Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Study How Non-Scientists Deny Climate Change (theguardian.com)
A new research paper suggest climate change opponents are "simulating coherence by conspiracism".
Slashdot reader Layzej says the paper "examines this behavior at the aggregate level, but gives many examples where contradictory ideas are held by the same individual, and sometimes are presented within a single publication." From the paper:
Claims that the globe "is cooling" can coexist with claims that the "observed warming is natural" and that "the human influence does not matter because warming is good for us". Coherence between these mutually contradictory opinions can only be achieved at a highly abstract level, namely that "something must be wrong" with the scientific evidence in order to justify a political position against climate change mitigation...
In a nutshell, the opposition to greenhouse gas emission cuts is the unifying and coherent position underlying all manifestations of climate science denial... Climate science denial is therefore perhaps best understood as a rational activity that replaces a coherent body of science with an incoherent and conspiracist body of pseudo-science for political reasons and with considerable political coherence and effectiveness.
"I think that people who deny basic science will continue to do so, no matter how contradictory their arguments may be," says one of the paper's authors, who suggests that the media should be wary of self-contradicting positions.
In a nutshell, the opposition to greenhouse gas emission cuts is the unifying and coherent position underlying all manifestations of climate science denial... Climate science denial is therefore perhaps best understood as a rational activity that replaces a coherent body of science with an incoherent and conspiracist body of pseudo-science for political reasons and with considerable political coherence and effectiveness.
"I think that people who deny basic science will continue to do so, no matter how contradictory their arguments may be," says one of the paper's authors, who suggests that the media should be wary of self-contradicting positions.
These scientists are wrong! Liars! They don't respect our religion!
Global warming is WRONG for one reason:
Hillary Clinton believes it.
TRUMP 2016!
Science is not immune to politics. It's really that simple.
Didn't they recently say that many scientific papers/studies cannot be replicated? I've also heard that many of the global warming studies don't include the solar cycles the sun goes through as well.
The problem with climate science is that it's so difficult. The average person the street has little hope of understanding all the data and how it interacts. They can never, therefore, have confidence in the results being reported to them. I'm largely in the same boat, btw; despite on and off studying over the past several years, I still don't really have a grasp on how all the data ties together and consequently I don't have a high degree of confidence in the reported conclusions of others.
Given this, attacking on the basis of "CLIMATE CHANGE" is the absolutely worst approach. The ignorance of your target audience will prompt them to respond contrary to your goals. Instead focus should be placed on the specifics; clean air emissions, water discharge standards, ect... Why? Because these are things people can understand, and they are immediately relevant to them. I don't want to live next to a factory dumping shit into the air/water, and neither does anyone else. That should be how climate change is addressed; not on the large scale, but rather the personalized one.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Bad Predictions:
Claim from the late 20th to early 21st century: Global Warming means that the planet it getting hotter. Temperatures will rise.
Life: Record lows in winter
Reaction: Change the term from Global Warming to Climate Change.
Claim from 2007 post multiple hurricanes: Global warming will only make hurricanes more frequent and more powerful.
Life: They haven't, they aren't.
Reaction:Just wait
Claim: Global warming will cause droughts.
Life: Flooding and heavy rains.
Global Warming Experts Reaction: Dry places will get drier, wet places will get wetter.
Claim: People who deny global warming should be discredited as scientists.
Life: Debate, discussion, new data and learning happen. Global Warming/Climate change has had its share of bad science and reckless predictions on both sides of the fence and it makes it easy for people to believe what they want OR what they SEE OR simply become resistant to the concept believing the issue to be more political than scientific.
Slashdot Reaction to this post: Predictable
At least that's what is they say here.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Note that holding contradictory beliefs is fairly common of conspiracy theorists (link):
Another study titled Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories managed to show that, not only will cranks be attracted to and believe in numerous conspiracy theories all at once, but will continue to do so even if the theories in question are completely and utterly incompatible with one another. For instance, the study showed that: "... the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered [and that] ... the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive," and that "Hierarchical regression models showed that mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively associated because both are associated with the view that the authorities are engaged in a cover-up".
Citation: Wood, Michael J., Karen M. Douglas, and Robbie M. Sutton. "Dead and alive beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories." Social Psychological and Personality Science 3.6 (2012): 767-773.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
They don't say all publications criticizing climate change mainstream arguments are bad, they only analyze some of it. They could have done the same exercise with any pseudo-scientific articles, climate change is just a good source.
The problem is not about arguing against climate change but about doing it without argument or with falsified ones. These articles use pseudo-scientific approach using terms that scientific would use and sometimes referring to other paper / sources but do it in a non-scientific way (e.g the referred paper doesn't say what the article says).
This is a big problem because people usually don't double check everything when they read those articles. Seeing a reference is enough to increase the trust. Even more if the reference is to a paper from a trusted organization / author . But how many readers look for the article to then check its content ?
Science news is largely presented by reporters with journalism educations who don't have any background in the science they're covering and as a result don't really understand the nature of what it is they're covering.
As a result, when they report an issue like climate change, they're completely unqualified to explain the actual science and instead of covering the work that scientists do, they cover the scientists instead. Instead of explaining the research that led Dr. Jones to conclude climate is changing, we get an appeal to authority.
So the reason non-scientists deny climate change is that the argument for climate change is largely being presented to them via non-scientific arguments.
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers.
These are people of the land.
The common clay of the new West.
You know... morons.
You can reproduce the same symptoms with any animal. In fact it is a universal life force. You can see the same thing on Animal Planet. The mammalian politics is a natural "evolution". A man's cortex is there merely to serve the cravings of the brain stem.
The deniers are just antagonists in a turf war. Climate change threatens their "territory" and authority. They are exhibiting a perfectly natural reaction. It's no different than the rivalry between the CIA and the NSA.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"Climate Change" deniers are likely responding to the "propaganda-ness" of much of the media regarding the subject. Answers to simple questions such as how climate is quantified and what reproduced experiments have been done to support or debunk climate change theories would have a lot more effect to win over non-believers than political agitation such as "the planet has a fever..."
In all seriousness:
Physicist Hal Lewis; Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara: "It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/n...
Most republicans I argue with agree that climate change is happening. The disagreement usd whether it is man made our just the natural cycle of the earth/sun. Most republicans I talk to think the whole environmental movement is a scam for the companies and organizations to make money and that people have little effect on climate change.
It's really difficult to tell what is man made and what isn't with climate change and that should be the focus. The effect of the Clean Air Act and the effect of regulation on the ozone layer are some examples of where one can show how environmental regulation has made a difference on man made change.
As far as the scam argument, I agree with them that a lot of organizations and companies are just in it for the money or power. This seems to be the case of some of the mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club. I don't know the solution to that.
Alot of the skepticism stems from the doomsday-esque presentation of the scientists. I lost count of all the embearded professors who predicted the world would be under water by now, or one big desert, etc. These people are extremists so of course, rational people tune this stuff out.
If they would present their case in a more level-headed manner I think most people would be receptive to what they have to say.
Stop using terms like "settled science", which is unbeatable as a directly false, unscientific, science-damaging claim.
Science doesn't work that way. You can start with the Steady State model of the universe or Luminiferous Ether for two high-profile examples, of thousands. Scientific models are provisional and permanently open to new data, and never, ever, -ever- "proven". To claim otherwise is to directly lie about what science is and how it works, and always will work, in every case, everywhere, forever.
http://www.whatreallyhappened....
