- Observations that do not line up with a climate model with a component for human-generated greenhouse gases would serve as falsifying data.
So say, 15 years of dropping global average temperatures, while still increasing CO2?
Done.
Now you've got two options for your falsification -> you can add another fudge factor into your model, or you can abandon the initial premise you built the model with.
If you continue to add fudge factors to make your model fit contradictory data, you're not practicing science, you're trying to rationalize a preconceived notion.
Furthermore, if you're simply asserting that there exists some non-zero affect of human CO2, that's trivial for us to accept -> even a single butterfly has a non-zero effect on climate. How will you propose a falsifiable hypothesis that claims that the effects of human CO2 are going to be catastrophic?
Labeling those people that disagree with you as "anti-science", without starting the science game with your clearly stated falsifiable hypothesis, is just hand waving.
Specify, very clearly, what observations of global average temperature and CO2 levels (past, present or future), that would falsify your belief in catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.
Science is the ruthless application of skepticism to ones' own cherished ideas. Would you like to play that game?
If the predicted uncertainties are smaller than the deviation from the measured, then the specific model is falsified.
That being said, it must be agreed that *many* specific anthropogenic global warming models have already been falsified. There may be a few left that have such large uncertainty bars that they haven't reached that point yet, but given that say, out of three dozen AGW models, 75% of them have failed to predict temperature within their stated uncertainty ranges, why would we consider AGW "settled science"?
The null hypothesis, which is that climate changes naturally without human intervention (ore more specifically, without regard to average global CO2 levels), still stands until some alternative falsifiable hypothesis can be made, challenged, and fail to be falsified. Building a hundred models, with a combined uncertainty range that spans every possible outcome (when compared to say, historical natural climate change), and claiming victory when there is at least one left standing is pseudo-science.
Do you believe that the only way science gets done is via experiment?
What would you suggest as a control for Earth?
We don't have a control for the pre-Cambrian era, but we know evolution would be falsified if we found a rabbit fossil there. What I'm asking for is a specific set of observations that would falsify your hypothesis, not just a specific tabletop experiment that can be reproduced in a high school lab. All kinds of sciences deal with time scales and space scales that defy our ability to setup a repeatable experiment, yet still remain science because they clearly state what observations (past, present or future) would definitively falsify their hypotheses.
You're asking the wrong guy. Trying to make points by asking a non-scientist a scientific question.
So neither the IPCC, nor NOAA, nor the Royal Meteorological society have made any clearly falsifiable hypothesis statement about Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Perhaps you have some other unnamed, unknown climate scientist out there who actually *has* bothered to specify an observation of say, global average temperature and CO2 levels (past, present or future) that would falsify the hypothesis of "humanity is changing CO2 levels in ways that will cause increases in average global temperature that will cause some specified amount of harm by 2100"?
If you cannot even *imagine*, as a "non-scientist", an observation that would shake your faith in your particular, belief, you're doing religion, not science.
At some point, and hopefully before water is over the level of your eyebrows, you'll accept the advice of people who probably know better than you.
Appeal to unnamed authorities.
The scientific method starts thusly - with a falsifiable hypothesis statement. No matter how expert, educated, or godlike in demeanor someone may be, if they cannot state a falsifiable hypothesis statement, they're not doing science.
What is *your* falsifiable hypothesis statement of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Creationism doesn't have a falsifiable hypothesis statement, evolution does.
Now, for anyone who cares to play the science game, succinctly state your falsifiable hypothesis of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Be specific.
I suppose we should just thank our lucky stars we're not creationists or Lamarckians or something like that.
Fun fact - Lamarck was actually right in certain circumstances (where in utero conditions, created by behavior of the mother, can affect the phenotype of the offspring - for example, women who consume lots of carbohydrates and have elevated blood sugar levels make their children more susceptible to insulin resistance, which leads to a generation who has even *worse* blood sugar levels during carbohydrate consumption, which will get even worse for *their* children in utero - you can see this effect in populations where the western carbohydrate heavy diet has been introduced, and each successive generation seems to be more obese and more diabetic at younger and younger ages).
I think I now understand your point of view - for you, mutation *is* evolution. For me, the origin of new species is evolution. And in regards to species, I find that the only real bright line we can use is "can these two organisms produce viable offspring" (and even that gets funky when viable offspring is only *occasional*), so for me, even vastly separated breeding populations, if they can actually produce viable offspring (even if "artificially" by some sort of intervention beyond normal mating patters), they're the same species. So if a mutation occurs that drops an organism out of the breeding pool (which, could theoretically occur twice in close succession, leading to a new breeding population), you could have de novo creation of a new species, but I'd argue that this kind of phenomenon is incredibly rare.
