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Is This Really The Way To Set An Example To Children?
95 Answers
Damned irresponsible if you ask me, regardless of the topic
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maggiebee, //Nothing new in pupils demonstratin
18:52 Sun 10th Feb 2019
//you must realise it is not possible to prove one way or another if man is affecting climate change. //
If this is the case, what is your explanation for why so many scientific organisations (practically all of them as far as I know) are willing to stake their reputations by claiming that it is extremely likely?
If this is the case, what is your explanation for why so many scientific organisations (practically all of them as far as I know) are willing to stake their reputations by claiming that it is extremely likely?
Nothing is provable in Science anyway, so why the issue of humans in Climate Change is singled out for that line of attack is anyone's guess. Actually it's pretty obvious, since it comes from the same source that you are so convinced generates it: it's politically convenient to ignore the evidence.
I'm pretty happen to listen to people who disagree with me, in point of fact, but I'm also entitled to be as dismissive of what I find to be objectively rubbish as you are of me. "Not a stupid person" indeed. Who's being condescending there, I wonder?
As to your point about the Ozone: are you so sure it's that indisputable? Even on AB it's not difficult to find people who go on about how overblown the science on ozone depletion was/is, eg see NJ's posts about it in the past (spoiler alert: he's got it wrong).
I'm pretty happen to listen to people who disagree with me, in point of fact, but I'm also entitled to be as dismissive of what I find to be objectively rubbish as you are of me. "Not a stupid person" indeed. Who's being condescending there, I wonder?
As to your point about the Ozone: are you so sure it's that indisputable? Even on AB it's not difficult to find people who go on about how overblown the science on ozone depletion was/is, eg see NJ's posts about it in the past (spoiler alert: he's got it wrong).
All the hot air (see what I did there?) about climate change won’t change a thing. The planet is warming up and that’s nothing new. It’s been warming up for a very long time. Nature is responsible and nature is dealing with whatever humanity is adding to the process in a natural way. A hell of a lot of people are making a hell of a lot of money from climate change and not always for the best reasons, but ultimately humankind can do diddlysquat about it and it’s arrogant in the extreme to imagine otherwise. Human beings, as smart as they like to think they are, will never conquer nature. it's as simple as that.
Humanity's doing quite a bit to damage the planet. It's not unreasonable to want to stop that as far as is possible, especially as there are several fairly simple ways to achieve this in principle. And, even if it turns out that overall Naomi is right to say that there's nothing that can be done, it's wrong to use this as an excuse to not even *try*.
In terms of the "will never conquer nature" thing, one need only look as far as, say, the story behind the passenger pigeon, to see how manifestly false that claim is.
It's what might be termed an "inverted arrogance": the claim that human activity cannot make a damned bit of difference is, anyway, demonstrably false in so many ways. Why should the climate be any different? If you take a bunch of Carbon that was locked away in the ground for hundreds of millions of years and then burn a hefty percentage of it in only a couple of hundred years at the same time as chopping down huge quantities of forest and creating an entirely new kind of ecosystem, I don't see how you can possibly take seriously the idea that the planet won't start to notice these changes at some point.
It's as simple as that.
It's what might be termed an "inverted arrogance": the claim that human activity cannot make a damned bit of difference is, anyway, demonstrably false in so many ways. Why should the climate be any different? If you take a bunch of Carbon that was locked away in the ground for hundreds of millions of years and then burn a hefty percentage of it in only a couple of hundred years at the same time as chopping down huge quantities of forest and creating an entirely new kind of ecosystem, I don't see how you can possibly take seriously the idea that the planet won't start to notice these changes at some point.
It's as simple as that.
Perhaps, but doesn't that in itself undermine the point you're trying to make? Because it seems to me like you're saying that there *is* something humans can do to influence the future change of Earth's climate. In that case nature needn't "do what it does", and the only disagreement becomes the scale of changes in human activity necessary to achieve this.
jim - // Perhaps, but doesn't that in itself undermine the point you're trying to make? Because it seems to me like you're saying that there *is* something humans can do to influence the future change of Earth's climate. In that case nature needn't "do what it does", and the only disagreement becomes the scale of changes in human activity necessary to achieve this. //
You advise that you know more about the science of climate change than most of us on here - I have no idea, I only have your word for it, and I don't really care either way.
What I think you need to accept is that human nature dictates that unless something is seriously impacting on the everyday lives of most people on the planet, they simply don't care what scientists are telling them about climate change, and that approach will continue until there are impacts on enough people for them to want to make a difference, and that is not going to happen in my lifetimes, or yours.
So, you can tell me that humans are 'destroying the planet', and I will say that while China is constructing coal-fired power stations at the rate of one a week, I am really not minded to care very much.
You advise that you know more about the science of climate change than most of us on here - I have no idea, I only have your word for it, and I don't really care either way.
What I think you need to accept is that human nature dictates that unless something is seriously impacting on the everyday lives of most people on the planet, they simply don't care what scientists are telling them about climate change, and that approach will continue until there are impacts on enough people for them to want to make a difference, and that is not going to happen in my lifetimes, or yours.
So, you can tell me that humans are 'destroying the planet', and I will say that while China is constructing coal-fired power stations at the rate of one a week, I am really not minded to care very much.
// The point I'm making is that short of the whole of humanity abandoning its current lifestyle completely, which isn't going to happen, nature will do what it does. //
That sounds then like an incredibly sweeping and dismissive assertion that has very little evidence to support it.
