Bad Argument

 Some, while admitting that climate change is real, argue that it isn't a big deal, that human causation hasn't been proven, and that doing something about it would cause job losses and hurt the economy. Apparently these people don't read newspapers, or if they do, they read the ones that use very small words. Science has known about climate change and the human activity causing it for over 5o years. The science is entertainingly explained in under an hour in the Cosmos episode, The World Set Free. 

A July 8, 2015 Guardian headline  states, "Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years." Why do you suppose Exxon did that? Let me take a guess. Because it would cause job losses and hurt the economy. That's oil industry jobs and the oil industry economy. 

Keeping a secret for 27 years in order to protect your business model is shortsighted. It would have been more sensible to diversify and develop other energy sources. Had Exxon done that, today it would be an industry leader in renewable energy. But it chose to be dishonest and self-serving instead.

Many of the politicians who argue that climate change interventions will cost jobs and hurt the economy receive major funding from oil industry associates. But that, in itself, doesn't make the argument  a bad one. It's true that climate change interventions will cost jobs and effect the economy. The effects will be primarily in the energy sector, although not all of it. Those portions of the energy sector invested in renewable energy will instead create jobs and thrive.

The argument is deceptive because it doesn't take the entire economy into account. Climate change is already affecting the economy's agricultural sector. Droughts, floods and crop-killing heat waves are happening now and will become worse. Climate change will devastate jobs and economies far beyond what can be gained by protecting the status quo. It's time to cut the crap and act responsibly.

Armageddon, anyone?

Good omens : the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Fiction 384 pages
William Morrow, 1990, 2006

According to the bit in the back of the book, this novel has become a "cult classic" since its publication. The book's sales rank on Amazon supports this claim. I haven't read any of Pratchett's books, but I've read a few by Gaiman. I didn't like this one as well as those.

Gaiman has a talent for taking mythological themes and making them believable. But this book is more of a farce, and as such, it failed to suspend my disbelief. This story, like others by Gaiman, draws from mythology, but unlike American Gods, the mythology isn't Norse, African, or Hindu, but Christian, and that will offend some, or at least cause discomfort. Believers don't like to see their beliefs treated like myths.

 Good Omens is about a friendship between a demon and an angel. Neither sees any sense in a war between Heaven and Hell and prefer to thwart, rather than assist during Armageddon. Crowley, the demon, and Aziraphale, the angel, have lived amidst humanity for so long that they no longer see things in such black and white terms as pure good or evil. They no longer fit in with the bureaucrats of Heaven and Hell. Unfortunately their sophisticated viewpoint isn't universal; satirizing conventional behavior just doesn't work for me.

I find no humor in society's increasing polarization of beliefs and attitudes, in the absence of dialog between left and right, religious and secular, rich and poor. Envisioning Heaven and Hell populated by rigid thinking, bureaucratic zealots simply doesn't amuse me. The world is full of such people already and their numbers are steadily increasing. Maybe Armageddon is coming after all, and that's just not funny.