Global-Warming Skepticism Hits 6-Year High

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Chris Mooney writes at Mother Jones that a new study, from the Yale and George Mason University research teams on climate change communication, shows a 7-percentage-point increase in the proportion of Americans who say they do not believe that global warming is happening. And that's just since the spring of 2013. The number of deniers is now 23 percent; back at the start of last year, it was 16 percent (PDF). The obvious question is, what happened over the last year to produce more climate denial? The answer may lie in the so-called global warming "pause"—the misleading idea that global warming has slowed down or stopped over the the past 15 years or so. This claim was used by climate skeptics, to great effect, in their quest to undermine the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013—precisely during the time period that is in question in the latest study. "The notion of a global warming "pause" is, at best, the result of statistical cherry-picking," writes Mooney. " It relies on starting with a very hot year (1998) and then examining a relatively short time period (say, 15 years), to suggest that global warming has slowed down or stopped during this particular stretch of time." Put these numbers back into a broader context and the overall warming trend remains clear. "If you shift just 2 years earlier, so use 1996-2010 instead of 1998-2012, the trend is 0.14 C per decade, so slightly greater than the long-term trend," explains Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at NASA who was heavily involved in producing the IPCC report. This is why climate scientists generally don't seize on 15 year periods and make a big thing about them. "Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming "pause" may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding.""

Comments

Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Anonymous Coward]

If the climate scientists have a model that accurately predicted the past 16 years then we can talk about the future.

Until then the predictions of gloom and doom are about as believable as the heavens-gate cult.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Alain Williams]

The best models that they have are ones that have as part of them global warming. Can you point us at other models that have produced better predictions ?

No, I thought not ... so let us go with the best models that we have, even if they do have flaws.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[angel'o'sphere]

Unfortunately what you link is not a model, but 4 diagrams and a bit of text.
To bad, hoped someone had a nice climate model in a general purpose programming language and some data files to run your own prognosises.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Sockatume]

Unfortunately scientists have to use models based on physics, and not curve-fitting.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Sockatume]

That's how you derive models for simple systems, and parameterise models where we already know that a particular function is a good fit - you probably fitted force to strain using Hooke's law as your function to find the force constant of a spring. Unfortunately we already know that climate is a good deal more complicated than Hooke's law; in systems like these there has to be some physical justification to the model that you're using. Otherwise you might be fitting to a large number of points but only forecasting a few, as these authors are, and therefore your model is likely to be overfit and therefore unsound. Or you could just create a good model by dumb luck. Remember epicycles?

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Anonymous Coward]

And until someone can show me a model that can predict 15 coin tosses in a row, I'm not going to believe that a tossed coin will come up heads 50% of the time!

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[operagost]

Unfortunately, scientists have to present explanations that people without advanced degrees have to understand. Telling people they're stupid deniers because they don't understand your data-- especially when you won't admit your mistakes, and wrap it up in rhetoric-- is not going to do the job. That chart actually helps to explain the earlier errors in analysis and explain how the current cooling trend doesn't contradict the long-term warming trend.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Tom]

The model is so obviously bullshit that it doesn't even justify a full-length response. So I'll just bite on the very first item: +0.4 ÂC per century projected forward gives nice data (ignoring that he's only projecting forward for a bit over one century...).

Now project it backwards. Means in 1000 it would've had to be 4 ÂC colder than today. And the romans must've worn fur all year round, because - 8 ÂC is quite a lot. Now let's talk about the dinosaurs... "cold-blooded" gets a whole new meaning when it's... uh... a million degrees minus... that isn't even physically possible.

So unless he explains where his "trend" comes from, and why it started only very recently, it's all total hogwash.

No, wait, it's worse than that. It's misapplied math. I can easily model an approximation function for any stock market, temperature, and probably the mean boob size of female college students. But as any first semester statistics student learns: Correlation does not equal causation. Just because you have a mathematical approximation of something doesn't mean you've explained anything at all. All it means is that you passed numerical math 101, where you learn approximation functions.

(and if you did, you also know why short-term, they are pretty good at predicting, too, and that still doesn't mean shit)

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Tom]

To bad, hoped someone had a nice climate model in a general purpose programming language and some data files to run your own prognosises.

You have a supercomputer in your basement? Because several of the top-500 supercomputers on this planet are dedicated to climate research, because that's the kind of hardware you need to run those models on. ;-)

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[E 99]

If the best models are worthless and have not made any good predictions, should we really "go with them" just because they are the best?

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[lessthan]

Umm, why would there be global warming in 1000? The Industrial Revolution was barely 200 years ago.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Gee I wonder what their "carbon footprint" is.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Tom]

Which would mean that the warming is human-caused, which is precisely what this "model" is trying to "disprove".

Thanks for reinforcing my point.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Jane Q. Public]

"Probably a lot less than that of all the climate change "sceptics" combined, so if you were going to propose getting rid of them for ecological reasons, I do have a counter-proposal..."

It's actually possible that if you added the serious skeptics together, they would not have as much "carbon footprint" as Al Gore, with his mansion and plane trips and limos.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[angel'o'sphere]

If you had read that guys model, you had realized: there is no model.
Regarding prediction: as far as I can tell current models predict the actual situation very well. If you can do better join the scientists and show them.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Jane Q. Public]

"If you had read that guys model, you had realized: there is no model."

I did read, and yes there is. He does not postulate a cause for the warming, but he does indeed have a predictive model. How well it predicts in the future remains to be seen.

"Regarding prediction: as far as I can tell current models predict the actual situation very well. If you can do better join the scientists and show them."

Really? That's interesting. Every successive IPCC report has decreased its projections of warming. When hundreds of AGW models were compared last year, the MEAN difference between their projections of warming and actual warming has been over 100%. (I don't want to bother to go find my reference right now. I have work to do. But I might post it later today.)

Now, I have been accused of "ignoring" the error bars in those statistics, but I have not ignored them at all. The fact is that the error bars are huge, allowing for damn near any possible result... which makes the projections nearly meaningless. When your error bars are large enough, you can take just about anything and say "See! It was predicted!"

By just about anybody's standard of measure, 100% average error is very high indeed. Saying "it's within the margins of error" simply means your error bars are so broad that any "projection" has very little meaning. In most areas of science, that much breadth in your error margins would be called very weak science at best.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Cacadril]

I don't know your reference for saying that "the models are broken". In my understanding the models used e.g. in IPCC reports, are quite good.

It is completely unreasonable to dismiss them just because they are not perfect. The proper approach is to study the discrepancies, reason about their possible causes and estimate the effect of the errors on the question you are seeking to answer with the model. You don't build models only to make forecasts. But you do use their forecasts for what they are worth.

If all models that are based on you knowledge of the field, suggest a climate sensitivity of 1.5 to 5.2 Kelvin in 50 years for a doubling relative to pre-industrial level of CO2, it means that the sensitivity most likely is in that ballpark, as far as we can tell from the physics and the experience that went into the models. (Specific numbers made up for sake of example.)

Currently the air temperatures are rising a bit slower, and the oceans are warming a bit more, than predicted. But the total increase in heat energy is consistent with satellite energy balance measurements and with most models, IIRC. This means the models are quite good, but we could use a better understanding of the way ocean currents change and certain weather phenomena related to energy transfer between air, land and ocean. This discrepancy may have effects on the computation of feedback effects and on sensitivity, but not that much in the shorter range. It does not make the models "broken".

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Truth_Quark]

If the climate scientists have a model that accurately predicted the past 16 years then we can talk about the future.

There are no models that did prediction 16 years ago. The Hadley Centre's had DePreSys predicts a decade, but that only came online in 2007, not 1997.

So your requirement for talking about the future is set at impossible.

That is stupid and dangerous. Talking about the future is both sensible and important.

Until then the predictions of gloom and doom are about as believable as the heavens-gate cult.

0.8C temperature rise over the past 100 years, all in a spatial and temporal distribution that matches the CO2 greenhouse effect.
Measured energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, demonstrating warming.
Continued sea level rise, demonstrating energy absorbance, either my melting ice sheets or my warming oceans, and thermal expansion.
Extinction pressure on many ecosystems because of changing rainfall, temperature, and phenological changes.

And you claim these observations are from predictions as believable as heavens-gate cult, because the last 16 years, the warming trend has only been about 0.05C per decade.
Much like the "pauses" in warming in 1978, 1987, 1997 and 2003?

I don't think you've thought this through.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Truth_Quark]

The most sophisticated models being trotted out by AGW alarmists are essentially little more than extrapolated curve fits to a chaotic data set.

No, A model is not a curve-fitting exercise.

Why don't you read up a bit on HadGEM3: Design and implementation of the infrastructure of HadGEM3: the next-generation Met Office climate modelling system, Hewitt et al, Geosci. Model Dev (2011).

As you can see, it is not an extrapolated curve fit, but an imitation of the global atmosphere, ocean and biosphere, based on physics.

And when something in the real world shifts and they are all wrong, they get fitted to the latest historical data and are suddenly right again.

For instance?

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[riverat1]

Climate models are not curve fitted to past climate trends. They are merely used to test the output against.

Rather than try to paraphrase it I'll just quote a couple of entries from the Real Climate FAQ on climate models that explain it better than I ever could. They explain how climate models are physical models as much as possible and the role climate observations don't play in developing them. (Also see: FAQ on climate models: Part II.):

* What is the difference between a physics-based model and a statistical model?

Models in statistics or in many colloquial uses of the term often imply a simple relationship that is fitted to some observations. A linear regression line through a change of temperature with time, or a sinusoidal fit to the seasonal cycle for instance. More complicated fits are also possible (neural nets for instance). These statistical models are very efficient at encapsulating existing information concisely and as long as things don’t change much, they can provide reasonable predictions of future behaviour. However, they aren’t much good for predictions if you know the underlying system is changing in ways that might possibly affect how your original variables will interact.

