Someone posted a comment on BigTrip.TV:
I’m interested to know what you’re doing to offset the carbon emissions from this “trip”.
I love that he put the word trip in quotes, as if it’s somehow suspect and not really a trip at all. Surely our true intention is to destroy the planet as we know it with our harmful carbon emissions. I don’t care to argue, so I replied with a joke, “We’re going to eat more cows.”
We live in a time where environmental fascism is being pushed so hard and so often, that thinking, logical people are bending over and giving into global, irrational, unscientific peer pressure. You can’t turn on a television anymore without hearing environmentalist nonsense about being green to save the planet. The planet is not in danger.
As a thinking person, I can’t base my opinions about the environment and global warming on emotional arguments like those offered by Al Gore and his allies in Hollywood. My gut feeling is that their arguments are nonsense, and oh you cannot imagine how much, I would love to ignore these people and just go with my gut.
My gut instinct is based on simple logic. If scientists cannot accurately predict the weather next week, they also cannot predict the weather next century. It’s the same logic I used to discount disaster theories about Y2K. When everyone was worried and spending millions of dollars on solutions, I changed the clock on my computer to see what would happen at midnight, January 1, 2000. Nothing happened, so I knew nothing would happen anywhere else, and I was right.
I can’t rest with simple logic, though, because the people making arguments based on emotion appear to be winning public support. In order to continue to believe what I think is true, I have to spend time reading the science behind the arguments to see for myself it the emotional arguments have scientific validity.
The emotional argument is that the scientific community has reached the consensus that global warming is a reality and it’s caused by human activity. Global warming is necessarily bad, and since it is caused by humans, it can be corrected, but only if we act now before it’s too late.
There is nothing scientific, rational or even reasonable about that argument. To begin with, scientific fact isn’t determined by consensus. I worry about the state of science education if we don’t remember what we learned about the difference between law and theory in science.
It is a fact that the existence of global warming and its causes are based on climate models that could turn out to be accurate, but could just as easily turn out NOT to be accurate. It is also a historic fact that warmer periods in the past have resulted in global economic prosperity, so global warming, if it exited is more likely to be good for us than bad for us.
It is not, however, a fact that global warming exists. The planet hasn’t warmed since 1998, and 2007 was cool enough to offset all warming that has taken place over the past century.
One of my favorite presidents in history is Teddy Roosevelt. He loved nature and he lead us to set aside parts of our nation to be preserved in a natural state. Nature is good. Pollution is bad. Protecting nature is good. Making people feel guilting for using resources is evil.
Rather than bowing to environmental fascism, religious fundamentalism or any thought system not based on reason, I choose to embrace logic and balance. I have full confidence, when we go too far as humans, a little something God built into nature called homeostasis will bring everything back into balance.
My favorite climate scientist is Dr. Roy W. Spencer. He just released a book explaining climate science. It’s called Climate Confusion. It’s based on science not emotional arguments and I highly recommend it.
If you read this and disagree, feel free to post scientific research that contradicts what I’ve written. I would love to read it, but I’m not going to get into an emotional argument with anyone about science.
25 Comments
I believe we should be doing things to improve our environment *despite* the possibilities of climate crisis. To me, having grown up on a farm and being surrounded by nature, it seems to be common sense to want to give back to nature as much one takes from it. I also work to apply this principle to every other area of my life. Anything else would seem selfish.
Exactly, Chris. Who couldn’t agree with what you say? The environmental fascists tell us things are getting worse and we’re doing a bad job at caring for the environment. The truth is pollution has been going down for years and the environment, in the U.S., improves every year.
Hey Neal,
Nice post. My wife is a science teacher and I always look for more things to discuss with her over dinner. Do you have a list of URLs and other books that address global warming?
-Paul.
@Paul D Watson - We’re headed out to volunteer for the KERA pledge drive. I’ll post some links tonight, but this is a good starting point: http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
I have to echo what you are stating Neal, and I agree that the proponents of extreme Environmental policies are akin to facists in many ways.
I personally do not believe that we as humans are the cause of this so-called Warming trend, because if we look at the data going back years we see sets of cooling and warming trends. It is very convenient that many environmentalists ignore this very data.
I suspect that some of these proponents are those who want to be the ones in control over other people, when America is about the individual.
I agree with the attempts to minimize or eliminate our dependence on oil fuel products with electric and alternate fuel types. It just makes sense to not have to spend money on the oil importing, and use it for something else.
