The morality of global warming
Gloves on. Time to fisk a wingnut. This one is taking on one of the current favourite wingnut issues: all those scientist types are just imagining global warming so that they can, erm, sorry, lost the talking points, not sure what the purpose of the Big Lie is.
As a scientist, I find the current strategy of the global warming crusade to be fascinating. Particularly because I am a scientist, I also find it insulting. Everyone should find it very disturbing.
I'm not sure what kind of scientist Tim is. I found a couple of people by that name online. One seems to be a chemist, the other a religious type. It doesn't matter though. Tim's ready to be insulted on behalf of all of science. Let's see why.
I am referring to the fact that the global warming issue is now regarded as a "moral" matter by its advocates.
The bastids!
Hang on though. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the "global warming advocates". (One notes that very few people actually do advocate global warming and Tim means those who believe it's really happening.) If you believe that the planet is warming because of human actions, and that that warming will be disastrous for some of the people of this world and some of its other life, is it not moral for you to want to do something about it and have others do something? Would it not be immoral to do nothing? Or at least arguably so?
Of course, there is some obvious humor in this because the liberals will also tell you that you "cannot legislate morality". Well, it does not take complicated logic to conclude that if global warming is indeed a moral matter and if it is true that you cannot legislate morality, then it should hold that you cannot legislate global warming.
Well, whatever kind of scientist Tim is, let's hope that it doesn't require any logical analysis. It should be obvious that global warming might have as one attribute that it is a moral issue, without that being all it is. Those who believe that something should be done about global warming can believe at the same time that it would be moral to do something and that it is expedient to do something quite aside from the morality of it.
But fuck it, wingnuts don't use the same logic as the rest of us, after all.
Tim proceeds to a discussion of "morality".
Morality should not be used to simply deny the facts
Which is an interesting thing for a global warming denier to say. Anyway, his point is that morality should not shape facts, but should take them and run with them. I couldn't agree more.
Here's the thing, Tim. The facts are that the world is warming, and that warming is caused by human beings. If we don't stop doing it, everyone in Bangladesh is going to need a submersible. Now let's talk morality.
For many years, global warming seemed to be a fact-focused debate. But a persistent problem for the advocates has been dissenting scientific opinion. Some very reputable scientists hold that global warming may be attributed to natural phenomena like the intensity of solar radiation.
For values of "reputable" that equal "discredited", "ill informed", "insane", "paid by Exxon".
Rightists have a real problem with consensus. Mostly because it doesn't agree with them. The consensus view on global warming is very widely held. It really is only a lunatic fringe (and the disgusting creeps who are paid to disbelieve it by Exxon) who don't believe it's happening. It's similar in this way to evolution. Some scientists do not believe in evolution (which is not far off not believing in China, or not believing you have teeth) but they are marginalised. Not because we're all ignoring the facts, but because they are.
It is one thing to write these dissenting opinions off as factually false
Which they are.
but this is apparently no longer regarded as adequate by the global warming advocates.
Maybe because those "advocates" are sick of hearing the nutters with their unsubstantiated hypotheses, and sick of having to knock them down over and over again.
The dissent keeps popping up,
Yes, but never any more credibly. The right suffers from the illusion that repeating something enough times will make it more correct. Sadly, no. They are just as full of shit the hundredth time as they were the first.
it backed by some very reputable people wielding very credible facts,
One notes only that the notion that facts should be "credible" is mindboggling. Facts are facts. They don't become any more factual just because they are more believable!
But of course Tim has inadvertently hit the core of the faith-based right's problem with facts. Science begins with facts and builds them into structures that explain the world. The faith based start with the structures and then sift the facts, deciding to keep only those that are "credible" (in other words, those that fit the structures they began with). Does science occasionally do this too? Yes, of course. We all do. But we don't generaly consider it a virtue.
and the availability of alternate information outlets has made it impossible to smother the doubters and dissenters.
So here is Tim's thesis in a nutshell: if you're wrong, and are shown to be wrong, that doesn't matter, so long as you keep saying it and have enough places to say it in. Dude, that's the rightist theory of information right there.
Now enter the moral angle. If global warming is now a moral matter, it would seem to suggest an associated implication that these inconvenient viewpoints are immoral. Apparently it is now the duty of "good" people to reject these opinions on this "moral" basis and without regard to whether they are factually true or false.
And here's the problem with Tim's analysis: what is immoral is lying. Denying a thing in the face of a mountain of evidence is not having an "inconvenient viewpoint". It's lying, plain and simple. If one thinks it's moral to do something because there is a problem, one likely feels it is immoral to do nothing.
Tim is making a misstep because he has disallowed the first step in the process those who believe there is global warming have gone through in considering the contrarians: asked what the facts are. That's it. We look at the facts, and then we look at what the guy from Exxon says, and we see a mismatch. Then we consider the morality of their stating a plain lie.
The most bizarre aspect of this strategy is that it is exactly what the liberals have always (unfairly) accused us conservatives of doing.
Or would be if you conservatives were ever in possession of, or even barely acquainted with, the facts.
