Thanks for posting that. Itâs important for people to see how everything is already being affected today.
I always want to ask climate change deniers (just the ordinary schmoe - not the politician) what they hope to gain by denyingâŚdo they have an actual reason, or do they just hate âteh librulsâ.
In my experience (and I used to have these conversations a lot, before getting burned out on them) - it comes from the simplistic âcommon senseâ view of the world that is also reflected in portraying the economy of a country as a household or small business.
In much the same way as macroeconomics is a whole area of knowledge that missed people who took econ 101 and then read the newspaper a few times, people donât get the relationship between weather and climate, complex interactions between the earth and ocean, etc. Add to that, itâs a difficult, complicated problem to solve with sacrifices required across the board and lots of people switch off and say âmeh, too complicatedâ.
Iâd add that the issue is worse in the US because schools donât teach geography here (and generally teach science poorly in many places), because there are moneyed interests based here who benefit from inaction, and the fact that the media has dumbed down complex thinking to bumper sticker slogans.
Engineers who think they are smarter than environmental and atmospheric scientists because ⌠reasons is a subject for a whole other response.
Climate change has and will always happen.
Part of the denialist view wills this attitude.
Yet what we are witnessing is really something more.
It is the realisation that we could be in control of our environmental destiny but are not. 200 years ago we had no idea about any these things and in 100 years it might be too late.
We are living in the great human age , we wont last for much longer in this evolutionary form without a global vision and infrastructure. We must be smarter and less needy.
But do you want a global environmental overlord? A system of tight laws and limits on everything we do.
Well yes I do but I canât imagine many would.
Iâm sure most âlibrulsâ would consider me a âclimate change denierâ. Personally, I hope to âgainâ discrediting $#!??y research / education practices and not waste billions of dollars in taxes and regulatory burdens on various crony-enriching schemes justified with a thin figleaf of superstition posing as âscienceâ.
I see here you have already used the powerful truth-finding tool of Nonscience: ad hominem attacks. I eagerly await the someone using the most powerful tool of Nonscience climate change cultists love: Appeal to authority.
You realize, donât you, that saying âYou should believe Theory X because all the really smart people believe Theory Xâ is essentially the exact OPPOSITE of science!
Science would be âLetâs publish as much information as we can so that everyone else can look at Theory X, compare it to the real world, and try to find every flaw in it⌠so that we can develop Theory X2 that is better.â Except global warming cultists donât want to publish all their data because then âskepticsâ might find âexcuses to denyâ their theory.
Problem is that in EVERY OTHER field good scientists are expected to publish for the exact reason global warming cultists want to be able to hide their raw data. They just call the âskepticsâ by their real name âother scientistsâ and they call âexcuses to denyâ by its real name âflaws inâ.
Global warming cultists may actually be right. But the way they are doing their business is anti-science. Teaching kids that knowledge is gained by trusting people with lab coats and âscientistâ on their business card is anti-science. All that needs to be swept away before it infects other disciplines. I am glad, at least, that the PC term has changed to âclimate changeâ as it now encompasses my personal concern (though it is a âgut feelingâ and I acknowledge it as such) about possible bad directions the climate could take: re-glaciation.
Itâs apparent youâve not been paying attention to the climate change debate. Those who say humans are changing the climate arenât appealing to authority (âListen to those scientists - theyâre really smart!â) but are really saying read the fscking science. You may be surprised, but there have been thousands of peer reviewed studies. You should try reading a few.
But itâs even simpler than that. I present two facts: 1) carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and 2) humans have pumped trillions of tons of the stuff into the atmosphere. To be a climate change denier or skeptic, you must either deny one of these simple, easily proven facts or admit that you are unreasonable (that is, unable to reason). It really is that simple. If you accept these two facts and insist on adding some sort of âBut that doesnât account forâŚâ youâre really just debating the details of the change, not its existence.
Climate scientists arenât hiding their data at all. Itâs been published over and over, in more and more detail, with more and more refinements for at least forty years.
Although you have entered many words several of them in caps, not many of them are to the point. Your main point seems to be that thereâs a conspiracy to enrich someone. Well, that argument works both ways. And I would say that those profiting from the status quo have a more vested interest in lying to protect their interests.
