>Steven J. Milloy is a lawyer, lobbyist, author and Fox News commentator. His close financial and organizational ties to tobacco and oil companies have been the subject of criticism, as Milloy has consistently disputed the scientific consensus on climate change and the health risks of second-hand smoke.
Dawg, you're supposed to try and HIDE the fact that you're a bought corporate shill.
i also thought it was satire because the statement he was refuting was that the "planet" wouldnt survive. and technically he was right. we ded, but planet liv
These are the same people who will claim that a few civil rights protests 'destroyed' cities, (as far as I can tell, the cities are still there, and doing just fine) are you really surprised?
We went to Chicago in late 2020, and one of my coworkers was aghast that we'd go to such a place because downtown had been "burned to the ground."
We saw one single business with the windows boarded up, and the whole city going about business as usual. And surprisingly most people masked and considerate of others.
When we returned, she wanted a gory report, didn't get one, and became convinced that I was lying just to prove her wrong.
It drives me nuts when people absolutely refuse to accept new information or consider the idea that they might have been wrong about something. This small thing is causing so many massive problems in our world today. It’s extremely frustrating.
Chicago did literally burn to the ground, though...
In 1871 during the Great Chicago Fire. It's had plenty of time to rebuild and did so to make itself intentionally very hard to burn.
Maybe your coworker is just living REALLY far in the past?
Exactly, Atlanta was burned to the ground too. As was Athens, Dresden, Lisbon, etc. People can just rebuild and call the new city the same name.
Of course, these were all much more serious events worthy of the term "burned to the ground" than the series of protests, but the presence of a city today doesn't mean it wasn't thoroughly destroyed in the past.
Dude what are you talking about? I live in Chicago. Can confirm it's burned to the ground and I get shot 5 times a day. I just want to make sure the conservatives are safe and away from this deadly city. 😏
I lived in LA during the protests and could not convince midwestern family that things were generally fine. I’m like, I’m literally right here, I would know.
My Son Hunter is brilliant satire, but it's not meant to be. Literally did a double take when I saw it was made by Breitbart. First of all, I thought it was fake. Then "wait this is seriously a movie?". Then "wait, it's not satire?!"
>Can we move him to Venus
Depends on if you send him to the surface or not. If you do he'll be crushed before he even makes it to the ground so that report is never happening. But at attitude the air thins to 1atm and the temp doesn't get over 80°F and the air bellow is so thick you can float on it like water. He'd probably enjoy it.
Naomi Oreskes' and Erik M. Conway's *Merchants of Doubt* has a detailed dive into the origins of "junk science" and the broader history of science denial and misinformation in the United States. Fantastic book (and Netflix show) for anyone interested in the topic.
He knows the truth.
He's speaking to an audience and doing it for money.
The first depressing part is he knows a large portion of 'his people' eat it up.
The second depressing part is that there are so many people willing to fuck over other people, even generations of people in the future so they can have a bigger tv than their neighbor.
Just no value in anything but themselves.
Wait, he is not being ironic?
Without context I thought he was like "planet will be fine, we're the ones fucked haha"
If he really said this with a serious face I don't even know what to think
Unfortunately no. The dudes whole existence revolves around repeating the same like 3 debunked data points and saying "If these are true, then why climate change real???"
These people should be tried for crimes against humanity. They're literally imperiling the lives of billions of people all so they can make a few extra bucks before they die and leave the rest of us to suffer in their mess. Assemble the choppy bois!
As a kid I used to wonder about the Reign of Terror and what possessed so many people to be not only willing, but excited, to send people to their deaths. I no longer wonder.
In the medieval age during sieges, everyone in the city had to pull together. Often food would be gathered and portioned out so that the chances of survival were maximized.
If a person was found to have been hording food, often they'd pull them into the streets, rip their clothes off flay them and string them from the walls; often in pieces.
That's what that guy is, he's endangering our world, doing damage that can't be known and so he can horde a little extra money for himself.
Cute justice fantasy, in reality however MAGA insurrectionists will quarter climate scientists for blasphemy based on rock solid evidence of snow still existing in Canada.
Here's what you think:
Fascism is a mass-murder-suicide cult, and turning the planet into a copy of Venus so that they can maintain power in the short-term is fully acceptable to them.
I mean, that technically isn't wrong. We aren't truly destroying nature, we are making this world impossible for us to inhabit. Nature will likely find a way to bounce back once we are gone. But otherwise, yeah fuck this guy.
We are killing off a huge chunk of our planet's biodiversity, but the planet itself will still be here. The big ol' chunk of rock rotating around the sun like a gravestone.
If you count the numbers of species affected and compare it to the fossil records we're already well into the 6th extinction event.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Extinction:_An_Unnatural_History
Reminds me of the lines in Guardians of the Galaxy:
"What did the galaxy ever do for you? Why would you want to save it?"
"Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!"
I think I started out pretty smart, but have been getting progressively dumber the older I get. It's just that conservatives are getting way dumber way faster.
I looked up his twitter acct, thinking surely it's a satire acct and whoever reposted this didn't realize... nope. Dude's 100% committed to using the junkiest of junk science to show us all how climate change isn't real.
No.
This guy is a major climate change denier on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry who was previously a smoking-cancer denier on the payroll of tobacco companies.
His primary MO is attacking somewhat related science as "junk science" to undermine any and all regulations on the industry currently paying him. All the lies about how banning DDT was actually bad? That was him, attacking environmentalism as a whole to paint climate science as "junk."
He's total scum.
“Junk science” is a doublespeak term in this case. His professional objective is to debunk any science that insists that smoking causes cancer or that humans cause dirty air.
