Americans and climate change

[Peter Kirby]

On Lion of the Blogosphere:

http://lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.c ... te-change/

The NY Times asks why “Americans are far less concerned about global warming than people in the rest of the developed world.”

But none of the panel of “experts” have any clue.

Climate change is like a religion. So a large percentage of Americans don’t care about climate change because they believe in Jesus.

In other developed countries, a much lower percentage of people believe in conventional religions, so they are seeking something bigger than themselves to believe in and to be passionate about, and the secular religion of climate change (which is a subset of Gaianism) fills that void in their lives.

[Andrew]

My lack of concern for climate change has absolutely nothing to do with my religious beliefs. In fact, the Church has been supportive of fighting it and other environmental problems. I don't think it's a big problem because the data I see shows me that it isn't a big problem. The average global temperature has increased very little in the past century or so, and recently, some scientists have declared that the earth has not in fact been warming for the past ten years or so. Besides, the earth is far cooler right now than it normally is. It hasn't warmed up fully from the ice ages, so global warming is only to be expected. I've yet to come across evidence of human-caused global warming on a significant scale, so I'm not terribly worried. If someone were to show me some data that demonstrated large-scale warming, or human-caused warming, I might take it seriously. Those wacko scientists who predict that the ice caps will be almost gone in a couple years (a couple years!) cannot possibly be very scientific. I have noticed absolutely no warming where I am, and we still have six to seven month winters up here, so that idea is pretty far-fetched. Heck, our last snowfall was about a week ago and the temperature is still below zero at night.

[Peter Kirby]

I have noticed absolutely no warming where I am, and we still have six to seven month winters up here, so that idea is pretty far-fetched. Heck, our last snowfall was about a week ago and the temperature is still below zero at night.

I'm all for skepticism, but you do of course realize this means nothing.

I think his point is more that people turn to environmental causes as a substitute for religion.

[Mental flatliner]

On Lion of the Blogosphere:

http://lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.c ... te-change/

The NY Times asks why “Americans are far less concerned about global warming than people in the rest of the developed world.”

This statement is laced with arrogance, supposition and error.

1--I don't believe for a second that the author somehow "knows" or has even taken the time to measure what people think of climate change anywhere outside his own circle of friends.
2--"The developed world" is a phrase intended to refer to "the more educated" of the world. Having been in several dozen nations, I find this kind of attitude elitist and myopic. It smacks of someone who has never visited other countries.
3--The author "assumes" that the rest of the developed world is concerned about global warming without demonstrating as much, and obviously the author hopes we'll just take him at his word.

Arrogance is always the traveling companion of fraud. If there were any supporting data for global warming, there would be no need to resort to the ad populem fallacy.