Spring Break
Eco-friendly fads make 'green' too easy
Sanjai Tripathi
Issue date: 4/14/09 Section: Forum
For a long time, you've had the option of buying a hybrid car. Now, you can show your commitment to the environment by wearing and carrying sustainable makeup and purses. You can find an online guide to having an eco-friendly dinner party, with locally sourced beverages and organic hors d'oeuvres.
There is no shortage of trendy Hollywood celebrities extolling the virtues of each person doing his or her small part for the environment.
In short, being "green" is fashionable and popular.
As such, it's also getting really annoying.
It's not that I don't agree with the original purpose. It's quite the opposite.
Most of the premise of the sustainable/green stuff is the need to reduce carbon emissions to avert global warming.
Now, there are still a lot of people out there who think man-made, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a hoax, and I don't want to be on their side. Those people are generally silly.
Instead of listening to the advice of the world's scientific organizations on the matter - Wikipedia has a great list of these under the title "scientific opinion on climate change" - the denialists would rather believe they are qualified to examine climate data and reach their own conclusions.
Knowing that every major scientific organization supports the AGW hypothesis isn't enough to convince these people. The logical error they most often rely on to overcome that argument from authority is confirmation bias.
Using confirmation bias, one ignores or rationalizes away any evidence that violates the preconceived notion, and elevates anything that confirms it. So if they hear that all the world's major scientific academies have said that AGW is very likely real, they explain it away as part of some liberal/eco-Nazi/corrupt scientific hoax, or just disregard it without comment. But if you tell a denialist that, "it was really cold this winter," that is all the proof they need that global warming is fake.
I certainly don't want to be aligned with that type, because I know I'm not a climate scientist, and I realize we should be listening to the experts in their fields who are telling us we have a big problem. But I still think the "green" movement has gotten annoying.
There is no shortage of trendy Hollywood celebrities extolling the virtues of each person doing his or her small part for the environment.
In short, being "green" is fashionable and popular.
As such, it's also getting really annoying.
It's not that I don't agree with the original purpose. It's quite the opposite.
Most of the premise of the sustainable/green stuff is the need to reduce carbon emissions to avert global warming.
Now, there are still a lot of people out there who think man-made, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a hoax, and I don't want to be on their side. Those people are generally silly.
Instead of listening to the advice of the world's scientific organizations on the matter - Wikipedia has a great list of these under the title "scientific opinion on climate change" - the denialists would rather believe they are qualified to examine climate data and reach their own conclusions.
Knowing that every major scientific organization supports the AGW hypothesis isn't enough to convince these people. The logical error they most often rely on to overcome that argument from authority is confirmation bias.
Using confirmation bias, one ignores or rationalizes away any evidence that violates the preconceived notion, and elevates anything that confirms it. So if they hear that all the world's major scientific academies have said that AGW is very likely real, they explain it away as part of some liberal/eco-Nazi/corrupt scientific hoax, or just disregard it without comment. But if you tell a denialist that, "it was really cold this winter," that is all the proof they need that global warming is fake.
I certainly don't want to be aligned with that type, because I know I'm not a climate scientist, and I realize we should be listening to the experts in their fields who are telling us we have a big problem. But I still think the "green" movement has gotten annoying.
Note: writers will not reply to comments.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Todd Wynn
posted 6/03/09 @ 2:42 PM PST
Cap and trade is just one more example of an eco friendly fad.
It turns out that the inconvenient truth is that cap and trade in the US and reducing emissions in the US will not have any discernable influence on the global thermostat whatsoever and this is using IPCC sensitivities!
In the year 2050 with a 83% emissions reduction (the goal of Waxman-Markey), the temperature reduction is nine hundredths of one degree Fahrenheit, or two years of avoided warming. (Continued…)
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