Physics-based models on the other hand, try to capture the real physical cause of any relationship, which hopefully are understood at a deeper level. Since those fundamentals are not likely to change in the future, the anticipation of a successful prediction is higher. A classic example is Newton’s Law of motion, F=ma, which can be used in multiple contexts to give highly accurate results completely independently of the data Newton himself had on hand.

Climate models are fundamentally physics-based, but some of the small scale physics is only known empirically (for instance, the increase of evaporation as the wind increases). Thus statistical fits to the observed data are included in the climate model formulation, but these are only used for process-level parameterisations, not for trends in time.

* Are climate models just a fit to the trend in the global temperature data?

No. Much of the confusion concerning this point comes from a misunderstanding stemming from the point above. Model development actually does not use the trend data in tuning (see below). Instead, modellers work to improve the climatology of the model (the fit to the average conditions), and it’s intrinsic variability (such as the frequency and amplitude of tropical variability). The resulting model is pretty much used ‘as is’ in hindcast experiments for the 20th Century.

Re:Show me a climate model for the past 16 years

[Truth_Quark]

Sea level rise?

Yes. Sea level rise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png

Yes. Sea level also rose over the end of the last glaciation. That was because of the melting glaciers and ice sheets. Note that except for the meltwater pulse, current sea level rise is faster.

The sky is falling!

Ahh, the reference to chicken little that paid denialists use as an argument that people should ignore science, when scientific arguments are failing.

You get some of your information from counter-scientific blogs rather than reliable sources don't you?

The sea level is rising, and it is very fast geologically speaking. The rise several thousand years ago didn't affect coastal cites and infrastructure because they weren't build yet. The changing climate did affect species ranges. Including Homo Sap.

Re:Count on every Warmist...

[Joce640k]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3099141/climate-denying-groups-funding/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/

http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/climate-change-denial-a-billion-dollar-industry-of-fabrication-says-study/

(sampled from the first few hits for: https://www.google.es/search?q=climate+change+denial+lobby+billions }

Which shows that people don't understand

[rossdee]

Which shows that people (in the US) don't understand climate, or weather, and the fact that climate change means an increase in theextremes of weather.
Theres a drought and state of emergency in California, here in the midwest we have had our coldest December for a long time, and plenty of record lows, a week or two ago it was colder here than at the south pole (Or on Mars)
And USians still don't believe in climate change...

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[zoffdino]

One third of us still deny evolution as a fact. A smaller percentage want "Creation Science" to be taught in school (well, there's no creation, nor the subject scientific to begin with). When people can deny 4 billion years worth of evidence for a natural process, what do you think make them better at understanding something with only 100 years of evidence. God bless the stupidity of Americans.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Runaway1956]

So, let me ask - historically speaking, what has California's rainfall averaged, since the white man first came on the scene?

The funny thing is, I do a Google search to check that out. I click several links, and none show the information I am looking for. In 1849, what was the rainfall? Nothing. 1850? Nothing. 1851? Still more nothing. Where do I find the historical data?

Now, is there REALLY this remarkable drought, or have we simply been over using the available water for several decades already? There are a number of places where we have millions of people, but the land historically only supported hundreds or thousands. Even with tens of thousands, the weather and the land supplied plenty of water for survival, and some thrown in for waste and recreation. But, MILLIONS? Oh-oh - not enough water to go around.

We have been pumping lakes, rivers, and aquifers dry for decades now. We pump water from wherever we can find it, not caring about where it came from, or whether it will ever be replaced, or how it might be replaced.

Do we really have exceptional droughts today, or are we simply running out of water to waste?

Show me the historical data, please. Does it actually support this climate change theory?

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Loki_1929]

And USians still don't believe in climate change...

The rest of your comment aside, this is simply absurd. Aside from some blindly religious zealot goofballs who think the planet is 6,000 years old and that Jesus rode to school on a Velociraptor, I doubt very much that you'll find anyone in the US who believes the climate doesn't change; that it remains static for all time.

Of course, I'm sure that isn't what you were really saying. You very likely were meaning that some people from the US don't accept that human activities are, in any large way, directly responsible for atypical changes in the global climate. However, your language is quite interesting. First, the use of the word "believe" implies that they lack faith in a belief, rather than acceptance of truth. I would agree with that implication, based on how many "believers" in AGW come off as zealots. Secondly, your language attempted to marginalize the non-believers by equating their lack of faith with belief in a static climate; regardless of the fact that virtually none of them would actually agree with that concept.

Combined with the first part of your opening statement, I'd say this giant hunk of condescending and logical fallacy filled crap post is about par for the course for the True Believers(tm) of the AGW crowd. Based on the crowd noise, there seem to be a small number of rational people with a reasoned (if flawed, in my opinion) view of the available evidence among a sea of zealots basking in the glow of the holy texts handed down by the gods of the IPCC. I'm sure it's more about who's vocal rather than who's in which camp, but it sure doesn't seem that way sometimes.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Lumpy]

Most Americans cant tell you how many states we have, and they will gladly sign a petition to ban the use of H2O, So please do not judge global IQ based on the land of morons I live in.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[mwvdlee]

Are you seriously claiming that water disappears after use?

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Noryungi]

It does. End of story.

Oh, you wanted a document? What about doing your own research, you lazy slacker?

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/questions/climate.html
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
(etc.. etc...)

And you are conflaing two things: the aquifer situation is the western United States, which is very preoccupying, to say the least, and global warming, which is definitely not going to improve the situation of said aquifers.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of messages does not help your cause.

1) Stop insulting people. Maybe it is that the arguments where not convincing enough, or simply wrong.

2) The doomsday predictions that do not happen demolishes credibility

3) Revolutionary speech ("deniers"? "denial"? what scientific language is that?) does much more harm that help

4) Changing definitions and arguments do not help also: change means increase in extremes, but the original argument and studies used median temperatures? now in winter is climate change but then in summer it will be global warming again? the polar bears will go extinct in 2010, no, wait, in 2012, no, wait, in 2013, no, wait, in 2014... in the mean time, the climate scientists studying the phenomena got trapped in ice? The arctic disappears but the antarctic grows and the explanation is *global* warming?

5) Instead of name-calling and political agendas, the scientific argument must be addressed: How something with a (comparative) small influence of less than 0.01% of CO2 in atmosphere has such importance in models when something much more important (H2O as gas cause hothouse effect but as clouds increase albedo!) that is so complex that a really small variation in the model can cause huge changes in results gets no attention? why the uncertainty of the most important factor in climate (the amount of radiation in the sun) is not shown in uncertainty in the results? Those 2 really basic problems with the underlying theory never seem to be explained, lets not talk about more complex and subtle ones... instead, the results are presented as dogmatic-religion certain and whomever is not convinced is so a "denier" (I suppose the term "heretic" was considered too reveling). That the predictions does not concur with the observed results apparently is not important: "is a sort-term fluke", but whatever short-term observation that DOES concur with the predictions is considered a very important factor.

5) Attacking arguments not to the arguments themselves but only saying that they come from big-oil-lobby makes people suspect you come from the green-tech-lobby, the nuclear-lobby or the whatever-lobby, and in the end does not accomplish anything useful

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[mbone]

At this stage, you do not need to "marginalize the non-believers," they have done that nicely for themselves. The real scientific debates over this were back in the 1980's, for pete's sake (I participated in some of them). Now it's all just politics.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Runaway1956]

Of course water disappears after use. It swirls down the drain, flows down a pipe, into a sewer, pumped into a sewerage station, treated, then dumped back into a river, where it flows downstream, into the sea. It just disappears there, until it just happens to be in the right spot on the surface one day, to be evaporated into the atmosphere, where it can become rain again.

The problem is, we've been using water faster than water can evaporate and fall as rainfall. We've been drying out the land for decades. Give us time, and we'll figure out how to dry the ocean as well.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Sockatume]

If I google "California rainfall reconstruction" (because there weren't many rain meters out in California in the 1800s) I get a pile of articles on the subject showing data going back over 1000 years:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=california+rainfall+reconstruction

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Sockatume]

Here's a Scholar link which gives more relevant results.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[ganjadude]

actually what is happening is that most climate change skeptics do not dismiss that the climate is changing, We know you mean AWG change. We simply believe that either

A - there is not enough data or data has been cherry picked to push an agenda

B - there is change and it is natural, who do we think we are to believe we have as much power to actually change the climate or

C - The costs to "stop" if thats even possible climate change is far greater than we are willing to spend.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me the historical data, please. Does it actually support this climate change theory?

Do you have some smarter troll friends that could help you out here? The entire premise of AGW is that humans are driving climate change faster than it would normally happen, which naturally involves studying every kind of historical data scientists can get their hands on.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Nidi62]

The rest of your comment aside, this is simply absurd. Aside from some blindly religious zealot goofballs who think the planet is 6,000 years old and that Jesus rode to school on a Velociraptor,

That's ridiculous. Everyone knows Jesus was home schooled like all real Americans.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[citizenr]

Good question, perhaps we should ask inhabitants of Mesa Verde, oh wait.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Tom]

Show me the historical data, please. Does it actually support this climate change theory?

Now this is a really tough one. Who do I trust? Some random bloke on the Internet, or virtually every actual scientist on the subject in question? Decisions, decisions...

Yes, the data does support the theory. There are even meta-studies being done. One of the recent ones checked all studies published on climate in 2013. That was 2200 or 2400, something, I forgot the exact number. I do remember the exact number of the studies who disagree with climate change. It was easy to remember: One.

That's 0.05%. In a graphical diagram, it would be too small to print.

Now if you have a better theory - scientists are always willing to listen to better theories. However, given that tens of thousands of eyes have looked at the available data and agree that the current theory is the best one around, it's not you who gets to demand proof, it is you who must bring the supporting evidence for your pet theory.