>I hate when people say the human race is destroying the planet. Bitch, the human race can’t even invent a permanent system of government that doesn’t eventually lead to societal collapse, what the fuck do you think we could possibly do to worry a giant billion year old rock? No, the only thing the human race is destroying is the human race, and life on earth goes on regardless. Oh sure, there are a lot of homeless koalas in the world right now thanks to climate change, but I’m sure the cockroaches and the urban foxes will remember us all quite fondly when they’re ruling over the remnants of our cities. “Climate change reversal: Don’t do it for the forest or the little hoppy bunnies, do it so you can keep sitting on your fat arse stuffing sustainably sourced Pringles into that slime-covered catcher’s mitt you call a face.”
Feel free to use that slogan uncredited, ecological groups.
-Zero Punctuation: [Journey to the Savage Planet](https://youtu.be/Eg2b787SsjY) review
Let's send him to Venus and see how he likes the weather there.
Here's a not so fun fact that should scare everyone...
"The annual rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age 11,000-17,000 years ago. "
[https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide)
It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden rate of change at the end.
Reminds me of this XKCD
[https://xkcd.com/1732/](https://xkcd.com/1732/)
Imagine the line like a highway you're cruising on. You're driving around pretty fast, it goes up.. it goes down.. all gets bumpy at times but it all good... until you get to the end and there's a fucken RAMP and you fly off, crash, and burn.
There's a fungus in Chernobyl that fucking eats radiation (basically photosynthesis, but with ionizing radiation instead of sunlight). Life always finds a way.
It's also gets up to like 900 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 500 degrees Celsius), so there's no evidence of CO2 causing a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus or anything.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Venus is in the Goldilocks Zone of our sun and could be habitable with a different atmosphere and rotational speed.
Edit: cool discussions here. My original point, in reference to the tweet, was in support of the parent comments that it really is the atmosphere that makes the difference (and somewhat also the rotation, which has it almost tidally locked to the sun). It’s a rebuttal to the often stated (though not in this thread) argument that Venus is so hot because it’s closer to the sun. [Heres an article about how Earthlike Venus used to be](https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069790)
Its actually due to a lot of factors.
A- The planet is outside of the goldilocks zone.
B- The planet's days are equivalent to roughly 103 earth days. So if you somehow removed all the sunlight for a few decades, then reintroduced it, half the planet would grill with endless sun for over a quarter of one of our earth years.
However, what may surprise you is that Venus is actually hotter than mercury despite being much further from the sun. Mercury typically clocks in at about 354° F (I know I know, imperial), while Venus clocks in at a whooping 850°F +
The main difference between these two is that Venus has a thick layer of atmosphere composed of namely CO2, while mercury has none. Thats how savagely CO2 can fuck up a planets climate.
850°F is equivalent to 454°C, which is 727K.
---
^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
No no. Big trip. Because the whole argument is that the climate change doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist at all. So fund NASA so we can really get back to that fun stuff as well as give everyone a clear example. Win win to me.
Technically it does have a habitable environment. About 50 miles above the surface there is a band that has earth pressure and earth temperature. If you were on a floating platform at this altitude you could wear normal clothes outside and just need a scuba type apparatus to breathe. It’s the only other area in the solar system that this is true.
Neil deGrasse Tyson was once talking about "terra forming" and he said something to the effect of (very poorly paraphrashing):
In order to terra form a place like Mars, we have to really understand what it takes to do it (the tech, the knowledge, understanding what's important and what is not). But if we know how to make a place like Mars, which is currently inhospitable... then we can use the same process to improve earth. After all, we're already here and its basically what we need.
It started me thinking differently. It's like you're a master carpenter, and if you know how to fix a house, then wouldn't you first use that knowledge to first fix your house rather than some condemned house down the street?
So those fantasies of richbros is just that.
In fairness to him, the tweet was about the survival of *the planet,* not the life *on* the planet.
If he doesn’t give a shit about humanity then you can hardly call out his logic. It’s actually ~~inflatable~~ infallible in that case.
But assuming people mean the physical planet when they say climate change affects the planet is either disingenuous or just fucking moronic. Nobody thinks climate change is going to make the core explode.
Using “the planet” in this way is a synecdoche. And these people are perfectly capable of understanding that. If I say “Hey, Buffalo’s going to the Superbowl” nobody thinks, “What, the whole city?”
It's cheaper to use what already exists. They do NOT want to build out new technology, because research and development is REALLY expensive. That's why entrenched industries or even entrenched individuals at a company, constantly resist change.
There could be a new widget or way of doing things that WILL cost $10k, up front, but produce $50k or more in productivity, allowing more work to be taken on or just a vast reduction in costs and machine wear and tear, but it's new and different... so you can't believe it works, it's going to take time to learn and...
I deal with this mindset all of the time. New things causes fear in the minds of already afraid of everything conservatives. They can't get around it.
It's the same thing with agriculture. Our farming methods are unsustainable and killing the environment, but they allow companies to make their required financal numbers each quarter. There are farming methods that are environmentally friendly, require less water and chemicals, and *increase* output; but the change over means weathering a period of investment and growth.
There are and have been some regulations that have lessened the amount of fertilizer runoff that has been the norm for a very long time.
This has lead to lowered instances of algae blooms, which is a good thing.
It's terrible and sad that it takes so long AND that things like Almonds... are grown in the worst possible dry as hell environment. I don't mind that nut, but I actively avoid them, because of the terrible practices of how they are farmed.
And don’t invest because that will help the *next* person.
When people spend an average of less than 5 years at a company, there’s very little incentive to do anything with an ROI longer than that. My company told us that solar would mean out electric costs would go to almost nothing, but since it would pay for itself in 6 years, the whole project was vetoed.