If you donât trust any scientists, do you plan to run your own experiments? If not, youâre just believing some other person with the same blind faith that you claim I do.
Speaking as a person with a science degree, who worked in experimental physics for years, I agree that you have to make a choice whom to believe, in the absence of the knowledge or ability to understand the science itself. That said, I find your arguments specious. Given the seriousness of the predictions however, I think your opinions, if shared by enough people, could have grave consequences for the human race. And thatâs not something I care to be political about.
Dude, we already have the kind of overlords you describe. Itâs just in this case, theyâre the bad guys.
But do you want a global environmental overlord? A system of tight laws and limits on everything we do.
I donât look at it that way. I feel a great sense of freedom via energy independence. Maybe weâd get more traction if we reframed it in that manner?
I think conservatives, moderates and liberals can all see the appeal in having a more decentralized energy grid, etc. if itâs explained properly. Also, while theyâre not perfect, running transportation that gets its energy from solar, wind, etc. isnât limiting, itâs quite empowering.
The mass media has been heavily financed by a fossil fuel industry that wants to milk its current infrastructure to the last drop. They bring fear, lies and half-truths to the American public about more sustainable energy sources in hopes weâll all continue to drag our feet for their gain, their profits. Thatâs what is truly restrictive and oppressive, in my view.
So are you still saying we are having âglobal warmingâ and not just generic âclimate changeâ like everyone else does now?
If not, then why does your numberless, completely qualitative, hand-waving âtheoryâ you just espoused suggest we should be warming steadily⌠but data doesnât seem to show that.
What do you think caused previous interglacial periods? What causes the end of interglacial periods? If you or anyone else has published some fsking science that gives a convincing and useful theory of either Iâd appreciate the reference.
Lastly. Do you really think Iâve never, ever heard that CO2 is a greenhouse gas or realize that people produce it? WTF⌠do you really think thatâs an argument? OH⌠MY⌠GOD⌠I how come no one ever told me these two facts before! Now I know that it is possible that when someone disagrees with you that they arenât just evil, but they know something you donât or are thinking about things you havenât. Right?
Okay, I see I made some bad assumptions here. I assumed you reached your skepticism about global warming after doing at least some minimal reading on the subject. Clearly, thatâs a poor assumption.
Granted, I used the shorthand term âglobal warmingâ rather than AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). You are getting that confused with climate change. Here are two of about 27 million links google provides:
Because Iâm talking about AGW, I donât feel the need to acknowledge that the climate has been undergoing change on planet Earth for about 4.5 billion years. Iâve never denied that climate change occurs without human action. I see nothing in what I wrote that is counter to that. You almost seem to be suggesting that because there are natural components of climate change, anything man does is unimportant. That would be like saying, âpeople die of natural causes every day, so we can ignore any deaths caused by war.â
I also never called anyone âevilâ in my post. I did use the term âunreasonableâ. You seem to fit that bill. You accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and accept also that humans have put trillions of tons of it into the atmosphere. And yet you conclude from these that humans are not warming the planet. Very simple logic is at work here, yet it escapes you.
Iâm sorry presenting two accepted facts and drawing a logical conclusion is simply a bunch of hand waving for you. You canât draw a simple conclusion but are quite ready to infer all sorts of odd things instead. Again, Iâm not addressing any non-man made factors here, like seasonality, effects of the sun, etc. Nothing I said implies any sort of steady warming. All Iâm saying is anybody who accepts that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and accepts that man has put trillions of tons of the stuff in the air is being unreasonable to deny that man is warming the planet. It doesnât get much simpler than that.
Please elucidate for me how deducing global warming from introducing massive quantities of known greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere is not an argument supporting AGW. Itâs the most basic one I can come up with. The fact I posit it and you dismiss it tells me only that you have absolutely no understanding of deductive reasoning. Itâs not exactly rocket surgery.
Can you provide any references to scientific, peer reviewed studies that make the case that humans putting trillions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere is not causing things to warm up?
While waving your hands (see, I can do that too) trying to avoid drawing a simple conclusion, you also ask for a reference to science on interglacial periods. Google returns a couple hundred thousand hits for your question. This one should get you started:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html
Of course, you put some wiggle room in there, requesting âconvincing and usefulâ theory. I donât know if NOAA can present a case youâll find convincing, given you are unconvinced that putting trillions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere doesnât cause warming. Iâm pretty sure I wouldnât be able to convince you that 2+3=5.
