Courtesy of The Automatic Earth.
G. G. Bain “New York: Aviator Clifford B. Harmon seated in aeroplane” July 1910
The climate debate has gone completely off track over the past few years, and at least 50% of the blame for that lies with the well meaning people who want climate change to be our (as in: all 7 billion of us) number one if not only priority. But as well-meaning as they may be, they’ve fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book. They’ve been tripped and blind-sided by straw men.
Most of you have at one time in your lives, in high school, college, university or even workplace, been involved in discussion techniques and role playing. The most basic variety is when your neighbor argues one side of an issue, and you – by default – argue the complete opposite, whether you agree with what you argue or not. It’s an exercise. This is what the climate debate seems to have become, an exercise. And given the fact that in this case there are real issues at stake, I would argue it’s an exercise in futility.
There’s a bunch of people who react to every argument made that emissions resulting from human activity cause climate volatility, by saying that’s not true. Whatever the argument, they argue the opposite. The reaction to their blunt opposition is a neverending stream of reports and studies that seek to prove it IS true. And the reply is always: no it’s not. A proven model, as Monty Python showed years ago:
This approach does not strike me as either terribly smart nor as particularly useful. The climate side keeps arguing its points, the other side just keeps saying no. Maybe it’s time for something a little cleverer. Because this isn’t going anywhere. The Guardian had two pieces over the weekend that show just what’s wrong here.
