In other words it's easier to deny the problem than admit that your politics has no room for the solution.
In my view, the part of the government most mobilised to deal with climate change is likely to be aligned to the (hopefully small number of) political actors comfortable with the idea of people getting less energy/more expensive energy/no growth in available energy.
I don't want these people in the seat of power under any circumstances. They have views that are a direct threat to my comfort and standard of living. Cheap energy should always be a priority.
EDIT Just for reference, focusing only on electricity and ignoring the broader energy market, I have read that South Australia (where Elon Musk is building his big battery) is competitive for world's highest electricity prices. The German energiewende has driven them to top 2 or 3 in Europe for prices paid by consumers. France, who has some of the cheapest and cleanest electricity in the world, runs nuclear. Ironically, in Australia, the most pro-nuclear party is also the anti-climate-change party.
Environmentalists agree with this statement. As an energy source, coal has a relatively low price sans regulations. However, the true cost is not captured by markets.
Burning coal causes smog, soot, acid rain, global warming, and toxic air emissions and produces ash, sludge, and other harmful pollutants as waste products, externalizing and diffusing the cost to society.
Your 'cheap energy price' strategy is like an apocryphal example of the tragedy of the commons
On-shore wind is the cheapest source of energy at the moment. Which side of the political aisle is against that?
Coal is only cheap if you ignore all the costs borne by those affected by its pollution, which literally kills people in large numbers. Which side of the political aisle is keen to ignore these costs of energy and force people to continue paying them.
But, even if you ignore those externalities, it's still more xpensive than the alternatives. Shutting down coal plants could save electricity customers in the US up to 10 Billion dollars a year. Which side of the political aisle is trying to subside it further?
I'm seriously wondering if you're being sarcastic here.
The big Tesla battery is about 80% completed and is there to be essentially a UPS - it will bridge the gap between a sudden loss of 'normal' power supply and the bringing online of additional sources to make up for the emergency shortfall. Gas plants that have X turbines, but only Y are 'spinning' can fire up their remaining X-Y turbines and the battery will cover us until X-Y are online.
A large coal plant in Port Augusta was shut down because it was no longer economically viable to run. It was offered to the SA government for $1 (that's how commercially unviable it was, some people say the SA Govt should have purchased and run it - I disagree with these people).
Somewhat ironically, this gave more market power to the gas generators who, due to 15+ year-old electricity market rules (because our regulators had been asleep at the wheel) can game the market to make massive profits during the relatively infrequent times when alternative energy supplies aren't meeting demand.
It's these peaks of demand coinciding with low supply and the gaming of the old-rules market that's responsible for a good percentage of the high prices.
Another good percentage of the energy prices is also a regulatory issue where the owners of the 'poles and wires' were guaranteed a return on any spending they committed to infrastructure. SO they went wild and we've ended up with a gold-plated (not literally) infrastructure that's cost end-users thousands of dollars over the years, and has made the "networks" huge profits, despite it being over-engineered to the nth degree (see: https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jes... - $45 billion Australia-wide on 'poles and wires')
Going way back, the SA government sold off its previously state-owned end-to-end power company, ETSA, to pay off a massive debt caused a huge government screw-up / scandal that bankrupted a local bank. Some say anbother part of the high power prices is due to privatisation, but this is murky territory, difficult to prove either way.
Nuclear takes too long to bring to market from scratch to be viable anymore.
Disagree. The regulation is only neccesary, if the common people/companys don't acknowledge the problem.
And even then, I don't think regulation helps much. More likely the opposite. Because if it is just ordered from above, then many just get childish rebellish and do the opposite. This is in my opinion the main problem.
Conservative people also like unpolluted citys I believe (side effect of electric cars) - most of them just taken a anti position to the leftish-green-hippi-liberal pro-enviroment stand.
So if people wants it, then it will happen. But I believe, we are allready on a good way. It just takes time to change the core of our industry and transport ... it is a huge effort. And will it be too late? That depends. I don't think it will be the end of the world, if the polar bear goes distinct or the netherlands get flooded. And we are allready causing great distruction to nature and people are starving by the millions. And this might get worse, but it is all connected, as the global population numbers are still greatly increasing who all want more things. So I don't see how regulating things down in Europe or US can help with that on a global scale.
So we as humanity have big problems, yes, but climate change is only one of them. And the solution to most, in my opinion, is better technology which will supply humanity in a sustainable way. Once people are not hungry anymore and are educated and connected with the rest of the world, then they usually tend to think, before just making more babys - about wheter they really want to raise a child and into what world they want to raise that child ...
And back to the topic, if you don't tell the conservatives what to do and think, but just show them how it can be done differently, then they will change, too, I believe.
It's unfortunate too, because I don't even think it necessarily requires government to solve it. There are real decisions individuals and companies can make (and have been making) on their own to improve things. (But some people deny or don't take the problem seriously, and therefore don't try to help out.)
The climate debate has become more about moral posturing and smearing people who disagree as "deniers", which has made it impossible to convince anyone who's not already convinced.
It has also deprived climate activists of substantive critiques that could help them move past their own biases (which are substantial).
Reasonable people do disagree about scientific theory quite a bit. There are some parts of climate science that are pretty settled, for instance the earth has warmed and human activity has played a big part in the recent warming. There are other parts that are not such as to what extent positive or negative feedbacks will kick in beyond the basic CO2 forcing. I'm not sure how helpful it is shunning people as deniers.
There are very dogmatic people involved in this argument that want to put in place very expensive measures to avoid a catastrophe but we have to be careful. We could drive our global economy into the ground if we go to far. The cost to the environment would be far worse. Industry gets very dirty when people go into survival mode. Clean technologies could alter the balance, but they're only going to get developed if we have the money to invest in them.
Even if global warming wasn't a thing reducing pollution is worth investing in for all sorts of reasons.
