My hope is that the people most responsible for spreading doubt (e.g. fossil fuel lobbyists) live long enough to see the consequences, but this is unlikely. The most likely scenario is that the brunt of this problem will be borne by future generations, assuming we don't get really unlucky and trigger an extinction event. :-(
God damn, what a fucked world we live in. I wish I had the comfort of disbelief these people have.
The older American worldview of science is nostalgic for an era of unprecedented modeling accuracy that gave a compact summary of how the near-atomic world worked, consequently fueling a backlash against the rise of disciplines that intend to study far more complex systems albeit with the inability to perform experiments in the fashion of the basic sciences.
Nutrition, psychology, economics, and climate research all tout the banner of at least using some parts of the scientific method, which to those Americans who have been spoiled by the awesome forecasting of more reductive studies, are left to question the legitimacy of fields that fundamentally cannot perform experiments with the same exacting repeatability and direct hypothesis testability that was so blazing branded into the public zeitgeist for what American STEM should be capable of accomplishing.
In addition, given that at least the first three of those disciples mentioned above are notoriously abused in the US by governments and corporations as retroactive justifications for legal, social, and economic policies by paying for expert testimony and directly funding questionable studies on condition of flattering results, it is extremely hard for the American public to trust any hard-to-swallow policy-advocating scientific communities without (ir)rational skepticism.
Americans dealing with science are like romantically-oblivious nerds dealing with a heart-wrenching series of rejections and betrayals. If as a scientist you want to court these delicate creatures, please proceed with gentle and loving care building trust and helping them heal from the toxic relationships that soured their faith in domain experts. Denigrading them that they should just get over the past already and put their faith in the absolute consensus of the world is truly not helpful.
It's not that people are acting stupid and should know better, a lot of people are just incapable of understanding the implications of a complex situation like this.
Slashing energy usage means slashing many of the benefits of living in a post-industrial society. Think living in one-room houses (no cheap heating), eating bread and potatoes in winter (no imported food), working locally with little career progression (no easy commuting) and many people returning to manual labour (no cheap machinery). All this to prevent 60cm-1m of sea level rise by 2100 - something we can manage, if we maintain the civilisation we have worked so hard to build.
If we took the very dramatic changes of switching all energy to nuclear, changed to a mostly vegetarian diet, and replaced as much of transportation usage as possible with electric we would end up with an 80% or greater reduction in emissions and still enjoy plenty of the benefits of a post-industrial society.
A combination of insulation, thoughtful design (south-facing glass, adjustable awnings, solar water heating, heat pumps vs. resistive electrical heat, etc.) and renewably sourced electricity go a long ways towards the heating issue. I live in a cold-ish city in a 2 bed apt with only electric storage heaters (which are awful) and pay for supposedly 100% renewable (wind/solar/geothermal) energy and my bill peaks at €65 a month in the winter.
Commuting:
There are also thousands of businesses within a 30 minute walk from my home. Not turning cities into parking lots and skidpads with a building dropped here and there helps. If I cycle, the number of businesses in that range increases by about a factor of 9. (I cycle around 3 times as fast as I walk, so can cover a distance roughly three times as far, or area ~9 times as great). If I don't like pedaling, an e-bike or 50-150cc scooter/motorcycle will get me even farther.
Food:
I'm not well informed enough on this to comment. Where I live already has pretty bland food with loads of bread and potatoes. Good burritos, though. I'd miss that. We'd probably eat a lot less meat. I could do with a better supply of soyrizo, anyway.
Effects:
Sea level rise is far from the only concern. Stronger storms, drought, the displacement of peoples and an ensuing refugee crisis as their crops fail and water supplies dwindle, ocean acidification, and changing weather systems from the loss of the Arctic ice cap (and possibly a chunk of Greenland) are just a few of them. Also, I suppose this makes me impossibly impractical but hey, the loss of polar bears would make me sad. Maintaining the civilisation we built at the cost of the natural world we inherited isn't fantastic; watching the forests of my home (California) be completely devastated by drought, heat, and beetles is a bummer, to put it mildly.
As for the effects of climate change, they look intimidating as a whole - when you look at each item individually, they are unpleasant but manageable. Humans have been dealing with the weather for millennia, after all.
> Stronger storms, drought
These happen routinely now. Yes, it would be preferable to have less storms and drought, but we know how to handle them.
> the displacement of peoples
In the last decade the Chinese have built scores of new cities across the third world - it's not that hard for people to move.
> an ensuing refugee crisis as their crops fail and water supplies dwindle
We grow crops in many different climates now. Crop failures happen now in poor countries with bad infrastructure and management. Societies with sufficient capital and technology can adapt to almost any climate. (In extreme climates, with desalination plants and hydroponics - or people could just move).
