www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/weather/06/27/north.pole.melting/index.html I am not a scientist or geologist. I generally just go along with what the scientific community says or agrees upon. Thus I agree with evolution. I agree with global warming. I agree that life does not begin after fertilization. So now I read this article. WTF? MOP had me optimistic when I mentioned to him on his global cooling thread that the arctic ice was melting...or so I had heard. But he assured me it has all refrozen over this past year. Well now they are saying it is going to melt....all of it...WTF MOP?
Another scientist with a prediction woo hoo! I predict that the world will end sometime in the future. Wonder if they will run my story?
count me as a "man made" global warming skeptic, but i would like to know the following if anyone happens to follow this intensely. I know the NP is melting, but I also hear Antartica is growing. Does the gain at the SP come close to equaling the loss at the NP? If so, what type of impact would have have on climates (supposed) and things like ocean currents?
Those wacky scientists. I tell ya. Thank God we got the radio personalities and corporate-funded experts to set us straight!
No, but as far as thinly veiled and extraordinarily lame insults go, that's probably one of the more complimentary ones I've gotten from a climate-change skeptic.
I just mean that usually, after you've seen a lot of things come and go, you learn to hedge a bit, realizing that many things you believed strongly as a younger man, you come to see differently. So, you can believe what you want, and you can be sure of it, too, but usually it is younger people who are so quick to say that those who disagree with them are plain idiots. I am not quarreling with your viewpoint, just your condescension.
From my perspective, condescension works well on this board when people believe idiotic things. We're not allowed to do personal attacks -- at least directly. So we do it more indirectly, like you did. I think it's a pretty damned important issue, and I think it's time to take the gloves off. Skeptics have had them off for a long time. Condescension is a two-way street. I also think the word "hypocrite" is a good one when someone makes accusations of condescension in such a condescending way. Yes, I'm condescending. But not enough to assume you're "old." (My five-year-old wants to be old!)
I really am not trying to upset you. You just made some kind of over the top personal statements about people who disagreed with you. I took it not that you were a rude person, but that this issue is so important to you that you don't even notice when you are rude, because you are so sure that you are right, and so sure that communicating that you are right is more important than being civil, that you say such things. I took it as heat of the battle, so to speak. But again, usually, people who get that way about debatable issues are young. Sorry I guessed wrong. Nothing I said, or am saying, has to do with the merits of your point of view. I'm okay with you, and look forward to hearing what you have to say on this important issue.
You haven't upset me a bit, VYfan. Other people on this post upset me a bit -- not because of what they say, but because of the attitude they seem to have. It's an attitude that I believe is the root of our problem. You, on the other hand, seem like a reasonable person, even though it appears you don't believe the way I do. That's fine. But regardless of your intent, your words carry a rhetorical weight that I think needed a response. Even if "young" isn't such a dirty word to you, it has all sorts of connotations, as we both know. I don't mince words any more on this issue, whether it's here or in real life. I don't get into fist fights, but anyone who discusses climate change with me is going to know where I stand. And where I stand, metaphorically, is not on the teakwood deck of private pleasurecraft above the melted North Pole.
All my life, Texoz, I've thought subtlety, reason, logic, patience and good information were virtues in communication. I simply don't believe that for this issue any more. I do have a new appreciation for unmitigated scorn where other forms of direct wording fail.
So it was a ******** media event. These Cassandra moments add to the skeptic's repertory. Shame on the attention seekers.
