People send me stuff. Today I got a true confessions style email with an emotional tear jerker, and a telling graph for which they claim credit, something we predicted would happen years ago. Never mind the tanked U.S. economy and the switch to natural gas thanks to shale gas fracking, no, the emissions reduction is all due to these tear jerking NGO spammers who want the U.S. back to 1950 levels, and even if that is somehow managed, you can bet they still won’t be happy,
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I have a climate confession. Recently, I’ve begun to question whether we can solve the climate crisis.
[name redacted] —
I have a climate confession: Recently, I’ve begun to question whether we can solve the climate crisis.
Deep down in my darkest thoughts, from everything I know, have read, have been told by the scientists at EDF about the growing threat, and from witnessing the unrelenting stream of dopey climate denialism in Washington, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to maintain hope. The fear that we won’t avert climate catastrophe has taken hold. And I shudder at what that will mean.
It’s a terrible and sobering notion, maybe one you’ve shared in recent years.
As a parent of a 9-year old and a 7-year old—two sweet, beautiful children who mean everything to me—I often ask what more can I do? How are we going to fix this problem? And what kind of world am I going to leave to my kids?
Then, about a month ago, in a meeting to discuss EDF’s climate strategy, a colleague of mine presented this graphic:
I had an instant reaction. This chart tells a powerful story. Over the last few years, our work really has made a difference. We have reduced America’s carbon emissions. We have altered the course of history.
For the first time in a long time I began again to feel a sense of hope…to see a path forward.
And, after discussing with the Membership team, this chart has inspired this “Climate Changing” email series we’re launching today. Between now and Earth Day, we’ll share stories and information to help you understand where we are in the fight for climate solutions…where we need to be…and how we can get there, together.
This is a serious moment. The fight to avoid climate calamity confronts us with sobering realities. While we have made progress, we have a tremendous amount of work to do. And very little time in which to do it.
It won’t be easy. But, there is a path forward—and that’s important.
You are making a difference. And I want to extend my personal heartfelt thanks for standing strong with EDF. You are helping change America and the world.
Over the next few weeks, I hope the climate solutions we’ll share will help renew our shared belief that with determination and resolve, we can still solve the climate crisis.
With gratitude and renewed hope,
Sam Parry
Director, Membership
P.S. Do you have a climate confession? Have you also felt doubt in recent years over our chance to solve the climate crisis? If so, I’d love to hear your story.
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Dear Sam
I do have a climate confession. I used to debate policy in High School and College. When I first noticed discussion of AGW 8 years ago I thought it would be a interesting science topic to look into. As I began reading the great majority of articles about the impending certain horrors of our impending climate doom I noticed one thing that send up a red flag for me. Proponents of AGW held skeptics and anyone who questioned their dogma in utter disdain. That did not sound very scientific to me and as I dug into the topic I discovered Climateaudit, Wattsup, The Air Vent and The Blackboard that seemed to provide a more level headed view of things. As always I began to follow the money and soon discovered that AGW proponents were locked into huge sums of grant money that in my opinion “co-opts” their ability to provide a balanced view. Luckily nature has decided to choose a path that does not agree with the AGW disasterites and I feel completely vindicated now. How many more years will it take for you to be willing to confess the error of your ways?
thanks
Should fear the eco-fascists, not climate change, methinks.
Yes, I have a climate confession. Arctic ice is increasing rapidly (see JAXA for one example), sunspots are about half of normal, the Pacific Ocean remains in the cool mode, and the deep cold winters have returned.
I have a confession. I think people that mislabel charts in big red letters to conflate the terms “CO2” and “carbon pollution”, are two-bit swindlers and hucksters.
We have altered the course of history.
Really? How precisely? So history is no longer about people?
It’s about carbon dioxide and spurious graphs?
The intellectual capacity of an amoeba
The civilization is Doomed unless…
http://news.yahoo.com/society-doomed-scientists-claim-121540351.html
“The researchers used the HANDY model to analyze three different social scenarios: an egalitarian society with no elite class; an equitable society with workers and non-workers (students, retirees, disabled persons); and an unequal society with a robust class of elites.
