[quote]Stern wrote:
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]Stern wrote:
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
How many people have changed their lives at some level in order to mitigate “man-made global warming”?[/quote]
I have to admit I have only done so recently and only through recycling as much plastic/paper as I can. I walk a lot also, to cut down on fuel consumption, but that’s about it. Sadly I never really concerned myself with recycling when I was younger.
- note that I don’t actually consider either of these exactly life-changing practices, but we all gotta start somewhere.
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At the risk of sending this waaay of topic or into PWI…
I guess what I’m getting at is that the whole mm-global warming fiasco is the perfect example of impure and agenda driven “science”. There is misinformation abound from all sides. Most, I would even venture to say 9/10 or more of people’s understanding and beliefs of this phenomenon come from news/media reports.
In otherwords, any discussion of the science of climate change, natural or otherwise, is based on “faith” that what they’re being fed is absolute truth according to their belief. “Al Gore said it, it’s true”.
My advisor in grad school was fond of saying “They’ll give ANYONE a Ph.D. these days…”
I challenge folks to do some Googling about what the Earth’s climate is estimated to have been when the forest in the OP was alive (during the Permian). No SUV’s around then…
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Ahhhh, I was wondering where you were going with this.
While I certainly don’t buy into every source of media propaganda, at the same time I have to exercise a certain degree of common sense in dealing with my own shit. Things like the trash island phenomena in the North Pacific Gyre make me grimace.
However I don’t know many people who have actually turned their lives upside down solely on the basis of the world’s climate. As I mentioned above - recycling, quite a common practice now, isn’t really THAT much an effort. Outside of recycling and, I suppose, ‘eco’ cars, limiting your fuel/electricity/gas usage, how can a person dramatically change their lives under the threat of global warming aside from moving to a cabin in the woods? Apart from that drastic example the other measures all seem fairly beneficial for all concerned - walk more, use less energy, save more money. These are all positives.
Although I remember reading about the negative impact of recycling, there’s only so much a layman can do to try and look after their own. Even if you kept up to date with the scientific data and counter arguments, it’s enough to make your head swim when all you want to do is limit the effect you ‘might’ be having on the planet. I’m an artist Jim, not a scientist.
Having said that, I completely agree with the point you’re making. Just in this particular example my decisions are based more on what seems to me to be the right thing to do, as opposed to a reaction to fearmongering. I guess you could say I take it on faith that my effort to divide my trash into pretty multicoloured boxes is making a fraction of a difference.
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I know people, many people, who preach with all the fervor of the most fundamentalist born-again Christian (or muslim) the evils of behaviors that could possibly contribute to global warming. Faith like no “religious” people I’ve ever met. Al Gore, et al are gods.
My point is that there is Faith and there is Science. And while those who claim no Religion very well may have only Faith in what they’re fed from (eg. Global Warming mania in the media) versus understanding the complexity of the science.
In this thread alone, people just know that the Earth is not “young”, however, they know not one thing about the science that says otherwise except that someone said it on a TV show, or wrote it in a magazine, or posted it on Wikipedia. That is FAITH.