For example, the greenhouse effect is a piece of well-established science. Climate change is even less scientific. To what extent humans contribute to the problem is even less scientific. Analyzing the costs/benefits of climate change is an even less scientific question. And what sorts of policy prescriptions might be effective is the least scientific question of all.
Climate activists fail to acknowledge any of that nuance, instead lumping all of those things together and labeling anyone who has a nuanced opinion on one of those points as a "denier".
It's total intellectual corruption.
I've run into conservatives who believe that, and invariably it turns out they have only looked at a small part of the evidence.
For example, they might dismiss the extent of human contribution to rising CO2 levels as mere correlation, claiming that scientists are just noting that the CO2 curve matches some other human activities and are assuming that those activities are responsible for the CO2. Maybe it is just coincidence and the rising atmospheric CO2 comes from natural sources.
If that was all scientists had, that would be a good point. But that isn't all scientists have. CO2 from burning fossil fuels has a different isotopic composition that CO2 from natural sources so scientists can directly distinguish "our" CO2 from "natural" CO2.
Then there is atmospheric oxygen levels. Burning fossil fuels should not only release CO2 into the atmosphere. It should also take oxygen from the atmosphere. Guess what? The atmospheric oxygen levels have been doing just what they should be doing if scientists are right about how much of the atmospheric CO2 comes from us.
Climate activists won't admit that.
This shuts down the possibility for a reasonable discussion because one party (the activists) is overwhelmingly guilty of acting and arguing in bad faith.
For instance, I believe that there are fewer experiments that confirm general relativity than there are that confirm quantum mechanics, so does that mean GR is less scientific than QM?
Does this mean GR-skeptics are on firm scientific ground? No, it does not. The evidence for GR is overwhelming. That QM may have even more evidence does not cast doubt on GR. Both GR and QM have overwhelming evidence, and there is no meaningful sense in which one can say that one is less scientific than the other.
> This shuts down the possibility for a reasonable discussion because one party (the activists) is overwhelmingly guilty of acting and arguing in bad faith
No, what shuts down the possibility for reasonable discussion is people discarding 90% of the experiments and measurements, and then claiming that there is no evidence. It's not the activists that are doing this.
Unfortunately the brand of science is used to promote these models, which is disingenuous. These models aren't like physics models, they are like economic models.
I'm not a fan of the "less scientific" phrasing, but the point of science is to be convincing to even a skeptic. That's why reproducibility (try it yourself in your own lab!), statistical analysis (there's basically no chance this is a coincidence!), control groups (it's not just an endemic property of the lab), random sampling (it's not selection bias) and other things are so important.
In some kinds of inquiry, it becomes difficult or impossible to apply certain standards. It's flat out unethical and immoral to not treat a man's syphilis just to have better quality evidence. So if you're studying syphilis, you need to find other ways to be convincing. It's impossible to have a statistically significant sample of Earths or a control group of Earths, so the bar for convincing is also higher in climate science.
"Less scientific" probably means "doesn't have access to many standard scientific techniques, so stronger evidence in other ways is essential to be convincing".
Sure it is. It evolved from "natural philosophers" showing off their work to each other. People have always been able to convince themselves of things, but scientific rigor is about convincing other people (i.e., being objective).
The point is to be convincing to a rational mind. It's not a persuasion contest, no. The evidence should speak for itself. But it needs to speak to an audience.
Otherwise it would be a self indulgent exercise and not a corporate one.
>For example, the greenhouse effect is a piece of well-established science. Climate change is even less scientific.
Even looking at this sentence, which is the foundation of your arguments, the way you express yourself is that the greenhouse effect itself is not scientific! The actual science part of climate change is actually pretty great science, and very much scientific. You can check out the physical science IPCC report [1] for the starters. It contains many references to actual scientific articles, but by itself is a great piece of work.
The political part -- policies, denial of facts, media coverage, bribery by the fossil fuel industry representatives and continuous slander of climatic researchers is a problem, I agree.
[0] -- Here's the IPCC Synthesis report, a short summary, for starters: http://ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/
[1] -- IPCC Physical science report: http://ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
I would say no. An oil CEO might say yes.
Who should have a bigger say in public policy, the civilians facing the 5% possibility of human extinction and no extra paycheck, or the oil CEO weighing their paycheck against possible human extinction?
The current head of the EPA clearly thinks oil industry profits are more important. Trump clearly thinks oil industry profits are more important.
When you hamper the economy, everyone loses a little. It weakens wealth creation slightly.
We're at a moment in history where we're pulling people out of poverty, through economic growth. So any actions that limit economic growth need to be judged with a high bar. https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-bil...
I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it, and if it is actually a 5% catastrophic risk then I think it would be prudent to take action at the cost of leaving millions of people in extreme poverty. But there is a trade-off, and it needs to be examined.
And even if energy prices rise slightly, the reduction of externalities will more than make up for those increased costs. It is well known that pollution from fossil fuels causes a variety of health issues. I would gladly pay a few more cents per kwh if it reduces my chances of getting cancer or heart disease.
A thought exercise to hopefully make it easier to empathize with these people. Imagine you are transported back several hundred years into a Catholic ruled country. You don't believe in God but you don't discuss that with strangers because you often hear people say things like "Reasonable people cannot disagree about Scripture, which is overwhelmingly on the side of eternal damnation on those who don't believe."
Imagine you hear this stuff in the market, at your job, and from the street corners. No amount of hearing this is going to convince you to believe in God. If anything this reinforces the feelings you have that religious people are hateful and ignorant.
At least in the Christian sense, "belief" and "faith" are the same word and are synonyms of "trust". So you just said "Religious trust is predicated on trust in the absense of evidence". That really doesn't make sense. So maybe you'll see why Christian's are making a point of disagreeing with your definitions around religion and "belief".
