Comments on: Climate Debate Heating Up

By: TENTHIRTYTWO

TENTHIRTYTWO — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 00:32:50 +0000

Someone may care about the percentages of people that you are making up out of thin air. But it isn’t me. Nice job on the RW talking points, though.

By: ebdoug

ebdoug — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:21:04 +0000

And I Hollar “How many of you use paper towels, paper napkins, paper plates, toilet paper, disposable diapers, bags from the grocery store that can’t be reused. How many of you use clothes dryers and dish washers instead of hanging your clothes and putting your dishes in a rack to dry? How many air condition just one room, heat just one room? How many go to a mall or store instead of shopping on-line whenever possible? How many plant trees to produce oxygen? How many have switched to a wringer washer that uses two loads of water only half the soap that you used to use for one load of wash for a whole weeks worth of wash? How many have put in a little solar to power lights at night? (the statistics there are high by the way)” I remember my mother switching over to disposables when I was less than ten. I remember objecting then. I remember raising my children in the era of disposable diapers but escewing them except when we went camping. I remember having long conversations with my sister on trains as opposed to cars and planes. That was in 1960. As one person said above, we talk about it, but we don’t do anything. I remember taking a pet to a new vet, leaving her in a towel covered cage and realizing they don’t use disposable. When I ask people if they use solar and wind power to dry their clothes, more and more say “yes” and with big families. 15 minutes of bleach kills all. Bleach and water for 15 minutes, you have sterile.

By: PatriotSGT

PatriotSGT — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:25:13 +0000

IK- I understand what you said and how you chose your words, but what the limited attention read a headline group gathers from that is get rid of all fossil fuels now. Thats what we are combating and so we need to modify the message to get the point accross. I work with all tyes of people in the Army, some really smart to those who can barely read and I’ve adapted my approach over the years. I consider it my job to find a way to get my point accross in a way the intended audience will comprehend. I liken it to a boxing match where the first round is dancing around and jabbing to look for weaknesses in the defense. Sooner or later if I’m persistent the light comes on and they get it. Of course I have also learned that there is the 10% who will never get it.

1032 – I get what you are saying and you are right. But I think the % that is those people are smaller, closer to 10% or less and we need to reach the other 30% to drown out the voices of those 10% if we want to win this battle. On the lightbulbs I think the argument is again mis-understood. Not the 10% who will never get it, but for the others, its not about the energy saving, they like that and think it’s good. Its that most of those bulbs are being produced in China and they feel we cut the US manufacturing businesses out. Like with GE who has plants in 43 other countries and shelters its alot of income and taxes overseas and getting tax breaks. The good is less energy and longer use, the bad made in China and lost US jobs.

By: Iron Knee

Iron Knee — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 21:40:56 +0000

Hmmm, PSgt. I say “shift our energy production away from oil and coal” and you seem to think I said “go 100% non fossil fuel”. I think I see the problem.

Anyone who doesn’t think it would be a good thing to work toward reducing our consumption of oil and coal is either evil or severely misguided.

1032, I love your point about lightbulbs.

By: Don in Waco

Don in Waco — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 20:35:56 +0000

I miss the days when Republicans led on environmental issues. Nixon signed legislation creating the EPA and Bush I signed the Clean Air Act Amendments. Now they all seem to think climate change is a conspiracy of world government carbon traders and climate scientists wanting to get rich from a some scam(like climate scientists are getting rich..heh). Of course the funding of denier science by Koch bros. and Big Oil is seen by the R’s as perfectly normal. I’ve mentioned this previously but here’s a link to Jeff Master’s excellent essay on manufactured doubt: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1389. If you want to “crawl in the weeds” of climate science I recommend http://www.realclimate.org/ but the science there gets over my head pretty quickly and I avoided taking statistics in college for a reason.

By: TENTHIRTYTWO

TENTHIRTYTWO — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 18:35:57 +0000

Who are they hearing “stop using all fossil fuels” from? Who, in a place of power/policy making is advocating this as a strategy?

You realize that they put stricter efficiency standards on freaking LIGHTBULBS and the entire right wing noise machine had, and continues to have, the equivalent of a grand mal seizure? Seriously. LIGHTBULBS.

These people will, upon hearing that there’s some earth-day initiative to turn off your lights on some day will turn on all the lights in their house. The equivalent of setting your own money on fire. To make a point. To nobody.

I used to work with one of these people. They drive a super-sized SUV with a V8. They say they smile every time they fill it up.

Sorry, but you can never pass these people off as rational. You can never pass them off as just waiting to hear a ‘well rounded and more encompassing study.’ The issue has been politicized, and because we live in America that means that the right wing base has made it a moral issue. Climate change being real would be pure evil. And it just must not be so.

By: David Freeman

David Freeman — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 18:25:44 +0000

Every concern Patriotsgt brought up has been answered so many times before, I’m just tired of playing whack-a-mole responding to arguments against the imaginary strawmen of the “far other side”. The non-imaginary “far other side” is 98% of all climate scientists and 95% of all physical scientists published in peer reviewed journals.

Just go to Rocky Mountain Institute, http://www.rmi.org/ and read their book, “Winning the Oil Endgame”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_the_Oil_Endgame , and stop listening to ignorant folks.

By: PatriotSGT

PatriotSGT — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 17:14:34 +0000

I agree Arthanyel. Suprisingly though, when I get into conversations with said extremists (at least in my limited circle) they don’t deny climate change is taking place, but they roll they’re eyes when the solution presented by the far other side is go 100% non fossil fuel. That is not currently a practical solution and I agree with that much.
If someone came out with a study that accounted for all the contributers to warming natural and man made, their percentages, and if we took actions A, B or C we’d have impact those numbers by whatever amount, near and far term.
We’ve come a long way since the 70′s in protecting our environment and we need to continue the progress. I also think it would help if the big name vocal advocates like Al Gore calling for change would lead way in setting an example on conserving. It just doesn’t seem to the disbelievers to be much of a crisis when people like him buy a second mansion, fly all over the world, heat and cool 2 big homes and then advocate the little guy ride a donkey to work to save the planet. And I’d be willing to say that some of the deniars actually believe, but can’t stand the people they are arguing with and go extreme on them just to PTO.

I also think that we should take all the fossil subsidies and develop a real solution besides bigger batteries for cars, because they need electricity, which is mostly derived from …fossil fuels or nuclear. Solar is OK, but still too expensive for average people. Perhaps if we subsidized (with the fossil dollars) solar solutions for individuals, but we’d unfortunatley end up buying chinese made panels.
I think the truth destroyers are backed by big oil. But, we are not ready to close the wells and mines at this point. If our engineers in this country can’t figure a way to make a decent hybrid like say the Prius which works fairly well, vs the volt then we are doomed. What we really need is something completely new, its out there and all we need to do is find it.