OK, Can You Start Tomorrow?
Bill McKibben suggest climate alarmists go on strike until we start listening to them:
So at this point it’s absurd to keep asking the scientific community to churn out more reports. In fact, it might almost be more useful if they went on strike: until you pay attention to what we’ve already told you, we won’t be telling you more. Work with what you’ve got. We’re a quarter-century ahead – when you deal with the trouble we’ve already described then we’ll tell you what’s coming next.
smilerz:
I fully endorse this strike.
April 2, 2014, 12:24 pmmahtso:
Will the strike also include stopping the practice of flying to global warming conferences in private jets?
April 2, 2014, 12:55 pmc_andrew:
Polling irony; the popup opinion poll at MSNBC that asks if you think that climate change will impact your life or lifestyle negatively is running 83% negative. Apparently the climate alarmists are alarmingly bad at their job.
April 2, 2014, 1:09 pmNL7:
Very few people really believe the strong form of catastrophic global warming is likely to happen. Even those who firmly believe in the propensity for a high level of disaster either believe that somebody else will invent a technology to avert disaster or that central authorities will act to head it off. Otherwise, why would millions of people contribute so heartily to their own demise? Why are so few of them seeking to build protections and stockpiles for their communities or investing in technology to flee a doomed Earth?
Their actions strongly suggest they are discounting the possibility that doom is coming. First, because by their stated beliefs they are supposedly contributing to a horrible catastrophe by using cars, planes, and modern convenience. Second, even if this is a tragedy of the commons and humanity is inevitably doomed by its own avarice to instigate catastrophic global warming, they are not taking measures to shield their own families and communities from any danger.
There is a break between stated beliefs and actual beliefs. This is some mixture of believing that: the harms are overstated, the dangers are further out in the future, the solutions are more achievable, or some powerful intervention will avert real disaster.
Relatedly, people are much more likely to believe X is a problem when it serves to strengthen their pre-existing argument for Y. Climate disaster is a bigger problem to people who think it provides a good reason to restrict international trade, or redistribute global wealth, or underwrite futuristic technologies, or pay billions of dollars to the nuclear industry, etc. So people who only sort of believe in climate disaster will say things about how horrible it is because this signals their commitment to some underlying principle - such as global redistribution of wealth or reducing cultural materialism - without really feeling directly threatened by the disaster they publicly predicted.
April 2, 2014, 1:10 pmWard Chartier:
Any chance of encouraging the strike to go on forever? One question, though. What will the climate alarmists do in their newly freed up time to avoid going on the public dole? Maybe they could visit the "rubber rooms" where poor teachers serve out their time and teach learning skills. Maybe some of them could learn about the scientific method and critical thinking skills.
April 2, 2014, 1:54 pmmesocyclone:
Please, please. And give back the money spent on your fancy super-computers, because the NWS, whose forecast actually work and save lives and properties, is running forecast models on weak computers. The Europeans, who are not quite as silly in their funding, run their models on much faster computers than the US, and then charge us money to access them.
April 2, 2014, 4:55 pmHarry:
Who is John Galt?
If they go on strike, what is the downside? They stop spiking trees?
This situation is similar to a threat from the members of the US Congress or the United Nations that they might take a year recess to go fishing and spend more time with their first wives, helping with the laundry and the dishes and weeding the garden.
April 2, 2014, 5:07 pmHarry:
Well put.
April 2, 2014, 5:11 pmmarque2:
Best idea an alarmist has ever had.
April 2, 2014, 5:40 pmmesaeconoguy:
And isn’t this a charitable accommodation of skeptics?
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4051905.ece
[This is why lawsuits and similar are necessary]
April 2, 2014, 6:15 pmNot Sure:
"We’re a quarter-century ahead..."
April 2, 2014, 7:16 pmA quarter century ago, wasn't the worry a coming ice age?
herdgadfly:
With Communism taking off its cloak in Russia, the enviros and the global warming freaks all over the world can now uncloak and operate under the sign of the Hammer and Sickle. Government overthrow is back on the front burner.
April 2, 2014, 9:02 pmMatthew Slyfield:
We should try to convince them to hold their breath while they are waiting for us to start listening again.
April 2, 2014, 10:16 pmLoneSnark:
Look at it another way. If they did release more reports, then those reports would need to include the recent cessation of warming and the growing body of proof that alarmist hopes are false. One wonders why they didn't quit long ago.
April 3, 2014, 6:45 amrst1317:
I'm not surprised that the founder of a group like 350 would so openly show how egotistical and childish he is at the core.
April 3, 2014, 8:28 amrst1317:
Note the replication of tactics for various things these extremists oppose. In this case, McKibben recycles the age old " all the prominent climate scientists" argument in regards to Keystone XL. Apparently he has proof he's unwilling to share with the world that _ALL_ of the "prominent" climate scientists oppose Keystone XL. Just like _ALL_ "prominent" climate scientists are warning us that global warming is 100% a given and will soon destroy the world.
April 3, 2014, 8:35 amDirtyJobsGuy:
Mckibben is a really scary guy. Years ago he did a piece in the NYT magazine about landscapes from the air. One of them was of Queens, NY showing all the row houses, little backyard swimming pools and Italian gardens. His commentary was that it looked like some kind of miserable fire ant colony. Totally incapable of seeing the regular life going on around him. Of course he has a cabin in the Adirondacks, not in the environmentally superior cities.
April 3, 2014, 10:45 amGil G:
Or argue that if a problem takes too long to emerge and will not be realised by many people alive today then it is not a problem at all.
April 3, 2014, 7:20 pmepobirs:
And then what? You'll hold your breath until you turn blue?
In the words of Dr. Ray Stantz, "They expect results." If climate alarmists want to be taken seriously, they need to demonstrate that their models have predictive value. You know, that science thing.
April 5, 2014, 4:05 pmDr No:
I also encourage them to stop producing carbon dioxide.
April 15, 2014, 2:27 am