Index
<< How It All Ends | Videos | Menu >>
Script
Viewing Sequence on Board:
- Nature of Science
- Risk Management
- Why There Is Still Debate
- The Manpollo Project
- Mechanics of GCC
- Scare Tactics
- The Solution
- God’s Will
- Get What You Want (Skeptics #1)
- I Hope I’m Wrong (Skeptics #2)
- No Holds Barred (Skeptics #3)
- Your Mission
This video is titled “How It All Ends: Index” and is a guide to a sort of “Expansion Pack” of videos backing up the arguments contained in the video “How It All Ends.”
[BOARD, LIST] Okay, so here’s the plan. If you feel sort of middling about this issue, and have a specific question, you can choose which video to watch from the “a la carte” menu that I’ll give you in a minute. If you feel like I do and want to do whatever you can to make policy changes on climate change happen, then you’ll probably want to watch them all. I know that seems like a big time commitment, but if there’s ever a time in your life to be thorough and thoughtful, it is now, with this issue. It is worth taking those few hours of your life to watch a few videos. Because we need as many information warriors out there as we can get—I’ll give you your specific assignment in this video [“Your Mission”].
If you’re a skeptic you’ll be looking for holes, so you’ll want to watch all in this sequence too, except this one. Don’t watch that one cuz it’ll give away our game plan. Crud! We can edit that out, right? [Beat.]
If you’re a skeptic, you’ll be looking for holes, so you’ll want to watch all in this sequence too, except for this one. That one probably wouldn’t be worth your time.
In fact, skeptics, you’ll probably want to watch them all twice, because you don’t want to end up making an assertion that someone else answers simply with “He already covered that.” That would just be embarrassing. And be warned: if you try dismiss my my hours of complex and thorough argumentation with a “That’s just typical liberal scaremongering” without specifically addressing my points, you’ll have to forgive the rest of us if we interpret that as a concession, that you can’t refute the argument, so you won’t even try. In fact, I made these three just for you! You’re welcome!
[DESK] A little background: in the Spring of 2007, I presented the basic decision grid about climate change in a video titled “The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See.” Within a month, it had garnered over a million hits on various websites, and at least 5,000 comments, most of them critical. Turns out, my “silver bullet” argument had a hole big enough to drive a Hummer through, caused by an assumption I didn’t realize I had. (Isn’t that just way with assumptions?) As a result, I posted three more videos, titled “Patching Holes #1-3,” answering those criticisms. Problem is, no one found those videos to watch them.
Throughout that whole debate, I tracked the comments and discussions in various places, continuing reading until it had been a long time since I’d read a new argument or criticism that I hadn’t seen before. So as a result, I am extremely familiar with the objections to my argument, and have come back, loaded for bear. Hence the hours and hours of expansion pack videos.
So skeptics, I’m throwing down with you right now: I’m quite confident there is not a single reasonable criticism of my argument which I have not already anticipated and refuted in the expansion pack videos. How’s that for a challenge? Actually, as I was editing the videos, I did find one assertion I made that I realized had a hole in it. So I brought attention to it with a subtitle. It’s just another free service I provide to you, the viewer. Can you find it?
And for those of you already sympathetic to the cause: if you see that the skeptics do find a hole, how about you take on the patching of it? Last go ‘round a couple people had my back, but the comments were overwhelmingly negative, and it pretty much felt like me against the Internet. How about some warm fuzzies, too, people? Cuz I gotta tell you. I’ve been working non-stop on this freakin’ project for 4 months, and it’s time I got some sleep and got back to my family. So I’m passing the torch on to you. Run with it.
For instance, if someone wants to make a better index than I’m about to give you, say one that goes down to the scale of which part of a video, please do. Post it as a response. Take this stuff, fix it up, pimp my argument. I’ve got no ownership of these ideas. I’m just trying to plant a seed here. Or a virus, more properly, but that’s not nearly as pleasant an image, is it?
In fact you, yes you right there, have my explicit permission to take this material and do anything you want with it in any form. Copy it, rip it, do a mash-up, turn it into a PowerPoint (take out the dirty parts first), turn it into a musical and go on tour, even remake it, claim it as your own work and get paid for it! I don’t care. Just get it out there! I can’t be the only champion for this reasoning. We’ve all got to be champions for it. Because that’s what it will take to change the culture, which is what it will take to change policies, which is what it will take to eliminate the possibility of that lower righthand corner.
