Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors Recognize Climate Emergency

January 12, 2020, 10:00 am 16.3k Views 100 Comments

Santa Barbara environmental organization representatives, including Bob Perry (bottom center), gathered to discuss the climate emergency with the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors

Source: World Business Academy

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved a Declaration of a Climate Emergency introduced by County Supervisor Das Williams on December 10th, 2019.

The declaration followed a Washington Post article featuring Santa Barbara, which is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country. In under two centuries, Santa Barbara County has warmed 4.1ºF.

Originally drafted by Emiliano Campobello and Robert (Bob) Perry of The Climate Mobilization Santa Barbara County Chapter (TCM-SBC), the resolution initiates the first step in understanding the severity of the climate crisis and its local impacts, as well as implements goals moving forward.

Bob Perry is the Director of Energy Research at the World Business Academy and has been a vocal advocate to move the County away from fossil fuels toward a 21st century electric grid for many years. Together with Emiliano Campobello and Grace Feldman of the Santa Barbara Standing Rock Coalition, Perry worked to establish the Santa Barbara County TCM Chapter in 2018. TCM-SBC members also come from Sunrise, 350SB, and many other local environmental organizations. Some are unaffiliated.

TCM originally began in 2014 with a mission to protect people and the environment from the climate crisis through policy advocacy and political work. To learn more about TCM, visit https://www.theclimatemobilization.org.

The County’s recognition implies immense urgency for individuals, businesses, and politicians to create change in our community. TCM goals include leaving behind fossil fuel infrastructure, increasing renewable energy resources, and meeting emission reduction goals.

In 1969, Santa Barbara became the birthplace to the modern environmental movement, giving way to many of the organizations that still exist today. The County has become a unique setting for environmental activism, and the many researchers, advocates, activists, and organizations are working together to create effective change and set the groundwork for other counties. While this declaration is a victory for the County, it is only the first step in actualizing mobilization.

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  4. Most climate science deniers are diehard conservatives. Conservatives are predisposed to be xenophobic, more religious, more repressive of minority rights, with little concern for fairness or equity, and to hold a pessimistic view of human nature. They are much less open to new experiences of any type, and are much more prone to authoritarianism and to group think. This is the opposite of scientific thought. Staunch conservatives are the least capable of thinking critically and rationally about anything that comes into conflict with their ideology. Conservatives correctly recognize that if anthropogenic global warming is true, then governments need to play a leading role in dealing with the issues. Major governments of the world will have to collaborate to solve the problem. That is totally anathema to the “greed is good” free market capitalist belief system. Therefore, anthropogenic global warming cannot be true in their view, and is rationalized as a hoax, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

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  5. Wrong prediction after wrong prediction = more wrong predictions brought to you by those who made the prediction that the world was going to start freezing. “Oh, it’s going to freeze, no, it’s going to burn up, no, it’s “changing”…..isn’t it?” Eyes rolled up and shaking head. The scare tactics = 4 more years of your fav prez.

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  8. Yes, to quote the article directly:
    ====================================================================================
    Now, for the first time, a group of scientists — Zeke Hausfather of UC Berkeley, Henri Drake and Tristan Abbott of MIT, and Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies — has done a systematic review of climate models, dating back to the late 1970s. Published in Geophysical Research Letters, it tests model performance against a simple metric: how well they predicted global mean surface temperature (GMST) through 2017, when the latest observational data is available.
    ====================================================================================
    Long story short: “We find that climate models published over the past five decades were generally quite accurate in predicting global warming in the years after publication.”
    ====================================================================================
    This is contrary to deniers, who claim that models overestimate warming, and contrary to the bizarre op-ed the New York Times ran in November, which claimed that scientists underestimate warming. As it happens, models have roughly hit the mark all along. It’s just, nobody listened.
    ====================================================================================
    The good news, as the authors say, is that this result “increases our confidence that models are accurately projecting global warming.” As uncertain as we may be about our future emissions (more on that later), we have a pretty good handle on how the planet is going to respond to them.
    ====================================================================================
    The bad news is that the projections from those models are unrelentingly grim, so accuracy isn’t very reassuring.

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  9. Nice to see people concerned about the planet. Now to transmit this energy into electing responsible politicians who will change the incentives away from petroleum use to clean sustainable energy, transportation and environmental renewal (planing trees, cleaning up toxic waste and water, protecting existing habitat for the little wildlife we have left). Change gotta start somewhere, and its sure hasn’t yet.

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  10. What universe do you live in? Read the entire article that the previous liar pulled a few sentences from. You’re a dinosaur.
    And, yeah, for some bizarre reason, the Daily Caller is firmly on the side of climate science denial. Why or why could that be?

