What? Forbes…. "Will Angelina Jolie Help End Climate-Change Denial, And Help The Republican Party?"

Is There Nothing The Lunatics Won’t Try To Exploit?

Forbes contributor Todd Essig starts an article thusly…….

File this one under unintended consequences.  Angelina Jolie, by announcing her preventative double masectomy [sic], will likely have significant influence well beyond women’s health. By modeling how to think with data when data do not tell us what we would otherwise want them to say, she displayed a level of decision-making courage that business and political leaders should strive to emulate.  For example, her leadership just may end up helping those fighting in the Republican Party to end ongoing anti-science climate-change denial.

How many argument fails did Essig start his illogical looney tune article with?

Good heavens!  No, Todd, it isn’t likely people will equate a personal medical decision with global policy decisions.  That probability only exists in your delusional mind. 

Essig doesn’t explain what sort of mastectomy Jolie is having.  It makes a difference.  And, if Essig was paying attention, her decision making is very similar to the rational which causes so many to oppose the inane policies advocated by the nutters. 

While I’m aware there are certain psychological implications of a radical (is she getting one of those or something less radical?) mastectomy which I, as a male, cannot fathom, much of it is proportion and value judgments. 

Post child bearing age, what function, other than aesthetics, do breasts serve?  Well, none.  So, removing a potential problem which serves little purpose isn’t a hard call.  Contrast that to the loss of sovereignty, energy use, and a global economy.  Oh, so Jolie’s decision bears little resemblance to the climate discussion. 

And, then there’s the question of the outcome.  Many of us, myself included, believe that even if this lunacy of a warming world were true, that humanity would be better off, as it has always been in a warmer climate.   No one can argue one’s body is better off with a cancer.  There has never been a legitimate quantification of potential goods vs the potential evils of a warmer world ….. assuming the world will ever start warming. 

Essig, then, uses a bit of marginalizing rhetoric, a common tactic by the nutters.    “Anti-science climate-change denial”……. hardly.  I’m pro-science.  I wish the climate nutters would embrace some semblance of science.  And, no one argues that there aren’t changes in the climate.  Essig uses a similar tact when he writes this….

Compare that to Paul Ryan’s infamous comment dismissing with a wave of his hand the scientific consensus about human-caused global warming: “statistical tricks to distort their findings and intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” If you dismiss the data, then no action needs to be started.

This, of course, is a hilarious statement.  It’s nothing but pure projection.  Almost all of the debate in the climate discussion between skeptics and alarmists can be characterized as this…….  Skeptics embrace data, alarmists champion projections.  While this blog isn’t unique, nearly all of my criticisms toward alarmist pronouncements are based on the empirical data we have, or don’t have.  I show it nearly every day.  Snow, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, sea ice……  the criticisms are based on the data, not some hyperbolic ideologically driven computer game. 

The rest of Essig’s babbling is simply snide sneering at Repubs.  But, what can you expect from an ideologically based advocacy? 

It could be true though, pretty soon, the citizenry could come to view this discussion in a similar fashion.  We can continue with this lunatic advocacy, or see the advocates for what they are ……..  some useless boobs. 

h/t Junk Science