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Bill Nye Has a Fantasy - Can It Be Achieved?

Started by peacewithoutgod, November 12, 2015, 07:51:53 PM

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peacewithoutgod

The gist of this interview, and apparently his recent book, seems to be that we can change climate deniers minds if enough of us are persistent over time. I love Bill for his wonderful exuberance, but I have to wonder: is this dream possible, or has he finally crossed that border into La La Land, where people only behave according to his own expectations?

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/06/bill_nye_demolishes_climate_deniers_im_not_a_scientist_therefore_im_not_going_to_use_my_brain/
There are two types of ideas: fact and non-fact. Ideas which are not falsifiable are non-fact, therefore please don't insist your fantasies of supernatural beings are in any way factual.

Doctrine = not to be questioned = not to be proven = not fact. When you declare your doctrine fact, you lie.

TomFoolery

My hypothesis is that climate change deniers probably correlate with conservatives and may end up positively correlating to a hypothetical Roe effect. Basically, my guess is that scientists and environmentalists have fewer children per person than conservatives and business types who would financially benefit from continuing to deny climate change, and thus over time they will erode their political base by failing to produce enough children to argue with the opposition's growing brood.

Considering the environmental shit storm that got kicked up on Facebook today over a family in Illinois releasing thousands of balloons each year to honor their dead son, no, I don't think most people give two shits about the environment, or at least not enough to significantly change behavior without external pressures.
How can you be sure my refusal to agree with your claim a symptom of my ignorance and not yours?

Baruch

Quote from: TomFoolery on November 12, 2015, 10:12:59 PM
My hypothesis is that climate change deniers probably correlate with conservatives and may end up positively correlating to a hypothetical Roe effect. Basically, my guess is that scientists and environmentalists have fewer children per person than conservatives and business types who would financially benefit from continuing to deny climate change, and thus over time they will erode their political base by failing to produce enough children to argue with the opposition's growing brood.

Considering the environmental shit storm that got kicked up on Facebook today over a family in Illinois releasing thousands of balloons each year to honor their dead son, no, I don't think most people give two shits about the environment, or at least not enough to significantly change behavior without external pressures.

There are sixteen M-B personality types, and most are not like you or I.  The statistics will run against, even if everyone has the same number of children per family.  One can monetize it, by making bad behavior expensive and good behavior cheap ... but this is such obvious manipulation of free markets, that people are paranoid about it.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

AllPurposeAtheist

You can't change most people with this. If they're willing to believe all the evil in the world happened because some woman liked fresh fruit is there any realistic hope you'll ever get them to believe that the earth has been changed by anything we ever could have possibly ever done?
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

Baruch

I know some fundies.  They want their god to be all powerful ... because a less than all powerful god makes them nervous.  But this makes the theodicy question worse ... so if their god is all powerful, then that god is also a jerk (for not having raptured all the faithful already).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

josephpalazzo

Quote from: peacewithoutgod on November 12, 2015, 07:51:53 PM
The gist of this interview, and apparently his recent book, seems to be that we can change climate deniers minds if enough of us are persistent over time. I love Bill for his wonderful exuberance, but I have to wonder: is this dream possible, or has he finally crossed that border into La La Land, where people only behave according to his own expectations?

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/06/bill_nye_demolishes_climate_deniers_im_not_a_scientist_therefore_im_not_going_to_use_my_brain/

Maybe Bill Nye won't convince some of them. But insurance companies might, as they are beginning to take notice of climate change. And that will hit people's pockets.

QuoteIn the wake of skyrocketing insurance claims due to natural disastersâ€"hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, blizzards and the likeâ€"insurers have been imposing steep rate hikes and, in some cases, fleeing high-risk areas, leaving consumers out in the cold. It's gotten so out of hand, consumer advocates say, that insurers now are even crying climate change as a factor in raising premiums or dumping clients.

As the crisis mounts, hard hit states such as Florida and Louisiana are increasingly stepping up as insurance companies check out, providing coverage for residents dropped by their insurers. And signs are things will get worse before they get better: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting that this year's hurricane seasonâ€"which officially began June 1â€"will be "very active," with three to five major hurricanes in the Atlantic.

