Are prolifers inconsistent?

@RandalRauser

What really gets me is being ostensibly prolife while wanting to block refugees with legit asylum claims…

Since Rauser is Canadian, I assume he's bitching about Canadian immigration policy. 

Speaking for myself, I'm all for a generous referee policy with regard to persecuted Christians. There is, though, no obligation to import Muslim timebombs into the country, who game the system under the ruse of "refugees" with "asylum" claims. 

…defending the right of angry, paranoid men to have AR-15s…

That's a clueless objection. There's a general right to self-defense. Private gun-ownership is a necessary means to exercise that right. 

It's not a right that singles out "angry, paranoid men". Rather, a general right, whether freedom of speech, driving a car, private property, &c., is an indiscriminate  group right. It carries the potential for abuse by particular individuals, but the right isn't conditional on an unpredictable outcome. Some people abuse the right to drive a car (e.g. drunk drivers), but that's not known in advance. Defending the general right to drive a car isn't specifically and intentionally defending the right of drunk drivers. Constitutional rights and civil rights are coarse-grained. There are tradeoffs in a free and open society. 

…shrugging your shoulders at the unfolding disaster of human-induced climate change…

Even assuming it's induced by humans, is it disastrous if Canadians enjoy longer summers and shorter warmer winters? 

And since developing countries refuse to cut back on carbon emissions, even though they are the primary polluters, any green police is unenforceable, and will simply wreck western economies. 

…fighting public healthcare, etc…

The question is what's economically feasible–as well as whether medical decision-makers are accountable to patients. 

Also, Rauser's green policies would destroy the prosperity required to support public healthcare. 

New frontiers in global warming activism

https://time.com/5717676/asthma-inhalers-and-climate/

Asthmatics must do their part to save the planet by dying en masse.

Prophetic climate crisis

On the one hand, the Apocalypse envisions cataclysmic natural disasters. On the other hand, environmentalists warn that we're on the brink of cataclysmic natural disasters. 

In principle, the worst-case scenario of the green lobby is generally consistent with a premil reading of Revelation. Ironically, a premil could agree with environmentalists that we're facing an unprecedented "climate crisis," but one that's inevitable. Premils could incorporate that into their eschatology, but by the same token, say countermeasures are futile at this point. We've passed the point of no return. We are  watching end-time prophecy pick up speed as it gathers to the culmination. 

I suppose they could also say that the totalitarian impulse of environmentalists to seize control of the world economy sets the stage for the Antichrist. 

Now I'm an amil, but I take sardonic delectation in watching rabidly secular environmentalists unwittingly recite a script from Revelation. Mass extinction scenarios consistent with premil eschatology. And I'm open to the possibility that the premil reading might be vindicated by future developments. As a rule, prophecy is best understood in retrospect. So only time will tell. 

Mind you, the earth has undergone many warming and cooling cycles. And I think the plot of Revelation is generally recursive rather than progressive, although the final chapters break the cycle. But in some cases it's best to keep our interpretation options open, even if we have a default position. 

Is climate change an existential threat?

Global warming hysteria

https://www.prageru.com/video/climate-change-what-do-scientists-say/

Stolen dreams

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction…The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit

So we're facing mass extinction, yet nonexistent future generations will never forgive my indolent generation.

Her childhood was squandered on activism. 

"Record" hurricanes

Global warming alarmists point to "record" hurricanes to demonstrate the reality and existential danger of global warming. A few observations:

i) We've only had the technology to clock hurricane speeds for what–a few decades? But haven't hurricanes been occuring since the last Ice age ended, about 12,000 years ago? Likewise, how far back do our records extend regarding the frequency and severity of Atlantic hurricanes? Our chronological sample is hardly representative.

ii) Suppose global warming is real, but a natural cyclical variation, like ice ages?

iii) Suppose the environmentalists were right and we ignored them at our peril. Now it's too late. We're doomed!