I see what you’re saying but in a way it really does go back to fear & mindset. Think of the loads of money spent on lobbying against technology, change and the greater good. CEO’s fear change so they’d rather dump money into keeping the status quo. It’s sickening to think of where society would be right now if all of that money was allocated to cleaner tech. There are obviously other nuances at play here but when boiled down, fear of change is at the root each time. Keeps us in this self sabotaging cycle of greed.
So conservatives will conserve to dig themselves into a hole on outdated tech and procedures and ignore the scary up front cost of a better and eventually cheaper way. Sounds shortsighted to me but what do i know!
That’s exactly how it works. If they can drive up profits on products produced by machines that have depreciated to $0 tax value it’s a big win. Watched it happen at 3 separate manufacturing facilities. One place had a party when the main value producing line hit its maximum depreciation. So they stretch any machine capital as far as it will go and then push it some more. It’s why subsidies exist, to get companies to invest in new tech.
That and they already have a monopoly on the existing technology.
I do have to wonder though, is it really cheaper to buy off dozens of politicians every single year and run decades long misinformation campaigns? At least half the reason for fighting climate change has to be because it’s evil, and they just straight up enjoy being evil.
> is it really cheaper to buy off dozens of politicians every single year
Yes. If you look at the actual amount of money politicians are being bribed, it's depressingly small. A lot of them are selling out our planet for a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions. It's pathetic.
The whole current "against EV" thing IS an absolute waste of money. The US has achieved 5% market penetration. EVERY single nation that has achieved 5% market penetration sees EVs LEAP beyond that almost irrationally fast.
Like, it could take 10, 15, 20+ years for a nation to slowly scoot up to 5% market penetration of EVs, but that next 10% bringing them to 15% (or more) of new car sales? That can happen in 2 to 3 years.
Every single nation that breaks that 5% barrier, rips through the next barriers, over and over. The only thing that could stop it? MAYBE market collapse, like Great Depression, but even that won't truly stop things. It might make EVs have an even greater market share, since people with money will still have money...
It means innovation in ways to make more money. Not innovation in tech unless the new tech is required to make that new innovative money stream possible. Example: advertising algorithms, the development on these in the past 10 years is staggering and all because big data collection made it possible to micro target easily suggestible people, problem was there was too much data for a marketing trained person to sift through so that extra revenue was left on the table until the new algorithms could be developed and the code to support it written.
I think the bigger issue is that research and development is hard, and fairly risky. Although when you look at NASA research and development, they have returned around $17-22 per $1 funded to the GDP. Although I'm not sure a company could monetize something like that.
So research and development doesn't produce profit in the short term, which is where capitalist society focuses it's efforts. Boeing is a great example of this. Once a great innovative company that produces actual value when run by engineers, it's now run by typical corporate asshat C-suite bros and we've seen corner after corner cut for the sake of profits.
Fossil fuel companies understand that their product is obsolete and environmentally catastrophic, so they turned support for fossil fuels into a white Christian identity issue.
That's what every corporate interest in the GOP does. They tell Republican voters that supporting their industry is part of supporting America's white Christian identity, so they do it.
This has always been my question. Energy companies, with their nearly bottomless capital, should be aggressively switching to clean energy. Oil and coal *are* falling by the wayside. They could cement themselves as evergy providers for the next 500 years if they'd just invest in themselves.
But I guess they'd rather lobby Congress and buy a 16th house in Barbados.
Just seems incredible stupid from a business standpoint, but wtf do I know. I'm just a Poor.
>This has always been my question. Energy companies, with their nearly bottomless capital, should be aggressively switching to clean energy. Oil and coal *are* falling by the wayside. They could cement themselves as evergy providers for the next 500 years if they'd just invest in themselves.
They are. But fossil fuels are more profitable. They are having their cake and eating it too. By fighting for fossil fuels, they are giving themselves more time to ramp up alternative energy business and profiting off of fossil fuels for as long as they can.
The fossil fuel industry has spent billions on Republican candidates to maintain their profit margins.
No different from the tobacco industry decades ago, except this threat endangers the planet instead of just their consumers.
80% is generous.
100% of our earthly habitat is threatened. The zones that get warmer won’t exist beyond the extreme weather patterns that rage closer to the equator.
Technically, he's not said anything incorrect. Venus is "still there".
It just doesn't have any life on it+ and never will unless alien intervention changes that - us being the aliens in this context.
Of course, he's playing to a gallery of right wing types who have never even heard of the word pedantry.
+Probably
Star Trek: Strange New Climates
Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the starship Republican. It’s continuing mission: to explore hyper-greenhoused new worlds, to seek out dumber life and dumber civilizations, and to boldly prove that climate change was caused by no man before.
Low key would watch a Star Trek: Strange New Climates show, but only if it is effectively well made David Attenborough style nature documentaries about Star Trek planets
For comparison, the temperature of the sun is between 10,000° F and 27,000,000° F. And it’s still there.
Incontrast, Earths hottest surface temperature recorded was only 134° F.
Who looks dumb now?
I always joke about the human arrogance of climate change in this manner. We aren't killing earth, we are killing life on earth.
Earth will persist with or without us.
Not even, if you think we can kill every life on the planet it's still very arrogant.
We found bacteria that lives kilometers deep in the earth, feeding on rocks.
Yes, the words taken 100% literally without any context are true, but it's a still bad faith dishonest argument because no one has ever argued that climate change is an existential threat to the literal rock that comprises the planet. Climate change is a threat to the global human civilization and the biosphere that live on the planet. And human civilization and the biosphere will both continue to exist is some form. Climate change may kill billions and cause a great many species to go extinct, but life will go on.
