Your Mission
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Script
This video is called “Your Mission” and is the final video—[Foil: “Thank goodness!” {sobbing}]
[Aside:] I thought you’d gone. Anyway, this is the final video in the expansion pack accompanying the video “How It All Ends.” Actually, it’s not really proper to call it the final video, because it’s not part of a sequence.
You’re here because you feel highly agitated about the threat of abrupt climate change, and you need something to do with that energy. In the video “How It All Ends: The Solution,” I told you I’d give you a direction to point that fire hose.
After watching this whole series of videos, I’d like you to ask yourself: were my arguments and requests of the viewer reasonable? If you agree that they were in fact reasonable, then think about a person who would make it all the way through these videos and still claim to be so certain that human-caused global warming is not a problem, that it’s not even worth shifting some government resources to launch a Manpollo Project to investigate it further. Someone who is not willing to even acknowledge the possibility that they might be wrong, despite the fact that it’s the future of the globe that’s at stake. Someone who sincerely feels that their judgment of the evidence on a scientific issue is not only equal to, but is better than the judgment of—at this point—every credible scientific organization on the planet. [Google: scientific statements climate change.] In fact so much better that it’s not even worth doing more homework.
You’ve got to ask yourself—is that a person you want in any way influencing policies which might have a significant impact on you?
I’m very nervous about saying this next thing, because it could very easily be twisted or quoted out of context to seem megalomaniacal.
[Foil: “Megalahmamahma?”]
Kinda [Nordvedt’s hand gesture “Vvvvvt!”]
[Foil: “Ah.”]
But I think I need to, because after all my analysis I think that the stakes are so high that it’s not only my ethical obligation, but is also in the pragmatic best interests for my kids, to put aside my own fears and to do what I conscientiously judge is necessary.
[Foil: “What are you talking about already?”]
So here’s my radical request for you: if hard-line skeptics cannot be convinced by reason that action on climate change is in the best interests of all—that at the very minimum, a Manpollo Project studying the expected value of the various options, should be launched with the greatest urgency—then they must be eliminated from the discussion. They must be marginalized, so that their irrational, unfalsifiable, energetic claims do not prevent the rest of us from pursuing what we conscientiously believe to be the best interests of all.
They have had too much influence for too long. They have moved predictably through the three stages of denial of an environmental problem: there is no problem, okay there’s a problem but it isn’t significant, now it’s too big to do anything about. They have done anything, given any reason, to deny change or sacrifice. They have started from belief and been impervious to opposing evidence and reason.
And they have been thoroughly discredited. No one now denies that the filmmaker of “The Great Global Warming Swindle” made up data for the graph on sun activity, and flat out lied about volcanic emissions of CO2 being greater than human emissions—an objection you will still often hear people parrot. And remember that Heritage Foundation doomsday prediction I turned up from 1998, that the Kyoto Protocol would wreck the U.S. economy, for instance by leading to gasoline prices as high as $1.91 a gallon by 2010?
And people listened to them and their scare tactics. They accuse anyone concerned about environmental impact as being a Chicken Little or scaremonger, yet they hypocritically employ the same tactics they accuse others of, warning of economic doom if action is taken. But unlike the environmental Chicken Littles, the economic Chicken Littles don’t have even a shred of credible evidence to back up their claims! Yet they continue to have huge influence in the discussions. It’s time to pull back the green curtain, to deny them the power we have given them when we listen to their irrational objections and warnings.
Maybe I’m wrong. If you think my risk assessment is faulty, please tell me where and how. But if you’ve watched all these freaking videos, you can see that I’ve done some research and thinking, and perhaps you’ll understand when I say that it seems to me that anyone who still insists on obstructing any action on climate change—even a Manpollo Project—must either give compelling rebuttals to all the arguments I’ve set forth, or be dismissed as hopelessly irrational or intellectually dishonest.
Go read that online discussion I referred to in “No Holds Barred” on Grist.com’s “How to Talk to A Climate Skeptic.” [Google the exact phrase “We’re all seekers for truth here” WITH THE QUOTE MARKS.] I searched for a while in the thesaurus for words to describe the behavior of that wolf in a sheep’s clothing. But then I just ended up writing an angry diatribe that I had to delete. Anyway, once you see how deceptive that guy was, maybe you’ll be motivated to bring on the fight, like I finally am.
And this isn’t like us taking away their liberty to make their own choices about what risks to take.
[Foil: Yeah: Who are you to tell me I’ve got to wear a seatbelt—I’m free to make my own choices.]