Hi Neal,
you have some really interesting points. One argument of yours that really did stick out to me was: “If scientists can’t even predict the weather next week, how can they accurately predict it in “decades”" (first of all, scientist can’t predict the weather in North America, go over to Germany and you will see that the weather forecast is really really accurate… they just have not figured it out here
). You are using the terms climate and weather interchangeable, but they are not the same. I’m sure you know that, but I thought I’d point it out, because a lot of people (your readers for instance) pick up these phrases and then just quote: “Well Neal from GBTV said, there’s no climate crisis.” Which is where the dilemma starts. People need to be a lot smarter about sourcing the information. Everyone seems to be a specialist in this case 
Thank you for that very interesting link to Roy Spencers research, I will follow up on it. If you are serious about this issue (which I think you are, otherwise you would have not created such a long post) and want to see both sides of the game, I urge you to read, The Weather Makers as well. I have it as an audio book. It’s really dry and “somewhat” scientific (it’s science made understandable, I studied physics and it’s really not that scientific) but it has some really good observations in it. (it’s basically the google analytics for climate data read outs / observations)
I do agree that lots of people are very emotional about the “problem” (I guess in your mind it’s not a problem), and I like your logic approach to things. That brings up one interesting question to me though. If you approach this climate situation with logic, why are do you pick an extremist side (against the belief of climate change)? Me for instance, I’m not sure where things are really heading. I grew up in Germany and climate issues have always been a part of life. People over there still en large care about the environment, because they believe that everyone is part of this intricate system. Only in North America have people removed themselves so much from nature, that many people don’t understand it’s importance anymore. (Things just seem to appear magically in the super market, and peolpe get pissed if maybe there’s no strawberries, not realizing though that it’s not strawberry season)
Coming back to logic. If you approach this problem with logic, I would say, exhaust is generally something that nature was not made to deal with. Therefor it will necessarily have some kind of consequence on the environment. Since I know that if I am in a room with a running car, I will most likely be negatively affected by the exhaust. Hence, I assume that if nature was not made to deal with exhaust and we blow lots of it in the atmosphere with our factories, houses and cars, I must assume that something is going to change… probably to the bad.
I could pick an extremist side and really run with it, but that would make me a hypocrite. Selling my car, and doing all the things possible to not affect the environment will never make me a zero carbon footprint person. There are so many more factors to it. I chose to go the middle way, slightly more on the greener side of things just because I think it’s generally the more healthy way, for me, for my families health, and even for nature.
This is just one example of what the kind of way that I approach things, also logically.
Well Neal, I hope this post was as unemotional as I was able to make it
and that is was not toooo long… Let me know if you think that I’m completely on the wrong track here.
Cheers, Hans
As a meteorologist (before moving on to computers) I agree there is a difference in wx and climate. I would also agree that for weather beyond 48 hours it is very hard to predict. For the guy from Germany…let’s remember that the scope of wx here in America is very different than the wx in Germany. I have predicted both (was in the USAF). I agree with Neal as do a number of climatologists - they just don’t want to be stoned by stating their idea.
I find it a bit odd that you would choose to decline an emotional argument on one hand, and use the term fascism to describe environmentalism. Describing something as fascist is certainly a term that elicits an emotional response.
That aside, I say as a disclaimer that I consider myself a rational environmentalist. I define that as being concerned about the environment, but practical enough to understand that there must be a balance between environmentalism and maintaining a healty economic system. Long term I don’t think the two are incompatible.
You say that it is irrational to base a decision on the fact that there is a consensus among climate scientists. Truthfully only a small percentage of people are probably qualified to read peer reviewed studies on both sides of the issue and make a well informed decision over which scientific evidence is more compelling. Lacking that knowledge people rely on the judgement of those who are qualified. I find nothing irrational or unreasonable about that. An individual with an incomplete understanding of the issues could easily find many web sites, articles, etc. to support either side of the argument. That type of research isn’t likely to uncover a true understanding of the data unless the person is reading some heavy duty articles.
Certainly the consensus has been wrong in the past. Certainly conventional wisdom has proven incorrect. The great thing about this issue, however, is that the reducing carbon dioxide emissions has positive consequences even if you remove global warming from the equation. The improvement in air quality is beneficial regardless of the effect on global warming. And while you point out that US air quality has actually improved, the same can’t be said of China and other rapidly advancing countries.