Your water theory may even be in there somewhere, as a contributing factor. But it doesn't explain the ice caps melting, for example.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[bunratty]

That's fine to believe it. I fully respect your beliefs. But if you want to convince many others, I would suggest you provide some solid evidence that would lead others to believe the same thing. Now if you present an argument and it contains an obvious error in it, I will point it out. I don't respect poor reasoning. But if you just want to believe in whatever you want, go ahead...

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[cbeaudry]

One has to wonder if the writing of the Bible was done in this way.

50-100 years of bickering (or more), slinging words like denier around,writing bullshit and trying to make people "believe" in it, until finally the "Believers" get so frustrated and angry, frothing at the mouth they start throwing stones at non-believers (aka deniers) in the street, just because they don't believe the gospels written by the nobodies (later to be known as holy men).

Wait a minute... isn't that exactly how the Bible came to be?

I guess that's birth of a religion 101.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[ganjadude]

Which is exactly how the debate on this should be going I can agree with that. I only wish more people on both sides of the debate would see that instead of simply negating the other side as crazy, which both sides tend to do

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[operagost]

If you had your mind made up in the 1980s, then you're part of the problem.

Science is a perpetual process.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[tsqr]

Interesting quote regarding California rainfall from one of your search results.

"Results show that mean regionwide precipitation during the last 100 yr has been unusually high and less variable compared to other periods in the past."

So, is what we're presently experiencing an unusually dry period brought on by climate change, or just a return to historically normal conditions?

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[pepty]

Most Americans cant tell you how many states we have, and they will gladly sign a petition to ban the use of H2O, So please do not judge global IQ based on the land of morons I live in.

I think we're a good stand in for global ignorance. Where we stand out is willful ignorance/ideologically motivated cognition in otherwise educated and numerate people. If you want to see an educated conservative republican lie about the answer to or subconsciously misunderstand a simple math problem, just phrase it as a gun control question. Figure 7:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[mcgrew]

D - its irrelevant because we should learn to adapt and get over ourselves.

It isn't us that is going extinct in our present day extinction level event. We'll live, just not as well. Elephants and blue whales are nearly extinct now; elephants are the biggest animals walking, and blue whales are the biggest animals this planet has ever seen. We've destroyed the elephants' habitats and hunted the blues to their embarrassingly low numbers.

Not since the anaerobic bacteria killed themselves by poisoning the atmosphere with oxygen has any species had a bigger impact on the Earth than modern man.

Rather than "getting over ourselves" we need to start acting like responsible adults rather selfish children.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Tom]

A - there is not enough data or data has been cherry picked to push an agenda

There are over 10,000 published studies on the subject, and dozens of meta-studies checking on them. To be true, your claim A would require that 99.9% of the scientists in this subject are either corrupt and/or total idiots.

That is the kind of grandiose claim that can be dismissed without argument unless you have supporting evidence. You are probably familiar with the saying about extraordinary claims.

B - there is change and it is natural, who do we think we are to believe we have as much power to actually change the climate or

Again, a world-wide community of scientists, from every cultural and political background have been studying this subject for decades. They not only believe it, but have the data and the models and the studies to back up their claims. Where is your supporting evidence?

C - The costs to "stop" if thats even possible climate change is far greater than we are willing to spend.

That is the only valid argument, because it is political and not scientific.

Yes, we could absolutely argue that heck, to hell with everything, let's just ignore it. Except that the damage that climate change causes is already estimated in the billions per year.

The cost to "stop" is massive, because we've built our society on an unsustainable model. In simple terms, you have a family and a house and a car, but it's all built on credit - you spend more every month then you make. It worked this far because your bank and your credit card company are happy to give you credit. You don't know exactly how long you can maintain this, but you do know it's not forever.

In that simple model, it should become obvious that even though stopping will be painful (smaller house and car, probably), the longer you wait, the more painful it will become.

Unfortunately, we are human beings and pleasure in the now (which is certain) is psychologically more valuable than avoiding pain in the future (which is uncertain). It's just how evolution turned out to work best for us (unless you're also a creationist, in which case you believe in a truly terrible, sadistic and utterly fucked-up god).

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Oligonicella]

The fundamental problem with proxy reconstructions is the premise that the collector can determine exactly *what* caused the proxy data. Tree rings (which appear frequently in the search results) presume a thin ring means less water. Could mean less light, a blight, a locust swarming and other things as well. Things that will not leave a trace. Proxy cherry picking is another problem. If two nearby trees show different indications, which to use?

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Fringe]

You probably didn't participate in them, mbone. Because I did, and I remember the beginning of the 1980s was about Global Cooling. People were freaked out about it, but without the megaphone of the internet. It was magazines and newspapers.

There was a benefit to the paper media... a higher effort to learn and a higher effort to be heard resulted in less panic. Not so many charlatans (on either side) but also not so many zealots trying to control the conversation. And there was more of an understanding of the difference between "theory" and "settled science"; we were (and still are) learning rather fundamental things about the world, and we used to require that any theory (or fact) be not only supported by evidence but provable... which meant you could propose future observations or experiments that, if violated, would refuse the theory. There was more discipline, again probably because of the higher efforts involved to say (or read) anything at all.

It's not the "non-believers" that have been marginalized. It's the entire scientific method and discussion. Regardless of the reality of global warming, the process has been crippled.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

actually what is happening is that most climate change skeptics do not dismiss that the climate is changing, We know you mean AWG change. We simply believe that either A - there is not enough data or data has been cherry picked to push an agenda

There is quite a bit of data by now. The fact is, climate skeptics are also pushing an agenda, and the preponderance of data points to actual, anthropogenic change.

B - there is change and it is natural, who do we think we are to believe we have as much power to actually change the climate or

This is patently ridiculous. Why? Because there are billions of us, and we are burning everything. The "we are mere humans" argument is anti-scientific at best.

C - The costs to "stop" if thats even possible climate change is far greater than we are willing to spend.

This is true, but it is changing. Those companies/countries that adapt more rapidly than others will have a competitive edge.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Sockatume]

That's why it's a very technical and nuanced field performed by people who put decades of their lives into nothing but answering those questions. After all, no thesis committee or journal editor just rolls over and says "okay, you say that's a proxy, that's good enough for us".

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[turkeyfish]

"in the mean time, the climate scientists studying the phenomena got trapped in ice?"

"The arctic disappears but the antarctic grows and the explanation is *global* warming?"

You suggest erroneously that the ice trapping a Russian vessel in the antarctic was caused by cooler conditions leading to more ice formation. In reality the trapping occurred because sea ice was blown by the wind trapping the vessel during the antarctic summer. There is abundant evidence that the antarctic, both East and West, is also melting, which is one of the reasons there is more sea ice, since when glaciers calve at greater rates there is more floating ice. Indeed the grounding line for the Pine Island glacier is rapidly advancing inland at rates not previously recorded in recent geological times.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[LordNelsonthe2nd]

In germany the winter still hasn't started... it's a bit colder of course but no snow at all unless you're at at least 1000 m height and up there it's still not a lot and especially no fresh snow. I'm really thinking about going to the river and heating up the grill again, but it was a bit to foggy this weekend to do it ;)
Well... hope it will change until this weekend, at least the forecast is optimistic :)

So... climate change happening? Yeah... looking at this totally wierd and extreme (hot or warm, depending on the region) winter I would say so...? Oo

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Tom]

Science is not democracy. 99% of the scientists can and have been often wrong in human History. There is no real scientific model that is able to predict climate changes. All we have are conjectures and giving the weight of fact to them is irresponsibility.

Wow, so much hogwash in so few sentences.

First, yes, most scientists were wrong for a time, with the available data, and as proven later by other scientists .

When science is wrong, it is almost always science which corrects itself. Very, very, very rarely (in fact, I don't know a single example, I just can't say for sure there isn't one) has a non-scientist disproven an entire field of science.

Two, of course we have models predicting climate change. Are you living under a rock? What you probably mean is that the current models don't predict what exactly will change where exactly when exactly. Which is normal given how complex a system climate is, and how many feedback loops it contains, meaning that anything that happens will change everything again.

Given the chaos (mathematically speaking) of the system, our predictions are fucking great. As someone said it in response to a similar bullshit "criticism": When scientists say "estimate", they often mean a precision that's equivalent to measuring the distance between New York City and Los Angeles to one millimeter.

I always find it funny how people trust science with their lives when it comes to cars, airplanes or medical emergencies, but not when it's a bikeshed problem.

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Forty Two Tenfold]

who do we think we are to believe we have as much power to actually change the climate

Short memory, seek professional help.

1. Ozone layer. We had no problem thoroughly damaging that.

2. Deforestation, desertification, city hot-spots, carbon dioxide emissions, cloud seeding (I'm not talking about "chemtrails" bullshit, just ordinary contrail/exhaust seeding), what else...

Re:Which shows that people don't understand

[Cacadril]

That is right, the more intelligent ones of the skeptics think like that.

I have myself made some efforts to study the data and the methods employed, and I have not seen any cherry picking; the amount of energy required to warm the planet is consistent with the amount of energy trapped by the added CO2; the size of the industrial consumption of fossil carbon, the amount of deforestation, etc. is consistent with the amount of CO2 added, and so on. I think your points A and B are baseless, and is propagated among people who think they are smart when they are skeptical of the government and of the leftists/liberals, but fail to ask critical questions to the other side.

While it may be politically impossible to convince the world to take proper measures, I doubt there is much real, quantified thought behind your point C either. There are many who have estimated the costs and found them quite moderate. I might be a fool who believe and trust them, but on the other hand I have never seen specific and justified numbers for the cost from the skeptics.

Re:An ode to wankery

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's amazing how every d*ck with an internet connection is suddenly an expert on the weather and climate change. The latest study on how many scientist's actually deny climate change found the number to be less than 0.01%. So Practically every scientist in the world, who isn't being paid off by the Koch brothers, says that climate change is happening and it is man made. Yet we all feel qualified to say its crap. Based on what studies that we've done? Oh, it's snowing out so the earth can't be getting warmer. One of the side effects of global warming is more extreme weather conditions. Thus extreme cold could also be a result of global warming.