Put another way, I'd argue that a mutation is only evolution if it lets those organisms with that mutation out compete their peers - essentially creating a harsher environment for their peers that drives them out of the breeding pool. Random mutations that don't confer any survival advantage (however small) are just as likely to rewind as fast forward. Now, doesn't *have* to be about species, per se, you could simply imagine that there is a "micro evolution" with the competition of genetic sequences within a species, and while such genetic changes might not create an incompatible species, they will only propagate if they are not selected against in comparison to other alternate genetic sequences in the same location of the genome.
Anyway, thank you for the interesting conversation, and Happy new year!
Make no mistake, I'm not making a creationist argument:) Random genetic variation within a population is more than enough to host a bunch of completely "useless" traits *right now* that will become critical to survival *later*. Calling a trait "useful" or "useless" is again, a value judgement that evolution simply doesn't care about. Either a trait that already exists in an organism allows an organism to survive and procreate in given local conditions, or it doesn't - natural selection makes no judgement calls beyond that.
Now "gradual" evolution may only prune out a very small percentage of organisms in a given generation, rather than "extreme" evolution, where a large portion, if not a majority of organisms in a breeding group are pruned within a generation, but again, the trait *must be there* (due to whatever random mutations may exist within any given population) before it is selected for.
For example, if a small and gradual environment change simply increases the average mortality rate of a certain subset of organisms in a breeding population, it may indeed take generations upon generations to breed out that trait (especially if it's recessive in some fashion and doesn't necessarily get expressed). But from evolution's point of view, timescale doesn't matter. The same effect could be accomplished in one generation if that trait that was selected against couldn't make it to sexual maturity and pass on their genes.
And therein lies the rub, I suppose - I seem to get the impression that you believe there are two scenarios for evolution, that depend on timescale, and you consider the one that works on the longer timescale somehow "better" or more moral than the one that works on the shorter timescale. I take umbrage at that implication because it reeks of religious moralizing, which is an argument heavily used by creationists:)
In the end, evolution (or more properly, the origin of species - "evolution" can be a loaded term, assuming that we're always moving to "higher" life forms), is a combination of dumb luck environmental factors and random genetic mutation. It doesn't care if the environmental factor pruning an organism from the population is a kid with a bb-gun, a solar flare, a meteor impact, a local carnivore, or a microscopic virus - all of it (even the bb-gun) is simply part of natural selection.
Sometimes a subspecies branches off from another species not because conditions changed, but because the mutation allowed the subspecies to move into an adjacent environmental niche it previously couldn't survive in.
If the adjacent environmental niche is different than the current environmental niche, then conditions local to the organism have changed. Only those organisms that *already* have adaptations that will survive in the different, adjacent niche, will survive there, so again, the capacity to survive in an environment must exist *before* the environmental conditions are imposed (by whatever means that may be) upon that organism.
Evolution, by its elegant characterization by Darwin, is an act of *pruning* and destruction, not one of directed or constructive post hoc adaptation. Calling them "beneficial" mutations is placing a value judgement that has no place in natural selection -> either the organism has mutations that will let it survive and procreate in local conditions, or it doesn't. If it doesn't *already* have the mutations necessary to survive and procreate in whatever local conditions it finds itself in, it is cruelly pruned from the genetic tree.
But individuals can also react to environmental pressure, by either influencing and adapting the environment to their needs (like plants, beavers or ants, or humans), or by migration away from the environment into new biotops and trying to gain a foothold there.
You're simply describing complex behavioral traits. Individuals react to environmental pressure because of genetic endowments that give them the capacity to react while their peers that die off fail to react. Regardless if the environment changes gradually or quickly, those reactions *are traits too*.
If intensive environmental changes happen, species with high variation, short generation cycles and a high number of offsping per individuum have higher chances to adapt fast enough to the changes.
Now that's an awful simplification of an elegant but complex concept of natural selection. It all depends on *what* intensive environmental changes are happening - you could have intensive change that selects *against* high variation, short generation, large # of offspring individuals. Say some extra terrestrial race comes down to earth, and specifically comes here to test bio-weapons against high variation, short generation, large # of offspring individuals. They spray the planet with "Agent Purple", and kill off all the species that fit that stereotype. In that case, low variation, long generation, small # of offspring species actually *win* the evolution game, under what is arguably a *very* intensive environmental change.
The important thing to understand here is that *evolution doesn't care*. It doesn't have a direction it wants to go in, and it doesn't have to fit our ideas of "good" and "bad". It's all about survival, no matter what may come, and make no mistake, we've got *no* idea what could possibly come.