> Maintaining the civilisation we built at the cost of the natural world we inherited isn't fantastic
This is really the crux of the issue - should the standard of value be maximising human flourishing, or minimising human impact?
Your argument is equivalent to saying, in the 60s, "These guys believe the future is in toy computers that fit under your desk. If they succeed, the majority of people will have to turn to abacuses to do their taxes."
Your summary of my argument is completely off-the-mark.
The solution to climate change is not simple. Yes, emit less CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. But the amount of things you can supposedly do to achieve that are numerous and the effects are maybe not even visible in your lifetime.
The cult leaders have spent their whole lives debating with people and poring over the wording of documents, they then see another group of people threatening to drive the narrative in society in future and react by adopting the debating style of this group and by trying to detect linguistic errors in scientific documents. They miss the point that their skillset just isn't applicable to the problem.
The cult followers were in a clientelist relationship with the leaders before, they have received cargo in the past and would like to continue to receive it in the future so are happy to go along with the cult.
To be fair it's not disbelief in climate change, it's a healthy skepticism of man made climate change.
Let's be honest about why conservatives have this "healthy skepticism": because the fossil-fuel industry has successfully linked belief in anthropogenic global warming with liberalism. It's a correct association to some degree in that part of the solution would mean more regulation of business, but the value of such an association is that it becomes an us-versus-them situation. You don't have to understand it to disagree with it. And to be quite frank, that's the case - the majority of people who hold a disbelief in climate change are ignorant of the basic premise. In fairness, the majority of people who hold a belief in climate change are also ignorant of the basic premise. This is because, as mentioned above, it's no longer a scientific issue in the mainstream view, it's a political one.
Anecdotally, every "skeptic" I've ever met has used arguments to justify their disbelief such as:
- "scientists are not always right"
- "the climate changes all the time"
- "the Earth is so big, how could we have any effect"
- "if global warming is happening then how come it's so cold"
- "CO2 rises and falls regularly"
I will treat an informed dissent respectfully, but let's not shit ourselves about how many opinions meet that bar.
- The climate isn't changing in any meaningful way
- The climate is changing, but not because of people
- Sure the climate is changing because of people's actions, but changing our ways is too expensive, we'll just have to adapt
- Of course everyone always believed we should have done something about climate change, but liberals stood in the way of the solutions we suggested (something invented about public vs private solutions)
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
If it's sarcasm, you probably consider my thinking sloppy and I'd like to know why.
If it's just a joke, then hah hah and forget I replied.
Text can be such an ambiguous medium!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
> It's ludicrous to think that I could hold a "healthy skepticism" on the efficacy of heart transplants when I don't know the first thing about human anatomy, biology or medicine, but this is exactly what is happening with an equally complex scientific issue.
I also find it interesting you speak of the complex nature of the study of climate change yet make the blanket statement that anyone who disagrees is an ignorant person. I would be correct in assuming you are a scientist that has studied climate change?
> I will treat an informed dissent respectfully
And therein lies the problem. You assume every person who 1) disagrees with any part of climate change and 2) holds politically conservative views are too ignorant to form their own opinions based on their own self study. You assume they are a bunch of low IQ ignorant hicks that can't think for themselves and must rely on big evil corporations to feed them their climate change arguments.
Yes, that's very respectful :)
What I was trying to say in the previous message is that the majority of people, conservative or liberal, are ignorant of the basic premise. Liberals happen to be largely ignorant of the issue in a way that leads them to vote the way I like, but they hold the same majority ignorance. We aren't having liberal versus conservative fights over the efficacy of various surgical procedures, airplane designs or pharmaceutical drugs because most people are ignorant of these things (myself included) - again, because these are scientific issues and should not be political. Climate change has been politicized, the majority of people hold a strong opinion in spite of being ignorant of the basic premise. Individuals, regardless of political leaning, may do enough research on their own to develop an informed opinion, but the majority (from both sides) do not.
You having done your own research that leads you to the conclusion that AGW is not happening doesn't make you ignorant. I disagree with you, but I am not insulting you. So hopefully I made my point clearer: I am not making the blanket statement that anyone who disagrees is an ignorant, low IQ hick. I _am_ making the claim that, much like the economy, a complex issue which most people don't really understand has been boiled down to simple, tribal arguments by both sides with the unfortunate consequence of stalling urgent, badly needed action.
