from the a-Republican-speaking-sense-to-other-Republicans-and-others dept.
The Center for American Progress reports:
Arnold Schwarzenegger posted a note on Facebook on [December 7] that made a very good point about climate change and renewable energy: It really doesn't matter what you believe.
The former California governor addressed people who think climate change is a conspiracy or a hoax, and asked them whether the deaths from pollution are acceptable, whether fossil fuels will last forever, and--to paraphrase greatly--what kind of world they want to live in. This excerpt pretty much sums up his argument to climate deniers.
There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.
I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.
I'm guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice--who would ever want to breathe those fumes?
It's a strong point, but even more importantly, it's a bipartisan point. We are in an era where addressing climate change is largely split down party lines, especially in Congress. Moderate Republicans like Schwarzenegger, who believe a healthy environment and climate are public goods, haven't yet been able to sway people who think that clean energy is going to kill the economy.
But Schwarzenegger should know that a green economy can work. As governor of California, he worked with the Democratic-led legislature to enact the nation's first comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions reduction law and the nation's first low-carbon fuel standard. Now California is the nation's leader in both solar installations and solar jobs.
2 nitpicks: If it's electric, it's called a motor, not an engine. "Power plant" would have been more apt.
The electric car would need a way to allow the wheels to turn without the car going anywhere.
...and if the gasoline car's engine is "running full blast", you'll need a load (dynamometer).
Otherwise: Brilliant.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @08:11PM
"Moderate Republicans like Schwarzenegger, who believe a healthy environment and climate are public goods, haven't yet been able to sway people who think that clean energy is going to kill the economy."
lol, because running out of energy and/or mass human die-offs are so good for the economy instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:09PM
Conservatives only think short term.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by davester666 on Monday December 14 2015, @07:19AM
There's is no such person as a "moderate Republican". The term for such a person is traitor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Monday December 14 2015, @03:13PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @04:16PM
Someone who actually gets it.
I tell my fellow republicans 'it does not matter, you want less pollution'. Pollution is waste. Waste costs money.
Remember 'give a hoot dont pollute' it is simple and works. When people start speculating about the possible consequences that is where it went off the rails.
People are using the 'well its not that bad' argument. Then the other side took that and doubled down on it and wanted to quantify 'how bad is it'.
It is simple dont pollute. That is impossible to do I know. But you can minimize what you do. You can vote with your wallet and change the way companies act.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday December 14 2015, @05:25PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Insightful) by iWantToKeepAnon on Sunday December 13 2015, @08:15PM
Also Behind Door Number Two ...
... is a coal burning power plant.
... is a nuclear reactor
... is a wind turbine ... well not so much because there'd be no wind in the room.
By putting the power generator out of the room doesn't mean it comes free. Yes I know there are "green energies" but until it becomes the majority of energy people put in their electric cars, it just a shell(tm) game. Those "electric engines" aren't running on altruism.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @08:28PM
Not really since the stats show a greater and greater use of renewable energy sources which will mean less pollution. If we keep gas powered cars then renewable energy can only go so far to clean things up. All modern technology results in pollution, but oil is far and away one of the biggest polluters.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 15 2015, @12:10AM
When you say greater and greater. You mean 1 - 2 % more market share this year, right? As opposed to a more significant change, which you are implying, but isn't actually happening. Don't get me wrong, I love the thought of harnessing that nuclear reactor in the sky, but it's not economically viable yet. There's also a huge uphill battle against the entrenched power industry. Shouting at the top of your lungs that the USA is horrible in regards to pollution doesn't make it so. Especially when you compare our worst polluting cities against the worst polluting cities of the world. We are actually doing a pretty decent job. http://waqi.info/ [waqi.info] According to the World Air Quality Information site we are doing a Very Good job compared to Europe and China.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @08:46PM
Quite often I write what I think is a well written argument, with clear logic, reasoning, citations and links, but nobody reads em, they don't even seem to read my first paragraph. I might even get called names along the way...