The choice to not wear a seatbelt is a personal one, because it only places at risk the person who made the choice. But since climate change is a global thing, it’s not just their risk that they are influencing—it’s yours and mine. I’ve got no problem with them believing what they want. But if they place the rest of us at risk by preventing us from taking action because of their selfish refusal to even consider the possibility that they’re wrong, then that’s not their right. So they may not want to participate in the solution, but they don’t have the right to stand in the way.
We shouldn’t be dismissive, or cruel, or even angry with them, although we might feel like it sometimes.
[Foil: Or, often.]
We should just marginalize them, and stop allowing them to influence the discussion. We don’t listen to the people who believe the moon landings were faked when we’re making scientific policy, do we? We just leave them alone. We let them believe what they believe, and sideline them from serious discussion, because we’ve seen that their claims of conspiracy are unfalsifiable, and therefore, useless to even discuss.
But this isn’t like the moon-hoaxers, who, left to themselves, don’t harm anybody. Because the zealous deniers of climate science and basic risk management are influencing a lot of ordinary folks, who aren’t irrational or selfish, but still resist any sort of action. There are a lot of people who haven’t learned enough yet to realize the very real dangers involved here, and they are being duped by the impervious skeptics. So, these zealous denialists are preventing the culture as a whole from recognizing abrupt climate change as our greatest potential threat, and are thus delaying the significant policy changes which may be our only hope.
[Foil: “Help me, Obi-Won Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”]
Wouldn’t you agree that at this point, the die-hard skeptic’s outright rejection of the statements from AAAS, NAS, and USCAP essentially amounts to a conspiracy theory? And you should be aware of how influential they can be: there are members of the U.S. Congress who fall into this category.
We need some Information Warriors out there doing battle for the cause of evidence and reason, for risk management and forethought, for sacrifice and generosity. Not so much to defeat the impervious skeptics—who appear to be unreachable—but to protect the innocents from the skeptics’ unreasoning faith. Because if you simply ignore the hard-line skeptics and let their comments stand, the next unsuspecting viewer who is inclined to not be concerned about climate change will have their misperception reinforced by the skeptics’ comments.
So definitely do not ignore the skeptics. That would keep them from influencing you, but many of their arguments sound very convincing to the casual observer. They need to be actively countered, so they stop having an influence on the people who hear them. Online, they need to be followed and rebutted in discussion groups and video comments. In the grocery store line, where conflict is less comfortable, maybe a simple “I don’t know. . . seems like it’s better to be safe than sorry” is a good option.
So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to track and counter the hard-line skeptics at every turn online and in the media. Keep them from influencing the undecided. Drown them out with deliberate, level-headed, informed arguments, like a fire extinguisher of reason and logic. Their irrational and unrepentant comments online should be immediately smothered by a deluge of civil, well-informed, and logical responses from multiple Information Warriors, so that they realize the culture is no longer receptive to their dismissive attitude or militant apathy, and so that onlookers can see what a clear-headed assessment of the threat reveals. Demand that the media stop giving “the other side in the climate debate” equal time, because to continue to pretend that each side is equally credible at this point is dishonest and destructive. A reporter isn’t obligated to interview a Holocaust denier every time she does a story about Israel, is she?
I want to be clear, because such a proposition is very tricky. It could easily be (and sometimes is) leveled at those of us on the other side of the debate. The warmer says to the skeptic: “I’m going to try to get people to ignore you, because it’s no use even arguing with you. Whatever evidence or reasoning I come up with, you come up with a flimsy way to either explain it away or just plain ignore it.”
And the skeptic says to the warmer:
[Foil: “That’s funny, I was just going to say the same thing about you.”]
So why am I asking you to conclude that it’s the skeptic who’s in the wrong? I’m not. Who the heck am I to tell you what to believe? I’m just some guy on the web.
[At board, with Spy Vs. Spy] What I am asking you to do is trace the points back and forth—to track the skeptic’s rebuttal to the warmer’s argument, and then the warmer’s response to the rebuttal, and then the answer to the response, and so on. And I’m confident that you’ll discover for yourself that it is the skeptic who falls down first, who dodges the rebuttal of their point by changing the subject, or—here’s the most common stumble—by simply reasserting their claim, but in a different way. Usually that’s your clue that they don’t have an answer, and are basing their claim on belief, or a bias, rather than evidence and reasoning.