Finally, I always wince when I hear the argument about God and homeostasis. God gave us free will. Homeostasis implies that our free will has no consequence. If the exercise of free will has no consequence, then why not do whatever we please whenever we please and then just pray for forgiveness at the end?
All that being said, I’m a big trip supporter (I have a paidbypixels ad), and I’m not worried about your RV’s effect on the environment. I hope you have a great time.
Chris, you’re right that my use of the word fascism is emotionally charged. My motivation for sitting down and writing the post is extreme frustration with what seems to be blanket acceptance of Al Gore’s message.
I believe in conservation. I drive a diesel car and fill up with bio diesel when it’s available. I drive fewer than 20 miles a week. My level of pollution has been limited to that pattern for 7 years, so I don’t want to be preached at for not being green enough anymore!
Neal,
I don’t think we should get into an argument on the science of global warming because neither of us our environmental scientists - and those kind of arguments often degenerate into meaningless slanging matches anyway.
I would like to pick up on one thing you said though:
Frankly, I’m astounded at that. There are so many flaws in that kind of logic that it’s difficult to know where to start. But:
1. Your sample size of 1 would not stand scientific scrutiny
2. You have not defined any methodology for the testing. How long did you observe the computer for and under what conditions? Where was the control?
3. In all likelihood, your computer had already been patched for Y2K. Had it not, it would be telling you the year is currently 1908 and it’s a Wednesday. You can see how this might cause problems.
The point is that Y2K *was* a major issue and many thousands of life-critical systems had to be updated. Yes, the publicity was probably overkill, but the result was just about every affected critical system was fixed in time.
Your scientific methodology is somewhat akin to sticking your head out of the window and discounting global warming because it happens to be raining today.
So, let me get this straight. One of your viewers - one who has actually donated to your show in the past because he enjoyed your content - stuck his head above the parapet of yes men and offered a slight critique of your project. And his reward was to compare him to a Fascist?
Shame on you.
Remember, you are hoping that viewers will donate to help you make this road trip. And this during a period of economic downturn, with oil prices and other living costs skyrocketing. I’m sure there will be more than a few feeling a little uncomfortable with this scenario, whether for economic or environmental reasons.
As a result, insulting your donating viewers probably isn’t the wisest move ever. The sensible choice is to learn from it and extrapolate to “hey, maybe some of our other viewers may be feeling that too but just not expressing it. Even if I don’t agree with it - how can we address their fears and help them to share the vision we have for this trip”.
With this you just come across as defensive, emotional and unable to connect with genuine concerns some of your viewers may have.
@PEWARI - No. The guy who left the comment is Dom. He hasn’t supported the trip. He says the trip is a bad idea and bad for the environment.
@Neal
Pewari is a friend of mine. I introduced her to Geekbrief last year and she became a fan. She posted about it here:
http://pewari.may.be/2007/12/04/geekbrieftv-with-cali-lewis/
She’s referring to the fact that I’ve donated to GBTV - something I’ve done on more than one occasion.
I don’t know how you spend non-Bigtrip donations, but for what it’s worth, I would be uncomfortable to think that my donations were helping you buy an RV. I just signed up for shiny happy tech news.
(I’m also more than a little uncomfortable with your use of the word “fascist”. I don’t know if that’s an age thing or a European thing. I just don’t like it.)
Dom, I didn’t call you a fascist. I call the environmental movement “environmental fascism” because environmentalists aren’t opened to skepticism. If we don’t accept environmentalist dogma, we are then accused of doing damage to the planet.
Growing up in church, I am all too familiar with religious judgmentalism. Environmental judgmentalism feels very similar.
My nature is to rebel against any perceived judgmentalism. I’ve stood up to pastors who judge friends for being gay, and I’m standing up to you because you think our dream is bad for the planet.
I don’t dislike you or disrespect you for thinking RVs are bad. I just disagree with you, and if environmental isn’t fascism, I should have the right to disagree.
I find this debate very interesting. As much as I would love to get into a debate with Dom about global warming, I am going to stay on subject. Cali and Neal’s Big Trip.
I find Dom’s suggestion very interesting.
“As a non-US Geekbrief viewer, I have serious doubts that you can keep the show interesting for a whole year by looking at primarily local US tech stories. I really think it would be a better use of your time and money to scrap this trip and just spend a few weeks in Japan or South Korea looking at some *really* interesting technology.”