Those polar bears that could find new sources of food or could figure out how to migrate somewhere else *already* have that trait within them. Those polar bears that could *not* find new sources of food or figure out how to migrate somewhere else would be doomed no matter how slowly you adjusted conditions. The polar bears don't sit around, watch the food move away and the ice melt, and then decide "oh hey, let's evolve!" They either have the traits necessary (however complex those traits may be) to survive changes (on any timescale), or they don't.
As for meteor impacts that killed off the dinosaurs, be very clear -> natural selection doesn't care *what* the selection is, how quick or slow it is, or whether or not it has anthropogenic or extra-terrestrial origin. A meteor hit. Things changed really quickly. Those things that *already* had the necessary adaptations to survive lived, and those that didn't have them died off. In some cases, species survived because some subset of them already had the necessary adaptations. In other cases, entire lines went extinct. Such is nature.
Shorter version: the environment is always changing, stupid. See also: Darwin's "On the origin of species"
If the adaptation for a given environmental condition *doesn't* exist when that environmental condition appears, the entire species dies when that environmental condition appears. Species survive because they are diverse enough to contain at least *some* subset which will be able to survive in a state that is different from the current one.
So while you may correctly assert that this scenario is unlikely, (and in fact it's categorically true that *most* species fail to survive), it is categorically true that for all species that exist today, their ancestors had the necessary adaptive genome *before* every point in time in the past where conditions changed to the detriment of their peers.
I think what you're trying to express is the idea of a gradual "evolution by out-breeding", rather than "evolution by natural selection". Natural selection is always cruel -> organisms are killed before they can produce offspring. Natural selection is never going to be a pleasant thing, on any timescale, for those selected against.
As for out-breeding, that's actually pretty cruel as well -> those being out-bred are essentially starved out for resources as they can't compete, and again, start dying before they can produce offspring.
Now, as for which scenario is more or less likely (indirect natural selection by outbreeding by a competing subset of your species, or direct natural selection by cruel forces which cut your life short before you can produce offspring), I'll argue that you're making a distinction without a difference.
People would love to think that evolution is some sort of inherently good and noble thing, since we're a product of it and we like being the top of the food chain living in first world conditions, but make no mistake, nature is a cruel fucking mistress. Those majestic redwoods? They had to kill off a whole ecosystem to take over their current range. And their predecessors had to do the same before that. And so on, and so on. Life is a messy, ugly thing, and trying to reconcile it with human ideas of "good" and "evil" is kind of silly.
You misunderstand evolution. Any adaptation that allows for survival in a given environmental condition is *already* there when that given environmental condition appears. It just so happens that everyone that *doesn't* have that adaptation dies off. Natural *selection* picks for traits that have already existed. An organism doesn't observe the environment and suddenly tries to "evolve".
So, despite the thorough historical record we have from before humanity even existed, which shows climate changes, large and small, over every time scale you can imagine, you deny the fact of natural climate change? That kind of blind faith is unassailable, to be sure.
So? Where does the H2O come from? I would say from evaporing, caused by heat/warmth. So the root cause is CO2
What is your falsifiable hypothesis that shows CO2 is driving H2O, rather than the reverse? Any assertion of AGW, or CAGW, requires many, many steps, and you can't just *assume* them to be true.
Put another way, where does the CO2 come from? I would say outgassing from the oceans, caused by heat/warmth. So the root cause is H2O:)
Your hosue is heated by exactly 2 heat sources: the sun, through the windows and your heating.
That's three.
Sorry, that is just plain silly. Laws of physics behave everywhere the same.
Simply laboratory physics doesn't just blindly scale up as the system becomes more complex. For example, simple physics dictates that if you place a solid into a bucket of heated water, the heat will transfer up through the solid to the other end over a period of time. Simple, physics.
Now, put your left hand in a bucket of heated water, and tell me how soon the top of your head increases in temperature:)
You've taken, on faith, that a spectral property of a gas means that the globe average temperature is warming, that humans are causing it, and that the results will be catastrophe for humanity and the planet. That's a wildly long jump:)
Take that a little further - what if someone else said they needed 19 years. And then someone else said 25. And then someone else said 100. And then a geologist came along and said 1000. Each one of those steps has some rationale to it, and arguably a defensible one - you could have rising CO2 during all those time periods, and a net loss of global average temperature, and still have a positive component of temperature attributed to CO2.
But now take that the *opposite* direction. What if someone required an arbitrary number of years to be convinced that the human impact of CO2 was going to be catastrophic - say, they needed 50 years before being convinced. Or 100 years. People who already believe that human CO2 is going to be catastrophic can't be bothered to wait that long! We've got *5 years*!
