Listening to Republicans talk about global warming is like listening to middle-schoolers talk about sex. Lots of ignorant bluster, and not much else.
Larry Kudlow, Trump's senior economic advisor spewed word salad when asked by George Stephanopoulos about the UN IPCC report, “I’m not denying any climate change issues, George, I’m just saying, ‘Do we know precisely ― and I mean worth modeling ― things like how much of it is man-made, how much of it is solar, how much of it is oceanic, how much of it is rainforest and other issues?" Gibberish, straight up.
Nearly all of the basic science about global warming was known before the end of the 19th -- yes, 19th, not 20th -- century. The remaining piece was completed by the early 1960's: global warming was real and caused by human activity. Understanding the basic science starts with common sense life experience. The sun warms the Earth. The sun's effect is obvious. Early mornings are the coolest times of the day. Temperatures rise with the sun and continue to increase throughout the day. We see the sun's light, feel its warmth on our skin, and know it is cooler in the shade than in direct sunlight.
Then, in late afternoon or early evening, as the sun starts to set, temperatures drop. Where does the day's heat go? That's a question few people ponder. Nighttime cooling just happens. When I ask non-scientists, most just shrug or say, "Up." That is a reasonable answer because we know that heat rises. But, rises to where? And how? If the adage of heat rising is truly correct, then why is it cooler in the mountains than at low elevations? Why is the temperature outside an airplane about 40 below? "Up" doesn't really answer the question.
The mechanism of daytime warming is obvious but the mechanism of nighttime cooling is not. Why the difference? The answer helps explain why it's so easy to hoodwink so many people about global warming. Our senses tell us about daytime heating. We see the sun and feel its warmth. But, our senses fail when it comes to nighttime cooling. Our eyes and skin don't provide any information. The situation would be different if we could see infrared light. We can't. Yet, if we could, we would know as instinctively as we know about the sun's warmth that everything around us glows with infrared light. Warm objects glow more brightly than cool ones. And, it would be easy to understand that warmth gets broadcast up into the night sky. Infrared light streaming up from Earth, through the atmosphere and in to outer space carries the day's heat away. Temperatures drop.
Infrared eyesight would also let us know that air is not transparent to infrared light the way it is transparent to visible light. Some infrared wavelengths zip through the air unimpeded. Other wavelengths get absorbed by gases in the air. Carbon dioxide is the most significant of those gases. The absorbed light never makes it to outer space. It heats the carbon dioxide that, in turn, warms the rest of the atmosphere. When more carbon dioxide is added from burning fossil fuels, more of the infrared light gets absorbed. Less escapes into outer space. Nighttime cooling becomes less efficient. The planet warms.
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Are People This Stupid?
Yes. They are. The mantra: Half of all people are below average intelligence. First corollary: average intelligence ain't much.
Jury duty two weeks ago. A one and done. Jury selection, trial, and deliberation all completed between 8 AM and 5 PM. That includes 90 minutes wasted as the jury pool was seated, reseated, and questioned. The case ended without resolution. 8-to-4 to acquit on the first count and an even 6-6 split on the second. The judge said it was OK for us to discuss the trial, then reversed herself after the DA went up to the bench to explain that the State might retry the case and might even select jurors from the same pool. Not bloody likely when the jury was so far from conviction. But, that's just one part of the day's stupid.
One juror looked exactly like the Gilda Radner's Roseanne Rosanadana character from SNL. The makeup matched. The real woman's hair was even worse. Straw thatch dyed blue-black and covering half her face. Everything she said was painfully stupid. i don't know how she can get out of bed without getting hurt.
The case was a domestic dispute. One detail is that the father was annoyed by his 7-year-old son's disrespectful comment over the phone. Several jurors including RR referred to the boy's attitude. His lip. (We never learned what was said. Only that the content was disrespectful.) Men and women shook their heads, clucked their tongues, became indignant about the boy's sassiness.
Jurors projected their experience onto the poor schlubs whose lives were exposed to us in court. "There's still a lot of love, there," the fat middle-aged guy told us. Two women explained how they had dealt with emotionally abusive partners and damned the women for not doing the same. She didn't go for counseling! She didn't take photos! She didn't have her mother testify! The youngest juror, a woman with green hair, became exasperated: She is not you. Her experiences are not your experiences. Blank looks in response. Average intellects grinding on data and spitting nonsense.
A few days later the NY Times published over a dozen pages describing the Trump crime family's financial history. About 10% tax evasion and 90% tax fraud. In response, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse. Numbers and math. Boring. Reading and understanding the lengthy article required time and focus. And several days after that the most conservative international climate study organization -- the UN's IPCC -- published an exceptionally scary report on global warming. Blink. Blink. Snore.
Politicians and most reporters have learned that people don't respond to global warming news. Reporters blame scientists for lacking communications skills. Have you ever tried to explain science to a newsman? Simplify, simplify, simplify until there's nothing left. You have to travel so far back to find a common bit of shared understanding that the forward process takes forever. John Oliver once tried to cover the long term effects of annual fees paid on 401(k) funds. He kept having to slap the audience in the face to keep viewers awake, "I know this sounds boring, but it's really important." Imagine, having to condescend to your audience when you are explaining how their savings are being pissed away. But, numbers and compounded interest. Too much to expect average people to understand.