My point is, from the viewpoint of conservatives, most liberals think conservatives are dumb hicks who don't know anything and are just brainwashed by big oil and the GOP. This viewpoint is perpetuated by statements similar to those you, with no malintent, made. You lament about the politicization of climate change yet you yourself initially related conservatives to those who use ignorant excuses to ignore or reject climate change. For the most part, when someone disagrees with climate change, they are instantly labelled as an ignorant science denier who has done no research on their own. That's not a good way to have a fruitful conversation with someone and it will never help solve any problems related to climate change.
Your point that conservatives can't dissent without being piled on is valid, and it's one of the reasons I apologized and tried to frame my point more tactfully (the other being that I felt bad for being nasty). The inability to have tactful conversations where we really listen to the viewpoints of one another troubles me deeply (I regret contributing), and is no doubt a major contributor to the intense polarization we are currently experiencing.
We are all, myself included, prone to uncritically accepting peer views and refusing to accept facts which contradict our narrative. Science, though imperfect, attempts to temper our irrationality with reproducible results and critical, fact-based consensus. The fossil fuel industry is responsible for dragging the issue of climate change from science into politics. I'm not saying they brainwashed a bunch of idiot rubes, but they did successfully muddy the water on a complex issue and connect it to identity. This is why I reacted so strongly to the phrase "healthy skepticism"; thoughtful individuals may be displaying this, but broadly I see it as the fossil fuel industry having exploited the instinct to draw more closely into one's tribe to guard against outsiders.
And that seems to be part of the problem: You just made a statement that is quickly proven false[0], which leads to further skepticism from these people.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
I count eight people who seem to have worked in (broadly) related fields:
Timothy Ball, historical climatologist, and retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg
William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology
Anthony Lupo, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri
Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and professor of geology at Carleton University in Canada.
Murry Salby, atmospheric scientist, former professor at Macquarie University and University of Colorado
Nir Shaviv, professor of physics focusing on astrophysics and climate science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Roy Spencer, meteorologist; principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville
George H. Taylor, retired director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University
This is the equivalent of saying "Zoologist X Somebody in University of North Carolina said there's no link between smoking and lung cancer!", and keeping smoking while having a lung cancer while ignoring mountains of research, except that it's not your own lung this time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
What's more, the vast majority of their statements doubting an aspect of climate change are not even part the peer reviewed scientific literature. They are simply opinion statements. And they only found a couple dozen people to put on the list? Not a very strong showing..
All of this is found in the linked Wikipedia article itself.
I guess you don't know that in the 70's it wasn't global warming that was a serious issue but global cooling? Funny how that works.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU
In short, during the 70s, there were some papers on global cooling. But even then, there was still 6 times more papers on global warming. Science overall has been looking in the correct direction for a long time now. The narrative isn't changing.
As a variant of that, I'm suggesting only what I've heard from (and grew up with) midwest American Christians, not least of which is language from the Vice President elect, and many other Republican elected officials: that god created the earth for man to use and consume however he wanted, and therefore there's no good reason to believe that humans can even screw up the planet, because that'd sortof be a bait and switch and god wouldn't do that to us. That man has superiority over all the plants and animals (as it says in the bible) means we can do with them as we will, there are no negatives to completely obliterating entire species, there's no meaningful consequence to that, man doesn't have the power to alter the earth in such a negative way that humanity becomes incompatible with the earth.
I think it's dangerous nonsense. However, I know people believe in this. Around 10 years ago the local paper asked readers if hell was real, and sinners go there to burn for eternity, and the majority of readers said yes. And so on.
So, you know, insane but also socially acceptable mythology. But these are also the same people who say they're sick of political correctness, but get all pissy when their dangerous beliefs are questioned. shrug
Many US citizens are furious about the situation. Unfortunately, appealing to the lowest common denominator has become the modus operandi for campaigns here. I suppose the answer is to raise the lower common denominator through education over generations. Given the fight against education reform I don't see it happening anytime soon.
That's not to say that the arctic isn't warming (it is), or that the arctic sea ice isn't melting (it is). I would be more receptive to the data if it were brought to me with all of the considerable uncertainties exposed. I remember the days when scientists had a hard time saying anything definite in the media without a lot of caveats.
I doubt these are specifically American traits. The politicization of both sides of the argument and the us vs. them mentality that pervades all dialogue any more that doesn't allow for non-extreme positions is probably the real problem.
The gold standard of climate science is probably the IPCC AR5 report and if anything it is underestimating climate impacts like the shrinking northern summertime polar ice cap.
The data is also all out there, with all the uncertainties you like, but its not going to be "brought to you", you're going to have to do a bit of work to read the original sources. IPCC AR5 is out there for you to read any time you'd actually like to get educated.