A (Not Quite) Complete List Of Things Supposedly
Caused By Global Warming
Acne , Longer plane flights , agricultural land increase , Afghan poppies destroyed , Africa devastated , Africa in conflict , African aid threatened , African summer frost , aggressive weeds , More Toxic Poison Ivy , air pressure changes , airport malaria , Agulhas current , Alaska reshaped , moves , allergy season longer , alligators in the Thames , Alps melting , Amazon a desert , American dream end , amphibians breeding earlier (or not) , anaphylactic reactions to bee stings , ancient forests dramatically changed , animals head for the hills , animals shrink , Antarctic grass flourishes , Antarctic ice grows , Antarctic ice shrinks , Antarctic sea life at risk , anxiety treatment , algal blooms , archaeological sites threatened , Arab Spring , Arctic bogs melt , Arctic in bloom , Arctic ice free , Arctic ice melt faster , Arctic lakes disappear , Arctic tundra to burn , Arctic warming (not) , Atlantic less salty , Atlantic more salty , atmospheric circulation modified , attack of the killer jellyfish , avalanches reduced , avalanches increased , Baghdad snow , Bahrain under water , bananas grow , barbarisation , beer shortage , beetle infestation , bet for $10,000 , better beer , big melt faster , billion dollar research projects , billion homeless , billions face risk , billions of deaths , bird distributions change , bird loss accelerating , birds shrinking , bird strikes , bird visitors drop , birds confused , birds decline (Wales) , birds driven north , birds return early , bittern boom ends , blackbirds stop singing , blackbirds threatened , Black Hawk down , blood contaminated , blue mussels return , bluetongue , brain eating amoebae , brains shrink , bridge collapse (Minneapolis) , Britain one big city , Smaller loaves of Bread , Britain Siberian , brothels struggle , brown Ireland , bubonic plague , budget increases , Buddhist temple threatened , building collapse , building season extension , bushfires , business risks , butterflies move north , camel deaths , cancer deaths in England , cannibalism , cannibalism again , caterpillar biomass shift , cave paintings threatened , childhood insomnia , Cholera , circumcision in decline , cirrus disappearance , civil unrest , cloud increase , coast beauty spots lost , cockroach migration , coffee threatened , cold climate creatures survive , cold spells (Australia) , cold wave (India) , computer models , conferences , conflict , conflict with Russia , consumers foot the bill , coral bleaching , coral fish suffer , coral reefs dying , coral reefs grow , coral reefs shrink , coral reefs twilight , Cabbage Shortage , cost of trillions , cougar attacks , crabgrass menace , cradle of civilisation threatened , creatures move uphill , crime increase , crocodile sex , crops devastated , crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems , curriculum change , cyclones (Australia) , danger to kid's health , Darfur , Dartford Warbler plague , death rate increase (US) , deaths to reach 6 million , Dengue hemorrhagic fever , depression , depressed PETS! , desert advance , desert retreat , destruction of the environment , disappearance of coastal cities , disasters , diseases move from animals to humans , diseases move north , dog disease , Dolomites collapse , dozen deadly diseases , Drop in birth rates , drought , ducks and geese decline , dust bowl in the corn belt , early marriages , early spring , earlier pollen season , Earth biodiversity crisis , Earth dying , Earth even hotter , Earth light dimming , Earth lopsided , Earth melting , Earth morbid fever , Earth on fast track , Earth past point of no return , Earth slowing down , Earth slowing down 2 , Earth spins faster , Earth spins faster 2 , Earth to explode , Earth's poles shift , earth upside down , earthquakes , Specifically the 2015 Nepal earthquake , earthquakes redux , earthquakes redux 2 , Egypt revolt , El NiÃ
-Styopa
in scientific research. For example, what is this "hide the decline" all about? Why would scientists want to hide their data? Why wouldn't the CRU (Climate Research Unit at UEA) release their data sets as required by reputable journals such as "Nature." Why would they deny FOIA requests and conspire to find a way around them? Why would they seek to marginalize the "Climate Research" journal because some scientists had a contrary opinion, and why did they describe this as "plugging the gap" (their words)?
Why did a hockey stick emerge from their data no matter what "red noise" was input to the program? (White noise is random; red noise is random from the last iteration, like stock market quotes) And why did a hockey stick emerge only when the data was confined to the results of a single bristlecone pine tree? And why was the fact that contemporary tree-ring data showed a DECLINE in temperature in contrast to very accurate modern thermometers conveniently hidden? Was it because if they don't work accurately now there is no reason to suppose they were accurate thousands of years ago, thus putting the lie to the paleoclimate temperatures?
When you read about these shenanigans it reads like a political backroom dealing attempt to hide shoddy research. I implore you to read "Hiding the Decline; a history of the climategate affair" by A.W. Montford. isbn:978-1475293364, too avail yourselves of the degree of fraud perpetrated by these folks. Read the exposed emails sent back and forth which prove all this. Real the lamentations of the computer programmer assigned to try to make sense of all this as he says the data is a mess. One would think the members of slashdot could relate.
Why hasn't Al Gore been called to task for mixing up cause and effect on his giant graph showing correlation between CO2 and temperature? Turns out CO2 went up historically AFTER the temperature warmed. It's not a cause of warming temperatures, it's a result. But, as you may know, he won't debate anyone on the subject.
The climate may very well be warming. That happens when you are coming off an Ice Age, And it may be caused by us (or maybe not), but the degree to which these scientists sought to cook the data is unprecedented and one has to wonder why they went to such trouble to do it. They have made such a massive attempt to squelch opposing data that one wonders how they can look at themselves in the mirror and call themselves "scientists."
This is fraud on a massive scale, but who cares? The masses of people who aren't "scientists" won't be able to tell the difference anyway and we can just accuse them of being ignorant.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
The problem here is that people are willing to utterly ignore what has already happened. The Northwest Passage is open. The polar ice caps have shrunk. Every year is warmer than the year before. Miami Beach is flooding on clear days, they're building the streets higher.
Will humanity adapt and survive? Sure. But there will be crop failures, there will be mass starvation events, coastal cities will be lost, it will cost untold trillions of dollars.
With what we know now, CO2 emissions are the single biggest pollution threat to our environment right now, because they cause damage globally, not locally. That's why the ignorant don't see it as a problem, garbage in the street is visible. Burning, stinking rivers are obvious problems. But global climate changes that occur gradually don't look like a problem in your day-to-day life.
How much is it going to cost to abandon Miami, New York City, Boston, New Orleans, London, Amsterdam, Rome, Bangkok, Taipei, and pretty much every other coastal city? How much is it going to cost to find and develop new crop land? How much is it going to cost to try to feed the people whose formerly arable land is now desert?
It's not going to happen tomorrow, it's not going to happen 10 or 20 years from now. But it's going to happen if we don't do something about the elevated concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Maybe it's not going to be a global disaster before I'm long dead, and I don't have any kids, so maybe I should stop bothering with caring.
Not really it is simply people making dishonest arguments. The scientific evidence that the planet is warming is overwhelming the problem is that the proposed solution - reducing greenhouse gas emissions - carries with it a huge economic impact. Not surprisingly this means there are a large number of people who believe that the economic problems from reducing greenhouse gas emissions outweighs the problems of just warming the planet.
However they believe that this argument is not strong enough to prevent everyone deciding to cut greenhouse gas emissions so, although they really believe the science, their only option to prevent the economic problems they are worried about is to attack the science and try to pretend that it is wrong. So really this is simply a dishonest argument made be people who are so afraid of the impact of curbing greenhouse gases that they attack the arguments for this in the only way that has any chance of success even though they don't really believe the argument they are making themselves
When the chips are down so to speak it is amazing how overwhelmingly people will back science. One of the best examples of this which is often pointed out is despite all the arguments in US schools about whether to teach evolution vs. creationism (or whatever fancy name is the flavour of the day) everytime there is a concern about a new disease evolving an spreading e.g. SARS, bird flu, swine flu etc. no politician stands up and says that we should do nothing because viruses can't evolve. So when lives are on the line people really do believe in science to help and guide them but if they do not see an immediate threat to their well being then they'll happily undermine and ignore it to keep up their own standard of living.