âSo are you still saying we are having âglobal warmingâ and not just generic âclimate changeâ like everyone else does now?â
Cu, the term âclimate changeâ has been used interchangeably with âglobal warmingâ for decades. In fact, itâs the older term. For example, the âCCâ in IPCC stands for climate change. The IPCC was formed in the 80s. Papers published in the 1950s referred to GHG warming as âclimate changeâ.
Read less political propaganda. And more science. Itâs clear you know nothing about the science. For example, you ask:
âWhat causes the end of interglacial periods?â
There are a number of natural forcings that cause climate change. Among them are Milankovitch cycles, changes in the earthâs orientation to and distance from the sun that cause periods of relative warmth and cold.
There are currently NO natural forcings (other than feedbacks due to anthropogenic warming) that point to warming. Global temps, in fact, should be cooling right now. Anthropocentric forcings explain current observed positive changes in the energy of global climate.
So Iâm really not clear what youâre saying here, and Iâm not sure if youâre being deliberately vague or just arenât very good at being clear.
Are you saying that
1: The greenhouse effect is real, and weâre increasing the concentration of greenhouse gasses, but thatâs not whatâs increasing the temperature.
(which is, make no mistake, increasing. anyone with even a trivial understanding of statistics could demonstrate that from the data beyond a shadow of a doubt.)
or 2:
The green isnât real?
If 1, I donât think that really makes much sense, so perhaps youâd care to elucidate.
If 2, that pretty much amounts to saying that thermodynamics is a communist plot. There are mountains of evidence and theory behind that that nobody with the slightest understanding of physics would deny.
Nobody demolishes the denialists better than Prof. Steve Dutch of the University of Wisconsin Green-Bay. And no, itâs not appeal to authority when the person in question is an authority on the subject.
Now, Iâd like to see the data sources that your âskepticsâ are using. Or rather, I wouldnât, because it apparently exists in somebodyâs nether regionsâŚ
Dude, have you read any of the actual papers on this stuff, or are you just going with some grainy graphs from Wattâs site?
Every single raw dataset we have shows both recent and long-term warming. And none of them show anything like a natural forcing that would account for it. This is the key problem that weâre trying to explain, and the only possible solution seems to be humanity.
The Amount Of Carbon Dioxide In Our Air Just Reached A New Record, And Scientists Are Worried
On Monday, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationâs Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii told Climate Central that June would be be the third month in a row where, for the entire month, average levels of carbon dioxide were above 400 parts per million (ppm). In other words, thatâs the longest time in recorded history that this much carbon dioxide has been in the atmosphere.
The finding is troubling to climate scientists, several of whom told ThinkProgress on Monday that the levels are a reminder that humans are still pumping too much carbon dioxide into the sky. If the trend continues, some said, carbon levels will soon surpass 450 ppm â a level that many scientists agree would create a level of global warming that would be too difficult for some humans to adapt to.
These photos are a prime example of cherry picking. The image of ice breaking off has become eponymous for GW, yet it happens of course every summer. Pictures of dead cows, desert or an old artpiece from Banksy are also not really showing the entire picture. You might as well show pictures of summer skiing in Scotland (a few years ago scientists claimed snow in the UK would be a thing of the past - and they meant in winter no less), or pictures of the ice extent in the Antarctic - which has never been this high before in May since satellite measurements started. Also, the science on cannibalizing polar bears is not as solid as you might think (http://polarbearscience.com/2013/04/10/cannibalism-in-polar-bears-spin-and-misrepresentation-of-fact-galore/).
Why is it so bad to be a bit skeptical about the things weâre told?
So, still more baseless assertions without any discussion of the underlying physics. Pretty typical. Statistical thermodynamics is one of the best understood theories we have in physics, and we have yet to find an exception to it within its scope. The cpu in the computer youâre using to post this demonstrates large chuncks of it billions of times per second. But youâd rather believe some crackpot pseudoscience because it makes you feel good. Being âskepticalâ of thermodynamics is like being âskepticalâ about the heliocentric model of the solar system.
