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Imagining the Future History of Climate Change
HughPickens.com writes "The NYT reports that Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University, is attracting wide notice these days for a work of science fiction called "The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future," that takes the point of view of a historian in 2393 explaining how "the Great Collapse of 2093" occurred. "Without spoiling the story," Oreskes said in an interview, "I can tell you that a lot of what happens — floods, droughts, mass migrations, the end of humanity in Africa and Australia — is the result of inaction to very clear warnings" about climate change caused by humans." Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder.
Oreskes argues that scientists failed us, and in a very particular way: They failed us by being too conservative. Scientists today know full well that the "95 percent confidence limit" is merely a convention, not a law of the universe. Nonetheless, this convention, the historian suggests, leads scientists to be far too cautious, far too easily disrupted by the doubt-mongering of denialists, and far too unwilling to shout from the rooftops what they all knew was happening. "Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did."
Why target scientists in particular in this book? Simply because a distant future historian would target scientists too, says Oreskes. "If you think about historians who write about the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the collapse of the Mayans or the Incans, it's always about trying to understand all of the factors that contributed," Oreskes says. "So we felt that we had to say something about scientists.""
Oreskes argues that scientists failed us, and in a very particular way: They failed us by being too conservative. Scientists today know full well that the "95 percent confidence limit" is merely a convention, not a law of the universe. Nonetheless, this convention, the historian suggests, leads scientists to be far too cautious, far too easily disrupted by the doubt-mongering of denialists, and far too unwilling to shout from the rooftops what they all knew was happening. "Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did."
Why target scientists in particular in this book? Simply because a distant future historian would target scientists too, says Oreskes. "If you think about historians who write about the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the collapse of the Mayans or the Incans, it's always about trying to understand all of the factors that contributed," Oreskes says. "So we felt that we had to say something about scientists.""
One of Pete Postlethwaite's last movies covered the issue in a similar way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
That wasn't rooted in climate change, rather it was the result of poor agricultural processes. Even your wiki link says so.
There are about 7.25b people. There were about 1b people in 1800 and I don't think anyone would consider the population to be going extinct then. Right now in the lowest reproducing countries the rate is 1.3 children per female. That induces halving in population per 2 generations. Or about 6 generations so even if we were to have the lowest rate in the planet we would be in 200 years about where we were 200 years ago. At that point resources would be abundant.
... really needs. More politicization, more exclusion, less debate, more demonetization, more "if it 10 percent possible then we should spend a 1 trillion on it now!", etc.
Cue the hordes of people that will say I'm supporting deniers or other equally politically loaded terms that don't have anything to do with science.
Gentlemen. This is a controversial issue. It just is. And that isn't going to go away by demonizing the opposition. Just won't. That just gives those people ammunition to say that you're afraid of debate or the science because you're just devolving into ad hominem and various political games rather then staying laser focused on the science.
Right now, some fool is trying to pen a response that says "oh you're automatically invalid because you ascribe to this political faction or that one."... Well congrats. You've proved my fucking point, you complete fucking retard.
I want to take this issue away from the politicians and the rabid foaming at the mouth political activists and just hand this back to the scientists. And that includes removing the stigmas in government research grants from saying one thing or another about climate change. It is literally impossible to keep your credibility on this issue if you only permit certain conclusions.
Now to show I'm not just supporting one side, I've seen a lot of bullshit science on the skeptic/denier side as well. Just silly make believe shit.
Here is what is going to blow the mind of some poor son of a bitch... I am on neither of these teams. *BOOM* Some of them probably can't even believe that. It isn't possible for anyone to be anything but with them or against them. Which just shows the levels of indoctrination those poor fucks have been subjected to on this issue.
Here is what I want. Science. Objective. Empirical. Detached. Indifferent to outcome. Just do the science and connect the dots. The instant you start grinding your fucking axes you're not doing science. Period. End of story. And at that point, I have a very hard time taking anything you say seriously until it is clear to me that that has stopped. I feel/think I am being manipulated when someone has a position, claims they don't because they're scientists, and then reveals that they do by the way they conduct themselves.
It isn't okay.
I want all the political assholes out of this issue 20 years ago. Just leave. Al Gore can go fuck himself not because he's a democrat which is fine... but rather because he's ruined this topic. Now someone is going to say "but it isn't about Al Gore"... Except it is politically. He is so deep in this thing and has been so deep in it from its very inception that the only way you're getting him out of it is with a rain coat, goggles, and a chainsaw.