Maybe by the time you fit half the paragraph in their head the first words are overflowing out from various orifices.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Monday December 14 2015, @12:35AM
Yes --
Remember, this message was not sent to us because we are high IQ people that are being personally contacted to both critique and implement his vision.
It was written for the commoner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @11:19AM
Your brilliant shit fails to convince so of course it's the readers' fault.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:01PM
The nuke can be just fine if well managed. So can the wind turbine. Even the coal plant can be less problem since it's easier to clean the emissions of a stationary power source and they run at a much higher efficiency (though that gets lost in transmission so it's more of a wash).
But a big advantage is that as we upgrade our mas power production, electric vehicles share the upgrade for free.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:41PM
But a big advantage is that as we upgrade our mas power production, electric vehicles share the upgrade for free.
Well said.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by r1348 on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:30PM
You did not get the point, or at least, you didn't scale up to it. The sealed room represents a closed system like our planet, the car engines are the way we use energy.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Monday December 14 2015, @04:50PM
I got the point exactly which is why the missing power source for room #2 is so conspicuous! That's why this IS a strawman argument, he set up the Environment Hating Gas Burners and ran a bayonet through them while holding up the peace loving Environment Loving EC drivers.
Don't misunderstand my comment tho, I live close to work and drive far less than my peers and I drive a very efficient car. I'd love to have a Tesla; once they get into my price range. But I don't think tricking people into caring is the right way. Once people find out they've been tricked, there could be a backlash worse than taking the time to convince them in the first place.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday December 14 2015, @06:50PM
You still miss the point. It's not about cars, it's about the entire system. The cars are just an analogy. It's not meant to be taken literally. It's not "Everyone go buy electric cars! No pollution!" -- it's "Hey, maybe we should switch to technology that pollutes less, because we're trapped in here with whatever pollution we produce."
And if you want to get really technical, you can't say the power source is missing because *he didn't specify which model of cars*. You can find electric cars with solar panels at least. Sure, the ones fully powered by the solar panels aren't ones you'd be driving around town on a daily basis...but they're still electric cars. So at worst, it's rather vague. Which is generally what you'd expect for a metaphor...
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday December 15 2015, @09:27PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 16 2015, @04:34PM
And I gave an example of a functional electric car. I don't see your point...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VanessaE on Monday December 14 2015, @04:49AM
Ok let's take this to its logical conclusion:
Assume you've pushed a brand spankin' new, fully-built, fully-equipped, ready-to-operate car into each room, with all of the accessories each would ordinarily come supplied with on the retail market (e.g. the electric comes with its charge cable, the ICE comes with a set of jumper cables, etc). There is one caveat: both cars are empty -- the ICE has zero fuel and the electric has a totally flat battery. Further assume the two rooms have dynos so that the cars can both be run at maximum (safe) load., and that both have lots of windows and skylights (and low-power electric service for nighttime lighting).
Now, you have to put everything into those rooms that is necessary to get those cars running and keep them going until they break down, someone dies, or the test is otherwise declared "finished".
Both cars of course need tires, battery electrolyte, and perhaps brake fluid, but we can safely assume both cars use these at the same rates (if at all). The electric car presumably needs a fluid-based battery cooling system, but those are sealed and hence non-consumable.
Since none of the machinery is turned on and no fuel or electric is allowed to be produced until the rooms have been sealed, you aren't allowed to vent any waste gasses out of the room.
Your ICE will need fuel, so lets go as green as possible: let's put in one of those bio-diesel production devices (the ones the size of a conventional "gas pump"), a supply of cooking oil and chemicals to process it, and storage areas for the byproducts and waste from that production process. Like the electric car, we're allowed to take as long as we want to produce the fuel, and one of those standalone generators surely doesn't use much power, so let's use solar concentrators at the windows, Stirling engines, and conventional generators to run it. You'll probably need some engine oil eventually, but it can be made from vegetable oil also, so let's do a little hand-waving and say that the bio-diesel device makes it as a side effect of its fuel-production process.
