Climate 'denial' is now a mental disorder

First, an article which attempts to explain why deniers deny climate change, peak oil, etc:

www.theoildrum.com...

I believe the term 'Climate Change' is now used instead of 'Global Warming' because the changes scientists and believers attribute to the effects of increased greenhouse gases are not just temperature related. Climate also encompasses many other things, many of which are looked at as more detrimental.

Also, I'm sure many in regions with colder temperatures were tired of hearing ignorant statements such as, "So much for global warming!" when it is cold outside.

I think I know more then the average person about climate change but I still don't claim to know enough about the science behind climate change to know how much (if any) of it is caused by humans. And I think that is one of the large problems in the debate about climate change...usually both sides don't know much if any of the science behind it or how much of what they have been told is propaganda. Most of the arguments and beliefs about climate change are held because it suits that persons personal preferences towards the issue. It has become too much of a social/political issue instead a scientific issue.

I live in a city dominated by the oil and gas industry. Not surprisingly the majority of people (I know) deny we are causing any climate change at all. I would be interested in statistics which show how many believe in climate change from region to region.

I think it is a pretty hardened fact that climate change is occurring (the only debatable thing is whether we are causing it). History also shows that humans tend to deplete and ruin their environment until it is unsustainable for life. Cutting down the rain forest, car pollution, etc. is not good for our environment...maybe it isn't causing climate change, but it definitely causes other problems. Does it really matter if we are causing climate change? Should we not stop these things anyway? Especially when there are so many unknowns..

I find it scary what humans are currently doing with this issue. Instead of figuring out the truths it has become a political game. I think the majority of people on both sides of the argument simply don't know if what they are saying is right. Until I've spent enough time to understand the science, I don't think I would be so naive to argue it one way or another. Instead of working together, people have pitted themselves against each other...typical.

Ergoli... Dude... You didn't even accuse me of driving a mega-huge gas guzzling SUV!



I feel... SO slighted!



This is how we need to go about it...

Yesterday, there was 4 inches of GLOBAL WARMING in my neighborhood.

See... Don't let them off of the hook by calling it 'climate change'.

You know... When Godot fails to make an appearance.

And besides... I voted FOR global warming!

Let's have a national referendum.

(I call dibs on the room in the sanitarium with a view. )

[edit on 10-3-2009 by golemina]

Well I already know I'm mentally insane. But that's for another reason.

May I ask WHY a small minority can label the majority insane?

Jeeze, It's neem the longest winter ever.

Yes, climate change is happening. It's getting COOOLD!

Wow, of course, since the climate is always changing, these people first try to change their concept of Global Warming, with Climate Change, trying to confuse people with their dirty tactics. Then once their bullocks, I mean theory has been confused with the normal cycles that climate goes through, they continue with their disparate claims, and proclaim anyone that doubts Climate Change, which should be called "theory that man-made activities cause Global Warming" so that the layman can see the difference between fact and fiction, is mentally disturbed....

It looks to me like psychologists want in on the action. Now they can charge huge sums of money to treat these "deniers".

I would like to know the following:

1. Where the money from our carbon taxes will go.
2. Who will be accountable for it?
3. Will we be able to see where it is being spent?
4. How is this money going to be used to stop those who are polluting, removing trees and just being naughty non-green people.

This whole carbon tax thing sure sounds like a ponzi scheme to me.

reply to post by budski

This is an agenda first foisted on us by Al Gore and his chief acolyte jim Hansen...

I constantly ask myself why these people won't allow proper debate, why they fudge figures...

Contrary to popular belief, there is no concensus that AGW is real...

For a citizen of a civilized country, you display a distressingly American attitude to climate change, budski.

Not one of the statements quoted above is true. I don't know about you, but I knew about global warming long before Al Gore cottoned onto it. In those days we didn't speak of global warming, we called it 'greenhouse effect'. You, like Al, are a bit late to the party.

There's been plenty of debate and an Everest of very good statistical data, so much so that the Economist, that weekly hymn-sheet of liberal capitalism and the champion for many years of the premise that climate change is a chimera, having insisted on this position and given massive publicity to the work of one Bjorn Lomborg (I trust the name rings a bell), finally changed its tune and faced reality.

Contrary to your belief, there is massive consensus among scientists on the reality of climate change, or global warming if you prefer. 'Consensus' does not mean 'universal agreement'. Among human beings it is in any case impossible to get universal agreement on anything.

This reader comment from the Telegraph article you linked to describes your OP and the sentiments behind it perfectly.

