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The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism (1 Viewer)

While speaking in broad strokes, is the stance described below really unreasonable?

Global Warming: has been happening over the past few generations, has also been very recently stable over the North American landmass

Climate Change: has been happening over the past few generations

GW/CC Humanity's Fault? To some degree, but pinning it down to a specific percentage is impossible.

GW/CC Crisis now?: Dunno ... define "crisis".

GW/CC Crisis in the near future (<20 yrs)?: Dunno ... define "crisis".

GW/CC Crisis in the farther-out future (20+ yrs)?: Nothing we can't engineer or adapt our way out of. There will be some humans losing out badly, but collectively the species will continue on with about the same collective standard of living.

Near Term Action? Balance carbon-neutrality/energy sustainabilty against economic impact. Reject all courses of action that lean too far toward one extreme or the other. Not all "green" initiatives kill business, not all business-friendly proposals kill the environment. Walk that middle path; resolve to do nothing rash.
Quoting myself to bump because it got buried at the bottom of the previous page :kicksrock:

 
While speaking in broad strokes, is the stance described below really unreasonable?

Global Warming: has been happening over the past few generations, has also been very recently stable over the North American landmass

Climate Change: has been happening over the past few generations

GW/CC Humanity's Fault? To some degree, but pinning it down to a specific percentage is impossible.

GW/CC Crisis now?: Dunno ... define "crisis".

GW/CC Crisis in the near future (<20 yrs)?: Dunno ... define "crisis".

GW/CC Crisis in the farther-out future (20+ yrs)?: Nothing we can't engineer or adapt our way out of. There will be some humans losing out badly, but collectively the species will continue on with about the same collective standard of living.

Near Term Action? Balance carbon-neutrality/energy sustainabilty against economic impact. Reject all courses of action that lean too far toward one extreme or the other. Not all "green" initiatives kill business, not all business-friendly proposals kill the environment. Walk that middle path; resolve to do nothing rash.
Quoting myself to bump because it got buried at the bottom of the previous page :kicksrock:
I think there's enough ecological damage human beings are causing on a global scale to an ever increasing degree that it's probably time to start thinking about crisis now. What we've been doing to the oceans will have a pretty catastrophic effect on the ability of this planet to sustain life as we know it if it continues. Burning carbon based fuels is just part of that problem, but it is part.

 
While speaking in broad strokes, is the stance described below really unreasonable?

Global Warming: has been happening over the past few generations, has also been very recently stable over the North American landmass

Climate Change: has been happening over the past few generations

GW/CC Humanity's Fault? To some degree, but pinning it down to a specific percentage is impossible.

GW/CC Crisis now?: Dunno ... define "crisis".

GW/CC Crisis in the near future (<20 yrs)?: Dunno ... define "crisis".

GW/CC Crisis in the farther-out future (20+ yrs)?: Nothing we can't engineer or adapt our way out of. There will be some humans losing out badly, but collectively the species will continue on with about the same collective standard of living.

Near Term Action? Balance carbon-neutrality/energy sustainabilty against economic impact. Reject all courses of action that lean too far toward one extreme or the other. Not all "green" initiatives kill business, not all business-friendly proposals kill the environment. Walk that middle path; resolve to do nothing rash.
Quoting myself to bump because it got buried at the bottom of the previous page :kicksrock:
I largely agree with this, though I'd probably use a little more aggressive language in assessing the degree to which we are affecting things and the potential consequences. I wouldn't write off the 20+ year outlook as things we can necessarily engineer our way out of, or at least not without a huge and unevenly distributed cost. As a hypothetical, if we end up in a more severe version of the dust bowl that hit the American Midwest in the early 20th century, it would have massive economic consequences here and could potentially be part of a downstream effect that causes famine on large global scale. We don't know if that will happen, but I believe our best understanding of the data today is that we are making it (or variations of this scenario) more likely to happen and more likely to happen sooner.

That said, I also pretty much agree with your near term action. There isn't really much else we can do, though I personally wouldn't mind taking more of an "Energy Race" approach to non-carbon based fuels.

 
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What we've been doing to the oceans will have a pretty catastrophic effect on the ability of this planet to sustain life as we know it if it continues.
What does this mean, specifically? How would an average American (sorry, rest of the world) perceive this within the next, say 100 years or so?

My point is that if America lives aren't getting turned upside down by the effects of climate change -- and in a huge hurry (< 1 yr) -- it's goign to be very hard to get any kind of critical mass behing meaningful action. For better or worse.

