Global Warming, End Times, and Heresy, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #383 | @MDWorld
December 2, 2014 Mike Gold 4 Comments
According to the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute and the American Academy of Religion, 51% of all Americans believe we are indeed experiencing climate change – global warming, as it also is known. However, that half does not believe this is happening as the result of scientifically provable data. Oh, no. Not at all.
They say it’s because we are entering End Times. Cue the dramatic, frightening music sting.
77% of Evangelicals believe this is the case, but that’s to be expected. Indeed, I’m surprised that particular number is so low.
Let us step back for a moment and discuss the difference between “democracy” and “reality.” To put an old argument of mine into a different perspective, please for the purpose of this paragraph accept the following hypothetical. Let us say that 51% of the American people do not believe in the theory of gravity. That’s a clear democratic victory for the gravity deniers. But it does not change the reality that if you step out of a sixth floor window, you are quite likely to splatter.
Now if this example were not a hypothetical, I’d be the first one shouting “jump, you idiot, jump!” under the belief that I would be making the world a better place.
The reality is, virtually all of the experts – over 99% of climatologists, atmospheric scientists, et al – believe we humans are causing our climate to warm. The fact is, global warming is real and we’ve got the stats to prove it… as well as earthquakes, snowstorms, ice storms, hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, droughts and the depletion of the fish population. Western United States has been in a drought since George W. Bush was in his first term – not that I’m blaming Bush, for a change.
If you’d rather view this subject in political terms, the issue of climate change is supported by 65% of the Democrats surveyed, and 22% of Republicans. This is quite a surprise. I would have never guessed over one-fifth of Republicans believe in climate change.
Last week a major snowstorm / cold wave hit over one-third of the nation. The city of Buffalo, on the eastern shore of Lake Erie and a bit southwest of Lake Ontario, was hit with up to seven feet of snow. Immediately, the climate deniers said “Haw, haw, haw, so much for global warming! Buffalo got seven feet of snow, so there is no global warming. Eat it, heathen liberals!”
These fools say that every winter. The fact of the matter is, global warming is exactly the cause of the Buffalo storm. The ever-rising levels of carbon dioxide heats up the atmosphere, and therefore the Great Lakes have been enduring an ever-increasing average water temperature. Keep in mind that every single degree makes a significant difference.
The winds run over these bodies of water, generally out of the west. They pick up a lot of moisture off of the heated water. This water combines with the typical late fall temperatures and produces snow in places like Buffalo, and ridiculously powerful hurricanes in places like New Orleans. Not that Buffalo and New Orleans weren’t prone to bad weather previously, but now it’s approaching a lethal stage.
As for the self-righteous belief end of the argument, let me bring to your attention the trials of Galileo Galilei. A scientist, he proved by scientific means that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun, among many, many other things. But the Christian bible says the sun revolves around the Earth, so upon orders from Pope Urban VIII he spent the final decade of his life under house arrest. Of course, eventually even the religionists couldn’t deny their bibles were wrong, and Galileo got pardoned.
Let’s see – Galileo was convicted in 1633, and he was pardoned by Pope John Paul II in 1992. That means Galileo spent around 329 years smoking a turd in hell for what most (or at least many) religionists accept today as fact.
When it comes to global warming, we do not have 329 years to dick around. If I’m wrong about scientific fact and it’s all the fault of End Times… well, if End Times means I won’t have to put up with these dangerously stupid, brainwashed assholes, then bring it on.
These fools are going to get us all killed.
Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com and on iNetRadio, www.iNetRadio.com as part of “Hit Oldies” every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check www.getthepointradio.com above for times and on-demand streaming information. Gold also joins MDW’s Michael Davis and Martha Thomases as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.
R. Maheras
December 2, 2014 - 10:55 am
I’m sorry, Mike, but anyone who believes they can control the climate and make it benign simply by reducing CO2 emissions in the United States, they’re as misguided as the folks who thought the Sun revolved around the Earth.
Now if someone were to argue that it might be wise to reduce CO2 emissions to reduce respiratory illnesses, that’s a different story.
But any scientist who honestly thinks we can control the climate to do our bidding is either an arrogant idiot or a snake oil salesman.