Well, this article is a pretty good explanantion of why climate change denial and deniers is worth studying. The deniers sit within a spectrum of other contrarian views like creationism and 9/11 conspiracy, which are characterised by a uncritical belief in chosen experts, whilst ignoring ( or denying) the existence of a wide scientific consensus (like the creationists teach the debate tactic).

No wonder ATS is overrun with climate-change deniers...

Ordinarily, I greatly enjoy your posts for their intelligence, humour and common sense. I'm really surprised, and a bit disappointed, to see such Luddite-ish sentiments issuing from you.

I urge you to educate yourself on this issue, so as not to embarrass yourself further.

[edit on 11-3-2009 by Astyanax]

Originally posted by Astyanax

I urge you to educate yourself on this issue, so as not to embarrass yourself further.

[edit on 11-3-2009 by Astyanax]

Very interesting conclusion. One might say the same about you. Perhaps there is indoctrination on both sides.

The greenhouse effect suggests that carbon dioxide in large quantitties will raise the temperature of the planet. Many use the planet Venus as an example, but the model doesn't hold true, because if it did, Mars would be a lot warmer than it is.

I am not so sure all of the "facts" are in just yet. "climate change" or whatever you wish to call it is becoming a belief instead of a science. Those who are dedicated to science know that as soon as the data changes, so should one's conclusions. This is not the case with those who have a belief. It is no longer science but a cult.

The carbon tax thus become a tythe. If climate change is not the religion of a person, why should they be required to pay it?


[edit on 11-3-2009 by xman_in_blackx]

reply to post by budski


Yes there is a climate change, so what?
understand this::::
In the last 60 years science has proven there has been increased solar activity surpassing anything we've had for over 12,000 years.
Our earth's core is slowing down (proven fact) and how! it's so much slower now than it was over 12,000 years ago that something must change or else the earth will fall apart, literally!!!! BEFORE YOU GO POSTING GARBAGE about global warming, understand that you still don't know what speeds up the core every 12,900 years. Well now I can tell you, it's the FACT that our solar system passes through the galactic axis every 12,900 years like clockwork, over 1year the core will speed up, as well the spin axis of earth will change 120 degrees based on past evidence, FACT!!!
NO GLOBAL WARMING PSYCHO IS A REAL SCIENTIST OR THEY WOULD KNOW THIS

Wait so I believe in global warming but not necessarily in climate change.

I now have a mental illness?



Please, you have got to be kidding me. These whackos don't know what they're talking about. It's just fearmongering by the global elite to get you to think the way they want you to think.

Noncomformists will be labeled as mentally ill.

Not only is there NO global warming.

But that bit about the 'greenhouse effect' reigning supreme on the planet Venus is also TOTAL nonsense. Just part of an elaborate fantasy package feed to a seriously gullible public... Led by none other than NASA.

I always thought that John Lear was a plant...

But when that good old boy was totally mocking the NASA cover story of dropping a probe thru Venuses insanely hot atmosphere COMPOSED OF ACIDS and how the SILK chute could survive the descent...



(Something some of us figured out long ago... )

It was necessary to give John Lear his kudos. (Not to mention ask the question, WHY is that fruitcake not among our numbers at ATS. )

Far OT, possibly, but a fabulous example of SOS (Shiny Object Syndrome).

Which brings us fully round circle back to another SOS paradigm... Global Warming.

And Astyanax, you might want to get a second opinion on the fact that the GLOBAL WARMING ZEALOTS routinely falsify the data.

Get off of your soapbox and look it up.

The only thing the GWZ haven't done is bring some story about how GLOBAL WARMING is the leading cause of ORPHANS.

Save the orphans!



[edit on 11-3-2009 by golemina]

Originally posted by TheAgentNineteen

If you wish to live in a World with an Intentionally Human Controlled Environment, then so be it. The World will most certainly be destroyed through such actions, in the ironic attempt you will make at the very opposite of that.

So for millions of years we deliberately engineered the climate by not burning down the rain forests. But now we are burning them it's all okay and indeed we'll save the world so long as we don't stop


Edit: btw what's the drought like in California and Texas today?

Source

Specifically, deforestation of Amazonia was found to severely reduce rainfall in the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, and northern Mexico during the spring and summer seasons when water is crucial for agricultural productivity. Deforestation of Central Africa has a similar effect, causing a significant precipitation decrease in the lower U.S Midwest during the spring and summer and in the upper U.S. Midwest in winter and spring.

~ ~ ~

... the combined effect of deforestation in all three regions shifts the greatest precipitation decline in the U.S. to California during the winter season

(that may be wrong, but you surely have to wonder?)

