Tag Archives: Climate change

May 26 2012

As I get older I get different – #3


The one thing that I learned from Twitter is that you have to talk about Religion, Politics, Finance and the weather.

And so Religion.  I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m Atheist. Dead set I am. But I don’t think that it’s something that I have to share in public, or in conversation, nor do I have to justify my position.

And I have  full respect for anyone that is “of the faith“, any faith and has the need to have a “God” that they worship. I do.

My parents raised me Church of England, which in an of itself is a breakaway church, which makes me smile. When I say “raised” I mean sent me to Sunday School. I don’t actually recall attending church on a regular basis at any time. I doubt that we did, despite my sketchy memory of my early childhood. I did R.I. at school, and had parts in the annual nativity at primary school. Fully grounded then in all aspects :0)

What I’m not comfortable with is bagging people of the faith. On a personal level. I’m happy to talk about the irrelevance, the inconsistency and stupidity of religious dogma, but I shy away from confrontation. It’s not that important. But also what I’m uncomfortable with is having a label, even if it’s “atheist”, as if having a label makes it more legitimate for scorn or derision.  I feel the same way about my stand on climate change, and my own belief that despite what you think I’m sure in my own way that it’s not man made,  and that because I have that belief I don’t enjoy being called a “Denier”, I don’t deny climate change, just that man did it.

I enjoy learning about the aforementioned inconsistencies in religious teaching to reaffirm that I’m not just a bit weird.  The more you read, and absorb logical and reasoned argument, the further you get away from a belief in a “supreme being”.

I wish I could pinpoint the day when I realised that I didn’t have to believe in a sky god and that it wasn’t going to end in tears. I know it was a long time ago, and that as I get older, and experience more things, and witness more pain, heartache, illness and death I realise that there in fact can’t be a caring God, and that confirmation bias just does’s cut it.

Related articles
Jul 9 2011

Slightly denying climate change


I’ll start by stating off the bat that there is no doubting climate change. We have climate change, on a global scale. It is real. I belive it.

How much is out of our control though? Are we really that deranged and insular that we have to believe that ‘we did it’ all by ourselves on our own.

One of the things I don’t get. The amount of energy that is needed to warm up the atmosphere is ‘quite a bit’. I could go all technical and that, if I could, but I can’t, but bear with me, the sun is hot and the Earth reacts to that radiant heat from the Sun. It warms us up every day, well the bits of us that face the sun get more benefit, but you get my drift.

On a daily basis the temperature ranges from a low to a high, and we accept this without a murmur.

Climate change is a long-term game and the lows are lower and the highs are lower, or higher, the average is lower over a longer period, and the trend is to cooler.

So what don’t I get? Simply put, by a simpleton is that solely because of “greenhouse gas”  the earth is undergoing a rapid climate change, and this is to do with our burning fossil fuel. I’d like to think that this can have only been since the industrial revolution, so not hundreds of years. And yet we’re to belive that in that briefest of brief times we alone have damaged the Earth so badly that we’re into a tail spin.

There is no recognition of any previous ice-ages, they were just events that the Earth wrought upon us. We did it, and we did it in the last 100 or perhaps the last 50 years.

How is it that we think we’re alone responsible, is this inherent in a belief in a deity and a hangover from when we thought we were the center of all creation? Is it arrogance? Is it wilful nonsense?

SoI’m not denying climate change, but I’d like to form a gang of 1 that says I don’t think that it’s man caused or man-made, we’re not helping, but again I don’t think that we could have damaged it that much in such a short space of time.

I’ll picking that you have a strong view on this, either through your own bias and opinion (as this is blog bit is mine, you’ll agree with some of it, you could be a scientist and ‘know’ although that’s not science that would be being able to support a theory.

There are two broad camps, those that are following the flock, those that agree totally and in total with the IPCC, and the other groups funded to investigate and to by and large confirm that there is climate change, and largely to support the “man did it” position, or the climate change other groups; the deniers (who I distance myself from), and the deniers that man did it (which I’m a foot in). I don’t think we give enough credit or credence to the power of the Sun and the variables nature to really know.

