Or shall we tell a few jokes and shoot the breeze? — unenlightened

Right, because there's no reason to be "mean" or "overthink" or be "so serious" about ...anything.

Let's just take it easy and turn every thread into the Shoutbox.

Climate change, no matter how much footage of ice caps melting and X phenomenon isn't perceived by people as their problem. — schopenhauer1

Polls have shown people do care, and think governments should be doing more. There's large turnouts at protests, there's increasingly bold direct actions taken all over the world to stop drilling, new coal plants, deforestation, etc. On local levels, especially in cities, you see all kinds of innovative policies being implemented. Some will work well, others won't.

Not to mention that the media is finally starting to report on climate change more seriously. This is partly because the effects all around us are undeniable. It's no longer a future problem, or one that "other people" have to concern themselves with. The evidence is everywhere on earth, and there's no longer anywhere to hide. Even here in New England, a fairly insulated place, there are very real effects.

There's a lot of work to be done. There's some movement, but not nearly enough -- and there may not be enough time, unless there's a drastic change in political will. Right now, the obstacles are twofold: corporate and political. The fossil fuel industry has massive pull, and outright owns the "conservative" media and major political party (Republicans). Through their propaganda, campaign funding and lobbying, they've sown "doubt" among their audience and inaction among their beholden politicians.

Some of the denial you see on this very thread, including stock phrases like "nothing can be done," "it's good for the planet," "the climate always changes," "people don't want to change," etc., all serves in a minor way to divert from what we should be doing, which is acting. Not just individually, but collectively. Discussing local energy committees or public utilities commissions and ways to attend/influence them, local organizations to involve oneself in, individual actions like more efficient energy use/electrification (heat pumps, solar panels, induction stoves, community solar programs, better insulation, energy audits, available tax credits and rebates), and so on and so forth, is what should be going on. There's lots of information all around us.

Instead we're left talking about cows and how they're really not a problem because they "don't contribute any 'additional' warming". Wonderful. Meanwhile the planet is burning.

The attitude that nothing can be done because "human nature" strikes me as another useless position -- one more impediment, more dead weight.

Yes, you’ve introduced all kinds of issues— one silly thing after another, all shown to be ridiculous. But by all means continue— it’s good for others to watch new denialist “views” get debunked over and over.

Three in five Americans say Trump should stand trial before the Republican primaries or 2024 general election

Roughly 60% of the country thinks this guy is a crook and should stand trial before the election.

My fellow Americans really aren’t as dumb as their reputation would suggest. Polling shows only that the Republican Party is out of touch. They’ll continue paying for it.

(Democrats are out of touch too…but not by the same distance.)

killing all cows, goats, and sheep — Agree to Disagree

How odd that it’s this one issue — cows — that you want to dwell on, and yet repeatedly get wrong.

No one is suggesting we “kill all cows.”

Your particular brand of climate denial hasn’t even been very entertaining.

If two idiots agree, that doesn't mean they're right. — Benkei

Thank you for saying what we’re all thinking.

I have to say, the remark “Not everyone is x” is fatuous.

If you think we all are like that, that may say something about you. — Noble Dust

What I’m describing is an unavoidable psychological fact. Whatever else is being projected on to the word isn’t my business.

I had read that climate scientists said that a certain amount of global warming was "locked in" even if we stopped emissions today. — Agree to Disagree

Right. It is. From your own quote:

Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

This corresponds with what @unenlightened was saying. At least how I read it. So your talk about how climate scientists “changed their thinking” was a red herring, and the quote you provided from NASA only reiterates what was said.

The diversion of talking about CO2 and temperature lag is exactly that: a diversion.

Are you saying that the climate scientists at NASA are wrong? — Agree to Disagree

I’m saying you don’t have a clue about what you’re talking about. There’s nothing to “re-think.”

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/3/031001

Your original claims were ignorant and bogus - as usual:

The time it will take to stabilise, and the temperature it will eventually stabilise at, are extremely difficult to model but the time-frame will be decades, if not centuries. — unenlightened

This is the view that most climate scientists believed and they have told the public about this. — Agree to Disagree

Try reading what was said.

started rethinking this issue. — Agree to Disagree

No they haven’t.

However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years.

If we stopped. Not if we keep emissions constant. And within a decade or so the RISE in temperature should flatten.

Temperatures would plateau but remain elevated for many centuries. Not hard to understand.

I wondered if they made this up — Agree to Disagree

How ignorant and arrogant a person has to be to think this is astounding.

Yeah, so let’s just forget about it and relax. That’s worked wonders so far.

This is an existential issue. We could use more thinking, not less.

Having said that I’d say climate change is real and that within a short time frame we’ve sped the global warming cycle up a little bit — simplyG

More than a bit. At an alarming, unprecedented rate.

14% contribution to emissions, not to mention 80% of deforestation of the Amazon (and much of the rest to grow feed) for cattle.

But there’s no reason to worry, because some guy on the internet recently learned the term “biogenic carbon cycle” from a meat-producer website.

Another one bites the dust. Bob Barker, at 99.

