The Left’s Anti-intellectualism: A Neanderthal Tries to Respond
Back to the cave, Donald. The “big guy” thinks you are a Neanderthal. Yes, the paragon of intellectualism and storehouse of experience, Joe Biden, has called “climate deniers” and skeptics “Neanderthals.” It’s a great argument isn’t? It bespeaks the nature of the modern leftist mind: Counter detailed questions and counter arguments with name-calling and ad hominem attacks.
But who is the Neanderthal in this? And why should we call those with a different view on supposed irreversible global trends Neanderthals, especially when it comes to matters of climate? The Neanderthals, the group of hominins that lived through more actual and demonstrably more pronounced climate swings for all of their existence, adapted to both warm and cold periods. If any group of humans knew about climate change, it was definitely the Neanderthals. During their 165,000-year reign they saw the extremes of Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods. But, of course, no individual Neanderthal would have noticed the change through which its subspecies lived. It would take a biblical Methuselah to notice climate change as it has occurred over the past 2 1/2 million years. I know Joe Biden is old, but he isn't that old.
Swings in weather? Yes. Swings in climate? No. Droughty decades? Yes. Droughty centuries? Sometimes. Ask the Pueblo. Ask “We’Are-the-World” 20th-century Ethiopians about a switch from seasonally slightly humid to very arid. Sure—definitely noticeable by individuals.. But that drought of 1989-1990, exacerbated by conflict is long gone, now replaced by a new El Niño-driven drought.
Look at the climate global controls, Joe. Latitude plays a role because of Earth’s tilt to the plane of the ecliptic. Semi-permanent Highs and Lows under Hadley cells that shift with changing sun angle control precipitation, and the the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) plays a role. Cold currents off the western sides of continents and orographic barriers also exert influences on weather and “climate.” Think Sierra Nevada, Mt. Whitney, rain shadow, and Mojave.
Nit-picking
So let's examine what Joe has experienced over his eight decades of careful weather observations. The mean temperature in Scranton, Pennsylvania on February 27, 2024, was 30.7°F. By comparison, the mean temperature for Scranton on February 27, 1945, was 35.4°F. What's up with that, Joe?
Joe
Let me guess, Joe. You would say that one can't judge climate change by a single day or comparison between two days. And you would be correct, but hear this Neanderthal out. I could easily argue that one storm also does not make the climate, or indicate a climate change; yet, you and yours have used individual incidents as arguments for climate change. In my mind that's “Neanderthal thinking”; it's not scientific. Joe, you are simply echoing the vogue ideas spread by people like Greta Thunberg, whose knowledge of Earth history is suspect.
What's that, Joe? You say the Arctic ice is melting, the Antarctic ice is melting. Also, the seas are rising at an unprecedented rate, and droughts, floods, heat waves, and cold spells all indicate changing climate. But what climate? The tropical rainforest climate? The tropical savanna? The subtropical climate? The tropical, monsoonal climate? The cold desert climate? The hot desert climate? T’he steppe? The tundra? The temperate warm summer, cold, winter climate? All of them? No, Joe, please don't tell me you mean all of them. But if you do mean all of them, are they changing at a uniform rate? What's that you say, Joe? Something about existential? Do you mean existential as in the demise of the Neanderthals 24,000-35,000 years ago? As in the demise of the australopithecines? Homo naledi? Habilis?You realize, don't you, that every human species survived thousands of years under changing climatic conditions?
Pros and Cons
You probably think you're saving the future, Joe. I believe you're destroying the present in favor of an unknown future. That’s suicidal thinking. People who commit suicide probably don’t envision the potential for a “change for the better.” You’re making America into a Jonesville, with despair the only option. Every climate prediction by so-called authorities over the past 30 years has failed to materialize. Yet, you intend to destroy a modern economy on the basis of similar predictions by people decidedly hyperbolic. You cannot say definitively that a warmer world is any more hazardous to human life than the current world or the pre-industrial world, or the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, or the Younger Dryas. You cannot say that no populations might benefit greatly by warmer temperatures. Do the tens of thousands Canadians who travel to Florida each year prefer bitter winter over warm summer? Wouldn’t Canadian farmers benefit from a longer growing season? In short, not all effects of Earth’s vicissitudes are deleterious.
Name-Calling
Give me a real debate, Joe. Give me one with Earth history, Earth features, and Earth processes as the context for a discussion on climate. Give me one that includes the physics and chemistry of planetary atmospheres and excludes anecdotal “symptoms” of change that are dubious at best, such as dying coral reefs and human diseases that might be spreading through migrations as much as through pervasive heat.
Frankly, Joe, if I'm a Neanderthal, you're an idiot. Sorry, uneducated, idiot. You have told us how brilliant you are, so I recommend that, instead of lying on the Delaware beach with your ball cap over your eyes, you pick up an historical geology textbook and read through it. Short of doing that, you demonstrate to me that you and not I, are the “Neanderthal.” My apologies to the Neanderthals for including you, Joe, in their group.