These “models” that climatologists use to make these startling long-term predictions cannot even accurately predict the annual Atlantic hurricane season EVEN THOUGH THEY WAIT UNTIL A WEEK BEFORE THE HURRICANE SEASON STARTS TO MAKE THEIR PREDICTIONS. In the past 15 seasons, for example, NOAA has only guessed right on the number of named storms and hurricanes three times — even though they always give themselves a wide prediction spread.
For example, in 2010, they predicted between 14-23 named storms and between 8-14 hurricanes. The actual number was 19 and 12, respectively. But in 2012, they got both guesses wrong by a wide margin. They predicted 9-15 named storms and 4-8 hurricanes. The actual number was 19 named storms and 10 hurricanes. In 2013 they guessed even worse for hurricanes. They predicted between 7-11. There were actually two.
So if I were betting trillions of dollars of the world’s economy on such models, I’d be back-pedaling pretty damn hard.
Besides, the way I see it, Global Warming is probably far more desirable than Global Cooling, because paleoclimatological records show that when much of the world’s atmospheric moisture is locked up in ice, worldwide rainfall is severely curtailed. I may be stupid, but I always thought more rain was a good thing.
Rene
December 2, 2014 - 4:52 pm
Russ –
Sure, scientists always exaggerate with the doomsday predictions, and they do have a rather unfounded “faith” that the materialistic paradigm of modern science is an accurate model and predictor of reality in all respects.
But do you actually believe that the usual suspects in big business would just roll over and agree, if the main argument of environmentalist were switched from global warming to an increase in respiratory illnesses?
If you believe that then, boy, do I have to introduce you to some of those snake oil salesmen. When it comes to stuff that endangers their profits, businessmen have to be dragged kicked and screaming. Just look at how many decades it took for them to admit that smoking isn’t healthy.
As for the cheerleaders of big business among the Conservative political class, well, THEIR faith in the religion of free market capitalism is even greater than the scientific community faith in the predictive powers of their science. The reason they always oppose environmental policies isn’t that those green freaks make exaggerated arguments. It’s really because environmental impact is a big, gaping hole in the theory that free market capitalism is perfect and beautiful and optimum in all things and situations.
(Though I must add, just as an interesting aside, that 20th century communism has proved to be even more destructive of the environment)
R. Maheras
December 3, 2014 - 12:41 pm
Rene — I don’t care about what Big Business wants, per se. They obviously have an agenda.
That said, I do know that without Big Business, industry and technology, it would be impossible to sustain even a fraction of the world’s current population.
Rene
December 3, 2014 - 3:55 pm
Russ –
True. If that is a good or bad thing, that is a whole another discussion.
George Haberberger
December 3, 2014 - 4:12 pm
“True. If that is a good or bad thing, that is a whole another discussion.”
It’s a bad thing if you’re in the fraction of the world’s population that that couldn’t be sustained without business, industry and technology.
And if you’re in the other portion of the population that could be sustained without business, industry and technology… well, it’s still a bad thing because millions of people would be dead.
Rene
December 4, 2014 - 3:18 pm
Nonexistence isn’t the same as death. It’s likely that without, say, mass production of manufactured goods, lots of people would never have been born in the first place.
Or, maybe, without the mass production of arms and vehicles, the unbelievable death toll of both World Wars would not have happened either.
In any case, I have some distrust of anyone who thinks that industry, business, or technology are unambiguously good OR unambiguosly bad.
Dwight Williams
December 6, 2014 - 6:56 pm
And it’s clear that your blog entries are being targeted for “astroturfing”, Mike.
You’ve been deemed a threat. Congratulations.
R. Maheras
December 9, 2014 - 1:51 pm
Dwight — If you’re talking about me, you’re wrong. I’ve been a comics guy since 1967, and I’ve been following the whole “Climate Change” issue since the early 1970s — although back then almost no one was making a “Global Warming” argument. The media was talking back then about how we were on the cusp of the next Ice Age.
In addition, I only post comments on a handful of comics-related sites.
So your “astroturfing” comment, in my case at least, would be nonsense.