As for what would convince you, is it just a cooling trend that lasts 17 years or more, or would it also be a "non warming" trend that lasts 17 years ore more while CO2 continues to rise?
The IPCC has in the past talked about impossible scenarios, 10C warming in a century for example - and has continually shifted downward their projections. 4.5C...or 2.5C...or even just 1C per century. At what point do we look at the rate and just shrug our shoulders? (And, FWIW, 1900-2000 was just about.8C, from what I've seen...not too far away from 1C, and civilization didn't collapse:)
Adaptation is far more expensive btw, and you can see why using a modicum of logical thought.
Really? The earth's global average temperature increased say,.8C from 1900 - 2000. We spent zero on mitigation. How much did we spend on adaptation? How much would mitigation have costed, to say, have an entirely carbon free society in 1900?
Adaptation is far less expensive, and you can see why just by looking at the past century.
The peak oil problem is likely more urgent than global warming, so an aggressive plan for transition would benefit us either way.
Why should you have an aggressive plan for a transition after peak oil? Isn't the most economically sound thing to do is make a gradual transition, so as to save opportunity costs? Wait until the market for oil becomes expensive enough to incent the pursuit of other technologies (say, nuclear), and then pay the price, and in the meantime, do the best you can to exploit all the cheap energy we have to provide for a higher quality of life for humanity.
I mean, assume 45 is "peak" age for a human - should we be preparing for our eventual decline due to aging by practicing to use a wheelchair, or walker, or trifocals at age 46? Age 35? Peak oil (or peak anything, by its definition) isn't an *urgent* problem, it's a gradual one.
Artificially increasing the price of energy only slows technological advance, and human welfare.
So you're now telling me that you believe that rises in global average temperature increase drought frequencies (and assuming as well intensities) and you don't even have *data* to show that?
I'll wait for you to find your homework, and we can talk again:)
Exactly. If you "believe" otherwise you should bring "falsifyable" hypothesises about other effects.
I'm sorry, but you've missed the null hypothesis - long before humanity existed, climate changed through natural means. By default, we must assume that this continues to be the case. Assuming that magically, in 1950, all natural forces stuck themselves in neutral, and only humanity started controlling the climate through the emission of a trace gas is a fanciful idea that must be held to strict scrutiny.
The falsifyable hypothesis is: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Show me one experiement where increase in CO2, holding all other effects/factors constant, does not lead to an increase in temperature.
H2O is a greenhouse gas too, one much more plentiful than CO2. Show me one experiment where increase in H2O, holding all other effects/factors constant, does not lead to an increase in temperature. So now, instead of CO2 based warming, we've got water based warming. Or hey, pick methane, and we can blame climate on flatulence:)
You simply cannot assert that because of the light absorptive properties of a single gas, that somehow that gas controls climate above all else - that's just plain silly. It is perfectly possible for CO2 to be a greenhouse gas in a laboratory, and completely overwhelmed by natural variation in the wild - and in fact, a gander at ice core records of CO2 and temperature show this to be true, with CO2 levels lagging temperatures.
I don't say that things are going to be worse for "humanity" - but I do suspect that the shortage of food, fuel and arable land we're plunging into is going to be very bad for quite a lot of people.
Let's focus on a shortage of fuel - you admit that such a shortage is going to be very bad for quite a lot of people...yet we're suggesting that we eschew our cheapest and most readily available fuel because of some hypothetical effect it might have on future global average temperatures? Isn't that like throwing out the baby with the bath water?
The observed data I refer to are instances of mass coral bleaching
Coral bleaching happens all the time. Corals recover. Corals bleach again. Corals recover again. How do you go from the observation to the attribution to a trace gas in the atmosphere measured at parts per million? Be specific.
Absolutely, refutable hypotheses are the order of the day.
Then state the observations that would refute your hypothesis. Be specific.
Pretty simple: there is nothing happening right now except CO2 exhaust.
Ah, so every other natural process that effects climate has simply been stationary for the past 60 years:)
Yeah, right:)
With CO2 its just the same, if you don't KNOW that or don't BELIEVE that then we can not discuss with you anyway.
You've just stated a belief using a tinker toy analogy. If you want to play the science game, state this as a falsifiable hypothesis, in particular, with what levels of global average temp/CO2 that would falsify your hypothesis. If you need to add more variables for your falsifiable hypothesis, please do so. Be specific.
Add to this the cultural bias in a lot of black communities against things perceived as 'white' (including computers) and you've got a much lower representation.