Also, for better or worse ... it seems like American response to climate change = world response to climate change. Doesn't seem like the rest ofthe world would ever kick America aside and take the lead on green climate-saving initiatives.

 
What we've been doing to the oceans will have a pretty catastrophic effect on the ability of this planet to sustain life as we know it if it continues.
What does this mean, specifically? How would an average American (sorry, rest of the world) perceive this within the next, say 100 years or so?

My point is that if America lives aren't getting turned upside down by the effects of climate change -- and in a huge hurry (< 1 yr) -- it's goign to be very hard to get any kind of critical mass behing meaningful action. For better or worse.

Also, for better or worse ... it seems like American response to climate change = world response to climate change. Doesn't seem like the rest ofthe world would ever kick America aside and take the lead on green climate-saving initiatives.
My guess is we'll start to take this seriously as soon as there's a serious food crisis brought on by either some massive marine die-off or drought. But I can't wait to find out if I'm right!

 
... I personally wouldn't mind taking more of an "Energy Race" approach to non-carbon based fuels.
Seems like this makes a ton of political sense for the U.S. ,,, but there are non-governmental economic titans that would prevent this in the relative short term (30-50 yrs).

Seems like, also, that a current petrochemical giant could run an end-around on the entire industry by aggresively researching and perfecting non-carbon energy sources. Probably have to go without profits for a decade or two, though.

 
What we've been doing to the oceans will have a pretty catastrophic effect on the ability of this planet to sustain life as we know it if it continues.
What does this mean, specifically? How would an average American (sorry, rest of the world) perceive this within the next, say 100 years or so?

My point is that if America lives aren't getting turned upside down by the effects of climate change -- and in a huge hurry (< 1 yr) -- it's goign to be very hard to get any kind of critical mass behing meaningful action. For better or worse.

Also, for better or worse ... it seems like American response to climate change = world response to climate change. Doesn't seem like the rest ofthe world would ever kick America aside and take the lead on green climate-saving initiatives.
Depopulation, destruction of natural habitats (e.g reefs), acidification, straight up pollution, desalinization resulting from the melting of fresh water ice caps. The latter also results in changes in the ocean temperatures, which would likely cause changes in the major water circulation flows, which would result in noticeable to severe climate changes on land. For instance if the gulf stream shuts down (as it probably will if the current trends continue) Northern Europe and the north eastern part of North America will get much, much colder than they already are.

Not only are we directly destroying the food chain, from phytoplankton on up, we're also destroying the largest sources of oxygen production. So not only could there be severe food problems, there could be severe breathing problems.

When you hit those points, you're probably way beyond being able to apply a quick fix - there's going to be some serious pain. Do you want to wait that long?

 
What we've been doing to the oceans will have a pretty catastrophic effect on the ability of this planet to sustain life as we know it if it continues.
What does this mean, specifically? How would an average American (sorry, rest of the world) perceive this within the next, say 100 years or so?

My point is that if America lives aren't getting turned upside down by the effects of climate change -- and in a huge hurry (< 1 yr) -- it's goign to be very hard to get any kind of critical mass behing meaningful action. For better or worse.

Also, for better or worse ... it seems like American response to climate change = world response to climate change. Doesn't seem like the rest ofthe world would ever kick America aside and take the lead on green climate-saving initiatives.
Depopulation, destruction of natural habitats (e.g reefs), acidification, straight up pollution, desalinization resulting from the melting of fresh water ice caps. The latter also results in changes in the ocean temperatures, which would likely cause changes in the major water circulation flows, which would result in noticeable to severe climate changes on land. For instance if the gulf stream shuts down (as it probably will if the current trends continue) Northern Europe and the north eastern part of North America will get much, much colder than they already are.Not only are we directly destroying the food chain, from phytoplankton on up, we're also destroying the largest sources of oxygen production. So not only could there be severe food problems, there could be severe breathing problems.

When you hit those points, you're probably way beyond being able to apply a quick fix - there's going to be some serious pain. Do you want to wait that long?
Your pastor sound just like mine! What church do you attend?
 
... I personally wouldn't mind taking more of an "Energy Race" approach to non-carbon based fuels.
Seems like this makes a ton of political sense for the U.S. ,,, but there are non-governmental economic titans that would prevent this in the relative short term (30-50 yrs).

