Global Warming as Euphemism--Dumbing Down the Debate

The concept of "dumbing down" is not new. You can see it in education, in the popular media, in science journalism, in science research--anywhere you look. To be honest, it is beginning to look a lot like an Idiocracy.

People use euphemisms to avoid spelling things out. Wouldn't it be more honest to simply say what you mean? Because nobody really means just "global warming" when they say it. They actually mean "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming--and pollution, imprudent energy consumption, environmental destruction, species extinction, rapid depletion of oil leading to economic devastation (peak oil), and many other things.

Global warming can be protean in its meanings. It can mean a human produced carbon dioxide driven disaster. Some people actually believe that human produced carbon dioxide is leading to a "rising global temperature" from which most of the biosphere can never recover. That certainly sounds serious, if you can believe it. But with a dumbed-down media, dumbed-down science journalism, and dumbed-down science research--how does a person know what to believe?

Why do people use euphemisms that blur the meaning? Intelligent people like to be precise in their language--if possible and if the situation demands it. Using terms like "climate change" as if they mean something is a good way of "self-dumbing down." Climate always changes--it cannot possibly stay the same.

Many intelligent people have conflated "global warming" with the full spectrum of environmental disaster--all the bad dreams that sensationalist/alarmist popular writers such as Paul Ehrlich have mass-produced for public consumption over the last several decades. The predictions of the alarmist-doomsayers have not come true--have not come close to coming true. But we forgive those blatant errors because the short attention span of a dumbed-down media-saturated public, the primeval human fascination with catastrophe sits waiting to be stoked once again.

Who could possibly favour mass extinction? Do you? No? Then you must believe in "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming." Who could favour spewing pollution into the air we breathe? Do you? No? Then you must believe in CO2 climate change disaster. Who could favour the current wasteful misuse of energy? Do you? No? Then you must believe in the oil company/neocon conspiracy to destroy the earth. Why resist it? You will be assimilated.

There are only so many resources that can be used to change the modern infrastructure. If you want to curtail pollution and bring about wiser energy usage, that is wonderful. But don't hide behind euphemistic language. Reducing global CO2 is not the same thing as solving all the environmental problems listed above. You may think that global warming is a good banner to march under, but you are only making some people very rich and famous, while diverting attention and resources away from the underlying problems you should really want solved.

When I was quite young, global cooling was all the rage among the alarmists in science and the media. I looked around at all the exhaust pipes and smokestacks and said to myself, "that's a lot of CO2 going into the air. If CO2 is a greenhouse gas, I'm not worried about that ice age everyone keeps talking about."

Later, when global warming started being popular, I thought to myself, "it's about time people started getting smart about all this CO2." I persisted in this complacent frame of mind for several years.

I rejected creationism very early in my life as being, like religion,very unlikely based upon logic. I have never denied the holocaust. I consider Darwinian evolution to be the best hypothesis to explain the diversity of life on earth--although I will entertain alternative theories based on scientific principles that might explain punctuated equilibria.

Then, after I had gotten training in engineering, computer science, chemistry, statistics, medicine, epidemiology, molecular biology etc., I decided to revisit what was rapidly developing into a steamroller of apocalyptic proportions. I looked at different sides of the debate.

My conclusion is that climate models are nowhere close to the competency needed upon which to base anything meaningful. It should go without speaking that I hold the opportunists making big money on "carbon trading" (Al Gore) and other schemes in the greatest contempt. Does the term "conflict of interest" mean anything?

I have installed wind generators, solar panel systems (both free-standing and grid inter-tied), micro-hydro systems, and follow the renewable energy research. I like renewables and hope world energy use turns more to sustainable energy sources.

I hate dirty air. Flying a small plane is much more fun when you can see the landmarks and geo-features below you. Having lived in the LA area too many of my years, I assure you that I hate pollution. But that has nothing to do with the orthodoxy of the climate change church of perverted and misplaced data.

Hiking, climbing, kayaking, backcountry skiing, are just a few of my hobbies. The wilderness is my favourite place. If you think I would buy into any philosophy intent on destroying the wilderness, or reject a philosophy that genuinely protects the wilderness, you are under a misapprehension.

But do I care what you think? Hell, no. You will think whatever you think. In a dumbing down world, where words do not mean what they are supposed to mean, and where the media and even some scientists strive for blurred and imprecise meanings, what most people are led to think doesn't really mean anything. In other words, in an idiocracy, people carry around a cloudy blur in their minds.

Oh yes, you will be assimilated.