Telling people what the trruth is at the butt of a gun, or destroying their careers or countries because someone proclaims they have found it, never works.
The reason why these people have to study this historical fact says quite a lot about western science to begin with.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Are the "scientists" conducting these "studies" psychologists or behavioral scientists? Because as far as I know, those are the only "scientists" who study why people would react one way or another to a situation. I mean marketing people do too, but that's hardly science. The cited article is unclear although what is clear, apart from the APA format of citation, is that it does not follow the standard format of SCIENTIFIC articles. Usually an article by SCIENTISTS doesn't go "1. Introduction 2. Conclusion". There's a whole lot missing on things like materials and methodology, discussion, etc.
So if you want an additional tip as to why people (including scientists, for I am one) reject climate change "science" - here's a big hint: follow the scientific method. Note that I am not even discussing the actual data evidence for or against climate change. I am discussing the lack of credibility of people who call themselves "scientists" but clearly are not. The scientific method and the way scientific articles are laid out is not new and does not need to be reinvented.
Perhaps the confusion arises because social sciences people are actually starting to believe that they are "scientists" because they took Poli Sci.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No, the problem is that some people have the attention span of a housefly.
A lot of "old folks" remember when cigarettes were healthy.
There was never,,,ever a time when more than tiny handful of scientists thought there would be another ice age. You're bullshitting. This bit about how "not long ago scientists were predicting an ice age" is simply a denialist lie. As in not true. As in you made it up because you think it helps your argument but really makes you sound extra stupid.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Lewandowsky and Cook - back on track with another paper full of lies and bullshit.
Remember the '97%' lie? Where 72 out of 12,000 papers supported his position, 1 supported the opposition's most extreme position, so he eliminated the rest and called it "science"? The paper where he had his forum members performing analysis? The paper where dozens of other scientists pointed out he had failed to understand their papers? That one?
Or the 'Moon Landing Hoax' hoax of a paper? Where these two allowed their forum members to submit answers to their online survey of opposition beliefs? Where they claimed to have included hundreds of skeptics and skeptic websites, all of whom reported they had never participated?
Oh! What about the 'Recursive Fury' paper, where these two 'analyzed' responses from skeptics - most of which they made up themselves?
After they've had multiple papers withdrawn for ethical, legal, and methodology concerns, you'd think they'd have learned to stop publishing this type of BS, but here they are at it again.
This paper uses careful selected objections to modern climate science (such as, your model don't produce real world data) and then says that because the objector has not proposed an 100% accurate alternate model, the objector is insane.
No, that is actually what the paper claims. That skeptics are not sane, or rational, or capable of coherent thought. All because some of them admit they don't know what the correct answer is, when they point out that someone else's answer is wrong.
Much of what was in "documentaries" like Inconvenient Truth and Gaslands was obvious BS. And we hear claims that Earth will be a lifeless cinder within a couple of generations even though CO2 levels have been much higher in the past.
Most of the denials that the climate is warming goes against well documented measurements.
The truth is somewhere in between. The best approach to minimizing the problem won't involve wealth transfer to poor nations. But neither side is going to budge.
It is a debate on how much data were fabricated to draw the conclusions on climate change in the first place
No, that is just people who've been duped by propaganda demanding that scientists pick sense out their nonsense.
If you've been following Earth science since the 70s (as I have), you'll realize that there was a decades-long, vigorous debate that has gone on that was largely decisively finished by the late 90s. That said indivividual results continue to be debated vigorously, simply because the nature of evidence in a complex system like climate is always contradictory. Some places will warm while others cool. Sometimes will be cooler in places that are generally warmer. Some consequences will not appear when expected and other, unexpected things will happen.
Some misunderstanding of this complexity of course was inevitable when this first became a public issue, but by now it's clear that misunderstanding is supported by a conscious program of propaganda. Like the claim that the world "hasn't warmed since 1998", which was later modified to "the world hasn't warmed *significantly* since 1998," and which will soon become "the world has actually cooled since 2016". The problem with those 1998 comparisons is that they picked the hottest year ever by far as their *baseline*. This doesn't happen by accident; it happens as a result of a conscious and sophisticated attempt to mislead.
So yeah, it's beyond the point where these kinds of objections are worth taking seriously. Science is hard, but you can manufacture bullshit out of thin air. If you don't like the fact that people are ignoring you, join the flat-Earthers and perpetual motionists.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Calling it "mind rot" is pretty much a tautology -- it's just another name for what's happening, not an explanation of how or why it works.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I am a firm understander of climate change, and the "contradictory" arguments used are just scientific observations that sound bizarre to the author of the article. Both the deniers and the author of the above study seem totally ignorant of pretty much everything!
The Earth is entering a cooling cycle (everyone agrees there). Human induced climate change has raised the temperature as a second order effect, again both sides (climate change understanders and deniers) agree there too. The problem is the wording on slashdot is a MESS here. Everyone also agrees that a small amount of warming is good for us.
So the confused topics in the article linked and the slashdot blurb ARE ACTUALLY what both sides agree on and need not be studied except by linguistic fools.
As for the debate there is none, but some people are denying climate science even when they use those very arguments to oppose climate science... I can explain more but it will take a few 1000 words. Summary;
Deniers are insane,
the author of the study seems to be a total idiot,
and we have a planet to save here because climate change MAY be irreversible, and we should not take a gamble because if do not cut CO2 emissions, Earth may turn into a Venus with a matter of centuries.
Usually politicians ignore most of what science says and they go their merry way making laws regardless of the outcome. But now we have politicians wholeheartedly embracing what science is saying about climate change.
I tend to trust scientists a whole lot more than I trust politicians. Who am I to believe when they agree with each other? I believe politicians are seeing the climate change issue as an opportunity to grab more power over people. And the way politicians are heading with their solution to climate change is generally leading towards totalitarianism. It's their nature; they're all like that.
Maybe if we could just separate the politics from the science there wouldn't be nearly as many denying the science.
1) the northwest passage has open and closed all the time, all throughout history. 2) The ice caps shrank, then grew, then shrank, then grew again just in the last 25 years. So far, this September's ice is above last years'. But you forget the larger doomsday prediction: we were threatened for DECADES that the arctic was going to be ice-free forever at any time now, and it would spell doom. It still hasn't, and it still doesn't.
Small wonder.
Half of the population have an IQ under 100, who would have thought?
The precise CO2 sensitivity figure hasn't been nailed down - but we know with *very high* confidence it's well above zero.
The fact that the globe has been warming *is* black and white, because *we can see it warming!* Record land temperatures again and again, huge increases in ocean heat content, 50,000 year old ice sheets melting, sea levels rising - how much more black and white can you get? Are you still waiting for final confirmation from a burning bush??
This is a problem for all the breeders of the world. I'm not having kids, so go ahead and deny global warming (real or not) all you want. It'll be your spawn that fights for resources, not me or mine. I'll start caring when immortality is achieved :)
I most rational people don't disagree that the climate is changing - of course it is - its a natural process that occurs over the span of decades and centuries. It gets warmer, it gets cooler, then it gets warmer again.
Where I think the political alarmist climate change fanatics got it wrong or exaggerated is that its substantially influenced by man-made activity. What stinks about all this are the gaps in scientific integrity corrupted by politically motivated research funding and the political policies based on corrupted scientific data to drive policy, economics, and taxation in an unnatural way and those so-called world leaders who load their bank accounts with the plunder.
