Big Government Republicans and former elected Rep Bob Inglis is super excited to browbeat people into supporting a government tax in a unique and exciting way
Climate change disputers are actually innovation pessimists
Climate action is being blocked more by pessimism about innovation than skepticism about causation. Scratch a climate skeptic, and you’ll find an innovation pessimist. They don’t believe it can be done. Overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, they assume that we can’t change our trajectory. Secretly, they’re depressed about it. They need hope.
Had these pessimists been in the stadium at Rice University in September of 1963, they might have chanted “No way†when President Kennedy said of the Mariner spacecraft then on its way to Venus, “The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.â€
Innovation pessimists are right to point out that the drive for innovation was more immediate and more visible in 1963. The Soviet’s launch of Sputnik had raised the specter of a goose-stepping, hostile power in control of space. We were unified, and our response was completely within our control.
Climate change crawls and creeps; it doesn’t goose step. Addressing it requires a coordinated global response, and innovation pessimists are right to doubt the ability of the United Nations and the ability of the regulatory state to solve the problem.
This is so beyond stupid, that it almost doesn’t even deserve rebuttal. Especially since Bob hasn’t proven that the climate has changed mostly/solely due to mankind’s output of greenhouse gases. It’s cute how he throws in the Nazi reference to “good step.”
When he gives up his own use of fossil fuels and makes his life carbon neutral I might consider listening.
Scientific theories, including the theory that greenhouse gases are responsible for the current warming of the Earth, are never proven.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/has-evolution-been-proven/
We can agree on some facts concerning global warming:
-The Earth has been warming in fits and starts for a century or so.
-Atmospheric CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) have been increasing steadily during that time (CO2 currently over 400 ppm, the highest in nearly 1 million years).
-The increased atmospheric CO2 is derived from burning fossil fuels.
-Unlike the two main atmospheric gases oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2), CO2 absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation (IR), and emits it in all directions, including back toward Earth.
-IR leaving the Earth has been reduced over the past several decades, particularly at wavelengths of IR absorbed by CO2 (and by methane, CH4).
-Increased IR at wavelengths absorbed and re-emitted by greenhouse gases are measured at the Earth’s surface.
It is scientifically reasonable to expect (hypothesize, theorize) that increasing greenhouse gases would result in warming. It is further reasonable to expect that other physical processes play a role in Earth’s climate, such processes as ocean currents, albedo, volcanoes, atmospheric aerosols, changes in the Sun, changes in Earth’s orbits, El Nino, La Nina etc etc.
The Earth is warming. The most reasonable explanation is that it results from increased greenhouse gases.
Some may not like the political implications of greenhouse gas emissions causing the Earth to warm, but that’s a different argument.
What’s this “we”?
You’re the only one buying it because it fits the Commies’ confiscatory agenda.
Scientific theories, including the theory that greenhouse gases are responsible for the current warming of the Earth, are never proven.
“Never”? What you know about science could fit on the head of a pin.
Which of the facts I listed will you refute?
We know for sure that CO2 is causing more IR to be directed back to Earth. It would be surprising, scientifically, if the Earth WAS NOT warming.
Uh, not quite. Theories have to be testable, repeatable and predictive.
So far GHG theory has not conformed to the scientific method.
But no one expects the little guy to understand that since he’s been told so often.
I’m all for scientific innovation, what’s called for is a simple automatic switch to cut off all electricity to gore-bull warming moonbats whenever the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Let them huddle in the dark in mud huts and caves.
I was ready to agree with you until I read what Rep. Inglis wrote. I don’t believe skeptics are innovation pessimists, I do believe they oppose global warming remediation out of ideology – they oppose any addition to government. No reasonable person can deny that the Earth is warming or deny that greenhouses gases are the primary cause. They are skeptical because they strongly disagree with the potential “fixes” – primarily a tariff on fossil fuels to align pricing with the true societal costs. Why accept tariffs on motorcycles, soybeans, steel and aluminum but reject tariffs for fossil fuels? Read on:
We hear that argument quite often. Why would what someone else does dictate your understanding of a scientific argument? It sounds as if your argument is political, not scientific.