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  14. This past week:…………………GLACIER NATIONAL PARK — Glacier National Park is removing signs that state all glaciers will be melted by 2020. Park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen explained that since the early 2000s scientists have reflected and analyzed data stating glaciers would recede by 2020……………

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  18. Imagine if Noah got so mad at the government that he instead refused to act upon his belief. There’s no sense waiting for “officials” to stamp things as proven. Instead, just act upon your beliefs. All the dog and pony show is good for is re-elections via the emotional tug. So do this: Use less. Produce less. Drive less. Repurpose and reuse what you can. There’s a bigger reality that all the do Gooding ignores and it’s affording the world populations a way out of poverty. More people accessing more goods will eat more, burn more and use more and will do so with the simplest of means. They’re not waiting around for windmills and solar panels. They are destroying forests and burning wood for fuel. They are using rivers as sewage canals. Humans Are the Problem and all the self-serving group think does nothing to address this larger reality.

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  19. The eco-doomsdayer money machine is busted once again, and, of course, it’s white supremacists to blame. Over and over the doomsdayers crank out misleading information, and when they are called on the carpet….it’s YOU, the denier, the white supremacist, Trump, right-winger, and worse yet the “disagreer.” The predictions are sooooooooo far off, that the only thing to do is to blame the “other guy” and name call. How predictable you name-calling folks have become, and you only have 11 years left to figure out how to cover up your misinformation. Stop degrading yourselves, and help the homeless, the hungry child, the struggling neighbor, and on and on.

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  20. I predict many many more people and businesses will be fleeing this state. This “climate emergency” means only one thing – more restrictive building regulations, taxes and the like making it unlivable. And that prediction is 300% more accurate than any climate prediction we’ve heard since the 1970s to now.

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  22. Much of the past weather data has been ‘weighted’. Did you hear what the guy that started the Weather channel said about climate change ? – He called it a profit driven scam. Even AOC’s manager admitted the ‘Green New Deal’ was just about money and was never about climate change !

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  33. Whenever people can’t back up their position with facts they resort to what they perceive to be attacking the person speaking fact against their position – like they think saying “climate denier” or “conservative” or the like is some sort of insult, or even true. It’s sure sign they’ve lost their argument and are not ad hominem attacking their opposition personally. Clear as day, they got nothin.

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  35. You, me and many many others! I’ve always voted democrat, never again! I couldn’t bring myself to register Republican though but in the last few days, especially seeing some of the laws that are being forced on us in a tyrannical fashion, and how these dems continue to act,I will be registering for the first time in my life as an “R” mostly so I can vote in the primary and get these socialist buffoons out of office!

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  36. You should figure out the difference between weather and climate. We are not entering anything close to a grand solar minimum. In fact, we are exiting a minimum that bottomed out last year. Check spaceweather.com for thr sunspot numbers, which track activity.
    =====================================================================
    And, at any rate, the sun’s cycle has a minimal effect on climate: https://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

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  38. Frankly, I’m more concerned that 5 teenagers between here and Lompoc have been shot or stabbed in the last 2 days. Who cares if the Board resolved to be concerned about climate change?? We got bigger problems, obviously. Jeez Louise.

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  41. How ironic that there has bee no global warming as measured by government satellites in 20 years. That’s why they call it climate change now. Greta and my parrot have something in common … neither can explain what they say ??

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  45. What “clean” and “sustainable” alternatives do you have in mind? I think that we should really give a lot more consideration to the environmental impacts of alternatives to petroleum. If we become so obsessed with CO2 that we ignore other environmental perils, we could do more harm than good. For example, Cobalt is required for the manufacture of the batteries used in electric cars and many other electronic devices. The majority of it is produced in the Congo. Here is a WaPo article about the environmental and human consequences of mining cobalt in the Congo. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2018/02/28/the-cost-of-cobalt/ The environmental consequences include contamination of soil and waterways with uranium. Child labor is also prevalent in the Congo, and scores of children have been killed mining the cobalt used to make the batteries for our EVs and handheld electronics. Here is an article about a lawsuit filed by the families of Congolese children who have been killed in the mines. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50812616 The defendants include Apple, Tesla, Google, and Microsoft. Finally, please keep in mind this in only one of many materials required to manufacture batteries. Another key component is Lithium, which is predominantly mined in China. I think it is important to consider all the environmental impacts of alternatives in order to make a fair comparison to oil and gas produced in the USA in compliance with our environmental and labor regulations.