Nature has a remarkable way of bringing things back into equilibrium. More carbon-dioxide in the air - trees and plants grow faster and sequester the excess CO2. Someplace gets too hot - more evaporation generates cloud cover reflecting excess heat into space and storms turn thermal energy into kinetic energy.
Still, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the planet we call home so some of the economic change.
So a leg of your argument is that "this is what Nazi Germany and Russia engaged in". You lost it right there. And starting your argument with "I am a thermal engineer" is the same as saying, "I have some facility with math based models [maybe], but I have no expertise at all in climate science, observations, modeling or predictions, however here is my uninformed opinion..." We might as well take Jill Stein's (Green party presidential candidate) opinion on global warming, she's an MD, you know, and must be smart.
This year's September Ice is less than last year. It is more than was in 2012. You are a liar as anyone who knows you can tell.
Trees and plants only grow faster if we aren't also cutting them down all over the globe (and in many cases they are just burning the wood, which creates even more CO2).
Nature's ability to rebound is severely limited when we are attacking it from every possible angle (air pollution, water pollution, deforestation, soil-exhaustion, pesticides, etc).
The earth may be a big place, with lots of hidden stabilizers, but humans are an even larger and more destabilizing force
Tell that to the plain ordinary folks who are having to move because their house keeps washing away, and there is no food on the table because the fish are all gone (this isn't a prediction, this is daily life in the coastal parts of Asia)
Professor Lewis' senility is not connected to his opinions regarding scientific theories.
His impairment is well-known in the UCSB and APS communities.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nature will undoubtedly find a new equilibrium, but there's no particular reason that it will include us.
Play Command HQ online
Apparently less well known in the UCSB and APS communities you are getting your information from is his other impairment. He died on May 26th, 2011, at the age of 87.
In response to his letter, the APS stated that "virtually all reputable scientists were agreed on observations of human caused global warming". Which is funny, because Hal had been one of those reputable scientists, even writing in one of his books (in 1990) that all of the models show the same net effect.
Of course, Hal, being an ethical sort of guy, lost his standing as a "reputable scientist" when he noticed that over the following 20 years the predictions and projections of those models all failed spectacularly.
See that "Preview" button?
His death made him an easy spokesman for you climate deniers, because he's no longer around to contradict.
You are welcome on my lawn.
XKCD produced this graph http://xkcd.com/1732/ to shows how temperature has changed over the last 22,000 years
I know that many people don't like xkcd, but he had a nice cartoon where you can see the difference between a natural changing climate and what we have right now: Timeline
We aren't "challenged" by it at all. We simply think that even a 4C global increase in temperature over a century is preferable to creating a system by which nations collaborate on massive intervention in the economy.
Now, Prof. Lewandowski may be too stupid to understand why we believe that, but that's his problem.
Yes, that's exactly it: people like you and Lewandowski ignore the centuries of misery, poverty, starvation, and violence caused by government interventions in the economy. Even the worst predictions of mainstream climate models aren't close in terms of the kind of negative consequences to that.
Yes, so what? These are things humanity can easily adapt to.
Even a complete melting of the polar ice caps and a return to Miocene temperatures wouldn't be a "global disaster". It would mean some degree of change for humanity, but probably less than we have experienced due to other factors over the past 20000 years. And the global climate would be milder and wetter, probably objectively better than what we have right now.
XKCD produced this graph http://xkcd.com/1732/ to shows how temperature has changed over the last 22,000 years
One of my favourite recent xkcds.
I respect your right to freedom of speech, just not the actual speech itself, which is simply a restatement of the same repeatedly debunked old denialist rubbish.
You do however provide a nice proof of the papers proposition.
"The global warming scientists" seem to be virtually every climatologist out there, most of who were not working in the 1970s - 1979 was 37 years ago you know. Maybe they have all been brainwashed by their deluded mentors while in grad school, but working scientsts or age 40 in 1979 would now be 77 years old - and they would be the amoungst youngest of those group. Thus it seems unlikely that todays climatologist would be the "same scientists" you speak of from the 1970s.
Of course regardless of what you think of their predictive power, the actual climate change over the last ~20k years does seem pretty slowly changing - except for recently: http://xkcd.com/1732/
Well, one did. Then the major science journals like Newsweek and National Enquirer picked up on it and made a lot of noise about it for a week or so.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They are connected very tightly by politics - well, money paying for that politics really. One of the arguments pushed strongly by the deniers is that climate change is just a trick to force companies to cut emissions, impose water discharge standards, etc. That was really the start of the PR campaign against scientists some years ago. Since some of the companies involved were donors to Republicans it all got very political.
Before the "debate" was kicked off with millions in PR money conservatives such as Thatcher were on the side of reality instead of PR. The only reason many conservatives are opposing reality King Canute style today is because of donor money from those who think climate change will be used as a reason to cut emissions, impose water discharge standards, etc and that new regulations will cut into profits.
Who knows - if it happened today instead of back then the Koch brothers and others may have donated to Hillary instead and the political situation would be the other way around, but historically it's the Republicans that decided to deny reality despite earlier conservatives listening very closely to scientists. Eisenhower would probably tell all the deniers to fuck off and let him run the country as well as he could with expert advice instead of playing stupid PR games of make believe.
A single idiot journalist in TIME magazine who wanted to stir things up and boost circulation?
You've been conned by someone and are letting the side down. As engineers we are supposed to apply science and not bullshit.
The El Nino La Nina cycle was identified by a climate scientist a bit over a century ago.
It's not going to happen tomorrow, it's not going to happen 10 or 20 years from now. But it's going to happen if we don't do something about the elevated concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
Jesus will return from the dead to usher in the end of the world. It's not going to happen tomorrow or even 10 or 20 years from now. But it's going to happen, and if you aren't a devout believer you will burn in hell for eternity.
Do you notice any similarities between these two statements?
They have very convoluted and complicated arguments against Climate Change.
On the Economic side, you hear that the Carbon Tax, and funding for research into renewables (and smart grids, and mass energy storage, and electric cars, and etc); will have a net positive effect on the economy. Yet when you're talking with a denier - they're arguing that any tax is going to cause economic devastation and abridge everybody's quality of life and standard of living, and that shutting down all the fossil fuel jobs will leave millions unemployed. Nobody questions this claim (in the newsmedia), and rarely are the economic arguments compared or scrutinized. This is also an important point that needs to be made to climate change deniers. Where renewable investment has been made, where carbon taxes were enacted, positive, measurable benefits have been observed. Most mainstream economists actually agree with this, but those arguments are silenced in the mainstream newsmedia.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
While some predicted cooling in the seventies, six times as many predicted warming.
He made his opinions on the matter pretty clear in his letter, written while he was alive. Unless you've got a peer-reviewed seance showing otherwise, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and take him at his own word.
By the way, good job on following the playbook. Discredit, disqualify, change the subject. I forget what's next. Are you going to discover that his ghost is racist? Or are you going to call him a paid shill because his widow earned $43 in cashback on her gas station credit card?
See that "Preview" button?
Just for the record, there are myriad studies showing that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is steadily growing. They can indirectly trace this concentration back for thousands of years. The concentration began increasing at the beginning of the industrial age and has increased since, more rapidly in recent years. The average global temperature rise is very strongly correlated with this concentration. Enough people have done studies with the same results that it's hard to credit scientific avarice for the claims. In fact, I suspect there are many more deep pockets willing to finance bogus science disproving global warming than the government agencies (mostly) financing the work that essentially proves it. In other words, the claim that vegetation increases to keep things in balance is appealing, but apparently completely false.
most rational people don't disagree that the climate is changing
Most rational people aren't the problem.
What stinks about all this are the gaps in scientific integrity corrupted by politically motivated research funding and the political policies based on corrupted scientific data to drive policy, economics, and taxation in an unnatural way and those so-called world leaders who load their bank accounts with the plunder.
