And so today I saw this….so I decided to try to frame it in a nonsense way, as it is Friday.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

As I was saying, where the word 'saying' actually means 'writing', I saw this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/18/extreme-weather-climate-change-ipcc

and this:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-key-driver-extreme-weather-un-135853897.html

and also this:

http://news.yahoo.com/science-panel-ready-extreme-weather-104156773.html

And they all say pretty much the same thing.

If true, these findings/predictions are going to give a few folk an awful lot of "I told you so" shadenfreude-like moments.

Now, accepting for the moment, and for the sake of argument, that these findings/predictions are true, does the panel think that if they have been right about this all along, they will be able to refrain from exulting at our misfortunes because it proves them right?

And if anyone has been wrong all along about climate change and the need to do something about it, will they feel guilty about their position, and less likely to take as firm a stand about things from here on in? 

Comments

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

So much stupid there, it's insane.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

So, that's a no then, is it?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Until fox tells them to.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And is that another no? Of a kind, admittedly.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately even if they did believe it, looking at how so-called solutions to this issue function in practice, none of them actually solve a damn thing. Things like the Kyoto Protocol that its own signatories blatantly violate, or the proposed Copenhagen solution that frankly looked more like rich countries trying to keep the status quo stacked in their favor....it's a clear and present danger but all the solutions thus far seem to be more about political gain than actually resolving the dangers posed *by* AGW.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

See: Pompeii

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

In a "see Pompeii and die" sort of way, a Cassandra-like "I told you so" way, or a"we're all going to hell in a handbasket so what does it matter" sort of way?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I think, until scientists stop claiming that global warming causes heroin addiction (http://www.greenbang.com/climate-change-causes-heroin-addiction_11024.html), heart attacks, strokes (http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Climate-change-causes-big-health-risks/2007/10/29/1193555562082.html), AIDS (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202280_pf.html), the spin of the earth (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11555), acne (http://pressmediawire.com/article.cfm?articleID=4626)...maybe we'll take their predictions a little more seriously. They get these predictions so wrong so often that, even if you accept the reality of global climate change (as I do), it stirs doubt in the rest of it. That they've been wrong about hurricanes, wrong about so much doesn't help matters.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I'm taking that as a no then, unless corrected.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

It would also be helpful if people did more than read titles of articles. Like ones suggesting global warming causes more heroin addiction - when the actual body of the article merely states that rising co2 levels are increasing alkaloid production in poppies.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I agree, but it is telling.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really. Obtuse to the point of being willfully disingenuous.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The point is the ridiculousness of the claims. We can literally blame anything on global warming, and we do.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Who exactly is making the claim? Oh that's right, whoever titled the article. Not the scientists being cited in the article. Reading comprehension isn't that much to ask.

[kayjayuu.livejournal.com]

I'm still confused on why everyone has apparently thought that weather would remain static all along.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

No, but I can't call this "normal" change:

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those silly scientists.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Really. This is just like a massive meteor or comet strike or a super volcano. Nothing out of the ordinary.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Johnny, you may find this video feature of great interest, it examines the Texas drought in the context of climate change and shows the states leading climatologists working with farmers and ranchers on what to expect. It's the worst drought on record and far surpasses anything that happened during the dustbowl era. The end of the clip is the more interesting stuff, several comments by Jerry O'Neil in regards to the models and the ratio of record heat days compared to record cold days.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Considering the very real threats to people this could bring, I guess remorse or "I told you so" seems a bit moot. But I get what you're saying. I think the ppl who are right will shout even more - and me believing those people would be the climate change crowd, I at least believe they will try to change things in spite of the odds.

In the other crowd, I believe some will change sides and maybe feel remorse (although, I'm not sure how constructive or necessary that feeling really is), but the vast majority will cast a blind eye and chant along the lines if denial until way past any form of normal reasoning. They will of course be helped by billion dollar corporations with self interest, who will send out soothing messages of confusion to the very bitter end.

But in general, to answer yr question, yes on shadenfreude, yes on some remorse and yes on some plentiful denial.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think the problem with resolving climate change is that a serious attempt to prevent it will open a huge number of political cans of worms that people for justifiable reasons will not want opened. In the grand scheme of things this would amount to self-destruction on the part of Homo sapiens and the extinction of bipedal apes, but in terms of actually resolving this issue, this would bring up for instance that signatories to treaties like Kyoto blatantly violate those treaties, engage in fossil fuel exploitation that's as ecologically disastrous as deep-sea drilling, and produce extraordinarily exorbitant carbon ratings but want non-signatories, both rich and poor countries, to do what they themselves will not do. Too, to poor countries any attempt that favors interests of rich countries might easily wind up being ignored or seen simply as an attempt to politically permanently rig the global political system, which for understandable reasons *they* will oppose.

In the grand scheme of things, a global climate change would be an epic clusterfuck, but it's easy to say this, a full, global, rational solution to it will be extremely difficult and require a planet of savvy, intellectual, willing to work together world leaders able to visualize things in a Deep Time sense.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

or seen simply as an attempt to politically permanently rig the global political system, which for understandable reasons *they* will oppose.

You didn't think the kyoto protocal were actually about adressing climate change did you?