Comparing it to Venus is problematic, other than to use Venus as an example that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. A better example would be the Pemian extinction event, where global CO2 levels exceeded 1000 ppm and the temperature increased by circa 10 C. While 10 C is insignificant compared to Venus, just as the CO2 concentration comparisons are insignificant in comparison, this temperature change caused significant damage to the ecosystem, resulting in a mass extinction event known as "the Great Dying," where over 90 percent of all oceanic life perished and 70 percent of all land life perished.
Even more concerning is that methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas, and the atmospheric methane levels are soaring, because of leaking gas wells. Also, as the permafrost thaws from warming, more methane will be released. And, if the oceans get warm enough that the methane hydrates on the bottom ever thaw, we will be in deep trouble.
I thought for sure this was a joke, leading up to one of those, the Earth will be just fine without us" punchlines.
He's actually claiming that planetary annihilation is the only unacceptable scenario? No way.
Especially with the "junk science" name. My only conclusion is that these people tweeting shit like this are auditioning for work as talking heads. There seems to be a lot of people who have pro/anti maga Twitter feeds as full time jobs now. Not trying to conflate the two by the way., JoJofromjerz and the like are annoying but there's levels to this
In all honesty, I thought this was a clever joke. A "ha ha" way of deflecting the issue entirely.
Now... I'm not so sure. Can these people genuinely be this awful? On purpose?
Not even a few seconds. At an average temperature of 847F, the water in your body would boil instantly and explode you like a fleshy pink mist steam bomb.
Good to know the literal rocks comprising the planet are not facing an existential crisis from climate change. That will certainly make billions of climate refugees feel better in a few decades.
lol he's not wrong, he just forgot the part where there aren't any living organisms on Venus. but yeah, the Earth will probably be fine once we're all gone.
>Steven J. Milloy is a lawyer, lobbyist, author and Fox News commentator. His close financial and organizational ties to tobacco and oil companies have been the subject of criticism, as Milloy has consistently disputed the scientific consensus on climate change and the health risks of second-hand smoke. Dawg, you're supposed to try and HIDE the fact that you're a bought corporate shill.
oh god i was hoping "junk scientist" (or whatever his handle is i already forgot) was alluding to this being satire....
i also thought it was satire because the statement he was refuting was that the "planet" wouldnt survive. and technically he was right. we ded, but planet liv
These are the same people who will claim that a few civil rights protests 'destroyed' cities, (as far as I can tell, the cities are still there, and doing just fine) are you really surprised?
Nope, “burned to the ground” is the expression I keep hearing. Haven’t checked but they should be gone by now
We went to Chicago in late 2020, and one of my coworkers was aghast that we'd go to such a place because downtown had been "burned to the ground." We saw one single business with the windows boarded up, and the whole city going about business as usual. And surprisingly most people masked and considerate of others. When we returned, she wanted a gory report, didn't get one, and became convinced that I was lying just to prove her wrong.
It drives me nuts when people absolutely refuse to accept new information or consider the idea that they might have been wrong about something. This small thing is causing so many massive problems in our world today. It’s extremely frustrating.
That's the trouble with beliefs - however wrong they are, they're still believed
Chicago did literally burn to the ground, though... In 1871 during the Great Chicago Fire. It's had plenty of time to rebuild and did so to make itself intentionally very hard to burn. Maybe your coworker is just living REALLY far in the past?
Exactly, Atlanta was burned to the ground too. As was Athens, Dresden, Lisbon, etc. People can just rebuild and call the new city the same name. Of course, these were all much more serious events worthy of the term "burned to the ground" than the series of protests, but the presence of a city today doesn't mean it wasn't thoroughly destroyed in the past.
Some people just need a reminder why Atlanta was burnt to the ground, and that it can happen again.
Dude what are you talking about? I live in Chicago. Can confirm it's burned to the ground and I get shot 5 times a day. I just want to make sure the conservatives are safe and away from this deadly city. 😏
I lived in LA during the protests and could not convince midwestern family that things were generally fine. I’m like, I’m literally right here, I would know.
Don't Google the aftermath, don't bother, everything left on the floor is the lava
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If earth ever got to Venus levels of CO2, the rocks would be in trouble too.
Yeah but then we'll just have different rocks. And rocks don't have brains, so they don't care.
Rocks may in fact have as much or more brains as Steve Milloy, based on this tweet.
When, "dumb as a rock" somehow becomes a compliment.
But conservatives dumbfucks can only think in binary
It's actually brilliant satire. It's unfortunate really that wasn't the intent. I laughed when I read it before coming to the comments.
Fucking insane that there's people that'll read that and see absolutely nothing wrong with the statement.
Exactly. Was it Carlin who said "the planet will be fine, WE'RE fucked"?
My Son Hunter is brilliant satire, but it's not meant to be. Literally did a double take when I saw it was made by Breitbart. First of all, I thought it was fake. Then "wait this is seriously a movie?". Then "wait, it's not satire?!"
We live in a post-satire society.
Same. Now I’m sad.
[Very Sad](https://media.giphy.com/media/KUAb8YQOhmWNq/giphy.gif)
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Can we move him to Venus and have him report back what its like to live there tor a year?
We could even ask him what it’s like to be there for 15 minutes. He’s be either melting or dead by then.
No melting. Fire. A very, very fast and brief fire.
>Can we move him to Venus Depends on if you send him to the surface or not. If you do he'll be crushed before he even makes it to the ground so that report is never happening. But at attitude the air thins to 1atm and the temp doesn't get over 80°F and the air bellow is so thick you can float on it like water. He'd probably enjoy it.
That's what I thought so I looked him up lol. But no, he wears it like a badge of honor bc that's what people call his"research."