As to A-H's post: it's a very different thing to claim that Climate Change is "dubious", and to claim, with a lot more justification, that it's far more about the current state Chinese and American energy policy than anything the UK can do. But the least the UK can do is to take the threat seriously in the first place.
That sounds then like an incredibly sweeping and dismissive assertion that has very little evidence to support it.
As to A-H's post: it's a very different thing to claim that Climate Change is "dubious", and to claim, with a lot more justification, that it's far more about the current state Chinese and American energy policy than anything the UK can do. But the least the UK can do is to take the threat seriously in the first place.
jim360 - // As to A-H's post: it's a very different thing to claim that Climate Change is "dubious", and to claim, with a lot more justification, that it's far more about the current state Chinese and American energy policy than anything the UK can do. But the least the UK can do is to take the threat seriously in the first place. //
Then please allow me to redefine my position -
Do I believe that climate change is taking place? Absolutely I do, but in common with Naomi, I see this as a natural process which history records has occurred since the earth was formed. I do not deny climate change per se, I merely take issue with the huge amounts of money being made by scaremongerers who drone on to a deaf and indifferent world population.
Then please allow me to redefine my position -
Do I believe that climate change is taking place? Absolutely I do, but in common with Naomi, I see this as a natural process which history records has occurred since the earth was formed. I do not deny climate change per se, I merely take issue with the huge amounts of money being made by scaremongerers who drone on to a deaf and indifferent world population.
Jim, //That sounds then like an incredibly sweeping and dismissive assertion that has very little evidence to support it.//
But I’m taking my evidence from you and the rest of the people who think they can conquer nature. You’re telling me you know all about climate change and that unless mankind makes a very concerted effort to combat it by changing its way of life, we’re in big trouble. Is that not so?
But I’m taking my evidence from you and the rest of the people who think they can conquer nature. You’re telling me you know all about climate change and that unless mankind makes a very concerted effort to combat it by changing its way of life, we’re in big trouble. Is that not so?
> What I think you need to accept is that human nature dictates that unless something is seriously impacting on the everyday lives of most people on the planet, they simply don't care what scientists are telling them about climate change, and that approach will continue until there are impacts on enough people for them to want to make a difference, and that is not going to happen in my lifetimes, or yours.
Which brings us back to the children of the OP. It will happen in their lifetimes and they want to do something about it.
They are the smart ones. They realise that what is sown today is reaped in their lifetimes. They can't reap a climate saving that we're not sowing today. Therefore, today is the time to do something about it. Or Friday, anyway ...
Farming is one analogy, smoking is another. If you're 14 and smoking today, will it harm you today? Should they keep smoking until they get cancer. Or should they go out on Friday and complain that we're effectively shoving cigarettes into their mouths and lighting them when they don't want it? Because WE are responsible and THEY are not, apparently ...
Which brings us back to the children of the OP. It will happen in their lifetimes and they want to do something about it.
They are the smart ones. They realise that what is sown today is reaped in their lifetimes. They can't reap a climate saving that we're not sowing today. Therefore, today is the time to do something about it. Or Friday, anyway ...
Farming is one analogy, smoking is another. If you're 14 and smoking today, will it harm you today? Should they keep smoking until they get cancer. Or should they go out on Friday and complain that we're effectively shoving cigarettes into their mouths and lighting them when they don't want it? Because WE are responsible and THEY are not, apparently ...
"Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man."
Aristotle, I think, but repeated by Ignatius Loyala and Miss Jean Brodie in her prime.
Orwell's "1984" wasn't fiction, it was a description of the very real world of Stalin's Soviet Russia and Mao's China. Societies much admired by many of Orwell's socialist contemporaries.
When people of my age read that book we were grateful that our free society could not - would never - produce the equivalents of a fourteen year-old Hero of the Soviet Union who exposed his own father as a class enemy, or of the the Chinese children who hung placards around the necks of their teachers and excoriated them as "running dogs of capitalism".
But the Orwellian dystopia has[i come to Britain, hasn't it? When somebody (and one without the defence of stupidity) accuses a Nobel Laureate of being a fool, approves the revocation of his formal honour as a professor emeritus, and demands a full apology from the Nobel laureate because of - wait for it - a [i]bad joke], then you know that (a bit late perhaps) 21st century Europe is acquiring the characteristics of Orwell's Eurasia.
Aristotle, I think, but repeated by Ignatius Loyala and Miss Jean Brodie in her prime.
Orwell's "1984" wasn't fiction, it was a description of the very real world of Stalin's Soviet Russia and Mao's China. Societies much admired by many of Orwell's socialist contemporaries.
When people of my age read that book we were grateful that our free society could not - would never - produce the equivalents of a fourteen year-old Hero of the Soviet Union who exposed his own father as a class enemy, or of the the Chinese children who hung placards around the necks of their teachers and excoriated them as "running dogs of capitalism".
But the Orwellian dystopia has[i come to Britain, hasn't it? When somebody (and one without the defence of stupidity) accuses a Nobel Laureate of being a fool, approves the revocation of his formal honour as a professor emeritus, and demands a full apology from the Nobel laureate because of - wait for it - a [i]bad joke], then you know that (a bit late perhaps) 21st century Europe is acquiring the characteristics of Orwell's Eurasia.
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