The electric car doesn't consume any of the above petroleum products. What it still needs, however, is in-the-room power facilities, as with the ICE room. We're not allowed to draw from the room's electric service, but since we're allowed to take as long as we want to get the car running, we can also go with the same solar/Stirling/generator set-up as the ICE room has.
Now start/initiate both cars and stomp on the accelerator.
The electric is just...running. About all it's producing as "waste" is heat.
The ICE, meanwhile, is producing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, low levels nitrogen oxides, a tiny amount of soot, and a lot of heat.
No matter how far down the production chain you go, the electric is still cleaner.
(Score: 2) by skater on Monday December 14 2015, @01:04PM
Read the comments. There's a guy claiming pollution is fine "as long as the room is large enough". And, "We need fusion power." No word on how fusion power is going to be useful in a car. I assume it's either using electric cars, which he seemed to be against, or a fusion nuclear reactor in each car.
Better yet, don't read the comments. Little good comes from reading comments on Facebook and the like.
(Score: 2) by Aichon on Monday December 14 2015, @06:23PM
Yeah. My first thought was similar, but in the other direction, since behind Door Number One would also be the entire carbon dioxide cycle (e.g. trees). And once you take that into consideration, you're pretty much back to square one, since we're back in partisan territory of whether or not we're producing more CO2 than the world can process.
Not exactly a convincing argument. It's the sort of poor oversimplification that I'd call out, regardless of my agreement or disagreement with it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Monday December 14 2015, @06:59PM
I think you're missing the point of the argument.
Maybe the trees will clean it up. Maybe not. But you know what you don't often find in the middle of a city? Massive forests. You know what you do find? Lots of people, and lots of pollution. So sure, maybe that pollution gets cleaned up eventually. But probably only after being filtered through many human lungs.
The reason it says this argument "Republican-Proof" is because global warming doesn't matter. Whether or not the trees will clean it up doesn't matter. You're still breathing all that crap. Although this is hardly a new argument -- I think this was pretty much the original ecological argument. "Don't spoil the view" environmentalism.
(Score: 2) by Aichon on Monday December 14 2015, @07:23PM
Maybe I am missing the point, but if so, I'd suggest it's a point not worth making, since I'd argue that whether or not we breathe it is irrelevant to anyone who understands even elementary-level science (which, admittedly, may be more than we can ask of the people at whom he's targeting his remarks). The simple truth is that we've always breathed it, we're currently breathing it, and we'll always breathe it. CO2 is a necessary part of the ecosystem that keeps the things alive that keep us alive. The only question is how much the amount of it will change over time, and for that, you need to consider the entire ecosystem, which gets into partisan territory, as I said.
Arguments along the lines of "you wouldn't want to be locked in a room with a massive overdose of $RANDOM_SUBSTANCE, so why would you allow yourself to be exposed to it at all?" are roughly on par with Buzzfeed-esque "did you know that $FAVORITE_FOOD contains a chemical that's also used in [cosmetics|fertilizers|plastics]?" when it comes to how highly I esteem their scientific rigor.
In the end, his analogy is a simplistic argument aimed at simple-minded people. For them, it may work, but what we need are simple arguments, not simplistic arguments.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday December 14 2015, @07:39PM
And which ICE emits nothing but pure CO2?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @08:38PM
His thought experiment doesn't tell me anything about global warming. It seems to be more about smoggy cities, for which California is famous.
Powering electric cars with our current sources of electricity is not pollution-free, but if the power plants are situated away from cities, then city people suffer less from air pollution. Pollution from a few power plants is easier to monitor and ameliorate than pollution from thousands of cars. Using electric cars (buses? trains?) doesn't imply that we stop burning fossil fuels.
