Trump: ‘Nobody knows’ if climate change is real
Click here for reuse options!Trump said that “nobody really knows” whether climate change is real and that he is “studying” whether the United States should withdraw from the global warming agreement struck in Paris a year ago, the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “I’m still open-minded. Nobody really knows. Look, I’m somebody that gets it, and nobody really knows.
Copyright 2016 Liberaland
14 responses to Trump: ‘Nobody knows’ if climate change is real
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mea_mark December 11th, 2016 at 17:52
The orange one doesn’t get it. I don’t think he wants to get it. Ignorance is bliss and his lies to himself are like sweet nectar boosting his ego. He is caught in his own mental trap of delusions. Anyone who thinks he is qualified to be president, must also be suffering from delusions, to not see the obvious. The guy is caught in an ego fueled narcissistic bubble of self deception.
KABoink_after_wingnut_hacker December 11th, 2016 at 17:56
If you exclude 99.9% of all advanced scientists around the globe and give credence to a handful of shills paid by the American fossil fuel industry, the orange guy has a point!
amersham1046 December 11th, 2016 at 18:07
Scientific community debate the reality of Donald Trump
labman57 December 11th, 2016 at 18:17
The climate change denial mindset is an outcome of a larger phenomenon that has become a fundamental component of conservative ideology lately — anti-intellectualism.
Fundamentally, climate change deniers refuse to accept the conclusions of the vast amounts of data gathered over many years by thousands of climatologists representing dozens of academic institutions, government agencies, and private sector interests from many nations — data suggesting a causal relationship between global warming and manmade activities. Their reasons for denial are purely of a political nature, but since they don’t accept the conclusions, they must also deny the veracity of the data for no other reason than it conflicts with their denials.
The fossil fuel industries that are financing the “climate change denial campaign” share the same unethical “profit at all costs” philosophy that has dominated the decision-making process of the tobacco industry as it repeatedly denied any health-related consequences of using their products.
In other words, climate change denial is a conclusion in search of a rationalization.
Robert M. Snyder December 11th, 2016 at 22:59
Labman57, do you work in a research lab? I was employed full-time as a software developer in a research lab from 1894-1989. I have always considered myself pro-science.
I do not deny that human activities affect the global climate. But if you are a scientist, or if you work among scientists, then you know that a system as complex as the earth’s climate is extremely difficult to measure, understand, and model.
There are still people who attempt to deny the anthropomorphic causes of climate change. But I think those people are a steadily shrinking minority.
The real problem is that many different people have proposed many different solutions, and all of those solutions have uncertain costs, uncertain risks, and uncertain benefits.
Consider a patient who has received a cancer diagnosis. Some people will refuse to accept the diagnosis and seek a second opinion. But once the diagnosis has been accepted, there is a separate issue of how to proceed. Some people will prefer to take a very aggressive approach to treatment using experimental treatments. Some will take a more conservative approach. And still others will take a “watchful waiting” approach.
Most of the people I know have “accepted the diagnosis” that mankind’s activities affect the climate and the environment. But not everyone believes that a very aggressive approach is the best course of action. It’s not that people don’t care about the planet. But there are other issues that have to be considered in a balanced way.
For example, many scientists have voiced serious concerns about the possibility of a climate-altering meteor impact. I’m sure you’ve heard of the 1908 Siberian Explosion (a.k.a. Tunguska event) that flattened over 700 square miles of forest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
Nature gave mankind a warning on that day. A much more dramatic warning was given in July 1994 when the first piece of comet Shoemaker-Levy struck Jupiter with the energy of a million one-megaton nuclear bombs exploding at the same time.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/07/16/shoemaker_levy_9_20_years_later.html
Both of these events occurred during the 1900’s. Many scientists are concerned that more strikes could occur in the near future (e.g. during THIS century).
Imagine that you turn on the news and hear a report saying that NASA has just announced that a large comet is on a collision path with earth and is expected to arrive in 18 months. The means to prevent such an impact are within our grasp, but could we build and deploy a solution within 18 months? Just imagine what the experts would be saying in the news interviews. “We should have taken the threat seriously. We had plenty of warnings. Tunguska. Shoemaker-Levy. We saw what could happen. But we failed to act.”