And that's going to be painful. The screams of delerious horror are to be expected. But the man is in something he has no business being in at that level. I want to see scientists in there with an established track record of putting science above their own petty egos. I want to see men and women that admit they're wrong all the time and say "cool" when that happens because mistakes teach you things. This is something politicians do not do... ever. Politicians and political movements never admit fault. They're fucking infalable to a man. They could blow their own feet off with a full clip of an automatic weapon, reload, and keep firing at their own jammed flesh and will still claim it was all part of some brilliant plan. Or just as hilarious it will all be the fault of some opponent that perverted their real intentions.
I'm fucking over it. These people are ruining science. Science is not politics. One person can contradict EVERY OTHER SCIENTIST ON EARTH... and be right. It has happened before. Is it unlikely? Sure. Here someone will say "you have to go with the majority" and I don't disagree with that. However, the politicization of the issue frankly casts some doubt on what sort of majority you have here and how it was constructed.
You find that unfai
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"As for global warming itself, it could be fully or partially man caused. I don't know, but again, I don't think it's a problem either way, so I don't really give a crap. "
See that bit where you write "I think...". Stop thinking , if you don't have a qualification in climate science, and go and look up what the experts say because on a fundamental levels your opinions are no guide at all to anything useful if you don't have the training to have a reliable opinion on the matter.
And if thats hard to understand, google "Dunning Krueger" for more explaination.
Until then, sorry dude, but its a reasonable reply he gave. This really has nothing to do with left or right wing politics, since science doesn't work that way.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Extinction due to climate change? What science is that based on? During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum there was a great diversification of terrestrial life. For the majority. of the time mammals have roamed the earth it has been so warm that there have been no polar ice caps, yet life kept chugging along and adapting.
funny thing about the IPCC report lots of people seem to not talk about... they made predictions. enough time has passed where you can check some of those predictions using current data. if they are anything other than consistently accurate, then we dont have this climate thing figured out, regardless of "consensus".
no one needs an army of scientists who believe x is correct. we just need one who can demonstrate they are correct.
I mean shit, look at Al Gore, if there was a list of everybody on the planet sorted by personal carbon consumption, he'd probably be in the top 1%.
Gore is carbon neutral isn't he?
I don't care how energy efficient his 20 bedroom house or his private jet are;
Gore doesn't have a private jet.
both inevitably consume a LOT more energy than your typical person's luxuries.
How does a jet consume energy without existing?
In a small contained lab environment we can sit there and measure how much of a greenhouse effect different gases have, but historical data doesn't even so much as show a correlation between greenhouse gases and climate change.
That's not true for any of the past 420 million years
IIt doesn't appear to harm ocean life
Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit.
plant life, or land animals either
Bullshit
as during one of Earth's "greenest" periods in history we had 20 times the present atmospheric CO2, really fucking massively sized insects, dinosaurs, and more.
Kind of irrelevant. We have existent species now. Those are the ones that have to be able to live. Really fucking massively sized insects, and dinosaurs are already dead.
Other data suggests that rises in atmospheric CO2 follow rises in climate, not the other way around
Nope:
CO2, increasing since about 1750.
Temp, from about 1900.
As for global warming itself, it could be fully or partially man caused. I don't know, but again, I don't think it's a problem either way, so I don't really give a crap.
Well, we've got a lot of science now, so we don't need to base our decisions on what you think.
It's entirely possible that the higher CO2 we're seeing is yet another rise following a climate change that we had no part in.
No it's not. It's from the combustion of fossil fuels.
And by the way, the arguments for stopping climate change so that we can save the economy are also incredibly stupid and self defeating.
Bullshit
We have not, even one time, seen a case where climate change has caused long term economic damage.
Bullshit. Economic impact of global warming is costing the world more than $1.2 trillion a year, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP
Meanwhile we have seen on well more than one occasion where stupid economic decisions cause global long term collapse. Hurting the economy for what is probably much ado about nothing is therefore pointless
The 10 state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative saw their combined economies increase by 1.6 billion in the first three years. Oh, the pain! The pain! Ouch! Stop the hurt!
/. vote this bullshit +5, interesting? I would have thought anti-science grandstanding was antithetical to "news for nerds". This place really has dropped in discernment over the past few years hasn't it.
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Why did
The 1937-1937 were FAR hotter than today, across almost the whole United States. (I'm not claiming it was global.) While that might not be "global climate change" it puts any of today's "extreme weather events" to shame.
Nope, hotter now.
Zero - like the relevance of your post.
The point being refuted was "We have not, even one time, seen a case where climate change has caused long term economic damage."
Context, noob.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
to be fair, the potato famine was due to the potato blight, a fungal disease that makes them inedible.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.