Why do people deny evolution?

It seems that the least evolved among us are most inclined to deny the reality of biological evolution.

Climategate!

No warming over the last 2 decades but somehow 7 of the warmest years in the last 130 are in the last 10?

The inconvience of facts.

Please cite the source of your data. The changes cited are very small ant the origin at 2004 looks suspiciously convenient. Moreover you have badly mischaracterized the meaning of the data you presented. I think you should examine your data more carefully. Pay attention to the scale and the definition of the data, and the changes involved. Then think a little. That may be a chore but try it anyway,

The source is listed in the graphic.

The list is the 10 warmest years since 1880. The size of the scale really doesn't matter when 7 of the warmest years since 1880 are in the last 10.

By the way, perhaps you should think a little. How could there be so many warm years in the last 10 if there has been no warming in the last 20 years? It might be a chore for you but try it anyway.

This report on global changes might be more credible.

From pnas.org.

I remain skeptical, and I still do not believe that 97% of all "scientists" believe that Climate Change will lead to catastrophic conditions and events. Never-the-less it really doesn't matter what 97% or even 100% of them believe because they don't set national policy.

If the more alarmed "believers" are correct, to stave off the catastrophe will require a drastic reduction in the utilization of fossil fuels, and on a global scale, not simply in the fully developed countries. China, India, and Russia are not going to play ball and they are 1st 3rd and 4th in CO2 emissions. Germany is 6th but they have already spent billions in combating Climate change and don't have much to show for it. After spending $130 billion in an effort to convert the nation to solar power it now amounts to only 0.3% of total power consumption and electricity prices are higher than anywhere else in Europe. Bjorn Lomborg estimates that all of Germany's massive efforts and spending have delayed the effects of Climate Change by 37 hours.

The Australians are cutting their spending on Climate Change by 90% after conservative Tony Abbott won a lopsided victory promising to repeal Australia's carbon tax. Doesn't look like they're going to be much help.

In the UK, spending on Climate Change was cut by 41%, and under PM Stephen Harper, Climate Change spending has been significantly reduced as well.

Meanwhile, here in the US,where we are spending over $20 billion per year on Climate Change, Obama wants us to spend more.

Obviously the US cannot solve the problem (if one exists) alone, and since it appears that for the most part, we will be going it alone, one has to wonder what is the real purpose of spending all this money?

If it were being spent on adaptation, in might make sense, but only a sliver of the money spent goes in that direction, about 1%.

Around 25% is spent on research. That's billions of dollars to study what we are told is a settled fact. Climate Change is an industry unto itself and there is a lot of money to be made by "scientists" who can tell us what we already, supposedly, know. I bet a lot is being spent on reports that question the scope and intensity of the "problem."

About 8% is spent on "assisting" other countries in battling the dread monster and "leading the international effort to combat Climate Change."
Bribing developing nations to save themselves and flying armies of Administration officials to Climate Change symposiums around the world.

The majority of the money is spent on "Clean Energy Technology." You know like Solyndra, Ecotality, Beacon Power, Fisker, Abound Solar,and 31 other companies just like them.

On top of all this is Climate Change McCarthyism where anyone who has the temerity to question the "science" is branded apostate, luddite, oil company shill, and all-around moron. What's more, according to RFK Jr, the "deniers" should be jailed, and when he made that absurd comment, he was cheered rather than jeered by the adoring throng. Makes you feel warms and fuzzy about the state of discourse in the US, don't it?

Anyone that has any experience with government programs knows that a large share of any money spent is wasted. In this case we have waste within a program that itself may go down as the largest government waste of money in history. But there are two many hands extended to cut back now, too many campaign donors to "pay back," too much money to be earned by ex-Administration officials who go Al Gore.

But everyone knows Climate Change is the real deal and the biggest problem that civilization has ever faced. Just like we all know that Oil and Coal companies run the US (even though they don't seem to be doing too good a job of it since they can't put a stop to the Climate Change Express), and that Republicans hate the planet. I guess there's only one answer: Spend more money.