Back to the cave, Donald. The “big guy” thinks you are a Neanderthal. Yes, the paragon of intellectualism and storehouse of experience, Joe Biden, has called “climate deniers” and skeptics “Neanderthals.” It’s a great argument isn’t? It bespeaks the nature of the modern leftist mind: Counter detailed questions and counter arguments with name-calling and ad hominem attacks.
But who is the Neanderthal in this? And why should we call those with a different view on supposed irreversible global trends Neanderthals, especially when it comes to matters of climate? The Neanderthals, the group of hominins that lived through more actual and demonstrably more pronounced climate swings for all of their existence, adapted to both warm and cold periods. If any group of humans knew about climate change, it was definitely the Neanderthals. During their 165,000-year reign they saw the extremes of Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods. But, of course, no individual Neanderthal would have noticed the change through which its subspecies lived. It would take a biblical Methuselah to notice climate change as it has occurred over the past 2 1/2 million years. I know Joe Biden is old, but he isn't that old.
Swings in weather? Yes. Swings in climate? No. Droughty decades? Yes. Droughty centuries? Sometimes. Ask the Pueblo. Ask “We’Are-the-World” 20th-century Ethiopians about a switch from seasonally slightly humid to very arid. Sure—definitely noticeable by individuals.. But that drought of 1989-1990, exacerbated by conflict is long gone, now replaced by a new El Niño-driven drought.
Look at the climate global controls, Joe. Latitude plays a role because of Earth’s tilt to the plane of the ecliptic. Semi-permanent Highs and Lows under Hadley cells that shift with changing sun angle control precipitation, and the the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) plays a role. Cold currents off the western sides of continents and orographic barriers also exert influences on weather and “climate.” Think Sierra Nevada, Mt. Whitney, rain shadow, and Mojave.
Nit-picking
So let's examine what Joe has experienced over his eight decades of careful weather observations. The mean temperature in Scranton, Pennsylvania on February 27, 2024, was 30.7°F. By comparison, the mean temperature for Scranton on February 27, 1945, was 35.4°F. What's up with that, Joe?
Joe
Let me guess, Joe. You would say that one can't judge climate change by a single day or comparison between two days. And you would be correct, but hear this Neanderthal out. I could easily argue that one storm also does not make the climate, or indicate a climate change; yet, you and yours have used individual incidents as arguments for climate change. In my mind that's “Neanderthal thinking”; it's not scientific. Joe, you are simply echoing the vogue ideas spread by people like Greta Thunberg, whose knowledge of Earth history is suspect.
What's that, Joe? You say the Arctic ice is melting, the Antarctic ice is melting. Also, the seas are rising at an unprecedented rate, and droughts, floods, heat waves, and cold spells all indicate changing climate. But what climate? The tropical rainforest climate? The tropical savanna? The subtropical climate? The tropical, monsoonal climate? The cold desert climate? The hot desert climate? T’he steppe? The tundra? The temperate warm summer, cold, winter climate? All of them? No, Joe, please don't tell me you mean all of them. But if you do mean all of them, are they changing at a uniform rate? What's that you say, Joe? Something about existential? Do you mean existential as in the demise of the Neanderthals 24,000-35,000 years ago? As in the demise of the australopithecines? Homo naledi? Habilis?You realize, don't you, that every human species survived thousands of years under changing climatic conditions?
Pros and Cons
You probably think you're saving the future, Joe. I believe you're destroying the present in favor of an unknown future. That’s suicidal thinking. People who commit suicide probably don’t envision the potential for a “change for the better.” You’re making America into a Jonesville, with despair the only option. Every climate prediction by so-called authorities over the past 30 years has failed to materialize. Yet, you intend to destroy a modern economy on the basis of similar predictions by people decidedly hyperbolic. You cannot say definitively that a warmer world is any more hazardous to human life than the current world or the pre-industrial world, or the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, or the Younger Dryas. You cannot say that no populations might benefit greatly by warmer temperatures. Do the tens of thousands Canadians who travel to Florida each year prefer bitter winter over warm summer? Wouldn’t Canadian farmers benefit from a longer growing season? In short, not all effects of Earth’s vicissitudes are deleterious.
Name-Calling
Give me a real debate, Joe. Give me one with Earth history, Earth features, and Earth processes as the context for a discussion on climate. Give me one that includes the physics and chemistry of planetary atmospheres and excludes anecdotal “symptoms” of change that are dubious at best, such as dying coral reefs and human diseases that might be spreading through migrations as much as through pervasive heat.
Frankly, Joe, if I'm a Neanderthal, you're an idiot. Sorry, uneducated, idiot. You have told us how brilliant you are, so I recommend that, instead of lying on the Delaware beach with your ball cap over your eyes, you pick up an historical geology textbook and read through it. Short of doing that, you demonstrate to me that you and not I, are the “Neanderthal.” My apologies to the Neanderthals for including you, Joe, in their group.
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