That's the great thing about this topic. Regardless if the science was funded by government with one agenda, or the oil industry with another the conclusions have turned out to be the same.
Nature has a remarkable way of bringing things back into equilibrium.
Venus would like to have a word with you.
More carbon-dioxide in the air - trees and plants grow faster and sequester the excess CO2.
Phew, just as well humans don't engage in mass deforestation.
He means the imaginary ones that curiously only support the view taken by the vested interests who promote the denialism as exemplified by the gwpf astroturfing organisation et all
The El Nino, La Nina cycle was observed by a guy who gave it a name over a century ago. (FTFY)
Hurricane and Typhoon season were also identified centuries ago. Try not to conflate science with observations that any layman can make after living in an area for a few dozen years. Describing a phenomena and giving it a name in no way correlates to science or the scientific method. Observing warmer ocean temperatures correlate to more rainfall is an extremely basic observation of correlation, nothing more.
If they had mathematical models 100 years ago that accounted for all the variables and could predict the next 10 El Nino/La Nina cycles accurately, that would be closer to the realm of a science. As far as I am aware, we still can't do that (we just track ocean temperatures and predict for the current/coming year that it will be El Nino/La Nina, which again is just observing cause and effect, we do not know why sometimes the ocean currents shift warm waters further from the equator, nor can we predict 10 cycles in advance of when it will happen.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Please elucidate me as to how each point has been debunked? Saying it has been debunked and actually doing so are far different things. The points I make are fairly simple and I am curious as to how they are invalid.
1. The earth has been both hotter and cooler than it is now and man has survived. (pretty sure this is historical fact; glaciers covering most of north America and palm trees found under the glacier ice covering most of Antarctica)
2. Climatologists cannot practice hard science because of the limitations they are forced into due to the nature of the planet. (pretty sure this is easily provable fact, go look up the scientific method, real scientists should also be able to support this, most climatologists will probably also agree that they do not practice the scientific method rigorously)
3. Past climate models have been wildly inaccurate. (sorry, I know this one is a fact, if you disagree you are a reality denier)
4. Climate change debate is now an emotional and political issue (not sure how you debunk this one, what with politicians calling each other climate deniers and trying to pass legislation pertaining to CO2 emissions).
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
First of all, The Guardian is hardly a neutral media source; it's rather radical left leaning with a clear agenda.
Now, let me remind everybody that global warming is a theory like everything else in science. Even the laws of nature we use every day are basically just theories, usually backed up by a lot of evidence sure, but still just theories. Plenty of laws have been struck down or modified as new evidence comes to light.
Same thing with global warming. Right now lots of evidence seems to confirm this theory so that's what we chose to believe in.
But lots of evidence also indicate that we are not seeing the whole picture. Geological data points to much more radical temperature changes in the distant past and while we have theories that can explain cooling (nuclear winter effects from volcanic eruptions or meteor impacts etc.) we still have no causes except "humans" for warming, and yet it is clear that we've had periods with a much higher average temperature than we do now, even with the global warming in effect, at times when mammals were barely invented yet, let alone anything remotely like humans.
So - I'm inclined to invoke Occam's Razor here. Given the still unknown factor at play in the distant past, I'd rather believe that the same factor is a play again than something new and complex is doing the same thing.
Note that I'm not saying that humans are not causing some warming. I'm just saying that it might not be the complete picture.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
That rather depends on what temperature readings you choose to use in the last 100 years ;-). But, everyone loves a graph that goes up at the end, whatever that might happen to mean.
It looks to me like something in the neighborhood of 5 journal articles on global cooling (not a single idiot on the cover of Time magazine as you assert) were published from 67-74 out of a total of maybe 14 on the subject of global temperature change. More early on in the decade and falling off.
Revisionist history aside, both the journal articles as well as media articles, tv interviews etc. exist. No one is claiming that all climatologists agreed (any more than they all agree today), but there was a clear message to the public set forth by a very vocal portion of the community at that time that we were approaching the next ice age.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
If you don't like the fact that people are ignoring you, join the flat-Earthers and perpetual motionists.
I'd strike the perpetual motionists off the list for the moment. The EM drive is getting attention, and a depressing amount of it right here, even though it's a perpetual motion machine in a funny box. It turns out of you wrap perpetual motion up in enough woo (it's magic relativity! no, it's magic virtual particles!) people will pay attention to it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Sorry, that site is a waste of space. I checked out the link, and they are just cherry picking the time frame. By the end of the 70s it was clear that the planet was not cooling. From 67-74 there are ~5 global cooling articles out of 14. While not a majority, there was definite discussion with factions in the journals pushing the global cooling theory. This does not account for who was more vocal with the public which is honestly more significant.
Beyond that if you check out their "debunking" of the top objections to global warming, they put up straw man arguments, and even then, they can barely manage any science in the "debunking", opting instead to conflate disruptive change "disruptive change has usually caused mass extinctions in the past" with gradually increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere over decades. The man made increase in CO2 levels is hardly a catastrophic event such as a volcanic eruption or meteor strike which happens in a day. They even acknowledge that CO2 levels have been higher in the past and that it was great for life at the time, but now somehow it is bad because man is doing it... except that they have no scientific proof of any kind, just ramblings.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
OMG OMG the sky is falling!!!!11!!! OMG OMG the sky is falling!!!!11!!!
Wait, you don't think so? OMG OMG you're a sky falling DENIALIST!!!1!!!!!11!1 Denialist, denialist, DENIALIST, witch, witch, WITCH! Burn the witch, burn the witch, BURN THE WITCH!
You ignorant debtor redneck cishet fuckboy shitlord, you don't even deserve to live, much less have a voice in public policy. Now go fuck off to your trailer park and Walmart job, and be thankful we smart, well-connected, politically correct good people haven't yet sent the drones to liquidate you. 'Cuz everyone knows you deserve it. Now I really must get back to my ivory tower, my hand-poured artisanal coffee, and my super duper duper important job.
Let's see, where was I? Oh yes - OMG OMG the sky is falling!!!1!!!!!11!!1!!! The SKY is FALLING!!!1!!!!1!!
Thanks, that's a great example of how deniers promote post-factual politics. The scientists are all corrupt and taking money to say that climate change is real, despite the fact that they could make far more money shilling for oil companies. And of course, anyone who tries to do anything about it is after your money, I mean they are politicians so of course they are corrupt liars.
Have faith in your gut instinct that buying an SUV will all work out somehow, nature with fix it. As you say, plants love CO2, I mean okay maybe cutting vast numbers of trees down and replacing them with cattle doesn't help, but how can such a delicious steak, nature's bounty, be bad? And even if it is, you paying a bit more for it isn't going to fix the world, when China is even worse. Because everyone knows that they love steak in China. Why shouldn't you have it if they do?!
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Just like Creationists, climate change deniers have a REASON to not want to believe the science. It might be a stupid reason, but they hold a dogma that isn’t going to be swayed by evidence, because they do not WANT to share your conclusions. These people literally live in a fantasy world where evidence is fabricated and evil scientists across the world collude to mislead the public. (Ironic then that the deniers actively collude to mislead the public, many of whom are fully aware that they’re lying, but to this mentality, the ends justify the means.)
Creationists HAVE to have a young earth or else it breaks their religion (original sin and atonement). Climate science deniers are mostly motivated by not wanting to curb their activities because of the economic impact. Supposedly the left is all about entitlement and hand-outs to peolpe who don’t want to work, but this is an example of where the right seriously falls down in terms of personal responsibility. So they invent reasons why their activities are not irresponsible.
