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Astrophysicist Adam Frank has an interesting article in The New York Times postulating one answer to the Fermi paradox — that human evolution into a globe-spanning industrial culture is forcing us through the narrow bottleneck of a sustainability crisis and that climate change is fate and nothing we do today matters because civilization inevitably leads to catastrophic planetary changes. According to Frank, our current sustainability crisis may be neither politically contingent nor unique, but a natural consequence of laws governing how planets and life of any kind, anywhere, must interact. Some excerpts:
The defining feature of a technological civilization is the capacity to intensively “harvest” energy. But the basic physics of energy, heat and work known as thermodynamics tell us that waste, or what we physicists call entropy, must be generated and dumped back into the environment in the process. Human civilization currently harvests around 100 billion megawatt hours of energy each year and dumps 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the planetary system, which is why the atmosphere is holding more heat and the oceans are acidifying.
All forms of intensive energy-harvesting will have feedbacks, even if some are more powerful than others. A study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, found that extracting energy from wind power on a huge scale can cause its own global climate consequences. When it comes to building world-girdling civilizations, there are no planetary free lunches.
By studying these nearby planets, we’ve discovered general rules for both climate and climate change (PDF). These rules, based in physics and chemistry, must apply to any species, anywhere, taking up energy-harvesting and civilization-building in a big way. For example, any species climbing up the technological ladder by harvesting energy through combustion must alter the chemical makeup of its atmosphere to some degree. Combustion always produces chemical byproducts, and those byproducts can’t just disappear.
As we describe in a recent paper, using what’s already known about planets and life, it is now possible to create a broad program for modeling co-evolving “trajectories” for technological species and their planets. Depending on initial conditions and choices made by the species (such as the mode of energy harvesting), some trajectories will lead to an unrecoverable sustainability crisis and eventual population collapse. Others, however, may lead to long-lived, sustainable civilizations.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 20 2015, @07:07AM
No, they started calling it climate change because dumbasses were saying "it's still cold, it obviously can't be warming".
The phrase "climate change" was pushed by "conservative" strategist Frank Luntz to make it sound less scary.
Why should we care what Frank Luntz said? What makes it relevant? Why am I supposed to take home any other interpretation of those words than the one I did?
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday January 21 2015, @02:28AM
I'll assume good faith in this question, in that you're genuinely trying to understand what I was communicating:
I posted it because it's interesting. At least, to me it is. Like the poster to whom I replied, I had historically assumed that the use of the term was exclusively pushed by (what I will call for lack of a better word) climate change proponents in order to compensate for confusion over the fact that not all change to the climate is warming. When I found out that the term was also embraced by (what I will call for simplicity) climate deniers, I was surprised. I hadn't thought originally that the use of the phrase might actually serve both sides of the debate.
I think it's a nice fact to know. Don't you think that, when discussing the origins and historical usage of the phrase, it's relevant that a major Republican strategist ostensibly convinced a generally global warming denying presidential administration to use the phrase almost exclusively? I think it's nice to know regardless of your opinion on global warming.
Note that nowhere above (nor in my original post) do I do what you so eloquently describe as "adds to the pile of bullshit" that it's OK to push such "propaganda"... I stated an interesting bit of information that contrasted with what the OP said, which added to the discussion of the historical use of the term. And I intentionally made no comment or drew no conclusions about the implications of such.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 21 2015, @06:15AM
I posted it because it's interesting. At least, to me it is. Like the poster to whom I replied, I had historically assumed that the use of the term was exclusively pushed by (what I will call for lack of a better word) climate change proponents in order to compensate for confusion over the fact that not all change to the climate is warming. When I found out that the term was also embraced by (what I will call for simplicity) climate deniers, I was surprised. I hadn't thought originally that the use of the phrase might actually serve both sides of the debate.
There are several ridiculous fallacies to note about your statement here. The worst of the lot is conflation the one-time strategizing of a political consultant associated at the time with a single political faction with the broad spectrum of belief of people who don't entirely agree with the current popular catastrophic AGW narrative. At best, he was a contemporary voice in the Bush administration which was relatively hostile to the idea of AGW and which did adopt his suggestion. The next worst is assuming on the basis of that one-time strategizing that you have evidence that use of this particular propaganda somehow "serves" both sides. This combination of fallacies is the dishonesty I complained about in the first place.
Leebert adds to the pile of bullshit by saying it's ok to do this, because a '"conservative" strategist' (complete with "scare quotes") advocated it as well.
There are a number of other fallacies, such as this bundle of fallacy morphing into a "nice fact".
it's relevant that a major Republican strategist ostensibly convinced a generally global warming denying presidential administration to use the phrase almost exclusively?