Make sure you watch all the other videos first, especially the ones for the skeptics, so that you know what you are up against—the strength of the logic they are impervious to—and so that you are well equipped to kick some tootie in the discussion forums. Remember, you are unlikely to convert a hard-line skeptic. Your mission is to show to any onlookers how nonsensical and extremist the hard-line skeptical claim has become once all the good-sounding fluff is stripped away.
Here’s what I mean. You may recall some of the following quotes from people regarding my “Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See” in the Spring of 2007:
“I truly don’t care how many scientific organizations line up for global warming, I still think column B would save us.”
“Don’t you know that the AGW spin is nothing more than a socialist/communist attempt to take over the world? They are playing you!”
“So what we have witnessed in the Global Warming debate is a perfect storm of anti-Christian philosophies parading as science. Materialists, Socialists, and Left-leaning types found common cause with neo-pagans and anti-Christian spirituality to advocate a New World Order dressed as a movement to save the planet.”
Pretty clearly irrational. “I don’t care how many scientific organizations line up. . .” On a scientific issue. Is this someone want influencing the public which then decides on the policies that affect you?
Now it’s critical here to realize that these were not the comments that these people made at first. Here, I’m going to use some figurines to help keep things straight. This is me, this is Joe Schmoe on the web, and this is the hard-line skeptic.
At first, these people were bringing up some the common objections which sound reasonable to someone who’s on the fence, and hasn’t done much homework—that is most of the population of the U.S. Things like: “humans are too small to change the planet,” “climate is always changing, so this is natural,” “taking action would doom our economy”—you’ve heard a ton of them. All of which sound very reasonable to anyone sort of cruising by.
The comments I just shared came only after long-back-and forth exchanges, where I was able to counter and take away every one of those reasonable-sounding, but in the end insubstantial, objections. And what they eventually fell back to—and revealed to everyone looking—was their actual motivating beliefs: “It’s a communist plot to take over the world.” “I don’t care what scientists say about the science. . .” But it took dogged effort on my part to get there. That’s why we need you.
So this is your mission—by knowing your stuff and being persistent, you sort of publically prune away all the easy excuses, so that the onlookers who were influenced by the reasonable-sounding objections these guys make—realize that at their core, these guys aren’t reasonable, and therefore, maybe the case to be made against action on climate change isn’t nearly as solid as it seems at a casual glance. That allows these people to be open to learning enough to make their own rational decisions based on the statements we’ve already got out there from AAAS, NAS, USCAP, the Pentagon, and even Exxon. In a nutshell, your mission is to smother the numskull comments and attitudes with a fire extinguisher of civil level-headedness. Deny them their audience.
We should patiently, compassionately educate those who are misinformed or misguided. And those who are left—the unrepentant and unreachable—we should deconstruct or smother, so that they no longer influence others who are listening. They should be bulldogged until they finally reveal to all listening how irrational or biased they are.
The image that I just can’t get out of my head is from the movie “Demolition Man,” where Sylvester Stallone’s character in the future is in a car wreck, and instead of there being air bags that deploy in the car, there’s some high-tech foam that instantly yet gently fills the compartment, and then solidifies fluffily so that he can break out of it when the impact is done. But, he was isolated from touching any part of the car during the wreck. That’s the picture I get in my head about what I think should happen when someone pops up with a numskull comment or attitude, you know [psssshhhhtttt]. It’s gentle, so they have a chance to reconsider, maybe become less confident, and are inspired to reflect on it more. But if they refuse to even consider that they might be wrong, and remain recklessly irrational or selfish, then they’re effectively isolated from influencing others around them. So it’s not violent—just overwhelming.
[FIGURINES: Information Warrior: “Climate change is a pressing problem, and we should take action.” Skeptic: “There’s no debate that the globe is warming, but there’s lots of debate about what’s causing it.” I.W.: “Actually, no. If you google it, you’ll see from the AAAS and NAS statements that say there’s overwhelming agreement amongst scientists.” S: “Of course—it’s their gravy train. It’s just common sense that we’re too small to affect the planet. I.W.: “Actually, if you look at the Keeling graph and ice core data, you see that’s not true. Besides, why do we need to be convinced of all the details—don’t the statements from AAAS and NAS make it seem prudent to do some basic risk management?” S: “Shut your pie-hole already you moron! Mars is warming, too you know. I suppose we caused that, huh?” {psssshhht with whipped cream}]
We’re not out to indoctrinate anybody—cuz history shows that always backfires in the end. But we are out to dispel the fog that a well-funded misinformation campaign has caused, supported by a small but vehement number of people who confuse their hostility towards government with uncertainty in climate science.
