An Oxymoronic Slogan April 3, 2008
Posted by peak9 in Global Warming.Tags: ad, al gore, blogging, Blogs, climate change, Global Warming, green, liberalism, life, media, Personal, Politics, Random, stupidity, thoughts
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“We” cannot not stop a thing. Climate change and meteorological patterns are in God’s realm. Are we going to stop His will? No. You are deluded if you think so.
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I was just THINKING THIS SAME THING yesterday while watching the news. It is such BLIND, HUMANISTIC, ARROGANCE that we can “Save the Planet.” The only Savior of the planet is Jesus. And I don’t know about you, but I believe that the only way to save this one is through a complete rehaul (by cremation in a supernatural incenerator maybe?). He says He’s going to “make ALL things new” and create “a new heavens & a new earth”. The earth is “passing away”. The very creation “groans” for the redemption of all things.
Thanks for letting me rant to you,
Blessings,
Corwin
The moment Adam & Eve disobeyed, global warming was born.
corwinevangelin,
Welcome to my little blog. You are free to rant here anytime you want.
Have a good one.
[...] nascar, nudists, Personal, philosophy, print, Random, thoughts trackback Yesterday, I posted the logo and slogan for the anti-global warming site wecansolveit.org. A few days ago, USA Today ran a full page ad [...]
This is an absurd argument, which we’ve had before, although I’ll have it again.
Tell me, was the development of vaccines against God’s will? Or did our monkeying with the forces of nature adhere to His plan? How do you know the difference between that which we can alter, and that which we cannot? Who are you to tell us that our ability to affect climate goes against God’s plan? Or, if you believe in Satan (which I presume you do), might pollution and climate change be doing his work, and efforts to combat climate change, which now has worldwide backing, is actually coming back to do God’s work?
Who really is being arrogant here–a bunch of bible thumpers who “know” the “truth” of God’s will, or those of us who don’t claim to have any special insight on the divine, and are therefore working to do what we can based on the best available information?
One last question which you still haven’t answered: if everything is God’s will, and we cannot act in any way to alter it, why act to do anything at all?
It is the hight of arrogance for humans to believe that they control God’s universe.
Not that I believe in the hoax, but if it were true the environmentalists are not interested in a solution. Using corn to power cars raises the price of corn which in turn means that many people in third world countries will lose nutrients which means they will die younger and leave the next generation without healthy parents. healthy parents are good for the environment, they earn money to feed their families. If they are malnourished they will be less effective at work which means they will have to go to work more often which means they will use more fuel etc..
I know it is a little convoluted, but the point is nothing is a zero sum game. Every change has consequences. Starving populations take more fuel. Exhaling CO2 feeds plants. Dead people don’t exhale CO2. On and on it goes. God created a great system that cleanses itself.
The Global temperature has gone done since 1998. The latest Hadley Global Land only reading for the planet is 57.82 F, up 0.27 F from January, but still almost two degrees lower than its peak in February of 1998 (59.66) at : http://www.dialup4less.com/~donald/globalwarming2.html
We should let God’s creation do its job.
If the environmentalist were serious they would support Nuclear Power….oops did I say that. I’ll save that on for another time.
God Bless.
Rigg:
First off, nobody’s said anything about “controlling God’s universe” (whatever that means). Humans have the capacity to act freely in God’s universe, as you see it, and to this end our actions are commensurate with the scale at which we act. Think of this in terms of scale: if you pee in a swimming pool, does it change the pH of the pool? Not really. But if everyone swimming in the swimming pool pees, and continues to do so over time, you can be assured that the pool will over time have a different pH level, and a bunch of stuff in it that wasn’t there before. Our atmosphere is the pool: it takes a LOT of gaseous emissions to alter its character, but that’s what’s happened over time.
Or would you say that peeing in the pool is an “arrogant” assumption of our ability to alter God’s universe?
As for “God created a great system that cleanses itself”: you’re right. Unless of course we cut down millions of acres of forest while increasing CO2 production. Which we have. It sets things out of balance.