Seems like, also, that a current petrochemical giant could run an end-around on the entire industry by aggresively researching and perfecting non-carbon energy sources. Probably have to go without profits for a decade or two, though.
There is actually some evidence that the market is making this somewhat moot, if you look at the nose-diving cost of solar energy. Of course that's largely being driven by China, while the U.S. is doubling down on cheap carbon. I think it's TBD how much that matters to us as a country in the context of a global economy.

 
Someone posted a large manhattan project scope plan that involved using solar panels to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere and put into cold storage deep underground. I know it hasn't gotten off the ground, but on paper it looked good.

The other megascope project that interested me were towers and towers of algae that would eat the CO2 and return their waste product as biofuel. If scaled properly once the CO2 ppm hit a certain level these could reportedly sustain the entire US energy needs and the biofuel was pure enough theoretically to power airplanes.

I assume these are both pipe dreams, however.

 
What we've been doing to the oceans will have a pretty catastrophic effect on the ability of this planet to sustain life as we know it if it continues.
What does this mean, specifically? How would an average American (sorry, rest of the world) perceive this within the next, say 100 years or so?

My point is that if America lives aren't getting turned upside down by the effects of climate change -- and in a huge hurry (< 1 yr) -- it's goign to be very hard to get any kind of critical mass behing meaningful action. For better or worse.

Also, for better or worse ... it seems like American response to climate change = world response to climate change. Doesn't seem like the rest ofthe world would ever kick America aside and take the lead on green climate-saving initiatives.
Depopulation, destruction of natural habitats (e.g reefs), acidification, straight up pollution, desalinization resulting from the melting of fresh water ice caps. The latter also results in changes in the ocean temperatures, which would likely cause changes in the major water circulation flows, which would result in noticeable to severe climate changes on land. For instance if the gulf stream shuts down (as it probably will if the current trends continue) Northern Europe and the north eastern part of North America will get much, much colder than they already are.Not only are we directly destroying the food chain, from phytoplankton on up, we're also destroying the largest sources of oxygen production. So not only could there be severe food problems, there could be severe breathing problems.

When you hit those points, you're probably way beyond being able to apply a quick fix - there's going to be some serious pain. Do you want to wait that long?
Your pastor sound just like mine! What church do you attend?
:confused:

 
When you hit those points, you're probably way beyond being able to apply a quick fix - there's going to be some serious pain. Do you want to wait that long?
It's not up to me :shrug: I only have one vote.

Your explanation is really good .. but I fear too ethereal and "distant" for early-21st century America. That suggests to me that government, lacking immediate popular support for meaningful action, won't be at the vanguard of any eventual climate-change solution**.

"Winning" solutions will have to come from private players, won't they? Governments can perhaps best help by staying out out of the way?

** which is much more likely to be "human adjustment to new normals" than "reversing the damage done".

 
The problem is deeper than that. It's us. We've become accustomed to a particular life style and aren't willing to make the changes necessary, on a personal level, to improve the situation. We're all happy to pay the lowest dollar amount possible for the things we use, but that dollar amount doesn't accurately reflect the total cost. We're externalizing and postponing the full cost of our current lifestyle. I'm as guilty of this myself, though I try to reign it in a little bit.

The question isn't how to make government or big business change - it's how to make each of us change. Without that, government and big business has no incentive/reason/impetus to change.

 
The problem is deeper than that. It's us. We've become accustomed to a particular life style and aren't willing to make the changes necessary, on a personal level, to improve the situation. We're all happy to pay the lowest dollar amount possible for the things we use, but that dollar amount doesn't accurately reflect the total cost. We're externalizing and postponing the full cost of our current lifestyle. I'm as guilty of this myself, though I try to reign it in a little bit.

The question isn't how to make government or big business change - it's how to make each of us change. Without that, government and big business has no incentive/reason/impetus to change.
All true, but the first step has to be to refute the deniers. So long as we have a significant portion of our population, led by the highest rated talk show hosts and including US Senators, declaring that this problem doesn't even exist and that the whole issue is a hoax, we'll never get anywhere.
 
The problem is deeper than that. It's us. We've become accustomed to a particular life style and aren't willing to make the changes necessary, on a personal level, to improve the situation. We're all happy to pay the lowest dollar amount possible for the things we use, but that dollar amount doesn't accurately reflect the total cost. We're externalizing and postponing the full cost of our current lifestyle. I'm as guilty of this myself, though I try to reign it in a little bit.

