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We Had All Better Hope These Scientists Are Wrong About the Planet's Future (washingtonpost.com)
Less than 24 hours since we read this dire climate study, an anonymous reader writes from a Washington Post report about several more concerning things: James Hansen, a former NASA scientist, says his new study suggests the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than generally envisioned. The research invokes collapsing ice sheets, violent megastorms and even the hurling of boulders by giant waves in its quest to suggest that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels would be far too much. Hansen has called it the most important work he has ever done. "I think almost everybody who is really familiar with both paleo and modern is now very concerned that we are approaching, if we have not passed, the points at which we have locked in really big changes for young people and future generations," Hansen said.
As for Hansen's paper referred to in this article, it tries to make a case for the dangers of climate change by looking for analogues for current climate change in the past. But he clearly starts out with the goal of showing that climate change is very dangerous and then tries to concoct scenarios and fit observations to reach that conclusion. Hansen is not objective anymore, and his papers and conclusions are not credible anymore.
Good thing is: none of this really matters. Politically, it is impossible for Western leaders to have much influence over fossil fuel use, and deployment of renewable energy progresses at its own pace and as it makes economic sense, no matter what nutcases like Hansen say or want.
You're a god damn fool. If all of this is poppycock but we still act, there isn't much of a problem. If it isn't poppycock and we don't act then the results could be catastrophic. I'd rather we err in the side of caution only a fool would choose to do otherwise.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Science means discussing things with people who disagree who actually have the vaguest fucking idea what it is that is being discussed. Science isn't about scientists debating with morons on the Internet, and pretending that their pseudo-skepticism is even in the tiniest way a real critique of the theory.
Or perhaps you imagine that advocates of the Electric Universe or Young Earth Creationism somehow just automatically deserve a pedestal because they have enough neural wiring to make any old claim against established science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
| When I was in school there was constant hysteria over the ozone layer. By the year 2000 we were all supposed to be blind and dying of skin cancer because the ozone layer would be mostly gone.
It was an actual, serious problem, and still is, but is not getting worse because the planet took concerted action to fix it.
Acid rain didn't just "go away" either spontaneously, it slowed significantly because humans, back then, actually listened to scientists and were less aggressively selfish and stupid than regarding global warming.