The five stages of climate denial

1. Global warming is not happening.
2. Okay, global warming may be happening, but it’s part of a natural cycle, and human activity has an insignificant effect.
3. Alright, human activity may be causing climate change, be we shouldn’t try to fix the problem because the planet will take care of itself. And besides, doing anything would be too costly, and would harm productivity, growth, comfort, etc.
4. Yes, yes, maybe we should have tried to fix the problem, and maybe that would have been the most cost-effective solution in the long haul. But it’s too late now. And besides, by the time things get really bad, I’ll be dead.
5. I see climate change as a sign of the end times, and because I’m convinced that I’ll be saved, I actually want to hasten the planet’s demise. The sooner we destroy the Earth, the sooner I can go to heaven!
   (Stage 5 applies only to apocalyptic religious fundamentalists.)

Update: It looks like I was not the first to make the observation that climate change deniers tend to move the goalposts.

Update 2016.08.08: There’s another variant of stage 5 — perhaps it could be called stage 4½ — “The increasing rate of natural disasters (floods, droughts, hurricanes, heat waves, etc.) is caused by sin/apostasy/blasphemy/colored chalk.”

Jesus would support health care reform

A small minority on the extreme right of political spectrum have recently been resorting to fear-mongering of the most vile and dishonest kind, in a desperate attempt to stand in the way of meaningful health care reform in the United States. What disappoints me most about this fear-mongering is how blind many otherwise thoughtful people have been to the blatant hypocrisy of these obstructionists.

Many of those protesting the most vehemently against health care reform are people who consider themselves Christians. These so-called Christians treat their religion like a glee club and spiritual self-help program, but ignore the social mission message of Jesus.

Jesus of Nazareth told his disciples to care for the sick, to feed the hungry, and to visit those in prison. He had strong words for those who did not do so. For just one of many examples of Jesus commandment to care for those in need, see Matthew 23:31-46.

I believe the Democrats and like-minded Republicans and Independents need to reclaim the moral high ground, and shove the obstructionist protestors’ bibles back in their faces. “How can you call yourselves Christians?” they should demand. Obama should eschew for now the conciliatory tones of bipartisanship, and use his bully pulpit to shame the hypocrites, and to inspire us all toward a higher calling: social justice.

In short, we need to put these fair-weather friends of Jesus in their place—on the defensive.

Can the rest of us have our planet back?

No, I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth. In fact, I’m alive and well. I’ve been busy lately though, and haven’t had much time to post updates to the blog. I’ve been doing lots of climbing and dancing as usual, and lots of other fun stuff as well. If you look at my flickr photo stream, you’ll see that although I haven’t been making regular updates to the blog, I have been posting photos. Hundreds of them, in fact.

I’ll try to catch up with my blog postings soon. In the mean time, I wanted to share this little gem with you: Can the rest of us have our planet back?

Why do people believe in god?

I was raised to be skeptic, by two loving and well-educated parents. I probably also have my grandfather Lorn to thank for my scientific worldview. Ever the scientist, my mama-papa always encouraged me to ask questions, to think in new ways, and to just plain figure out how things work.

Even so, my familiy was (and still is) quite religious, although the Methodist church to which most of my family belongs is on the more liberal end of the American religious spectrum, and these days my closest relatives are less observant than when I was a child.

So I wonder: in this modern world, where rational explanations are sought for everything, what purpose is served by religious belief?

Ever since I began to question religion at an early age, I have wondered why people held religious beliefs so strongly. Studies in biology, along with what I learned from my two psychologist parents, informed my thinking into this matter. When I began to learn more about evolution in college, and particularly evolutionary psychology, I began to wonder what adaptative advantage a gene endowing its owner with religious belief might bestow. In other words, perhaps a tendency toward religious faith — thought not overtly advantageous today — was advantageous at some time in the distant past.

Some years ago, this theory began to take shape in my mind. In the environment during which the human brain was undergoing its last surge of evolution, language and consciousness appeared on the scene. For the first time, it became possible for humans to examine themselves mentally. With these newfound abilities though came perils. When one can comprehend one's own mortalilty, for example, this understanding can be debilitating. Perhaps a predisposition towards mysticism allowed people to posit (or accept from others) quick-and-dirty solutions to the unfathomable problems made possible by human cognition.

Imagine two of our ancient ancestors: one guy who pondered his mortatlity but found no comforting answer, and another fellow who had the same questions, but answered them with a story about an afterlife. Apply the same idea to other areas of religious belief: heaven & hell, the observance of rituals, and so on. Perhaps, my thinking went, the guy who had a quick answer to the unanswerable questions was more able to just get on with life than his cohort who lacked the easy answers.

Yesterday my dad — the brother and son of Methodist ministers — sent me a link to a fascinating article in the New York Times. The article covers in a fair amount of detail the current state of research into the evolution of religion. I'm glad to see that some of my ideas are shared by renowed scientists, and that the topic is getting the attention it richly deserves.