Belief isn't the opposite of reason or evidence. They're not in conflict at all. Belief is the opposite of self-reliance and distrust.
As I understand it, the "faith" Christians refer to is a deeply held belief in religious principles regardless of the presence or absence of empirical evidence to support that belief.
Contrast that with a "rationalist" it skeptic's practice of rejecting beliefs not supported by evidence, and only tentatively adopting beliefs as true until they are disproven.
I'm am really trying not to moralize religious belief. That is difficult for me to do and perhaps explains gaps in my perception here. My point was a religious person will continue to hold religious beliefs despite observable phenomena that directly contradict scripture and dogma.
The Greek root word for both "faith" and "belief" in the Bible is "pistis".
"In Greek mythology, Pistis was the personification of good faith, trust and reliability"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis
There's no reason one couldn't be skeptical, find satisfying answers to questions, then have a lot of faith (trust) in something.
> My point was a religious person will continue to hold religious beliefs despite observable phenomena that directly contradict scripture and dogma.
I'm not sure what scientific evidence would disprove that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God exists. Any real objection to a god's existence would have to be predicated on some metaphysical assumptions (like, God wouldn't design evolution or create fossil records). What looks like misplaced trust might actually be a disagreement or misunderstanding about metaphysical axioms.
I suppose I am painting with a broad brush when I assume the motivations behind religious beliefs. Either way I am way off topic here.
I understand that reasoned knowledge is inductive, which is why I claimed it is based upon "the best available body of evidence". When a belief is shown to be false we must reject it and reevaluate what we believe to be true. That is why one of the most exciting events in the scientific realm is proving a belief to be false, as that means we have fundamentally altered the corpus of human knowledge.
That's not exactly what I've observed.
I've observed people driven to be contrarian, who use an assortment of tactics:
- cherry-picking evidence for one side (this one study shows ice melting may be smaller than expected in one place, thus, I dismiss the entire AR5 report without ever even reading the executive summary);
- providing contorted arguments they would never accept in a context involving, say, their own home ("the effect is small by historic standards"; "warming will have benefits that have been overlooked");
- dismissing the expertise of others in favor of their own undergrad-level science judgements ("we can't even predict the weather past 14 days, how can we predict climate") -- again, with a degree of skepticism they would never exhibit in relation to, say, their architect ("you need more shear strength there"), gardener ("it's a root fungus"), or car mechanic ("it's your oil pump"), or even Stack Exchange ("change permissions on the file and reboot").
Broadly, HN avoids the worst of the above problems - for which I'm thankful. But you will still see them here in any climate-related discussion thread. I possess some of the same contrarian tendencies, and seeing how easily skepticism turns into ignorant defense of the status quo has been a useful corrective for me.
Whilst you've taken the worst case as your default assumption, which is why their train of thought seems off. You sound like you need a large body of evidence to disprove climate catastrophe.
I'm not aware of a similarly convincing counterpart on the side that says nothing new is happening.
Oh for heaven's sake. There are a lot of websites, books, and spokespeople who are claiming to 'debunk' climate science, and this debate has been going on for decades now. Are you seriously arguing that your friends have the right answer but they're sitting on it because they're worried some leftie know-nothings will say mean things to them?
Eventually she revealed that the reason that she feels this way is because she is a pretty serious Christian who is trying to reconcile her creationist upbringing with modern science. Since historical CO2 levels are obtained from a "fossil record" of arctic ice cores and geological samples, the evidence for the historical correlation between global warming and CO2 presupposes a certain age and history of the earth which contradicts the creationist myths.
I am sure that this is a common issue among such people, since if such a person is to accept the geological evidence for anthropogenic global warming, they have to face a deep contradiction to a long-held worldview and belief system (a contradiction that is actually tangential to the issue of global warming.)
It is a common behavior among many conservatives to find holes in climate change like the theories mentioned in your anecdote, but it is extreme and a sign of desperation. I would not give too much importance to it.
But what seems to give conservatives and religious individuals reasons to go green is that
* Going green increases efficiencies in our consumption of resources
* invents new solutions to old problems
* and excessive waste corrupts individuals and societies.
If climate change activists can beat these three drums more often than waste time telling stories of an Armageddon that may or may not come true, I think we could lead a more healthier march towards green tech.
As long as people are divided, they can continue to pollute the planet while reaping windfall profits.
Meanwhile, wind/solar will get killed with new congressional tax plan and state/local legislation that makes them infeasible.
Ironically I think only China will have global power to do something about climate change because their air (Beijing) is so damn dirty.
Is CO2 rising? Fairly unequivocally, yes.
Has the planet warmed? Again, faily clearly yes, since pre-industrial times.
Is it still warming? Ok, here we get more contentious.
How much of the warming is down to CO2? Contentious, again - e.g. see this book for an argument of how we could explain much if not all of the warming down to various natural cycles: https://www.amazon.com/Neglected-Sun-Precludes-Catastrophe-I...
Is a warming planet a problem? Again, debatable. Rising sea level and ocean acidification scares aside, history suggests that we tend to do better with a warmer climate.
This is actually one of the scarier articles I read recently about why rising CO2 is bad - and it's nothing to do with climate: https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...
No, no we don't.
> How much of the warming is down to CO2? Contentious, again
Sadly, not contentious at all. The influence of changing solar output has been looked at again and again. It is not neglected.
> s a warming planet a problem? Again, debatable. Rising sea level and ocean acidification scares aside
So, rising sea levels and ocean acidification are not scares, they are occurring. The Great Barrier Reef is struggling, the Artic ice is retreating.
I can't believe that there are people so determined to stick their heads in the sand.
>Sadly, not contentious at all.
Excellent, then you can give me the percentage of warming which is CO2 driven, with error bounds, and references to 3 authoritative sources for it. Inquiring minds want to know!