The question isn't how to make government or big business change - it's how to make each of us change. Without that, government and big business has no incentive/reason/impetus to change.
What, exactly, is the plan here? What do we have to do? Stop buying stuff? Go back to the horse and buggy? Everyone moves into mud-huts?

 
The problem is deeper than that. It's us. We've become accustomed to a particular life style and aren't willing to make the changes necessary, on a personal level, to improve the situation. We're all happy to pay the lowest dollar amount possible for the things we use, but that dollar amount doesn't accurately reflect the total cost. We're externalizing and postponing the full cost of our current lifestyle. I'm as guilty of this myself, though I try to reign it in a little bit.

The question isn't how to make government or big business change - it's how to make each of us change. Without that, government and big business has no incentive/reason/impetus to change.
All true, but the first step has to be to refute the deniers. So long as we have a significant portion of our population, led by the highest rated talk show hosts and including US Senators, declaring that this problem doesn't even exist and that the whole issue is a hoax, we'll never get anywhere.
You're wrong about this. Private enterprise can and will move away from fossil fuels, regardless of what anyone thinks about climate change, as soon as it becomes financially advantageous.

The government can encourage this, and should do more than they are currently doing. This can even be done without making it about climate change, but simply about energy independence and/or reducing pollution and/or advancing technology.

 
The problem is deeper than that. It's us. We've become accustomed to a particular life style and aren't willing to make the changes necessary, on a personal level, to improve the situation. We're all happy to pay the lowest dollar amount possible for the things we use, but that dollar amount doesn't accurately reflect the total cost. We're externalizing and postponing the full cost of our current lifestyle. I'm as guilty of this myself, though I try to reign it in a little bit.

The question isn't how to make government or big business change - it's how to make each of us change. Without that, government and big business has no incentive/reason/impetus to change.
All true, but the first step has to be to refute the deniers. So long as we have a significant portion of our population, led by the highest rated talk show hosts and including US Senators, declaring that this problem doesn't even exist and that the whole issue is a hoax, we'll never get anywhere.
:shrug: I think at some point the need to develop new approaches to fostering the natural resources and environment of the planet will become evident enough for it to move beyond partisan politics. Similarly with how to approach a resulting post scarcity society.

I think even now the discussion is shifting from whether it's going on to what should be done about it.

 
What exactly have 97% percent of scientist agreed with? That climate change is occurring and it is likely that man is playing some role? Ok great. But that does not mean that most scientist believe in the fear-mongering or the polices being pushed will accomplish anything.
Yes. Technically it's not 97% of scientists; it's 97% of the roughly 4,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals that took a position one way or the other on the issue. Of those papers, 97% took the position that global warming is occurring and that human activity is contributing to it. (It is sometimes reported as 97% believe that humans are the main cause; but that's not correct. The 97% is "are contributing to.")

This is why it's kind of silly, IMO, to look at the last 10 years and say "Oh, look, no more global warming!" Or to say that all those climate scientists don't understand the sun or the ocean or whatever.

The climate scientists are not stupid. They know about the sun and the ocean. They know about the last 10 years. And yet 97% of the published research still says that global warming is occurring and that human activity is contributing to it.

Lay people who want to go against the grain probably shouldn't challenge the 97%. They don't know enough. (Experts are welcome to challenge it.) Lay people should instead point out that "humans are contributing to global warming" does not necessarily portend doom, and is not necessarily grounds for switching from fossil fuels to solar energy, etc. The public policy implications are really complicated, and there is no widespread consensus among experts about any specific policy recommendation, so far as I know. There's plenty of room for reasonable debate there.

Challenging the true scientific consensus, however -- that global warming is occurring and humans are contributing to it -- is removing yourself from any reasonable debate, IMO.
WHOA - easy with the rational approach talk.

 
The problem is deeper than that. It's us. We've become accustomed to a particular life style and aren't willing to make the changes necessary, on a personal level, to improve the situation. We're all happy to pay the lowest dollar amount possible for the things we use, but that dollar amount doesn't accurately reflect the total cost. We're externalizing and postponing the full cost of our current lifestyle. I'm as guilty of this myself, though I try to reign it in a little bit.

The question isn't how to make government or big business change - it's how to make each of us change. Without that, government and big business has no incentive/reason/impetus to change.
What, exactly, is the plan here? What do we have to do? Stop buying stuff? Go back to the horse and buggy? Everyone moves into mud-huts?
Prices need to adjust to account for the full cost of what we use over the entire lifecycle of the product. Subsidies need to go away. Those would be good starts.

