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Re:Massive glacier collapse by rdl on Monday February 04, 2013 @12:01PM (#5165249)
Very few people make the argument that climate change isn't happening. The "anti" argument is that it's not due to mankind's activity, but rather a natural cycle, and has changed in the past, will change in the future. The anti position also questions how much the change is happening -- whether it's a 10-20 year spike vs. a 100 year increase, etc. (and, even if you believe in anthropogenic, it's quite reasonable to think there are natural climate cycles going on as well -- just that mankind's involvement is in addition to this and might push outside the normal range)

Humans also almost assuredly can change climate, if they want. It's a lot easier to cool vs. warm -- set off a bunch of nuclear weapons (easy, produces nuclear winter, although maybe less so than fearmongered); or, be sane, and put a bunch of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight and thus cool the Earth.

I personally think it's probably prudent to try to reduce CO2 emissions, but not drastically. The costs (financial and quality of life) of massive reductions in CO2 now are far higher than the costs to remediate with SO2 or other methods, at least until there's more precise data, the costs of reducing CO2 emissions are reduced, etc. We could probably drop them by a good amount in the developed world, but doing so in China/India/etc. would mean an unreasonable restriction on quality of life for billions of people.

Re:Massive glacier collapse by scarmig on Monday February 04, 2013 @12:43PM (#5165662)
I'd argue that you're actually pretty inaccurate in your description of what people object to. In reality, people are more than happy to push the line that the climate isn't changing. That's what the line is when Fox News complains that if global warming is happening why is there a big snow storm in January or throws in a snide remark about how the world hasn't gotten warmer since 1998.
Re:Massive glacier collapse by elemenohpee on Monday February 04, 2013 @01:04PM (#5165801)
The Einstein quote comes to mind:

"We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them."

There are a whole host of assumptions that your arguments rest on, from our ability to predict and control non-linear dynamic systems, to what we even mean when we say "cost" or "quality of life". It's great that you're optimistic, but I fear this is more of the same arrogance that got us into this mess in the first place.

Re:Massive glacier collapse by jberryman on Monday February 04, 2013 @04:44PM (#5167361)
> Very few people make the argument that climate change isn't happening. The "anti" argument is that it's not due to mankind's activity, but rather a natural cycle, and has changed in the past, will change in the future.

It seems the same group of people with vested monetary or emotional interests in doing nothing on climate have simply dug in their heels, and their arguments change as they get dragged along. In 5-10 years I'm sure it will be solidly "well duh the climate is changing and it's our fault, but nothing to be done now except learn to live with it". This is extremely frustrating.