Unless you expecting Cali and Neal to swim or row a small boat, they are going to have to fly.
I found this information at http://tinyurl.com/5el7f2.
“According to an article in the May 7 edition of The Nation, the effects of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses released by jets during air travel are around 270 percent higher than those of average emissions caused by driving the same distance, making air travel “one of the most destructive things we can do,” writes George Monbiot, the article’s author.”
It is approximately 12,000 miles roundtrip from California to South Korea. Based on the above information, that would produce the same carbon emissions as driving an RV 3,240,000 miles. I am pretty sure Cali and Neal are not going to drive that far.
So Dom, your suggestion is far more destructive. At this point I am sure you are ready to say that there will be other people on the plane and that all of the carbon emissions would not belong to Cali and Neal.
You suggest that they spend a “few weeks” there. So what are they going to do the rest of the year? They are going to drive, cook, use lights and computers and do all the things we all do. All of those things require power. Power produced by either coal plants or nuclear plants. All produce carbon emissions. On the road, they will be doing those things, powered by an internal combustion engine instead.
So the way I see it, their trip is at the very least carbon neutral. In reality, they may produce less carbon emissions than the rest of us.
Now I have a question for Dom. What have you done to compensate for the carbon emissions created by you during the time your computer consumed electricity while writing your posts. Are YOU carbon neutral?
Cali and Neal go and enjoy your trip. I am sure we will love listening to The Brief while you are on the road.
I am a Big Trip supporter and I am not afraid to say it.
*****Please note, I agree with Neal. I think all this global warming stuff is crap. The latest reports I have read actually show a slight cooling in the last couple of years. It’s all just a cycle.*****
@Neal,
I said I was concerned by your use of the word “fascist”, not that you’d called me one directly. I know people who had to flea Nazi Germany during the war, so I’m particularly uncomfortable with that word being used with something as benign as looking after the environment.
@Tony - two separate issues. In terms of the content of the show, I’d rather see them go somewhere cutting edge. And at no time have I said I’m against travel - just that Neal and Luria should at least *consider* possible environmental impact.
Ok, here’s my thoughts on the matter in a bit more depth:
http://blog.domramsey.com/tech/shiny-happy-environmental-fascism/
Neal,
I applaud your decision not to allow Gore and his goons to bully you into thinking their way. Frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised to hear you say it. (I don’t know you all that well, obviously.)
I, myself, drive a fairly fuel-efficient car (Honda Element), but not to save the Earth so many worship more than the God who created it (and is the only one with the power to destroy it, ultimately). I do it to save some money, to try to keep the air a bit cleaner, and because I believe the thing will last longer between repairs.
If my wife and I had the good fortune and inclination to travel across the country, though, you better believe we’d be looking at an RV. One thing’s for sure: you and Cali will be burning decidedly less fossil fuel than Gore does flying about in his private jet to “spread the word”. (Look, quotes!)
As soon as things take a more pleasant turn financially for my wife and me (I’m hoping soon), I really want to help support the Big Trip. (Note the lack of quotation marks.) By the way, the PaidByPixels thing is brilliant. Did you guys come up with that on your own?
On an unrelated topic: Have you and Cali decided on what to name your RV, or are you waiting until you buy/lease it first, so that you’ll get a better feel for its “personality”? Do you intend to appeal to your listeners/readers for suggestions at some point?
Best of luck,
Sean
Sean, I like the idea of naming the RV. Thanks for the suggestion.
Cali said people were asking what they could do to support the trip. I had always been intrigued by the Million Dollar Home Page project. The guy who did it sells the script. Value of pixels can be adjusted, so we cut the value in half and set aside $50,000 worth of ad space for Heifer International. That makes the total potential of the page $450,000.
It’s essentially a market place for advertising on our network of sites. A block of pixels = an ad rotation. You see those ads in the upper right corner of GeekBrief.TV, iCali.TV, DearCali.com, Carnivore.TV and nealcampbell.com. It’s an easily accessible, inexpensive way to get exposure across our network.
I posted a lengthy answer to Dom’s concerns on his blog. It’s worth reading what he said, and hopefully my response, if you’re interested in the conversation.
http://blog.domramsey.com/tech/shiny-happy-environmental-fascism/
We also returned his Geek Brief Paypal donations.
I find these discussions are often more interesting than debate among scientist.
