His point is that the two biggest threats to human survival: Climate change and nuclear war, are being rapidly accelerated by the party in control of the most powerful country in the world.
For those you who do not live in the United States, you man not be aware but the conservative republican party is completely insane. They are the only government in the world to actively deny the existence of climate change because they take massive amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry and Trump’s number 2 man at the state department is actively pushing for “regime change” in Iran. Trump is now doubling down on coal and dismantling the EPA: he recently tried to vet the energy department of scientists whobelieve in alternative energy and has openly advocated for torture “even if it doesn’t work”.
“About 90 percent of CFCs currently in the atmosphere were emitted by industrialized countries in the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States and Europe. These countries banned CFCs by 1996, and the amount of chlorine in the atmosphere is falling now. But scientists estimate it will take another 50 years for chlorine levels to return to their natural levels.”
Ozone Depletion Information, Ozone Depletion Facts, Ozone Layer, Ozone Hole - National Geographic: Ozone layer facts and information via @NatGeo
Although the above article is not about “climate” change but about ozone depletion, the cause of the trouble can be described in the same way. According to a small dictionary at hand, climate change can be “attributed to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels”. If we did not heed the warnings of the climate scientists, we could irreversibly damage our environment that supports our existence on this planet. Anyone with a modicum of common sense does not think that climate change is a Chinese hoax. Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the United(or Divided) State could be serious threats to human beings.
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”(Donald Trump)
I just popped on these forums to try to find a language partner but feel compelled to reply. Noam Chomsky is a linguist, who sees no use in polyglottery and language learning as a means to an end, turned political activist. He has no economic training outside of his affinity for Marx, and even less knowledge of military strategy, international relations, or war history. The only reason why he matters is because he says things other people like to hear. He is also saying everything from a highly biased stand point, so people should take anything he says with a grain of salt. In this time of immense divisiveness, a call for rationality and a call to hold the president-elect accountable (but in a fair way) is truly the best the US can hope for. “I don’t think people understand the threat of climate change.” is not really an embracement of rationality.
What I mean to say: I don’t believe the potential severity or urgency of the changing climate is understated at all. We have permanently surpassed 400ppm atmospheric CO2, Greenland is already melting and Antarctica is starting to show signs. If anyone is in the new jersey area please come down to my university where we have some of the most comprehensive climate research in the country. I should not have used the word “people”. I should have said climate change deniers or down players. I think the outrage over the trump administrations ignorance of science is well merited.
Thanks for replying. I appreciate all input and critique from all sides. “He is also saying everything from a highly biased stand point, so people should take anything he says with a grain of salt.” There is some truth to this in that one can (mistakenly) get the impression from his writings that the leaders of the world are a bunch of maniacal men in a bat cave twirling their mustaches and cackling for war. I agree that he doesn’t fully take into account intent as it is more complicated than this, but he does a good job of pointing out much of what factor’s into policy decision making provided you use critical thinking and don’t take everything he (or anyone) says as gospel.
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"Next, we get to the most fundamental mischaracterization of Chomsky’s ideas, specifically the definition of ‘universal grammar’:
‘Even beyond these empirical challenges to universal grammar, psycholinguists who work with children have difficulty conceiving theoretically of a process in which children start with the same algebraic grammatical rules for all languages and then proceed to figure out how a particular language—whether English or Swahili—connects with that rule scheme. Linguists call this conundrum the linking problem, and a rare systematic attempt to solve it in the context of universal grammar was made by Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker for sentence subjects. Pinker’s account, however, turned out not to agree with data from child development studies or to be applicable to grammatical categories other than subjects. And so the linking problem—which should be the central problem in applying universal grammar to language learning—has never been solved or even seriously confronted.’
