My father has had that discussion with his doctor.
Doctor: You need to quit smoking. Constantly inhaling smoke and tar into your lungs is almost certainly going to make you sick.
Patient: I know. I don't care. Anything else?
At that point, the doctor has to shut up.
Sure, but you also don't have to be an expert in a field to see when someone is being an idiot for ignoring good advice
But the advice isn't good, and climatologists aren't qualified to give it. All they say is "if you keep emitting like this, and everything else stays the same, then there will probably be a significant cost to everybody due to global warming". It is up to politicians and economists to decide how to deal with that. Many people believe that the best way of dealing with it is to help nations develop rapidly, through free trade and free markets. Just because many climatologists politically prefer government regulation and market interference doesn't make that the best policy choice. And even the last couple of decades show that the US has done better than many countries that have adopted stronger regulations.
The "consensus" of climate scientists is documented in the IPCC report. That report presents a range of choices and outcomes, and qualifies predictions with uncertainties. It is the job of politicians and voters, not climate scientists, to decide what actions to take based on that scientific input.
By analogy, a doctor can tell me whether chemotherapy has a chance of extending my life by a few months, but it is my choice, and only my choice, whether I actually undergo chemotherapy or not. The doctor has no right to tell me what I should do, and it would be unprofessional if he even tried to influence my choice based on his personal preferences.
I've looked at the IPCC report (i.e., "the consensus"), and even if I take all the predictions in that report at face value, I still don't want action taken on climate change for the time being. Many other people apparently have come to the same conclusion. I'm sorry if you have a tough time accepting that, but you will have to live with it.
You were writing at length about the importance of trusting credentialed experts. Are you a credentialed expert in global warming? No. So why don't you STFU?
Constantly yelling "i know better" meanwhile experts all around you are the ones making the world livable for you.
I am not saying "I know better"; I am saying: I'm only going to take an expert's advice and trust him if he can convince me that he is actually trustworthy. Fancy credentials or degrees are not sufficient for that.
Your view point is like a child's
No, I'm afraid your viewpoint is like a child's: you place blind trust in people because of their position and credentials. Evaluating the credibility of experts in areas one doesn't know is something adults constantly have to do in real life, and people who can't do that suffer the consequences.
If you proscribe less regulation, then at least make it enforceable. Awarding exemptions and succumbing to 'rent-seeking' are not the product of over-regulation, but the power of influence and money over lawmakers. Society does not exempt corporation, the elites in government do; there is a difference.
Money always has influence over lawmakers; that's as fundamental as F=ma. And that means that if you give lawmakers the power to regulate and control everything, they are going to use that power inevitably for their own gain and benefit, as well as that of their friends.
You can't solve our problems by hoping that somehow you make "elites in government" behave better. The only thing you can do is limit the damage they can do by limiting their functions to the absolute essentials. Furthermore, we need to hand over much more of the enforcement to the courts and juries, because imperfect as they are, they are a lot less influenced by money and power than elected representatives.
But make no mistake, even in a society that eschews leaders and the distance it creates from its constituency,, there needs to be protection from corporations no different than from the Mafia.
The only protection from corporations we need is to hold them accountable for specific, identifiable harm they cause, and to ensure that they operate in a free market so that you can vote with your feet. You need fairly little in terms of legal mechanisms to ensure that.
Well, I guess it's already progress when people realize that the result of global warming isn't bad in the long term.
As for the speed of change, we experienced about 1K of warming over the last 100 years, and it looks like we may be getting 2K over the next even if we largely stay with fossil fuels; that's not such a big acceleration.
The more authoritarian side is the majority in both parties. Since this is becoming a major issue for young voters, it would be good for them to take the initiative.
Republicans should be taking the high road on this, expressing outrage, giving Snowden a pardon, and then hold Obama responsible. But I suspect both parties are deeply enough involved in this that neither wants it to come out.
only an idiot american would think Obama was any kind of leftist.
I said that he is a "self-proclaimed progressive and left-wing president", not that he actually is leftist. No politician actually ever "is" a leftist, because left-wing ideology cannot actually be translated into political practice (neither can right-wing ideology).
the worst kind of idiots are those who'll praise the taste of shit just because they're told it's chocolate.
What an apt description of your political views. You're Canadian? European? Australian?
Why do you think I'm advocating such a line just because I think people that want to throw away democracy and consolidate power in their own hands are untrustworthy?
I wouldn't have to guess what you're advocating if you stated a clear position. All you're doing right now is whine and complain about corruption and accuse libertarians of being responsible for all sorts of imagined ills without rhyme, reason, or evidence.
So, specifically what are you actually advocating, and how is that going to fix the rent seeking, loss of civil liberties, and war mongering we have seen under Obama?
If you ask the Dr to give the equivalent of a full medical education so that you truly understand your situation.
You don't need a full medical education to understand a single disease well and whether to trust your doctor. Most medical studies are easy enough to understand: apply treatment X, measure outcome Y, do a statistical test.
Its nuts that even after all our scientific understanding that we still have these crazy bastards making a political issue of what should be a scientific issue.