After running for a few minutes, California cars don't emit much carbon monoxide: the catalytic converter, once warmed up, turns it into carbon dioxide. The thing to worry about would be that the engine would use up all the oxygen in the room. If I had to go in that room, I'd get into the car's cabin, close the vents and just wait it out. The cabin would contain more than enough air to sustain me for an hour. If the car were locked I'd (attempt to) break a window to get in, then cover it with a piece of my clothing. If I could break off one of the side mirrors, it might contain a metal bit with which I could break the window...car windows are tough. That approach might not work on a planetary scale.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:25PM
...or, you could just go sit in the room with the electric car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:17PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:23PM
Say we replace all energy needs using solar panels today, money is no object and people can be moved. What is the minimum area of the earth's surface we would need to cover with these extremely low albedo solar panels? What effect will this have on temperature?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tibman on Sunday December 13 2015, @10:53PM
Google'd and found this: http://gizmodo.com/5350191/how-many-solar-panels-would-it-take-to-power-the-entire-world [gizmodo.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:53PM
From that link I got the estimate "Just 496,905 square kilometers". So this would be like losing the albedo[1] due to the largest iceberg[2] 50x. The temperature would be affected similarly except this would be energy absorbed near the equator where insolation is much higher. What would be the effect on overall albedo?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-albedo_feedback [wikipedia.org]
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gnuman on Monday December 14 2015, @05:03PM
From that link I got the estimate "Just 496,905 square kilometers"
Oh, for Pete's sake. There is 80,000,000 house rooftops in US alone, ignoring WalMarts which would probable double the area. Each one about 1500 sq. ft. facing the sunny side. So that's 11,000 sq. km already. And since US has less than 5% of world's population, then it only needs 5% of total energy, right? Which means HALF of that 5% is already provided by rooftop solar alone, never mind nuclear power, never mind hydroelectric, never mind wind or actual solar collectors in places like deserts.
We don't need fossil fuels anymore. But we certainly need ALL types of other fuel sources to make this work, not just solar. But as you can hopefully see, even just solar gets us part of the way there.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday December 14 2015, @05:32PM
Only if it wants to have the same shitty capacity as much of the rest of the world. I.e. "wrong!".
Using your logic on another finite resource, it only needs 5% of the world's mobile devices - would you care to find 200+ million in the US who are willing to give up their phone/tablet?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:39PM
This time it's a retired bodybilder who pretends to be actor. Another stupid asshole in the pack.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:58PM
Yeah. Damn hippy FAGs (film actors guild) need to shut up and get back in the kitchen.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 14 2015, @01:11AM
Well, if you've ever wondered what an "Ad Hominem" was, this is an excellent example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @06:43AM
Not true. An ad hominem is when an insult is used as the premise of an argument. Merely insulting someone is not fallacious.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Username on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:41PM
It was 53 degrees Fahrenheit today. A record high. Beating out 52 degrees back in 1920.
I have yet to scrape my windshield, or shovel snow this winter. It has been the nicest December so far that I can remember.
Thank you Global Warming, Climate Change and the big oil companies. Without you I do not think this would be possible.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @01:53AM
In SoCal, we depend on snowfall in the mountains in Winter to form snowpack which melts during the rest of the year to provide a significant portion of our water supply.
Snowpack has been very low for several years and we have been drought.
Water conservation measures have been mandated.
I expect those to become more strict soon.
...and it sounds like you might be some place that Hurricane Sandy (1000 miles across) pounded.
With more heat energy in the atmosphere and oceans storms will become more frequent and larger.
A significant portion of the the population lives in low-lying areas near the ocean.
Sea level rise will make some properties useless and other properties more susceptible to storms.
In Arizona, they joke about the water coming out of the Cold tap being hotter than what comes out of the Hot tap.
In SoCal in 2010, we had a 113F day.
I'm expecting to see more of those.
Think there is northward migration -now- from folks seeking a better place?
How do you feel about company showing up?
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @02:01AM
Portland, Maine will be a boomtown in thirty years, but it's too early to start buying up property.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @10:28AM
Winter is still a week away.
(Score: -1, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:51PM
What does this article prove?
That martyb is a clickbaiting douche for posting this horrid article more suited for buzzfeed than a site that claims to strive for a slightly elevated discourse. That gewg_ is an idiot for submitting it. That Soros's Center for American Progress is scientifically illiterate. That once again we see why the governator was a much better idea than an actual leader.