[edit on 11-3-2009 by Essan]

Now, the loss of habitat...

That is REAL.

Our landuse is simply inexcusable.

People just don't understand... When you don't protect the forests (REALLY protect, NOT 'manage' them ), the life force drains from greater and greater areas.

Those are not areas affected by drought... They are losing their life force. If you don't provide a hospitable place for it to reside... it WILL leave.

People don't understand that WATER IS ALIVE.

Those clouds... they be alive.

A concept pretty near impossible for 'modern' man to even begin to understand.

Every where we go, there we are.

Originally posted by xman_in_blackx
The greenhouse effect suggests that carbon dioxide in large quantitties will raise the temperature of the planet. Many use the planet Venus as an example, but the model doesn't hold true, because if it did, Mars would be a lot warmer than it is.

At a surface atmospheric pressure of 9 millibars? Hilarious.

I am really not interested in debating climate change with people who think it is mainly an issue in American politics. I don't live in America. I live on the far side of the world from you. I have several Maldivian friends whose island homes are drowning, largely because of the Western world's greed for energy and toys made in China. Faced with that reality, I can hardly be blamed for finding the narrowminded, snout-in-the-trough-and-belly-dragging-on-the-ground stance of rich-country climate-change deniers anything but obscene.

It would seem that we are in a warming cycle and if it continues, we may even reach the temperatures of a millenium ago. Note that when the Vikings were a-Viking about looking for people to enslave and land to steal, they happened on Greenland which may not have been frozen over [or the naming committee had a great sense of humor.]
There is a good deal yet to discover about the effects of the primary greenhouse gas, water vapor, before we start taxing exhalation. Al Gore is pandering to the crowds and pretending to be concerned for the thing that warms him -- gold.
The most amusing thing is the conundrum of the environmentalists with regards to power generation. Hydro is evil because the fish can't fornicate. Biomass is bad because all the trees must be burnt. Coal is bad because it is coal. Large solar arrays could affect weather and local environment. Wind turbines ruin the view and dice raptors. Wave power ruins the beaches. Nuclear power is bad but is not as bad as before. Geothermal power is bad because it pollutes the air and ground water. Fusion is our future...and probably always will be.

reply to post by pteridine

Fusion is our future...and probably always will be.

Nah... Getting educated is our only future.

But it's a hopeless task... We aren't even sentient!

Originally posted by Astyanax
I am really not interested in debating climate change with people who think it is mainly an issue in American politics. I don't live in America.

...I can hardly be blamed for finding the narrowminded, snout-in-the-trough-and-belly-dragging-on-the-ground stance of rich-country climate-change deniers anything but obscene.

Straight for the ad-hom. Nice!

Well, it's fairly normal that when having a differing opinion than someone else is considered being mentally ill. Take for instance the reptilian theory. On one hand the people that don't believe call believers crazy, and on the other believers say you're crazy if you don't.

But it'll get scary when having a differing opinion than the government gets you officially declared mentally ill. I don't think this is going that far yet. But that is not to say that it hasn't happened in the past or that it won't happen in the future.

Originally posted by TheComte

But it'll get scary when having a differing opinion than the government gets you officially declared mentally ill. I don't think this is going that far yet. But that is not to say that it hasn't happened in the past or that it won't happen in the future.

This is an excellent point. I understand that people who have had mental health problems are not allowed to buy guns, according to new regulations. According to insurance companies (preexisting conditions) everything from ever seeing a counselor to taking anti-depressant medication falls in this category. Add to that anyone who is not convinced that global warming is caused by humans, and you have a mighty big group that can be disqualified from all sorts of things. Can you let a person with a "mental problem" be a teacher? A nurse or doctor? I don't know that it will come to this, but the more people whose input can be discounted, the better for TPTB.

People who push climate change should be called hystrionic, because they completely confuse the issue.

Yes, the Earth is getting warmer, but not due to man-made CO2 emissions !

reply to post by Astyanax


I live in the tropics for the most part of my life. Also lived in USA for 6 months.

I hardly felt any global warming when I went across USA last year, they were having some of the coldest winters at that time!

But here in the Tropics is indeed different. The climate is messed, we're experiencing rain when we shouldn't, experiencing summer heat in February??!! I don't know why the Americans, Europeans or just about anyone living in the upper north and south remain and love being ignorant of these things! When it's as simple as asking and accepting the opinion of others who have lived in other parts of the world.

There is NO conspiracy with global warming down here, it is happening, we feel it! The only possible conspiracy is when HAARP is intentionally messing the climate.

[edit on 13-3-2009 by ahnggk]