What, exactly, do you want to do about it, that's politically viable?
Should we tell a billion people in China, and another billion in India to shut down their coal-fired plants? Back to the farms and rural poverty?
Do you want to convince rich westerners to stop eating meat in such large quantities? Tell them to stop driving so much?
Both sets of suggestions are politically unpopular positions and forcing them on their respective populations would lead to strife and lives lost far beyond what we'll see with climate change.
We push for incremental changes in the US, but even their proponents admit they won't make much of a difference in a global context.
The Earth is warming. Almost everyone is on board with that now. Absent a global totalitarian government that can constrain carbon emissions by fiat, what can we do that will make a difference?
It seems like the answer is "not much," so the revealed preference of most of the world's citizens seems to be rolling the dice that the change won't be catastrophic, hope for a tech breakthrough that obviates the problem, and assume that we'll deal with the disruptions as they come. It's not an inspiring message, but it's where we're at.
The longest journey starts with a single step. The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. Many hands make light work. There is precedent for accomplishing great things by 'just starting and keeping at it until you get there'. Start local. Start small.
Waiting for a 'tech breakthrough' is akin to waiting for 'the rapture'.
The linked book is a classic of the genre. It's by an honorary PhD (Vahrenholt) with ties to the oil industry and, this is key, seemingly zero peer-reviewed publications to do with climate (but a couple of English-language op-ed pieces -- https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=frit...).
What's the point (I ask myself) of even engaging with junk comments like that?
The IPCC reports that "There is medium confidence that approximately 20-30% of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5-2.5 °C (relative to 1980-1999). As global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5 °C, model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe."
As a bioengineer, it saddens me that we do not value species diversity, dooming us to ignorance of the survival strategies and adaptations of unknown or little studied organisms and the accompanying nanotechnology
If you're interested, warmer climate in the past hasn't been a clear boon. Its a more nuanced relationship Here is a writeup of it: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-climate-ch...
Unfortunately, you have your conclusion in this sentence wrong: the natural cycles barely affect the global temperature increase, found in [0]. You should stick to scientific literature for scientific facts instead of some quack.
In relation to areas that were once occupied and were just above sea-level, which are now below sea-level or well above it, what are the various known methods to achieve this?
Islands have risen out of the sea and other islands have sunk back into the sea even in the 20th century. Investigations at the time established that tectonic or volcanic activity was the likely source of this up-down movement.
Don't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that the sea level is rising to any significant degree..
One question that is completely ignored is where has the energy been coming from to melt the land-based ice to cause significant ocean level rises in the short periods envisaged. The quantity required is so huge that there would be other effects on the environment before any large scale ice melt would occur. These effects would have long wiped out all life on the planet first.
Why?
Al Gore lives in a 10,000 square foot mansion that uses more energy in a month than the average American home uses in a year. I have no problem with this. It does make me believe that the catastrophic case he makes in his movies may be overblown. It makes it easy for skeptics or "deniers" to dismiss activism around this issue as moral posturing rather than an urgent, evidence-based call to action.
Why?
I believe Elon Musk, or someone of his ilk, is more likely to solve the problem with a tech breakthrough, than a treaty drawn up in Brussels.
Why?
If GW is the existential threat many make it out to be, why is nuclear energy given so little consideration? I understand the risk of meltdown and the solid waste management issues, but those seem like manageable risks in comparison with the scary unknowability that global warming brings.
Why?
Data seems to show the negative effects of global warming are arriving more slowly than expected. It seems like we'll have the ability to slowly adjust to changes that come, rather than imposing radical sanctions on us today. This may turn out to be a mistaken assumption, but it is what it is.
I don't know if this is true, but if it is it has no bearing on the truth or urgency of the climate change problem.
> I believe Elon Musk, or someone of his ilk, is more likely to solve the problem with a tech breakthrough, than a treaty drawn up in Brussels.
This seems unlikely to me. Everyone has an incentive to pollute because they don't have to pay for the externality of destroying the environment. Without regulation factories and plants would be dumping effluent into rivers and belching oceans of smoke into the sky. Governments and international cooperation are the only practical way to pressure everyone to play fair and pay for the negative externalities.
> If GW is the existential threat many make it out to be, why is nuclear energy given so little consideration?
If GW is the existential threat many make it out to be, why are solutions to GW in general given so little consideration? It's a polarizing issue fraught with political perils. By the way, there is a huge amount of support behind thorium reactor research but it hasn't gained enough traction to compete due to the political environment and people's fears of nuclear. And it's extraordinarily capital-intensive to build a nuclear plant; very few profitable opportunities for one exist in the first place.
> Data seems to show the negative effects of global warming are arriving more slowly than expected. It seems like we'll have the ability to slowly adjust to changes that come, rather than imposing radical sanctions on us today.
An unfortunate aspect of this problem is that we have to make investments now when the catastrophic effects aren't being felt yet in order to head off disaster in the future. Even if follow the Paris accords we're still a long way off from being projected to weather worldwide environmental disaster. Projections will be adjusted as we gather more data, and those projections may have moved forward in the past, but what the best available data shows now is that we need to start making radical changes now.
https://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp
I understand that it's an unpersuasive to you, but don't underestimate how high-profile hypocrisy like helps skeptics reinforce their priors. If you want to change minds, you need to understand how they work.
+ Re: International Cooperation. Getting 195 companies to agree on meaningful change seems less likely than the consistent progress of tech.
+ Re: Nukes, they're expensive to build in part because of regulations and non-stop scare campaigns.
+ Re: Making radical changes, now. While there is plenty of data to support the general warming thesis, the data on the pace and severity of change is not so impressive. Keep up the good fight, but don't be surprised when your proposals receive opposition.
This shouldn't only be looked at as an issue that doesn't affect you. Diesel and the like aren't exactly the most healthy energy sources. Why not focus on it right now because it won't go away if we're not gonna pay attention to it.
