Comments on: Bill O'Reilly-watching climate-change-denier is moved to tears by polar melting documentary

By: Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle

Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 22:26:00 +0000

Egads people on these threads are cynical. Not that I blame them, but yeah- I thought it was awesome seeing her epiphany. SHe might be nuts and it might not last long but what-EVER. I’m not used to seeing ANYone admit that they were misguided or wrong- especially about something like this. What a cool little video.

By: Barry Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:33:00 +0000

I’m glad she had her epiphany, but I suspect it wont last long —

What is fascinating about this is how easily she swings from one view to another — she seemingly lacks any sense of independent thought process. With her emotional reactions driving her — first to Blowhard O’Reilly, then to a result of a movie — she does not seem to be a rational person capabile of making empirical judgments on her own.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:10:00 +0000

I’ve read through So many comments to find yours, the first one to really get at the heart of what I think the point of the post is. Show other climate-deniers this movie, and they may just start to come around.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:09:00 +0000

Perhaps she saw it so she could heap scorn on it

By: SumAnon

SumAnon — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:33:00 +0000

Saw it last night in NYC. Very persuasive, very moving.

By: 8tracker

8tracker — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:37:00 +0000

Forgive me if it’s been pointed out in the gazillion comments above.

Here’s what O’Reilly has actually said about global warming:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD39QY8ew3cIt doesn’t mean he’s a genius or even right, but he does seem be going along with most of the rest of you on this one.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:40:00 +0000

So... she still loves Bill O'Reilly and FOX "News"? I guess it'll still take a while for all the rest of the indoctrination to wear off, huh? You say you want something to do, lady? First of all, STOP supporting FOX "News" and Republicans along with the rest of us that'd like to see a more habitable Earth for future generations.

By: The Life Of Bryan

The Life Of Bryan — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:34:00 +0000

Usually when I make snide remarks like that I take care to say ‘westerners’ rather than ‘Americans’. But in this case, I think that us Yanks might just be in a class by ourselves.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:26:00 +0000

I suspect Europeans and Canadians are every bit as stupid as Americans but are the beneficiaries of a somewhat less toxic culture. So as with most jokes, I suspect there’s a great deal of truth in this one.

By: The Life Of Bryan

The Life Of Bryan — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Thanks!

I watched a YouTube video that convinced me that all Americans believe whatever moving pictures tell them to. I’ll see if I can find you the link.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:35:00 +0000

“This fucking thing sucks!”

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:35:00 +0000

What a great attitude.

By: allenmcbride

allenmcbride — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:32:00 +0000

Thank you. This is such a cynical comment thread. People seem to be forgetting how hard it is to change one’s deeply-held beliefs. If anything, I would expect that to be more true of an ardent O’Reilly fan, not less. So “she was genuinely persuaded by a superior argument” seems more parsimonious than “she’ll believe whatever she hears”. Then again, I haven’t seen Chasing Ice. Maybe it stinks. In which case I might join the cynics.

By: Stewart Furniss

Stewart Furniss — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:12:00 +0000

Yeah spot on, the problem is people in general don’t have the ability to watch, read or listen and understand persuasive influences to an argument in order for them to evaluate the argument. She didn’t even wait to get home to read any counter augments or to investigate any of the so called facts.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:38:00 +0000

I think you may have found a way to energy independence — bottle those farts, man!

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:34:00 +0000

It doesn’t and obviously isn’t intended to bolster the “man-made climate change” side of the argument. There are plenty of peer-reviewed scientific papers that do that. This is supposed to be reaffirming to those of us who’ve been trying to calmly argue the case on its merits that — just maybe — if we get the messaging right people who disbelieve in AGW for stupid reasons will come around.

But as others note, she’s probably not a terribly critical thinker and was likely brought around by emotional appeals rather than logical inference from empirical evidence. Then again, so few human beings reason that way that this shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

By: P_N

P_N — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:24:00 +0000

I agree ‘the woman seems nuts’. She does watch Bill regularly – that was the key for me. Think that’s a strong recomendation to watch the show. With Hanity it’s a requirment.

By: P_N

P_N — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:15:00 +0000

I think a comma would help quite a bit more…. Or changing the title entirely. Some F-d up O’Reilly fan cries after watching climate change movie — but that sounds too much like an Onion title.

By: Spocko

Spocko — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Atari!

By: Michael Crowl

Michael Crowl — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:42:00 +0000

”I said sparkly vampires, not sparkly icebergs!”

By: mortdieu

mortdieu — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Maybe she just couldn’t tell the difference between Kristen Stewart and a glacier? They’ve both got the same acting range.

By: Missy Pants

Missy Pants — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:36:00 +0000

I have actual nightmares about the viruses and germs buried up there…

By: Missy Pants

Missy Pants — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:35:00 +0000

I think thats what happening now. “I buy organic local produce and sweat-shop free clothes, I’ve earned the right to crank the AC!”

By: petertrepan

petertrepan — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Frankly I’m glad to see a counterexample to my suspicion that people are cynically denying climate change in order to avoid taking responsibility for consequences that will mostly happen after they die.

By: Uncle Geo

Uncle Geo — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:53:00 +0000

Sandra’s right -humans are frighteningly susceptible to believing things that are not true (we actually pay magicians to do this to us) and into doing evil things no sane human ever would. See the Milgram studies and the other psych research after WWII on authority that showed how regular German and Japanese people were pulled into doing such horrific things.

I’m going to cut this woman some slack. She’s been brainwashed by right wing bizarro-planet strategists and media shills for years and here’s she’s confronted with stark reality for a couple of hours and manages to break out of it. Good for her!Frankly that’s what a lot of us here on my planet have been hoping would happen. Hopefully it will cause her to question all the other predigested offal that comes down the wingnut propaganda pipe.

By: petertrepan

petertrepan — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:40:00 +0000

I’m encouraged by this, and I don’t think she’s crazy. I’m a free thinker in every aspect that I’m aware of, but I know there are aspects I’m not aware of in which I’m still prejudiced. I was lucky enough for the TV series Cosmos to show up at a formative part of my childhood, not only to pull away the veil from my conception of the universe, but to show me what a veil looks like and when I should be suspicious that one exists elsewhere.

It wasn’t because of any inherent virtue of mine that that happened. It was luck. It could just as well have happened at sixty, or not at all. This could be her Cosmos.

By: DreamboatSkanky

DreamboatSkanky — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Well, Secret Reagents. They lead a life danger.

By: Michael Polo

Michael Polo — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:10:00 +0000

Losing polar bears is sad, thawing the permafrost and all the methane in it is downright scary. Once it starts, I don’t think humans will be able to stop it. http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/frozenground/methane.html

By: Sandra Bernhard

Sandra Bernhard — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:59:00 +0000

People like bill O. become opinion leaders for their flocks of listeners.
I’ve witnessed myself succumb to it (not oreilley, but a local radio host) And I have a friend who only cared what my opinion on a political issue was — he didn’t want to read for hours what the issue was about. He just wanted my opinion and went with it.

So many people , no matter how intelligent you are, are suseptible to this. People through our cultural evolution just trust what others say. When someone screams ‘wolf’, its a survival strategy to believe them.
So when someone says climate changes is not occurring, people believe it without question.

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:40:00 +0000

Leveraging synergy!