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When Beliefs and Facts Collide
schnell writes A New York Times article discusses a recent Yale study that shows that contrary to popular belief, increased scientific literacy does not correspond to increased belief in accepted scientific findings when it contradicts their religious or political views. The article notes that this is true across the political/religious spectrum and "factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective at reducing misperceptions and can even backfire on issues like weapons of mass destruction, health care reform and vaccines." So what is to be done? The article suggests that "we need to try to break the association between identity and factual beliefs on high-profile issues – for instance, by making clear that you can believe in human-induced climate change and still be a conservative Republican."
Anyone who says that climate isn't changing has their head in the dry dirt of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. Recorded history shows clearly that there is climate changes over time. Indeed, climate shifts have influenced man's history more than any other single event source. Scientific evidence shows that climate changes constantly. The problem I have is the intensity which climate cultists point to humans as the cause.
Given that the magnetic poles have been shifting regularly, if slowly, means that the solar wind's interaction with the Earth will change as the magnetic field moves. ("Settled science"? I haven't heard any nay-sayers.) How about the argument that carbon dioxide has been "building up"? Yet one study I finally found, that looks at wider time periods than a century (http://www.biocab.org/carbon_dioxide_geological_timescale.html) suggests that (1) temperature has no significant correlation with CO-2 content, and that we are coming out of a period of low CO-2 concentrations.
Does this mean that man is completely blameless? No. Temperature is a function of released energy, and the Earth had stored sunlight for millions of years. We are releasing that stored sunlight at an increasing pace, which eventually ends up in the atmosphere, one way or another, as heat. How much is due to technology, and how much is a by-product of man's actions such as the clear-cutting of Amazon rain forests and covering the land masses with asphalt and concrete, and how much is caused by other, non-man-made changes? So the question is whether the existing natural system for expelling heat are up to the task. More importantly, details are important. How much heat does technology dump into the atmosphere? Clear-cutting (and clear-burning) of land? Other sources? Without numbers, everything is just opinion. And when it comes to such "science", one option is equally as good as another, absent accurate and provable forecasts -- I believe that is why the climage deniers hold to their beliefs. Cultists haven't proven their case, or even shown their case has merit.
Are there other solutions than those proposed by the client cultists? One way to keep heat out of the atmosphere, if that is the goal, is to keep sunlight reaching ground level from being converted to heat in the atmosphere. Photovoltaics can help, although the energy would be released -- just perhaps in a different spot or a different time; the benefit would that such energy would displace energy released from fossil fuels -- current sunlight instead of ancient sunlight. Ditto solar thermal power plants -- using today's energy instead of million-year-old energy.
Sunlight that never reaches the ground can't contribute much to the heat load. How about reflection and dispersion? Some of the energy would be converted to heat by the air itself, but the rest would escape into space in the form of radiation (light, infrared). Another way to trap sunlight so it doesn't contribute heat is to increase the surface area of leaves, to increase photosynthesis -- and that has the benefit of eating up CO-2 as well as keeping heat out of the air. (Cultists: when did you re-roof your homes with grass? It would lower your air-conditioning bills, too, by keeping the heat out of your attic.)
But is that all there is? There is considerable heat trapped in the core of our planet. Further, there are energy sources in the ground that contribute to the atmospheric heat load...but I never see that heat source mentioned in the Climate Cultist literature. What is the effect of volcanos on the solar balance sheet? We know that ash can bring down airplanes, but what is the effect of that ash in the air? It could well be that geothermal power generation, replacing fossil-fuel generation, would be an excellent way to keep the atmosphere in thermal balance. Don't hear much about geothermal from climage cultists, do you...
I was part of the generation that "grew up with the Bomb" -- and I remember all those discussions about "nuclear winter"
Well, over there you are all socialists so the political label doesn't matter much anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Talk to me agitation when you've read the IPCC report. I won't debate with John Regurgibots.
In other words, fuck out you lying ignoramus
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You're another of the people TFA was written about.
The easiest way to get rich/powerful is to be the child of somebody rich/powerful.
Not just the easiest way, but the usual way. The American dream being the fantasy that this isn't true.