Re:the sky is (not) falling... you're thinking abo

[Anonymous Coward]

Stare at this honey till your eyes fall out: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2009.png/800px-Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2009.png

There can't be global warming

[tpstigers]

because it's cold at my house.

Re:There can't be global warming

[fatphil]

+1 Insightful (I do have a bunch left, but I'd rather comment)

This is the problem with these surveys, they're asking people who are unqualified to make judgements what they "reckon". [ cue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnd5ilKx2Y .] Would we show these people MR scans, and ask them if a malignent growth is happening? Their reckons are frankly little more than a distraction.

However, as someone who is critical about how a lot of the most public-facing science that is being done in this field (insert rants about publish-or-perish, funding, and bandwagons), the distraction does point towards the scientists needing to clean up their act. Too many fluffy almost-unfalsifiable claims, too much mutually-contradictory "scare precision". The only thing that makes the scientists look relatively trustworthy is that the so many of the deniers look like loons.

Re:There can't be global warming

[tpstigers]

Actually, science has been pretty clear about this. If there is any question, it's not whether global warming exists but whether humans are responsible for it.

What's really happening is that global warming - like evolution - is no longer a scientific argument, but a political one. These questions are no longer being asked in the arenas of logic and reason. In those arenas the questions have already been answered. In the political arena, however, "science" isn't governed by logic and reason.

Re:There can't be global warming

[pepty]

Their reckons are frankly little more than a distraction.

Their reckons help decide elections, which shape public policy. That's why there is so much money being spent to market global warming denialism to the public.

Re:An ode to wankery

[Joce640k]

Yeah it's amazing how every d*ck with an internet connection is suddenly an expert on the weather and climate change.

Yep. Education and/or experience is no barrier to being a fully qualified climate scientist. All you need is opinions and you're as good as the guys in white coats.

People are tired of the endless guilt trip.

[jellomizer]

Why do people choose to misinterpret global warming? Because they are stress out from the endless guilt trip on everything they do.
The issue is everything we do has some sort of trade off. But it feels like we are being judge for every choice we make.
Do you use reusable grocery bags? Then you better be sure that you clean them good enough, otherwise you could get sick from the germs.
Do you use new plastic bag? Then here is this documentary about a sea torturous who dies from eating your plastic bag that you threw away.
How about if you stick with good old paper? Your Cold/Frozen food creates condensation and break the bag and you waste all this food.

How about the car you drive?
A hybrid, which needs more green house gasses to build.
A small, car which cannot carry enough people and good thus needing an extra car.
A medium sized car, which gives off more carbon, and yet still doesn't fit everything you need.
A large car/Suv/Truck you can carry what you need however a lot of time you just polluting gas.

Do you cut down that large tree in you back yard? If so you can prevent it from falling on your house, if not it can suck up so much more carbon?

Don't even get me on, food choices....
We do want to do good, however there are so many tradeoffs we need to think about, and with science showing us more, it overwhelms us, and in essence paralyzes us. So we choose what science we choose to follow and what we choose to disregard as a coping mechanism.
It is emotional, it isn't about being stupid, of ill informed, it is just about being emotional on your choice.

Re:People are tired of the endless guilt trip.

[leptogenesis]

Let me get this straight. You're saying that when people research and consider the negative consequences of their actions, and then attempt to minimize them, they're being irrational? That it's impossible for people to consider these negative consequences without getting paralyzed, and, therefore, that nobody should research the negative consequences of their actions, and everyone should act purely selfishly? That's a great strawman; I know many altruistic people, and none are that stupid.

Most sane people consider it a fundamental goal in life to make the world a better place. It's true that this isn't a rational choice, but then again, it's not a rational choice to act selfishly, because that, too, is based on your emotional response to the stimuli your body receives. In our society, people who make the selfish choice are generally called sociopaths. The only possible explanation for your post is that you are one of them.

Re:People are tired of the endless guilt trip.

[gnasher719]

How about the car you drive?
A hybrid, which needs more green house gasses to build.
A small, car which cannot carry enough people and good thus needing an extra car.
A medium sized car, which gives off more carbon, and yet still doesn't fit everything you need.
A large car/Suv/Truck you can carry what you need however a lot of time you just polluting gas.

That truck can't carry your stuff when you move home (well, not when _I_ move home), so why don't you buy a removal lorry?

Seriously, in the last ten years I have once or twice hired a minibus, shared with others, once hired a white van to transport a treadmill, once had to ask a friend with a white van to transport a garden shed, and once hired a 7.5 ton lorry when I bought a complete new home office on eBay. Buying a large car for these rare situations is ridiculous.

Re:People are tired of the endless guilt trip.

[bunratty]

And the guilt isn't even necessary. When I look at the ways to reduce greenhouse has emissions, I don't see a single item that calls for self sacrifice.

Re:People are tired of the endless guilt trip.

[dasunt]

We do want to do good, however there are so many tradeoffs we need to think about, and with science showing us more, it overwhelms us, and in essence paralyzes us. So we choose what science we choose to follow and what we choose to disregard as a coping mechanism. It is emotional, it isn't about being stupid, of ill informed, it is just about being emotional on your choice.

I'm going with being stupid, emotional, and ill informed, plus I'm throwing in lazy. Look at your examples - grocery bags: Use the reusable ones, wash the damn produce once you take it out of the bag, and use reusable containers for other food. Grab the small car. Last time we used a van, it was for camping a year ago with friends, and they supplied a van they rarely used. Last time we needed a truck, we borrowed it, for yard work. We could have just as easily rented them, and it would be easier than trying to convince ourselves that we need a car, a van, and a truck. And cheaper! That large tree? If it needs to come down, it needs to come down. If not, it can stay. As for food, some of the best food for us tends to be food we make from scratch - which tends to take up less space, weigh less, and is easier to transport and store than eating out all the time or buying premade food. And don't give us the BS about time - there's plenty of easy one pot meals that only require a bare hint of foresight and setting a timer on the stove once it starts cooking.

People are stuck in their habits, and they are trying to justify those habits, for the most part. It's amazing. Frugality and being environmental often goes hand in hand. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Arrange your life in such a way that trips can by done by foot, bike or bus. Preplan a bit. It's a time saver, cheaper, and healthier.

So, personal story time: We live in a small house, ridiculously small by American standards. It's cheaper to live there (and less CO2!). Plus, the yard is just big enough for our hobbies, and nothing more, so we can get by with just a shovel and a manual push mower - which gives us more exercise, while being cheaper (and less CO2 than a gasoline mower and a snowblower). We're on bus lines, which means we don't need two vehicles. Ideally, we'd need zero and rent an hour car when needed - I think we're close to that point now. We're now both on bus routes to work - one bus each, no transfers. Pretty damn nice. The house is small enough that we don't have the urge to pack it with junk, which is, once again, cheaper. And since we don't have a house packed with toys, we have the urge to head out more (ideally on foot or bike), which contributes to our health. Oh, and we tend to cook from scratch which is, once again, cheaper.

We've upped our income significantly quite recently since my better half got her second degree, and a job, and someone told her that we now could now afford to buy a larger home. The idea caused us to laugh. We already could afford more, but we're already saving money, and we'd rather save more for better things down the road (and early retirement). Why get caught up in the rat race where everyone is convincing everyone else that their wasteful lifestyles are needed? We figured it out - we have the good life. And unlike so many people, our debt is minimal, gets quickly paid off for the most part, and we aren't living from paycheck to paycheck. If we need something, we can get it without worrying too much about the price. But we both realize that we don't need a lot of things. And that's benefiting us while benefiting the environment as well.

Re:People are tired of the endless guilt trip.

[NeutronCowboy]

I believe at the turn of the 19th century, your sentiment was called "turn of the century ennui". So many new things, so many changes, and almost all of them with some negative downside. Electricity? The devil's magic that had none of the charm of real fire. Cars? Toys for the rich that just destroyed good jobs. Etc. To some extent, you're in good company: feeling overwhelmed by change is nothing new. The trick is to do change right. Here, let me help you:

Do you use reusable grocery bags? Then you better be sure that you clean them good enough, otherwise you could get sick from the germs.

Or as an alternative, don't use it to transport broken eggs, loose lettuce, freshly ground meat or fish in a newspaper. If you use reusable bags for dry or at least properly sealed goods (which is about 95% of anybody's groceries these days) and compostable plastic bags for every thing, you're golden without changing anything.

Do you use new plastic bag? Then here is this documentary about a sea torturous who dies from eating your plastic bag that you threw away.

Well, yes. It's fine if one person tosses a plastic bag once. If millions do it multiple times every day, you're going to affect your own environment. In short: don't shit where you live. Which is all of earth, now.

How about if you stick with good old paper? Your Cold/Frozen food creates condensation and break the bag and you waste all this food.

Not sure whether this is hyperbole or not, but.... if you leave your paper bag out long enough that your frozen food creates so much condensation it breaks the bag, you're either using paper bags designed for holding a lunch sandwich, or your frozen food melted and it needs to be tossed anyway. Not to mention that even if the bag breaks, the food isn't wasted. Unless, of course, you carry frozen fish straight in the bag, in which case... you're still doing it wrong.

A hybrid, which needs more green house gasses to build.

You're referring to a widely debunked study that assumed many wrong things, the most egregious though being that Prius owners replace their cars every 6 years or so, and Hummer drivers replace theirs every 20 years. Stay up to date with your research, or at least read the stuff you're quoting.

A small, car which cannot carry enough people and good thus needing an extra car.
A medium sized car, which gives off more carbon, and yet still doesn't fit everything you need.
A large car/Suv/Truck you can carry what you need however a lot of time you just polluting gas.