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  48. The group photo is telling just how serious they are: wasting paper that has been dyed red and empty words printed using ink made from carbon black, varnish, dye, and other pollutants….all with their big smiles. They certainly talk the talk.

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  51. The article they referenced was brought up on another thread awhile back. I analyzed the Santa Barbara temperature station data and found the daily high temperatures are slightly warmer now than they were in the late 19th century. However, the daily high temperatures now are also lower than they were in the 1930s. In addition, daily highs have been in a pronounced downward trend at the SB station for the last few years.

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  52. Please stop pandering to morons and ignoramuses. They make up a sizable percentage of the population at large and are an even larger percentage of the online commentator population. These days the avg American ignoramus sits on their butt all day listening to talk radio and scrolling through their Facebook feed finding all the info they need to reinforce their own chosen silo. They seldom read past a headline and scoff at experts and intellectuals. As morons, these people are far more likely to be coerced into being shills for industries and be suckered into fringe beliefs. Remember, they are morons foremost, so they are easy to manipulate and control. These people fall for simpleton straw man arguments, insipid memes and cling extra hard to their beliefs, regardless of the facts. Its both sad and funny how this all works… Sad that these people are so easily manipulated, and funny how they all fall inline with the same lies and propaganda. Save yourself the trouble and dont try to talk sense with them. Let society march past them as it has for eons…

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  53. Personally I get my news from Charlatans, well documented liars and corporate and political shills. Forget solid journalism and proven facts. I am only interested in opinions and PR talking points given to me by talk show hosts, internet memes and short articles on random websites…

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  54. The County of SB already has a climate action plan. This is just a propaganda tool. Climate Change is big business. If you click on the links In the article, these groups are far far far left liberal progressives pushing a radical expensive unrealistic agenda. I am a staunch long time Democrat considering changing to No Party preference due to these wackos in government. We have an dangerous unhinged liar running this country and this has caused Democrats to lose their minds and become irrational. We need a clean sweep of government. A new beginning with people who can actually work together to solve some of these issues we face. How does the county prioritize “ emergencies” ? Some would say hunger, disease, violence, sex crimes, jail overcrowding etc. failing infrastructure and drug use are emergencies. Three more shootings in Lompoc this week. I’d say that part of the county is in a crisis. Funny Das is right there in the midst of this declaration. Cannabis uses a huge amount of water, they may not use as many pesticides but they sure like to use rat poison , dump their waste, reroute surface water, excessively grade natural areas, install reflective hoop houses that interrupt wildlife foraging and grazing. They install large noisy generators, to keep their fans and lights on all night ( which also disturbs wildlife), large truck traffic constantly coming and going through narrow rural areas. And thanks to Das Williams , Camp 4 is now in trust. Which throws ALL environmental protection and local control over that land out the window. So when it becomes “housing“ and other “economic ventures” such as a destination resort, with a golf course, water park, concert venue and strip malls with thousands more cars going into the valley, add that to the casino Traffic (which is estimated to be 10,000+ Cars Per day) Das Williams follows the money. Aren’t we all tired of career politicians making decisions for our local area based on the almighty dollar in their pocket?

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  58. Beware of the government-climate change industrial complex. Our local government has much more pressing issues than this such has fecal contamination of our surface waters from unchecked #2s from the proliferating homeless encampments.

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  59. At 5:37: I think the Democrats have buried themselves. As mentioned elsewhere here, if they can’t defend their biased arguments with facts, they attack “ad hominum”. How many of them are constantly making hypocritical statements – like insisting for a “fair trial” in the Senate, when the House kangaroo court was anything but fair? Of course, I could go on an on about these hypocrisies, but it wouldn’t do any good. All I can say is the the actions and agendas most of the Democratic congressional and presidential candidates are pushing ARE insane and, frankly borderline treasonous and seditious which just makes me shake my head in disbelief. And this is coming from me, a formally Democratic registered voter until 2018 when the CA disastrous elections created a dangerous one-party system. The current crop of Pelosi and her socialist TDS legions will make me vote Trump 2020, and probably mostly Republican as well. I am sure there will be many crying liberals and Democrats come November 4.