I know I really drone on in a couple of the videos. Well, more than a couple. Okay all. Look—I didn’t have time to make them short and eloquent. So you get long and punishing. Sorry ‘bout that, Chief. Anyway, all the ideas are there. Please look past the poor production values, the sleep-deprived slurred speech, the Red Bull–fueled stutters, and the repetition, the redundancy, the saying the same thing over and over, when I just keep repeating myself, flogging a dead horse again and—
Throughout these videos, I use the terms “global warming” and “global climate change” interchangeably, though really they mean different things, as well as “human-caused” and “anthropogenic” which mean the exact same thing.
I’ve deferred answering most of the technical objections dealing with the science of global climate change, cuz they’re already covered most excellently on [placard] Grist.com’s “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.” So check there for the answers to any technical objections you don’t see me cover. No need to reinvent the wheel.
At its heart, this is a deadly serious issue. But, in an effort to not take myself too seriously, and to try to bring a little levity to an often angry debate, I’m going to wear a different silly hat for each video. [rapid collage]
[BOARD, LIST] Be aware: if you make a la carte choices, things may be just a little confusing, because a lot of this is intertwined. So if something doesn’t make sense, go upstream in the flow to get the context.
Most of these videos have multiple parts, due to the time limit on some video hosting services. For instance, this bruiser comes in 7 individually wrapped packages [point to “Risk Management”]. I’ve tried to make sure each part points to the next one. But if you get lost, just go back to my wonderingmind42 account, and you should find everything there.
[DESK] I finally realized why I get frustrated with people in discussions when they keep bringing up technical little objections to the science of global climate change, or when they get abrasive about how none of the proposed solutions is ever going to work. Here’s my objection to all the nit-picking: who the heck are you or I to judge either the fitness of the science, or the fitness of the policy solutions? I’m no climate scientist. And I’m no policy maker. It’s foolish for me to try to act like either of those. That’s why we hire the professionals in both those fields.
What you and I are qualified to do is to set the agenda, delegate, and then supervise. We are the boss, and we hire the experts to do the technical stuff for us. What we should be doing is taking what the scientists tell us about the natural world, decide what level of resources to devote to the problem, and then delegate to the policy makers to come up with the best proposed solutions. Then they check it off with us by giving us the executive summary, we make the final decision, and give the green light. Why the heck are we micromanaging this? We’re only hurting ourselves by trying to do the jobs of the experts that we’ve hired. Let’s start acting like the executives of public policy that we should be: listen to our best when they give us an assessment, and then delegate to our best in coming up with solutions, supervising all the while to ensure our interests are well-served. Let’s stop being the pointy-haired boss in this whole thing.
Let’s face it: the issue is complex, and our lives are busy. And so here we sit in column B, waiting to see what the future holds. I find that terrifying.
Remember when everybody tore into the FBI because it had all the information it needed to stop the September 11th attacks at the time, but it didn’t connect the dots? The dots that were so easy for us to connect in hindsight? I keep thinking about that. Why don’t we see if the dots connect now? Instead of doing it in hindsight. Don’t we deserve that much?
I know watching these videos is going to be a slog (think about how I felt making them!), but this may be the single most important issue in your life. You may not believe that now, but given the unequivocal statements made by the best scientists on the planet, you can’t just dismiss the possibility. Isn’t it worth a little more time to figure that out?
This is the most credible, most clear and pressing threat on a global scale in the history of humanity, with the sole exception of being on the brink of global nuclear war during the Cuban Missile crisis. But this time, you—as an individual citizen—not only know about it, but you play a necessary part. You can help prevent it. If there’s ever a time in your life, in our history, to be thorough and deliberate, conscientious and unselfish, determined and extraordinary, wouldn’t it be right now? At this moment?
So. What do you do next?
It’s time for the best in us to come out.
[On screen: for the a la carte menu listing which expansion pack video to watch for which objection or question, see “How It All Ends: Menu”]
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