Your needs analysis needs updating. 95% of traffic is done with 1-4 people in the car and a few groceries in the back. Even a Yaris can comfortably fit 5 large people and groceries or small luggage. I can count on one hand the times where I needed more than that in the last 5 years. And then, there were plenty of alternatives (like renting a truck). The fact that I have a sedan has little to do with needs and much more with wants. Most people don't understand the difference, sadly.

We do want to do good, however there are so many tradeoffs we need to think about, and with science showing us more, it overwhelms us, and in essence paralyzes us. So we choose what science we choose to follow and what we choose to disregard as a coping mechanism.
It is emotional, it isn't about being stupid, of ill informed, it is just about being emotional on your choice.

Well, I can't disagree with that. However, making an emotional choice doesn't excuse you from the consequences of that choice. Especially if you were told and taught about the other alternatives, and you still went with your emotional choice "just because it's too complicated". Not knowing about what you do is one thing. Willfully ignoring it is an entirely different matter.

Re:People are tired of the endless guilt trip.

[bunratty]

I think the poster is saying that when people do not minimize the negative consequences of their actions, but instead deny that their actions have negative consequences, they are being irrational. An example is when an alcoholic keeps drinking and rationalizing his or her behavior to avoid guilt. It's easier to deny the problem exists than to deal with the problem.

Re:the sky is (not) falling... you're thinking abo

[nctritech]

The Kyoto Accord Song. Seems relevant.

Re:An ode to wankery

[Sockatume]

It's not a peer-reviewed study, it's an informal systematic review.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart

Re:An ode to wankery

[Sockatume]

...and it's 0.01% of published literature, not scientists.

Propaganda Piece fudges truth . . . News at 11

[Traciatim]

Of course, if you cherry pick 1996-2012 you can get a small trend line... but if you start in 1996 (instead of 1998 like the article states, as most skeptics avoid that since it's such an easy counter-point) you have no statistically significant warming 17 years. Benjamin Santer in http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JD016263/abstract declared that "Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature."

Translated, it essentially means that if there is no significant warming for 17 year periods we need to start searching for the real causes and not just sink money in to finding more human causes to blame.

Then you add in that the sun goes in to a lull and suddenly we have no more warming and a huge number of record colds being recorded in the northern hemisphere yet the alarmist have been shouting it from the rooftops that changes in the sun are too small to affect climate citing the TSI changes rather than the changes in different frequencies (which are quite large). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25771510

Maybe instead of people having a decrease of scientific understanding they are just waking up to the facts and as they learn more they realize the alarmists are hand waving ninnies.

Re:Propaganda Piece fudges truth . . . News at 11

[Sockatume]

Your "translation" is a complete nonsequeter: the article states that a 17-year window is a necessary condition, not that it's a sufficient one.

Re:Propaganda Piece fudges truth . . . News at 11

[angel'o'sphere]

There is no huge record of colds in the northern hemisphere.
You know, Europe, also Skandinavia (which technically belongs to Europe), Russia (yes, left side of it is also Europe) IS ALSO IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
And here we have since decades records warmth winters. Particular this one. You know: Finnland, polar circle, christmas: +7 degrees centigrade. That is ridiculous warm it should have been around -30 degrees centigrade, or colder. Note: if you missed the small word: polarcircle.

Re:This isn't helping...

[Sockatume]

Try reading and you'll see it says nothing of the kind.

The country is facing growing public pressure from citizens to reduce air pollution, due in large part to burning coal. Its efforts to promote energy efficiency and renewable power stem from the realization that doing so will pay off in the long term, Figueres said. “They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.” China is also able to implement policies because its political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in countries including the U.S., Figueres said.

There's no "only", there's no "this is the right way to do it", there's nothing like that. There's just "China is doing these things, this is why China is able to do these things".

Measuring Increased Willness to Express Denial?

[retroworks]

This question came up on slashdot a few weeks ago, regarding surveys showing ten percent fewer people expressed belief in evolution. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4612831&cid=45824039 than 6 years ago. An anonymous coward noted:

"As an expression of commitment to the tribe, professing a false belief is way more powerful than a true belief. It bind the community closer, because they've demonstrated their willingness to suppress their own reason for the group. The sillier the belief, the better, of course."

Good page on debunking the "pause"

[GameboyRMH]

Too bad this wasn't linked in TFS:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming

Re:Good page on debunking the "pause"

[Sockatume]

Imagine a criminal trial: there's a lot of evidence that your client is guilty, and you show a new piece of evidence which you claim says he is innocent. Except on examination, it turns out that it's completely consistent with his being guilty as well. It hardly matters that the evidence does not advance the case against your client. What matters is that it has failed to advance the case for your client.

Re:This isn't helping...

[andydread]

By linking to a rabid patiasan source like the daily caller you have basically invalidated your post here. Nothing you have said here can be taken seriously because you are linking to the Daily Caller for gods sake.

Re:An ode to wankery

[nctritech]

Then join a bro and lift off!

Re:the sky is (not) falling... you're thinking abo

[ChunderDownunder]

Well if it makes the Yanks feel any better, one can colour Australia blue from July 1 onwards, when the new senate repeals legislation as their first act.

Our new PM (back in 2009) "The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger." 4 years on and he convinced a majority of electors that action on climate change was "socialism masquerading as environmentalism".

So it's not just conservatives in the US that regard climate change as a big socialist conspiracy...

Re:An ode to wankery

[oscrivellodds]

That's the big trend these days. We must respect everyone's opinions equally. It doesn't matter if they are expert in a specific field or know nothing but what they see on the "news". All are of equal value. That's why we don't tell kids who are getting F's (do any of them get those any more?) that they are stupid. We let them find out what the world thinks of dummies after we push them along and graduate them. Then they find out that they are dopes and can't get/keep a job that pays a living wage (are there any of those any more?) and start taking antidepressants.

The US is in the death throws of democracy. Future generations (in other countries) will study this period of US history to try to figure out what happened. How did stupidity and ignorance get elevated to virtues?

"Decrease in scientific understanding"

[Vermonter]

This is an incorrect statement. Americans (and honestly, the general public worldwide) never had a great understanding of climate (or any) science. Many people who accept global warming are just as scientifically illiterate as those who reject it. Just because you are right about something doesn't mean understand it.

Re:"Decrease in scientific understanding"

[Dixie_Flatline]

But at least the ones that accept it have the good sense to defer to experts.

The one thing people need to know about science is that you don't have to take the word of any one experiment or any one person. It's very much like medicine in that way. By all means, get a second opinion. And a third. But if 99 doctors tell you that you have a tumour and one doctor says that it's psychosomatic, the rational choice is to trust the 99 doctors.

Nearly everyone with training says that it's us. I've got just enough schooling in climate science from University to follow some of the actual science, as opposed to the science that gets reported in the media. I can't do the work myself, but I can read enough to tell you that I'm convinced by the models and empirical evidence rather than just the bluster and anecdotal evidence.

But it would be really great if the people that deny that it's happening could stop blocking what we need to do to fix the problem for their own selfish reasons.

Failure condition?

[Quinn_Inuit]

I understand that one can't just cherry-pick a period of low temperature growth and claim "LOL n0 w4rmZ!", but when the period picked runs through the present, I think it's reasonable to start asking when it becomes long enough to force a re-evaluation of the relevant theories. I'm not claiming that it's long enough now, but I'm curious if anyone knows at what point a failure condition is triggered in the major relevant documents, e.g. the IPCC AR4 or 5.

Re:Failure condition?

[Sockatume]

Basically you can project forwards or backwards with your model's error bars, and see if your observations pop out of that range. As it stands we're within, but near the bottom of, the expected range of temperatures for this time.

Re:Failure condition?

[phantomfive]

It's not major theories that will need to change, it is the details. We know that CO2 warms the earth, and we know CO2 is being added to the atmosphere.

The question is how much, and it's still an open question (there's no scientific consensus on how much). The estimates range from .9 degrees to 7 degrees for a doubling of CO2 (the warming effect grows logarithmically, so each subsequent doubling has the same effect as the previous). CO2 by itself will only give around .9 degrees, but there are hypothesized feedbacks that could amplify the effect of the CO2. Some of those hypothesized feedbacks are a lot more doubtful than others, but the point of the computer models is to understand the interplay between the various feedbacks.

Exactly 0% argue static climate

[smittyoneeach]

The brilliance of "climate change" is that the possibility range of "change" is kinda infinite.
In one stroke you can bin everyone who'd gainsay you in any way with Flat Earthers.
That there is some nifty rhetorical kneecapping. Bravo.

Re:Exactly 0% argue static climate

[MikeBabcock]

I posted about this on my G+ feed a while back; at some point, we went from being told about Global Warming to being warned about Climate Change.

Climate Change can only be denied of course if the climate never ever changes (which it does and will) and so Climate Change advocates are always right and skeptics always wrong.

While the specifics of what Climate Change stands for may be true, the nomenclature is the problem @mwvdlee is noting I believe.

Re:Exactly 0% argue static climate

[Immerman]

Climate change became the more popular phrase simply because so many people refused to accept that just because he planet as a whole is warming doesn't mean that every area also gets warmer. Most of the warming will happen at the poles, and that will fundamentally alter the thermal engines driving large-scale weather patterns, which can mean hotter summers and milder winters for some places, but can also mean colder summers and/or winters, as well as slower-moving storm systems which are responsible for flooding/snow-ins and droughts since their payload is all dropped over a much smaller area.

TLDR: Global warming is what's happening to the *entire planet*. Climate changes are the far more complicated regional results.

The death of expertise

[benjfowler]

Saw this doing the rounds today:

'The Death of Expertise'

The basic problem, is because the Internet has convinced dumb and ignorant people that their uninformed bullshit opinions stand on the same ground as those of people who have been studying the subject for decades. It stems from the metastatisation of the retards' confusion of democracy with "equal air-time for ignorance":

Today, any assertion of expertise produces an explosion of anger from certain quarters of the American public, who immediately complain that such claims are nothing more than fallacious “appeals to authority,” sure signs of dreadful “elitism,” and an obvious effort to use credentials to stifle the dialogue required by a “real” democracy.