> more likely to solve the problem with a tech breakthrough, than a treaty drawn up in Brussels.
These "treaties" as you like to call them help the tech advance so we can get a breakthrough earlier. Why would the whole world would want to advance something when there is no financial drive for it? The government speeds up the process.
> If GW is the existential threat many make it out to be, why is nuclear energy given so little consideration? I understand the risk of meltdown and the solid waste management issues, but those seem like manageable risks in comparison with the scary unknowability that global warming brings.
Nuclear energy is given a considerable amount of consideration. The major breakthrough that is bound to happen the coming 10 years hopefully is how to manage nuclear fusion. How we can use the energy that is released when 2 atomic nuclei "merge"? (to put it bluntly)
> Data seems to show the negative effects of global warming are arriving more slowly than expected. It seems like we'll have the ability to slowly adjust to changes that come, rather than imposing radical sanctions on us today. This may turn out to be a mistaken assumption, but it is what it is.
Completely false, global warming is happening faster than was anticipated and it keeps climbing to a level at which we can no longer control it. We cannot simply stop this from happening and there is no switch to turn it around, we need to stop it from rising before we no longer can.
1. Is CO2 rising? 2. Is that planet warming? 3. Is CO2 causing the planet warming? 4. Is this due to human caused changes? 5. Will bad stuff happens because of it? 6. Can we actually prevent it? 7. Will mitigation actually be better than prevention? 8. What are actual effective things we can do to prevent it?
I think 1-5 is mostly settled, the others are still open questions. However, many people act like it is all just 1 question.
This would be akin to somebody supporting a ban on all abortions because it is settled science that a fetus is genetically human and is genetically distinct from the mother, and accusing everyone who disagrees with them of denying genetic science.
Denialist still deny, generally, 3-5, and sometimes 2. Scientifically they may be settled, politically they are not.
6 is also essentially scientifically settled (we can't prevent it, we can probably reduce the rate at which things get worse, and may be able to limit the maximum effect.)
7 is either moot due to six or misphrased (there is a potential trade-off in the balance that goes into mitigating the severity of warming and that devoted to mitigating the severity of the consequences of warming without addressing the warming itself, but these are both forms of mitigation.)
8 is, again, moot because of 6, unless “prevent” is really “mitigate the severity of the warming”.
The bad news is that if we wait just a luttle longer, they'll become closed questions.
1). Is CO2 rising?
1a). What is the distribution across the planet and does this actually correlate to a general overall rise or is it more nuance than a simple rise?
1b). If CO2 is rising, is that a bad thing? What are the effects on the environment (both fauna and flora)? What are the actual detrimental levels beyond which fauna will be adversely affected?
1c). If CO2 was to be reduced, at what point is the acceptable limit? If it is reduced below that limit, what are the consequences on the environment (both fauna and flora).
1d). What are all the contributing factors to the CO2 rise (or fall, if it starts to head that way)? What factors can be influenced to change CO2 levels?
2). Is the planet warming?
2a). What is the temperature profile across the planet? Where do we measure these temperatures and how? Is there differences in the profiles with different measuring regimes? Are the temperature measurements made in odd places, like within cities but not the surrounding areas, etc.?
2b). What are the various factors that contribute to the temperature profile across the planet (seasonal variations, solar activity, city power usage, etc.)?
2c). Is there a up/down variation across years and/or decades that depend on how the statistical methods are structured (i.e. data manipulation of any kind)?
2d). Is there relevant data that is not used?
3). Is CO2 causing the planet warming?
3a). What are the various mechanisms under which warming will occur due to energy retention or generation?
3b). Are there other chemicals (such H2O, CO, NO, etc) that have a bigger or smaller energy retention effect?
3c). Are there other physical attributes of the planet that contribute to heating/cooling effects?
3d). Are there chemicals that ensure a lower retention of energy?
3e). What are the energy retention profiles of various chemicals with increasing concentration?
4). Is this due to human caused changes?
4a). What are the actual profiles of different human activities that cause either heating or cooling of the planetary surface and atmosphere?
4b). Are there geological phenomena that contribute to local or general heating/cooling effects?
4c). Are there heating/cooling effects due to other non-local phenomena (such as solar)?
4d). What are the actual profiles of these effects? Do some of the cooling effects offset the heating effects?
5). Will bad stuff happen because of it?
5a). Define what "bad stuff" means and with these definitions ask if there are multiple causes for defined "bad stuff"?
5b). How likely is this "bad stuff" to occur? Over what time period is it likely to happen? If the time period is extensive, are there other "good stuff" that can happen to alter the outcome?
5c). Is there other "bad stuff" that is more likely to occur that dramatically diminishes the effects of the originally defined "bad stuff"?
6). Can we actually prevent it?
6a). What are the various prevention methods and what are the pros/cons of each methodology?
6b). Are any of the prevention methods actually feasible?
7 and 8 are sub questions for 6.
In relation to 1. The detrimental effects of CO2 on fauna occurs at a level about 20 times the current promulgated level. The detrimental effects on flora begin when levels are reduced about 1/4 of the current levels. The beneficial effects of increasing CO2 levels on flora are seen by many horticulturists and various research programs that are currently running around the world.
In relation to 2, this seems to depend on the methodology in used by various groups. Even if it is, the effects of even a 2 degree increase worldwide hasn't been detailed with any sort of accuracy yet.There have, of course, been many claims of disaster scenarios, but the driving energy for those scenarios has been conspicuously missing. I am still wondering why.
In relation to 3, there are many nuances here that are not being discussed.
In relation to 4, there are many who are "true believers" in this view, but the detailed evidence is sparse. This needs a great deal more investigation. It may well be true, but based on the wide variety of causes, we still have no clarity about the processes.
