Ah yes, the overwhelming majority of scientists is in disarray over proof of the unusually fast rate of climate change with a decades long political campaign to finally make our profit-oriented societies pay some attention to the issue.

But in comes the HN smartass who definitely knows better than thousands of trained PhDs cumulating millions of man hours of research and convinces us all with a hyperlink to donath.org.

Why not destroy such sceptics (on HN or anywhere else) regarding the rate of climate change and related topics? All you have to do is demonstrate that the data presented by them & their interpretation is garbage, nonsense or whatever else you want to call it. Must surely be easier than presenting a classic logical fallacy - argument by authority and thinking that nails it.

Maybe the link is indeed total rubbish but talking about man-hours and 'trained PhD's' is irrelevant. Feynman explains nicely: https://youtu.be/EYPapE-3FRw. Science is a matter of a debate on facts versus theory not a vote-counting appeal on behalf of the supposed position of an ill-defined electorate.

I can demonstrate to someone that the Earth is round, but it'll never convince a Flat Earther.

Said skeptics have been repeatedly debunked, here and elsewhere. There's more to it than merely being right.

As an example, a sitting US Senator used "it snowed in winter" to "debunk" the idea of climate change. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/02/26/ji...

Indeed. I presented facts, he resorts to insults. Who's scientific?

Scientism dictates that the ordained technocrats have an exclusive license on what is science-y. Apparently incivility is fine when it supports the establishment consensus. Intellectual curiosity indeed.

What's "smartass" about taking the time to acquire NOAA ice core data, graphing it, and presenting it? We're at a recurring peak, that's scientifically plain.

No, it's not. Stop spreading false information.

Graph is from NOAA ice core data.

What's false?

He's actually correct on both points. Just look at any source for global temperature over the past million years. Eg. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record

It's not that simple. The graphs you are pointing at do not include the last century, and even if - they are tracing temperature by a proxy: bentic foraminifers dO16/O18. They are organisms living in the oceans, not necessarily in equilibrium (=synchronized) with atmospheric O and a proxy for average global temperatures. They are good indicators for general trends, so to understand the range of temperatures in a given period, but for very short periods of time they are unable to provide a measure of the rate of change. +3 degrees in a million year is manageable by many species,+3° in a century it isn't.

That doesn't stop it being true. If the temperature is even higher than the million year record, we're still at a peak.

temperature is not a concern, Life can exists in a relative large range of temperatures. The problem is the speed of temperature rise, that is incompatible with the speed some species can migrate from now-hostile areas. Dinosaurs didn't died because the asteroid hit their head, but because of the abrupt climate change triggered by it. The key word is "abrupt" not "change".

"The warming" we're currently experiencing is not natural. That we're coming out of an ice age doesn't matter for the warming we've been experiencing in the last hundred years.

What's it got to do with the last 100 years? We're talking about a 100,000 year temperature cycle and Greenland's melting cycle which started before humans influenced it so it wasn't caused by humans. I think all you people replying to me think I'm a global warming denier but you can't argue with what I've said because I'm right so you're just saying random facts instead.

The assertion that no one can argue with what you've said poisons the well and isn't particularly well-suited to a discussion board. If the whole of your argument is just linking to a Wikipedia article with your arms crossed in satisfaction, I suggest visiting https://skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age...

Indeed the warming is a natural event. The glaciers melted long before humanity could make any difference.

The new bit is that we are helping it along at what is probably an unprecedented rate. So it's not about the change. It is about the rate of change.

When I was born the atmosphere had ~314 PPM of CO2. It is now north of 415PPM and going up ~2.5PPM per year. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

Now how could that relate to us requiring over 95,000,000 barrels of oil PER DAY to run our civilization? (it is closer to 98M in 2021)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/265203/global-oil-produc....

For perspective do some back of the napkin math on the height 98,000,000 barrels of oil would be if you made a 100x100 base of barrels and stacked them vertically. Standard drums have inside dimensions of 572 millimetres (22.5 in) diameter and 851 millimetres (33.5 in) height. (remember that's per day)

We have in all probability made the time when coastal cities are flooded happen sooner and it is highly unlikely that we can improve the situation very much in the short term.