I just watched the focus group testing of John McCain’s new global warming ad. In it he assures somebody, most likely not his own team, that he believes in global warming.
I’ll take a different tact on this just for a change. Believing in climate change is like believing in sunrises and sunsets. They all happen, have happened, and will continue to happen. It’s not all that daring just because the time frame is different. As I’ve posted elsewhere, even if true, the effects of global warming will be the slowest moving catastrophe in recent history. In one of the breathlessly panicked forecasts I’ve read we’re told that sea level will soon rise by a fraction of an inch a year. This would allow more than enough time for a responsible government led by grownups (read that ‘not liberals’) to respond. The people could evacuate entirely, move to a higher elevation, or (far more likely) postpone the inevitable by a massive spending project on a system of dikes and levees.
Even if none of this works and coastal cities are destroyed, don’t cry! Celebrate! You’re environmentalists for Gaia’s sake! You hate cities anyway. This also has the additional benefit of making the land you bought out in the boondocks, to get away from the human blight, into highly desirable beach property. You can sell it on the sly, and become filthy rich, all while hypocritically condemning the capitalist system. You know! Just like all of those people you slavishly vote for.
More seriously, few people I know seriously deny climate change. The climate has always changed, and will always continue to do so. The question is whether humans caused it. The, answer of course not. It’s an ongoing process. Well then, do humans make it worse? Probably, but only to an insignificant level. About the same way that coupling one extra boxcar to a 100-car train makes the wreck worse if it jumps the tracks. In other words, it only matters if you addicted to shame.
I think maybe Obama and McCain should share a campaign slogan this cycle: We’re screwed in ‘08.
[...] Grandpa McCain’s ‘Global Warming’ Focus Group Posted on May 16, 2008 by borealdreams re: McCain’s Global Warming Focus Group and John McCain & Global Warming [...]
Since TMIA guy was too inconsiderate to actually post his comment to my post on my post, I’ll return the favor.
TMIA, I’ll assume you’re some species of liberal. This is made all the easier by the fact that you misunderstood the point I was making, became upset by your misunderstanding, and did a bang up job of debunking a position that didn’t exist:
re: postpone the inevitable by a massive spending project on a system of dikes and levees.
So now you are advocating yet another massive government welfare project? Where will the dikes & levees protect, all of southern Florida or just the wealthy areas such as Boca Raton? What would Ron Paul say about this? Ron Paul “[Government] funds go not necessarily to the best artists, but to people who happen to be good at filling out government grant applications. I have my doubts that the same people occupy both categories.”
I hope you will be starting a private campaign, “Florida Levees for the Rich,” to begin amassing the trillions of dollars needed to construct dikes around southern Florida, as private funding is “far more efficient than that of the government.”
You see, FYIA, everything after “far more likely” was an ironic sarcastic comment. I wasn’t proposing we build dikes and levees around affected lowlands. Far from it. I was, however, mocking the idea as so incredibly stupid that it would probably at least suggested by some dimwitted liberal.
Next, don’t get the idea that I love John McCain. This is definitely, the “We’re Screwed” election. The only difference between him and the other two candidates is the speed at which we get screwed. With Obama, or Hillary, the screwing will be immediate and brutal. If McCain, we will be in fairly good shape until he gets his immigration policies through, in which case we’re more screwed that if Obama or Hillary had been elected.
Good job of extending my railroad metaphor to support your own cause. You obviously have some “Republican DNA” in there some where. I suggest you cultivate that. It’s your only hope.
Finally, the Kyoto Protocol. Sigh. I really wish you Lefties would give this a rest. It was a bad idea whose time never came. The fact that you’re impressed by 178 countries signing it only shows that you’ve transferred you hopeless high school desire to be one of the “cool kids” and transferred it to American foreign policy. Bad news, FYIA, even after the United States is reduced to a post-industrial wasteland, the “cool kids” will still hate you.
One final thing, all snarkiness aside. One thing you need to learn in life is that despite what your parents, teachers, minister, etc. may have told you, it is very possible for you to be right and everybody else to be wrong. In fact, it happens all the time. The Kyoto Protocol never had, and never will, have anything to do with reducing carbon emissions. If it did, China and India would be under sanctions right now. The Kyoto document, like anything dreamed up by the political left/environmentalist movement is about cutting Uncle Sam’s balls off.
By the way, I do apologize for the confusion about my meaning in the post. I usually try to idiot-proof my posts, but I’ve been busy because I’ve accepted a new job (that’s a place where you go and work and the people who own the place give you money for doing it). So, I’ve cut a few corner and one of them has been proof-reading. Sorry.