Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/26/mandatory-co2-increases.html
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When stupid and short-sighted wealthy people (or the corporate equivalents, my friend) start questioning whether their expressions of greed have gotten out of control we tend to find ourselves at an inflection point that could, one way or another, shift us all toward a very bad place.
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Remember when the villains from “Captain Planet” seemed cartoonish and unrealistic instead of like people who would have the ear of the real-life President?
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But the thing about science - it’s true even if you don’t believe it. Even if you scrub the data and outlaw the words.
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If a tree falls in the forest, tho…
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It’s true regardless of whether you believe the results but you do have to believe in the scientific principle, and a lot of people don’t.
Some kids who torture animals grow up to be serial killers. Others have loftier ambitions.
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CO2 is good for crops?? Tell that to the farmers whose crops have failed because of the warming-caused drought.
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This piece strikes me as overly naive regarding carbon industry bastardry. The assumption that the denialist lobby is not still drawing support from the carbon industry is unwarranted.
ExxonMobil now publicly admitting the reality of some climate science does not mean that they aren’t still promoting denialism on the side.
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<nitpicking> Despite of what Tyson may say, I think that the statement should apply to reality, not science. Science is just the best current approximation of how the real world works, but I don’t think that it can ever be declared to be absolutely, verifiably true. </nitpicking>
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And these science disbelievers should turn in their cell phones, car keys and microwaves. By their logic, these must be the insruments of lying dishonest technocrats.
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Well, if it all works out, then yes…
Heartland’s Form 990s bounce up and down. (latest is 2015. 2016 is overdue.)
https://www.erieri.com/Form990Finder/Details?EIN=363309812
Five years ago, certainly:
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A Robert Heinlein quote:
Ford slapped the report on a stack cluttering his old-fashioned control desk. The dumb fools! Not to recognize a negative report when they saw one-yet they called themselves psychographers!
BTW, what is the range of scientific estimates for the Social Cost of Carbon anyway?
We let them control the narrative when we only focus on CO2 and climate change. Everyone can agree that pollution is bad. CO2 is only one component of pollution, and while we’re actually pretty sure that human-emitted CO2 causes climate change, we don’t need to fight that fight. There are so many other components in pollution that are demonstrably toxic. No one wants lead poisoning. No one wants mercury and arsenic flowing through our waterways.
The argument would be that increased output of the other components in pollution is bad, and the earth seems basically fine with the amount of CO2 we already have, so we might as well do our best to limit pollution.
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“Pretty sure” is dramatically understating the case. The contribution of CO2 emissions to climate change is now about as well established as it is possible for a scientific conclusion to ever be.
“Pollution”, in the conventional sense, is aesthetically unpleasant, harms wildlife and kills some people.
Compared to the civilisation-ending threat of climate change, non-CO2 pollution is utterly trivial. They are not equivalent issues.
It very much is not fine.
The amount of CO2 already emitted is going to cause catastrophic damage.
Even if we shut down all of the coal mines tomorrow, we’re still in major trouble. There’s too much momentum already in the system.
Every day of delay makes that trouble exponentially worse.
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Couldn’t someone who has that kind of cash (I dunno, Bill Gates, anyone, take your pick) buy out those bastards?
May as well link this again:
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