Others have already explained the idiocy of the actual proposal and that (other than a few fuel cell driven cars) electric cars simply externalize their carbon emissions, etc.
No, I want to call out the utter unseriousness of the progs displayed by their highlighting of this stupid idea. Is it any wonder that sensible people doubt them when they squander their reputation like this on an almost daily basis? Is it really unreasonable to believe progs are scientifically illiterate when they promote utter garbage like this? And they do it right after Obama & Lurch just got finished preening for the cameras after their great 'climate change agreement' that even James Hansen says is a joke. It was purely for political posturing, even if you believe in the AGW nonsense you can't seriously defend the agreement as likely to do anything to solve the problem, just throw a lot of money around to grease the political skids.
This is a symptom of the general failure of the political class. The masses throughout the developed world are now beginning to understand that the emperor has no clothes. The idea is quickly spreading that the 'smart ruling elite' are incompetent boobs leading us into civilizational suicide. This is going to get messy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:56PM
(((Soros)))
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday December 14 2015, @12:26AM
I am wondering who the civilians are that are seeing through the clothes. I suppose a few us us in ivory towers of our making (stained with the pollution of our fossil fuel society, no less) may notice the problem... but a lot of people seem to be endorsing the likes of Trump, or if not endorsing Trump, endorsing the likes of people copying Trump.
They're wrapping the guy up in the emperor robes... they aren't seeing through anything.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 14 2015, @01:02AM
Ok, Republican resistant, then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @01:21AM
I feel like gewg_ is becoming the new Phoenix666 with all the clickbait BuzzFeedesque articles on climate change, graphene, and so on. Which is funny, because I like some of Phoenix666's most recent submissions, but that's primarily because they're covering his main level of expertise: programming. Phoenix666, those articles are far better than the dreck that was previously being submitted here; feel free to add more articles on programming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @02:03AM
You seem to have missed a phase in the history of this site.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @11:26AM
And you need to upgrade your troll-fu. This one is a disgrace.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 14 2015, @12:41PM
You should submit the articles you would like to appear on the home page. Anybody can. There's a wiki, linked to from the left-hand margin, that shows you how.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:55PM
Honest question: If climate change is a conspiracy, what is motivation of the conspirators? What do they have to gain?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @10:33PM
The answer is not 42, it's always money.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Fluffeh on Sunday December 13 2015, @10:39PM
If you are assuming that the conspiracy is that there is no climate change - and the conspirators are the ones saying that there is - then clearly they are trying to either make a greener world on someone else's dime or are pushing their own brand of clean-energy something-or-others.
If on the other hand you are saying that the conspiracy is in deniers saying that there is no such thing - then they are clearly looking out for their current interests in making money through their current ways and don't want some upstart coming in and telling them or their business to clean up it's act for the sake of the rest of the world.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:34PM
> Honest question: If climate change is a conspiracy, what is motivation of the conspirators? What do they have to gain?
That, sweet, sweet research grant money!
Big Oil's trillions of dollars in revenue is just a drop in the bucket compared to all the money those baller scientists are getting suckling at the sweet teat of the government.
Seriously, that's what deniers believe.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 14 2015, @01:17PM
Big Oil's trillions of dollars in revenue is just a drop in the bucket compared to all the money those baller scientists are getting suckling at the sweet teat of the government.
Why should we expect Big Oil resistance to "climate change"? They're making record profits off of this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @04:15PM
You're leaving out power, and not in the oil/solar sense. A large part of all of the stop global warming proposals include vast expansions of government power. Which is really the default mode of operation for a bureaucracy, but doesn't do anything but encourage the conspiracy theories.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 14 2015, @08:33PM
Breathing in L.A., avoiding river fires, and unleaded gasoline were once considered vast expansions of government overreach landgrabbing too...
(Score: 1) by AlphaMan on Monday December 14 2015, @10:22PM
The other "motivations" I've heard are "they want to wreck the world's economy" and "they want to control our lives". So, it looks like a dead heat for stupidest reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @12:01AM
They want to get good environment for free, which is a communist’s idea.
