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It helps in understanding why we have become tribal on this issue. It was by design.
Fun fact: 25% of Americans still don't believe that smoking is harmful to health. This technique of instilling doubt is terribly effective.
Haha. If only. In reality, it's so much worse. We can only hold so much information, and the "resolution" (depth/granularity) of our understanding diminishes over time. Throughout history people could contend with increases in the complexity of the collective human understanding of the world, but the breadth of the information available in any given society was so small that it was manageable. Furthermore, their forms of government relied more on a class of experts for governance and statemenship.
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Now everyone is involved in governance through voting, and the world is so complex that one individual cannot be expected to have a functional understanding of more than a tiny portion of it. This fundamentally changes how a society can, and should, organize. Should we all have opinions on the finer points of climate change without being experts in it? Should we be voting for people based on their specific policies related to climate change without that understanding? Can we just rely on endorsements from relevant experts? What happens when some of those experts decide they are willing to sellout to the opposition? This: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
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The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem. The second step is defining that problem. The third is designing a plan. The fourth is executing that plan, and the last is maintaining/updating that plan. We are still stuck on the first step, but we are trying to patch the leaking boat in the meantime, while claiming it solves the design flaws that led to the leaks. Let's not confuse the holes with the design flaws.
The primary source is the Greenland chapter in Jared Diamond's "Collapse Another book on the pre-Columbian North American ivory trade is Farley Mowat's "the Far Farer's Mowat's book "West Viking" in 1961 had endorsed the theory that the Vikings had really made it to North America. When they found the Viking settlement at L'anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Mowat realized that it was not an agricultural settlement but a pirate outpost to prey on existing shipping.
Even Columbus sailed off the shores of Greenland in 1477. His brother was in Bristol England advocating for a trans-Atlantic voyage, when Columbus made his first 1492 voyage. When news of his success reached England, the Bristol traders sent Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) to re-establish their trade with North America. They made more money off fish and fur than the Spanish made in gold.
For those who haven't read it Naomi Oreskes et. al.'s <em>Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming</em> does a fantastic job of laying all of these tactics and campaigns out.
This actually began during the Cold War; the 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative (the "Star Wars" program) under Reagan was a plan to build a network of satellites designed to down incoming ICBMs.
The scientific community was opposed to the project. It was impossible to test (how do you test a system designed to shoot down ALL of a nuclear arsenal without firing an entire nuclear arsenal at yourself?), it was extraordinarily costly, and it would result in the weaponization of space.
The Reagan administration decided to get "its own scientists" to convince Congress to fund the project. They basically hired a bunch of PhD shills to argue that the scientific community was politicized, communist-leaning liberals and that the SDI project was scientifically sound. This led to discussions of "nuclear winter" which gave Carl Sagan his platform.
Fast forward a few years, and the same "scientists" hired by the Reagan administration were hired to argue that acid rain was not a major environmental problem.
Later, that same group was arguing that second-hand smoke was not harmful.
Next, they argued that smoking itself was not harmful.
Today, those same people are leading campaigns of disinformation attempting to discredit the science surrounding climate change.
If you'd like to learn more about the history of scientific disinformation in conservative America
I think the term is Imperialistic Warmongering.
Source: Shock Doctrine
Scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds. Neoliberal foreign policy is one of torture, of both the people and the economy. Would you like to know more?
Neither. The Hebrew word for "day" there definitely means 24-hour time period, but that doesn't mean the universe was made in 6 literal days.
Genesis 1 is complex and beautiful, but ancient Near-Eastern people don't think like modern Western people, and ancient Near-Eastern people wrote Genesis 1. It's way too much to explain here. Read The Lost World of Genesis One, by John Walton.
Read Naomi Kleins book on the subject. It is a serious eye opener.
https://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0312427999
Short version here
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/naomi-klein-how-power-profits-from-disaster
Fuck off. Its a prosperous government for corporate interests and the wealthy, not the people. Which is exactly how neoliberal economies are designed to function (thanks Milton Friedman). Don't even talk about "converting through violence" after what Pinochet (with American help I might add) did to socialists and any nominally leftist people; thousands tortured and disappeared after a coup against a DEMOCRATICALLY elected socialist government under Salvadore Allende. You do some fucking research you lying ghoul.
This title and thread was so confusing to me.