But democracy, as I wrote in an essay about C.S. Lewis and the Snowden affair, denotes a system of government, not an actual state of equality. It means that we enjoy equal rights versus the government, and in relation to each other. Having equal rights does not mean having equal talents, equal abilities, or equal knowledge. It assuredly does not mean that “everyone’s opinion about anything is as good as anyone else’s.” And yet, this is now enshrined as the credo of a fair number of people despite being obvious nonsense.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

Re:This isn't helping...

[AmiMoJo]

Apparently the UN Climate Chief just said that only Communism can stop global warming.

No, she didn't. She said that communism is good at dealing with that kind of thing, not that democracy was incapable of fixing it. She made the rather obvious point that communist states find it easier to act for the collective good, while in democracies people tend to act in their own interests.

This just shows how desperate the sceptics have become now it looks like they are losing the debate. They have to try and conflate dealing with climate change with that old enemy communism. Kinda surprised they haven't figured out how to link recycling to helping terrorists yet.

The answer

[vikingpower]

lies not in the so-called "global warming pause". It lies in the fact that most, if not all of the naysayers, are creationist, drill-baby-drill Americans. Sorry. I know - I am going to be modded down into oblivion. So what.

What guilt? Stick it to the man!

[Anonymous Coward]

People are under the erroneous impression that they are giving up something good. They feel guilty because they have been conned by the marketers. Fell guilty about trying to live more ecologically? Congratulations! You are a sucker! Big corps WANT you to be stubborn and keep buying their shit and sucking the money out of YOUR wallet.

Big cars? Look on the road. How many people actually fill them up? They are mostly single drivers - maybe two.

Food? We've been brainwashed into thinking eating what we evolved to eat (vegetables, fruits, nuts, a very small amounts of meat - which is optional) as being depriving. The big junk food makers have conned us into thinking that green salad is tasteless and we need a shit load of salt and grease. I've changed my tastes back to where they should be and I find prepared foods - pretty much anything that I don't cook - to be too salty and too greasy.

Grocery bags? Whatever. I do all of them. I reuse the plastic bags - they're great for picking up dog poop when you walking it.

AND -this part I LOVE - living ecologically saves money (use less expensive gas, cook healthier meals, medical costs go down, dont' get suckered by big corp America) AND it sticks it to the man!

No sir! The green and crunchy people have shown me that I can loose weight while eating as much as I like, reduce healthcare expenses (lost weight, better LDL/HDL ratio: 1.0 Baby!, and less stress on the knees and other joints), help local farmers - they grow awesome stuff, save on gasoline, and more money in MY pocket - all because I'm living like an eco-"whackjob" as Neil Boortz used to say.

Re:This isn't helping...

[Sockatume]

To be unequivocal about this: the head of the UN Security Council could have said the same things about China's military, and I doubt it would have been taken as saying that communism is a necessity for national security. (Nor, in fact, is communism necessary for one to have a political system that has little legislative oversight.)

Here we go again...

[geminidomino]

responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding

Oh, FFS. The core of "scientific understanding" is critical thinking and questioning presented "facts", the possession of which naturally results in skepticism when doing so invokes this sort of garbage. "Clearly anyone who doesn't blindly accept what we're saying, without question, doesn't understand science" isn't "science", it's dogma.

I've still never had anyone offer me any reasonable answers to many of my legitimate questions on these "studies." e.g.:

1. 1. Some studies claim to be based on as much as 1000 years of temperature data. Exactly how widespread, accurate and rigorous was temperature recording during the Dark Ages?
2. 2. How, exactly, is 100, 200, or even 1000 years a suitable sample period in geological terms? It seems remarkably short-term.
3. 3. Why is any study that doesn't rival "Young Earth Creationism" in Anthrocentrism derided and disregarded as "bad science"?
4. 4. Is there anything to any of these studies that's *not* spawned of wanton use of extrapolation?

Okay, admittedly #4 is more an expression of frustration. I'm not a geologist or meteorologist, so pointing me at the raw data doesn't tell me anything, but having it "translated" for my by "experts" has proven all but useless, since this "debate" still doesn't seem to have much to do with science as opposed to politicization of funding.

Ideology and science are incompatible, whether it's about teaching schoolkids about evolution, or the world catching on fire. As it is now, I still don't know if global warming is a thing, if it's a human-caused thing, or if it's bullshit. All that's come out of this whole thing is that I pretty much don't care, since the way it's being handled is more like two schoolkids arguing over whether Batman can beat up Superman.

Re:Here we go again...

[Sockatume]

1) You reconstruct data from proxies. That lets you get back a lot further than 1000 years.
2) Obviously this is why you do "1"
3) It's hard to say, as there are few studies which actually claim global warming isn't happening. There are plenty of studies criticising methodologies and exactly what the end results are, lots of academic back-biting but there is a remarkable consistency across field and technique in the general conclusion that mean temperatures increase.
4) It's observational science. The entire basis of empiricism depends on interpolation and extrapolation.

Re:Here we go again...

[SomeoneFromBelgium]

With the risk of fighting an impossible uphill battle, here goes:

If you still don't know if global warming is 'a thing' you can only blame yourself. There is an abundant amount of material on global warming available: from the most gigourous scientific studies to the most simple and easy to understand explanation for the laymen.

I (as a civil engineer) use the laymen explanation. I'm not so arogant to think that I can redo and improve on a scientific study. For me 'The inconvenient truth' (yes mod me down!) is still the best and most comprehensive. In it are the answer to some of your questions.

Like #1: over 1000 years of temperature records: in the film it is explained that they drill a hole in the artic ice to extract a cilinder of ice. This ice has grown over many centuries and throught the way it has melted the temperature can be derived. At the same time the level of CO2 can be measured too. And here comes the clue: in all those thousands and thousands of years, the CO2 curve and the temperature curve have been closely matched. If you know that the CO2 now is higher than it has ever been since many thousands of years it seems logical to conclude that the temperature will also rise above the 'normal' levels.

#2: Why geological terms? I don't see the relationship with climate. The question is: how will the climate respond to such a dramatic rise in CO2 levels that has never been seen before in such a short period of time? There is nothing to guarantee that the climate will respond on a geological timescale. It could be severely destabelized and respond violently in a mere decade? Maybe it does not. But are you willing to bet your childerens life on it? Aparently yes.

#3: I don't know this study but if it is about creationism I don't understeand the link with climate (except that creationists have the same habit of ignoring common sense if it goes against their 'beliefs')

#4 If you distrust the extrapolation of the CO2/temperature curve use the reasoning that's behind it. More CO2 captures more heat. It's that simple. Why does earth not either heat up until its uninhabitable (too much CO2) or cool down to a dead rock (not enough CO2) because higher temperatures tend to create more life which captures CO2 and more clouds which tend to reflect CO2. "There you are" you will say. "It's a self regulating system, we don't need to do anyting". The answer is yes: it regulates itself but the new equilibrium is not guaranteed to be agreeable for us. Life on earth will continue but it could be that lots of hurricanes, higher temperatures, combined with periods of draught could make life very unconfortable and may result that a total population of 11 billion people cannot be supported anymore...

Re:Here we go again...

[E 99]

#1: over 1000 years of temperature records: in the film it is explained that they drill a hole in the artic ice to extract a cilinder of ice. This ice has grown over many centuries and throught the way it has melted the temperature can be derived. At the same time the level of CO2 can be measured too. And here comes the clue: in all those thousands and thousands of years, the CO2 curve and the temperature curve have been closely matched. If you know that the CO2 now is higher than it has ever been since many thousands of years it seems logical to conclude that the temperature will also rise above the 'normal' levels.

You're not going to understand anything if you use that movie for a source. What the movie doesn't tell you that the changes in CO2 follow the changes in temperature by an average of 800 years, indicating that the causal relationship has flowed (during the 800,000 years of data from those ice cores) mostly (if not entirely) from temperature to CO2. You can read dozens of papers studying this lag in the peer reviewed climate journals. There are theories that there is still causal relationships the other way in how the climate has evolved over that time, but they are much more tenuous than suggested by Al Gore's naive observation that, hey, the lines go up and down together.

And the ice cores are not the source of the temperature data presented on the 1000-2000 year range. Most ice core analysis doesn't have the resolution for that. For that they use tree ring data, which is a lot more questionable than ice core data, as it has to make a lot of assumptions about the things other than temperature that influence tree growth rates.

Re:Count on every Warmist...

[Sockatume]

You realised you linked to a search with one result about a pro-climate-change lobby, and all the rest are reports on anti-climate-change lobbying efforts several times it size?

Re:An ode to wankery

[Sockatume]

I assume that going around informing important stakeholders of the problem and campaigning for change, like scientists always do when they believe there's a crisis, doesn't count?

As an excuse

[angel'o'sphere]

I think americans have it pretty difficult.
Media works very differnt than in the rest of the world. There are much to many lobbies tying to "build opinions" in public.
AND: the country is simply huge. You will always have a few areas in your country which is hit by global warming a bit more server and lots of areas where you don't really feel it.
I guess in the "desert" states you don't really feel a difference. It might be slightly warmer over day than lets say 25 years ago, but well: it is just hot and dry, so what? And at night it is pretty cold, as always: so what?
The west coast is dominated by a cold stream comming from the south, the effect of that stream is surely 50 times stronger than the current effects of CO2.
The center of north america (both USA and Canada) is classic example for "continental climate". That means: regardless how hot the summers are: in winter it is damned cold! That means even if it is warmer on average, there will be an extreme winter every few years, depending how the jet stream situation over/around the north pole is.
On top of that we have alternating (does not really alternate ... I simplified) El Ninjo and Al Ninja phenomens. Both phenomens my "sleep" for half a decade or longer and suddenly increase in strength (completely unrelated to the CO2 trend or any other trend).
For some reason I never digged into the east cost is in winter pretty cold (considering that New York is on the same latitude as Rome - Italy) Colder than the equivalent latitude cities one the west. So New York has every few years a super Blizzard.