The only significant question is whether or not climate change is anthropogenic--are we causing it. Although many people take it as a matter of course that we do cause cilmate change through the production of CO2, that is not scientifically established. That the climate is changing is not to be doubted. The glaciers of Greenland are shrinking, for a variety of reasons. The arctic ice pack is also shrinking, and once again, for a variety of reasons. It has been discovered recently that the glacier by which the West Antarctic ice sheet is attached to the mainland is retreating--if the same thing happens with the Ross Sea ice sheet, the effects will be catastrophic. Of course, that will take 50 to 100 years to take effect, and there's plenty of profit to be made by the greedy in the interim.

That climate change takes place on a regular basis is not to be doubted. After the last ice age, the climate grew so warm that many scientists who study the evidence of ancient climatology believe that in the period from 10,000 to a little more than 8000 ybp, the Arctic Ocena may have been ice free in summer--some even think that at times it was ice free year round. Then the 8.2 kiloyear event took place, a rapid and dramatic cooling period. The general trend of the Holocene has been a warming of the climate, although there have been significant events, such as 5.9 kiloyear event and the 4.2 kiloyear event (taking place respectively in about 3,900 BCE and 2,w00 BCE) which has profound impacts on human history. Both are thought to have been the result of cooling events. The 5.9 kiloyear event, which probably created the Sahara Desert, is though to have been sparked by the dramatic reduction of methane in the atmosphere caused by the spread and efflorescence of vegetation in the roughly 10,000 years since the retreat of the glaciers in the previous ice age.

But overall, in the Holocene, the trend has been toward climate warming. We have a lot of evidence for that, too, in the historical period. When the Romans occupied Britain, they brought their vinifera grapes with them, and large quatities of wine were regularly produced in an area which cannot now support a large wind industry. Because of the effect of climate, North Africa was the granary of the Roman empire, as the extent of the Sahara Desert shrunk.

Coat lines were different, too, and that is the biggest threat of climate change, and the first large scale effect that is likely to be seen. The mean elevation above sea level of Miami is six feet. At any such time as the West Antarctic ice sheet detaches from Antarctica, the initial sea level rise will be two to three meters. Miami can bend over and kiss its sorry ass goodbye. A sea level rise of three meters would wipe out most of Bangladesh. Many heavily populated areas of world, including financially and industrially important areas, would be flooded, too--and that is without adding the effects of the retreat of the Greenland glaciers, and the shrinking of the Arctic ice pack.

Whether nor not human produced CO2 is creating these cirucumstances is not the point though. If your house is on fire, you attempt to extinguish the flames rather than standing around arguing about how it started. The objections to doing any thing come from capitalists. More than anything else, i am amazed and appalled by the notion that nothing should be done which might interfere with the private greed of capitalists, as though their lust for money were ordained and sanctioned by god. Hey, screw the billion or more people who live at low elevations near seas and oceans--there's money to be made!

Those are numbers from 2006 or earlier. It's now 8 years later and the current photo voltaic production is over 5% of Germany's electrical usage.

German energy prices have dropped 32% in the last 4 years amid record solar and wind production.

I think a critical issue which you have failed to address is just which of the many greedy capitalists out there sure guilty of excess or inappropriate greed. (Greed in some form is an element of all human motivation, whether for labor, consulting services, or entreprenurial capital development (or even secure and highly remunerative positions of bureaucratic power in government service).

Is the greed of the capitalists operating gas turbine, coal or nuclear power plants to provide steady, reliable, low cost electrical power to consumers any less beneficial than that of others who collect enormous government subsidies and guaranteed government enforced monopolistic markets for much more expensive (x 3) solar or wind power? Were the politically well-connected capitalists of Solyndra who wasted a billion dollars of government subsidies in an ill conceived and foolishly executed scheme to corner a highly competitive international market for the manufacture of low efficiency photo voltaic solar
collectors guilty of excessive greed?

I fully agree with you that the earth's climate has been changing steadily (and unpredictably) throughout its geological history. There is nothing at all new in that. We do need to adapt to that slowly evolving reality as we have adapted to other threats and hazards in our physical environment. History teaches us that such adaptation has occurred naturally over time as human ingenuity operates spontaneously on scales large and small to adjust to changing conditions and new opportunities and expectations. I am however surprised at the amazing credulity of those who, despite all the lessons of human history in this area, imagine that a self-appointed elite can direct all of our activities in meeting this aspect of current challenges with a degree of disinterest, virtue and wisdom never before found in the annals of human history.