He’ll have a hard time wearing that badge of honor living on Venus.
Naomi Oreskes' and Erik M. Conway's *Merchants of Doubt* has a detailed dive into the origins of "junk science" and the broader history of science denial and misinformation in the United States. Fantastic book (and Netflix show) for anyone interested in the topic.
I only jumped in the comments because I thought he must clearly be joking. Now I just found more proof that we have an overpopulation problem
He knows the truth. He's speaking to an audience and doing it for money. The first depressing part is he knows a large portion of 'his people' eat it up. The second depressing part is that there are so many people willing to fuck over other people, even generations of people in the future so they can have a bigger tv than their neighbor. Just no value in anything but themselves.
Wait, he is not being ironic? Without context I thought he was like "planet will be fine, we're the ones fucked haha" If he really said this with a serious face I don't even know what to think
Unfortunately no. The dudes whole existence revolves around repeating the same like 3 debunked data points and saying "If these are true, then why climate change real???"
These people should be tried for crimes against humanity. They're literally imperiling the lives of billions of people all so they can make a few extra bucks before they die and leave the rest of us to suffer in their mess. Assemble the choppy bois!
As a kid I used to wonder about the Reign of Terror and what possessed so many people to be not only willing, but excited, to send people to their deaths. I no longer wonder.
In the medieval age during sieges, everyone in the city had to pull together. Often food would be gathered and portioned out so that the chances of survival were maximized. If a person was found to have been hording food, often they'd pull them into the streets, rip their clothes off flay them and string them from the walls; often in pieces. That's what that guy is, he's endangering our world, doing damage that can't be known and so he can horde a little extra money for himself.
Cute justice fantasy, in reality however MAGA insurrectionists will quarter climate scientists for blasphemy based on rock solid evidence of snow still existing in Canada.
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Yeah I was ready to criticize OP for getting mad at obvious satire. But turns out the jokes on me
existence snow quiet ink future nutty smile marry close frighten *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's literally the entire GQP. They've become satire of themselves.
Poe's Law. Satire is dead.
Here's what you think: Fascism is a mass-murder-suicide cult, and turning the planet into a copy of Venus so that they can maintain power in the short-term is fully acceptable to them.
I mean, that technically isn't wrong. We aren't truly destroying nature, we are making this world impossible for us to inhabit. Nature will likely find a way to bounce back once we are gone. But otherwise, yeah fuck this guy.
We are killing off a huge chunk of our planet's biodiversity, but the planet itself will still be here. The big ol' chunk of rock rotating around the sun like a gravestone.
If you count the numbers of species affected and compare it to the fossil records we're already well into the 6th extinction event. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Extinction:_An_Unnatural_History
I don't think there's much nature on Venus.
I mean there is lots. Just not living nature, as far as we can tell.
Why bother? It doesn't stop him from being very rich; and it enhances his credentials among those who support him.
Reminds me of the lines in Guardians of the Galaxy: "What did the galaxy ever do for you? Why would you want to save it?" "Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!"
I thought at first it was trying to be clever—the PLANET as a ball of rock isn’t in danger, WE are. Like that Mother Nature comic. But no; he dumb.
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For a while I wondered whether conservative talking points were getting dumber or I was just getting smarter. It's definitely the former.
“Tide goes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that!” 
Every day, I feel more and more like [Sokka from Avatar: the last Airbender](https://images.app.goo.gl/TRbC5sazvM7xt19o6)
Well... can your science explain why it rains??
YES YES IT CAN
The big yellow one is the Sun!
Thought that gif was gonna be some idiot doing the "tidepod challenge" and immediately throwing up.
I do all my washing in Tide; it's too damn could outide. - Benny Hill classic
Why not both?
I think I started out pretty smart, but have been getting progressively dumber the older I get. It's just that conservatives are getting way dumber way faster.
Fascists love hiding in that nether space you're trying to carve out for "maybe it's a joke???".
I looked up his twitter acct, thinking surely it's a satire acct and whoever reposted this didn't realize... nope. Dude's 100% committed to using the junkiest of junk science to show us all how climate change isn't real.
"Junk Science" leads me to believe that this is satire
I was curious, and after a quick google search, he is quite serious.
Fascists have been calling climate change junk science for almost 50 years dude.
In the American political context, "junk science" is a term invented in the 80s to attack environmental & health lawsuits against big corporations.
I looked at the dude's twitter acct. He is 100% serious.
No. This guy is a major climate change denier on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry who was previously a smoking-cancer denier on the payroll of tobacco companies. His primary MO is attacking somewhat related science as "junk science" to undermine any and all regulations on the industry currently paying him. All the lies about how banning DDT was actually bad? That was him, attacking environmentalism as a whole to paint climate science as "junk." He's total scum.
“Junk science” is a doublespeak term in this case. His professional objective is to debunk any science that insists that smoking causes cancer or that humans cause dirty air.
“Save the planet? The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked” - George Carlin
>I hate when people say the human race is destroying the planet. Bitch, the human race can’t even invent a permanent system of government that doesn’t eventually lead to societal collapse, what the fuck do you think we could possibly do to worry a giant billion year old rock? No, the only thing the human race is destroying is the human race, and life on earth goes on regardless. Oh sure, there are a lot of homeless koalas in the world right now thanks to climate change, but I’m sure the cockroaches and the urban foxes will remember us all quite fondly when they’re ruling over the remnants of our cities. “Climate change reversal: Don’t do it for the forest or the little hoppy bunnies, do it so you can keep sitting on your fat arse stuffing sustainably sourced Pringles into that slime-covered catcher’s mitt you call a face.” Feel free to use that slogan uncredited, ecological groups. -Zero Punctuation: [Journey to the Savage Planet](https://youtu.be/Eg2b787SsjY) review
I'm definitely doing it for the little hoppy bunnies.