. Plain, ordinary folks who haven't experienced mind rot as a result of being entrenched in ivory halls of academia
That's a fancy definition of "poorly educated" you got there, son.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
>, and taxation in an unnatural way
Erm... please define 'unnatural' taxation, and natural while your at it. Money is not a naturally occurring thing and the laws of economics are not natural laws - they are simply conventions we agree on. There are several sets out there right now that work reasonably well and a few that work really badly but how well it works mostly consists ONLY of how good you are at convincing people to adopt the convention because that's ALL they are.
Such an entirely abstract thing cannot possibly have 'natural' or 'unnatural' as a descriptor in any sane sentence. However your use of it does reveal you as a strong anti-government probably libertarian economic conservative. The kind who always dismiss climate science based on provably false claims (like "the science is corrupted") which they never question because the reason they are fighting this theory has fuckall to do with the theory. It's an argumentum ad consequentum fallacy. They don't like the consequences of the theory (more regulation) so they claim the theory cannot possibly be true because it has consequences which they consider unpleasant.
Partly they are the kind of people who usually think that economics is a natural science governed by natural laws. Objectivist, Austrian school and Chicago School types typically. Which is doubly ironic since those, unique among all economics, are the only schools that reject empiricism making them the LEAST scientific ideas about economics we have. The only ones where, no matter how many times a bad idea fails, no matter how many times an action does NOT have the effect they predict - they never, ever change their ideas because they reject empirical data as a means of proving or disproving economic claims.
Isn't it ironic that those schools which treat economics as an engineered set of conventions - are MORE empirical than those that don't? They actually look at what happens in the real world and refine their theories when consequences consistently fail to agree with expectations.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Is there a data set for global temperatures for the last 100 years that doesn't show a sharp rise at the end? Is there one that would have continued the rather prosaic rate of change displayed in the rest of the XKCD comic?
Seems to be a new denialist meme.
I remember that. It concluded with the prediction that by 2010, the sea level will rise by three to six feet.
I think that has been thoroughly refuted by now.
And that is why climate scientists don't make predictions about the temperature in their own lifetime anymore.
Obviously your memory is defective. The debate did not "end" with a six foot rise by 2010. Early on when the "horn of possibilities" was wider, sure that was in it. That's why scientists continue to examine evidence.
This is the difference between science and whatever it is denialists use to make their beliefs: science goes out and checks results.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You're confusing "concepts" with "predictive models". Yes, you can understand the greenhouse effect easily with an aquarium and a small plant. But trying to correlate disparate data across historical eras and fabricate that into an accurate predictive model is extremely complicated. And interestingly enough, something the Global Warming advocates have not succeeded in doing.
And when others point out flaws in your data collection and highlight bias in your attempts to correlate different temperature records, rather than honestly reviewing and adjusting those scientifically. You lash out in a political spectrum. Hmm....who is being scientific and who is not.
There is a site that documents thousands of temperature recording devices throughout the U.S. That site, scientifically, with accurate observation, demonstrated that a huge number of the locations had been affected by urban development. And yet, every global warming advocate I know, seems to trash and dismiss that. But that is sound scientifically documented information. So when we see crap like that, we understand that most folks here on Slashdot, are not about science but rather are enraptured by religion. Their belief is in the name of science, not the application of it.
Honestly, I think if such were taken into account and more of the critics were accepted into the scientific process, that we would succeed in developing a more accurate model. That model would likely show that yes, the world is warming, in part by a combination of the solar and manmade activities. And that the warming isn't quite as alarming but does require addressing mankind's general nature of polluting.
Once you remove all add-ons you are left with "there is a group of people which believe there was a holy man named Jesus of Nazareth who had a number of followers, and was put to death by the Romans." AFAIR he does not directly speaks of J, but of the believer of J.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Every time a global warming advocate exclaims "Weather isn't Climate" a moron is born.
Sorry, can you STFU with that line. We understand it far better than you all, who use every weather incident as an argument to your case. And the irony, is that I see this argument pitched repeatedly, when a skeptic or critic hasn't even made a claim about weather. You want a reason why people disbelieve, it's because of idiots like you who always retort "Weather isn't Climate" but then ignore the fact that well gee....critics are blasted repeatedly everytime weather occurs. Too many hurricanes, too few hurricanes, too much snow, too little snow, too much rain, not enough rain, heck.....I even heard the lack of sunspots was do to global warming.
At worst, Global Warming wipes out humanity, frankly, this would be a good thing for the planet.
For those collections exceeds the temperature increase in question. Your point?
Cutting down pollution is fine as long as everybody has to do it. Pouring oil down the drain in one place isn't less polluting than in another place because there is a law on the books in that place and not in the other. The point being that so-called developing countries don't get a pass on emissions just because they are developing countries. To do so is nothing more than fascist economics. When China and India have to meet precisely the same standards at precisely the same time, then I will believe that climate change is something other than wealth redistribution and a basis for non-productive individuals to attain power.
How about, a warm weak in February, followed by an unusually long and cool spring. Extremely late frosts. Everyone in the region wondering if Summer is every coming. And then I joke that no worries, the media will report that it was the hottest spring on record.
Sure enough, they do just that. The irony of course....is that I exclaimed, hey, regional != global. So I expected to look at the temperature map and see my region slightly cool, and the rest of North America and the northern hemisphere warmer. Lo, and behold, my region was listed as unusually warm.
That's when I call bullshit. But the sad thing, I predicted the bullshit. So who's agenda is being pushed that false information needs to be purported in the name of science?
And it sure sucked having half my fruit crops wiped out by late frosts. Did I mention, one of my crops is an Siberian kiwi?
And the number one group to confuse the two are Global Warming advocates who use every weather incident as backing.
But as a computer programmer, I am also very much aware of when the requirements constantly change, and shift, and we have to repeatedly modify the code to meet what the client claims they wanted all along. ;-)
We also fix our bugs, and don't claim they never existed.
This is largely based on the fact that so much falsehood has been presented to individuals.
The irony, is the number of conspiracies that have born out to be true. Bilderbergs, Tuscagy experiments, NSA monitoring and recording of phone conversations, CIA drug trafficking, modern art, putting the Shah in power in Iran, government poisoning of alcohol during prohibition, fats aren't as bad as the sugar industry wanted us to believe...and so many others.
So of course, folks are going to be more inclined. Especially when so many lies are told, politicians get caught in them all the time (*cough* Hillary)
It's the Climate Change Alarmists who behave more like religious zealots.
Just sayin'...
Damn straight. The worst of what's coming won't happen until most of us are dead, so party on. Who gives a fuck about our great grandchildren, right?
That's the problem. Its complex science. Its difficult to understand the findings for non-climatologists and non-mathematicians. When you take a multi-variable equation and put in front of someone who is neither mathematician nor climatologist its just a bunch of fooey. The result is that you get the findings out via a source that is increasingly seen as unreliable- the press.
So then you run into the problem of smart people who can figure things like this out wanting to ask questions about the equations being used so that can see for themselves what the deal is and EVERYONE from top to bottom screams at them that they are a climate-denier. No, they are a curious party who wants to understand the findings. Teach them. Stop screaming at them and making them into the modern day version of a witch.
Anecdotally, i have talked to climate scientists who treat people the same way. Oh its because of ice core drillings show these results. What do those results indicate? Are you questioning me? Yes, yes i am because i want to understand.
Take your "basic science" and put it in a form that the layman can understand. Its going to take a lot more effort that Al Gore talking about the hockey stick chart because climate change is not predicated solely upon CO2. Its a complex set of interactions between a lot of different chemicals and the sun's energy output. Its neither easy to understand nor easy to explain in simplified terms but until you do so there is no doubt that there will be people who think you are lying.