The self-appointed elite are the ones who are in charge right now--the capitalists and their lick-spittle political hacks. I don't call for a band of saints and angels. I'm just pointing out that we can't expect anything useful from the greedy who are howling the loudest about this issue and trying to claim that it's phony. They've already demonstrated clearly whose interests they have in mind.

The ongoing government mandated shutdown of the U.S. coal industry is pretty good evidence that the elites you imagine are running the show here now are not really in charge. Your view may well be true in Canada, where the views of energy developers in Alberta appear to dominate. We are going to the other extreme.

Who then will be the sources of something useful? Will it be Al Gore and his associates who are skillfully exploiting the public treasury and laws giving them monopolistic access to subsidized markets while raking in far greater profits than the greedy capitalists currently providing our energy needs? I think not.

I believe that capitalistic greed and the use of "lick spittle hacks" are found every where in human economic activity and technological development. The issue at hand is not virtue as you appear to define it, but efficiency and practicality in execution. It is patently obvious that we can't meet human energy needs with wind turbines and low efficiency photovoltaic collection cells without displacing huge amounts of economic activity also essential for human survival. Better and more efficient methods must be found.

Unfortunately the self appointed elite that would direct our affairs in this area with almost unbridled authoritarianism, favor only mandated use of these technologies; a prohibition of emission free nuclear power, and mandated restrictions on other conventional sources of energy. That is no solution at all and it would merely move the human aspects of the problem to other areas with increased poverty and decreased political and economic freedom. I believe the latter two elements are the keys to the innovations we will need to find a real, lasting solutions - just as we have found solutions to other challenges in our physical environments before.

I haven't defined virtue. You'd be lost without straw men. I also haven't called for any particular action. I do believe that it is a good idea not to pollute the air, no matter who might profit. I do believe that it is a good idea not to pollute the water, no matter who might profit. I believe it is a good idea to prevent people from selling toxic, or useless or dangerous products, no matter who might profit. That a capitalist elite have been in charge in western society for centuries should surprise no one who pays attention. Given that no one else has been in charge, it's a bit much to suggest that no good things could have come to us without that capitalist greed.

There is no reason to do away with capitalism, in my view. If we could restore regulation, to protect from excesses. Whether climate change is inevitable with or without man made pollution, there is no good reason to allow unrestrained piling on, which would add to the problem.

I've never called for an end to capitalism. I am opposed to the idea of "unfettered capitalism." The crocodile tears of capitalist whining always attempt to suggest that they can only operate in an unregulated environment. That's horsie poop. It's like that nonsense about high taxes hurting investment. Capitalist will invest, even if they can't make the same return as they would in an unregulated environment, because they want to make some return. I consider that the "i'll take my marbles and go home" argument against regulation and taxation.

That's pretty much what I am thinking. I don't disagree with what you wrote in any of your posts. As I see, it, the little people are units of consumption, in their view, to be manipulated at will. With no regulation, they don't care about things like collateral damage. It's up to us to protect ourselves by pushing back.

I take it you would like to see someone "in charge" of all this so that we wouldn't "pollute the air"; "Pollute the water" or "sell toxic, useless or dangerous products".

The problem of course is that important tradeoffs are involved in each area. Folks have avoided freezing in the dark by polluting the air with fires throughout human history. Poisons and toxicity are more in the dose than in the substance - no arsenic or selenium in your body and you die: too much and you also die. Easy stuff to say, but very hard to really act on. There are huge unstated benefits involved in most of the issues you list, and the tradeoffs are always fairly intractable to deal with. Edgar's "little guys" often benefit a great deal from the things he would like to ban, though he doesn't acknowledge that,

I am very surprised to see that someone with your evident deep knowledge and understanding of human history would advocate "putting someone in charge" or giving anyone so much power over others.

giving anyone so much power over others

That describes the current state of capitalism to a T.