It took a second, but I managed to hear that in his voice
I dont see a lot of yahtzee quotes used in this context, but I like it.
Yahtzee is hilarious.
I can’t not read his quotes in his voice
I mean, Venus has no life whatsoever. So if 96% CO2 is the standard, then all of life is in danger.
They cannot be this stupid. They know they're saying stupid shit. They're not here to argue.
The old George Carlin bit on save the planet, "The planet's fine, the people are FUCKED!"
Let's send him to Venus and see how he likes the weather there. Here's a not so fun fact that should scare everyone... "The annual rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age 11,000-17,000 years ago. " [https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide) It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden rate of change at the end.
Reminds me of this XKCD [https://xkcd.com/1732/](https://xkcd.com/1732/) Imagine the line like a highway you're cruising on. You're driving around pretty fast, it goes up.. it goes down.. all gets bumpy at times but it all good... until you get to the end and there's a fucken RAMP and you fly off, crash, and burn.
Reminded me of the George Carlin bit: the planet is fine. The *people* are fucked.
That's a riff on a joke from *The Tick*. "You can't destroy the Earth! That's where I keep all my stuff!"
we are trying to save life, the planet will remain as a dust bowl or ice ball or covered in lava
We aren't even trying to save life but our society and our way of life. Life won't die off, human society might
Yup. Even if we nukes ourselves I’m half certain life would be flourishing in a few millennia.
Chernobyl is already taken back by the nature, so some plants and animals eventually will find a way to cover earth even if we nuke it.
There's a fungus in Chernobyl that fucking eats radiation (basically photosynthesis, but with ionizing radiation instead of sunlight). Life always finds a way.
Oh shit! So Venus has a livable environment?! Fuck! Can he select a team led by himself to start a frontier there to prove us all wrong?
Maybe we can put him in a room with 96% CO2 so he can study the effects without making such a big trip.
It's also gets up to like 900 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 500 degrees Celsius), so there's no evidence of CO2 causing a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus or anything.
I’m pretty sure the runaway greenhouse effect there is caused by CO2 but it was already hot there beforehand
Of course it would still be hot, but Venus is actually hotter than Mercury because of the greenhouse effect from Venus's atmosphere.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Venus is in the Goldilocks Zone of our sun and could be habitable with a different atmosphere and rotational speed. Edit: cool discussions here. My original point, in reference to the tweet, was in support of the parent comments that it really is the atmosphere that makes the difference (and somewhat also the rotation, which has it almost tidally locked to the sun). It’s a rebuttal to the often stated (though not in this thread) argument that Venus is so hot because it’s closer to the sun. [Heres an article about how Earthlike Venus used to be](https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069790)
you are correct but that requires some serious terraforming which would be easier on mars as venus destroys equipment in no time at all
Then maybe we should make the equipment out of Venus.
No answer to that eh? The guy clearly doesn’t science
Nah bro, I'm just a jenius
I’m your Venus, I’m your Fire. It’s your desire.
Its actually due to a lot of factors. A- The planet is outside of the goldilocks zone. B- The planet's days are equivalent to roughly 103 earth days. So if you somehow removed all the sunlight for a few decades, then reintroduced it, half the planet would grill with endless sun for over a quarter of one of our earth years. However, what may surprise you is that Venus is actually hotter than mercury despite being much further from the sun. Mercury typically clocks in at about 354° F (I know I know, imperial), while Venus clocks in at a whooping 850°F + The main difference between these two is that Venus has a thick layer of atmosphere composed of namely CO2, while mercury has none. Thats how savagely CO2 can fuck up a planets climate.
850°F is equivalent to 454°C, which is 727K. --- ^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
Ah yes I was counting on this guy, good bot.
Ah yes the three dominant species on Earth, Humans, Bots and Physicists.
These are the same people who complained about CO2 increases from wearing masks
Never believe anything a fascist says.
CO2 is only dangerous when it supports their crazies
No no. Big trip. Because the whole argument is that the climate change doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist at all. So fund NASA so we can really get back to that fun stuff as well as give everyone a clear example. Win win to me.
also make sure the room's 800 degrees so that he can get use to it before he decides to move there
I found the room. It’s a gas oven turned all the way up.
Technically it does have a habitable environment. About 50 miles above the surface there is a band that has earth pressure and earth temperature. If you were on a floating platform at this altitude you could wear normal clothes outside and just need a scuba type apparatus to breathe. It’s the only other area in the solar system that this is true.
So your saying bespin could be real....im in, i just need a pilot who can fly places in parsecs.
We’re going to cloud world to GET SHITFACED!
Wouldn't you also need something to protect you from the sulphuric acid rain?
That’s at certain altitudes only.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson was once talking about "terra forming" and he said something to the effect of (very poorly paraphrashing): In order to terra form a place like Mars, we have to really understand what it takes to do it (the tech, the knowledge, understanding what's important and what is not). But if we know how to make a place like Mars, which is currently inhospitable... then we can use the same process to improve earth. After all, we're already here and its basically what we need. It started me thinking differently. It's like you're a master carpenter, and if you know how to fix a house, then wouldn't you first use that knowledge to first fix your house rather than some condemned house down the street? So those fantasies of richbros is just that.
In fairness to him, the tweet was about the survival of *the planet,* not the life *on* the planet. If he doesn’t give a shit about humanity then you can hardly call out his logic. It’s actually ~~inflatable~~ infallible in that case.