On a personal level - eat foods produced locally, maybe skip an ipad/iphone release, convert to solar energy for your house in areas it makes sense to do so, have indigenous plants in your yard instead of lawns where water isn't plentiful. Eat farmed fish (I know fish farming has its warts, but more consumers would iron those out). Recycle as much as possible. Carpool/take public transportation. Pay more to buy higher quality things that don't need to be replaced as often. There are tons of things we can do.

 
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What exactly have 97% percent of scientist agreed with? That climate change is occurring and it is likely that man is playing some role? Ok great. But that does not mean that most scientist believe in the fear-mongering or the polices being pushed will accomplish anything.
Yes. Technically it's not 97% of scientists; it's 97% of the roughly 4,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals that took a position one way or the other on the issue. Of those papers, 97% took the position that global warming is occurring and that human activity is contributing to it. (It is sometimes reported as 97% believe that humans are the main cause; but that's not correct. The 97% is "are contributing to.")

This is why it's kind of silly, IMO, to look at the last 10 years and say "Oh, look, no more global warming!" Or to say that all those climate scientists don't understand the sun or the ocean or whatever.

The climate scientists are not stupid. They know about the sun and the ocean. They know about the last 10 years. And yet 97% of the published research still says that global warming is occurring and that human activity is contributing to it.

Lay people who want to go against the grain probably shouldn't challenge the 97%. They don't know enough. (Experts are welcome to challenge it.) Lay people should instead point out that "humans are contributing to global warming" does not necessarily portend doom, and is not necessarily grounds for switching from fossil fuels to solar energy, etc. The public policy implications are really complicated, and there is no widespread consensus among experts about any specific policy recommendation, so far as I know. There's plenty of room for reasonable debate there.

Challenging the true scientific consensus, however -- that global warming is occurring and humans are contributing to it -- is removing yourself from any reasonable debate, IMO.
WHOA - easy with the rational approach talk.
I am quite comfortable in all my statements. They really do not have a good grasp the impact of the sun and the oceans and the clouds. I am not doubting that we are in a warming trend and the human activities have made some contribution. I predicted 20 years ago this models were significantly over projecting the warming trend and CO2's contribution to it and all this hogwash about some tripping point was more scare tactics than science. There is still a lot to learn about global climate before we can put any faith in these computer models.

 
The problem is deeper than that. It's us. We've become accustomed to a particular life style and aren't willing to make the changes necessary, on a personal level, to improve the situation. We're all happy to pay the lowest dollar amount possible for the things we use, but that dollar amount doesn't accurately reflect the total cost. We're externalizing and postponing the full cost of our current lifestyle. I'm as guilty of this myself, though I try to reign it in a little bit.

The question isn't how to make government or big business change - it's how to make each of us change. Without that, government and big business has no incentive/reason/impetus to change.
What, exactly, is the plan here? What do we have to do? Stop buying stuff? Go back to the horse and buggy? Everyone moves into mud-huts?
everyone but the very rich and very powerful

 
The global warmists aren't throwing the bad numbers out either. They treat that bad data like a string of bad referee calls ... "too bad skeptics, the game is over and the bad numbers stand" ... on the basis that there is probably is a similar string of bad data to the temperature-downside (ignoring the fact that most temperature errors are to the upside rather than the downside).

 
Great Lakes ice cover in completely unprecedented territory!
You do realize that while the Great Lakes were covered in ice, that was in part due to unprecedented warmth in Alaska which pushed the "polar vortex" over/down through the northern states and Michigan.

 
As a photo expert, upon close examination I can see where the science warmists added their red pixels. Also makes ludicrous assumption of round planet.

 
The eastern U.S. is the only region of the world that has been colder than normal each of the first three months this calendar year.

But it's been happening where I live! So that means nothing else is real.
now we're looking at 3 month periods of time? That's a reach. Talk about being selective
:lmao: It's funny how much the monkeys dance when you bring up stuff like Polar Vortexes or whatever you want to call them.
I thought the White House science advisor guy was the one pushing the polar vortexes as a consequence of global warming....or have your switched you view?

:confused:

 
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As a photo expert, upon close examination I can see where the science warmists added their red pixels. Also makes ludicrous assumption of round planet.
:no: The illustration is 2D...

 

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