I'd argue that the cultural bias more than explains a difference in outcome. Take dirt poor immigrants from some other country that is fixated to being more "white", and they'll have the next generation in college. Take dirt poor Americans, fixated on not being "white", and it's a rarity to find any of them escaping poverty.
Cultural prejudices against academic excellence do more damage to a community than any amount of lynching or overt racism.
I'm not going to bother providing you with citations
An excellent way to avoid responsibility:)
How would you even begin to quantify any of these proposed observations - or for that matter, apply them to the modern world?
If you can't even imagine quantifying whether or not things are better or worse for humanity, how do you expect us to believe you when you say that an increase in global average temperature is going to be worse for humanity?
it's presumably the extent of temperate areas suitable for farming that's the most important factor in such calculations.
I'd ask for a citation, but I know you'll refuse:)
Seems like blatant denialism of observed data, to me.
What observed data are you referring to? Oh wait, never mind, you don't do cites:)
The fact of the matter is this - the game of science begins with a falsifiable hypothesis, and finding one observation that falsifies that hypothesis is what counts - it's not "cherry picking" when you find data that challenges a hypothesis, it's called refutation...that is, of course, if you actually *have* a falsifiable hypothesis to refute, rather than a fungible hypothesis which can defend itself from all observations with ad hoc special pleadings (see: astrology).
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So say, 15 years of dropping global average temperatures, while still increasing CO2?
Done.
Now you've got two options for your falsification -> you can add another fudge factor into your model, or you can abandon the initial premise you built the model with.
If you continue to add fudge factors to make your model fit contradictory data, you're not practicing science, you're trying to rationalize a preconceived notion.
Furthermore, if you're simply asserting that there exists some non-zero affect of human CO2, that's trivial for us to accept -> even a single butterfly has a non-zero effect on climate. How will you propose a falsifiable hypothesis that claims that the effects of human CO2 are going to be catastrophic?
Labeling those people that disagree with you as "anti-science", without starting the science game with your clearly stated falsifiable hypothesis, is just hand waving.
Specify, very clearly, what observations of global average temperature and CO2 levels (past, present or future), that would falsify your belief in catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.
Science is the ruthless application of skepticism to ones' own cherished ideas. Would you like to play that game?
That being said, it must be agreed that *many* specific anthropogenic global warming models have already been falsified. There may be a few left that have such large uncertainty bars that they haven't reached that point yet, but given that say, out of three dozen AGW models, 75% of them have failed to predict temperature within their stated uncertainty ranges, why would we consider AGW "settled science"?
The null hypothesis, which is that climate changes naturally without human intervention (ore more specifically, without regard to average global CO2 levels), still stands until some alternative falsifiable hypothesis can be made, challenged, and fail to be falsified. Building a hundred models, with a combined uncertainty range that spans every possible outcome (when compared to say, historical natural climate change), and claiming victory when there is at least one left standing is pseudo-science.
We don't have a control for the pre-Cambrian era, but we know evolution would be falsified if we found a rabbit fossil there. What I'm asking for is a specific set of observations that would falsify your hypothesis, not just a specific tabletop experiment that can be reproduced in a high school lab. All kinds of sciences deal with time scales and space scales that defy our ability to setup a repeatable experiment, yet still remain science because they clearly state what observations (past, present or future) would definitively falsify their hypotheses.
So neither the IPCC, nor NOAA, nor the Royal Meteorological society have made any clearly falsifiable hypothesis statement about Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Perhaps you have some other unnamed, unknown climate scientist out there who actually *has* bothered to specify an observation of say, global average temperature and CO2 levels (past, present or future) that would falsify the hypothesis of "humanity is changing CO2 levels in ways that will cause increases in average global temperature that will cause some specified amount of harm by 2100"?
If you cannot even *imagine*, as a "non-scientist", an observation that would shake your faith in your particular, belief, you're doing religion, not science.
Appeal to unnamed authorities.
The scientific method starts thusly - with a falsifiable hypothesis statement. No matter how expert, educated, or godlike in demeanor someone may be, if they cannot state a falsifiable hypothesis statement, they're not doing science.
What is *your* falsifiable hypothesis statement of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
What is your falsifiable hypothesis statement for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
What is your opinion on those who are Natural Climate Change Deniers?
...with a falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Creationism doesn't have a falsifiable hypothesis statement, evolution does.
Now, for anyone who cares to play the science game, succinctly state your falsifiable hypothesis of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Be specific.
Fun fact - Lamarck was actually right in certain circumstances (where in utero conditions, created by behavior of the mother, can affect the phenotype of the offspring - for example, women who consume lots of carbohydrates and have elevated blood sugar levels make their children more susceptible to insulin resistance, which leads to a generation who has even *worse* blood sugar levels during carbohydrate consumption, which will get even worse for *their* children in utero - you can see this effect in populations where the western carbohydrate heavy diet has been introduced, and each successive generation seems to be more obese and more diabetic at younger and younger ages).