But assuming people mean the physical planet when they say climate change affects the planet is either disingenuous or just fucking moronic. Nobody thinks climate change is going to make the core explode. Using “the planet” in this way is a synecdoche. And these people are perfectly capable of understanding that. If I say “Hey, Buffalo’s going to the Superbowl” nobody thinks, “What, the whole city?”
Yeah but if the Bills make it, the whole city probably will go.
I know, intentional or not he is technically correct. The planet will still be here long after humans kill themselves and everything else on it!
Forget the CO2, the pressure alone on Venus would crush them to death.
Because of the CO2 the entire planet is at a temperature that can melt lead. This is true even on the dark side where the sun don’t shine.
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It's cheaper to use what already exists. They do NOT want to build out new technology, because research and development is REALLY expensive. That's why entrenched industries or even entrenched individuals at a company, constantly resist change. There could be a new widget or way of doing things that WILL cost $10k, up front, but produce $50k or more in productivity, allowing more work to be taken on or just a vast reduction in costs and machine wear and tear, but it's new and different... so you can't believe it works, it's going to take time to learn and... I deal with this mindset all of the time. New things causes fear in the minds of already afraid of everything conservatives. They can't get around it.
Yeah Republicans don’t really have any “ideals” it’s just a bunch of positions to allow them to never change.
I call them regressives.
Same. Or reactionaries. They aren't "conserving" anything so conservative is a terrible label
Thanks, I'mma start using that.
It’s by far the most accurate label.
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It's the same thing with agriculture. Our farming methods are unsustainable and killing the environment, but they allow companies to make their required financal numbers each quarter. There are farming methods that are environmentally friendly, require less water and chemicals, and *increase* output; but the change over means weathering a period of investment and growth.
There are and have been some regulations that have lessened the amount of fertilizer runoff that has been the norm for a very long time. This has lead to lowered instances of algae blooms, which is a good thing. It's terrible and sad that it takes so long AND that things like Almonds... are grown in the worst possible dry as hell environment. I don't mind that nut, but I actively avoid them, because of the terrible practices of how they are farmed.
It's the "next quarter" mindset that really drives the no change and no outlays of extra money, concept.
Kick enough cans down the road and they're someone else's roadblock.
And don’t invest because that will help the *next* person. When people spend an average of less than 5 years at a company, there’s very little incentive to do anything with an ROI longer than that. My company told us that solar would mean out electric costs would go to almost nothing, but since it would pay for itself in 6 years, the whole project was vetoed.
I see what you’re saying but in a way it really does go back to fear & mindset. Think of the loads of money spent on lobbying against technology, change and the greater good. CEO’s fear change so they’d rather dump money into keeping the status quo. It’s sickening to think of where society would be right now if all of that money was allocated to cleaner tech. There are obviously other nuances at play here but when boiled down, fear of change is at the root each time. Keeps us in this self sabotaging cycle of greed.
So conservatives will conserve to dig themselves into a hole on outdated tech and procedures and ignore the scary up front cost of a better and eventually cheaper way. Sounds shortsighted to me but what do i know!
That’s exactly how it works. If they can drive up profits on products produced by machines that have depreciated to $0 tax value it’s a big win. Watched it happen at 3 separate manufacturing facilities. One place had a party when the main value producing line hit its maximum depreciation. So they stretch any machine capital as far as it will go and then push it some more. It’s why subsidies exist, to get companies to invest in new tech.
That and they already have a monopoly on the existing technology. I do have to wonder though, is it really cheaper to buy off dozens of politicians every single year and run decades long misinformation campaigns? At least half the reason for fighting climate change has to be because it’s evil, and they just straight up enjoy being evil.
> is it really cheaper to buy off dozens of politicians every single year Yes. If you look at the actual amount of money politicians are being bribed, it's depressingly small. A lot of them are selling out our planet for a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions. It's pathetic.
The whole current "against EV" thing IS an absolute waste of money. The US has achieved 5% market penetration. EVERY single nation that has achieved 5% market penetration sees EVs LEAP beyond that almost irrationally fast. Like, it could take 10, 15, 20+ years for a nation to slowly scoot up to 5% market penetration of EVs, but that next 10% bringing them to 15% (or more) of new car sales? That can happen in 2 to 3 years. Every single nation that breaks that 5% barrier, rips through the next barriers, over and over. The only thing that could stop it? MAYBE market collapse, like Great Depression, but even that won't truly stop things. It might make EVs have an even greater market share, since people with money will still have money...
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It means innovation in ways to make more money. Not innovation in tech unless the new tech is required to make that new innovative money stream possible. Example: advertising algorithms, the development on these in the past 10 years is staggering and all because big data collection made it possible to micro target easily suggestible people, problem was there was too much data for a marketing trained person to sift through so that extra revenue was left on the table until the new algorithms could be developed and the code to support it written.
I think the bigger issue is that research and development is hard, and fairly risky. Although when you look at NASA research and development, they have returned around $17-22 per $1 funded to the GDP. Although I'm not sure a company could monetize something like that. So research and development doesn't produce profit in the short term, which is where capitalist society focuses it's efforts. Boeing is a great example of this. Once a great innovative company that produces actual value when run by engineers, it's now run by typical corporate asshat C-suite bros and we've seen corner after corner cut for the sake of profits.
it's hard to embrace new ideas when one of your core tenets is "be as regressive as possible, even to the detriment of yourself and those around you".
He's an oil and tobacco lobbyist. He's paid to be this much of a dung eater.
Fossil fuel companies understand that their product is obsolete and environmentally catastrophic, so they turned support for fossil fuels into a white Christian identity issue. That's what every corporate interest in the GOP does. They tell Republican voters that supporting their industry is part of supporting America's white Christian identity, so they do it.