He announced the book on purpose. The book is a collection of Trump quotes compiled by the Late Show staff, leading to the book being billed as "by Donald J. Trump (by accident)":
The oil companies have known for a lot longer, and made a decision to spread doubt and denial instead of taking action.
Have you guys ever read The World Without Us ? If I remember correctly, the Pyramids could last a million years, Mount Rushmore over 2 million. By far the oldest human structures.
> No, there's big money and has been for almost two decades in climate / environment related businesses and organizations.
If you think the money moving in the alternative energy industry is in any way comparable to the money moving in the fossil fuel sector - boy do I have an investment opportunity for you.
>I didn’t use the term scientists because there are quite a few scientists doing the real science
Correct. 97% of all climate change research (that is - papers published in peer reviewed journals) supports that climate change is happening and is driven by human activity.
>but there's also a lot of people (some with degrees, some without) that are sensationalizing the situation out of fear and/or personal gain motives.
That's as may be - but still - consider how much money someone like Al Gore stands to make off of his climate change movie - then go hop over and look at Exxon's quarterly profit statement.
There are solar systems between those two numbers.
Finally - many of the people disparaging the climate science are recycled actors from the tobacco industry's fight against regulation 60s-80s. Merchants of Doubt is an excellent, well sourced book that lays out the strategy and personalities behind climate change denial. One of the tactics that "experts" on the side of the Tobacco companies used was claiming that anti-smoking groups were personally profiting from legislation aimed at discouraging tobacco use.
This movie has already played once.
The tobacco industry was found liable for misleading the public about the hazards of smoking. Exxon literally went and hired the tobacco-cancer denial machine in response to finding out what their product would do.
So yeah, they're a bad actor in this case.
The problem is that the people there aren't engaged in rational discourse -- it's an effort to sow unwarranted doubt, led by a bunch of people who got their careers started telling people that tobacco smoke doesn't cause lung cancer. You can't hold rational discourse with them; the most you can do is to discredit them, and making them hard to find would be a step along that route.
I think it comes down to a general erosion of the concept of objective truth arising from decades of conservative bashing of science which discredits their stances.
It began with Carl Sagan and others discrediting the Global Defense Initiative as being onerously costly, ineffective, impossible to test, and a first step towards the total militarization of space. Hawkish Republicans high on McCarthyism found a retired doctor (who didn’t even study physics, but medicine IIRC) to provide “alternative facts” on the plan and to try to undermine the mainstream scientific community. Thus was born an attitude of skepticism towards mainstream science among Republicans.
Since then, the strategy has been applied to tobacco smoke, secondhand smoke, acid rain, DDT, and climate change.
Merchants of Doubt is a well-sourced, thorough review of this deplorable pattern of behavior among American politicians to discredit science for corporate and political gain.
e: word
Philosophy, writing, gaming, art (music, photography, /r/glitch_art). Honestly anything classified as a "soft science" kinda gets my motor going. I also really like anthorpology...specifically food anthro. I just started reading through Salt: A World History, and it's been interesting so far. From Amazon: > In his fifth work of nonfiction, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Salt is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.
Like the buildings are described in the book, The World Without Us but with people still living in the buildings. The moisture and the roots will get into the cracks in the concrete and tear the building's apart. This will be a shitshow.
To start this off I’m not religious at, but all faith is definitely compatible with science. Anyone who says otherwise is plain wrong.
The creation story in Genesis is not meant to be read literally. Even some of the Fathers of the Church, like Saint Augustine, didn’t take Genesis literally. Instead, he thought everything was created in an instant. Of course this position isn’t really taken seriously anymore, but it goes to show that young-earth creationism is not and has never been the traditional position of Christians. Augustine said that if one’s interpretation of the Bible conflicted with well-established scientific findings, that interpretation must be revised.
Likewise, anyone who says that Christians cannot be successful scientists is also wrong. Nicolas Steno, the founder of stratigraphy, was a devout Catholic. Georges Lemaître, who devised the Big Bang Theory which is the foundation of modern astronomy, was a priest. Einstein was a pantheist. And to top it off the man who led the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, is a Christian. Many faithful scientists believe that science can enhance, not deteriorate, faith.