I think I now understand your point of view - for you, mutation *is* evolution. For me, the origin of new species is evolution. And in regards to species, I find that the only real bright line we can use is "can these two organisms produce viable offspring" (and even that gets funky when viable offspring is only *occasional*), so for me, even vastly separated breeding populations, if they can actually produce viable offspring (even if "artificially" by some sort of intervention beyond normal mating patters), they're the same species. So if a mutation occurs that drops an organism out of the breeding pool (which, could theoretically occur twice in close succession, leading to a new breeding population), you could have de novo creation of a new species, but I'd argue that this kind of phenomenon is incredibly rare.
Put another way, I'd argue that a mutation is only evolution if it lets those organisms with that mutation out compete their peers - essentially creating a harsher environment for their peers that drives them out of the breeding pool. Random mutations that don't confer any survival advantage (however small) are just as likely to rewind as fast forward. Now, doesn't *have* to be about species, per se, you could simply imagine that there is a "micro evolution" with the competition of genetic sequences within a species, and while such genetic changes might not create an incompatible species, they will only propagate if they are not selected against in comparison to other alternate genetic sequences in the same location of the genome.
Anyway, thank you for the interesting conversation, and Happy new year!
Make no mistake, I'm not making a creationist argument :) Random genetic variation within a population is more than enough to host a bunch of completely "useless" traits *right now* that will become critical to survival *later*. Calling a trait "useful" or "useless" is again, a value judgement that evolution simply doesn't care about. Either a trait that already exists in an organism allows an organism to survive and procreate in given local conditions, or it doesn't - natural selection makes no judgement calls beyond that.
Now "gradual" evolution may only prune out a very small percentage of organisms in a given generation, rather than "extreme" evolution, where a large portion, if not a majority of organisms in a breeding group are pruned within a generation, but again, the trait *must be there* (due to whatever random mutations may exist within any given population) before it is selected for.
For example, if a small and gradual environment change simply increases the average mortality rate of a certain subset of organisms in a breeding population, it may indeed take generations upon generations to breed out that trait (especially if it's recessive in some fashion and doesn't necessarily get expressed). But from evolution's point of view, timescale doesn't matter. The same effect could be accomplished in one generation if that trait that was selected against couldn't make it to sexual maturity and pass on their genes.
And therein lies the rub, I suppose - I seem to get the impression that you believe there are two scenarios for evolution, that depend on timescale, and you consider the one that works on the longer timescale somehow "better" or more moral than the one that works on the shorter timescale. I take umbrage at that implication because it reeks of religious moralizing, which is an argument heavily used by creationists :)
In the end, evolution (or more properly, the origin of species - "evolution" can be a loaded term, assuming that we're always moving to "higher" life forms), is a combination of dumb luck environmental factors and random genetic mutation. It doesn't care if the environmental factor pruning an organism from the population is a kid with a bb-gun, a solar flare, a meteor impact, a local carnivore, or a microscopic virus - all of it (even the bb-gun) is simply part of natural selection.
If the adjacent environmental niche is different than the current environmental niche, then conditions local to the organism have changed. Only those organisms that *already* have adaptations that will survive in the different, adjacent niche, will survive there, so again, the capacity to survive in an environment must exist *before* the environmental conditions are imposed (by whatever means that may be) upon that organism.
Evolution, by its elegant characterization by Darwin, is an act of *pruning* and destruction, not one of directed or constructive post hoc adaptation. Calling them "beneficial" mutations is placing a value judgement that has no place in natural selection -> either the organism has mutations that will let it survive and procreate in local conditions, or it doesn't. If it doesn't *already* have the mutations necessary to survive and procreate in whatever local conditions it finds itself in, it is cruelly pruned from the genetic tree.
You're simply describing complex behavioral traits. Individuals react to environmental pressure because of genetic endowments that give them the capacity to react while their peers that die off fail to react. Regardless if the environment changes gradually or quickly, those reactions *are traits too*.
Now that's an awful simplification of an elegant but complex concept of natural selection. It all depends on *what* intensive environmental changes are happening - you could have intensive change that selects *against* high variation, short generation, large # of offspring individuals. Say some extra terrestrial race comes down to earth, and specifically comes here to test bio-weapons against high variation, short generation, large # of offspring individuals. They spray the planet with "Agent Purple", and kill off all the species that fit that stereotype. In that case, low variation, long generation, small # of offspring species actually *win* the evolution game, under what is arguably a *very* intensive environmental change.