I have been an environmental scientist, a research chemist and amateur mathematician. I am also old enough to remember the Global Cooling scare of the 1970s. [notice that the 70s was also the start of satellite data that many global warming models are based on] The climate of the Earth has been known to change dramatically. Google “little ice age” for a recent change. The sun is known to have an 11 and a 17 cycle, if not others, that means we need at least 187 years of good solar data to accurately know the effects of these cycles.
The term fascism refers to a politic (ala Merriam-Webster) ‘that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition’. You can see how that can apply to Al Gore et. al. In that the solutions they support to combat Global Warming are ones that put them in power and that are often calling for suppression of opposition, labeling them ” deniers”. Notice that at the upper echelons of this movement, the solutions are rarely scientific or technological, but instead social; we have to change. The “we” usually being we Evil Americans, whereas the elites simply buy indulgences in the form of carbon credits. Rational environmentalist, I include myself in this group, are a small voice drown out my media hype. There is a large middle between “fascist” and “polluter” where actual solutions lie. Alternate fuels are good, but not when they lead to world-wide famine. Is replacing a low efficiency bulb with one that contains mercury really a good idea?
Thanks to all for allowing me this rant.
@Neal,
Small heads up. Across Europe, the term Fascism is quite serious. It’s offensive, and points to people willing to kill large parts of the population in order to get their way. I don’t think that’s a claim you can make about Al Gore and his followers.
In the terms you are using it, your current federal government actually comes much closer in their actions and inactions regarding science, the patriot act, suspension of habeus corpus, the use of torture to secure confessions, detainment of foreign nationals without legal representation or even such a simple matter as securing gay and transgender rights.
No doubt this isn’t to comfortable for you either, thus I suggest that people avoid the term.
As I’m Dutch, I can’t say much about what happens in the US other than what my friends who life there tell me. That, and the American media.
Like almost anything else, things do tend to polarise in the American Media. Positions are extreme while the truth tends to lie in the middle.
Global Warming is a fact. that in turn does not mean that temperatures will rise everywhere. If for instance the icecaps melt, this will change the salt content of the ocean, and slow or perhaps even halt the Atlantic conveyor. This in turn will make Northern Europe a lot colder.
My own country (the Netherlands) is pouring billions of euros into reinforcing and increasing dikes because the sea already has risen, and will continue to do so. For us, the prediction of ice-free polar caps in the near future ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm ) is not a happy one, and not just because of the polar bears.
@Dom,
Concerning the Money for the RV. Neal and Lucia are selling their house (and most of it’s content) in order to buy the RV. What is going to happen to it? It’s their house!
@Robbert: Selling their house just makes it more confusing and raises more questions.
If they’re selling their house, why are they trying to raise $400k with PaidByPixels? What’s that going to be spent on?
There’s no delineation between personal finance and business finance (and we’ve already established the Big Trip is a business venture.) On top of that, they’re asking for “donations” through PaidByPixels, which implies it’s a charitable venture. You don’t “donate” money to a business.
And again, I’m not saying they shouldn’t do it. But it’s simple common sense to tell people where the money is coming from and where it’s going. They *must* have already figured this stuff out, because it’s basic information that the tax man needs to know.
Dom - We don’t own a house. We’re renting an apartment. We’re selling and giving away furniture, and electronics not relevant to the trip.
Just like I said on your blog, people are buying ads on paidbypixels rather than donating to the trip. For every block a person purchases, they get an ad rotation on our network. I think people are getting results because they keep returning to purchase more space on the pixel board.
No one has ever been quite so interested in our personal or business finances before.
It’s not hard to know how or where we spend money we make. All you have to do is watch the shows, read the blogs, and follow our twitters. The same will be true for the trip. The more money generated by paidbypixels, t-shirt sales and DVD sales, the more money we’ll put into technology on the bus.
One of the cool things that would dramatically impact the kind of video we would produce on the bus would be Iconix HD RH1 cameras. They are the world’s smallest HD cameras and they can be mounted anywhere. The cameras themselves are inexpensive, but the cost of the gear to control them adds up quickly. If we can afford it, we will install the cameras along with a computerized switching system that would enable us to shoot from anywhere in the bus (except the bathroom).
Our goal is to figure out a way to share as much of the trip with people who are interested as possible. Fully realized, people could bounce over to BigTrip.TV and see whatever is happening live. That’s almost impossible technically at this point, but we’re working to land as close to that target as we can.
@Paul:
You wanted links, here you go:
http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050
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