Weather-related insurance losses rose to $50 billion in 2005 from less than $10 billion a decade earlier, according to a study by Ceres, a Boston-based nonprofit group that lobbies corporations to be environmentally responsible. The bulk of these losses can be attributed to sprawl in regions prone to catastropheâ€"the total area of coastal development in Florida has increased over 30 percent since 1990.

A Warmer Earth, and Fewer Insured

Private insurers also point fingers at a changing climate, citing a report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) earlier this year that concluded global warming is to blame for a doubling over the past five years of natural disastersâ€"and that the situation will worsen if nothing is done to stop it. (The often-touted link between climate change and increased hurricane strength, however, has yet to be firmly established.)

"If circumstances change due to global warming that alter the level of risk, insurance companies need to be free to reflect that risk," says David Snyder, vice president and assistant general counsel for the American Insurance Association (AIA). "The reality is that in some places the risk is so severe that [these locations] are uninsurable."

Over the past year alone, insurance companies have dramatically raised homeowners' annual premiums in parts of Texas, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Massachusetts and New York State. In the Florida Keys, for instance, windstorm insurance rates for a 1,900-square-foot home in Monroe County soared from $3,000 in 2004 to nearly $16,000 in 2007. In South Carolina private companies have stopped insuring homes valued at less than $500,000. In Rhode Island some agencies have refused to cover any coastal properties. Allstate, one of the largest residential property insurers on the east coast, elected not to renew 30,000 policies covering coastal properties in New York City, Long Island, Westchester County and Connecticut, and is considering reducing coastal area coverage in Massachusetts and along the Gulf.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/insurers-claim-global-warming-makes-some-uninsurable/




Baruch

Uninsurability won't be an issue ... most beachfront property is owned by corporations and by rich individuals.  The rest of us have been subsidizing their insurance for years now.  The privatize profits, and socialize loss manta means that the government will pick up the tab for them, same as they do for nuclear power plants (which without government backing, would be uninsurable).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Sal1981

IMO, you can't fight ideas any other way than have a competing & better idea.

I honestly don't understand why people aren't convinced by, you know, facts that have been repeated over and over, as well as the massive climate science proving that man-made climate change is real. It's probably because it isn't so damn simple and in-your-face with immediate effects felt.

I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson that liken'd climate change effects to a rock being thrown at you at a very slow velocity, and only reason you're not moving away from its path is because you're convinced you can dodge it in time, or worse, you think it won't have any effect on you when it hits.

josephpalazzo

Quote from: Sal1981 on November 17, 2015, 08:52:42 AM
IMO, you can't fight ideas any other way than have a competing & better idea.

I honestly don't understand why people aren't convinced by, you know, facts that have been repeated over and over, as well as the massive climate science proving that man-made climate change is real. It's probably because it isn't so damn simple and in-your-face with immediate effects felt.

I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson that liken'd climate change effects to a rock being thrown at you at a very slow velocity, and only reason you're not moving away from its path is because you're convinced you can dodge it in time, or worse, you think it won't have any effect on you when it hits.

In the US, it's a different story: it's a combination of (1) the oil companies paying a few scientists to bid their war on climate change; (2) the religious right, who wants to put a black eye on science because of evolution, something that the religious right wants to discredit at all cost; and (3) there is a strong anti-government current from the right who sees climate change as an excuse from their rivals to make government even bigger than what they perceived as already too big.

trdsf

Quote from: Baruch on November 14, 2015, 02:53:48 PM
Uninsurability won't be an issue ... most beachfront property is owned by corporations and by rich individuals.  The rest of us have been subsidizing their insurance for years now.  The privatize profits, and socialize loss manta means that the government will pick up the tab for them, same as they do for nuclear power plants (which without government backing, would be uninsurable).
Uninsurability becomes an issue when the underwriters start going to corporations in the danger zones and saying "No, we can't take the risk of covering you, your premiums will not cover the potential loss in the next five to ten years."  I don't think the government or the American public has much taste for bailing out profitable corporations anymore, so government support can't be relied upon anymore.  And when you start looking at the potential losses due to damage from a major hurricane, that becomes something industries have to start looking seriously at and having a serious stake in.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where jack-shit will get done until someone thinks their profit margins are at risk, and then it will become an overriding crisis to the exclusion of anything else.  It's a fucked-up set of priorities, but it can get things done.  Just hopefully not too late.  It's possible that insurers refusing to cover other corporations in environmentally risky areas may be the nudge that's needed.  I'm not going to rely on it, but it's possible.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