The philosopher Thomas Aquinas believed that faith and reason could never conflict, since the same God created them. If God exists, he would likely create a world that people could study and interpret.
https://www.amazon.ca/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts/dp/0063001691
Very good book and excellent reviews, I'll be starting it tomorrow... He debunks the whole myth of the world will end and even exposes the eugenics as the culprits in all this bullshit.
Spread the truth and educate yourselves on this subject, they are constantly spreading disinformation on this subject in order to further advance their goals of fascism and tyranny... Fascism going forward will come not only from the "War On Virus" hoax but also the climate change hoax.
Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas.
Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions.
What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.
Yup. Even the link between cancer and tobacco was disputed for decades so there is a mountain of evidence that show the link now. Same thing happened with leaded gas and global warming. There is a great book about it called Merchants Of Doubt
All ya'll should read 'Cadillac Desert'.
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Also I was annoyed by the one farmer that complained about ground water restrictions taking acres out of production. How many acres will go out of production when it becomes too expensive (if not impossible at any price) to pump out ground water?
I suggest reading the book Cadillac Desert about the Southwest and how its tricky relationship its water came to be.
Long story short. US government knew there was a lot of land, a somewhat inhospitable climate, and an unpredictable snow-fed river in the American southwest. During the depression and through WWII they began building dams all over the Southwest with the aim that none of the Colorado's water "go to waste". The Colorado valley was supposed to become a modern cradle of civilization, and all of it was made possible by securing its water. It is one of the reasons Arizona is more than three times New Mexico in population---New Mexico does not have nearly the same water resources---and why Los Angeles became powerful and influential...but only in the 2nd half of the 20th century. The massive damming operations elsewhere in California have helped the State produce the majority of fruits and vegetable in the US.
So it was never a matter of 'muh free land'. It was land with untapped potential. It was very valuable land when the right technology was introduced to it.
More death. Period. End of story.
The nuclear bomb won WW2. I know that there are people who disagree, but most boots on the ground agree that the invasion of Japan would've been a long brutal affair with millions more dead. And, without nuclear deterrence, the US may have gone to war against the USSR because conventional wars seem far less of a losing proposition than mutually assured destruction and a potential extinction levelevent.
Nuclear energy, is actually the safest and cleanest energy production method we have. (I highly recommend you check out: this book by Michael Shallenberger for a more thorough treatise on the benefits of nuclear power. In his book, he outlines how oil, gas, and coal are responsible for a LOT of pollution and the shortening of the lifespans of many people due to air pollution-related illnesses. In a world without nuclear power, we move from energy-dense matter-poor energy production techniques to more matter-dense materials. These materials create pollution and are more prone to environmental catastrophes like oil spills, fires, etc.
Now, you may be saying "yeah, but what about wind and solar?" Wind and solar are causing extinction issues in birds and bats, and are woefully inadequate at this time to solve our energy problems. Developing nations are actively lobbying against renewables like wind and solar because they are so unreliable.
So, in summary: Nuclear weapons make the cost of war heavier than conventional warfare. A world without nuclear weapons sees more war in the 20th century and more war-related death. Nuclear energy provides clean electricity and a world without it becomes far more polluted, leading to more deaths and shorter lives.
The reality is that the big oil companies in the US understood what was going on decades ago, and went and hired the tobacco-cancer denial machine to make their case. That's why there is so much disinformation out there.
InspiringPhilosophy has many videos on Genesis which collate and summarize some relevant Biblical scholarship on this issue. Check them out!
We of course need to realize that Genesis is an ancient text, written by ancient prescientific people for prescientific people. If we think Genesis is teaching modern science, we are missing the point and missing what God is trying to show us through the text today. Biblical scholar John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One should be required reading for Christians in my opinion and will also more than adequately answer your question.
Two books I would recommend on this topic: The Lost World of Genesis One and Genesis Unbound.
One author was a professor of Old Testament studies at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and was president of the Evangelical Theological Society. The other author is an Old Testament scholar and professor at Wheaton College/Moody Bible Institute. Serious, Jesus-loving Bible scholars, who are doing some really in-depth exegesis and work with the original language and cultural context and not some fringe YouTube wingnuts.
Genesis Unbound dives into the opening of Genesis 1 and explores why it might not be talking about the planet as it is modernly understood. The Lost World of Genesis One dives more into the cultural context of Genesis and how ancient audiences might have understood and comprehended it.