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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Fw: New Cumberland BC Cumberlander Article: Howshould the world respond to climate change?
  • Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:26:19 -0800

lbsaltzman@aol.com wrote:
Well put Toby! The amount of garbage spewing from those denying global warming is truly appalling. They seem like they are willing to destroy the credibility of a lot of hardworking scientists to discredit the massive amount of research that has been done on this issue.

Oh, dear. That actually wasn't my point. I can understand why some people are honestly perplexed about whether AGW is real; it's truly complex and the models are nearly impossible to grasp. My heart tells me it's true, and I want to see us stop doing ecologically damaging things, but I do get baffled looking at the data.

I just think it's important to be honest about whether you have an agenda, whether you made your mind up before or after you studied the subject, and not to paint those who disagree with you as less moral than you are. I think the CBC author fails on all those counts. So do some AGW advocates. As a writer I have a bit of a charge about that.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wed, Jan 13, 2010 3:48 pm
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Fw: New Cumberland BC Cumberlander Article: Howshould the world respond to climate change?


fdnokes@hotmail.com wrote:
I forwarded the message as it expressed something of relevance and
importance.
I concur that climate change as an issue detracts from the issues that we
ought to be facing.
I may have missed your point, because the article struck me as
ishonest. If there was something important I didn't see, I'm open to
earing it. I had a very different reaction.
I'm sure there are people who are truly trying to make up their own
inds and who have real questions about climate change, but given the
eat of the issue, I can't imagine that by now they don't realize that
here are polite ways to be skeptical, and there are inflammatory ways
hat are asking for argument. The author muddles the difference and uses
t to make accusations.
Yes, in climate change debate the underlying issues, as Katey mentioned,
an get lost. But as a complement to the bottom-up, "solve the root
ause" approach, a lot of people are invested in AGW because they think
hat if it's proven that it's true, it will give huge momentum toward
topping the root issues like deforestation, etc. If AGW is found false
r unprovable, we lose the top-down approach, and that's as useful a
ool as bottom-up here. So people are passionate, which makes reasoned
iscussion hard. Isn't that a predictable pattern? How honest is it to
laim to be shocked, shocked to find agendas going on here?
What bothered me was the author's rather slimy stance that he's merely a
ispassionate skeptic fighting for rights that are being violated by
icked climate-change fascists. Anyone who recommends Larry Solomon's
iased and distorting book either has no capacity to do critical
hinking--and maybe that's the case here--or already has their mind made
p against AGW and just wants support. So he lost me there (and I have
lenty of doubts about AGW models). A large proportion of the scientists
hat Solomon quotes have protested that their position is opposite to
hat Solomon's edited versions claims. Several are suing him. The book
s a horror show of cherry picking. So the way the CBC author appears to
ave hidden his own bias behind a human rights screen--"They abuse me
hen I'm just honestly asking questions"--was repellent to me. Maybe
e's an honest skeptic, but I doubt it. I think he's making a
isingenuous appeal to freedom of speech and hiding his real agenda.
But really, if there was another point there that I am missing, I am all
ars.

oby
ttp://patternliteracy.com






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