Sunday, November 24, 2024
A retiree tries to deceive a younger generation
One evening at work, a customer happened to hear me discussing global warming with a younger coworker. The customer looked to be a businessman in his 60s. He interrupted us and immediately tried to persuade us to believe that global warming isn't true. "Humans are not affecting the climate," he said. "I used to be a meteorologist."
He continued: "Climate change happens naturally; Greenland, for example, used to have forests." I thought to myself: Of course, climate change also happens naturally, and Greenland had forests once, but still, that would mean the sea level would rise and places like Florida and New York City would be under water. Whether it's natural or man-made, it's still a problem. I did not tell him this because I had a job to protect and thought he might get upset, so instead I asked him a question: "Did you know that most of Greenland is beneath sea level if you remove its mile-thick ice sheet?" This is when things got revealing. He looked toward the ground with a serious look on his face and said, "He had never heard about that and would have to check it out, but anyway, global warming is not real, and if you keep telling people it is, we'll all be paying higher taxes."
There were two things he revealed in that statement:
1. He doesn't really understand what drives the weather.
2. He is a businessman first.
This man had the look of surprise when I mentioned, "Most of Greenland, and for that matter, Antarctica too, are below sea level if you remove both of their ice sheets." Antarctica has an ice sheet about two miles thick (10,560 ft.). In some places, Antarctica is as much as 8000 feet below sea level because the weight of the ice is pressing into the earth. These are just some fascinating basic facts of earth science. I think his surprised reaction reveals that he does not intuitively understand how the world works, because it's not his true interest.
The ice sheets at the poles are the engines that drive a conveyor belt system of ocean currents both at the surface and at the bottom of the world's oceans. Fresh water ice glaciers that drop into the ocean change their temperature and salinity, which drives a current to the bottom of the ocean and begins a wrap around the earth – circulation pattern. Disrupting this conveyor belt system of circulating currents will disrupt the weather everywhere on earth.
I don’t claim to be an expert on what drives the weather, but I do claim to know something about what drives people:
This man cannot be objective on this issue. He perceives that accepting the fact of global warming would cost him financially. He is deceiving himself and trying to deceive others so he can have what he wants. And he perceives himself as being more important than future generations.
You cannot fault this man for being a little self-centered. Evolution favors self-centered people. You can see this by observing the men that women, directed by evolution, choose as mates: they almost never willingly choose a truly honest man. They choose men who deceive and persuade—a man who is, to some degree, a cheat-capable social warrior. A man who will help her rise to what she perceives to be socially superior (the leading edge of what is trending). It is these more [subjective] types of genes that evolution proliferates through a woman's desire. See Objective and Subjective.
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He continued: "Climate change happens naturally; Greenland, for example, used to have forests." I thought to myself: Of course, climate change also happens naturally, and Greenland had forests once, but still, that would mean the sea level would rise and places like Florida and New York City would be under water. Whether it's natural or man-made, it's still a problem. I did not tell him this because I had a job to protect and thought he might get upset, so instead I asked him a question: "Did you know that most of Greenland is beneath sea level if you remove its mile-thick ice sheet?" This is when things got revealing. He looked toward the ground with a serious look on his face and said, "He had never heard about that and would have to check it out, but anyway, global warming is not real, and if you keep telling people it is, we'll all be paying higher taxes."
There were two things he revealed in that statement:
1. He doesn't really understand what drives the weather.
2. He is a businessman first.
This man had the look of surprise when I mentioned, "Most of Greenland, and for that matter, Antarctica too, are below sea level if you remove both of their ice sheets." Antarctica has an ice sheet about two miles thick (10,560 ft.). In some places, Antarctica is as much as 8000 feet below sea level because the weight of the ice is pressing into the earth. These are just some fascinating basic facts of earth science. I think his surprised reaction reveals that he does not intuitively understand how the world works, because it's not his true interest.
The ice sheets at the poles are the engines that drive a conveyor belt system of ocean currents both at the surface and at the bottom of the world's oceans. Fresh water ice glaciers that drop into the ocean change their temperature and salinity, which drives a current to the bottom of the ocean and begins a wrap around the earth – circulation pattern. Disrupting this conveyor belt system of circulating currents will disrupt the weather everywhere on earth.
I don’t claim to be an expert on what drives the weather, but I do claim to know something about what drives people:
This man cannot be objective on this issue. He perceives that accepting the fact of global warming would cost him financially. He is deceiving himself and trying to deceive others so he can have what he wants. And he perceives himself as being more important than future generations.
You cannot fault this man for being a little self-centered. Evolution favors self-centered people. You can see this by observing the men that women, directed by evolution, choose as mates: they almost never willingly choose a truly honest man. They choose men who deceive and persuade—a man who is, to some degree, a cheat-capable social warrior. A man who will help her rise to what she perceives to be socially superior (the leading edge of what is trending). It is these more [subjective] types of genes that evolution proliferates through a woman's desire. See Objective and Subjective.
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