Slashdot Mirror
Bill Nye: Climate Change Denial Is 'Running Out of Steam,' Thanks To Millennials (mic.com)
An anonymous reader shares with us an article on Mic: Famed science educator Bill Nye has long been an outspoken critic of people who continue to doubt climate change, the main driver of freaky weather patterns, rising global temperatures and sea level rise around the globe. In an interview with Mic, Nye said that despite lingering skepticisms, there is nearly 100% scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is here to stay -- and people are becoming increasingly anxious about its effects on the planet, particularly younger generations. "Almost every person in denial about climate change is older," Nye said. "It's very hard to find a millennial-aged person that is not concerned about climate change. I think the climate denial movement is running out of steam, I guess that's a pun."
"Scientists" say the ship is sinking. Then why is my end 200 feet in the air?
Thirty four characters live here.
The point isn't "Is the Climate Changing" because the climate is always changing, the points are
1. is the change due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, (probably a little bit)
2. if the change is due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, will the rate of change accelerate, decelerate or stay linear as CO2 increases,
3. if we reduce CO2 levels, will the Earth actually cool
4. can we reduce CO2 levels without killing off billions of people
5. is the change due to land use changes, (probably a fair bit?)
6. have you really seen any climate change over your lifetime, even the alarmist are saying it's less than a degree
7. if the denialists are in thrall to "Big Oil", why do you assume the Alarmists aren't in the other sides pocket
Bill Nye is an engineer by training, a professional Entertainer by trade and not afraid to commit scientific fraud for "dramatic effect".
OBTW "It's very hard to find a millennial-aged person that is not concerned about climate change. I think the climate denial movement is running out of steam, I guess that's a pun." is a manipulative sales technique known as social validation, it's rather effective on persons with narcissistic tendencies; it strongly appeals to the hive-mind drive to be "one of the cool kids".
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The RSS satellite record shows warming of between -0.177 to 0.199 C/decade since 1998. Because of this large uncertainty in over the period you end up with a result that is consistent with predictions. Uncertainty could be reduced by picking a larger period, but then you start to see the long term warming trend and you remain consistent with predictions. Ted Cruz doesn't really get it.
Curiously, if you split the RSS record at 1997, you will find the trend after 1997 is almost flat (with very large uncertainty), and the trend before 1997 is flat (with large uncertainty). But the trend over the whole period shows a strong warming trend (with narrow uncertainty). How can this be? No warming before, and no warming after, but warming over the whole period? See here for example: http://phosphorus.github.io/ap...
Well, it looks to me like the propaganda has been nearly 100% effective. Notice that it has not been as effective on people who are older than millennials. Wonder why?
Well, the basic science behind climate change can be trivially demonstrated via experiment. Probably these millennials were in school and saw that experiment or the teacher said one day "basic science behind climate change can be trivially demonstrated via experiment" in which case, they probably recognise (as most people do) that denying climate change is the same as claiming that some form of magic occurs when the radiative properties of CO2 or methane are measured. i.e. A perhaps an invisible time traveller travels to each school and interferes with the experiment to makes us think that climate change is real, for some nefarious purpose. And went back in time to change this observation every time the experiment was performed, prior to us realising its full significance. Or perhaps a deity, for some reason, wants us to think that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, when it isn't: and somehow, the earth is warmed by other means, which are for some reason not detectable.
This is a hard narrative for people to believe. It is entirely unscientific. It doesn't really explain anything. Mostly, there is no reason for millennials, or anyone with a basic understanding of logic, to imagine that this particular piece of science is the work of an army of invisible time travelling antagonists, whereas other science is just what it seems to be.
So which country do you wish to murder? India? China? Because to get to the numbers they are claiming we need to reach you will have to kill a couple billion because they will have to live in conditions similar to what cave people lived in, with all the disease, starvation, and mass culling that implies.
Of course the REAL reason many are against those preaching AGW is NOT because they don't believe we have a problem, its because their "solution" is nothing but snake oil designed to enrich a few 1% insiders by pulling a reverse robin hood on the poor and middle class. Its actual effect on the climate? Will be about as much as buying my "climate fixing rocks" which I will be happy to sell you for the low low price of $10K per person.
Is dumping more carbon in the air bad? Yep, dumping too much of anything is bad...and the alternative is? Unless someone comes up with fusion technology or some other near limitless energy? You have several countries with billions of people that aren't gonna happily die in squalor just so you can keep your iCrap. They want to live in nice homes, have electricity and phones and laptops and fridges...you know, all the things your first world behind takes for granted? And to give them those things WILL require ever increasing carbon.
So unless you are willing to go "final solution" on the third world? Not really any more we can do than what we are doing now, in fact what we have done now is simply cripple our own country to benefit a handful of global elite. after all you can pass all the climate laws you want, they can simply go to a third world country and have their widgets made, dump as much toxins in the air and water there as they please (because to the locals its better than starvation) and then simply slap the widgets on a ship and sell it your your little green flag waving self. All these laws you pass? Not gonna cost them a dime because they are not gonna follow them, as long as your government allows so called "free trade" they can always find another country they can pollute.
So all you are buying is snake oil and bullshit designed to make you feel better about yourself, while screwing the poor and enriching the elite...all so you can put a "hastag i'magreen" on your tweets.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Do you realize how easy it would be to bankrupt the oil and gas companies? I mean these companies are in business because people buy their products. They'd go bankrupt almost over night if people just stopped buying their stuff.