Finally, you make some good points about ethanol production. The mistake you make is in lumping “environmentalists” together, as if they all support that ponzi scheme, or all oppose nuclear power (many green groups are lobbying hard for nuclear, in fact). There are indicators that hydrogen fuel is within our grasp, only it’s a Catch-22 at the moment with respect to distribution. Also, we should be ramping up solar and wind power, and probably coal gassification, as well (the only by-product is CO2, which is pumped underground). This is not only a matter of global warming, but of energy security in a future in which oil will become scarcer, more expensive, and less secure. The sooner we wean ourselves off of oil, the better.
Lastly, I think you and Peak9 and others should check this out: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
But ultimately whether or not you believe climate change is real or not isn’t the issue. We should be pursuing policies that we are told would help curb its effects REGARDLESS. You so-called skeptics are giving political cover to people who are merely exploiting you and your votes for the enrichment of themselves and their peers (aside: you’d think after years of voting for pro-life candidates whose only actions in Congress are deregulating and cutting capital gains taxes, you’d learn your lesson…).
You are all being duped: cheap, reliable energy doesn’t make people enough money, and they want to maintain business as usual. You don’t have to “believe in” climate change, but you should support related reforms (good reforms, that is) because of the boon in so many other ways. By opposing such reforms because of some absurd principle concerning God’s creation, you’re standing in the way of progress on many other fronts.
coloradokiwi,
Free will is always a stumbling block for non-Believers. This makes sense to me because the concept of a free will coupled with an omnipotent God is a contradiction. It is a “logical fallacy” as atheists like to say. But free will exists and God is authoritative.
It is beyond human understanding as to why God would set up a contradiction. God created us to be feel emotion, and more specifically to feel emotion about Him. We have the choice to follow Him or turn our backs towards Him. We have the choice to love Him or to flip Him the bird. If we did not have this choice, we would be preprogrammed robots. God did not create us to be robots.
So, why not do anything? We were not created to do nothing. In terms of global warming, it is a realm we cannot control. We did not create the earth. Your analogy using a swimming pool is off, because a pool cannot self-regulate itself. A pool needs man to rebalance the pH. The earth can self-regulate as Rigg pointed out, because God created it. What we put into the atmosphere is not beyond God’s ability to control. The earth can take it.
It is a delusion to think we can control the earth. Like I have said before, we should be good stewards of the earth, but we are not going to damage the earth. God will do His own damage if it is His will to do so.
Also, nuclear energy is the only way to get off coal and oil. Until the greenies embrace nuclear, they will be wasting their time. Carbon offsets? Not going to work. Wind power and solar? Neither will replace coal power. America cannot run on alternative energy sources. I see our vehicles running on battery power or natural gas, but how do we power cars like the Tesla roadster? Nuclear is the only way.
First off, on a minor point: nuclear is one of many pieces of the puzzle, but it is by no means the only way. Coal gassification looks promising, and were we to turn the whole state of North Dakota into a windfarm, there’s enough there to power the entire electrical grid in the U.S. Alternatives WILL do it, it’s just a matter of scale. Alternative fuels for vehicles could be made mainstream in less than 10 years if we simply established a few mandates and sunk some money into infrastructure, whether from biofuels or (believe it or not) hydrogen. The technology’s already here, it’s the infrastructure that isn’t. A largely low or zero emission future is no longer a fantasy.
Secondly, the pool is clearly a metaphor. In the metaphor the filters in the pool, etc., work much like the trees on earth. It’s not a perfect metaphor, obviously. That’s kind of how metaphors are.
But again, this is not “controlling the earth,” it’s a known and quantifiable input into what’s here. Are oil spills “controlling the earth”? What about acid rain? Ozone pollution? A hundred years ago the scale of such things would have been unthinkable, something we “couldn’t do” (or are skeptical of the existence of these, too?). The problem you have is not that we are incapable of affecting, as you see it, God’s creation, it’s that the scale/scope of climate change seems so huge that to you it’s “controlling the earth” rather than affecting it at a scale commensurate with the scale of our activities. It is not arrogance, it is not in defiance of or collaboration with God’s plan, per se: as you’ve said yourself, such things are mysterious and ultimately unknowable. Or to put it another way, global climate change is huge to us, but about as relevant as a fart in the wind compared to the vastness of the cosmos. If one day humans were able to do something on a cosmic scale that affected the galaxy, say, would that too be “arrogance”? Hubris, maybe, but that’s different.