The important thing to understand here is that *evolution doesn't care*. It doesn't have a direction it wants to go in, and it doesn't have to fit our ideas of "good" and "bad". It's all about survival, no matter what may come, and make no mistake, we've got *no* idea what could possibly come.
Those polar bears that could find new sources of food or could figure out how to migrate somewhere else *already* have that trait within them. Those polar bears that could *not* find new sources of food or figure out how to migrate somewhere else would be doomed no matter how slowly you adjusted conditions. The polar bears don't sit around, watch the food move away and the ice melt, and then decide "oh hey, let's evolve!" They either have the traits necessary (however complex those traits may be) to survive changes (on any timescale), or they don't.
As for meteor impacts that killed off the dinosaurs, be very clear -> natural selection doesn't care *what* the selection is, how quick or slow it is, or whether or not it has anthropogenic or extra-terrestrial origin. A meteor hit. Things changed really quickly. Those things that *already* had the necessary adaptations to survive lived, and those that didn't have them died off. In some cases, species survived because some subset of them already had the necessary adaptations. In other cases, entire lines went extinct. Such is nature.
Shorter version: the environment is always changing, stupid. See also: Darwin's "On the origin of species"
If the adaptation for a given environmental condition *doesn't* exist when that environmental condition appears, the entire species dies when that environmental condition appears. Species survive because they are diverse enough to contain at least *some* subset which will be able to survive in a state that is different from the current one.
So while you may correctly assert that this scenario is unlikely, (and in fact it's categorically true that *most* species fail to survive), it is categorically true that for all species that exist today, their ancestors had the necessary adaptive genome *before* every point in time in the past where conditions changed to the detriment of their peers.
I think what you're trying to express is the idea of a gradual "evolution by out-breeding", rather than "evolution by natural selection". Natural selection is always cruel -> organisms are killed before they can produce offspring. Natural selection is never going to be a pleasant thing, on any timescale, for those selected against.
As for out-breeding, that's actually pretty cruel as well -> those being out-bred are essentially starved out for resources as they can't compete, and again, start dying before they can produce offspring.
Now, as for which scenario is more or less likely (indirect natural selection by outbreeding by a competing subset of your species, or direct natural selection by cruel forces which cut your life short before you can produce offspring), I'll argue that you're making a distinction without a difference.
People would love to think that evolution is some sort of inherently good and noble thing, since we're a product of it and we like being the top of the food chain living in first world conditions, but make no mistake, nature is a cruel fucking mistress. Those majestic redwoods? They had to kill off a whole ecosystem to take over their current range. And their predecessors had to do the same before that. And so on, and so on. Life is a messy, ugly thing, and trying to reconcile it with human ideas of "good" and "evil" is kind of silly.
You misunderstand evolution. Any adaptation that allows for survival in a given environmental condition is *already* there when that given environmental condition appears. It just so happens that everyone that *doesn't* have that adaptation dies off. Natural *selection* picks for traits that have already existed. An organism doesn't observe the environment and suddenly tries to "evolve".
So, despite the thorough historical record we have from before humanity even existed, which shows climate changes, large and small, over every time scale you can imagine, you deny the fact of natural climate change? That kind of blind faith is unassailable, to be sure.
What is your falsifiable hypothesis that shows CO2 is driving H2O, rather than the reverse? Any assertion of AGW, or CAGW, requires many, many steps, and you can't just *assume* them to be true.
Put another way, where does the CO2 come from? I would say outgassing from the oceans, caused by heat/warmth. So the root cause is H2O :)
That's three.
Simply laboratory physics doesn't just blindly scale up as the system becomes more complex. For example, simple physics dictates that if you place a solid into a bucket of heated water, the heat will transfer up through the solid to the other end over a period of time. Simple, physics.
Now, put your left hand in a bucket of heated water, and tell me how soon the top of your head increases in temperature :)
You've taken, on faith, that a spectral property of a gas means that the globe average temperature is warming, that humans are causing it, and that the results will be catastrophe for humanity and the planet. That's a wildly long jump :)
Take that a little further - what if someone else said they needed 19 years. And then someone else said 25. And then someone else said 100. And then a geologist came along and said 1000. Each one of those steps has some rationale to it, and arguably a defensible one - you could have rising CO2 during all those time periods, and a net loss of global average temperature, and still have a positive component of temperature attributed to CO2.
But now take that the *opposite* direction. What if someone required an arbitrary number of years to be convinced that the human impact of CO2 was going to be catastrophic - say, they needed 50 years before being convinced. Or 100 years. People who already believe that human CO2 is going to be catastrophic can't be bothered to wait that long! We've got *5 years*!