This is not the norm unless you are a narcissist. — L'éléphant

Yeah, I think that’s nonsense. A feeling that you’re unique or important in some way is hardly narcissism. If that’s true, we’re all narcissists, because it’s a psychological truism.

https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1694849434062877177?s=20

Lol

MUG-SHOT: Trump Capitalizes on Jail Photo With T-Shirts, Mugs, and Bumper Stickers

Imagine the kind of dupe you have to be to buy this crap. :lol:

Anyway— the hope from his cult is that this will be the “biggest thing ever,” and will lead to him winning. It won’t. It’ll last about a week, die down like everything else, and be forgotten by the public. Most people think he should be convicted anyway.

We were told for two years how badly the democrats were gonna be wiped out by the Republican “red wave” …same kind of wishful thinking here I guess.

Voting is a virtue of our democracy and randomizing officials rather than electing them would undermine the democratic process, preventing citizens from voting according to what they think is best. If you take away voting, you severely curtail the ability of people to participate in the political process and you disconnect politics from the will of the people. — NotAristotle

The article argues against this point.

People expect leaders chosen at random to be less effective than those picked systematically. But in multiple experiments led by the psychologist Alexander Haslam, the opposite held true. Groups actually made smarter decisions when leaders were chosen at random than when they were elected by a group or chosen based on leadership skill.

Why were randomly chosen leaders more effective? They led more democratically. “Systematically selected leaders can undermine group goals,” Dr. Haslam and his colleagues suggest, because they have a tendency to “assert their personal superiority.” When you’re anointed by the group, it can quickly go to your head: I’m the chosen one.

That is sad.

Deniers will always deny, but so what? — Wayfarer

:up:

Lock him up! Lock him up!

Did you make it up (kudos if you did) or is it in common usage? — BC

It’s common usage, at least among people in New Hampshire. I wear it with pride.

I was just checking and it says that town meeting members in those cases are elected, not chosen by lottery, so I was wrong. — T Clark

Too bad— I’d like to see how/if it works somewhere closer to home.

So this thread is now a message board for climate deniers to post whatever “thoughts” pop into their heads. :yawn:

My primary concern is that a non-expert might not make good decisions concerning a policy. My related concern is that an extremist would make decisions inconsistent with the majority. — NotAristotle

But that’s happening already. Trump was hardly an expert in anything, and pretty extreme.

Take a look at the republican candidates. Good lord. Politics is almost like survival of the dumbest.

Towns are governed by a Board of Selectmen and a Town Meeting. — T Clark

Yeah I know. I’m a Masshole at heart, having lived there most of my life. Similar structures here in NH. But are any of them selected by sortition?

In some larger towns that becomes unwieldy so they started using representative town meetings with members selected by lottery from a pool of applicants. — T Clark

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of this. Do you happen to know which towns?



Well the civics exam is supposed to be a kind of filter, I guess. I share your concerns though. Still intriguing.



But none of this was by sortition, right?

Presumption of innocence. Plenty of that going on with Hunter Biden, and Hillary Clinton prior (“lock her up”) from the MAGA base. So they feel entitled to lecture others about it. No hypocrisy to see here.

:clap:

You mean you don’t want to get lectured about the basic physics of CO2 from a physics professor internet rando?

I applaud your patience and explanations.

What’s frustrating is that most of this could be avoided if we just say to ourselves “Maybe when thousands of scientists around the world tell us that methane emissions from livestock are a problem, we should take that seriously.”

I think Desantis looked awful in this farce. Vivek was much more in-your-face, but really obnoxious. Christie looked OK but was loudly booed and didn’t get much time. Haley and Scott were bores. Pence did OK, for Pence. Although he’s about as exciting as cardboard.

That’s exactly what was said as well! I think Burnham raised that point— that we get our batteries and EVs from China manufacturing. It’s just a joke.

Haley:

“Is climate change real?” she said. “Yes, it is. But if you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions.”

Asked to raise their hands if the candidates believe climate change is human behavior driven, no one did so…it was interrupted by Desantis, who seemed to be somewhat panicked about the question.

I see their new fossil fuel-approved slogan is “China and India need to reduce their emissions FIRST.”

Anyone watching this debate?

Jesus…

:yawn:

Yeah, because of the two of us, I’m definitely the ignorant one. Now tell us more about how cattle don’t contribute to global warming…

Another enlightening conversation for the record books.

Yeah, I’m beginning to see the pattern. If Trump or republicans do it, it’s fine. Unless the changes lead to democrats winning…then it’s election interference…from Republicans…or Biden suppressing votes…even though he wasn’t in office…

No, I guess I don’t get it.

It’s almost as if all of it is a bunch of bullshit. :chin:

After dangling the possibility of restarting the U.S. economy by Easter, Trump now says keeping deaths to 100,000 would be a ‘very good job.’

From Praxis’s link. I laughed out loud at “very good job.”

The appropriate response to such a level of stupidity.

List of changes in 2020:

https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedures,_and_administration_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020

Mostly minor extensions of deadlines and early voting/mail voting. Including in DNC-controlled, liberal bastions like Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Montana.

Or in NOS’s world: massive, sinister liberal election interference.

In NOS’s defense, there was a big push to suppress voting. It was done by the Republican parties in several states.

Trump was such a terrible president that people voted him out anyway, in spite of Republican interference and lies. I realize this must really be frustrating to the cult.

More people got to vote in 2020.

Trump wins? Democracy in action.
Biden wins? Fraud! Election interference.

Hey I just like to meet the person on their level.