Now instead of a gradual climate change that might occur over a 100-year period, we would be faced with a sudden, dramatic climate change that would occur over a period of days or weeks.
I’m not saying that we should not take climate change seriously. But we have a responsibility to take a balanced approach that considers all of the risks faced by mankind. Throughout history, natural forces have killed far more people than greed and conflict. The first outbreak of the Bubonic Plague killed an estimated 25-50 million people over two centuries. The second outbreak (a.k.a. Black Death) killed one third of the earth’s population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague
We need to be kind to Nature, but historically speaking, Nature has not been kind to us. The technologies that put CO2 into the atmosphere have also helped the human race to protect itself against the ravages of Nature. We have to be careful that we don’t panic and take drastic measures that have unintended side-effects.
bpollen December 12th, 2016 at 01:07
97% of scientific papers over NUMEROUS years, state that climate change is LARGELY anthropogenic. And a vast amount of the remaining 3% are in the employ of those businesses most invested in debunking the science. But it’s the 97% who don’t know their own fields of knowledge?
Given a choice between believing 97% of experts in ANY field, or you, guess who gets the nasty end of the stick? And how does a comet or meteor or planetary body impact with the earth have anything to do with anthropogenic climate change? If 97 out of 100 people claim your house is on fire, do you worry that maybe doing ANYTHING to stop that fire must take a balanced approach – more years of study and statistics and temperature measurements to determine if the use of water is justified? If 97 out of 100 doctors said that you had an aggressive form of cancer, would you be equivocating over whether or not to do ANY DAMN THING? If 97 out of 100 Priuses burst into flame and incinerated the owners, would you think a recall would be too extreme a reaction, or should you wait for more data?
Your argument is: Why should we believe the vast preponderance of the experts who agree on the subject when we HAVE NO DATA OR EXPERTISE TO CONTRADICT THEM? Why should we pay attention to ANY experts about ANYTHING? Prostate cancer has a 97% survival rate, but we should wait for more information before choosing treatment?
You can talk and talk and talk, but unless you can show me a CV that puts you in a position to contradict 97% of ANY area of expertise, your anti-climate-change bunkum is worth even less than Inhofe’s snowball – it melts under scrutiny too, but at least the snowball had more reality than your doubt about science.
You mention the Black Death as an example of what nature can do. If there is an outbreak, just how many years do you think we should wait before contemplating prophylaxis or treatment? How high does the consensus have to be before any implementation? If three doctors say that “God willed it” should we ignore disease vectors?
Show us the SCIENCE that DISPROVES the consensus. Show us HOW all the relevant experts are wrong. Show us how NOAA and NASA and numerous other organizations and countries are STUPID! There is a study comparing relevant EXPERTISE with belief in anthropogenic climate change – the greater the expertise, the more likely to support it.
Robert M. Snyder December 12th, 2016 at 09:46
“Your argument is: Why should we believe the vast preponderance of the experts who agree on the subject when we HAVE NO DATA OR EXPERTISE TO CONTRADICT THEM?”
Go back and re-read what I wrote, and show me where I said that.
That is NOT what I said. My point is that climate change is only one of many issues that we need to be concerned about. Your handle is “bpollen”. Have you been following the Colony Collapse Disorder issue in recent years? Scientists are not sure why, but the bee population is under severe stress. Pesticides are thought to be a big part of the problem. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have the potential to eliminate the need for pesticides by making crops more resistant to pests. But some people are concerned about the risks of GMOs, despite the fact that most scientists say they are a good thing.