In relation to 5 and 6, much has been claimed, but little is logically presented.
The rhetoric needs to stop and the partisanship needs to diminish, so that we can do real actual research into the entire subject. It has become so politicised that we cannot separate the wheat from the chaff.
It is also interesting to note that many who promulgate the idea that climate change is predominately anthropogenic and deliver disaster scenarios as if they are certain and call for all people to restrain themselves, do not themselves do anything to restrain their own influence. It becomes a case of "do as I say, not do as I do." This occurs from the senior figures right down to the little angry followers.
What can you say, what can you do but shrug your shoulders?
Well, as a thought exercise, imagine that there exist people who apply the "follow the money" standards to military spending, oil cabals, lobbyists, and sugary drink manufacturers but not to green energy companies, abortion providers, unions, etc.
If PP’s goal were to make money from abortions, they’d stop offering contraceptives. The fact that essentially nobody argues for abortion but against contraceptives is an easy proof that essentially nobody favors abortion for monetary reasons.
Besides, the inability to entertain the thought experiment is basically my point. The result of the skeptical deliberation is beside the point.
Everyone is subject to cognitive dissonance and perverse incentives. Money is just a particularly easy to quantify incentive.
It’s true that everyone is subject to these things. That does not mean that facts don’t matter, that every opinion is equally valid, or that every belief is due to them.
Well, sure, but the story wasn't true so what it was or was not about had no bearing on reality.
Most (all?) other countries seem to have accepted climate change as fact, except the US. The culture and way of life of the US is one driven by extreme consumption, sprawl, waste, and cars--the major drivers of climate change. Baby boomers grew up with that way of life, they passed it along to their kids, and (for example) many don't even know what it means to not drive your car to the grocery store. How else would you get food?
To step back and say to yourself, "my entire way of life, the only way I've ever known of living, is causing massive destruction" is too much. People can't do it. Individuals all see themselves as inherently good, and to acknowledge that one's very way of life (as opposed to an isolated action, like one day being cranky to a cashier) is causing harm is too self-destructive to the psyche. To accept climate change as real means needing to accept that one's entire way of life has been wrong this entire time. It's much easier to rationalize around reality, than to make serious and sweeping lifestyle and cultural changes.
(I can only speak about the US here, though China might possibly have a similar problem; but China acknowledges climate change and their government is taking big steps.)
Ultimately this is why I'm growing increasingly pessimistic about climate change. For climate change to be mitigated, the US has to be on board 100%; but the only way we in the US have known how to live since the 20th century started is with unbelievable waste and naked environmental irresponsibility. Changing a whole culture is too slow a process compared to the increasingly fast feedback loops of climate change.
Regarding the data, it's not very conclusive. Given the scale of time over which data has been collected, is it sufficient to create a reliable model and predict the future changes in climate?
Even if we were to assume that everyone agreed that human activities are the cause of climate change, it would still require huge amount of participation and co-operation among countries across the globe to fix it. That is impossible.
I think this part of the debate hinges critically on whether or not you think that core samples can be used to project temperature samples. If so, the data available to the models is vast and conclusive. If you reject that, the amount of climate data we have covers only hundreds of years.
In order to verify if the current data can predict temperature or other key metrics accurately, more data needs to be collected, which needs time, in the order of a few decades. But a wait of that long, may bring more changes, which would render the model inefficient or incorrect. A very tricky systems optimization problem!
It seems tome that no amount of evidence will ever be sufficient for folks such as yourself, no matter how many predictive milestones are passed.
To get to the level of co-operation needed, a significant investment needs to made in educating people of all mindsets, about the benefits of this co-operation. That itself is going to take a couple of generations.
Basically, follow the money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gDErDwXqhc
Asking a believer? "The science is settled!"
http://thecommonroomblog.com/2010/02/who-said-the-science-is...
I think that's the main problem.
Because almost nobody does this.
Most people want to feel smart so they read science journalism, which isn't the research conducted by climate scientists. There is much that gets lost in translation. Consider the following:
* "Humans are primarily to blame for global warming". This means the majority of blame falls to humans. Majority is 51% or more but not necessarily 100%. There is more that happens in the world than people driving cars to work.
* "The primary cause of the problem is CO2." That doesn't necessarily mean atmospheric composition, but rather a huge host of variables to include feedback mechanisms and cycle durations. You could easily argue humans do more to change the surface of the planet (and oceans) than they do to change the composition of the atmosphere, which in turn dictates the frequency at which feedback mechanisms collect CO2 from the atmosphere.
* "CO2 is the worst greenhouse gas." No, the science doesn't indicate this. CO2 is a primary concern because it has the greatest ratio of cyclic duration in the atmosphere to the percentage of atmospheric composition. Water is a more effective greenhouse gas and, in many parts of the world, a larger composition of the atmosphere than CO2. Water's feedback duration is about 8 days (speaking liberally) while CO2 sticks around in the atmosphere closer to 72 days, though.
* "A primary cause for alarm is rising oceans." This is a cause for alarm, but one among many and likely not the most important. It is just something clearly visible for simplistic commentary.
* "Summers are going to get warmer." This goes without saying, but it isn't complete. Weather will likely become more extreme in many areas, which means warmer summers (actually median average temperatures for most seasons) and likely also cooler winters in temperate areas. Global warming isn't as simple as turning up the house thermostat a degree.
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Bottom line is that most people don't read science. They want to feel informed and smart, but cannot be inconvenienced to decipher facts and analysis written for experienced meteorologists. Most people need the real work dumbed down (substantially), which is what feeds the absolutely unscientific personal belief systems that many people cling too (both for and against).
