Posted on 07/19/2012 11:11:57 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
I’ve never done a double feature before where our Climate Craziness of the Week and Quote of the Week are one and the same. 350.org’s Bill McKibben gets this unique honor.
From the what universe does Bill McKibben live in department? While going on about heat waves, he comes up with the ultimate “I don’t understand science” zinger. How long before people stop listening to this guy? I would not have believed he’d be disturbed enough to write this if I hadn’t read it as a direct quote written by his own hand.
Hat tip to Tom Nelson.
Here’s the quote, its “Big Oil” irrationality on steroids:
…this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet , and they’re planning to use it. - 350.org’s Bill McKibben
I’m reminded of this:
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708473/quotes?qt=qt0198370
Here’s some excerpts from McKibben’s Rolling Stone article:
Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math | Politics News | Rolling Stone
warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.
…
Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. (“Reasonable,” in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)
…”The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist. In fact, he continued, “When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees.” That’s almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction.
…
We have five times as much oil and coal and gas on the books as climate scientists think is safe to burn. We’d have to keep 80 percent of those reserves locked away underground to avoid that fate…Most of us are fundamentally ambivalent about going green: We like cheap flights to warm places, and we’re certainly not going to give them up if everyone else is still taking them. Since all of us are in some way the beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, tackling climate change has been like trying to build a movement against yourself – it’s as if the gay-rights movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from slaveholders.
…Given this hard math, we need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization. “Lots of companies do rotten things in the course of their business – pay terrible wages, make people work in sweatshops – and we pressure them to change those practices,” says veteran anti-corporate leader Naomi Klein, who is at work on a book about the climate crisis. “But these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model. It’s what they do.”…this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet, and they’re planning to use it.
…
There’s not a more reckless man on the planet than Tillerson…In December, BP finally closed its solar division. Shell shut down its solar and wind efforts in 2009. The five biggest oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in profits since the millennium – there’s simply too much money to be made on oil and gas and coal to go chasing after zephyrs and sunbeams.
…Until a quarter-century ago, almost no one knew that CO2 was dangerous…if their college’s endowment portfolio has fossil-fuel stock, then their educations are being subsidized by investments that guarantee they won’t have much of a planet on which to make use of their degree. …we have met the enemy and they is Shell.
No, Bill, its you, and you may very well be insane. Get help.
Bill McKibben, an American environmentalist and writer, attending the 2006 Stanford Singularity Summit via an HDTV telepresence system. . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
fyi
Climate goober ping!
He says that the fossil fuel industry “has the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet”. This is a grand a sweeping statement, and it’s meant to be, but it says nothing about changing the laws of physics. “The physics of X” and “The chemistry of Y” are tropes which refer to the physical and chemical characterizations of X and Y. If we say, “The physics of the atmosphere of Venus are much different than the physics of Earth’s atmosphere,” we are not implying that Venus and Earth obey different laws of physics.
OK?
Bizarre and specious way of saying that the last 25 years have been warmer than the 20th Century average.
It was also much warmer in 1100 AD than the 20th Century average. Climatic temperature moves up and down in a perfectly natural rythmn - but this 'scientist' wants laymen to react with terror and panic at a simple local maxima.
> If we say, “The physics of the atmosphere of Venus are much different than the physics of Earth’s atmosphere,” we are not implying that Venus and Earth obey different laws of physics.
Aw, ya went and spoiled a perfectly good rant. You must be a riot at parties. :) You’re absolutely correct of course...
Only true if month to month temperature variations are independent events. What we can say, with some certainty, is that month to month temperature variations are not independent events.
These are the types of fools that filled Al Gores brain with bull shit to the point where Gore actually was believing much of the crap poured into his ears.
New Climate Change Poll Proves People Have Short Attention Spans
Global Warming on Free Republic
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