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  61. Yes MACPUZL including your own conspiracies. People can believe in climate change and at the same time be rational about it without being called “deniers” You would have to be ignorant to think human activity is not affecting the earth in some detrimental ways. But you are an idiot if you think we are all going to die in 20 years from fossil fuel emissions. Or that our oceans will rise so much that Santa Barbara will be underwater. That’s more of an east coast problem. Wasnt SB already that way prior to us arriving? Perhaps nature is simply trying to right itself? Earth began as a Hot planet with a single land mass which has shifted apart and become the continents we know today., ice ages cooled it and blanketed the poles with ice. now it’s warming up again. Species will die off as the world sees change, they always have. We will adapt to the changing world or we will die off too. One of your links had info about plant life found under melting glaciers indicating plants were there 400,000-800,000 years ago. Perfectly preserved plants with root systems under polar ice. This leads me to believe they were there before the ice. and perhaps they will be back. The point is, there are many complex issues which boil down to too many people, too much land covered in hardscape and depletion of natural resources. I’m curious what contribution do you make to combat climate change? Other than come on here and complain about Union Haters and Climate Denires what are you doing to better this world? How many kids do you have which will be future climate changers and resource suckers?

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  62. I think part of the problem is you lump everyone who questions these outlandish “climate apocalypse” claims as a climate denier. I have been labeled on edhat several times a climate denier, merely because I dared to question and provided counter points to the climate alarmists on these boards. While I agree the climate is changing, and people have contributed to that, I don’t believe the anthropocentric effects are as significant long-term as the alarmists push, and because of that I am now labeled a denier.

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  67. No Zeny, because denying AGW requires ignoring a huge mountain of facts and the laws of physics, in addition to the paranoid aspects of concocting a conspiracy about such willful ignorance. On the other hand, the fostering of the denier crowd by dark money from big carbon is well documented.
    =======================================================================
    https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Portal:Climate_Change
    =======================================================================
    You’ll also notice that the denier posts just bloviate, and cite no data. Good luck for any species “adapting” when we are changing the climate at a faster rate than at any time in the past but for one or two instances of mass extinctions. How many children are you bequeathing a miserable existence?

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  68. I see. In your post-factual, delusional world, providing facts to counter lies and bloviation is “lashing out”. Iffy science does not come from NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, and climate science groups. It comes from the dark-money financed astroturf groups that push the carbon agenda, because their only interest is profit. Luckily, the majority of people in the world are rational, and your distortions are being recognized and rejected.

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  69. The old “what about” argument, to distract people from the issue being discussed. People are used to multi-tasking and can grasp information on several or many issues at the same time. But this thread is about climate, right?

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  70. No, climate denier is just stating the truth. It really doesn’t seem like the deniers posting here would accept any amount of facts if they oppose their opinion. But this is what it means to be in a post-truth society with a fake news leader and party.

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  72. PITMIX – 7:14pm here. You missed my point. I was commenting on the fact that there were 54 comments on this thread arguing about whether or not some scientific facts are facts or not, meanwhile ZERO comments on the articles about the teenagers being shot and stabbed in our community.

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  73. Zero kids Mac. That’s our contribution toward a better future for today’s youth. We decided long ago this world was not the same as it was when we were young in the 70s & 80s. It’s a scary world out there politically, environmentally and socially. Some social and environmental issues are greatly improved, but many are not. Too many people bring children into this world who do not have the means, time, wisdom or maturity to do so. We cut our carbon footprint in half with this decision. Our house is solar powered with battery backup. We vote for social and environmental policies, until they become irrational. The earth is in trouble and changing. But it will never be fixed and we can’t go back. So we do the best we can to survive in this ever changing world. . These useless declarations by local governments do nothing. If Greta would have taken all those protesters and planted trees around the world, now that would be useful. But Kids protesting in the streets with signs skipping school does nothing to actually help the planet, just as these ridiculous resolutions from local government.

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  74. More and more climate alarmists and their “science” is being exposed every day. When their gig is up, they feel cornered, become desparate, and lash out. Name calling and bullying are part of the tactics they use to hide their embarrassment. Just read their reactionary comments in this thread…then they throw the links out to iffy science articles and studies. Quite funny, actually.

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  76. The “Gone By 2020” Exhibits in Glacier National Park are an example of government sponsored global warming propaganda. Focus was first placed on this in the article posted in Wattsupwiththat in June of 2019 based on a visitor taking a video of the exhibit and posting it online: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/06/glacier-national-park-quietly-removes-its-gone-by-2020-signs-2/ *** With the calendar rolling over to 2020, surprisingly even CNN covered this failed prediction in a story dated Jan 8, 2020: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-2020-trnd/index.html *** All you need to do is search “Glaciers + Gone By 2020” and you’ll see several articles on. Several other global warming predictions from prominent organizations also failed to materialize with year turning over to 2020. Beware of the Government + Global Warming Industrial Complex.

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  77. Lmaooooo is that the picture of them recognizing climate change? Wait… This is the board of supervisors picture recognizing a climate emergency? They sure look happy.
    Isn’t this the same county that has opened up all the land and all of our local areas to marijuana growers?
    Wow. What a hoot.

