The real drivers of popular opinion on climate change

Nah, the "Thanos(s)" of our world will try to save the like-minded intellectuals they feel are worthy and capable of contributing to the society of those who remain.

 

Which was my point with IP. But naturally it get blown out to both extremes in 4 posts

 

I got what you were saying.

 

US actuaries in 2019:
Climate Change Jumps To Biggest Risk For Insurers

 

hyperbolic nonsense. weird how there is no extremist actuaries on the other side. would be very lucrative for them if correct, right?

 

It's too bad there is no way on God's green earth you will never admit scientist, journalists, and even politicians have been on TV claiming things were going to happen that have not happened.

You want to be taken seriously, which I personally take you seriously, but when someone is making a valid point, that there were in fact people on TV, and still are to this very date, claiming gloom and doom are happening right now. It's just not true, they are using extreme information to drive their agenda. You don't want to admit it, its fine. I think everyone here knows when you dig your heels in, the problem is everyone else. I showed you in my original reply, what was it 30 quotes that say what I'm telling you, but those were quickly disqualified. I'm ok with you not qualifying them as real scientists, but they were published, in a very easily found website. Which, if we go back, and try to comprehend what my original point was, when you have the above mentioned people look you in the face and tell you, quote,

"Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”"

When shit doesn't happen, it has that boy who cried wolf feel.

Now, thank you for entertaining me for two days. Now go find the answer to what will save our civilization because 30 years is right around the corner.

And let this be known loud and clear, IP, you sir are the man, I respect the [uck fay] out of you, and would drink beer and whiskey with you any day.

 

I believe the 10% of the people predicting DEATH AND ALL LIFE ENDNG are the exception. Most papers and writings are far more conservative as I understand it. But we don't see those.

I would love for us to have a conversation about this without falling back on this. Forget the media and all that shit.

What do you think about it personally? What should we do? Is it important to you?

 

I had to talk a friend down the other day because this person was so mad at Trump and rolling back of environmental regulations (which I agree with this person about). It was going to cause the end of human civilization.

No. We will not go extinct as a species. Civilization will not end. We will adapt. But we do need to think beyond ourselves. It is, in my opinion, the biggest threat to our way of life looking ahead of us.

 

To pretend that global warming hasn't been politicize is crazy.

The sad part is that the truth is in the middle but now it's just another identity issue. With both sides hiding and pushing stuff that farther advances their agenda.

It doesn't help that there's people on both sides that are militant and more a cult than anything else.

 

I think this is particularly important for those questioning whether climate change is a near-term threat or even real. Actuaries don't play politics and if they've moved climate change to the number 1 risk for insurers for the first time. It's significant and indicates the effects are imminent.

I hate all the quibbling over timing and certain specificities. It's real, it's here and we need to be focusing attention on contingency as well as carbon.

 

I believe the US military also moved it up to a top threat. Lack of land and living room sparks all wars.

 

I am not in any way cross with kmf. I do not agree with a "both sides" sort of stance because I don't think a biologist or whoever in 1970 saying something dumb has anything to do with the prevailing scientific opinion then or now. I don't see "two sides." I see the best available information, and many different perspectives on what it means. part or it is simply personal values. some people do not see impacts to others as their problem, especially if they have at best a 1 billionth share of the contribution to it. that is what is insidious about it. no one has personal ownership of it.

 

I wonder how much more seriously the threat would be taken if not for the political grandstanding on one side and the vehement denials on the other... I bet if climate change didn’t have the Al Gore stank on it it would be more of a topic that could be discussed rationally.

 

any conclusion that dictates any change from "whatever I want" behavior will be declared grandstanding.

 

Even if everyone agreed on the science of it there would still be opposing sides. I don't blame people for being pissed when folks who are flying private around the country every week tell average Americans that they should stop eating meat (I'm not saying you or anyone here is saying that, but it's out there).

 

That's not true.

People care about the environment and given the chance will as a whole make steps to make it better.

 

What Al Gore has/had been doing is grandstanding. It’s ok to call it what it is when that’s exactly what it is.

 

I’m one of the few people I know of who was on the “it’s all bullshit!!!” train and then, after stepping away from the political angles and looking at the evidence (for and against...) as objectively as I could, decided for myself that climate change is real and needs to be addressed. In its pure, non-politicized state, climate change is not an income redistribution scheme, it’s not an attack on capitalism or scaremongering... it’s a real, empirically proveable thing. You can argue the nuts and bolts of how it’s being caused and by whom it’s being caused, but the bottom line is that it’s a problem.

 

indeed, there are free market mechanisms that could be adopted to largely address it

 

But this is the crux of the issue. We can't look at it as rational ways to solve it. We have to look at it as who is to blame.