I should warn you: I made a mis-statement in the video “No Holds Barred.” I told the skeptics that the only feasible way of accomplishing the skeptic’s agenda of convincing the rest of us to not take action is a Manpollo Project. But that is tragically, dangerously, not quite true.
Because the denialist’s agenda is not to convince the rest of us to not take action, it is simply to prevent or delay action. And that can by accomplished by simply mucking up the works: time is on their side. Every day that we debate about what to do, is another day that we haven’t taken action. So they can actually accomplish their agenda without convincing anyone of the validity of their argument. All they need to do is continue to muddle, question, and confuse. As long as they keep alive a shred of doubt in the public’s mind, they win. As long as they can keep people scared with their threat of harm to the economy, they win. As long as they can sow confusion and doubt—a task all too easy—they win.
[Foil: Oh really?? For certain??]
And we all—probably—lose. They do not need quality evidence or reasoning. That is why our task is so urgent, and we need to enlist people to the effort. The viewpoint of the hardline skeptic cannot be extinguished, because their claim is not falsifiable. Therefore it must be marginalized, so that it no longer affects people.
As you get ready to go do Information Battle, I want to share some insight from a commentor that has been tremendously helpful to me in keeping some perspective on online debates: “[Hard line skeptics] will stick to an opinion, right or wrong, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. And you can’t tell them that because they will accuse you of the same thing, and then all logic falls into a death spiral. And yes, they’re caught in the death spiral too, but they’re crying “Wheeeeeee!!!!” all the way down while you’re left trying to shout above the noise with whatever counter argument you can come up with.”
So don’t quit, but don’t expect to convince them either. Remember, your mission is not to convert the hard-line skeptic, but to expose their nature to anybody else who might be listening or reading, so that their opinions are made irrelevant, and the rest of us can get policy changes implemented before it’s too late.
[Foil: Too late? What’s our deadline? How much time do we have?]
Unfortunately, in a complex system like the global climate, the only way to identify a tipping point is on the other side of it.
[Foil: As in “Oops—that’s where we should have stopped?”]
I’m sorry if I don’t sound very compassionate or warm and fuzzy here. But when people are either too selfish, or too irrationally stubborn to be reasonable, and that threatens me and mine, then I’m going to bring the fight. Please join me. It is our best hope. We cannot know the future for certain, but we can change the probabilities with our actions. Let us choose the actions which maximize the probability of a positive outcome. I need your help—if nothing else then, in coming up with a better rallying call than “Let us choose the actions which maximize the probability of a positive outcome.”
[Foil: Yeah, I don’t really see that coming across well on a t-shirt.]
So, the next time you hear someone saying or writing that human-caused global climate change is bunk, remind yourself—they just might be correct. Remember, truth is more likely to come to the humble. But at the same time, the question that you should ask them—publically, and in all seriousness—is: “What are the reasons why I should give your statement more weight than the statements of the two most well-respected scientific organizations on the planet?”
[Foil: Yeah, and if you want to be sassy, you can say something like: “So, are AAAS and NAS corrupt? Or just stupid?” Hey—maybe there’s the t-shirt design! “Skeptical of climate change? Check one box. . .”]
Your bottom line mission as an Information Warrior is to help bring about nothing less than a change in the culture, so that we as a people finally have the political will to enact significant action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, in order to reduce the chances of abrupt and catastrophic climate change.
Saying all this makes me extremely anxious, because there are some irrational people with very strong beliefs out there that this subject really riles up. I’ve had oblique threats made to me because of my videos. Used to be that wouldn’t have really rattled me. But I’ve got two little girls that I love more than life itself, and it scares the bejesus outta me that someone might even make a joke about doing them harm.
But I can’t just sit still. They are the reason I’m doing this, because I want them to have a decent world to live in. So I’m trying my hardest to be brutally thorough and honest with myself in my analysis, so that I get the answer with the best expected value. And what my careful, rational assessment of climate change has revealed. . . scares the hell out of me. So now I’m putting aside my ego, my fears, my sleep, to fight like hell to make the best happen.
You wouldn’t do any less for your kids.
[beat]
Thank you for taking the effort to watch all this. But I think its worth it, because we are in a time like no other. It is time for the best in us to come out. Now it’s up to you. I’m going to go get some sleep so that I’m not so. . . what was that word?
[Foil: Megalomaniacal?]
Yeah. That. Good luck.
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