These issues are complex. Of course we need to be concerned about CO2 and climate change, but we also need to be concerned about the bee population.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/f5/a2/b9/f5a2b9b32c60d75e38d1be10597d33a0.jpg
All of these issues are related, because the earth is one, big, interconnected system. We can’t deal with climate change in isolation. Our current technology emits CO2. The technology that eventually replaces it will probably have negative side-effects of its own. We need to take a holistic approach to the planet and all of its systems. Because while some people are panicking about the climate, others are panicking about the bee population, and still others are panicking about the threat of comet impacts.
mea_mark December 12th, 2016 at 09:58
The orange one is denying climate change because he doesn’t like it. He isn’t trying to understand it, he isn’t near smart enough to do that.
Robert M. Snyder December 12th, 2016 at 10:12
Actions speak louder than words. I’m more interested in what he does than in what he says. I’m not a fan of Al Gore, and I’m not a fan of Mitt Romney. But I think it speaks well of Trump that he solicits their input. I wish that Trump would stop shooting from the lip. I hope that his actions will be more well-considered than his remarks.
mea_mark December 12th, 2016 at 10:25
He is appointing deniers that don’t want to look at evidence. He is asking for ignorance. They aren’t asking tough questions, they are burying their heads in the sand.
bpollen December 13th, 2016 at 03:12
“Go back and re-read what I wrote, and show me where I said that.”
It’s called paraphrasing, Bobby.
Let me give an analogy to your argument:
97 out of 100 of your neighbors say your house is on fire. You don’t want to act precipitously, because after all the roof leaks, the basement floods in the spring, and there’s a termite problem. So you wait for the evidence of the fire to become INDISPUTABLE, worrying about how any action might have some unintended consequences. Meanwhile, the fire spirals out of control until your house and the contents and the occupants turn to ash.
And yet, the judicious use of a garden hose at the beginning could have stopped the conflagration.
The irony gets really deep when you realize that there is an entire industry that profits from you ignoring the dangers of fire.
Suzanne McFly December 11th, 2016 at 21:02
Umm 97% of scientists do….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists'_views_on_climate_change
bpollen December 12th, 2016 at 00:10
I have heard a bosom buddy of the Donald telling us that nobody knows that causes the tides. I have heard his Party members claim that evolution is “lies from the pit of hell.” 5 members of the House Science Committee, Republicans all, are anti-science (Dana Rohrabacher, R-Dumbass, says that dinosaur flatulence may have caused previous changes in the climate.) Republican candidates have claimed that women can simply prevent pregnancy if they don’t want to be pregnant, A Trumpy-Dumpy cabinet pick claims the pyramids are grain silos. And also claims that gay is a choice cuz prison. Jeb Bush claims Planned Parenthood doesn’t DO women’s health (76% of what they provide is STI/STD testing & treatment, and contraception.) A republican presidential candidate claims that fetus-part harvesting goes on in PP clinics for friggin’ PROFIT! Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Kim Davis all claim to support the sanctity of marriage and, as such, are opposed to same-sex marriage, but between them, they have 14 marriages and numerous affairs. Jeb Bush has slammed Obama’s ISIS plan as, get this, TOO INTELLIGENT! A Republican hasn’t balanced a budget since the 50s, but claim to be the party of “fiscal responsibility.” Fox News has put forward the claim that the metric system causes air crashes. Republicans believed in Jade Helm as a coup, by the gubmint, OF the gubmint.(Kind of an Ouroboros of stupid – it eats its own tail.) Saint Ronnie of Raygun says “facts are stupid things.” Saint Ronnie ALSO said that “trees cause more pollution than automobiles.” He also appeared surprised that Latin America was made up of DIFFERENT COUNTRIES! John McCain worries about the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border (they have NO borders in common.) Pat Robertson believes that the goal is feminism is lesbians. Alberto Gonzales claims that Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt have authorized MORE electronic surveillance than Bush II. Rick Perry has said that Juarez Mexico is the most dangerous city in the United States. Dan Quayle said he didn’t live in the century he was born and lived most of his life. He also thinks Phoenix is in California. Gerald Ford says that if Lincoln were still alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave. Herman Cain has expressed his fear that China will develop nuclear weapons (which they already did in 1964.)
Reality obviously doesn’t lean conservative.
Charlie Seivard December 12th, 2016 at 08:10
GOP = Ignorance Personified.