No, it's nuts that with all our high-powered public education, people like you want to place their lives in the hands of "experts" and refuse to learn, understand, or question. With your attitude of helplessness and ignorance, you're setting yourself up to be the victim of every medical and financial fraud that comes along.
Human civilization isn't "adapted" to anything; it exists across the entire globe in all climates. And humans have experienced wild swings in climate and a strong rise in sea levels over the last several thousand years. And the climate that works for sloths and lemurs works very well for us because we already have it in much of the globe.
You're welcome to go through life viewing yourself as Billy-Bo-Bob and place your life in the hands of "experts" without questioning them. Chances are good it will kill you.
I am a scientist and an engineer, and if a doctor tells me that I'm too stupid to understand what my disease is, the doctor gets a sharp rebuke and loses me as a patient.
Straw man. Anthropogenic climate change existed "long before industrialization".
That statement is utter and complete bullshit. Really, get the facts.
Begging the question, unproven point.
I'm not proving a point, I am asserting that they have failed to prove their point.
You can do the math to figure out how significant the effect is; have you done it? Me neither, but I'm not trying to contradict someone who ostensibly has.
They haven't done the math, ostensibly or otherwise. They don't know and that's why they don't talk about it, misleading you into believing
Impeachment isn't just for criminal acts, it also includes other broader categories, including violating his oath of office, betraying the public trust, and failure to supervise the executive branch properly.
Because (1) they have to collect it as part of their normal operations, and (2) whether a bunch of phone companies know that Ahmad-the-terrorist accidentally misdialed your number doesn't matter, but it matters a great deal whether you become tagged as a potential terrorist by the government.
In most of the cases where Obama has erred, Congress has merely given him authorization; it was Obama's choice to use it badly: from bailouts, to drone strikes, the war on drugs, IRS abuses, and spying on Americans. Obama also chose to press through bad health care reform legislation. Yes, the current messes are squarely Obama's fault.
They almost certainly started the program with the idea of preventing terrorists setting off truck bombs at shopping malls, and other sorts of terrorist attacks. Could you spell out why that is a misguided policy goal?
It's a misguided policy goal because deaths from terrorism in the US are negligible compared to other forms of preventable deaths. It isn't rational to spend the kind of money we are spending on terrorism prevention when we can prevent many other causes of death more easily and cheaply, and without destroying our civil liberties in the process.
The fact that this stuff hasn't led to protesting in the streets really reflects just how complacent the US population is
Keep in mind that the same kind of thing is legal in many places in Europe and Asia, and people don't even give it a second thought. The US response is tepid when measured by what an outrageous violation of civil liberties this represents, but it is strong compared to the complacency that exists elsewhere.
It'd be nice if the public vitriol towards the current administration also helped Manning avoid further abuse, but I'm not holding my breath.
Don't drag Manning in there; that's an entirely different case.
We also have CO2 data from ice cores that shows that for 0.5M years CO2 levels varied between about 180 and 280ppm
Yes, and the same data tells us that if we continue that way, we will invariably head for a civilization destroying glaciation event, likely within a few thousand years.
while in the last 100 years it has risen suddenly to 400ppm.
And the same data tells us that this is far below the carbon or temperatures that Earth experienced during most of the time that mammals and primates evolved and that there is no reason to believe that higher CO2 concentrations are anything but favorable.
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My father has had that discussion with his doctor.
Doctor: You need to quit smoking. Constantly inhaling smoke and tar into your lungs is almost certainly going to make you sick.
Patient: I know. I don't care. Anything else?
At that point, the doctor has to shut up.
But the advice isn't good, and climatologists aren't qualified to give it. All they say is "if you keep emitting like this, and everything else stays the same, then there will probably be a significant cost to everybody due to global warming". It is up to politicians and economists to decide how to deal with that. Many people believe that the best way of dealing with it is to help nations develop rapidly, through free trade and free markets. Just because many climatologists politically prefer government regulation and market interference doesn't make that the best policy choice. And even the last couple of decades show that the US has done better than many countries that have adopted stronger regulations.
I'm all for police wearing cameras, provided that they cannot disable them. Unfortunately, it sounds like these can be disabled.
The "consensus" of climate scientists is documented in the IPCC report. That report presents a range of choices and outcomes, and qualifies predictions with uncertainties. It is the job of politicians and voters, not climate scientists, to decide what actions to take based on that scientific input.
By analogy, a doctor can tell me whether chemotherapy has a chance of extending my life by a few months, but it is my choice, and only my choice, whether I actually undergo chemotherapy or not. The doctor has no right to tell me what I should do, and it would be unprofessional if he even tried to influence my choice based on his personal preferences.
I've looked at the IPCC report (i.e., "the consensus"), and even if I take all the predictions in that report at face value, I still don't want action taken on climate change for the time being. Many other people apparently have come to the same conclusion. I'm sorry if you have a tough time accepting that, but you will have to live with it.
You were writing at length about the importance of trusting credentialed experts. Are you a credentialed expert in global warming? No. So why don't you STFU?