Jury duty two weeks ago. A one and done. Jury selection, trial, and deliberation all completed between 8 AM and 5 PM. That includes 90 minutes wasted as the jury pool was seated, reseated, and questioned. The case ended without resolution. 8-to-4 to acquit on the first count and an even 6-6 split on the second. The judge said it was OK for us to discuss the trial, then reversed herself after the DA went up to the bench to explain that the State might retry the case and might even select jurors from the same pool. Not bloody likely when the jury was so far from conviction. But, that's just one part of the day's stupid.
One juror looked exactly like the Gilda Radner's Roseanne Rosanadana character from SNL. The makeup matched. The real woman's hair was even worse. Straw thatch dyed blue-black and covering half her face. Everything she said was painfully stupid. i don't know how she can get out of bed without getting hurt.
The case was a domestic dispute. One detail is that the father was annoyed by his 7-year-old son's disrespectful comment over the phone. Several jurors including RR referred to the boy's attitude. His lip. (We never learned what was said. Only that the content was disrespectful.) Men and women shook their heads, clucked their tongues, became indignant about the boy's sassiness.
Jurors projected their experience onto the poor schlubs whose lives were exposed to us in court. "There's still a lot of love, there," the fat middle-aged guy told us. Two women explained how they had dealt with emotionally abusive partners and damned the women for not doing the same. She didn't go for counseling! She didn't take photos! She didn't have her mother testify! The youngest juror, a woman with green hair, became exasperated: She is not you. Her experiences are not your experiences. Blank looks in response. Average intellects grinding on data and spitting nonsense.
A few days later the NY Times published over a dozen pages describing the Trump crime family's financial history. About 10% tax evasion and 90% tax fraud. In response, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse. Numbers and math. Boring. Reading and understanding the lengthy article required time and focus. And several days after that the most conservative international climate study organization -- the UN's IPCC -- published an exceptionally scary report on global warming. Blink. Blink. Snore.
Politicians and most reporters have learned that people don't respond to global warming news. Reporters blame scientists for lacking communications skills. Have you ever tried to explain science to a newsman? Simplify, simplify, simplify until there's nothing left. You have to travel so far back to find a common bit of shared understanding that the forward process takes forever. John Oliver once tried to cover the long term effects of annual fees paid on 401(k) funds. He kept having to slap the audience in the face to keep viewers awake, "I know this sounds boring, but it's really important." Imagine, having to condescend to your audience when you are explaining how their savings are being pissed away. But, numbers and compounded interest. Too much to expect average people to understand.
Experiment
What will the religious right do with their lives should the Kavanaugh-containing Supreme Court overturn Roe? Abortion was the perfect issue for the religious right. It let mean-spirited, hateful, authoritarians claim to protect innocent children. These cynics cry on cue, wave gruesome photos, and demonize Planned Parenthood. But, the tells have always been there. Too many men in charge. Can anyone believe Ralph Reed, that pasty-faced opportunist, gives a damn about children? The wretched lying about late-term abortions. Conservatives can't stop punching down. Can't stop mocking other people's tragedies. Malformed, dead or dying, fetuses were portrayed as cherubic Gerber babies. Grieving, devastated women portrayed as lazy sluts terminating pregnancies so they could fit into prom dresses.
And, the biggest tell of them all: abortions allowed in cases of rape or incest. Why? Are those fetuses any less innocent? Any less alive? Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is the only politician I've heard -- this was many years ago -- decry those exceptions. It did not make him popular among the anti-abortion crowd who needed the double standard. Forcing a woman to carry to term her rapist's baby was too cruel to be popular. Yet, few people among the pro-choice crowd say the obvious: fights against abortion are fights against women's rights and have nothing to do with children.
Speaking of being on cue, Rep Steve King of Iowa tweeted a photo of a sleeping infant and an anti-abortion message. Steve King: bigot, white supremacist, and pro-pollution toady.
Speaking of being on cue, Rep Steve King of Iowa tweeted a photo of a sleeping infant and an anti-abortion message. Steve King: bigot, white supremacist, and pro-pollution toady.
Friday, October 5, 2018
Kavanuts
The title of one opinion piece is, "How We Know Kavanaugh Is Lying." I don't bother to read more than the lede because the answer is obvious: his mouth is open.
Republicans are standing by their man. They set out to find a SCOTUS justice who will overturn Roe, protect Trump from investigation, and destroy workers' rights. No way they were surprised when a pig applied for the job. Who else would appear? Bill Kunstler? It was also a given that the pig would show up carrying pig baggage. A bit inconvenient, but not surprising. He is, after all, a pig. It was just another week for the Republican PR machine.
If the Senate votes Kavanaugh down, then the Republicans will nominate Kavanaugh 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them are waiting for the call. And, somewhere a factory manufactures even more soul-less, Kavanauvian droids and programs them to protect the wealthy by riling the rubes. Think of the truck loads of pods in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
Republicans are standing by their man. They set out to find a SCOTUS justice who will overturn Roe, protect Trump from investigation, and destroy workers' rights. No way they were surprised when a pig applied for the job. Who else would appear? Bill Kunstler? It was also a given that the pig would show up carrying pig baggage. A bit inconvenient, but not surprising. He is, after all, a pig. It was just another week for the Republican PR machine.
If the Senate votes Kavanaugh down, then the Republicans will nominate Kavanaugh 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them are waiting for the call. And, somewhere a factory manufactures even more soul-less, Kavanauvian droids and programs them to protect the wealthy by riling the rubes. Think of the truck loads of pods in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
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