Thought Dynamics

Dave Roberts, who usually posts at the Grist.org, wrote an intriguing piece on the position of moderation regarding global warming. In Roberts' opinion, moderation does not sit MOR, right square between believers and deniers, but shifted toward the believers, who nonetheless attack the populist alarmists. The reason that some pundits drum up such a middle position? They consider them separate from the left-leaning alarmists who consist largely of the rabble (i.e. the dirty hippies) leftover from the 60's, and thus can remain civil in their discourse by appealing to such "moderate" sensibilities.

To get back to the topic at hand: The last thing the global warming debate needs is for this kind of dynamic to develop. Really. If for no other reason than my head would explode.

This argument also works for the Iraq war (pro & anti & "hippie"). I find it unnerving that if we replace "global warming debate" with the "peak oil debate", we might enter another round of bifurcation in opinions. I honestly don't think this will happen though, because enough people think the peak oil alarmists have an inside track with the oil industry as much as vice versa. With the peak oil debate, most people don't know which side the "dirty hippies" belong to. The minute it looks as if the debate swings to a conservation-minded ethic, someone will claim that Big Oil essentially dreamed up the oil depletion issue as a pricing mechanism. I don't see a middle ground arising anytime soon, as it remains a no-man's zone of opinion, not attached to either side and no one to really appeal to.

From a comment on the same HuffPo blog posting, conspiracy journalist Wayne Madsen theorizes the NYC smell emanates from warming methane deposits off the east coast, essentially dragging along H2S as it rises from the ocean floor.

A lot of things have started to make circumstantial sense whether anyone came prove the logic or not.