I was just trying to figure out why climate skepticism seems to be a predominantly American thing, though. American media and the great political divide seem to be good candidates. I'm not sure whether "over-alarmism" is an American media-only trait or not, though. It might also have something to do with a historical importance placed in American culture on rugged individualism and an acceptance of alternative viewpoints, but that seems to be fading as the years progress, from what I've seen.
That shouldn't really be any solace at all, though.
I'm not for a moment excusing US behavior but it's clear that all large economies are going to have problems changing their consumption patterns, often for reasons that are unique to each economy in question.
[1] https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/8780-Ch...
http://www.publicfinanceinternational.org/news/2016/03/china...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/08/11/china-to-sp...
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/11/china-s...
China's growth has forced them to acknowledge that their industrial expansion is not sustainable. The US leadership, meanwhile, has not had the necessary wake-up call.
China's authoritarian system of government means they can be much more quick and heavy-handed about changing direction without as much fear of making unpopular decisions, and they're already doing that. The US is hampered by the fact that its politicians are beholden to constituencies and lobbyists.
China seems to see green energy as being a business opportunity — these days, almost everyone except those with vested interest in the status quo do — and is making enormous investments. This, unfortunately, is probably the key to solving global warming: Make solving it financially desirable, and people, governments and companies will be incentivized by greed alone.
It's not exactly a novel approach, but we seem to have finally reached a tipping point where "green" no longer has the stigma of feeble, touchy-feely liberal environmentalism, which makes all the difference.
care to elaborate?
Time matters...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_t...
The skepticism most commonly found in the US, based on my anecdotal evidence, is not toward whether AGW is happening, but rather why anyone ought to care. Some even consider it a good thing.
I'll take the "glass half full" view on this, but certainly 50% leaves plenty of room for improvement.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/f...
If you show evidence contrary to the "consensus", you get labeled as a practitioner of "voodoo science" by the IPCC, such as when Indian researchers reported that the IPCC study on Himalayan glaciers disappearing. Oops turns out the Indians were right after all.
Examining claims made by climate scientists is no different than examining claims made by physicists or chemists. I have seen examples of the "models" being manipulated or wildly inaccurate in climate science. There's a large monetary incentive to produce climate science research, and a large amount of the process (IPCC) is controlled by politicians and their appointees.
It's ripe for abuse and we need to stay vigilant, because every solution that's come out of these groups has been cap-and-trade and carbon taxes, both of which are total garbage solutions that just result in govt. taking more of our money. If we were really serious, we'd be funding the crap out of fusion power research. Fusion is the only way imo, the current renewable energy approach is too slow to advance, too inefficient, and too resource intensive. If we could get that working, we could power the planet on a bathtub of water and we wouldn't have to waste time and massive resources blanketing the planet in solar panels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz45fETw078&feature=youtu.be - John Christy Climate Change Denial Testimony Highlights May 13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=potLQR7-_Tg&feature=youtu.be - Climate Science Debate : Global Warming Alarmist VS. Global Warming Skeptic
Personally I believe that it is a good thing to be critical about everything thats written in the mainstream media. A lot of nonsense is being written and copied by everybody without any critical thinking. It's also happening when it comes to climate change. I'm not denying it, but I do think that there is a lot about its implications that we don't understand very well yet.
Are you critical about how to conduct effective medical trials in your everyday life? Are you critical about the best catalogue hierarchy for books in a public library? Are you critical of the driving techniques of truckers under snow conditions?
You can critique anything in life and there's a hell of a lot of things that are important for which we recognize that we have little knowledge in the domain and that our criticism is mere curiousity but has no relevance whatsoever.
For some reason only a narrow band of Americans think that their knowledge or their credentials on the subject allows them to challenge the topic critically or consider that the the scientific consensus on the matter is wrong.
It's a bullshit argument from bullshit skeptics. Critical thinking comes from having a minimum baseline knowledge of the subject. I have yet to meet a skeptic who does.
The actual, real skeptics are the peers of climate scientists who have domain knowledge and can ask about the modeling techniques in papers, what equations were utilized, what assumptions are taken and so on. Without that it's the same level of intellectual drudgery as anti-vaxxers.
After trying to grok the mammoth amounts of data, I realized that it would take me forever just to come up to speed. I decided to focus on the arguments. What I found was that the climate scientists could answer every objection, and I could trace back to the data itself and validate what they were saying. The "skeptics" would either: repeat their claim without acknowledging the rebuttal, or would switch to arguing something else completely, or would not reply at all only to go somewhere else and repeat their rebutted claim(s) without modification. Being something of a skeptic myself (in an evidence-based way), I recognize this pattern of behavior. It's not skepticism; it's denial. It's a marketing campaign.