They will try to blame us, but even if they were right-or especially if they were right–they are to blame because they burned their credibility by resorting to hyperbolic warnings, manipulating and destroying data. Perhaps they think the threat is so great that it justified their mendacity: the noble lie. If so, the tactic backfired. If you use deception to make your case, and your deception is exposed, then you lose credibility. Like crying wolf, people tune you out so that even when it turns out to be true, no one believes you because your reputation as a liar preceded you. 

Amazon fire hype

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/08/26/why-everything-they-say-about-the-amazon-including-that-its-the-lungs-of-the-world-is-wrong/

High-water mark

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that there's an objective, straightforward way to verify or falsify global warming. If true, global warming causes rising sea levels due to melting ice caps. Now there are countless structures in coastal towns and cities that have a high-water mark. The ocean at high tide stains the structure at that level. It's like a photograph of how high the the water rises at high tide. In addition, there are countless historical photos floating around which show the high-water mark in, say, the 19C. Presumably we only need a few clear-cut examples comparing the high-water mark in the 19C to the high-water mark in the 21C to establish if sea levels are, in fact, rising, or rising at an alarming rate. 

Global warming in the cosmic simulation

https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/02/01/19/billionaire-musk-releases-all-tesla-patents-to-help-save-the-earth

Isn't this the same guy who thinks the universe is a cosmic simulation? How do we combat global warming in a cosmic video game? If humans are just artificially intelligent virtual characters, we can't rewrite the program from the inside. Is that up to the aliens who designed the video game we inhabit? 

The ethics of having kids in a warming world

Just a reminder that every human being alive today exists because their ancestors had children under conditions -- pestilence, famine, war -- that would beggar the modern imagination.https://t.co/pjGyVgGqtD

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) March 12, 2019

The noble lie

In this post I'll outline how I approach the global warming controversy. 

1. Appeal is made to "scientific consensus". That's an argument from authority. The argument from authority can be valid or invalid depending on the assumptions. Appeal to scientific consensus in general is fallacious inasmuch as most scientists lack expertise in climatology and atmospheric sciences. 

2. Apropos (1), appeal is made to expert opinion. That, too, is an argument from authority, but a more respectable version. It's often rational to defer to expert opinion. 

Sometimes we defer to expert opinion, not because that's an epistemic virtue, but because it's a practical necessity. There are situations in which deference to expert opinion is a forced option.

3. There are, however, other situations in which we have the luxury of suspending judgment. Just as it's often rational to defer to public opinion, there are other situations in which it's rational to withhold judgment. If I'm unqualified to render an informed judgment on a particular issue, suspending judgment is sometimes the most responsible course of action. Taking drastic actions can be reckless and harmful. 

4. Apropos (3), it isn't a binary choice. It is, for instance, possible to be a global warming skeptic rather than a global warming "denier". And there can be good reasons for skepticism (see below).

5. Proponents of global warming will say the fact that most folks aren't qualified to have an informed opinion on global warming is precisely why they should defer to expert opinion. And, all things being equal, deference to expert opinion is often rational. 

However, the argument from authority crucially depends on trust. It presumes that the experts are acting in good faith. That their stated positions are uncoerced. That their position isn't skewed by an ulterior agenda. 

Unfortunately, there's abundant evidence that "climate science" is heavily politicized. Evidence that scientific dissent is blacklisted. Data is manipulated. Scientific counterevidence is suppressed or destroyed. 

It's no secret that global warming zealotry is the spearhead of an underlying philosophy. Environmentalism is an ideology. A worldview. A secular religion. Environmentalism is hostile to human exceptionalism and anthropocentrism. 

This is a moral crusade. Environmental ethics. "Environmental justice".  

Environmentalists are convinced that "sustainability initiatives" are a good idea even if global warming is bogus. For them, global warming alarmism is a noble lie. Even if the threat is widely exaggerated, that's justified by a larger principle. Global warming alarmism is a means to an end. 

