Orson Scott Card and the Surprise Ending

[fleem]

Rather long, but Orson Scott Card does an excellent job, as usual.

http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/070313goodprint.html

 

[LURCH]

I still can't figure out what the truth is, here. I don't know if anybody's data is reliable. Card makes some good points at the beginning; about the questionable nature of the data behind the "discovery" of global warming. But then he says "...But that's not the question, I said. Global warming isn't even the question. The question is, what is causing global warming or cooling or climate change?", which makes it sound like he's accepted climate change as a fact.

 

[Evo]

Of course climate change is a fact, it's been a fact since the Earth had a climate, he's questioning what is causing it.

The question is, what is causing global warming or cooling or climate change?"

 

[LURCH]

But I mean, the first part of the article seems to be saying that there is no reliable data supporting the theory that the global climate is currently changing. Then he says that global climate change is not the question. If that's true, why did he spend all that time talking about it?

I don't know, maybe I just think that this should have been two separate articles. Or maybe I should have just read it in two different sittings.

I am about a hair's breadth away from being completely convinced that the global climate is not currently undergoing any significant change, but this article seems to start out saying that it isn't, then proceed onward from the assumption that it is. Seems like every time I see an article that is written to support one conclusion, I find myself becoming a little more convinced of its opposite.

This article, for instance, was not nearly so persuasive as the special I saw on the History Channel ^TM last night; "Global Warning?" And by persuasive I mean persuasive in the direction opposite of that which was intended. There was so much self-contradiction in it that I had to turn it off. But not before I saw the part that really scares me; some of the plans to get the global temperature to "come back down."
Climate researchers, acting on the conclusion that man is accidentally warming up the planet, are working on ways to deliberately cool it down. What if they succeed?! This sort of uneducated geusswork sometimes yields a correct answer, so what if they're wrong about the temperature rising, but right about a method to lower it? They could trigger a new ice age, and we all get to suffer from their mistake.

Anyway, I'm quite confused, as you can probably tell, but I'm still leaning toward the conclusion that there is no significant change in global climate currently taking place.

 

[fleem]

By the way I should add that Card is (from what I've been told) fairly left-leaning--which gives all the more credence to this editorial and his defense of Bush for this specific issue. He makes clear he's no lover of Bush's foreign policy. So his defense of Bush in one area and criticism in another I think helps show that he is probably not suffering too badly from that horrible disease that 96% of all mankind suffers (and which will probably be our undoing)--extremism.

Oh, by the way. Register republican (no matter how democratic you are) and get Ron Paul nominated. He may lose and put a horrible incompetent in office (again), but BOY what a message that would send to next election's politicians and to the general public. No pain, no gain.

 

[Andre]

Fleem, I doubt it's wise to use the Earth files for logical fallacies and politics but if you'd like to see more substantiation for Card, then this thesis(huge file) might be useful.

 

[Evo]

I am about a hair's breadth away from being completely convinced that the global climate is not currently undergoing any significant change, but this article seems to start out saying that it isn't, then proceed onward from the assumption that it is. Seems like every time I see an article that is written to support one conclusion, I find myself becoming a little more convinced of its opposite.

I hear you.

This article, for instance, was not nearly so persuasive as the special I saw on the History Channel ^TM last night; "Global Warning?" And by persuasive I mean persuasive in the direction opposite of that which was intended. There was so much self-contradiction in it that I had to turn it off. But not before I saw the part that really scares me; some of the plans to get the global temperature to "come back down."
Climate researchers, acting on the conclusion that man is accidentally warming up the planet, are working on ways to deliberately cool it down. What if they succeed?! This sort of uneducated geusswork sometimes yields a correct answer, so what if they're wrong about the temperature rising, but right about a method to lower it? They could trigger a new ice age, and we all get to suffer from their mistake.

This is what worries me the most. Humans have an incredible track record of creating even worse problems when they set out to "fix' things. How can we fix something when we don't understand what it is we are trying to fix? Then, how much time have we spent testing the "fix" to make sure it's not going to cause other more dire consequences?