Well, here is the best (worst) version of one of these articles I have seen in many a moon. You can read it HERE. The author describes the environmental catastrophe awaiting us, and blames the ignorance and apathy of baby boomers for this. In the course of his screed he works in the increased wealth disparity between the young and old, a ratio of 17:1 as opposed to 10:1 in 1984.
I write this to call attention to a powerful mixture of bad writing and bad reasoning on the aprt of the author and his material. The various problems, in no special order:
He uses hyperbolic and emotive language repeatedly. 'Death of the planet', 'catastrophe', 'devastating' and similar terms are used repeatedly. He conflates and mixes outcomes and areas freely to make an emotional appeal rather than to present a factual account. He refers to the recent typhoon Hayan and then to 'Super Storm' Sandy, using these as examples of climate change.
He measures climate outcomes in wildly different terms- temperature, storm severity, deaths, propery destruction. He makes claims that the way of life of the early 21st century will be destroyed by mid-century by coastal destruction and sea level changes. He claims, in similar fashion, that we are killing the planet. He links all this to income inequality by noting that one group, the 'graying rich', have much invested in not changing anything.
The net result is a polemic which ends up blaming the greed of baby boomers for the suffering of his generation and the killing of the planet.
Wow- got any more narcissistic power trips in there?
A reply-
Global warming/environmental change/environmental instability is not settled science by any means. Virtually every prediction of the various predictive models has been wrong. Our environment is cooler and there is less energy trapped in the oceans and less sea level change than predicted. It is entirely unclear that we are not just going through a minor variation in overall temperature, just as has occurred repeatedly even in recorded climate history. Her is a reputable and different view of our environment.
Let us allow that global warming/etc/etc is happening. We will not, we can not, destroy the planet. The oceans, insects, continents, major fauna, etc will all do fine. Some areas will become quite well watered and habitable while others become drier. Greenland might become green again (as it once was). Coastal Carolina might disappear. New York might become Atlantis. This is change but not planetary destruction. We can not kill the planet. We can destroy our own coastal cities, we can kill off numbers of our own species, but we can not kill the planet. What a piece of hyperbole and arrogance! I had no IDEA that humanity was so collectively strong that we can kill. the. planet. As a reference point, consider that insect biomass equals and exceeds human biomass. If we are going to be afraid, let's be afraid of ants and roaches.
The prose used sounds like that from a comic book. Why, any minute Superman, or Aquaman, or SuperDuperEnviroman is going to come and help us. And to prepare the way for the environmental God, our author is the environmental Messiah, warning us of our sins and impending doom and judgment. The church of environmentalism is in session!
Measuring storms in damage introduces inflation and the problem of where it hits. Take a look at the worst storms of the century as measured by low pressure and wind speed. In the entire WORLD. The list as of 2010 is HERE. There is no recent dominance. As a piece of anecdotal evidence, this year's hurricane season ties for lowest on record. Looking at the Atlantic storm record over 100 years there is no recent increase mathematically.
I am all for controlling emissions, using public transit, changing how we live. This seems responsible to everyone and everything on Earth. Let's see who ponies up first. Our author, who blames us greedy graying baby boomers for all this, I hope has the courage of his values and enough personal sand to give up his car, stop importing clothing, stop wearing rayon, nylon, etc. Stop riding a titanium framed bike, walk to work, etc,etc,etc. because if you don't you need to take the beam out of your own eye before attacking any other group.
The sky is not falling. The seas are not washing over NYC at this time. There is no magic outbreak of awful storms. SuperStorm Sandy was, in objective terms, a very ordinary and unimpressive tropical storm that would have made Florida and New Orleans laugh. I think we all need to calm down and stop the spate of hysterical, overworked, overly dramatic articles. As one OB teacher I know said, when something is wrong, don't just do something, stand there. We have to know what the problems are before we just start blaming people and making up reasons.
Ted, environmentalist and skeptic
I write this to call attention to a powerful mixture of bad writing and bad reasoning on the aprt of the author and his material. The various problems, in no special order:
He uses hyperbolic and emotive language repeatedly. 'Death of the planet', 'catastrophe', 'devastating' and similar terms are used repeatedly. He conflates and mixes outcomes and areas freely to make an emotional appeal rather than to present a factual account. He refers to the recent typhoon Hayan and then to 'Super Storm' Sandy, using these as examples of climate change.
He measures climate outcomes in wildly different terms- temperature, storm severity, deaths, propery destruction. He makes claims that the way of life of the early 21st century will be destroyed by mid-century by coastal destruction and sea level changes. He claims, in similar fashion, that we are killing the planet. He links all this to income inequality by noting that one group, the 'graying rich', have much invested in not changing anything.
The net result is a polemic which ends up blaming the greed of baby boomers for the suffering of his generation and the killing of the planet.
Wow- got any more narcissistic power trips in there?
A reply-
Global warming/environmental change/environmental instability is not settled science by any means. Virtually every prediction of the various predictive models has been wrong. Our environment is cooler and there is less energy trapped in the oceans and less sea level change than predicted. It is entirely unclear that we are not just going through a minor variation in overall temperature, just as has occurred repeatedly even in recorded climate history. Her is a reputable and different view of our environment.
Let us allow that global warming/etc/etc is happening. We will not, we can not, destroy the planet. The oceans, insects, continents, major fauna, etc will all do fine. Some areas will become quite well watered and habitable while others become drier. Greenland might become green again (as it once was). Coastal Carolina might disappear. New York might become Atlantis. This is change but not planetary destruction. We can not kill the planet. We can destroy our own coastal cities, we can kill off numbers of our own species, but we can not kill the planet. What a piece of hyperbole and arrogance! I had no IDEA that humanity was so collectively strong that we can kill. the. planet. As a reference point, consider that insect biomass equals and exceeds human biomass. If we are going to be afraid, let's be afraid of ants and roaches.
The prose used sounds like that from a comic book. Why, any minute Superman, or Aquaman, or SuperDuperEnviroman is going to come and help us. And to prepare the way for the environmental God, our author is the environmental Messiah, warning us of our sins and impending doom and judgment. The church of environmentalism is in session!
Measuring storms in damage introduces inflation and the problem of where it hits. Take a look at the worst storms of the century as measured by low pressure and wind speed. In the entire WORLD. The list as of 2010 is HERE. There is no recent dominance. As a piece of anecdotal evidence, this year's hurricane season ties for lowest on record. Looking at the Atlantic storm record over 100 years there is no recent increase mathematically.
I am all for controlling emissions, using public transit, changing how we live. This seems responsible to everyone and everything on Earth. Let's see who ponies up first. Our author, who blames us greedy graying baby boomers for all this, I hope has the courage of his values and enough personal sand to give up his car, stop importing clothing, stop wearing rayon, nylon, etc. Stop riding a titanium framed bike, walk to work, etc,etc,etc. because if you don't you need to take the beam out of your own eye before attacking any other group.
The sky is not falling. The seas are not washing over NYC at this time. There is no magic outbreak of awful storms. SuperStorm Sandy was, in objective terms, a very ordinary and unimpressive tropical storm that would have made Florida and New Orleans laugh. I think we all need to calm down and stop the spate of hysterical, overworked, overly dramatic articles. As one OB teacher I know said, when something is wrong, don't just do something, stand there. We have to know what the problems are before we just start blaming people and making up reasons.
Ted, environmentalist and skeptic
Comments
Post a Comment