When you have a true skeptic of climate change look into it, you end up with the Koch-funded Richard Muller deciding that, yeah, it's real science done well and that climate change is real.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann#CRU_email_cont...
Now to what you are saying. First of all, being critical of what the media writes about some scientific subject, is not the same as being critical of the scientist that did the research. Many times research is wrongly quoted or taken out of context.
Secondly, sometimes some research seems to contradict with other. For instance, as I mentioned already in another reply (and got already downvoted to -4 by now), while research clearly shows that the Arctic ice is melting, the Antarctic ice is growing. I find those seemingly contradicting facts interesting, they show that we apparently do not understand everything about the subjec t yet.
Science makes progress from new facts and experiments that can't be explained by the current theory. If people would refuse to see those facts, progress would never be made.
When you see an apparent contradiction like this, why do you stop there? Do you really think climatologists haven't considered this? Here's one theory: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425716...
> As such, the behavior of Antarctic sea ice is not a paradox as some have suggested, but instead is consistent with the geophysical characteristics in the southern polar region that starkly contrast to those in the Arctic.
Of course we don't understand everything, we don't understand everything about any subject. When you see contradictory headlines, dig deeper. Don't stop and think "I knew it, these people don't know what they're doing".
No, it shows that you haven't been reading the minimum baseline material.
Antartic ice surface is spreading but the volume is decreasing dramatically. The surface spread is due to lower atmospheric temperatures given the transfer of energy from the atmosphere to the ice, leading to the melt in ice shelves that used to be stable.
There is no point of contention there and if you had actually done the research this should have come up easily.
Short summary: the study partly conflicts other results, and the mass loss seen in that study may be more due to the limitations of their measurement technique (radar altimetry) versus other techniques (gravity).
There's more at the link referenced above. (See also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...)
Claimer: while not involved in ice mass quantification, I talk regularly with people who do it full time, publish regularly, are leads on space instruments to measure it, etc.
And, like other commenters nearby, I want to caution you on your approach to "skepticism" and "keeping an open mind".
You seem to be selecting one press release from the hundreds released every year, and using its partial conflict with other information to call the whole hypothesis (significant ice melting caused by global warming) into question. That's not a valid mode of inquiry - especially when you don't have the training and time to keep up with current work.
It's like walking into an IC fab and asking why they are not using EUV lithography (it was in this article in Wired!) when you didn't even take a semiconductor physics class in college.
The right place to start, if you really want to get informed, is the IPCC AR5 report (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/). Reading press releases only makes sense if you can put it into context.
The theory was first proposed in 1820, demonstrated in a lab in 1864, proposed with climate predictions 1894, and studied ever more intensely ever since.
It's about as old as the germ theory of disease.
So the same standard applies: if you attack the germ theory of disease or the global warming theory, you need to show some demand evidence, or else, put up with lots of negative sentiment vented by people who are justly angered that you asked for their attention and didn't show them enough respect to warrant their attention.
And by the looks of the responses your post received, your reaction is justified.
While its roots may be in science, the Climate Change movement has become a church unto itself. And one that does not treat potential Martin Luthers kindly.
Constructing climate change deniers as the new civil rights activists. What a fucked up logic.
Were to so eager to flame me that you couldn't be bothered to read my post properly?
I had wondered if my post would have spawned a lengthy discussion in which I would have to properly assemble a series of arguments with supporting links as rebuttals. But to have my point so clearly illustrated right out of the gate...oh, what a gift!
Yes, as well as reflexively downvote. Please enjoy the irony of what you wrote and the subsequent reaction.
(FWIW, I upvoted your comment)
Would love to see more pragmatism and less dogma. I think that would help.
Then it doesn't matter what I write, or say, you can divine my true beliefs?
Sounds a little bit like...the clergy! :)
Also clergy don't think they can magically divine people's true beliefs unless you are talking about D&D, so you really need to work on your metaphors.
There are also those that seek to punctuate the discussion and create strawmen, like yourself - that's the dogma side :)
So I don't know what your comment actually tries to communicate, apart of this strawmen thing, which itself is a strawmen.
>The scientific and technological approach to these problem is pragmatic
Which is it?
I'm not sure what weight that should carry. From my understand a vast majority of Western European countries are opposed to GMOs, another area where the science is settled.
In fact, there is greater scientific consensus around the safety of GMOs than even climate change.
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-...
That opposition, generally speaking, has nothing do with whether GMOs are safe to eat or not. It has to do partially with the potential long term effects on the ecosystem and partially with skepticism towards the business practices of the main players in the GMO field.
I'm sorry, but that just isn't true. You shouldn't be so quick to speak about the whole western world.