OTOH:
o In Australia we have every year a new summer heat record.
o In Europe not so much, but we have much more rain the last 5 - 10 years in summer.
o In Europe the winters are absurd warm, with a few exceptions which had a bit more snow (but where still to warm in comparision of 30 years ago)
o In Europe we have an increase of autumn and winter storms, this winter already 3 big ones (winter is just 4 weeks old, mind you)

Re:An ode to wankery

[Sockatume]

No, I didn't mean the President's Climate Action Plan, I meant climate scientists, and how they're reacting to the issue. Which is how scientists tend to react to a crisis. Which is what was required before the quote author would believe it was a crisis.

Re:This isn't helping...

[Chris Mattern]

China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, not just in absolute terms but also per unit of GDP. Air pollution in Beijing is so bad that the health implications are very evident, and massive.

But because they aren't a democracy, they'll be able to fix that! Well, they haven't done much *yet*, but they'll be able to get right on that. You betcha.

Oh, wait, they have done something. They've insisted that the US Embassy in Beijing stop measuring the daily air quality.

Re:An ode to wankery

[SuperTechnoNerd]

How did stupidity and ignorance get elevated to virtues?

I wish I had an answer for you, other than the media. The last 20 years has been the "coming out" years for stupidity. Ignorance and stupidity are rewarded and intellectualism, logic and reason is to be avoided because it's "geeky". No one seems capable of critical thinking anymore. There are people who know they are stupid, and are proud of it! Really - with all thees low-brow TV shows like "honey boo boo", "duck dynasty" , " kardashians", etc - they seem to make being stupid vogue somehow. Then on the flip side of the coin, last month CNN did a short bit on CERN'S LHC and the 2 reporters were giggling, making jokes, couldn't keep a straight face during the piece. They were obviously uncomfortable reporting on this subject for fear they may get labeled a geek or something. Perhaps our future is shown in the movie "Idiocracy". I fear for our future generations. I saw something here on Slashdot the other day which I posted on my fridge; that sums it up:

"“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”"

Re:Science is not popularism every time

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists%27_views_on_climate_change

Here's a list of MANY studies with varying results... ALL of which denote that the MAJORITY, often a VAST majority, realize the truth - man's emissions have an impact and it IS SIGNIFICANT.

Don't be scared of science Republican America, embrace it and use that as the unlocking tool to ALL of your fallacies, economic, social, and personal.

Tired of being bombarded by enviro anvils

[Theovon]

I am by no means a global warming denier. It seems straightforward that human use of carbon-based fuels has massively increased CO2 in the atmosphere, a known greenhouse gas. This isn’t rocket science. Additionally, there are numerous other impacts we have on the environment, polluting natural resources, where we need to clean up our act.

But the sappy, apocalyptic dogma is getting really old.

My family and I went to Disney recently, and we spent one day at EPCOT. Tomorrowland isn’t what it was when I was a kid. Back then, it was cool stuff about how great technology will be in the future. Now, they appear to have run out forward-looking ideas, and the whole experience is up-your-nose enviromentalist brainwashing. We went there to have fun and instead got lectured. And this lecturing is happening everywhere, and it’s annoying. OK, I GET IT. I recycle, I professionally do research in areas involving improving energy efficiency, and I donate money to organizations that work on envronmental protection and political activism.

This reminds me of this “common core” education program, which its original creators won’t sign off on, because it’s all become a load of crap. Instead of teaching kids math, science, language, and critical thinking, it’s all about instilling certain specific attitudes. And both the liberals and conservatives are trying to get their bullshit in there. Enviromental awareness is never about the environment. It’s about two warrning political parties trying to brainwash people into two different dogmas that further their agendas, most of which is to keep big businesses and the politicians themselves in power.

Re:This isn't helping...

[NeutronCowboy]

Not surprising. After, the grandparent made the claim that Al Gore was made into the Climate Change front man, when nothing of that sort has happened. Instead, he used his considerable fortune to make a movie, put out a book and go on a speaking tour about Climate Change. And for what it's worth: he still hasn't been wrong about his core facts. The worst people can point to is some hyperbolic language here and there.

Re:An ode to wankery

[gnasher719]

Could be when spell-checkers made us sloppy about proper usage. It's "Death throes" unless you're talking wrestling.

Wouldn't you use a spelling checker instead of a spell checker, unless your name is Harry Potter?

White Coats vs solar output

[BoRegardless]

For all the "scientific" discussion about the topic in hand, few are still reminding the populace that no scientific theory has been able to predict the changes in total solar output & solar flares over any long period of time! This is an enormous hole in the knowledge needed to do predictions that mean anything.

Solar output conditions dramatically alter the surface temperatures surprise (this winter notice the current so-called "solar maximum" with a "solar flare minimum" and the medieval Maunder minimum).

Until you can accurately predict solar output over a century with some degree of proven accuracy, the climatologists are, well, just guessing.

We need a mathematical model of how the Sun's engine works, but we simply do NOT HAVE IT.

Re:White Coats vs solar output

[Sockatume]

Fortunately the sun's variability is (based on past data) reasonably limited over the kinds of timescales we want to study. So we have an idea how large an effect it could have, even though we can't predict it. (Incidentally, this isn't a "solar flare minimum" this winter. We're supposed to be at peak solar activity.)

Re:White Coats vs solar output

[Vitriol Angst]

No but BoRegardless point is that the SUN could be having large temperature swings, because he doesn't believe the climatologists and just imagines that the huge sun isn't very stable - without actually checking on this presumption. But he's not going to believe in the Global Warming regardless of whether he's proven wrong on this pet theory or not -- I'm just going to make that prediction right now, without the benefit of Google.

Sorry but this pisses me off. These a-holes throwing stones at Climate Change don't bother to check that they've got about 9 excuses / theories of why the climatologists are ignorant -- and they can't be bothered to check that all of these suppositions have not only been proven wrong, but extremely stupid. Sun = Hot + Variable has been brought up about every year for the last 10. The "but Mars ice caps are melting" is due to follow next week. Rinse and repeat.

When the sun heats up (as it is won't to do), it expands, as it expands, this reduces fusion and self-stabilizes the output. In longer term trends, the higher output causes more lighting and more ozone production and more EM reflecting atoms created in the upper atmosphere -- which is damn lucky because it prevents us from having wild temperatures swings. It does have an effect -- but we can look at various inputs and STILL SAY THERE IS TOO MUCH DAMN CO2 in the atmosphere.

Our oceans are more acidic and our atmosphere has more CO2 than we've seen for about 75 million years. So WTF? Isn't that enough to say; "Houston, we may have a problem?" Without the Climatologists and just looking at measurements of air and water -- we should realize that Human activity has changed things and "we have a problem."

Without Hollywood, we can't do anything about the sun, of course.

Re:This isn't helping...

[NeutronCowboy]

If you care... you'll reengage with humility, mutual respect, and patience. The only reason to not do that is because you refuse to control your ego, refuse to treat people you need the cooperation of with respect, and lack the intellectual patience to go through a matter in the time required.

Let me get this straight: you link to an article that barely quotes two words by someone, make up a claim about Al Gore having been made into a front man, and then argue about engaging with humility, respect and patience? Personally, I don't have time to waste on people who set one standard for others and a different one for them, while not even bothering with reading comprehension.

I care. I have my own biases but I am willing to humbly go through the matter acknowledging what I don't know or understand, showing common courtesy to people that I might not agree with or trust, and patiently going through the matter step by step.

If that's the case, why in God's name are you using the Daily Caller as an authority on anything that's going on? I mean, they barely managed to quote two consecutive words of Figueres, and then just half of the article on a rant about the evils of Communism. Yes, an authoritative government is always able to get more done than a democratic one. That's almost by definition. The question always is, which one is more effective long-term and has more positive long-term impacts?

Re:An ode to wankery

[hoosierbill1234]

Read the works of Prof. Richard Lindzen of MIT. He has proved (using data as opposed to arcane arguments) that radiation from the earth into space follows black body radiation theory. One of the global warming disaster arguments was that heat radiated from the earth is reabsorbed in the "contaminated" atmosphere providing a feedack that would rapidly heat the earth--it is not an accurate model. Also, geological data lets us know that centuries ago the earth was much warmer--and-- centuries ago we had a mini ice age. So major climate changes on the earth have happened in the past, long before our civilization produced so-called greenhouse gases. Finally, "A Global Warming Primer" has a chart of geological data related to the timing and length of previous ice ages and warming periods. A look at their data suggests that we are within a few tens of years or so of going into a cooling peroid. For experimental confirmation that the earth is not warming a great amount, stick your thumb out the window. This past December the USA recorded a long listing or record low temperatures.

Re:Count on every Warmist...

[phlinn]

That study is presented in a fundamentally dishonest way. 0 TLDR version: It's deceitful to label that disagrees with any portion of the alarmist agenda (disliking a carbon tax for example) as a climate change denier. Taking all groups that fit under that broad category and totaling all of their funding regardless of what percent actually goes to climate issue magnifies the deceit.

Why I personally don't believe in global warming

[badzilla]

Our government used global warming to justify creation of a complete new tax ("Carbon Tax".) Call me cynical but that is in itself all I need to feel very suspicious of the whole thing.

Re:This isn't helping...

[phlinn]

No. That is pure ad hominem. Try actually addressing arguments on their merits instead of going "La la la i can't hear you". Who the hell gives out insightful for an undeniable fallacy?

Re:Count on every Warmist...

[halexists]

That's because Google is in on it too.

(removes tongue from cheek).

Re:Ignore It....