An administration which continued to employ James Hansen (as the extremely visible and vocal head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies)? I point out this example to indicate that no matter the Bush administration's outlook on climatology, it was constrained in how it could act, both in actual suppression of counter-voices in the administration itself and how far it could ignore the concerns of its constituency. The Republican constituency and most particularly, the independent voters which Republicans need to win elections, are not exclusively "global warming denying". It also may be that the Bush administration's usage of "climate change" decided he other side's choice of favorite propaganda phrases in a fairly standard application of rhetorical judo.
And I see later that Frank Luntz started batting for the AGW theory advocates. He might have had ulterior motives for his original proposal such as undermining the rhetorical positions of the Bush administration. There's also the matter of a term which allegedly achieved wide spread use in large part due to an attempt at propaganda, is still in use as a term of propaganda.
For our next fallacy, there's the connotative game. Your side is "proponents", the other side is "deniers". And use of a far less accurate scientific term, "climate change" for a very specific sort of change (with who, how, and what deliberately left vague) is to "compensate for confusion".
And I intentionally made no comment or drew no conclusions about the implications of such.
So what? I think it's pretty obvious what you are implying here and I have already stated what I think of that game. This is the final fallacy I'll cover here, that of the pretense of lack of bias while pushing a heavily slanted, partisan talking point (a stereotypical, cliched "But Bush did it too" talking point no less).
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday January 21 2015, @12:27PM
The only relevant quote in your entire rambling reply to what we're talking actually talking about (that I said that it was OK to use the term):
Let me talk REALLY slowly for you:
I. WAS. NOT. IMPLYING. ANYTHING.
I. POINTED. TO. AN. INTERESTING. FACTOID.
If it's not interesting to you, move on and don't project some agenda onto me that isn't there or pretend that I said something that I didn't. I'm done with this conversation unless your next reply is an apology. It's obvious that all you know how to do when being called out for being a smug asshole is to keep digging. Enjoy your pit.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday January 21 2015, @12:29PM
Meh. I meant to quote the "it's obvious what you're implying here" statement.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 21 2015, @06:26PM
And partly, it's just your choice of fallacies. For example, when your side is "proponents" and the other side is "deniers" while you simultaneously claim to be trying to give an unbiased presentation of this "fact", you aren't engaging in honest debate. It doesn't matter whether you think you are or not. I grant you may think you are trying to be sincere. That doesn't matter to what you actual achieve. I don't consider this particularly egregious as far as fallacies in your argument go, but this sort of "white hat/black hat" casting is IMHO strong evidence of bias.
Personally, I think the Bush administration's choice of terms is irrelevant to the modern use of "climate change" in large part because the Bush administration's games were just a temporary obstruction which has since been overcome. Much like how it doesn't matter whether an invading army bypassed the army of the defenders by going through pass A or pass B to besiege and capture the foe's capitol. "Climate change" is a pawn for AGW theory propaganda by allowing more easily the confirmation bias game.
I. POINTED. TO. AN. INTERESTING. FACTOID.
Which as it turned out wasn't actually a "factoid", but an unjustified extrapolation of something Frank Luntz proposed (and which the Bush administration adopted at the time) to a broad group that didn't.
If it's not interesting to you, move on and don't project some agenda onto me that isn't there or pretend that I said something that I didn't.
You are moderately in error here. I consider your continuing rationalizations interesting in the non-rhetorical sense. I just don't consider them truthful.
And the matter of finding a rebuttal or piece of damning evidence "interesting" is an ancient rhetorical trick. I do it myself. A classic example comes from the more than century old tale, "Silver Blaze" [wikipedia.org], a Sherlock Holmes story:
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."
This turns out to be a major plot point of the story, but it is subtly downplayed as merely "curious".
Similarly, I might find yet another terrible failure of an intelligence or security agency which morphs into a call for more power and funding to be "interesting" or perhaps sarcastically "unexpected". But in those cases, I don't pretend to be an unbiased observer unless there's some humor to be had by it.
So to summarize, we have a standard rhetorical tactic of finding something "interesting", used with a standard talking point rebuttal (which is frequently used in this way), and combined with various traditional fallacies (some peculiar to the talking point like conflating the efforts of one Frank Luntz with a huge group of people who happen not to fully agree with the current climate change narrative), including in particular the "white hat/black hat" trick of labeling your side of the argument with something innocuous and the other side with something negative. I find that quite interesting in the rhetorical sense, but not the efforts of an unbiased observer merely bringing up an interesting fact(oid).
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday January 21 2015, @07:02PM
Apology accepted.