Reply #141: Is being a

[billh58]

"denier" the same as being an "evildoer," or a "decider?" Wouldn't the better question be: "Who among us, or among our ancestors, has NOT contributed in some way to AGW, and what can we do about it at this late stage of the game?"

The "its-all-your-fault" camp is as ineffectual as the "nothing-to-see-here" camp if all that happens is name-calling and exchanging insults. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that six billion industrialized, fossil-fuel burning, exotic chemical manufacturing, self-centered, hungry people are fulfilling our evolutionary roles by shitting in our own nests. Our smaller-brained cousins don't do that very often. And, it's not just global warming -- it's the overall pollution of our planetary water, our soil, and our air.

Instead of laying guilt-trips on a those who piss you off, why not offer positive suggestions as to what individuals can realistically do to reverse the process? You may also want to take into account that natural, and relatively rapid, cyclical climate change has occurred many times in the past, and will occur again and again in the future, and there is little that mankind can do about it -- yet. The same goes for the shifting of the magnetic poles, and asteroid or comet strikes.

Your argument that climate change has never happened this rapidly without causing mass extinction in the history of this planet is a half-truth. What you should be saying is that natural occurrences like asteroid collisions are believed to have caused mass extinctions by raising the temperature of the earth several degrees over the span of a few days, or weeks. Not exactly apples-and-oranges, is it? We do not have much evidence for the effects on generations of mankind because of climate change over a period of several years.

Your point is well-taken, but just blaming those who either do not know what is causing climate change (which is the vast majority of Earth's general population), or those who don't give a rat's ass, will NOT get the job done. That is, unless your goal is to arrive at a "I told you so!" point just before we all become crispy critters.

The "us vs. them" tone of DU across many different topics would be almost comical if I weren't a Liberal Democrat. Since I AM a Liberal Democrat, I am more concerned with solutions than I am with pointing fingers, or affixing blame on fellow travelers.