The egalitarian and equitable societies could produce a sustainable civilization and avoid collapse, even with a high ratio of non-workers. Social collapse was more likely after people overreached and depleted natural resources. Importantly, even without any social stratification, collapse could occur if a society exhausted its natural resources.
In the unequal society, however, collapse was almost unavoidable — and these were the HANDY scenarios that mirrored our current globalized society.”
Scientific marxism at work, hence the need for Global Warming…
i just took a climate crap.
Yeah I have one. As a parent of two sweet children of my own, and two step children, I bitterly resent the cataclysmic anthropogenic climate agitprop that they have been, and still are to some extent forced to endure at school. But kids aren’t daft. They know an agenda when they see one. My ten year old son is pretty disdainful, and the girls couldn’t care less. They’re more interested in justin Bieber. Hell, I am more interested in Justin Bieber than the machinations of the thought police who would like to corral our future into a fantasy that serves some obscure end only those who imagine they are intellectually, morally or even spiritually elevated by joining the priesthood of doom can understand. I don’t shove my skepticism down their throats but I do express my doubts, which only seem to harden over time, and I have been following this debate for a very long time. When people start invoking the “think of the children” meme I guess that says it all.
I have a climate confession…
Yes I have a carbon footprint that is the equivalent of a thousand acre tire fire…
What to do? What to do?
My confession, duly submitted:
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
I am part of the the shale gas revolution, which has caused US emissions to fall, by replacing coal in generating power. This natural gas renaissence has also reduced American Utility bills by billions of dollars, increased US employment and manufacturing, and seen US exports climb, reducing the balance of trade.
In spite of the positive outcomes, I feel guilty, for enabling the demon carbon, even in such form as CH4.
I beg for Gaia’s forgiveness, and ask for Her to give me strength, in the battle against the demon Carbon.
In the name of the Trinity: Gore, Hansen and Mann;
Amen!
I have a confession.
I think the AGW crew are crooks and dream of the day the scam is finally debunked.
GIMME MONEY NOW!!!
From the letter-
“As a parent of a 9-year old and a 7-year old—two sweet, beautiful children who mean everything to me-”
Hey there, pearl-clutching member of EDF. Your group and other enviro NGO’s have been screaming at the public for decades now (I’m talking at least back to Paul Ehrlich in his 1970’s heyday) that having children in the US is the worst possible carbon sin you could ever commit. Peer reviewed literature has calculated that each one of your carbon critters contributes 9441 tons of child-killing carbon pollution to your personal carbon footprint. It is clear that you could not have been ignorant of this dead-certain enviro fact before popping out two rug-rats. What is the matter with you? Why so selfish? Don’t you believe in even the simplest personal step towards solving EDF’s climate crisis?
To paraphrase the insightful Peter Huber from an article published on April 21, 2009-
If you decide to have carbon-polluting children while insisting that to save the world we must ditch the children, you are just burdening your already sooty soul with another ton of self-righteous hypocrisy. And you can’t possibly afford what it will cost to forgive that.
I have a good grounding in secondary school science, physics and maths, and also a degree in economics and statistics (including experience in computer modeling of complex non-deterministic systems) .
When I first heard about the threat of global warming, I looked into it, reading the various articles and some scientific papers that forecast a tough time unless the world reduced CO2. I was very concerned. So I dug deeper, and read an IPCC report (around eight to ten years ago). I saw the various predictions, but saw few measurements of actual temperatures etc. So I looked ’em up (they’re all available on publicly-available data bases). I found that not one of the four key IPPC predictions (air temperature, sea temperature, net radiation balance at top of atmosphere, and the tropospheric “hot spot”) were supported by the measured real-world actual evidence.
Now I’m a great believer in the scientific method. Accordingly, the only conclusion I could come to was that the various predictions of disaster were false. They were not supported by the evidence. The IPCC models were therefore incorrect.
If the measured real-world data changes to support the IPCC’s models, then I’ll change my mind and start to accept the global warming disaster story. Until then, I remain wholly unconvinced. I learned early on that real-world evidence beats computer models every time.