[bunratty]

Yes, I'm glad to hear a skeptic being honest for a change. It's uncomfortable to think about, so many ignore it or try to rationalize it away. That's what's behind the skepticism, not rational scientific arguments.

Re:An ode to wankery

[interkin3tic]

I'd caution against taking the media as representative of most americans. Look at radio: it's increasingly gone all the same pop music. That doesn't mean everyone is listening to miley cyrus, that just means that they're losing a significant number of people, so they're doubling down on those demographics that are still watching or listening.

That demographic is, of course, idiots.

In the case of radio, it's teens and pre-teens with nothing but disposable income to waste on whatever music they think everyone else is listening to, and no mature musical tastes to cause them to turn off the radio. With CNN, it's people who don't know how to read a newspaper or get their news from the internet. With reality TV, it's people who are tired and want to turn off their brains for a while.

(Disclaimer: I watched all of Jersey Shore while writing my dissertation, so maybe I'm just defensive.)

While I do think there's an unfortunate number of people in America who have decided that ignorance is a virtue and not a vice, I don't believe that's most people, and I don't believe it's in all subjects. Those CNN reporters who were nervous about not understanding physics might have really great insight into politics and economics. People who watch honey boo boo aren't emulating that behavior with their jobs.

The Unanswered Question

[turkeyfish]

Speaking of science, perhaps since you profess knowledge you can provide an answer to the following question, which those who argue that the world is not getting warmer can not seem to ever answer.

If its not getting warmer in the past 16 years, why are all the world's glaciers continuing to recede simultaneously at what appear to be increasing rates of melting?

Re:The Unanswered Question

[fredprado]

The answer is that you don't need to argue that the world is not getting warmer. The world got warmer and colder multiple times in the last billion year, and glaciers advanced and receded multiple times during this period. Still here we are.

Skeptics do not contend that there are climate changes, they defy the notion that human factors are as significant as the alarmists say, and the theory that what is happenign now is outside the bounds of what already happened to Earth many many times.

There never was a pause

[Ken_g6]

The heat was just moving to locations where it's hard to put a ground-based weather station. Add satellite measurements and the "pause" disappears.

I find the term 'denier' to be demeaning

[neo-mkrey]

How about "well informed" or "critical thinker"?

Re:An ode to wankery

[Immerman]

Wait, so you're saying the people who actually understand the situation don't count, and instead you're going to judge the reality of the crisis based on the behavior of the politicians promoting self-serving solutions? How does that make sense?

Politicians and media personalities flock to every convenient crisis, real or imagined, as an excuse to promote their own agendas (or their sponsor's), while simultaneously being rendered almost completely immune to the effects of most real crises by their socioeconomic status. Their behavior is the last thing we should use to judge the reality of the crisis, except in the exceedingly rare case where it's the rich and powerful who stand to be hurt (insurrection is the only thing that springs to mind)

Re:This isn't helping...

[Karmashock]

Do they? Do they also want to eat babies and kill all the black people?

Or is that merely a bigoted argument sold to and bought only by the gullible?

Try again please.

Both sides of the isle have families. Both have children. Both want good things for the future of the nation.

No sizable portion of the nation wants bad things. So do us all a favor and cut the bigoted arguments unless your real objective here is to identify yourself as a bigot.

Re:It is about development

[Tanktalus]

Wow. Really?

If your doctor tells you that you need antibiotics, you weight the risk and cost vs the reward to determine your course of action. In this case, the risk to you is low, the cost is similarly low, the reward is that your infection likely goes away faster (in extreme cases, saving your life, but not in general).

If the AGW politicians tell you that you need to sacrifice your entire standard of living in order to curtail a problem that they still don't understand (and, let's face it, they don't understand it because they still can't predict it, even on a decade-by-decade basis, nevermind year-over-year), the risk is high (no understanding of likely outcomes), the cost is even higher (likely resulting in many human deaths), and the rewards are vague.

Those aren't even kind of similar. For an analogy to work, there must be a reasonable amount of similarity, and your analogy has almost none.

I'm all in favour of technology improving our cheap-energy viability. But the problem is that the only realistic cheap-energy that is currently technically viable is nuclear. And that has the same group of environmentalists opposed to it as are trying to decry AGW. They're shooting their cause in the foot.

Other than oil executives, most of the rest of us don't care where our energy comes from. But we know we need it. And most of us don't want to double (or more) our energy costs. We have a viable alternative. Use it. That will kill more opposition to AGW changes than any "scientific" argument you can come up with. Make our lives easier for less cost, and it will be adopted overnight (relatively speaking). Use your scientists to proclaim the actual safety of the nuclear industry. You'll do far more to remove carbon emissions than anything else currently being tried.

It's the old adage - catching more flies with honey than vinegar. Don't accuse us, attract us with what we want. Cheap, reliable energy. Remember Aesop's fable about the North Wind vs the Sun. The man wears a coat to keep warm - blowing a cold wind only makes him hold it harder, but give him warmth and he sheds his coat willingly. Give us what we want, cheap, reliable energy, and you get what you want, fewer carbon emissions.

Re:the sky is (not) falling... you're thinking abo

[ConceptJunkie]

"Climate change" isn't the socialist conspiracy. It's most the proposed solutions, which seem more geared toward the goal of promoting socialism than doing anything about the alleged problem.

When a global warming/climate change person suggests (and a few have, but very few) that nuclear power is a good alternative because it doesn't emit carbon, then I will consider him or her actually interested in dealing with the issue. However, it seems that the same people who are global warming/climate change alarmists also often support biofuels, which compared to traditional fossil fuels, make the carbon problem worse.

Human nature again...

[John Allsup]

When faced with difficulties or inconveniences in daily life, humans are adapted to find a way to reduce the difficulty and inconvenience. This is natural, but has a few consequences.

This basic nature does not understand the difference between facts like 1+1=2, 0.999...=0, etc; Newton's Laws; QM; That JFK did get assasinated and didn't just decide to revert to his Lizardman form, and fake his death to explain his absence; etc...

When faced with facts like global warming, man's instinct is to change the facts: the problem appears to be people complaining about Global Warming... naive bloke thinks 'I can't see it--it's not there--just tell these guys they're imagining it and to get on with their lives'. It takes a lot of learning to understand that you can't change the laws of maths or nature. We take this obviousness for granted, because it is endemic in how we are brought up, but a perusal of the history of human thought should help you see that what is obvious today wasn't always obvious. Also, these more naive aspects of how we think on a more basic level are often obscured by our unified sense of self.

'Deniers' is not a good term

[Algae_94]

When certain sides of an issue are labelled 'deniers' (as opposed to 'believers' I suppose?) it tends to kill any debate. Using the term 'denier' is akin to telling people that they are just wrong for not believing them. It frames the issue as more of a religious issue (you believe or you don't) rather than a scientific issue. The term 'skeptic' would be better to use.

A little more on topic, I imagine that many people would falter in their belief of global warming in the face of record cold winter temps. I know that 'climate change' is the term now and not 'global warming', but many people got that original 'global warming' term stuck in their heads. Then if there's a cold winter they wonder how the hell there's any global warming.

Re:An ode to wankery

[Alsee]

Yes, denialist.

And here's a graph showing exactly how your denialism works, and exactly how laughably wrong it is:

Global temperature graph.

The wiggly red-orange line is global mean temperatures for the last 50 years.
The pale blue straight line on the right, that's the fictitious cooling period we've had for the last 12 years. The straight purple line is the preceding 5 years of fictional global cooling. And before that is the blue line in the middle, 8 years of fictitious global cooling. And the decade before that is the green line, another fictitious period of global cooling. And the straight red line on the left is the preceding 12 year period of fictional global cooling.

That graph shows that we've had nothing but (fictional) cooling periods or "leveling off periods" essentially EVERY YEAR FOR THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.

The series of straight lines.... average declining temperatures lines... is a blatant staircase going up. And it illustrates just how absurd and wrong it is when denialists trot out your claim that warming has stopped or flattened. It is blatantly fraudulent to claim any of the straight lines in the posted graph represent any halt or even slowing in the rate of temperature rise.

There has been no halt in the temperature rise. There has been no slowing in the temperature rise. You're just grabbing at cherry-picked random fluctuations to draw a fictional staircase composed of fictional horizontal (or declining) steps.

-

Re:An ode to wankery

[khallow]

On this very website, which is "news for nerds", I can find quite a few commenters who still say things like "why was it cold today where I live if it's supposed to be GLOBAL warming?".

I'm sure that there's someone who genuinely believe that. But there's also people say that sarcastically because there's someone saying the opposite, "it's warm today therefore global warming". I recall that being a common problem when the Hurricane Sandy stories were working their way through Slashdot.

The problem is that many people are defiantly, stubbornly ignorant, and will actively resist information as if their lives depended upon not learning anything.

And maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass, you wouldn't be one of those people. There are people who argue based on facts and evidence, then there are people who misrepresent the entire public to fulfill some fantasy of theirs.

Yes, there are ignorant people. Yes, there are people who belong to groups whose primary membership requirement is to be deliberately ignorant on some subject or another. But representing everyone who disagrees with you as being members of that latter class ignores some very relevant things.

First, climatology isn't as firmly nailed down as claimed. As the story grudgingly notes, there is a fifteen year period of deviation from what has been predicted for global warming (it is more than just a 15 year cherry-picked "pause"). Note that the story patronizingly downplays the resulting concern as a psychology issue.

Now why does this matter? It is generally agreed that there is global warming and that humanity contributes to it to some degree. But the huge problem now is whether to respond to this global warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The claim, based on these errant predictive models is that human-induced global warming is bad enough that we must do something, even though it will harm us in various other ways.

But we are seeing that in the short term, these models are failing to accurately represent climate trends. That indicates to me that it is likely that these also will fail to accurately model climate in the long term. Apparently, it looks that way to many other people as well. And I'd say that being told to make poorly thought out sacrifices on the basis of bad modeling doesn't sit well with a good portion of the population.