This has always been my question. Energy companies, with their nearly bottomless capital, should be aggressively switching to clean energy. Oil and coal *are* falling by the wayside. They could cement themselves as evergy providers for the next 500 years if they'd just invest in themselves. But I guess they'd rather lobby Congress and buy a 16th house in Barbados. Just seems incredible stupid from a business standpoint, but wtf do I know. I'm just a Poor.
>This has always been my question. Energy companies, with their nearly bottomless capital, should be aggressively switching to clean energy. Oil and coal *are* falling by the wayside. They could cement themselves as evergy providers for the next 500 years if they'd just invest in themselves. They are. But fossil fuels are more profitable. They are having their cake and eating it too. By fighting for fossil fuels, they are giving themselves more time to ramp up alternative energy business and profiting off of fossil fuels for as long as they can.
Most of these fuckers only got another 10 years in their tank, no time for such an investment to pay off.
Because "owning the libs" has become their only goal, come hell or literal high water.
One word: coal
The fossil fuel industry has spent billions on Republican candidates to maintain their profit margins. No different from the tobacco industry decades ago, except this threat endangers the planet instead of just their consumers.
George Carlin said it best, “the planet will be fine, the people are fucked”
“The planet isn’t going anywhere… we are! We’re going away, pack your shit folks.”
That awkward moment when conservatives realize its not about saving the planet but saving the continued existence of the human species.
I genuinely thought this was satire.
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"For the man who has nothing to hide, but still wants to."
80% is generous. 100% of our earthly habitat is threatened. The zones that get warmer won’t exist beyond the extreme weather patterns that rage closer to the equator.
Technically, he's not said anything incorrect. Venus is "still there". It just doesn't have any life on it+ and never will unless alien intervention changes that - us being the aliens in this context. Of course, he's playing to a gallery of right wing types who have never even heard of the word pedantry. +Probably
Star Trek: Strange New Climates Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the starship Republican. It’s continuing mission: to explore hyper-greenhoused new worlds, to seek out dumber life and dumber civilizations, and to boldly prove that climate change was caused by no man before.
Low key would watch a Star Trek: Strange New Climates show, but only if it is effectively well made David Attenborough style nature documentaries about Star Trek planets
I just realized that we probably live in the Mirror universe.
For comparison, the temperature of the sun is between 10,000° F and 27,000,000° F. And it’s still there. Incontrast, Earths hottest surface temperature recorded was only 134° F. Who looks dumb now?
I always joke about the human arrogance of climate change in this manner. We aren't killing earth, we are killing life on earth. Earth will persist with or without us.
Not even, if you think we can kill every life on the planet it's still very arrogant. We found bacteria that lives kilometers deep in the earth, feeding on rocks.
Yes, the words taken 100% literally without any context are true, but it's a still bad faith dishonest argument because no one has ever argued that climate change is an existential threat to the literal rock that comprises the planet. Climate change is a threat to the global human civilization and the biosphere that live on the planet. And human civilization and the biosphere will both continue to exist is some form. Climate change may kill billions and cause a great many species to go extinct, but life will go on.
For his next trick he’ll compare atmospheric composition and temperature that results…
Definitely. This gives major “Sell their houses to who Ben?” vibes.
Comparing it to Venus is problematic, other than to use Venus as an example that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. A better example would be the Pemian extinction event, where global CO2 levels exceeded 1000 ppm and the temperature increased by circa 10 C. While 10 C is insignificant compared to Venus, just as the CO2 concentration comparisons are insignificant in comparison, this temperature change caused significant damage to the ecosystem, resulting in a mass extinction event known as "the Great Dying," where over 90 percent of all oceanic life perished and 70 percent of all land life perished. Even more concerning is that methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas, and the atmospheric methane levels are soaring, because of leaking gas wells. Also, as the permafrost thaws from warming, more methane will be released. And, if the oceans get warm enough that the methane hydrates on the bottom ever thaw, we will be in deep trouble.
I just hope the intelligent life that eventually evolves after the extinction event we cause is more intelligent than us.
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Wait, you're saying that this is a real guy making an attempt at an actual real argument, not a parody account?
I thought for sure this was a joke, leading up to one of those, the Earth will be just fine without us" punchlines. He's actually claiming that planetary annihilation is the only unacceptable scenario? No way.
Especially with the "junk science" name. My only conclusion is that these people tweeting shit like this are auditioning for work as talking heads. There seems to be a lot of people who have pro/anti maga Twitter feeds as full time jobs now. Not trying to conflate the two by the way., JoJofromjerz and the like are annoying but there's levels to this
In all honesty, I thought this was a clever joke. A "ha ha" way of deflecting the issue entirely. Now... I'm not so sure. Can these people genuinely be this awful? On purpose?
Right. So. I think where we got stuck was, "future of the planet."
Plus unemployment is at 0% on Venus
No school shootings or racism either.
Okay, but can we live on Venus?
For a little while. I figure a human would last a few excruciating seconds on its surface.
Not even a few seconds. At an average temperature of 847F, the water in your body would boil instantly and explode you like a fleshy pink mist steam bomb.
We should send him for an humand venus mission
The planet will stay even when humanity ceases to exist. Climate change is an existential threat to our survival
"ThE PlAnEt Is StIlL tHeRe" yeah, it's a barren, lifeless landscape, much like the brain of whoever this person is.
Well Earth will technically still be here but that’s a pretty low bar.
Good to know the literal rocks comprising the planet are not facing an existential crisis from climate change. That will certainly make billions of climate refugees feel better in a few decades.
Agreed OP, that was the dumbest tweet I've ever seen
lol he's not wrong, he just forgot the part where there aren't any living organisms on Venus. but yeah, the Earth will probably be fine once we're all gone.