"Never,,,ever"? Reason Magazine begs to differ - they found 18 SPECTACULARLY INCORRECT predictions from around 1970, including:
1) Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
2) Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”
3) Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions.By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
4) In January 1970, Life reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to supportthe following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollutionby 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.”
And many more - why not take a look at the article for the complete list.
Ken
First of all, there was really no climatologist until recently. Go look at the degrees of MOST so-called climate experts. Guess what.....
Most are physicists, marine scientists, geologists, botanists, meteorologists.
Oh, and the climategate were cleared of "deliberate fraud", they were not cleared of poor scientific method.
"Bananas grow" as well, bananas haven't had sex in years and have ceased reproducing. As such, bananas are merely on a long death spiral to extinction. Not a single new banana plant has grown in decades....
Don't you know "Weather isn't Climate"
Don't mention facts!
Or the fact that technically, the Earth is still in an ice age. See proof, polar ice caps. How dare you mention the fact that the earth has been ice free, and life thrived.
Bad bad bad.....
So, where is the study about all the uninformed non-scientists PUSHING fake AGW?
I wanna see a study on all the nonsense spouted by Katie Couric, or even the local news idiots about AGW and its impact.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
Read my statement. Now read your response. Do you see any connection?
I said this:
How many of those 18 (count 'em, eighteen!") SPECTACULARLY INCORRECT things scientists said in 1970 include an ice age?
A handful, you say? Speak up, I can't hear you. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: The predictions of a "new ice age" were concoctions of the media, rather than the result of scientific studies:
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
Now why don't you try to be a little more honest about that "complete list" of ice age predictions? You're old enough to know better than to peddle that shit here and think it'll just fly unchallenged.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It is actually comical that the views espoused by these nutty deniers are in fact part of an actual conspiracy amongst oil companies such as Exxon to delay action on climate change as much as possible. Their actions have deeply damaged the level of public discourse in America, and have thus damaged democracy itself.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Which is? If Republicans would focus on solutions instead of denial, then maybe they could offer balance and smart alternatives. If you come to sabotage the birthday party, then don't complain about the flavor of the cake.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes, if you leave lead in the systems, then people will evolve lead-resistance, like Kevin Costner evolved gills in Water World. Commies and socialist interfere with the evolution of our Great Toxic-Resistant Race!
Bring on the sludge, us Ayn Rand Cowboys ain't afraid! We'll happily ride off into the brown sunset.
I force my kids to watch Mutant Ninja Turtles to show how they COULD be if the damned commies stop cleaning shit up.
Table-ized A.I.
I mean, I've seen the term used in many contexts - towards those who actually deny that global warming is happening, to those who just need clarification on various arguments, and those who ponder how responsible humans actually are. In short, the term has been used and abused so much that it really needs refocus if it is to be taken seriously, IMO.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
That's not true, as other replies demonstrate, but even if it were true, it's not evidence of super-natural backing.
Evidence of existence of him as a person is not the same as evidence of him having super-natural powers or connections.
I personally don't doubt that the scriptures are based on an actual person or persons (to various degrees), but the supernatural angle requires stronger evidence. "Bob said he saw the guy cure lepers" is not strong evidence. For one, we should give Bob a sobriety test first.
Table-ized A.I.
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers.
These are people of the land.
The common clay of the new West.
You know... morons.
I see your point, "Jim". Sometimes, a dashing urbanite like myself loses sight of that.
Well, yeah, it's called science.
Is there a data set for global temperatures for the last 100 years that doesn't show a sharp rise at the end? Is there one that would have continued the rather prosaic rate of change displayed in the rest of the XKCD comic?
You are missing the point. The data trend of the last 100 years on the graph coincides not just with the industrial age, it coincides with the data source for the graph changing too. The proxy data reconstruction ends at 1900, and from 1900 on the data source changes to the instrumental record.
There's plenty of reason to argue it's a reasonable step to take, but you can't exactly say it's unfair to point out that the change in data source might also play a role in the sharp delta starting at that exact point in the graph.
XKCD produced this graph http://xkcd.com/1732/ to shows how temperature has changed over the last 22,000 years
xkcd is great, but the data he referenced follows the infamous "hide the decline" trick. The 'trick' is nothing more than using the instrumental temperature record to fill in gaps or quality in data. For the proxy records cited going back 20k years, the accuracy and precision over the last 100 is poor and the authors themselves state as much. Thus, to complete the data set through to today the instrumental record is included from 1900 onwards.
Nothing really wrong with that. The only caveat is in how you interpret the graph. If you look at the graph and observe that there is an unprecedented trend set off at 1900, the beginning of the industrial era you have to be careful. The unprecedented trend ALSO coincides with a change in methodology and data source in the graph. Ruling out how sensitive the proxy data is to short term spikes like today is vitally important to interpreting that part of the graph well, and we're still working that.
Religion will be the end of us all!
Christians condemn those that believe the world is flat and the Earth is NOT the center of the Universe.
The Christian Inquisition murdered those failing to believe in their religion.
So do Islamic extremists.
Republican Bible thumpers insist climate change is not happening, and 'God' will save believers.
On the other hand, all you science fact twisters need to stop lying or you will burn in hell!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Here's Adam Fenech, a Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist and the director of the Climate Research Lab at the University of Prince Edward Island:"A lot of the most recent science is telling us it could rise as much as three metres during that time," says Fenech. "Probably in about 50 years, with a three-metre increase, we'd probably lose about half the island under water completely."
That's a claim being made TODAY, by a well credentialed leader of a climate research lab. I'm thinking that's not gonna pan out, the IPCC vehemently agrees.
The point is that a lot of the gloom and doom forecasts being used to push policy changes are CONTRARY to the IPCC projections, and are still coming from 'scientists'. Guys like Hansen aren't much better and get a lot of press.
The bible is a collection of stories that are really lessons - all designed to guide people away from common life mistakes and to help them lead a good and fulfilling life. Most are not meant to be "Non-fiction" stories. Think of it in the vain of generalized lessons like "Live by the sword, die by the sword." As for climate change denial, I've decided that nothing will wake them up until they see something unexplainable happen in their lives. I denied climate change until I personally witnessed 2 mass extinction events. The second of which completely devastated my local environment. There was nothing I could do be research "why" it happened. But, by then, it was too late to do anything about it except cry over what was lost.
This is some very impressive evidence. I'm sure you couldn't be mistaken.
Please cite more than a handful of scientists who actually suggested there would be another ice age back in the 1970s. Otherwise, we're just going to have to disallow your impressive memory of grade school as proof of anything.
And don't forget to schedule that colonoscopy. At your age, it should be done every 5 years. And who knows, you may find that citation.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Liberals, put the shoe on the other foot. Why do you deny when life begins? Scientists point to conception. No scientist says that the third trimester has any event as significant. Abortion is (scientifically and semantically) murder, but we choose a non-scientific event to say what is morally and legally acceptable.
When I "deny" Global Warming (oops - I mean Global Climate Change), I am simply asserting that it isn't "settled science." Sure, CO2 levels rising is scary, but is it as scary as the 1970 fuel shortage or the 2008 housing crisis? Why don't the predictions hold true? Why are the headlines false? For example, you all know the ice caps are melting. But in fact, that's only the Arctic. 2014 saw record Antarctic ice, and 2016 is running just a bit above average. Islands going under? Sure, some are going away. But a recent study says that while 20% have eroded, 40% have stayed the same size while 40% have gained.
Climate science is entirely falsifiable - it just hasn't been falsified despite all the fortunes spent on trying to do so. Nobody has yet managed to do a real experiment that showed CO2 NOT acting as a greenhouse gas (that would falsify it). Nobody has yet found a single shred of evidence that disproves the theory - while there are thousands of independent sources of evidence that all support it, and nobody has yet come up with a better explanation for the observations than that offered by climate change theory.