He continues.
In all honesty, this should scare the heck out of everyone. This is an atmosphere in which scientific inquiry is steered not by factual truth, but by a pre-ordained "moral" position.
Poor Tim. He has allowed himself to get it almost entirely arse-backwards. Scientific inquiry -- in the form of the huge, worldwide, coordinated effort led by the IPCC -- almost entirely supports the global warming "advocates"' view. A preordained position leads a few nutjobs -- of which Timmy is one -- to deny the facts and insist on hypotheses that are not borne out by observation, but remain entirely based on faith.
Worse, and here is where the immorality comes into it, he describes those who want to stop the world from frying as "advocates" for global warming, when in truth it is his crowd who advocate for it. They'd have us do nothing but sit back and watch half the world drown. Base as that is, it's not as bad as the truly immoral thing they do: not just sit back and do nothing but actively encourage us to continue to fuck the world up. Yeah, it's a moral issue, and as with so many moral issues, the wingnuts, bastions of "morality" that they are, are on the side of the immoral. Quelle fucking surprise!
posted by Dr Zen @ 3:38 pm
8 Comments:
Quelle surprise indeed! Don't you know that Jesus wants you to be rich, and therefore those who are present an example of morality no matter what they do? And when Bangladesh goes under, it will surely be because they're Muslim. And when New York is flooded, well, that will be the gays' fault. And Timmy will be raptured and get his own seat in the circle of angels, so next time idle your SUV for 40 minutes and don't forget to keep the TV on all night!
Global warming is a fact. Is man causing it? the answer to that is unknown, as dramatic global change has happened in the past. Has the human race the power/will to slow/halt the change, no way. Global warming has become a political tool, that is its most relevent effect on our lives at the moment. Its yet another tool for our Governments to use in their "concept Management" campaign, to enable them to control our lives to an ever increasing degree.
"Is man causing it? the answer to that is unknown"
Wrong. Sorry but you are. There is a mountain of evidence for anthropogenic global warming.
"as dramatic global change has happened in the past."
This is a red herring at best. Yes, dramatic global change has happened. It happens over very large timescales. The global warming under discussion here has happened in about a century. It is an overlay on the epochal climate change that you are discussing. Your argument here is akin to saying that the enclosure act didn't lead to there being fewer trees in the UK because the UK was a desert sixty million years ago.
"Global warming has become a political tool"
Of the right, yes.
"that is its most relevent effect on our lives at the moment"
Its effects are not straightforward or easy to discern but they will grow.
The government is barely doing anything about global warming. If it did what was needed, then you could whine about it.
If beating up little old ladies is indeed a moral matter and if it is true that you cannot legislate morality, then it should hold that you cannot legislate beating up little old ladies.
Back in my SUV-driving days, I knew my gas bill was higher, but I had no idea how that connected to the bigger picture. I've since become somewhat better educated, but still probably know only a fraction of what I should about the implications of the choices I make. I think that's the case for many, many people. And before they pick out a water heater or washer or a car, they may hear a rumble or two about something climate something change. So they do a ten minute google - if that! - and their conscience is immediately laid to rest by all the seemingly conflicting information out there. "No one's really sure what's causing it." "Your individual energy consumption is only a drop in the bucket anyway, it really doesn't matter what you do as an individual until China stops polluting." And that's that. Problem solved, back to shouting at little Johnny to stop writing on the walls and returning Mom's phone call and visiting Mary in the hospital, more immediate concerns that take up too much space in our minds to worry about shadowy threats that now we discover may not even be real. Which is why guys like this are downright dangerous.
"If beating up little old ladies is indeed a moral matter and if it is true that you cannot legislate morality, then it should hold that you cannot legislate beating up little old ladies."
Good point! Mind you, it is perfectly possible to argue that the law against beating up old ladies can be strictly value-negative, and simply protects old ladies.
And Jen, Americans are particularly ignorant *because* you are constantly fed bullshit by guys like this. You have an enormous industry of lies calculated to stop you from thinking. It takes an active choice for an American to be informed. A big part of the problem is that the bullshit makes sense on the face of it. It's only revealed to be lies when you know the facts of the matter.
Americans are particularly ignorant
I don't think Americans are particularly ignorant. All wealthy Western cultures have insulated themselves in a world of made up problems, entertainments, and distractions, because the big wide world is too complicated for most of us to be bothered trying to figure out. That isn't a strictly American problem. We hardly have the corner on tabloids and bullshit. Who's gotten more press this year, global warming or the British royal family? Ok, Britney Spears probably trumps them all, but you get my point.
It takes an active choice for an American to be informed.
For anyone, of any kind, anyplace. Being informed is a burden.
"I don't think Americans are particularly ignorant."
That would be because you're an American.
You actually missed my point, which was that getting informed is more of an active task for you than it is for me, because my media actually try to inform to some extent. I wasn't talking about the tabloids as such. We have reliable TV news that makes some attempt to tell the truth. You have a pack of liars who simply aren't interested in it and facilitate the crooks and liars who are fucking your nation in the butt.
Post a Comment
<< Home