Jews may be icky, but this is why I find some Christians more loathesome.
I've tried not to be Political. But I can't be on this one.
So... I guess "An Inconvenient Truth" is now un-Christian, because Global Warming is a message from Jesus that the Apocalypse is coming... and so therefore, this movie that is based on empirical scientific data is 1) untrue and 2) Anti-Christian - like evolution.
And this is why people have a bad taste in their mouths when they think of Evangelical Christians, floating around in their own little world of crazy and dangerous denial.
Newsflash, People: Jesus isn't sitting in a room, with a Crystal Ball or a Magic Wand, pointing it at icebergs and ozone levels, and breeding his four horses or whatever...(I have no idea what Christians think the end of the world will be, because we don't have one.)
I saw the movie. It scared the pants off me. I had to drink afterwards to wipe the image of the polar bear swimming to find polar ice, but not finding any, out of my head. I'm not a frothing greeny, but I'm also not retarded. I think it's a very dangerous and criminally un-arrogant position to take to say that we're not having an effect on the Climate. Because. We are.
We've synthesized products and reactions that don't occur in nature, and then we spew them into the atmosphere. That, times a hundred fifty years, and things are going to start to change... regardless of how large the Earth is. And they are. Changing. The Mid-Atlantic states have become "Southern" zones for planting now, not Mid-Atlantic.
I think this guy, Frosty Hardiman, or Frosty E. Hardiman is a fucking asshole. So, Frosty Hardiman, I say this to you: Because you're stirring a pot you shouldn't be, I hope this bites you in the ass. I hope a freak wildfire fanned by abnormal winds, burns down your home. I hope you live near the water so in 10 years, the waves are lapping at its foundation. Mostly, I hope you just shut the fuck up, and let these kids watch the goddamn movie, propaganda or not, because it's not like it's a "HOW TO DO A GUY UP THE ASS 101" movie, it's a movie that will benefit them, their community, and their world.
And what, exactly, is your problem with that? Oh, no answer? I understand. You have to go mix a cone of cinnamon to put on your nose to ward off the Black Plague, string garlic around your neck to ward off vampires, and stuff your pockets full of salt to avoid the Evil Eye.
Idiot.
posted by SuperBee at 5:24 AM
10 Comments:
wow. i just read that article. i am stunned. it is easy to marginalize this as just a few crazy people, but then i remember that these folks are the people that are in charge of the country. yikes. and people wonder why kids in the U.S. lag behind other countries in science.
I feel the same way I did when those people in Dover, PA were trying to forbid evolutionary theory to be tought in their schools. Luckily, the few self-righteous Evangelicals were all voted out at the next election.
10:23 AM
I have not seen it, well...I haven't. So here is my completely Christian biased view on stuff like global warming and The Four Horsemen.
I am not convinced global warming is all Al Gore says it is (I've read what he's written, just not seen the movie since I've read what he writ). He doesn't have much credibility with me. However, I completely believe it is mankind's responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth, manage it's resources, control human population, and all that. Understand that I have a strong background in Biology, Botany and Biochemistry, so I am not some yahoo Christian who believes everything Preacher Bob says. If you looks at the statistics, the Earth is polluting the atmosphere more than the people ON the Earth are- Mount Pinatubo blew more sulfuric gasses and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere in one eruption than all mankind has since the advent of the industrial revolution.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/of97-262/of97-262.html
That doesn't mean we should go ehn...and be lazy. It does mean that the world would still have pollution even if mankind disappeared.
As for the movie being Unchristian...people say that about anything they disagree with. High heeled shoes are unChristian, so are dresses with v-necks, and anything with Barbra Streisand in it. Oh and don't even get me started on The Gay Issue...but then you know about that.
Christian's idea of the end of the world are as varied as our denominations. Everyone claims to be right, and everyone conveniently forgets that Jesus said he'd come "like a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:2), meaning that no one knows when He'll come.
Evangelicals get really spooled up when science starts rearing it's inconvenient head. Stuff like evolution, abortion, anything,really, that they consider "Leftist" is rejected out-of-hand as being Eviiillll because we all know Lefties are a buncha wacked out Godless potheads having sex randomly with anything that stands still long enough. Never mind that empirical evidence tells them one thing, if it's a guy with a cardigan sweater and a pipe from Berkely saying it, it's wrong.
11:41 AM
TBP - Shit like this sends my blood pressure through the roof.
RT - I have no argument with the fact that Nature spews plenty of greenhouse gasses and whatnot; that said, past volcanic eruptions have blacked out the sun in places and caused mass die-offs. If one volcano can do that, can't seven billion people? And aren't we the least concerned that if one volcanic blast or one meteor can plunge the world into an ice age in a matter of weeks, shouldn't we be worried that this might be creeping up on us? I don't imagine the denizens of Georgia would quite know what to do with seven feet of snow... and if the gulfstream gets off kilter, because the global ice caps melt fast and stop it in its tracks like a quart of ice into a pot of boiling soup... well. It would be a bad thing.
Furthermore, yes, the earth does spew natural gasses etc., however, in nature, those gasses weren't being compounded with the billions of cars on the road, coal-burning power factories, chemical refineries, etc. Now they are. The Earth can handle a certain amount of natural pollution, and there is even flex room for man-made pollution, but we keep reproducing, and creating more and more demand for pollution-causing materials. Eventually, something's got to give.
