Global Warming Denial is the New Reefer Madness
I think of global warming as pretty much concrete fact. And I think of it as factual that we have to alter the way we live. And because I accept this as factual I find the organized opposition to these relatively plain facts to be a form of madness.
Global Warming was an idea that I had been exposed to many years ago.
The data was already around and the implications were clear by 1980, long before Al Gore waded into the maelstrom.
I basically accept it as established fact.
My first "exposure" to this idea was on Robert Fripp's "Exposure" album, in what sounds like an old recorded lecture buried under "frippertronics", just preceding the beautiful "Here comes the Flood".
Fripp's album came out in 1980 and was totally life-changing for me, partly due to his approach to guitar and partly the message about "the coming Ice Age" (which continues to be discussed in some circles). I still view it as a harbinger of climate change discourse, however off-base the early interpretations were.
Then I read "Dead Heat" by Michael Oppenhiemer and "The End of Nature" by Bill McKibben at the same time, around 1990 or so, and all this, plus other readings and various public TV programs had shown me this is a serious issue.
I have accepted this as fact for 20 years. I am not even close to questioning it. I do question those who can't seem to understand what's going on. If I can understand it, most people can, is my reasoning.
Resistance to the Facts
I think we have definitely started to see the impact of global warming, despite the vociferous and well-funded opposition to the entire concept of global warming.
This organized opposition is what I mean when I say "global warming is the new reefer madness".
The old reefer madness, which is still upon us, is all the lying about and thwarting the reform of cannabis laws. Reefer madness refers to the "arguments" and "facts" that the prohibitionist clings to.
The basic fact is that cannabis is not like the propaganda material wants you to believe (and never should have been illegal to begin with) and reefer madness is the all-out effort - funded by your tax dollars - to cover this fact up, to deny it.
Reefer madness is also a set of Republican talking points, just like you see with Global Warming Denial. It all republicans and teabaggers denying this.
When I hear people spouting the talking points about wither topic, I smirk. You can tell those who know something from those who know nothing a mile away.
Thus, I say: Global Warming IS the New Reefer Madness: you have a bunch of opposition to something most people understand and they have all the money in the world to stand in the way of change.
Now...climate science is NOT my area of expertise, however, I do sometimes take pains to explain global warming to a person who asks me about it. Sometimes its a "sckeptic" and other times it's people who really don't know what to think.
And that's what I wanted to write about: How I explain Global Warming.
The Bicycle Rim Analogy
I begin by making sure people understand that weather is a natural cycle and that because it is a cycle we can predict some things with reasonable certainty. We know summer will follow spring and can look forward to the leaves changing in the Fall. That's a cycle.
There's also a weather cycle that comes with that. April Showers, the Dog Days of Summer, Snow.
I then bring up El Nino, which is known to have some influence on the weather patterns. When El Nino is active some place are dryer tha normal, some places are wetter then normal. El Nino is an example of warming impacting the weather cycle.
I then say that , all other things being equal, heat determines the intensity of the cycle.
Next I tell them to imagine a 10 speed bike rim. To imagine holding it parallel to the ground and spinning it very very slow.
I then suggest the the rim has a couple warped spots in it, so as it turns slowly it wobbles slightly up and down.
That represents weather as we have known it. The ups and downs in the rim's cycle are analogous to normal variations in the regular cycle. Rim up, rainy season, rim down, dry season and so forth.
Then I suggest spinning this rim just a little bit faster, not very much.
Of course this exacerbates the warp of the rim and makes things more turbulent.
Heat speeds up the intensity of our weather patterns and causes more and more profound changes with even a little more heat.
So as the planet gets even a little bit warmer, the weather patterns will continue to change. If the Global Mean Temperature raises even a couple degrees centigrade, we're in for a wild ride. If it goes up a lot, it'll become a different kind of planet and humans won't be able to survive,.....even if they're rich.
The main culprit, of course, is CO2 and the long and short of our task is to keep CO2 to less than 350PPM in the atmosphere.
CO2 insulates the Earth, traps the heat and contributes unnaturally to the raising of the GMT, causing the weather cycles to become more intense.
Update [2010-9-18 12:55:19 by xxdr zombiexx]: Angie in WA State says we’re already over 350 PPM
For August 210, we're at 388.15, according to co2now.org
Storms will be more violent, water will be moving aroud - ie: some places will have more electrical storms and drought, some places more deluges and flooding. This is why increased outbreaks of fires were predicted and were being seen in California and Russia in the last couple of years.
And that's why global warming has to be slowed, stopped or reversed.
My explanation may be very crude, but it is designed to describe the real impact of global warming, which is not just a hotter planet, which is what all the deniers seem to think it will mean.
I also tell people the analogies break down: mainly because the weather is so much more complicated than a bent bicycle rim. I want them to think about weather cycles, in the end, not bike rims.