As for what would convince you, is it just a cooling trend that lasts 17 years or more, or would it also be a "non warming" trend that lasts 17 years ore more while CO2 continues to rise?
The IPCC has in the past talked about impossible scenarios, 10C warming in a century for example - and has continually shifted downward their projections. 4.5C...or 2.5C...or even just 1C per century. At what point do we look at the rate and just shrug our shoulders? (And, FWIW, 1900-2000 was just about .8C, from what I've seen...not too far away from 1C, and civilization didn't collapse :)
Really? The earth's global average temperature increased say, .8C from 1900 - 2000. We spent zero on mitigation. How much did we spend on adaptation? How much would mitigation have costed, to say, have an entirely carbon free society in 1900?
Adaptation is far less expensive, and you can see why just by looking at the past century.
Why should you have an aggressive plan for a transition after peak oil? Isn't the most economically sound thing to do is make a gradual transition, so as to save opportunity costs? Wait until the market for oil becomes expensive enough to incent the pursuit of other technologies (say, nuclear), and then pay the price, and in the meantime, do the best you can to exploit all the cheap energy we have to provide for a higher quality of life for humanity.
I mean, assume 45 is "peak" age for a human - should we be preparing for our eventual decline due to aging by practicing to use a wheelchair, or walker, or trifocals at age 46? Age 35? Peak oil (or peak anything, by its definition) isn't an *urgent* problem, it's a gradual one.
Artificially increasing the price of energy only slows technological advance, and human welfare.
So you're now telling me that you believe that rises in global average temperature increase drought frequencies (and assuming as well intensities) and you don't even have *data* to show that?
I'll wait for you to find your homework, and we can talk again :)
I'm sorry, but you've missed the null hypothesis - long before humanity existed, climate changed through natural means. By default, we must assume that this continues to be the case. Assuming that magically, in 1950, all natural forces stuck themselves in neutral, and only humanity started controlling the climate through the emission of a trace gas is a fanciful idea that must be held to strict scrutiny.
H2O is a greenhouse gas too, one much more plentiful than CO2. Show me one experiment where increase in H2O, holding all other effects/factors constant, does not lead to an increase in temperature. So now, instead of CO2 based warming, we've got water based warming. Or hey, pick methane, and we can blame climate on flatulence :)
You simply cannot assert that because of the light absorptive properties of a single gas, that somehow that gas controls climate above all else - that's just plain silly. It is perfectly possible for CO2 to be a greenhouse gas in a laboratory, and completely overwhelmed by natural variation in the wild - and in fact, a gander at ice core records of CO2 and temperature show this to be true, with CO2 levels lagging temperatures.
Let's focus on a shortage of fuel - you admit that such a shortage is going to be very bad for quite a lot of people...yet we're suggesting that we eschew our cheapest and most readily available fuel because of some hypothetical effect it might have on future global average temperatures? Isn't that like throwing out the baby with the bath water?
Coral bleaching happens all the time. Corals recover. Corals bleach again. Corals recover again. How do you go from the observation to the attribution to a trace gas in the atmosphere measured at parts per million? Be specific.
Then state the observations that would refute your hypothesis. Be specific.
Ah, so every other natural process that effects climate has simply been stationary for the past 60 years :)
Yeah, right :)
You've just stated a belief using a tinker toy analogy. If you want to play the science game, state this as a falsifiable hypothesis, in particular, with what levels of global average temp/CO2 that would falsify your hypothesis. If you need to add more variables for your falsifiable hypothesis, please do so. Be specific.
I'd argue that the cultural bias more than explains a difference in outcome. Take dirt poor immigrants from some other country that is fixated to being more "white", and they'll have the next generation in college. Take dirt poor Americans, fixated on not being "white", and it's a rarity to find any of them escaping poverty.
Cultural prejudices against academic excellence do more damage to a community than any amount of lynching or overt racism.
An excellent way to avoid responsibility :)
If you can't even imagine quantifying whether or not things are better or worse for humanity, how do you expect us to believe you when you say that an increase in global average temperature is going to be worse for humanity?
I'd ask for a citation, but I know you'll refuse :)
What observed data are you referring to? Oh wait, never mind, you don't do cites :)
The fact of the matter is this - the game of science begins with a falsifiable hypothesis, and finding one observation that falsifies that hypothesis is what counts - it's not "cherry picking" when you find data that challenges a hypothesis, it's called refutation...that is, of course, if you actually *have* a falsifiable hypothesis to refute, rather than a fungible hypothesis which can defend itself from all observations with ad hoc special pleadings (see: astrology).