And, well, yes, I used to be a libertarian too, until I figured out that that made me an asshole.
Reposting the video above in light of new interview in, of all places, Cracked.
For so long, you identified as Libertarian. What changed?
I completely have not used the word Libertarian in describing myself since I got an email during lockdown where a person from a Libertarian organization wrote to me and said, “We’re doing an anti-mask demonstration in Vegas, and obviously we’d like you to head it.” I looked at that email and I went, “The fact they sent me this email is something I need to be very ashamed of, and I need to change.” Now, you can make the argument that maybe you don’t need to mandate masks — you can make the argument that maybe that shouldn’t be the government’s job — but you cannot make the argument that you shouldn’t wear masks. It is the exact reciprocal of seatbelts because if I don’t wear a seatbelt, my chances of fucking myself up increase — if I don’t wear a mask, the chance of fucking someone else up increase.
Many times when I identified as Libertarian, people said to me, “It’s just rich white guys that don’t want to be told what to do,” and I had a zillion answers to that — and now that seems 100 percent accurate.
The arrogance of people who think think they know more than scientists working in their field always astounds me. And just what did Al Gore lie about?
He didn’t lie. He just unnecessarily exaggerated in some instances.
The following video is by Peter Hadfield, known as potholer54 on YouTube. He is a former science journalist and geologist who is good at tracking down sources to reveal the bogus claims of climate science deniers and other charlatans.
https://youtu.be/N2B34sO7HPM?si=9mO6dlADYY6Kiies
Back in the noughties I was sitting in the audience at James Randi’s “Amazing! Meeting” (skeptics convention) when someone asked Penn Jilette on stage about whether he accepted AGW climate change, and he said no, because he didn’t like Al Gore. The crowd was silent, and I believe others, like me, were waiting for him to finish his joke about blatant ad hominem reasoning when it occurred to me that he was serious. It was as if I could feel opinions of him plummet throughout the room.
I have attended more than a half-dozen public lectures by Lawrence M. Krauss. He is a great explainer.