But why do people buy their stuff? Don't they know the damage they are doing to the environment? I'm quite certain that they do. Or at least I'm quite certain that they've been told numerous times by now, unless they live under a rock. I don't place the blame on the oil and gas companies, I place the blame on the people that buy their stuff. Did you buy and oil or gas lately? I'm quite certain you did since about 1/4th of the electricity in the USA comes from natural gas, and almost half comes from coal. If you drive a car, take a bus, ride a train, or fly in an airplane then you've burned oil.
Unless you heat your house with corn cobs and light it with beeswax candles then this is your fault. Unless you walk or pedal to wherever you go this is your fault. If you buy food at a grocery store instead of grow it yourself then this is your fault.
Instead of placing the blame on the oil and gas companies then I suggest you lead by example. Show me how to live a better life free from petroleum products.
You are a hypocrite. You lecture to everyone about how oil and gas companies are ruining the world while sitting in a home heated with natural gas, lit by coal, and eating food brought to you with petroleum. It is because of oil, gas, and coal you are living the life you live. If you want people to stop buying oil and gas then show them a better path. But a better path is not easy.
We've tried wind power but the wind doesn't always blow. We tried sun but it costs four times what electricity from natural gas, coal, or nuclear would cost. We tried bio-fuels but it became apparent very quickly that we don't have enough land to both fill our bellies and our fuel tanks. Algae fuels, wave power, fusion reactors, and so on are just theories right now. If we had those figured out then we'd see them as more than just science fair exhibitions.
Where can we turn? What do we have that can light our homes but not foul the air? Nuclear fission? Yes, nuclear fission. I guess you don't like anything "nukular", do you?
When I bring up nuclear power I get people that talk about Fukushima and Chernobyl while ignoring the dozens (hundreds?) of nuclear power plants that are operating safely on Earth right now. Nuclear power is the cleanest, safest, and most reliable energy source we have today. It's also one of the cheapest. Even with a reactor that blows it's top every 30 or 40 years the number of people that dies from nuclear power is orders of magnitude less than those that die from wind and sun on a per kWh basis. As safe as it is now we can make it safer. We can make it cheaper. Why don't we have more of it?
I suspect we have not solved this problem of burning oil and gas because we have hypocrites like you that demand they eat cake and have it too.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
You're ignoring that during the summer opposing factions will point outside and say "look at how hot it is"... so its a double edged sword.
You have to admit that BOTH sides have on occasion replied on some pretty specious evidence to back up their positions. I mean... the UN report that based the Himalayan glaciers retreat on a misquote from a climbing magazine that the interviewed scientist said didn't represent his position was pretty bad. It also demonstrates a despiration to find anything to support a narrative by some.
This is not to say that anything is true or false but rather that there are sophists on both sides of this discussion. And claiming that one side is all angels and holier than thou super human humans and the other are demonic subhuman hell spawn is just demagoguery.
Bill Nye has done nothing to contribute to a more scientific approuch in this discussion and has instead poured fuel on the flame war by saying that anyone that holds a contrary position is either stupid or a shill. Never mind the fact that quite a few of the claims have been disproven and quite a few of the predictions didn't happen.
Hanson for example predicted that half of New York City would be underwater by now. Well, it isn't.
The whole "the science is settled" position that Bill Nye stands behind has been debunked repeatedly not only on a case by case basis but also fundamentally as a scientific concept.
You don't get to close the book. Ever. The science isn't settled on gravity and these people want to have it settled on something that we can't even accurately model? THAT is stupid.
Here is what I believe:
1. The world is warming.
2. The seas are rising.
3. The climate is changing.
4. The rate of sea level rise over the last 200 years has remained pretty consistent which argues against human activity having any impact on sea level increases.
5. Linking global temperature to human activity is very difficult. We have evidence of the temps going up and down over millions of years. And the current temps are not inconsistent with what they might have been with no humans at all.
6. I don't think there is anything magical about CO2 that makes it more inclined to cause problems in our atmosphere than anything else. I have looked at the light spectrum absorption patterns and compared them to other common gases in our atmosphere and nearly everything in that spectrum is overlapped by other spectrums of more common gases such as water vapor. As such, I question the relevance of CO2 in this discussion at the current concentrations of the gas.
7. The lab experiments that showed that CO2 was a green house gas are misleading in several particulars. First, any gas is a green house gas. Hydrogen can be a greenhouse gas. Helium can be a greenhouse gas... and so on. The experiments also did not account for water vapor in the chamber. The air was desiccated. I'd love to see the difference in energy absorption of two gas samples... one that contains what we think our atmosphere would be without humans... including a reasonable moisture content. And then compare that to the energy absorption of an analogue of the current atmosphere. I rather doubt the difference is going to be anything assuming the air pressure isn't changed.
So... I am a believer in global climate change. Whether that climate is being significantly effected by human activity is something I am skeptical about. The politics on the issue are obviously tribalistic at this point and in that environment you can't cite how many people support you versus don't. Science is not a democracy. Science is not about how many people on facebook agree with you. Science isn't about voting or even what you believe.
Science is an outgrowth of stoicism. And as much as sophists try to dominate science, the discipline itself will remain hostile ground for those that care more about winning political disputes than "being right". Stoics don't care who thinks they're right. Stoics just care if they're right.
There is room for skepticism on many climate change issues. That's just a reality. Claiming we know more than we do is delusional.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.