Idle Sunday thought
Bookworm on Feb 22 2009 at 10:25 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
Yesterday’s news pointed out, yet again, that our data about global warming is wrong. There’ve been a lot of such stories lately, as it turns out that many so-called scientists, accidentally or on purpose, have been grossly exaggerating our impact on the climate. That got me thinking.
There is no doubt that man has the capacity to change dramatically the world around him. We’ve driven species to extinction (the mammoth, the dodo), We’ve turned forests into deserts and deserts into crop lands. We’ve raised cities from nothing and redirected the flow of water. We are indeed powerful. But just how powerful are we, really?
The global warmists invest us with the power to change, not just our immediate environment, but the entire earth, in one flew swoop. As to that, I think there is some serious overreaching, as evidenced by the need to change the numbers to make the point. And this being Sunday, I wondered if the overreaching doesn’t come about, in part, because people who don’t believe in a God somehow see themselves as larger and more powerful than religious people do. After all, religious people accept that there is a force out there, a force that is not human, that created the world and that, presumably, can change the world at will. To the extent that there clearly are forces out there, the atheists, rather than recognizing how puny they are, invest themselves with the God-like power to make global changes.
As I noted at the start of this post, human history shows that we are indeed powerful. But are we as powerful as the warmists now think we are?
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11 Responses to “Idle Sunday thought”
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Could be, but I see it as just another conservative institution that liberals have arrogated control over and corrupted to suit their needs. This is a repeating theme we’ve seen in the institutions like marriage, mortgage lending, the Ford Foundation, the courts, the census, public education, etc. “Progressives” gain control of these institutions that have built up influence and stature over decades or centuries of hard work, adherence to principles, and production of real-world results, and bend them to suit the “needs of society” (as liberals perceive them) and to make their effects more “fair” and “egalitarian”. In the process, they destroy the usefulness of these institutions, waste the accumulated resources, and tear large holes in a functional civilization. Now they’re doing it with science, mis-using its stature to force the change they want on society, and destroying in the process science as an institution and the progress it could have brought us. Who’s going to put any faith in the “scientific consensus” after this?
Anyway, it’s probably a combination of things, different players in the AGW follies have different motivations, The search for something greater than ourselves is almost certainly it for some of them, along with liberal guilt and the yearning to return to the Garden.
I do think that you are on to something here, Book. As fallen angels, isn’t it logical that the atheists would arrogate God-like powers to themselves?
And in other news,
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-to-announce-cap-n-trade-policy.html
The loss of jobs combined with ever increasing debt is leading this country into the abyss.
One thing that struck me about the report. They tell us that the ice cap in 2007 was the smallest in history–which may or may not be accurate. Then as proof that warming continues, they tell us the ice cap in 2008 was the SECOND smallest in history. Well, it seems to me that means that the ice cap was INCREASING in 2008.
I don’t know if the error in reporting this year is significant or not. The experts claim it is a short-term error that would have been corrected, even if outside observers had not called it to their attention. Maybe, maybe not.
We have reached the point that every statement by an official or semi-official agency must be read and parsed with great care. Do we thank Bill Clinton for this?
“flew swoop” ? fell swoop perhaps ?
Yes, you are quite right, the green church and its disciples have tapped a spiritual vein, and the current passion for their beliefs will cause intense disillusionment with science and politicians when the vein collapses as it must.
Notice how a mistake that “fits the paradigm” is completely missed by the purveyors of the paradigm…..I’m betting dollars to donuts that if those sensors had indicated a rapidly growing icecap they would have checked it out six ways to Sunday.
So easy to put on the blinkers when we buy into a belief system — so easy to see it in others and so hard to see how WE do the same thing.
Take ‘em off, folks — honesty is the best policy, and leads to better long-term results, as well.
The climate on earth has always waxed and waned between warm periods and ice ages. Why is cooler better? I don’t think Algore has ever addressed that point.
Gore wants the Earth to end in ice, not fire.
The climate on earth has always waxed and waned between warm periods and ice ages.
Not when Obama makes things equal again. Wait for the Salvation. And drink the Kool Aid. We are in for a Better World Ellen.
Link
Woohoo!
“This is a good death. There’s no shame in this, in a man’s death; a man who has done… fine works.
We’re making a better world. All of them. Better worlds…”
The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) Serenity
Thanks, Y, for the reference to Serenity – one of my favorite sci-fi flicks of the past few years.
Browncoats, unite!
Glad to see another fan, Bob.
And for those of you here that don’t get the references, all you have to do is to watch the DVD/Movie ; )