As you said, God has given us free will enough to follow His path or not–which means we are also free to commit great evil. Has it ever occurred to you that God has granted us the ability to utilize our minds to such a degree that He wants us to know of the impact we’ve had on His creation, and He wants us to do something about it? Couldn’t flooded cities, droughts and starvation, wars even, be His punishment for desecrating the earth? Explain to me why you’re so certain THIS isn’t His plan–for us to make the “right” choice and amend our ways.
“…global climate change is huge to us, but about as relevant as a fart in the wind compared to the vastness of the cosmos.” This is great stuff colordokiwi.
Your last paragraph is interesting because it is a fair perspective, but I do not feel the problems of the world like human suffering, natural disasters, pain, wars, economic crisis, etc. are the result of humans treating the earth poorly. No doubt, we can do a better job in terms of our impact on the earth, but I do not believe God is punishing us with global warming for being energy hogs and polluters.
I do feel radical climate change and natural disasters are partly brought on by God because of our actions. It has to do with turning our backs on Him and worshipping other gods (ourselves, our spouses, our children, our pets, money, sports, work, cars, art, etc.). I see it as discipline. We can either change our ways or we can continue to flip God the bird.
Why do I think this is God’s plan? His own words say it. He demands that we put Him first and acknowledge His authority. There are consequences for us as individuals and as nations when we treat Him like the tooth fairy.
I still think nuclear is the only way. Wind is not reliable enough for continuous power usage. Coal gasification is good, but “coal” is a four letter word to the environmentalists. Vehicles are going to have to run off battery power or natural gas to drastically reduce oil usage. The problem is that we don’t have the nuclear power plants to provide the electricity needed to recharge millions of battery powered vehicles. Coal plants are not going to do it, at least without building many more and the greenies are not going to allow that to happen.
Like you said, the infrastructure is not there for alternatives like natural gas. You cannot just drive into your local natural gas station and fill up a Honda Civic GX. I would like to see personal vehicles use battery power or natural gas, and commercial vehicles and construction equipment use gasoline. The money is there. We are wasting it subsidizing farmers who are plowing under their crops to plant corn for ethanol, contributing to the rise in food prices.
“He demands that we put Him first and acknowledge His authority.” Right, which in my opinion can easily translate to: “Don’t screw up the atmosphere.” But you see my point, no need to belabor it.
As for alt. energy options: I don’t really fundamentally disagree with what you’ve said here. Wind is not unreliable of it’s spread over hundreds of wind farms in every state. Same with solar. The only potential liabilities there lie in the efficiency of storage and transmission lines.
However your overall point is a good one: given CURRENT technology, we can’t rely on this alone. I think you’re right that many greenies won’t go for coal gassification, however: (1) that’s largely out of ignorance; (2) when have they ever really truly stopped a plant being built, anyway? I prefer this to nuclear mainly because it’s safer, and because we’re basically the Saudi Arabia of coal, whereas although we have excellent uranium resources, this is still fairly scarce overall. Also, if we build all these nuclear plants for “safe, clean energy,” under what rationale can we ask Iran or anyone else not to build nuclear plants, which will create tons of fissible material?
I agree with you that ultimately the solution is plug-in electrics, which ultimately brings us back to the grid, so…problem solved (some day).
However I would say that instead of using gasoline for commercial vehicles, we should switch to biodiesel (which Wal-Mart is already doing). This is reliable, non-pollutive, and can be efficiently produced/harvested on a mass scale (unlike ethanol, which is a net energy loser).
Imagine if by 2028 we are importing no oil at all!
I know here in Texas, the former energy giant TXU, had nearly a dozen new coal powered plants essentially blocked through backlash from greenies and politicians (mainly the incompetent former Dallas mayor). This poses a problem, because Texas is severely underpowered and the grid is going to constantly break down in August and September in the near future. What is more important: Having energy or having green energy? Ultimately, green energy is the goal, but if the economy and health of citizens are suffering because the current infrastructure is not keeping up with demand, are we making progress?
France is run on nuclear, but France is not calling for the complete annihilation of Israel like Iran is.
We will have to disagree on the causality of radical climate change, but agree that the status quo on energy usage has to change.
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