That destroys the prima facie deference to expert opinion. Once we realize that the experts aren't offering disinterested information, it becomes rational to suspend judgment. 

The flip side of expert opinion is the ability to do a snow job on the non-specialist. Because the non-specialist is unqualified to evaluate the evidence, experts can abuse their authority to deceive the public with a blizzard of factoids. 

6. Ironically, the global warming establishment is antithetical to scientific inquiry. Carl Sagan made the optimistic claim that science is self-correcting. However, once the party line gets enacted into law, as official policy, climate science ceases to be a self-correcting process (if it ever was). At that point, scientific scrutiny is criminalized. 

7. The reputed threat of looming environmental catastrophe is not the only threat we need to consider or guard against. Another looming threat is the clear and present danger of totalitarianism. Consider how, under the Obama administration, the EPA abused its mandate. Consider how, during the Obama era, attorneys general were poised to prosecute global warming critics. Consider how the climate science establishment is an arm of the UN (IPCC). Consider how Google censors politically incorrect searches, which makes it increasingly impossible for the general public to fact-check global warming and other political orthodoxies of the liberal establishment. 

In our own time, totalitarianism, whether secular or Islamic, poses a far greater threat to the quality of life than global warming. Totalitarianism, whether secular or Islamic, poses a far more verifiable threat to the quality of life than global warming. 

Because I'm not qualified to make an informed judgment on global warming, I'm a global warming skeptic. I withhold judgment.

Given a choice between the hypothetical threat of global warming and the existential threat of totalitarianism, I prioritize opposition to totalitarianism. And not coincidentally, global warming zealots are totalitarians. 

Hunger stones

Hmm. Aren't sea levels supposed to be rising due to climate change?

https://www.sciencealert.com/sinister-hunger-stones-dire-warnings-surfacing-european-heatwave-czech-drought-elbe-decin

Paris accords

Several issues on the Paris accords:

i) Trump can't "withdraw" from the Paris accords since that treaty wasn't ratified in the first place. Obama never had the legal authority to unilaterally commit the USA to a treaty which wasn't ratified. 

Democrats have developed a bad habit of circumventing the Constitutional process. When they lack popular support to get a law passed, they simply ascribe the force of law to something that lacks legal authority. In this instance, they want the benefits of a treaty without ratification.

This isn't just a technicality. Ratification by the people's elected representatives is a way of making public policy more accountable to…the public! 

So this is yet another example of liberal totalitarianism. Cultural elites believe they are wiser than the general public, and so they feel justified in subverting the democratic process to get their way. 

On the substantive issue:

ii) Global warming "science" is highly politicized. Many environmentalists regard humans as a blight on the planet. They reject human exceptionalism. They subscribe to antinatalism. 

They use global warming as pretext to leverage their green policies. They think green policies are a good idea even if global warming didn't pose a threat. So, for them, this is the noble lie. 

In addition, Democrats like intrusive, expansive gov't. They can never have too much social control. Green policies give them another excuse to socially engineer the lives of the proletariat, to achieve their utopian goals. 

iii) That isn't conspiracy mongering on my part. To the contrary, we've seen them cooking the books. For instance:

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2010/02/collapse-of-good-faith-in-science.html

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2010/11/update-on-climategate.html

http://blog.drwile.com/when-it-comes-to-temperature-you-might-not-be-able-to-trust-the-data/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

https://academic.oup.com/ajae/article-abstract/96/3/851/55557/Information-Manipulation-and-Climate-Agreements

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/04/federal-scientists-say-there-never-was-any-global-warming-slowdown/?utm_term=.32a45e4f0374

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

iv) Here's a more balanced take on "climate change"

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2012/09/lukewarmism.html

Conditioned to trust the system

Now that Trump has "withdraw" from the Paris accords, we will constantly be hearing the argument from authority by global warming alarmists. How we should automatically defer to the "experts" on global warming. In that regard, here's an instructive anecdote:

Dead birds. As Ralph Nader walked under the trees, he noticed dead birds.