Before you get all angst consider that we can’t predict weather more than a couple of days out, no matter how much historical and accurate data we collect, can’t do it. We can’t even predict weather in different parts of the same city a couple of kilometers apart, and we accept that the sun can heat the air temperature by whole degrees in short time frames. Like I’ve already put, it’s a long term game of averages, it’s not about the temperature in my back garden compared to yours.

I don’t know that ‘man’ can change the course of the way things are going, that could in itself be a denial, the Canute syndrome. I don’t know that we’ve ever been given a timeline as to when it’s going to get to the tipping point, where everyone agrees that it’s just going to get to an ive age. What never helps are reports that contain “could” as in “could see the sea rise by 120cm” of course we could, if you predict it often enough it could happen, you’re just trying to cover your bases, it’s not science, or perhaps it confirms that science is mostly guesswork, informed and researched guesswork, but guessing the future of the weather isn’t something I’d put my name to.

I hate being called a denier, this is like the Vatican calling me an atheist, calling me out as different, and abnormal, which isn’t the case. Denier is a negative, it implies that there is a positive position where in this case non exists. Besides which who’s winning? and what’s to win? bragging rights in the igloo?

Nov 29 2010

Things to belive in – Part one the First


I’ve been listening to a number of skeptical podcasts, that is podcasts that have a skeptical look at things. I’d recommend the Righteous Indignation podcasts, they’ve been interviewing ‘believers’ in a very sympathetic way.

Anyways. Thing is. Climate change. Again.

I don’t believe it’s a man-made thing. I still believe this. I believe in climate change, it’s obvious, or seems obvious with age. Seasons are later then I remember as a child, and summer seems to last longer into the new year. So it seems.

What troubles me still is the ‘man made’ bit. I’ve blogged a bit on this before, so this is not a new position for me.

Where do I sit then when people want to throw out labels such as ‘climate change denier’. Skeptical podcasters do this, somehow they’ve elevated themselves to label makers. Of course I side with them about Homeopathy, Psychics and UFOlogists, but they are just different thinkers.

But “denier” gets my heckles up in an angry way. I don’t deny it, I just deny that man did it.

I don’t believe man went to the moon either. Just don’t believe they had the technology.

I don’t believe that there was a gunman on the grassy knoll, that Dianna was assassinated or that Lizards are the true rulers of the planet.

I believe that injections for vaccination are good things, I don’t believe that fluoride in the water is a good thing – mass medication seems wrong, like putting folic acid in bread for the tiny number of pregnant women that have a deficiency – just seems wrong in an overkill way.

I don’t believe in God, Heaven or Hell (I do capitalize just in case :-) )

Aug 28 2010

Athiesm and Man made climate change


I don’t believe there is a god. That’s pretty much it. I don’t have to believe there is one, and I find it hard to reconcile while people have this crushing need to believe there is one, when it is clearly contrary to all the evidence. Then of course we read it through different eyes.

I don’t believe in man made climate change. I believe in climate change of course, you’d be daft not to at least grasp that there has been a progression of the seasons, and that there appears to be growing extremes of weather.

Religious types. particularly the Christian types, are pretty much the same as Climate Changists. They both cast you as “unbeliever” thereby labelling you as someone who is counter or contrary the “norm”. It is not normal to be a Christian, ask any Buddhist or Muslim for instance.

and man “must be” “has to be” responsible for climate change, no if’s but’s or maybe’s about it. Definitively and absolutely it’s man. Man has to be the centre of things, it’s what God would have wanted.

I find it unpalatable to be labelled unbeliever, as I would be if I was labelled “unclean” or “underclass” for instance, as I am sure it was unpalatable to be labelled “Jew” in 1940′s Germany.

It’s somewhat like the Ford/Holden thing that is prevelant in Australia/New Zealand. One side believes without a doubt that one V8 is better than the other. Regardless of any other cars made by them it’s just about the name. There is no lucid argument as to why one is better than the other, it’s based on personal preference and the winning capabilities of either on race day – in race cars that bear only passing resemblance to the road car version. But you get labelled as “Ford” person or “Holden” person even if you are driving a Mitsubishi – which quite frankly is what most of them do drive. Just illogical.

Just as it’s illogical to be distainfull of theists or those that don’t actually belive ‘man’ has broken the planet just based on your own preference.