(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education IV-E: Wherein there is a Climate of Jeer

The Christianist authors of Earth Science 4th Edition, after achieving a crescendo of crackpottery, manage to dial it back down to nearly knowledgeable as they explain Short-Term Climate Change. They describe things like ENSO and La Niña in terms befitting a science text. But you can see them slipping when they devote a section to volcanism. All that ash! It cools the world!

Um. Actually. Ash is just a part of what causes cooling due to volcanic eruptions. But BJU writers can’t be bothered with little things like sulfur dioxide. They also claim forest fires and “large regional dust storms” can cool the climate like volcanoes. Forest fires in Northern latitudes may cool it a bit, but not because of ash – it’s because all those lovely dark green conifers are gone, which means snow’s free to reflect the sun’s heat, and it’s not like that’s going to reverse the upward trend in warming. If an area hasn’t got snow, even that bit of cooling is unlikely. And, of course, burning trees releases bunches o’ carbon, which ultimately leads to more warming. As for dust storms, sure, those dust clouds can reduce temps – but that’s neglecting the winds that, in some regions, bring warm air right back in. And if increased dust starts landing on snow, you get an increase in solar radiation absorption, and you’ve warmed stuff right up again.

In other words, they’ve neglected to mention a few things. All that, and we hadn’t even got to the rat-fucking part of their program. But now we’re on to Long-Term Climate Change. Place your bets now on how much they’ll distort the science.

Image is a demotivational poster showing Giles from Buffy, dressed in a sombrero and serape. Caption says, "BETTING. Make sure the bet is worth losing, otherwise you may have to dress like this for the next 30 days."
They begin by calling the abrupt warming we’ve experienced thus far “a quick but slight increase in worldwide temperature.” A mere smidge over half a degree, kids, in 50 whole years. And no, we’re not going to say what degree (it’s Celsius. That’s .9°F.) And we’re going to make it sound like NBD while the Earth broils. Whee!

They show the hockey stick graph, because the can’t avoid it, but the caption assures us that “its accuracy is questioned by many scientists.” Because in Creationist math, 3% vs. 97% is “many.” Also, too, didja notice temps have only “increased by about half a degree in the past 50 years”? Pay no mind to that screaming rise since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution!

They go on to explore natural causes of climate change, which gives them problems, because long-term changes caused by things like orbital variations and axial tilt fluctuations are measured in times longer than they think Earth has existed. They handwave the 10s to 100s of thousands of years away with the “secular scientists believe” incantation. Yep, it’s all according to old-earth geologists, and secular scientists, and anyway it’s nothing to do w/ global warming cuz that’s too short, and anyway, we’ve only been collecting data for two centuries, and SQUIRREL!

And then it’s right off the rails again:

A Recovering Earth

The earth has experienced drastic changes that have affected its climate. Young-earth scientists agree that when God flooded the earth to complete judgement on man’s sin, the upheaval triggered a series of climate changes. The warm oceans and cloudy skies that were likely remaining after the Flood plunged Earth into the Ice Age. The Bible is silent about this geologic period of time. But the ice sheets, glaciers, and icebergs remaining today, as well as the geologic evidence of glacial erosion, give testimony to this stage of Earth’s history. And the warming trend we see may be a sign of a world still recovering from the Flood’s effects.

How this belongs in a science text book I don’t even… I mean, this is like reading one of those science-of-some-fictional-world pieces, only without a decent plot or, actually, any science. None of that shit about warm oceans and clouds appears in actual causes suspected by genuine scientists. You’ll hear them talk about declining levels of greenhouse gasses (and, hellooo – water vapor is a greenhouse gas!), the positions of continents, changes in ocean currents, uplift of large areas, Milankovitch cycles, sun cycles… I don’t think there’s one mainstream scientist who puts it down to clouds and hot water. Criminy, can these people not hear themselves?

Next, we’re in to “possible human causes,” where we’re assured for the third time that warming’s only been half a degree in the last 50 years of the 20th century, and there are even some scientists who “question the actual amount of warming, if any.” They do have to admit that even that half-degree (if any), “is a significant jump compared to the previous 1000 years.” I think they may want to have a look at Proverbs 4:24.

The twisting and turning to avoid looking like supreme assclowns while still being in denial over the reality of AGW continues. Scientists think we can increase atmospheric CO2 by doing things that release CO2 and prevent it being taken up by those forests we keep burning down. B-b-but just cuz CO2 seems (their word) to be increasing, and just because we release a crap-ton of CO2, don’t mean those things are in any way related to global warming, no siree! It might be natural (pro-tip: we considered that. It’s not), and anyway, it might not be bad (pro-tip: it’s bad), and this cartoon says that we’ll get eaten by a leopard if we stop making campfires!

Image shows the two ES4 scientists standing in a night-time forest. There are campfires in the background, and a leopard lurking in the tree beside the secular scientist. The secular scientist is saying, "Humans need to stop burning wood to keep this environment pristine." The creation scientist is saying, "Look... they need to cook... it's gonna get cold, and, uh, we may want to get a little closer to those fires!"
Cartoon on page 518. Look, kids! You’ll get eaten by a leopard if you aren’t a creationist!