And not just one or two. There were more than a dozen of them spread around the ground under the trees and on the sidewalk. What was doing on?

Nader knew someone regularly sprayed pesticides to kill insects on the trees at Princeton University, where he was then a student. He had watched men in trucks with big tanks of liquid chemicals pull out huge hoses and shoot streams of spray up at the trees.

"Sometimes students were sprayed going to and from classes," Nader says. "I remember getting sprayed with the stuff myself."

But what about the birds?

"They weren't mutilated," he says. "It was pretty easy to put things together and conclude that their deaths probably were caused by the spray, which I knew contained the chemical DDT. I decided to take a couple of the birds up to the school newspaper to let them know they should look into it."

When Nader arrived, he found a reporter on the paper leaning back in his chair with his feet propped on his desk. The reporter was not interested when Nader showed him the dead birds and told and him of his discovery. In fact, he acted bothered by Nader's intrusion into his office.

"Listen," he bluntly informed Nader. "We have some of the best chemistry and biology professors in the nation here. They're smart, all right? If there was a problem with DDT, don't you think they would've figured it out?"

"Look what it's obviously done to these birds," Nader replied. "You don't think it might be harmful to people, too?"

After the reporter waved him off, Nader wrote a letter to the editor for publication in the school newspaper. But the editor refused to run the letter, even after Nader went back and argued with him.

"I learned then that you can have very smart people around, but if they are not interested in finding out what might be going on–or are simply busy with their own research or consulting–things can get missed. Important things," Nader says. "It was a perfect example of what people will take for granted if they've been conditioned to trust the system". Kevin Graham, Ralph Nader: Battling for Democracy (2000), chap. 7. 

Climate alarmism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqIy8Ikv-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sHg3ZztDAw

Rhetoric v. reality

For example, Trump is a wealthy crony capitalist who has previously exploited the lower economic social classes for his own advancement. But because he uses rhetoric (i.e., “he isn’t politically correct”, “he tells it like it is”) that appears to trash the Establishment and their interest, he’s given a pass and considered one of their own. They assume that despite his lifelong connection to the Establishment that Trump is, at least in his heart, a traitor to his own class. 

http://blog.acton.org/archives/85553-how-to-understand-the-folk-marxism-of-trump-supporters.html

That's analogous to Democrats/liberals who consider Al Gore to be an environmentalist because he pays lip-service to global warming and green energy even though his private lifestyle is diametrically opposed to his rhetoric. Ditto: James Cameron. 

Same thing with the despised One Percenters, which is never applied to rich liberals.  

Pope Francis for president!

L'Osservatore Romano

Democrat operatives have been biting their nails in search of an acceptable candidate. This week, Pope Francis solved that problem by giving his nomination speech to a joint session of Congress. He ran on a solid Democrat platform, stressing the threat of global warming, an open borders policy, socialism, and opposition to the death penalty.

On the heels of its queer marriage and Obamacare rulings, the Supreme Court, in a 5/4 decision, reinterpreted the Constitution to waive the traditional eligibility requirement (natural born citizen) for presidential aspirants, clearly the way for the pope's candidacy. 

Dear Francis, mind your own business!

You'd think Pope Francis has enough pressing issues relating to his actual job to write about: the nun/priest shortage, the secularization of Europe, the attack on religious liberty (including Catholic institutions) in the US, the priestly abuse scandal, the implosion of Catholicism in traditional bastions of Catholicism (e.g. Ireland, Quebec), rampant modernism in the church of Rome, an embattled archbishop of San Francisco, the threat of Islam, the predominance of homosexual clergy, &c 

But, no. He has to pen an encyclical promoting radical chic environmentalism. A topic on which he has no competence. 

I guess the remaining question is whether he's a green pope or red pope. Perhaps we could split the difference and dub him the purple pope. Part environmentalist, part liberation theologian. 

Papal folly

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/420011/print