Weren't you paying attention when the insurance companies wrote the ACA?  And even so, they are going bankrupt.  The insurance companies aren't dropping policies as long as the taxpayer is funding it ... if necessary ... thru Black Money Ops.  They will drop your required ACA policy ... because you aren't somebody, you are nobody.  What the voters want doesn't matter ... the voters didn't want the 2008/2009 bailout ... and they ain't got no satisfaction ... cant't wait for that $60,000 per capita tax bill comes do ... to pay for the Tarp/QE ... bwahaha
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Quote from: Baruch on November 21, 2015, 01:26:29 PM
Weren't you paying attention when the insurance companies wrote the ACA?  And even so, they are going bankrupt.  The insurance companies aren't dropping policies as long as the taxpayer is funding it ... if necessary ... thru Black Money Ops.  They will drop your required ACA policy ... because you aren't somebody, you are nobody.  What the voters want doesn't matter ... the voters didn't want the 2008/2009 bailout ... and they ain't got no satisfaction ... cant't wait for that $60,000 per capita tax bill comes do ... to pay for the Tarp/QE ... bwahaha
You clearly didn't read what I wrote: that it's not going to make a difference to anyone with their hands on the levers of power until uninsurability starts affecting *corporations*.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

And my point is ... if you are a connected plutocrat, connected politician, connected corporation (most are not) ... you will never feel the pain.  Did Saddam feel the pain of our embargo?  But thousands of Iraqi children died.  Our rulers are just like Saddam.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Quote from: Baruch on November 22, 2015, 10:43:50 AM
And my point is ... if you are a connected plutocrat, connected politician, connected corporation (most are not) ... you will never feel the pain.  Did Saddam feel the pain of our embargo?  But thousands of Iraqi children died.  Our rulers are just like Saddam.
You're missing the point I'm making, though: this is about connected corporation vs. connected corporation, not corporation vs. Joe Citizen.  Someone will feel the pain there, and both sides will want to go out of their way to minimize it.  The trick is to see if that can be guided into doing the right thing, even for a selfish and proprietary reason.

When a major underwriter says to an oil company based in Houston that they're not going to insure their facilities there because the risk of severe weather and rising sea levels is too great, certainly the oil company is free to move their HQ somewhere safer, but the can't do that with their delivery infrastructure.  Their tankers can't dock in Omaha, they have to stay where ocean-accessible ports are.  They can't move a refinery wherever they like, they're stuck with where the pipeline services are, where the transport services are, where the delivery services are, and where the local infrastructure is.  Sure, the company'll get a hell of a deal on land in East Moose Knees, South Dakota, but they won't get port access, highway access, a local power grid that can support a major refinery, a large trained local population from which to hire, pipeline access, or an existing refinery.

The choice becomes: 1) risk millions to billions in existing facilities that are no longer insurable; 2) spend millions to billions on building new facilities and infrastructure elsewhere that isn't under environmental threat; or 3) put up with a few new regulations, accept that slightly lower profits are in the future (no actual losses, just slightly lower profits), and quit deliberately stirring up a climatology debate that doesn't exist in the scientific community in any realistic sense.

Guess which one costs less in the long run?
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Baruch

"The trick is to see if that can be guided into doing the right thing, even for a selfish and proprietary reason." ... that is what that fraud, Adam Smith claimed.  He also claimed that moneyed interests are constantly scheming to raise prices, and decrease supply thru collusion.  This was before the invention of the telephone.

Well it is just an idea ... we will have to wait and see.  If nobody will insure X project because it makes no environmental sense ... then expect the government to provide the solution (FREDDY MAE and FANNY MAC) or to simply make it illegal to sue individually or by class action for damages (nuclear reactors).  The only economic law is ... he who has the gold makes the rules.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.