We need a market for clean earth so we can make money selling it to people. To get there it has to be polluted first. In fact the only way to get people from one commodity to the next is to exhaust the old one. For example, we used to have whales for oil and once we killed most of them we switched to fossil oil. That's capitalist's way.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @01:59AM
More significantly, a dude named Drake noticed that, in some places in Pennsylvania, petroleum oozes to the surface.
He figured if he drilled down he would find more and could pump that out.
His experiment was successful.
...and it was cheaper to get that stuff than to get whale oil.
To overcome the blind profit-driven greed of incumbent businesses continuing to do the things which are destroying the ecosystem will require courage on the part of some politicians.
...and, I suspect, a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jiro on Monday December 14 2015, @12:54AM
One possible answer is carbon taxes, but a simpler one is "nothing". People are capable of doing all sorts of things for their ideology and prejudices. These things need not have any prospect of any benefit more concrete than "we're good guys and they're bad guys". What did the movie industry hope to get by blacklisting Communists in the 1950's? Nothing, really. You could blame it on the public hating Communists, but what did the public hope to get by not watching movies run by Communists? Did they seriously think that their movie ticket would bring them some financial harm? Or did they just want to stick it to the Russkies regardless of whether they benefitted from it or not?
What do KKK members get from hurting blacks? Nothing--except they don't like blacks very much so they value hurting them. Plenty of people don't like the right or businesses very much and would do lots of things to take them down a peg and make them get what's coming to them.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Monday December 14 2015, @02:39AM
If we are looking for the simpler explanation, which of the following seems more plausible:
A) Based on a preponderance of empirical data and modeling, a majority of the international community of scientists concludes that climate change is occurring and the consequences to society could be dire.
B) A majority of the international community of scientist have conspired to perpetrate the hoax of climate change because "they don't like businesses very much."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Monday December 14 2015, @05:09AM
No, it's not brilliant, it's a stupid, dishonest analogy. Yes, historically, you'll die if you go in a closed room with a car for long enough, because of carbon monoxide -- not dioxide -- poisoning. For new cars, it's actually no longer a good suicide method, though, because of emissions control: http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods/carbon-monoxide-co-poisoning [lostallhope.com]
But the world isn't a closed room, and there is zilch chance we'll kill ourselves off through CO poisoning even if we burn all the oil, gas, and coal in the world several times over. It's as dishonest as saying, "look what happened to Venus!". Global warming will not cause a runaway greenhouse effect evaporating the ocean; there is zero chance of the Earth becoming Venus.
Global warming can cause serious problems, and we have to deal with it. But dishonest analogies like that just give deniers ammunition to accuse the side of science of being dishonest.
(Score: 5, Funny) by isostatic on Monday December 14 2015, @02:11PM
For new cars, it's actually no longer a good suicide method, though, because of emissions control
That's why I buy Volkswagen [wikipedia.org]. You can always rely on Germany when you need to gas someone in a locked room.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @08:51AM
Finally someone who gets it.
Over here in Denmark, where (almost) all political parties agree on climate change, the rhetoric has for the last 20 years been that if we don't cut down on CO2, the weather is going to get as nice as the places where we like to (fly or drive) every time we have more than two days off.
And they wonder why nobody takes global warming seriously.
If they would instead focus on the stuff that everybody understands is bad for you (CO, particles, SO2) to get people to cut down on energy use, CO2 is going to come down also. And probably come down much further than with the current threats of nicer weather.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @11:33AM
I don't mind flamebait every now and then. It lets some blow their steams off, and can be entertaining. But in the interest of varied ... interests, can we flag such posts, like "breaking news" and "ask ..."? Say, "for a good time".
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday December 14 2015, @02:29PM
Space elevator when?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @07:34PM
The engineer in me wonders how hot the sealed room would be after a 50-100kWh battery had discharged inside it for an hour. An oven might use 10kW running full blast.