Any of these things would:
1) Falsify the theory
2) Win you a nobel prize
3) Guarantee you tenure and an endless supply of grant money for the rest of your life at any academic institution of your choosing.
Basically EVERY incentive is to disprove climate change.
The failure of those trying to actually falsify something does not imply it is not falsifiable. It implies the theory is almost certainly correct.
At this stage, the most single most tested scientific theory in the history of science is so unlikely to be false - that we will almost certainly never see it replaced, modified and gradually improved - yes, replaced probably not. At least not for the next several centuries. Because at this point the only thing that could do so is an observation that actually does not fit the theory. It took 500 years for technology to give us a measuring device that could pick up the things that didn't quite follow Newton, and I'd say it will take about twice that long before something fundamentally alters climate science.
If you set the bar at CO2 causing warming, humans raising CO2 levels and things getting warmer, you are right about those being well established. We aren't gonna upset or falsify that anytime soon.
News flash, policy and behaviour changes aren't really driven by any of those points. What's the severity of the future we face is the question. On that we have two examples below:
1.The IPCC worst case scenario, with 95% confidence levels cited sea level rise relative to today of no more than 3ft by 2100
2.Adam Fenech, a Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist and the director of the Climate Research Lab at the University of Prince Edward Island:"A lot of the most recent science is telling us it could rise as much as three metres during that time," says Fenech. "Probably in about 50 years, with a three-metre increase, we'd probably lose about half the island under water completely."
So we have a Nobel winning committee declaring no more than 3 feet in 100 years, and a Nodel winning research director predicting 3 metres in 50 years. One of these are gonna be falsified, and the scope of difference in their predictions makes an outrageous difference to what our responses should be.
downvoted as over rated, with zero votes with a post that consists virtually nothing more than 2 statements of fact backed with a link to an external quote of a highly credentialed scientist. Thanks for the reminder why I so rarely bother posting anything here anymore.
Let's see...the question is not whether the climate is changing but how fast. It normally doesn't make large global changes in decades or centuries.
Your opinion of the politics involved is irrelevant to the truth. In fact, it's really really hard to run a global scientific conspiracy, and the data has been verified all over the place.
What we know: global temperature has been rising really fast. There's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and it got there by people burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so if there's more in the atmosphere you'd expect the global temperature to go up.
Nature does tend to create equilibrium, but not necessarily the one we want. It certainly isn't the pre-industrial one, since carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone up from about 280 parts per million in 1850 to over 400 today. There are things that do sequester excess carbon dioxide, and they're overwhelmed by the rate we're releasing it. (If you like, you can verify that we're putting significant numbers of parts per million of carbon dioxide into the air. It requires a few quick facts and a very basic knowledge of chemistry.)
You're making up the stuff about more evaporation bouncing all the excess heat; if that were the case, we'd still have pretty much the same global temperature as in 1850. Storms turn thermal energy into kinetic energy to some extent, true, but when the storm is over the kinetic energy is gone, and kinetic energy has a habit of winding up as heat.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
A guy who happened to be one of several scientists studying climate.
A few years later, not much more than a century ago now, other climate scientists joined explorers to the arctic and antarctic to fill in some of the major gaps in climate science at the time. A child in school could have told you these things.
You really know very little about this topic don't you?
Yes, how about you get back to reality instead of your stupid revisionist history where the likes of Uri Geller and Von Daniken are up there with Newton and Einstein.
You are an embarrassment.
First of all, the warming is still quite gradual relative to the generation time of most species; most species can easily respond to warming by migration.
Furthermore, most warming also takes place at higher latitudes, where there isn't much diversity anyway.
Finally, even a significant die-off of species isn't such a big deal; these kinds of changes happen again and again every time evolution comes up with a new and successful innovation (in this case, human brains).
As far as the climatologists go, the old guard of professors and mentors trains the new guard, and they are savage to anyone who doesn't follow in their lock step group think. Just do a google search for climatologists who have been excommunicated for disagreeing with the herd. PhDs typically enter the work force when they are ~28, not 40, so those who had just started working in the field in 1979 (the tail end of the ice age scare) would be 65 or just retiring this year and would have been leading the departments for the last 20 years.
Well, those entering the field at 28 are not "the same scientists who were running around in the 70s saying that the next ice age was upon us", in fact they are the next generation of scientists who have found different stuff. You started out saying "I can't believe these people, they keep changing their mind!", and I am just pointing out that they are not even the same people! You know, your argument about forced group think seems fundamentally flawed if your best example is one where you feel as though a consensus opinion actually changed. You can't reasonably say "they all think the same and never change due to peer pressure and other similar influences" and also at the same time say "they used to think one thing and now they think something else." Both of those statements might be reasonable criticisms individually, but they do kind of work against each other.
By the way, Wikipedia at least claims that Global Cooling was never any sort of widely held opinion of climatologists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - so while there might have been press reports of cooling being a possible problem, "Academic analysis of the peer-reviewed studies published at that time shows that most papers examining aspects of climate during the 1970s were either neutral or showed a warming trend." So before you go blaming those fickle for flip-flopping all the time, perhaps your should re-examine what the scientists at the time were mostly saying - and it doesn't seem like they were all saying it was going to get chilly.
As for a google search for "climatologists who have been excommunicated for disagreeing with the herd", I have not been able to find any, though I don't deny that it is possible. The thing is, in my experience of academia, it is pretty darn hard to do anything about tenured researchers doing crazy shit, and there are not insignificant numbers of people in the sciences who like to take a contrarian position against almost anything. The fact of the matter is that over at least the last decade, a number of valid criticisms of climate research have been made, and work has been done to address them. The number of climatologists who have had doubts about the "consensus" has been decreasing, as one would expect if the consensus was broadly correct.
Sure, it is possible that the whole thing is a hoax perpetrated by "big solar" against the virtuous carbon crowd. But I have to ask, if the consensus opinion was in fact broadly correct, how would everyone's behaviour be different? What would convince you that there was not some nefarious data manipulation going on?
It is unfortunate that you appear incapable of having a discussion without reverting to ad homonym attacks, which typically indicates a weak argument in combination with strong emotional attachment to said argument. You might want to take a step back and reconsider your approach and/or your position.
As far as I am aware I have not named any names, and in general, I think the lot of climatologists are of dubious competency based on the performance of their models (I would probably be fired for models that were that inaccurate) and would never lump them in with Newton and Einstein, both of whom made real contributions to science that had a significant impact on the modern world.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
It obviously does not matter what you think since you know far less than the general public on the matter and even thought it was a new field!
As the kids say today - epic fail.
I guess so. What did I miss there exactly?
Table-ized A.I.
Liar.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Yes, there are many scientists out there who support the climate change theory; however, there are a few scientists who are out there who deny this theory. I'm not talking wacko, basement-dwelling, shade-tree scientists, I'm talking PhDs, people who have gone through the schooling. There are orders of magnitude more of us who have no schooling in the climate sciences whatsoever. So, how can we, as laypeople, possibly know which accredited scientists are correct and which ones are not? The only way to really know is to go through all of the schooling and do the research ourselves. Even then, this is not 100% certain. I know this sounds like tinfoil-hat wearing, conspiracy theorist fear-mongering, but it is the truth.
IIRC, that passage took years, and included two winters frozen in. That's not an actual passage. That's occasional gaps in the ice. The first time there was a possible real passage was in 1944. After that, any actual use of the passage required icebreakers and special ships until 1977 or so. Being closed from the dawn of history, millennia ago, through the late Twentieth Century, doesn't really count as "open and closed all throughout history". It's "closed throughout almost all of history".
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Changing the status quo == costing me money.