Maybe the debate here on other topics, from technical to political, is also of low quality? Just with the flavor of "quality", like carefully argued (but absurd) mini-essays? Much like politicians and the media which use carefully-manicured gravitas to give the flavor of truth without the nutrients?
Being irrational enough to destroy yourself isn't all that compartmentalized. It's not just about climate change, it's about economics and national ideology. Which certainly includes what we do all day in our jobs.
Our agenda is knowledge, especially on the lower levels where the work is done. We want to know how the world works, and there are enough open questions even without this issue. We don't need to invent stuff to find problems to work on.
Seriously, if anyone could show that what we are finding is wrong, everyone would have a big celebration. It can be really depressing to be stared into the face by such a huge problem and be powerless to do anything against it, as a human. The only thing available is to write, and tell everyone about it, because only everyone can fix it. Really, we'd be overjoyed.
Really, we are people here. You're accusing us of lying. That hurts, not just on a personal level but on an existential one, because without all of you, we cannot fix this and only observe it get worse and worse. Is this a life you would want?
Here's the problem with people like you: In the face of assured doom for yourself if you're young enough, or most likely your children or siblings' children, you choose to either:
1. Make highly ignorant statements without doing even the slightest bit of research, in a manner that is consistent with people suffering from a clear lack of skill in critical thinking.
or
2. Troll people.
And it is completely impossible to tell on which side you fall. As such it is entirely impossible to approach you in any kind of sane or rational manner.
This part of your statement is actually a little bit of the problem here, too. Can you define more clearly what you mean by this?
I'm very interested in exploring the issue better, but having to constantly sift through piles of hyperbole from both sides, it makes it very hard to remain interested.
My trivial understanding of everything goes: greenhouse gasses cause warming and we're the primary source of their increase in the past century so, therefore, we're causing the planet to warm. That's easy enough to understand. But after that, I find that I'm either an idiot because, duh, its all a hoax or that our species will be extinct tomorrow if I don't do something yesterday.
It's incredibly tedious to try and gain a better understanding of everything.
Short version: CO2 causes general warming. Ice caps on the pole are necessary to keep the planet cool by reflecting a lot of the incoming light. General warming will cause ice caps to melt, which causes more energy from the sun to be absorbed, which causes even faster warming. Permafrost areas will also thaw, releasing CO2 and methane, resulting in even more warming. Strong heat increases can damage rain forests, reducing the CO2 absorption, also speeding up warming. Result: Best case scenario: Loss of coastal regions to sea rise. Worst case scenario: Earth becomes a second Venus.
Edit: To downvoters: If i got facts wrong, please do correct me. The above is my understanding of the sitation and i may have gotten some wrong.
> This part of your statement is actually a little bit of the problem here, too. Can you define more clearly what you mean by this?
That was my question. I appreciate your summary of the situation and I think your worst case assessment answers my question. Unfortunately, there's an incredibly huge gap between "loss of coastal regions" and "Earth becomes a second Venus". One situation sounds highly surmountable while the other sounds like the certain extinction of our species. When you use phrases like "assured doom", I tend to think of outcomes more like the latter and I find that type of rhetoric almost as unhelpful as denying the whole situation. It just doesn't help anyone.
I apologize for picking on you specifically, you're just the first one to express this kind of sentiment I came across.
And you are basing this on what, exactly? Because the answer right now to that question is "we don't know how huge that gap is". And we do not have a second Earth to test your theories on. Are you really willing to take the risk of assured doom based on your belief that "the gap between now and assured doom is incredibly huge"?
Here's the thing with dynamic equilibrium: it is only locally stable. We do not know how exactly how resilient our ecosystem or our planet is to rapid changes. Some of us are not willing to find out, because we only have a single destructive test at our disposal.
I made that statement based on my limited ability to extrapolate how our species might deal with the two scenarios. It sounds much, much easier to me, while still being incredibly challenging, to deal with large population displacement versus dealing with our planet becoming entirely uninhabitable.
Now, if I understand what you're saying, it sounds like our understanding of the probabilities of the two scenarios occurring isn't exactly known. While the two scenarios, at face value, sound incredibly different (to me at least), the likelihood of one happening over the other could be very similar. I agree that we should absolutely take that position seriously and that we should absolutely do things to guard against the possible outcome where our planet becomes uninhabitable.
All that I'm asking is that we say it like that. Lets say that instead of speaking in absolutes (e.g. "its a hoax", "we're doomed"). That's all I'm taking issue with. It doesn't help the discussion no matter what side of the argument those kinds of statements come from.