My fuck, these people are pathetic.

And they are dishonest shits when it comes to graphs.

Image shows a pie chart saying Sources of Greenhouse Gasses. Natural Sources is marked as 4.72%, Human Activities as 0.28%, and Water Vapor as 95%. Caption says, "This pie chart shows the actual contribution humans make to greenhouse gasses. By itself, this graph doesn't tell the whole story about global warming, but it is one factor to keep in mind."
Yeah, that chart doesn’t quite tell the whole story…

So let’s talk about what human increases in greenhouse gasses does to water vapor, shall we?

“This new data set shows that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity,” Dessler said. “Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid. And since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide.”

So much for their attempt to pretend this global warming stuff is au natural.

Then they whine about it being so haaard to model climate. Yes. Yes, it is. That’s why the things predicted by our models, like the melting of the polar ice and the collapse of ice shelves, are happening much sooner than expected. So when they say

Concerns about catastrophic global warming, melting glaciers, devastating sea-level rise, loss of wildlife, and increased heat deaths are fanned by the worst-case environmentalist views with little scientific evidence to support them.

they’re completely ignoring the fact that reality has already gotten worse than our worst-case. The scientific evidence, the actual empirical bloody facts, the people starving and dying and drowning, the catastrophic loss of polar ice beyond what our best models predicted, mean nothing. Because we can’t build a super computer that can model the burning down to the last molecule of wood, they think we shouldn’t douse the flames. “Think of the water bill!” they cry as the fire races from the kitchen to the living room. “If we call the fire department right now, we’ll go over our cell phone minutes! We can’t possibly until we’re sure the house is burning down,” they shriek as flames engulf the entire first floor and begin to dart up the stairs.

They have a fucking text box about how great global warming may be, without sparing a single thought for the massive suffering that will occur as the rest of the previously arable land becomes useless for agriculture. “Melting glaciers and ice caps can bring water to areas that need it.” they say. No. The melting ice caps will not water the Southwest, or the Sahara, or any other region drying out to the point where people will start killing each other for a drop of water. My own fair city depends on meltwater for its needs – when those glaciers finish melting, we’re going to be rather fucked. And we’re getting off easy. What next, do the chickenhawks expect us to annex Canada?

They try to use DDT as a cautionary tale (many people thought protecting bird eggs was more important than saving human lives, is their interpretation). And they scaremonger shamelessly while stuffing straw at a furious rate:

With global warming, scientists and governments are considering a number of really drastic actions… For starters, radical environmentalists believe that there are too many people, and that fact is a major part of the climate change problem. They would like to see the world’s human population reduced to much less than a third of its present size. How would they go about doing that? At the same time, they want modern societies to return to the level of technology that existed before the Industrial Revolution to reduce greenhouse gas production.

Who the fuck are these “radical environmentalists”? Point to a single damned one that has any appreciable influence on public policy. These jackasses are worse than MRAs. And after that remarkable bit of They’re gonna kill you all and bring you back to the Dark Ages alarmism, they call people who think a modest carbon tax is a fine idea “greedy” and “fallen.” And yes, Virginia, they do roll with the “global warming as a tool to… increase government control over our lives” conspiracy theory.

And after all that well-poisoning, they have the gall to say they’re not denying global warming. Nope, not them. They’re reesonable.

But at this point in time, we really don’t have enough evidence to decide if global warming is really happening, whether humans cause it or not, and whether the earth’s systems can control the change.

But hey, while they’re busy counseling us to sit on our hands, they say it’s totes okay with God to maybe pick up some trash or “explore alternative energies.” Like, no doubt, “clean” coal.

The dingleberry atop this shit sundae is the “Life Connection” that says we can’t possibly draw any conclusions about the status of polar bears because it’s soo haard to track them, and anyway, while the population of eight subspecies of polar bears are declining, “one actually has a growing population!” Then they titter at those silly evolutionists:

They say the history of the polar bear is one of adaptation to cold climates. But if they adapted to the cold, shouldn’t they be able to adapt to warmer climates? Shouldn’t they be able to adjust their behavior to function more like a grizzly bear?

Gosh, aren’t we silly? Those bears just have to decide to evolve to keep up is all!

Image is a demotivational poster showing a polar bear on a knob of ice, surrounded by sea. Caption says, "GLOBAL WARMING. Seriously, I hate you guys. Seriously."

These assholes disgust me. Their smug pride in their own ignorance and their enormous ego in thinking they know better than literally everyone else in the world is beyond belief. And they’re willing to let that population of humans they’re so proud of suffer and die because they can’t be asked to stop bloody pumping carbon everywhere. They shadowbox with caricatures and declare themselves Floyd Mayweather.

And they think they should have dominion over the earth.

If that doesn’t scare the shit out of you, nothing ever will.

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(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education IV-E: Wherein there is a Climate of Jeer
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