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Courtesy: Throbgoblins
Many folk are wondering just how to get the seriousness of this thing across to a willfully ignorant section of society:
Click for full view
Courtesy: Throbgoblins
Many folk are wondering just how to get the seriousness of this thing across to a willfully ignorant section of society:
Just to remind everyone, there are scientists out there speaking about the truth behind GMO’s, pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, and all that jazz. What happens when the non-believer in Global Warming is not woefully ignorant, rather conscious of well- consciousness. What if one chooses to look at it from a different perspective than carbon. Please don’t forget that science is a business. If there is a long lasting controversy about climate change then more and more scientist have jobs. Just like the second article demonstrates, imagine if we didn’t put our energy into prostitalizing Global Warming as a reason for people to change but rather real ways people can contribute to the ethics of Permaculture. Drop the debate and focus on hydrological cycles and community not some thing that only 1,000 or so people in the world have the job to monitor global warming. These are all very well paid scientist, funded heavily. Imagine if all that research money was focused on little people like you and me digging swales and planting trees rather than fancy equipment and flying to the south pole. Focus on what you do want. Do we as Permaculturist not believe in collective consciousness? If there is billions of people around the world believing that the planet is warming and it is causing our eventual die out as a species, isn’t that what we are going to get. Why focus on what we don’t want to happen? Please don’t waste your energy trying to convince people of what we don’t want to happen, focus on the ethics, do a visioning process that the Transition Towns book speaks of and get out of this environmental depression. Trust me I tried for years the fear tactic around extinction and cancer and …. Its a matter of empowering people and they don’t feel that when they see an Inconvenient truth, show the movie a Convenient Truth about Curritiba, Brazil and people feel good afterwards. Love is the only sustainable emotion. Seriousness is cancer for the soul.
I think Doug is onto something. I’m so dissapointed when I come to this site and find a bunch of global warming yelping. True or not, AGW isn’t going to change how many trees I plant or how hard I try to get others to see the permaculture light.
Hi Guys. I appreciate your thoughts, really do, just keep in mind everyone has a different view. Some people are very interested and concerned about the changing climate and its impact on ocean acidification, species loss, agriculture, human and animal migrations, the draconian policies we may have applied if we ignore it, etc., and want to keep tabs on what’s happening in this arena. We cater to these people also.
So, fine, make your thoughts known, but how about applying your own medicine, and commenting positively on posts you do appreciate, instead of responding negatively on and focussing on those you don’t.
It’s not a big ask, is it? When you see a post on climate change, why hone in and attack it? There are other posts to be read here. A lot of them.
brings to mind a quote from Geoff Lawton I heard recently on a Darren Doherty video – we can be as positive as we can be negative
Very unfortunately the AGW debate cannot be ignored because it is politicized enough to be a serious threat to our future liberty. We could all be positive if the conversation didn’t always immediately lead to “what new powers over us do we ‘need’ to give the governments?”
You’re right JBob – the argument cannot be ignored. That’s why this post is up.
But, the argument “climate change isn’t real because I don’t want my government interfering with my life” is in no way scientific…..
People are so concerned about government interventions and restrictions on liberty they can’t see that if we, as a citizenry, don’t get serious about this, voluntarily, then things will get so bad environmentally, and thus economically, that we’ll have brought those draconian, across-the-board, military enforced restrictions upon ourselves because of our apathy and inaction.
If you don’t ‘believe’ in climate change (science is not religion, so hate using the ‘believe’ word in this context), then please explain why our oceans are acidifying, and then please explain why we should not be concerned about this:
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/10/carbon-emissions-oceans-copenhagen
Or is that a conspiracy too?
Ocean acidification is clear evidence of oceans reaching saturation point in carbon absorption. CO2 becomes carbonic acid. It’s not complicated.
I am the last person who wants to see draconian powers applied by governments. You’ll see this in my countless other posts. But, again, by pretending that we don’t have a CO2 problem only ensures those draconian measures will be applied, as the majority of people in mainstream life decide that the CO2 issue is inconvenient, and therefore determine to ‘believe’ it doesn’t exist, and therefore do what they can to protect the status quo in their own lifestyles.
I see it in your comments – instead of discussing science, you come up with arguments like “this is not a positive post, we want only positive posts here”. But what you’re really saying is “I don’t want to believe in AGW because I’m scared of government, so please stop reminding me of the issue.”
Talk science. Explain ocean acidification, glacier loss, the poleward movement of birds and insects and other animals into places they haven’t been before, etc., etc., etc., but don’t tell me climate change doesn’t exist because governments do.
And on the issue of governments – nobody has yet been able to explain to me how this can be an AGW ‘conspiracy’ by governments to secure more power, when they’ve been doing their utmost to delay any action for several decades now – because the action they think they have to take (I have a far more holistic view on what that action should be) is in direct conflict with their ambitions (never-ending economic growth and the plundering of natural resources to achieve that aim). Governments today are almost entirely controlled by industry (see here and here), and climate change is more inconvenient to their activities than anything else.
Hence this:
https://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/6/0153/91477
Empty, non-scientific arguments such as yours only prompt me to keep reminding you of reality. We need everyone to understand the science, and everyone to act. When everyone, of their own volition, acts voluntarily to change the way they live, then we’ll end up with a grass roots movement that will ensure governments can not only not control us, but they will not need to.
If we’re not pro-active, governments will be reactive. By ignoring the science, and by doing so lulling the mainstream into apathy, you’re threatening MY future liberties.
Doug,
above, you say:
“Please don’t forget that science is a business. If there is a long lasting controversy about climate change then more and more scientist have jobs.”
Now, as a scientist – a physicist, actually, but not one who ever has done any work on atmospheric research (apart from teaching a few very fundamental basics in lectures, that is) – I seriously wonder what our various professions must have done to deserve such a blanket condemnation. Actually, yes, I must say that I feel personally hurt by such a comment, considering that I have gone through some painful personal experiences in the past for standing up for high standards of professional integrity. I actually *do* care about such issues. Actually, back in 2007, I decided to cancel my Institute of Physics membership due to a quite specific case where a conflict-of-interest issue was handled in a way I could not live with. Yes, there are some black sheep who are involved in dodgy work, across disciplines – after all, we also are human beings, and unfortunately, some humans choose to engage in criminal activity.
So, if there is specific evidence for academic or scientific misconduct, I’d be the first one to sign any letter to support a deeper investigation. Heck, I actually just asked our dean for a formal investigation into my *own* teaching conduct to get a major dispute settled between me and a colleague. The accusation you are bringing up here is a massive one. Now, I have, in the past, myself brought up massive accusations of misconduct against specific individuals – scientists and other staff, and I always had all the material readily available to substantiate my claims. It’s one of the most unpleasant things to do, yet, sometimes, it has to be done to prevent further damage.
So, if you think you have strong evidence for a case of scientific misconduct of a particular individual where there is not already an investigation into the subject (or has been), show me all the evidence you have that supports this, and I am all willing to sacrifice some of my spare time to look into this and help you to make a case and get an investigation going. If you do not have such incriminating material, then please take a step back, read again what you wrote, think about it once again, and ask yourself the question: what does spreading slur actually do to your own reputation?
Craig,
I’m not saying “climate change isn’t real because I don’t want my government interfering with my life.” What I said in my first comment here is that AGW is irrelevant to my interest in permaculture. There are many others like me and maybe they too find the frequency and vigor of the AGW browbeating here at permaculturenews.org a little annoying. AGW /= “motivation to practice permaculture.”
And since you like links so much, Kent Hastings at the Permakent blog shares my opinion on the global warming debate and sums it up well