This argument is premised on a fundamental misunderstanding and mischaracterization of Chomsky’s theory of language. In particular, the authors construct a strawman ‘universal grammar’ which bears very little relation to the ‘universal grammar’ described in Aspects. Here is how Chomsky introduces universal grammar in Aspects:
‘Within traditional linguistic theory, furthermore, it was clearly understood that one of the qualities that all languages have in common is their ‘creative’ aspect. […] The grammar of a particular language, then is to be supplemented by a universal grammar that accommodates the creative aspect of language use and expresses the deep-seated regularities which, being universal, are omitted from the grammar itself. […] It is only when supplemented by a universal grammar that the grammar of a language provides a full account of the speaker-hearer’s competence.’ "
“Basically, ‘universal grammar’ is a description of high-level rules which apply to all human languages. These might include facts about categories (e.g. ‘verb’ and ‘noun’ are hardwired categories), or facts about transformations. Thus ‘universal grammar’ is best understood as a subset of the information needed to define a human language, most obviously lacking a lexicon, but also lacking many of the necessary rules which vary from language to language (e.g. SVO or SOV sentence structure).
Instead, the authors[Michael Tomasello and Paul Ibbotson] consistently write as if a “universal grammar” was a grammar in the traditional sense, describing a particular written or spoken language.” http://blevinstein.com/2016/09/10/evidence-rebuts-chomskys-theory-of-language-learning.html
In Noam Chomsky’s articles no one fact or source of information for any of his statements is provided, so any of its claims sound pure speculations. He says all those things out of his deep frustration with the Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Plus, he sounds not bothered at all by the fact Hillary turned out blatantly irresponsible and corrupted. From the experience of many nations we can conclude that democracy is not a granted right, it is a privelege and that only those nations have got this privelege who don’t neglect some fundamental values. The American people deserve democracy because most of them are adamant against corruption.
“So we may be watching the EPA go the way of the dinosaurs with Trump appointing a climate change denier to run his EPA transition team. His energy adviser is an oil executive, and you know where all those regulations – the ones that are keeping the fossil fuel industry in check – are going to go.”
The above excerpt is from the article written by Hrafnkell Haraldsson. He, not Noam Chomsky, wrote the news article entitled “Noam Chomsky Says GOP is the ‘Most Dangerous Organization in World History’” You began your comment with “In Noam Chomsky’s article”, but it is not his article. Your comment is, therefore, irrelevant and your description of Noam Chomsky’s inner feelings is, if I use your expression, “pure speculation.”
Trump will reportedly picks a prominet climate skeptic as EPA chief. I think that “climate change deniers” are irresponsibly partizan, or rather, corrupt. If you happen to be interested in climate change, you can consult a lot of books or papers written by climate scientists.
But I referred no to the David Malakoff’s article, Youtaka. I referred to the Noam Chomsky’s claims he made in his articles and interviews.
If Trump picks a prominet climate skeptics as EPA chief, it doesn’t mean that “The U.S. Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in world history.” It’s an undisguised attempt of manipulation.
Just reread Noam Chomsky words:
“The facts,” he says, “suggest otherwise. The party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to [the] destruction of organized human life. There is no historical precedent for such a stand.” He asks people to “consider what we have just been witnessing.”
My questions are: What are those facts? What are those withessing?
“Think about it: awful as Hitler and the Nazi Party were, the German leader did not have the power to destroy all human life even had he wished. Nuclear weapons aside, the Donald Trump and the GOP do. Because, as Chomsky says, the second important event to take place on November 8 was a WMO report that stated that the last five years have been the hottest on record (we have since seen 2016 is on track to be the new hottest year).”
What a logic! Hitler and the Nazi Party did not destroy all human life, but Donald Trump and the GOP do! And this is, attention! → just because, a WMO report stated that the last five years have been the hottest on record!
I would be greatful to you, Yutaka, if you explain why being a climate change scheptic (who hasn’t done anything bad in this regard yet) means to be worse than Hitler and Nazi Party. And how that WMO report can be an evidence that Donald Trump and The GOP are going to destroy all human life.
“In an interview with EcoWatch, Noam Chomsky noted that ‘On Nov. 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total control of the government—executive, Congress, the Supreme Court—in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history.’”
It goes without saying that this excerpt is not from Norm Chomsky’s article. Hrafnkell Haraldsson wrote this.
You wrote:“I referred to the Noam Chomsky’s claims he made in his articles and interviews.” Where have you found Noam Chomsky’s “claims”?
Ask your teacher. Or, consult your writing manual.
You wrote:
“In Noam Chomsky’s articles no one fact or source of information for any of his statements is provided, so any of its claims sound pure speculations and highly partizan.”
I wondered which articles you were referring to.