This is not unique to stereotypical "conservatives", either. For example, a lot of American Indian / First Nations tribes firmly believe - as they always have - that they originate from the Americas. Convincing folks otherwise (i.e. that their ancestors were more likely to have immigrated via Beringia, as current archaeological evidence suggests) is difficult; after centuries of the "white man" lying through their teeth in the name of "science", their skepticism toward some new scientific "fact" is unsurprising and understandable (and unfortunate).
Same thing with climate change deniers. They've been conditioned to distrust most outside information already; distrusting the evidence for climate change is thus unsurprising and unfortunate.
In my own experience, I've found that convincing folks that climate change is actually happening is the easy part. The hard part is convincing them that humans are causing it.
Then since he self-identifies as Conservative there's a very strong desire to be consistent with those beliefs and community.
Being intelligent doesn't mean you're suddenly immune to psychological tricks and ploys. If anything it can be used to make more sophisticated sophistries.
And yet here you are being extremely presumptuous about some person's background, motivations, and intelligence because they are labeled 'conservative'. Bigotry aside, that's just poor logic.
I have to assume you would be equally presumptuous when it comes to interpreting the scope of climate change.
Another way to put it is that it is difficult to get a man to believe something when everyone one he loves and respects does not believe it. I think that was the explication being provided.
To illustrate, you might enjoy Joseph Henrich's example of how the Ilahita tribe of Papua New Guinea was able to expand their tribe size beyond the Dunbar number (>300 people). In their case, having a large enough tribe to battle neighboring tribes was a matter of survival against an existential threat. (11:20 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmpSwbtWopM)
What's interesting in the scenario presented was the tribe expanded their religion to a dual moeity system. This introduced new rituals and gods that helped the tribe form economic, social and emotional bonds - ultimately allowing the tribe to expand in size.
Its an example of how _belief_ in gods that are contradictory to our modern science provided an organizational fitness function to combat their environment.
I'd imagine very few people actually interpret their world through a scientific belief system. Further, what some consider scientific, might not fit the belief system of others who are more rigorous. The lack of widely accepted model for beliefs based on _scientific thinking_ might be the scariest part of our society today. Personally, I blame the short-comings of our language as it is not well suited to communicate scientific knowledge efficiently (ie, for 3rd grade readers) and without ambiguity.
I have met and discussed climate change with climate scientists much smarter than me. These people research at institutes world renowned for ground breaking fundamental research and that I personally highly admire. At this point there is no question of whether it is happening or human-induced. They're now using state of the art techniques to research and predict innovation, technology's future ability to reduce climate change, impact on ecosystems and natural resources, impact on urban economies, technologies and social changes that can reduce emissions, infrastructure changes and policy that could be put in place to prevent catastrophe.
I understand most people don't have the opportunity to meet climate change researchers like I have. I don't mean to make an appeal to authority beyond acknowledging that I am not an authority and don't know much about climate science compared to these people. But I do think calling it intellectually fashionable is hugely understating the amount of intellectual and financial resources being out into solving this issue. It's the driving academic force of our time.
For example, the two crucial points I'd like to see addressed are:
1. what percentage of the greenhouse effect is directly attributable to humans, and
2. if this is a very small percentage why should I believe humans have a big impact on the global climate?
If the evidence is so good, the problem is so important, and the dedicated resources are so great, I'd expect proponents to go out of their way to communicate clearly and graciously to deniers like myself, since from a PR perspective browbeating with unclear evidence tends to have the opposite effect on skeptics.
Not that I'm entitled to such treatment, I have a duty to investigate the evidence as best as I can, yet my own investigations have led me to the opposite conclusion.
Also, scientists are not marketers. They might present at technical conferences, maybe TED, or other occasional larger venues, but for the most part they hunt for funding, do their research and publish in academic journals full of jargon and abstract formulas. They're not trained to reach the public. Some nonprofits seem to be picking up the marketing torch but that's only started in the last decade or two and the result has been massive pushback by climate change deniers. Strategies for concisely expressing the issue are still being worked out.
Personally, I would love to spend a few weeks reading major reports on climate change so I could better understand the precise scope of contemporary research and help provide some of these answers to you and others who are skeptical (or talk myself out of it if need be). My life isn't there yet, though. I know very few people who have that capacity and interest.
Here are some resources along the lines of what you were asking for:
https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-now-freely-a...
https://grist.org/series/skeptics/
https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_inst...
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf
And related:
http://justmeans.com/blogs/its-companies-not-countries-that-...
https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-...
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/22/how-much-doe...
Your friends points sound like he's making arguments against warming because that's the team he's on as it were. There's a bit of a human tendency to split into warring teams rather than all pull together. Blame evolution perhaps.
The earth as we know it is in serious trouble, everyone knows it, and that's too much to handle, so the vast majority of people are in the first stage of grief, which is denial.
Intelligence have little effect on preventing CD. My opinion is one humility have more (positive) effect.
I don't know, and haven't read anything remotely convincing yet. Accounts based on individual psychology (cognitive biases etc) don't do the job, as this form of irrationalism is peculiarly concentrated in parts of the Anglosphere (notably the US, Australia, and the UK). An explanation can only emerge from the domain of history and/or culture: what has made these regions so distinctly dysfunctional?
Not 'most irrational/dysfunctional' in any sense beyond the topic at hand:
> this form of irrationalism
Nor 'most in the world':
> is peculiarly concentrated
What I find interesting is that these people believe in this grand conspiracy. And personally I think that is where you start looking when trying to understand the root cause. There are definitely a lot of factors involved though. (Not in any order)
For one, I think people believe scientists are rich. Which not only couldn't be further from the truth, but that we specifically don't go into it for the money, but the love. I think this comes from the idea of "if you're smart you'll be rich", that is so pervasive. Even just the scientist community is small, and I don't know a single person that knows a person that would purposefully falsify data. Maybe there are some there, but not within a few degrees of freedom.
tldr: People think scientists are interested in money. They are, so why aren't scientists?
