate Change to the point where it becomes a religion, I get my back up. It gets to be a "Been There. Done That" thing. So jump on your band wagon if you will. I am a skeptic.
In response to comment 1: Correct - "Did you READ...?" The media will do anything to create a controversy, even make up nonsense like that. There would be no benefit to Jeh covering himself in fake blood. The protest was not about brutality, but rather the fact that the House of Commons is actively delaying any progress on adequate climate action.
I want what I want when I want it.
Please don't patronize the young. Please don't tell us that we have set our ambitions too high. Our ambitions are simply to survive the mess that has been left to us.
I knew when I said that myself about 40 years ago, that it might come back to haunt me. And around we go. Your ambitions are not too high. Your knowledge is too low.
To quote a great woman, "Those were our children we threw out of the House of Commons today. Those were the best, the brightest, the most dedicated, the most responsible young adults in Canada. [...] And that is heartbreaking. That is a sad statement on democracy."
I wante dto figure out who that great woman was. Well, that great woman is Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. If, in fact they were the best and brightest, it might be time to move folks. They were the ones who agreed with her and her latest campaign slogan that says: Your parents f*cked up the planet. It's time to do something about it. Live green. Vote green." This is recycled from my youth. And around we go.
How old will you be in 2050?
Last question to me. Well, smart one, you do the math. The facts to calculate it are up above.

However, I like what Debora Gyapong said in her Fill the Hill piece:
Back to the rally. How I remember those things when I was younger and yearning for, er, something transcendent, bigger than myself.

At the end of the rally, they taught everyone to use their arms like the hands on the face of a clock to "Tck Tck Tck" towards doomsday or something because the level of carbon in the atmosphere has risen to 390 ppm, when it should be 350 ppm and unless we dial things back, life as we know it on the planet will be unsustainable.

So, here were these 2,000 people all tilting like windmills. They were supposed to be in unison.

But they weren't. They seemed to be having a lot of fun.

I dunno. I would feel silly doing something like that. But then I'm 60.
Back in the day, I chanted, "One two three four, we don't want you f*cking war."
I hope I never chanted "No justice, No peace" Ugh. I hate that almost as much as I hate the "Hey hey, ho, ho blah blah blah has got to go."

These were mostly nice Canadian kids with a smattering of old lefties.

In a way it makes me a little sad because the "collective" is no replacement for "communion."

And environmentalism ---I don't know---there is a big difference between wanting to be a good steward of your environment vs. wanting some big government scheme to take control over your life to socially engineer radical equality.
Thanks Deborah for the sanity check.

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