And that give might come in the form of seven degree warmer temperature, which doesn't seem like a big deal... until Greenland melts into the Northern Atlantic, shutting off the Gulf-Stream, plunging Western Europe into an ice-age, and essentially halting all of the other ocean currents that are invaluable to maintaining our current climate.
But it's not sulfuric acid and carbon monixide that are the problems. They're not greenhouse gasses. It's carbon dioxide, water vapor, etc, which trap the Sun's rays and heat the temperature. Yeah, it's not GOOD to have Monoxide, but it's more the soot, ash, and particulate matter as well as gassy compounds that prevent heat from leaving the Earth that's the problem.. and that's what we create when we 1) breathe and 2) cows fart and 3) we putter in our cars off to the Supermarket.
I'm not saying we need to stop all pollution - that's impractical. But like I said, I think it's denial to say that we're not having any impact on the environment. We've wiped out species that should have been able to regenerate. And I think it's wholly possible that in the near future, according to Moore's Law, that the amount of gasses we're spewing will seriously affect the Earth's ability to radiate heat back into Space.
Unfortunately, this argument can't be put into a God-Box for easy digestion for the Southern Baptist Convention, but I see shunning empirical data regarding the concentration of gasses in the atmosphere, and raising temperatures, as being a markedly irresponsible, as living in a state of denial, and leaving our mess for someone else to clean up... if those people are even around to clean it up.
It's easy to bury your head in the sand and say, "I can't see it, not gonna happen, not in my lifetime," but it does happen. Great civilizations have been wiped out because of Climate change - ruins in modern day Egypt and the middle east, in the middle of arid deserts, attest to the fact that thousands of years ago, they were lush destinations, capable of supporting large numbers of people.
I simply can't understand how we, as a species, with the capability of imagining future possibilities and scenarios, possibly indirectly, and possibly directly related to our actions, can close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears, and say, "La, la, la! I can't hear you! La, la, la!"
I mean, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?
12:02 PM
ZzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzz
Oh....sorry. Didn't mean to doze off there.
2:04 PM
Scary article, but I really enjoyed the "Jesus isn't sitting in a room, with a Crystal Ball or a Magic Wand, pointing it at icebergs and ozone levels, and breeding his four horses or whatever..." comment. Classic.
6:53 PM
"I mean, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? "
Well sure, and that's precisely what I mean about being a good steward. Recycling, renewable resources, all that...very good stuff. My point is that mankind isn't the source of all the pollution there is, and nature isn't all Bambi and Thumper. We aren't to use volcanoes as an excuse to drive 3 mpg Dodge trucks, but neither are the trucks the source of all evil. I have a feeling we are --> <-- this far apart in our thinking.
So where do you keep your compost heap?
6:53 AM
I don't think trucks are the source of all evil at all.
I do, however, think that if we can devote a little time and a little energy into making our cars more fuel efficient, and less pollutiony, I think if we use nuclear energy (I know, I know, but still, we're not Russia...or New Jersey in 1979...) and I think if we were to really put a LOT of money into cutting back emmissions and greenhouse gasses, and using renewable energy sources (like in Florida, there's no reason why we're not using more solar energy and/or wind-generators on tops of buildings) we'd spearhead a movement that would not only be good for our image, but would be good for the world as well. We'd also not be as dependent on whatever the hell happens in the Arab Countries that control our oil and it would essentially take away their bargaining chip. Then, we could nuke them off the face of the Earth.
(That's where I'm not very greeny-Lefty. I've had it up to here with militant islamofacism, and I think a good nuclear airstrike might be just what Amedinijad needs to sit down and shut up.)
I really don't think we can implement anything even before the next fifteen years that will really make a difference, but we have to start NOW, to see results in the future.
My whole gripe with that article in the first place was not that this guy doesn't recycle (incidentally, my compost heap is my garbage disposer, anything I can shove down that sucker, I do.) but that this guy was standing as an impediment to a movie that is only morally incorrect by the FARTHEST STRETCH of A + B = D Logic. And by standing in the way of the next generation of alternative-fuel creating scientists, he's doing well in his mind by his daughter in the short term, but screwing his grandchildren in the long term.
And, also, you know, that whole Jesus and the wand thing.
7:33 AM
yay nuclear power! I'm all for it. Remember when people thought it would kill you to go faster than 50 mph? Well, maybe you don't...it was way back when. Same thing with nukes. They have a nasty reputation thanks to WW2, but it's good stuff. I'm also liking this vegetable oil adaptation for cars. I got behind a veg oil car once, it smelled like french fries.
The change will happen just as soon as we don't have any choice. That's the only way it will happen on a global scale.
9:11 AM
"It is easy to marginalize this as just a few crazy people, but then i remember that these folks are the people that are in charge of the country."
Okay, lemme try this -
"I would marginalize the greenie in Lubbock who left glass, stones and stretched wire across bike paths to keep cyclists from defacing nature as He (this greenie, not Allah)intended but then I remember these are the folks who worship Gore and want to be in charge of the country. Ick."
Then you also have the bikers who gleefully key gas-guzzling SUVs. With any luck they will not win any elections.
7:13 AM
P.S. Sure "Frosty" is a stupid name. So unlike, say, "Tipper".
11:01 AM
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