The second part I think is the lack of trust for authority. I think this has to do with the fact that people treat all "science" as equal (and I think we call things science that shouldn't be). An example would be that our certainty in the detection of a gravitational wave is much different than our certainty that having a glass of wine a night is good for you (not going to get into p-values here). The error analysis is completely different. You can't even compare them. One has significantly more variables that contribute to error. Hell, most people think math and engineering is science.
tldr: People don't understand basic science or error.
The third point is that people do lie. And there definitely is p hacking going on in some of the softer sciences. Combine that with media that use the word scientist as a rubber stamp for credibility, and these people definitely have evidence for "corrupt" (mistakes and naivety aren't malice) researchers. Plus, we definitely are developing an atmosphere of where we are distrustful of authority, especially in politics. So I think when you add all these factors in, it doesn't actually become unreasonable for them to be suspicious.
tldr: There is actually reason for them to be suspicious.
But how to combat it is an interesting part. From experience I can tell you that going through the data and analysis with these type of people won't get you anywhere. Their eyes glaze over. So you actually have to find a piece that they can understand and agree with. As an example, this guy I drink with has been hard line anti-global warming and hit all three points I mentioned above. Then one day he started to talk to me about how he read about the deforestation for farm animals is changing temperatures. Well from that piece I had my in, and could actually break his barrier and slowly get him to understand. He likes the environment, most people do. But from there I could talk about lack of oxygen production because of deforestation, albedo, carbonation of the oceans and its effect on coral (tie back to oxygen) and other aquatic life, methane production, and other effects. I had his ear because I was talking about what he cared about and eased into it. These topics are easier to understand than CO2 equivalent levels. Because they are right when they say that H2O is a worse greenhouse gas (). Saying things like "100% of scientists agree" or "look at the data" don't mean anything. They've been trained against that. You HAVE to cross the isle. You HAVE to find their interests.
tldr: Gain their respect. Talk about easy to understand things that THEY care about the most and ease into the more technical parts.
It is human to fight. That when we discuss we tend to more argue. That it is my web of beliefs vs another person's. We really like to be right. So you have to stop arguing and just talk. People LOVE to talk about what they are interested in. DO THAT.
You constantly run and re-try computer models until you find one that you can publish.
After 1000 different models you build one that seems to say there is some catastrophic effect caused by by humans with 99% confidence.
The model then gets published, adds to the growing body of climate models that were made the exact same way your one was.
Tell me - do you not see what is utterly incorrect with the above process?
The above isn't how it works. But if it was, it might not even be wrong. Let's start with that. First off, why were they creating 1000 or even 1000's of models? You're on HN so I assume you program. In a big program how many times do you have to rewrite things before you get them working perfectly? Then how are these models accuracy determined? Well, with predictive power. The current weather models have high predictive power to 3 days (the European model has about 5). After that it is clear that error greatly increases. But that's weather, not climate, and I want to differentiate the two here. Climate modeling really is different from weather modeling. We have a lot of data on it, so it is more performing analysis to figure out the cause for changes. So let's ask ourselves how can we check the prediction power of our climate model? Well if our analysis is correct we can go about it two ways, or really check with both. We can use historic data (if you've ever looked into stock analysis, this is a common practice there). So we feed in our key variables and ask what temperature we get back. Does it match what we measured? And how well? We can also use it on new data, because as each day goes by we get more data.
I'll stop there, as I don't want to write an entire paper. But a key part to science is its predictive power. If we don't have predictive power it isn't science, plane and simple.
p.s. If you just plot the raw data (not modified for methods in which that data was gathered) you see a trend much worse than what current climate models predict.
p.s.s Current models have held up in predictions over the past few decades. But there is always room for improvement.
Here's a paper (~200 citations) in JGR-A, by a colleague, to illustrate how it really works: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008JD010015/full
Briefly, it's well-known that model representations of cloud ice are a significant source of uncertainty in climate modeling. This is because the ice scatters light upward out of the atmosphere, and can also trap emerging long-wave radiation from below.
Cloud ice is hard to represent for many reasons - to mention just two, the particular form of the ice crystals (spherical or planar, termed "microphysical properties") matters, as does the vertical profile of the ice/water mixture in the cloud.
How to improve their representation? One way is to measure cloud properties over years-to-decades time scales (which is now being done - no accident) and use this data to introduce the right cloud-process components into climate models. The paper surveys the measurements, proposes specific model improvements, and model-vs-data checks.
As I said, I happen to work with the lead author of the paper above (although I'm not a climate scientist at all). He is, in fact, not twiddling knobs until catastrophic outcomes emerge. Sure, that's a logical possibility, i.e., someone could do that, but it does not correspond to reality by any stretch. Honestly, the notion is ridiculous, the gap between that notion and reality so large as to be hard to convey.
Probably, at macro scale, the difference is that your straw man is purely open-loop (no checks on the knob-twiddling) whereas the one in the paper is brutally closed-loop (we will identify and make independent satellite measurements to quantify your model's accuracy).
The paper describes working with others to design new measurements to get information about the key processes driving climate, so that the models can be improved and we can see what large-scale human forcing is doing to the climate system. Humanity is not a bit player any more, we're a driver, and we have to own up to that role.
I would be interested in understanding the root cause of why people will disagree about this point.
For example, a conservative friend of mine, who I think is one of the most intelligent people I know, will argue that climate change does not exist.
I've asked him what he makes of e.g. the rising level of CO2 in the atmosphere. His response was there are scientists interested in self promotion and are willing to fabricate data, and/or that we can't actually measure CO2 accurately. Those are very unconvincing counterarguments in my view. I'm led to believe there must be a deeper root cause that prevents someone from objectively looking at data and seeing that some change is occurring (without even coming to a conclusion about what that change means or what to do about it).
Yet, I have no idea what that root cause could be. Any ideas?