Bizarro is brought to you today by Multitasking.When this cartoon published I got the following email from a reader:
"There IS NO significant man made global warming. C’mon, get with the program. The waders are for all the nonsense and outright fabrications about this topic."
I get this sort of thing fairly regularly from climate change deniers, creationists, people of all sorts who ignore science in favor of beliefs that are more comforting than the truth.
In truth, I hope this guy is right and the data is wrong. It will make for a much more pleasant future. As it looks now, however, I may live long enough to see wide scale famine in North America and my own neighborhood underwater. Drag.
One other thing that the climate change deniers ignore: the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world corroborate the phenomenon and have little or nothing to gain by doing so (other than a handful of grant money to study it), while the very few scientists and politicians who deny it are attached to multi-billion-dollar corporations who make their living polluting the planet.
Does it really take Einstein to figure out who has a bigger motivation to lie?
22 comments:
Excellent cartoon, Dan... We need more cartoonists drawing about global warming. So good to see.
I'm doing all I can personally already, compact fluorescent lighting, I never use my car except to leave the state, I walk, bike or take the train everywhere, plus I'm eating a vegan diet. It looks to me like global warming is fact of life now and I don't see that we can realistically do much about it. I'm not convinced about the famine part you mentioned since we'll be able to get all those veggies they'll be growing in the new bread baskets lands of Siberia and Canada. As to flooding destroying Florida and New York City... as a Californian I just don't see a down side there... I'm above the future water line at my house anyway.
I don't want to take a particular side because I believe the evidence isn't all quite there yet, but your funding example is a bad example to use. The "handful of grant money" is actually several billion. Some articles I've seen quote it as high as $79 billion for the US alone. Even with a conservative $30 billion that is far more than other companies have spent on the skeptic's side.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/proponents_of_man_made_climate_fears_enjoy_monumental_funding_advantage_ove/
And because academia is stuck in the mindset that AGW must be happening a lot of research projects that have an AGW component get grant money whereas those that might show a different result are denied.
Science is fantastic but humans are still flawed and it's difficult to ensure that the flaws don't bias things in a particular direction.
Even if climate trends are not man-made, reducing carbon and toxic emissions is certainly directly better for our health. For the sake of our lungs and fishes, and the bit about sending less of our money to the middle east for energy we could source here, changes are very desirable.
As for the cartoon, the political stuff is never as funny as magnifying one's ass.
Well, once again you've got it backwards. While many scientists believe in global warming, they've got the support of the liberal media, liberal academia, and the environmental corporations. The many who deny global warming do so at great risk to their careers and reputations, despite the fact that there is no evidence of any link between man's activities and global climate change. All they've got is their scientific and academic integrity. You tell me who's got more to lose.
I feel that often people deny climate change for political reasons, I do not understand this. I don't see why it's a "democrat" issue as opposed to a "human" issue- makes no sense to me!!!!!
Looks like you actually caught the gist of what I've always have been thinking. It's like trusting the tobacco companies saying smoking is okay...
I thought the real debate between the left and right these days was whether human actions were the primary culprit.
Whether or not our actions unintentionally cause it, I believe our intentional actions can stop it.
LOL - Please explain then how there is 'global warming' on half the planets in our galaxy if it is indeed man made?
Climate change - sure, has been for millions of years - all because of bad old man? Think again.
well, Manhattan is an island, so it'll probably be one of the first to go. You might just need some of those big boots. (and I, in Jersey, will not be far behind you. Thankfully, I can swim).
Love your comic, but must disagree with you on this one.
First, the US government is spending hundreds of millions if not billions on climate change research. Al Gore is almost a billionaire due to his "investments" in carbon offsets. Universities have set up departments to study the matter. Yet, somehow, it is the "denier" scientists that have been corrupted. Interesting.
Second, while "all the scientists" agree that anthropogenic global warming is happening, the scandal regarding the recent CRU email release is really the complete shutdown of debate. Peer reviewed journals were purged of any who might disagree with the so-called consensus. Just because you haven't heard any disagreements doesn't mean there are none, just that one side has been extraordinarily successful in having any opposition muted.
Third, I invite you to read a post on the following blog that does an excellent job of summarizing the debate:
http://sppiblog.org/news/scientific-american%e2%80%99s-climate-lies
While I don't know for a fact that climate change isn't man-caused, I prefer the economic analysis of Bjorn Lomborg - that it is far, far more cost effective to spend billions on accommodating the effects of any warming rather than trillions on what will ultimately be a failed attempt to stop temperatures from rising by less than 1 or 2 degrees.
Thanks again for the wonderful comic.
Ron Rounds
ron@rounds.org
=v= Any argument that starts with an appeal to "the liberal media" has me reaching for the shovel.
Think nothing of the fact that the earth with and with out us is always on a constant change. Global warming has been around since the beginning of time. And Einstein would even agree.
Monkey boy
I am with you, Dan (the man). The majority of those against the global warming theory has more to win by making people ignore being more environmental friendly.
I came across a funny forum thread that was in regards to the leak of these documents that people claim to contain false data that will debunk the global warming theory.
First of all I read that the media cherry picked these documents to claim they had been tampered with. Second of all, which is kind of ironic, this thread was full with people who are against the global warming theory calling those who support the global warming theory conspiracy nuts. All I saw was pots calling kettles black.
In the end, if we are wrong about the global warming, what is so bloody wrong with making the environment better? We have raped this planet long enough. Isn't it time we give something back AND see to it that our next generation can enjoy it too?
The real tragedy isn't that people question the published studies and numbers, but that they keep up their environmentally destructive behavior as if it doesn't matter until man-made global warming is proven.
Like people who've experienced the difference between polluted inner city air and cleaner country side air yet still keep driving their SUVs around town.
Oh geez.. Come on people! The blog, I get that. Argue on the blog all you want. That's part of the fun. But the comic? People write to tell you the comic strip is on the wrong side of the debate? It's a joke. The topic is known, the joke is clear, and it's funny. That's all that matters.
You tell 'em Dan!
From my experience, those who deny global warming tend to be those with a financial gain in doing so. Usually people involved in the oil industry or business that puts-out heavy emissions.
I would like to see what Timothy's 'environmental corporations' are. Sounds intriguing!
Wait, there is an innuendo in the title, isn't there? hahahahahaha!
The increasing greenhouse effect was one of my soapboxes over 20 years ago when I was teaching environmental geology and meteorology. The evidence was newly documented then and the outcome was not widely accepted. Now the evidence is overwhelming that atmospheric gases have changed and the source is human activity. Still a large percentage of the population denies it. Why? Because of scientific illiteracy, gullibility, and delusion that they can't live without their cars, etc.
Here's a good article about this debate from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/earth-to-philly/Climategate_and_the_industry_of_denial.html
Very interesting article. More people must realize that our world is more hot everyday.
Let's save our world from global warming!
Yes the people who deny the overwhelming science of global warming are doing so to fit their preconceived notion.
This is the same logic used by Dan when he spoke for alternative medicine a while back. Alternative medicine is just as frowned upon by scientists.
So it isn't just the global warming deniers who are deluded.
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