As with a lot of things with Republicans, I think most of them knew it was wrong before but have been trolling the left for decades. Distinguishing honest denial or ignorance from deliberate lies they make just because it’s the opposite of what liberals are saying is difficult. The reason they don’t seem particularly concerned about it is simply because they’re assholes. As long as it’s not during their lifetimes, all life on the planet could be extinguished for all they care. Anyone who is actually concerned about climate change would have left the Republican party long ago.
I wish, WISH somehow, some god, somewhere, no matter how dark and evil, I could pray to to see that Ted Cruz loses all his worldly possessions and it’s forced to do this into his 80s for his next and final profession
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How can this be? Just today, I heard Rush Limbaugh sneering about how liberals changed their terminology from “global warming” to “climate change” so that they can obscure the facts better.
I’m telling you, we’re in the middle of a gigantic hoax. … We’ve had two of the chilliest years, these past two years overall, recorded temperatures. You ever noticed that when it’s a cold day and people say, “Well, what about climate change?” They say, “You can’t compare the weather every day to climate. They’re two different things.”
And yet when it’s 110 degrees in July, they say, “See? Climate change.” But overall, worldwide temperatures are down the past two years. So they had to come up with a new term, “climate change.” Since there wasn’t any warming. And that allows any weather event to be portrayed as extraordinary, unusual, outside the normal pattern. See? Climate change. See? You’re quick. You’re very shrewd out there to notice this, sir. ‘Cause it’s all part of the politics of selling it.
Republicans have tried nothing, and they’re all out of ideas.
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This video’s optimistic nihilism has a lot of resonance with active nihilism. I found a really short but powerful description of it on good old everything2 (which I was pleasantly surprised to see is still around):
Active Nihilism [as opposed to passive nihilism] is indicative of a relative increase in spiritual power. the active nihilist sees freedom where the passive nihilist sees absurdity or meaninglessness. He chooses action and creation instead of passivity and withdrawal.
It also contains this passage:
The term nihilism is often used as a derogatory label intended to impugn the moral credibility of a certain target. In this normative sense, it is meant as nothing more than an exclamation of negative sentiment; a way of expressing distaste for the thing being referred to.
It might be worth keeping the distinction between active and passive nihilism in mind whenever you hear the word “nihilist” used as a vague epithet.
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That wasn’t “several republicans in the Reagan administration” quite so much as Reagan, in some official speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA :c
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I am reminded of a parable from the gospels that I used to hear, about when a man went away on a trip and divided his finances amongst his servants. The only one he punished was the one who did nothing with it, for fear or retribution.
Or the other tale that is widely told, of a pious man who stayed in his house despite a rising flood, turning away all helpers with the saying "God will rescue me. " When he drowned, he appeared before God, and had the gall to ask why God did not save him. God replied that he sent so many helpers, provided a way to escape, so WTF dude.
These people are not listening to God. They are like Deacon Vorbis in Terry Pratchett’s novel Small Gods, whose mind was so closed he only heard echoes of his own thoughts and thought it was God answering him.
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I use that story all the time with the “God will save us” crowd. Occasionally even score some points with it. Mostly just get called a heathen.
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He was hardly the only (and maybe not even the first) one to make that “joke,” either - and the joke outlasted his administration, too. I think I remember someone repeating that even in the George W admin. Certainly they’re still working hard to make the joke a reality.
Cult45 sure is working hard at this bringing about xian apocalypse thing.
Have you blocked out your calendar for 2050? Because apparently, it’s official:
Many evangelicals see climate change as neither bad nor obliterating. Whatever the peril now, our looming towers don’t compare to the Great Flood, survived by Noah and kin, which came at God’s behest, not our “over-development of carbon energy.” Some born-agains claim that the soupy air of dinosaur days (that is, just 6000 years ago!) was healthy even when carbon parts per million were well over 4000 as compared to 400 today. What rightwing Christian doesn’t share the glad tidings of Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson: “We are not to weep as the people of the world weep when there are certain tragedies or breakups of the government or the systems of the world. We are not to wring out hands and say, ‘Isn’t that awful?’ That isn’t awful at all. It’s good.”
It would be unfair to cast all Biblicists in this role. Take climatologist and evangelical, Katherine Hayhoe, who needs no proof climate change is real. In fact, she lectures to church groups about their Christian duty to save the planet, and soon—to stop blaming the messenger. Helping (and saving) others is Christly, she says, because climate change “is disproportionately affecting the poor, and the vulnerable, and those who cannot care for themselves.” Even before his encyclical on climate in June of this year, Pope Francis termed deforestation a “sin.”And David Kepley, of the Providence Presbyterian Church in Rhode Island, says that “to be wasteful of the land’s bounty or to despoil it with substances that are harmful to people or other life forms is not just unproductive, but is an affront to God.”
Still, end-timers have a greater influence, in part, because the media blesses their side as though denying climate change were the equal of affirming it. That same forty percent of Americans who don’t believe in manmade global warming also expect Christ back by 2050, the onset of the feared or hoped-for apocalypse. A majority of evangelicals (seventy-seven percent) see this end as unstoppable because it’s biblically forecasted. [citation please! emphasis mine] Indeed, some born-agains argue that the rise of planetary disturbances in our era proves “the science of eschatology.” As W.H. Auden wrote in 1963, “Christian and Atheist alike are eschatologically minded.” Which is to say the world is more likely than ever to end soon so it doesn’t matter whose sickle brings it down.
I guess the extremely confident End Time evangelicals are ok with the idea.
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I still think that humans can survive even the worst predictions.
Whether we would want to survive is another matter. Mad Max is probably at the better end of the scale.
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What encompasses and spans them: LAZINESS OF THOUGHT
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