About a year ago Cockburn also made this bizarre statement in Nation: "I don't believe in peak oil".

As if that somehow settled the issue.  (It struck me much like a child saying "I don't believe in death".  Therefore it can't possibly exist, eh?)

At that time I wrote the Nation to point out that, whether Cockburn "believes" in it or not, peak oil production is already undisputed history -- in the lower 48 states.  Peak oil production in the lower 48 peaked in 1971 (just about when Hubbert had predicted it would occur, 20 years earlier), and it has been on a gradual downward slide ever since -- whether Cockburn 'believes' in it or not.

Obviously it's only a question of when, not whether, peak oil production will also occur at the global scale.  Some think we're there now.  Others say it's 30 years away.  The truth is probably somewhere in between.  But one thing is certain: we ain't ready for it, and when peak oil hits the global economy, things are gonna get ugly.

Somehow Cockburn -- who was probably a stellar writer but who apparently did not pay much attention to basic math or science in high school -- just doesn't get these kinds of things.  The scientific consensus on global warming could well be wrong ... but if I have to bet on an outcome, I'll bet on the scientific consensus over Cockburn's weird wishful thinking.

The scientific process is imperfect and prone to false starts and errors -- but it is, over the long-term, a self-correcting process.  And it's the best method we have for arriving at truths about our material universe.  

Unless Cockburn prefers to place his 'belief' in Zeus or Athena or the reading of sheep entrails ...

David - I've been reading Grist for years and have become increasingly uncomfortable with the divisive, dismissive, and sometimes just plain mean language in discussions about those who disagree with the Gristy consensus on climate change and other enviro issues.  Is it really necessary?  I think the strength of our arguments and data should stand on their own without resorting to dismissive O'Reilly-isms.  Lets keep the standards high on Grist, lest we leave those less convinced of green virtues with a bad taste in their mouths.

Keep up the good work though!

Have I got this right?

Alexander Cockburn is a dick who writes a steaming pile of column stealing the same conceit as the guy who wrote the piece making fun of people worried about Peak Oil ("they're just like Christian millenialists and the folks who walk around scourging themselves -- they really WANT to be punished"), but your conclusion is that we need to stop letting people like Cockburn determine how we talk about global heating.

Sin is a metaframe.  Not everyone uses the concept.  But all the ones that I know who do were taught about sin since they were very young, and it's a very powerful concept in their lives.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that the idea of sin is one of the best, if not the only way for some people to understand how something that feels so good, like (insert favorite carbon emitting activity here), can still, ultimately be a wrong.

There's often a lot of talk here about connecting the environmental movement with people of faith (as if those were non-overlapping magisteria, to borrow SJ Gould's term)--well, good luck with that if you're going to leave out the concept of sin.  

People like EO Wilson say we need to do MORE to show religious people who view the world in terms of sin and salvation that environmentalism is about more than just self-absorption.   I think Wilson has more to tell us than Cockburn by, oh, a hundred miles or so.

"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."

last bit of first para. should be "but your conclusion is that we need to let people like Cockburn determine how we talk about global heating."

"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."

>> Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church sold indulgences like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and (then) could go on sinning. Today a world market in "carbon credits" is in formation. >>>

Exactly as I feel, ...  greenhouse gas porn at its best.

All money driven, nothing to do with people, LIFE or even conscience.

This Cap'n'Trade BS is cynicism at its most immoral.

Greenhouse gas Armageddon is equally cynical.

Oh well I live in a corrupt mad world .... why would I expect more ?

This world MUST be annihilated.

omegafour.com

Only reason the analogy works to him, is because like an aetheist who doesn't believe in God, he doesn't believe global warming exists.

Thats it's merely some dogma environmentalists cooked up to control people.

_

Me, I'm agnostic, but I can definantly say Global Warming is quite tangible.

Grey I believe ( seems from different data to the IPCC ) that global climate change is happening (not global warming as per the boffins.. yes the clouds are disappearing so there is a type of "warming"

The Earth has two, not one, major climatic problems.... both need urgent attention otherwise extinction is a distinct possibility.

I disapprove of action now, before you know what exactly is happening... that is the porn... cynical people seemingly caring, but only looking for profit above (or even at the expense of) people"s well being ...  much like paid religious "feel good" absolution

I have laid it all out in a hard science fiction novel "The death of Clouds".  

omegafour.com

A few months ago, the Nation ran a similarly nonsensical, myth-perpetuating essay slamming vegetarianism ("My Beef with Vegetarians"). The author dismissed the environmental concerns surrounding meat production, saying that we've got plenty of resources, humanity feeds more people now than ever (uhh, famines are still a regular occurance!) and we'll figure out how to deal with any problems with our human ingenuity.  He even denied that we need to eat less meat.  Now, I realize that not all environmentalists and social justice advocates are vegetarian, but most agree that western people eat way too much meat and should cut back significantly, to reduce our impact on the planet and the poor.  I couldn't believe I was reading a piece like this in the Nation. It seemed like something that belonged in a right winger journal. The Nation really disappoints me sometimes.

I agree that Cockburn seems pretty wacky in stating that "The human carbon footprint is of zero consequence...".  And I don't know where he got the idea that peak crude is a myth - that's really out there.  But there is a point in there.  It's true that CO2 is just one of many factors which drive climate change, and that fossil fuel emissions are only a part of that one part.  And lots of factors cloud the issue, including the fact that heat-retentive, light-reflective H2O is in fact the biggest single greenhouse component.  It would have been more fair, and better-received, I think, if he'd concluded with the idea that warming is here but we're not the whole problem, and that it's difficult to determine just how big a role we play.

In any event, the simplistic notion that "we broke it and we can fix it" is a joke, being ginned up and branded into the big brightly-colored object that will draw attention from the biggest reason for greening: to avoid being pawns in the $1000-a-barrel, perpetual-war nightmare that is ramping up now, and which will be strategically squeezed for every last dime by those who benefit from it, as the petro supply dwindles over the next few decades.  And then, for a next act, we'll be left with "The Hydrogen Economy" - perfectly centralized, commoditized and monopolized, and powered primarily by none other than burning coal - as our new drug.  So, I don't know if that's where Cockburn is headed in his followup articles but, if so, I can sort of see his point.