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  78. What you should beware of are fraudster sites like wattsup which are backed by dark-money carbon interests, peddling climate science denial. As the reality of AGW becomes more and more obvious to even their shills, it will be very entertaining to see how their contortions and lies become increasingly absurd.

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  79. Quote from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/watts-up-with-that/
    =======================================================================================
    Overall, we rate Watts Up with That a strong pseudoscience and conspiracy website based on the promotion of consistent human influenced climate denialism propaganda. Mostly he just repeats the same tired old denier talking points, or pulls out some random data and says, “Look, it’s cold somewhere!”
    =======================================================================================
    Quote from https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts
    =======================================================================================
    Willard Anthony Watts (Anthony Watts) is a blogger, weathercaster and non-scientist, paid AGW denier who runs the website wattsupwiththat.com. He does not have a university qualification and has no climate credentials other than being a radio weather announcer. His website is parodied and debunked at the website wottsupwiththat.com Watts is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, which itself is funded by polluting industries.[1]

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  81. The scare mongering signs and exhibits at GNP are just one of many failed climate apocalypse predictions. Here is a collection of a bunch of them: https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions —— Someday these climate alarmist predictions will take their rightful place on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

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  83. Quote from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/competitive-enterprise-institute/
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    In review, the CEI promotes environmental policies based on limited government regulation and property rights and rejects what they call “global warming alarmism”. Headlines and articles typically contain emotional loaded language that favors the right such as this Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions. This story comes from the questionable climate change denial website RealClimateScience. When not promoting climate change pseudoscience, they advocate for Libertarian positions such as small government and property rights. Editorially, the primary purpose of the CEI is to mislead on climate change.

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  85. Excuse me Macpuz? To quote you: “Headlines and articles typically contain emotional loaded language that favors the right”. You mean the exact same thing the climate “alarmists” and the left are doing? There is a middle ground between the left/right and alarmists/deniers, a middle ground I usually find my self if, a common-sense, no loaded language fact based middle you waved bye bye to long ago. You see, to be in this wonderful middle you need to listen to others, especially when their opinions differ from yours, keep an open mind, and allow your opinions to change over time as new insight and information is presented.

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  87. Pitmix, i agree with all of your posts on this thread. the deniers are ignorant fools that are destroying our earth and the earth that my kids will inherit. These deniers are about as insane as a religious fanatic. Deny this. My friend lives in Kiribati. Their land is disappearing. Those islands will be under water in less than 50 years. Several other island nations as well. But not, it’s not happening. We are all making this up. *facepalm*

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  88. wow…some of these comments and the deniers…just wow. do you people read? do you leave your shelters and roam the planet? Go outside? Have you traveled recently? do you even believe in facts or science? or do you just hold that bible tight and hope hope hope? FFS…

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  89. STD – Um, that’s not a quote from me, but from the media bias fact check organization. This has nothing to do with ideology, except on the denier side. Though you’re entitled to your own opinion, there is only one set of facts on AGW and the facts are, indeed, alarming. And to those who wrongly claim that the dire climate predictions have been in error, I can only point out that they have almost entirely proven to be not only correct for the last three decades, but have sometimes understated the severity. Nobody in climate science has mentioned ice ages since the 60s, and what mentions there were are in regard to the effects of a nuclear war. Having an open mind means you’re willing to change you views *when new data shows a contradiction*, not that you ignore a large body of existing facts and have, instead, an open garbage can.

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  92. Very few people seem to be listening, or certainly are not paying attention, to all of the climate-related talk. The majority of day-to-day regular working folks are concerned about other things. Calling people hurtful names because they disagree with you does not go far amongst civilized peeps.

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  94. MACPUZL, if you are going to discredit someone for not having the credentials to comment on climate change lets take a look at TCM- The Climate Mobilization group who has taken the SB Supes hostage… The board of TCM are all Climate activists, one socialist and not one scientist…TCM BOARD – Margaret Klein Salamon – Founder & Executive Director is a THERAPIST, Ezra Silk – Strategy & Policy Director is a REPORTER, Matt Renner – Deputy Director is a NON PROFIT EXECUTIVE, Malik Russell – Communications Director is a JOURNALIST, Rebecca Harris – Organizing Director is a COMMS DIRECTOR FOR THE UNION, Sydney Ghazarian – Digital Organizer – FOUNDER NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA ECO SOCIALISTS, Marina Mails – Community Manager is a THERAPIST. Not one of these people are scientist…they are all climate activists?

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