> And we do not have a second Earth to test your theories on. Are you really willing to take the risk of assured doom based on your belief that "the gap between now and assured doom is incredibly huge"?
To be clear, I don't have any theories I'd like to test nor do I know what I might be willing to risk. As I said in my original comment, my understanding of everything is incredibly rudimentary and I'm trying to do a better job seeking information to help me answer questions like that.
Incorrect.
A complete planet-devastating runaway scenario is much more likely, as it requires merely that humans continue to operate as they are doing right this very moment.
The best case scenario only comes about if we get our shit together.
That's the gap that separates worst and best case: Humans change nothing <---> Humans make a supreme effort. Probabilities follow directly from the probabilities of these two things.
Sorry for not having stated that clearly.
No, what I'm saying is that we don't even know whether these really are two separate scenarios. We can't afford to plan for a large population displacement because by the time we get to that point, there may be nothing we can do to prevent our planet from becoming uninhabitable.
To me it seems like simple risk management, even with a small probability the loss would be near infinite, whereas the loss of "doing something" is probably negligible. (carbon tax, energy transition, discouraging procreation, anti-consumerist lifestyle … probably all beneficial for humanity from a birds-eye view)
[1] http://www.wolfandwildlifestudies.com/downloads/oxygendeplet...
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-015-0126-0
The problem you're seeing here isn't due to anonymity, but rather self-selecting hostile interactions by participating with front page news as soon as posted. This is typical of HN and really any technically-bent social media, where the first to interact are typically the most outspoken and inflammatory regardless of identity visibility, with the rational high-quality debate trickling in once the topic starts significantly eroding in popularity.
Let's suppose for a moment that climate change is a fabrication, what's the harm in taking better care of the place we live?
Cuts in emissions (e.g., the 80% cuts the EU is pushing for) will require major cuts in energy usage. We know what a low-energy economy looks like - it looks like a pre-industrial economy. We might not need to go back to the middle ages, but we'd need to reverse many advances of the industrial revolution.
In contrast, we're facing a maximum of 59cm of sea level rise by 2100. (IPCC estimate). That's not desirable but it is manageable - at least if we maintain our technological, industrial civilisation.
If your priority is to save a few endangered species, the best way to do it is to go out and save those species, not to 'try to reduce or offset anthropogenic climate change'; there are many species which are extremely endangered, and for a great intro to the topic, I suggest Douglas Adam's brilliant book.[1]
We are faced with tough choices, and should acknowledge them to be difficult; I don't know that I could bear telling parents that their children will die because I see climate change as a higher priority than disease.
Could you bear to tell parents that their children or grand children will die because our climate will be irrevocably damaged?
I was trying to make the point that even if you favor a given course of action, the costs and benefits should be assessed, and neither should be dismissed.
Is this a good reason to not favor that course of action? or is it laden with self-interest? is "I'll lose my whole business" a cost that anyone would be willing to pay for the benefit of the climate? how do we convince this kind of person? in the face of this opinion, should we not dismiss it?
As a result of all this, saying that they are dishonest or lying is wrong, but appeals to complex intellectual arguments won't work; you should give opponents their due though, as the complex intellectual arguments wouldn't convince you either (even if you are wrong).
[1] http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8756.html
even if that (their belief that it isn't being harmed being genuine) were true, there is literally direct evidence to show this (climate is being harmed by industry) is not true. carbon emissions and the greenhouse effect - it's a fact that industry contributes heavily to carbon emissions. and it's a fact that carbon emissions create increasing temperature by allowing heat to bounce around inside the atmosphere.
What you're saying is, I don't believe in climate change because of these scientific facts (which, are relatively non-complex. we put stuff in air. stuff in air makes air warmer), I believe in it because I'm a bleeding heart liberal? come on.
How many people really need to have their minds changed for congress to create legislation around climate change? Around a hundred eh.. hmm. Self-interest is definitely not a part of this though. they just don't want to change anything because its what they genuinely believe is best!
christ, even arguing that they have this genuine belief is a crock of shit. there's not test for sincerity of belief.
I am saying that you probably arrived at your view by your intuition, after looking at who was on either side of the debate, and how you felt about the 'issue', then you found evidence to support your view. The idea that any of us arrives at their view solely through a careful analysis of the facts is quite optimistic, and I think Hume was on the money 250 years ago. If you believe you are capable of a careful examination of the views on the other side, I implore you to read Alex Epstein's book all the way through, and give him a fair hearing; I would bet you $20 at even odds that you cannot read his book and give an accurate summary of his arguments, because you will find it too frustrating.[1] Changing your view because the facts contradict your intuition and peers is an extremely painful and slow process, which most of us resist at all costs.[2]
There are many tests for the sincerity of beliefs.[3]
[1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821049-the-moral-case-f...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed
[3] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2703011
I literally formed my opinion this in grade 12 earth science class, where I was first shown inconvenient truth followed by a direct rebuttal. I found gore to be unconvincing, but I found the rebuttal even worse.
