Otherwise Not Dumb Chris Doesn't Understand Climate Change

by Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com Seen Here Wearing a Smart Making Device

Just a quick drop today to say that these tornadoes that be going on every where is dumb. This will of course have to lead into discussion about climate change (formerly known as global warming, but I’m guessing the global temperature started going down? maybe? so they started calling it climate change? maybe?). The only reason I say that is because I usually don’t have trouble finding a year by year breakdown of things doing a Google search, but I couldn’t find a year by year breakdown of the global temperature. Let me try again.

Yeah, I found some list of temperature anomalies, whatever that means, but not something that says this was the average global temperature. I realize that this just shows ignorance on my part, but maybe this is part of the problem. We don’t know what you’re fucking talking about. As I understand it, global warming was a bad label to begin with, because they predicted a global drop in temperatures as the oceanic ice melted, much the same way that ice will melt in a glass of Dr. Pepper, and even make the glass cold temporarily, but will eventually reach room temperature again, unless a hero like me gets in there and drinks up all the tasty Dr. Pepper as quickly as possible.

I’m an environmentalist. I believe in taking care of Earth. I believe we should do whatever we can to reduce, reuse, and recycle, so that we don’t use up all of our resources. I’m also not entirely dumb. I get things. Science was my jam in grade school. I watch lots of videos featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yet I have a comprehension weak spot. I don’t understand the evidence of climate change, and every time I discuss it with others, I get the distinct feeling they don’t understand it either. It’s almost like you’re supposed to just believe it because the scientists say so.

I see a lot of people yelling about the lawmakers being too dumb to understand climate change, and denying climate change, and boy are you people stupid because you don’t understand climate change. Maybe you could try to explain it better? Just a thought.

Here’s why I say this. In the 1980s, there was talk about Styrofoam, CO2 in hairspray, and recycling paper to save the rain forests. Over the next three decades we reduced the Styrofoam and CO2, and increased recycling programs. It feels like the majority of people are good with protecting the environment, so it feels like there should be great support for the proposed protections. Let me show you how simple it is to explain concepts.

Styrofoam doesn’t breakdown well, and doesn’t recycle well. It may also interact badly with sea life. Got it.

CO2 in hairspray is causing the ozone layer to deplete. Without the ozone layer we all die of radiation from space. Got it.

No trees, no oxygen. Got it.

Electric cars will reduce oil usage, saving oil for other needs, and it’ll be cheaper to operate vehicles in the long term. Got it.

No, you just don’t get climate change. Why won’t you just trust the scientists who say this is what’s going on? Um, what?

Corporations and investors don’t want to lose money in the short term, so they don’t want to put these measures in place at their own expense. Got it.

It seems to me that we shouldn’t be trying to give everybody a free college education if we’re not going to be around to use it. It seems like we could instead use the money that would put everybody through college to subsidize businesses to go green. This creates a problem for the Democrats. It would be the most direct way for the US to do their part in the global changes that those smart scientists say we need to make, but it gets into the realm of corporate welfare, which is the only kind of welfare that Republicans are good with.

It also creates the problem that the left leaning are ok with raising taxes to help our culture to never have to take jobs they don’t like, but they probably wouldn’t support paying higher taxes to give corporations money, even if it’s to save the planet. Since that’s where the money would have to come from, we have to cross our fingers that the corporations will do the right thing, even though that only seems to happen with regulation.

Here’s my short term solution. Give us information we can easily understand about what needs to change and why. Start with the changes that have clear long term savings for the corporations, because they’d be fools not to. Quit saying things that make people defensive, like suggesting that people are dumb for not blindly believing a group of scientists about something that hasn’t really been clearly explained to the world. You should especially pay attention to that last one. I’m on your side here, and I don’t even really understand what you’re saying. If I don’t understand it, how can I explain it to others?

Provided anyone reads this, I understand that you might be tempted to get into the comments sections and call me dumb, or blame the current problem on the shortcomings of people like me. It won’t help. I’m being very open about the fact that I’m just as confused as everybody else seems to be, and I’m actually for saving the environment. I want to understand. Good links to good information would be helpful.

Chris McGinty is a blogger who would be just fine with people just fixing the problem before he needs to understand the problem. Is that really too much to ask?