I confess I’m very worried that Sam Parry is breeding.
As a parent of a 9-year old and a 7-year old—two sweet, beautiful children who mean everything to me—I often ask what more can I do?
… this line got me thinking about this other sob story …
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn’t understand why Gaia would undermine the efforts of fellow Warm Earthers. “Even my Grandpa?” she asked pitifully.
I sat down with her on the sofa and (as calmly as I could) tried to explain to her why Gaia has rushed to judgment and besmirched the good name of every Warm Earther, past and present. “And yes honey, even Grandpa”, I was forced to say.
I tried to keep my voice steady, but it became increasingly difficult – the rage and feelings of helplessness were just too much. I think my daughter could tell something was wrong. I found myself at such a loss for words – nothing made any sense; nothing makes sense anymore. I finally had to admit, “Honey, I just don’t know – I don’t know what’s going on in this planet anymore…”
When I finished her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes began to fill with tears, “Daddy” she said, “why is Gaia doing this to the planet ?” Well, that was it for me: I finally fell apart. She just fell into my arms and we both began sobbing for several minutes.
For once she had to comfort me and get me back on my feet. Sometimes I just think it’s too much, but seeing the strength in my young daughter’s voice helped me to get through.
I have a climate confession.
Entirely without my efforts and despite continuously increasing CO2 levels needed for the life and safety and energy keeping 7 billion innocents alive for 17 years, Antarctic sea ice is increasing so steadily, so consistently, so rapidly the past 4 years, that – within 8 to 10 years – it will block the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn to ship traffic for months every year.
I think everyone should send Sam their stories just for balance – I am certainly willing to share how the Australian Carbon Tax has destroyed our motor and allied manufacturing industry, destroyed our fruit and canning industry, has decimated Qantas, our national airline, has added billions of dollars to domestic energy costs, and has seen those dollars disappear into the pockets of Carbon Zombies Climate Councils, Commissions, and assorted Carpet Baggers, preaching Climate Catastrophe and Sea Level Rise while celebrating with fine French Champagne as they close deals for prime waterfront real estate money from grants, subsidies and our hip-pockets.
We have reduced America’s carbon [dioxide] emissions by increasing them in China.
Nevertheless, I feel a warm inner glow when I look at that fabulous chart showing the decline of the American Empire in terms of “carbon pollution.” After all, climate-warming-extreme-weather-change is a threatening phenomena that orbits the United States: nothing else on Earth matters.
Come with me on my journey to save the planet with my shared “beliefs,” “determination” and “resolve,” and some other cool words from the neurologist programming department of TV land.
Together we can do it!
“neurolinguistic programming” is what I meant to say.
Translation: “We get boatloads of money from Exxon, Shell, BP, etc, but we need you rubes to give too, so we have a fig leaf.”
I have a confession: I think that most of the staff at EDF who’ve read Sam Parry’s poignant email think he’s swallowed the deception hook line and sinker. They realize how far out of touch he is. They (should) know why the reduction in emissions took place.
The level of delusion given the state of the science is simply amazing. The past few decades have produced or revealed a level or ignorance in science that will set the stage for more failures in critical thinking ability. This is what’s so sad to me.
EDF is one of the reasons I became a skeptic—it takes a little bit of searching, but, the first time I looked at the so-called climate experts at EDF, I found 32 experts–one scientist (not related to climate), numerous lawyers, economists, and governmental interface representatives. The second time I looked, there was still just one scientist, but, the number of lawyers, economists, and government types had increased. Hence, just an agenda driven NGO, with no factual basis on climate science. A sad commentary on our system, when this type of organization continues to get funding from government, and a clueless population.
So, what are you going to leave to those kids that mean so much to you?
A world of crony capitalism where billionaire friends of Al can clean up on government mandates and those kids can enjoy a steadily declining standard of living.
Great work.
Hilarious!
The “tear jerker” was funny, but the comments above put me on the floor!
Someone email that guy the *WORLD* CO2 emissions graph so he can restart his despondency anew…The US emissions should mean nothing in the CAGW mindset, drop in the bucket. Thinly veiled propaganda.