I'll see if I can find the book for cheap. From reading reviews it's fairly clear that the author isn't exactly unbiased or entirely fact-based.
you've got to be fucking kidding me if you think "intuition" is unrelated the self-interest. instead of side-stepping, might you answer my questions?
are you truly saying that politicians and public figures who are involved with oil companies and against climate change are doing so out of anything but self-interest?
ultimately your argument is fallacious. you're dismissing my more salient points by attacking my reasoning process rather than my argument itself. I'm just as self-interested as they are, right? I only believe what I want to believe, I'm just intuiting and agreeing with my peers.
Are you truly telling me that someone looks at industry, like actually looking at factories and the way they operate, and their intuition is that this is good for the environment.
(It should be obvious, but this is not an argument that climate change isn't real. Just that if it weren't real, we'd want to know, and act upon that.)
You know what is the biggest cause of global malnutrition? Climate change, because it is causing more erratic weather patterns that destroy harvests worldwide.
You know what the biggest cause is for the spreading of the malaria mosquitoes beyond the tropics? Climate change again, because it makes some (highly-populated) regions a more favourable habitat.
Climate change isn't some hypothetical problem anymore, like it was in 1850. It is here now, and is already causing problems like you mentioned, that we are spending so much money on countering. But we're treating symptoms, not the cause. I fully expect our spend on treating the symptoms of climate change will rise to unmanageable levels in mere decades.
But I'll respond anyway. From http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/:
> climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood undernutrition
Meanwhile, today malaria is killing around 600 000 people a year (ten times that number), and malnutrition around 3 million (thirty times). So, while I'm open to convincing, color me skeptical that today, climate change is the "biggest cause" of those things, for any reasonable definition of "biggest cause".
(Granted, you said "spreading of the malaria mosquitos beyond the tropics". To the extent that this problem is different from the problem of malaria in general, it's moving the goalposts.)
(I also note that even if climate change were the biggest cause of those problems, the best solution to those specific problems might not be to fight climate change. Perhaps instead we should work on growing more resistant wheat, or eradicating mosquitos.)
I'm not arguing that climate change isn't real or that we shouldn't try to solve it. But I categorically reject the idea that if it weren't real, we should nevertheless act as though it were.
I understood what you said, but in my view you were painting a false dichotomy: it's not a matter of "either climate change or all-these-other-useful-things", it's a matter of "all-these-other-useful-things because of our inability to address climate change directly".
what do we do when people treat their opposition as faith, i.e. belief despite lack of evidence.
for some people it will never be real. what do we do about that? is that a legitimate thing to take into account? does that faith mean we cannot act as though climate change is largely human-driven?
You don't wait until you've proven it beyond doubt. But you say "this is our best model, we're pretty confident it's right in the essentials, and we're going to act on it but remain open to being wrong; here are our policy proposals". You don't say "this is our best model, and here are our policy proposals based on it, but even if our model is wrong we would make the same proposals anyway".
I have no particular insights into the other questions.
'what do you mean you don't know, you're not sure? you could be wrong?!'
that's how people see that. that's why climate science needs to give concrete beyond doubt proof. anything less and people ignore it.
You are not helping with that.
In interconnected systems, there's an opportunity cost to opportunity cost.
Once you step into more generations though, fertility rates drop as child survivability rises, as it becomes much more viable to rely on a few children as insurance for old age. Source: Hans Rosling, Gapminder
It would be really surprising if our best-value course of action, relating to climate change, was exactly the same regardless of whether climate change were human-influenced or not.
we know that pushing this button has coincided with a change in climate trends over the last 200 years. what we have to prove is then that a. this is not a natural change, and b. this change can be slowed down or reversed.
would you say that if science proved we are past the tipping point that nothing should be done to reverse the effect we've already had?
I think it's clear that if we could know, and if we could all agree on that, that it would be important to accomplish. but I don't think we can ever all agree on it. so it's not important to accomplish (in fact you could say it's already been accomplished, we already know, and it's not enough, we don't all agree despite the fact. that's what I'm trying to get across by arguing the point of human-caused real climate change)
I am not convinced that "making obviously terrible arguments" is an effective way to shut up one's political opponents.
His name indicates that this is a throwaway account he made so he wouldn't risk having posts like that in the history of his usual account.
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/010/193/5d6...