I am not saying "I know better"; I am saying: I'm only going to take an expert's advice and trust him if he can convince me that he is actually trustworthy. Fancy credentials or degrees are not sufficient for that.
No, I'm afraid your viewpoint is like a child's: you place blind trust in people because of their position and credentials. Evaluating the credibility of experts in areas one doesn't know is something adults constantly have to do in real life, and people who can't do that suffer the consequences.
Money always has influence over lawmakers; that's as fundamental as F=ma. And that means that if you give lawmakers the power to regulate and control everything, they are going to use that power inevitably for their own gain and benefit, as well as that of their friends.
You can't solve our problems by hoping that somehow you make "elites in government" behave better. The only thing you can do is limit the damage they can do by limiting their functions to the absolute essentials. Furthermore, we need to hand over much more of the enforcement to the courts and juries, because imperfect as they are, they are a lot less influenced by money and power than elected representatives.
The only protection from corporations we need is to hold them accountable for specific, identifiable harm they cause, and to ensure that they operate in a free market so that you can vote with your feet. You need fairly little in terms of legal mechanisms to ensure that.
Well, I guess it's already progress when people realize that the result of global warming isn't bad in the long term.
As for the speed of change, we experienced about 1K of warming over the last 100 years, and it looks like we may be getting 2K over the next even if we largely stay with fossil fuels; that's not such a big acceleration.
Yeah, it is. But it would be smart for one party to leave and and say that they are "shocked, SHOCKED" that the other party would do such a thing.
The more authoritarian side is the majority in both parties. Since this is becoming a major issue for young voters, it would be good for them to take the initiative.
You can't be charged with it, but the president can be impeached for it.
Republicans should be taking the high road on this, expressing outrage, giving Snowden a pardon, and then hold Obama responsible. But I suspect both parties are deeply enough involved in this that neither wants it to come out.
I said that he is a "self-proclaimed progressive and left-wing president", not that he actually is leftist. No politician actually ever "is" a leftist, because left-wing ideology cannot actually be translated into political practice (neither can right-wing ideology).
What an apt description of your political views. You're Canadian? European? Australian?
Well, enlighten me. Where is the evidence that the outcome of US trials is strongly influenced by spending?
I wouldn't have to guess what you're advocating if you stated a clear position. All you're doing right now is whine and complain about corruption and accuse libertarians of being responsible for all sorts of imagined ills without rhyme, reason, or evidence.
So, specifically what are you actually advocating, and how is that going to fix the rent seeking, loss of civil liberties, and war mongering we have seen under Obama?
You don't need a full medical education to understand a single disease well and whether to trust your doctor. Most medical studies are easy enough to understand: apply treatment X, measure outcome Y, do a statistical test.
No, it's nuts that with all our high-powered public education, people like you want to place their lives in the hands of "experts" and refuse to learn, understand, or question. With your attitude of helplessness and ignorance, you're setting yourself up to be the victim of every medical and financial fraud that comes along.
Human civilization isn't "adapted" to anything; it exists across the entire globe in all climates. And humans have experienced wild swings in climate and a strong rise in sea levels over the last several thousand years. And the climate that works for sloths and lemurs works very well for us because we already have it in much of the globe.
You're welcome to go through life viewing yourself as Billy-Bo-Bob and place your life in the hands of "experts" without questioning them. Chances are good it will kill you.
I am a scientist and an engineer, and if a doctor tells me that I'm too stupid to understand what my disease is, the doctor gets a sharp rebuke and loses me as a patient.
That statement is utter and complete bullshit. Really, get the facts.
I'm not proving a point, I am asserting that they have failed to prove their point.
They haven't done the math, ostensibly or otherwise. They don't know and that's why they don't talk about it, misleading you into believing
Impeachment isn't just for criminal acts, it also includes other broader categories, including violating his oath of office, betraying the public trust, and failure to supervise the executive branch properly.
Because (1) they have to collect it as part of their normal operations, and (2) whether a bunch of phone companies know that Ahmad-the-terrorist accidentally misdialed your number doesn't matter, but it matters a great deal whether you become tagged as a potential terrorist by the government.
In most of the cases where Obama has erred, Congress has merely given him authorization; it was Obama's choice to use it badly: from bailouts, to drone strikes, the war on drugs, IRS abuses, and spying on Americans. Obama also chose to press through bad health care reform legislation. Yes, the current messes are squarely Obama's fault.
It's a misguided policy goal because deaths from terrorism in the US are negligible compared to other forms of preventable deaths. It isn't rational to spend the kind of money we are spending on terrorism prevention when we can prevent many other causes of death more easily and cheaply, and without destroying our civil liberties in the process.
Obama was elected to change and reverse it. Instead, he chose to make it much worse.
Keep in mind that the same kind of thing is legal in many places in Europe and Asia, and people don't even give it a second thought. The US response is tepid when measured by what an outrageous violation of civil liberties this represents, but it is strong compared to the complacency that exists elsewhere.
Don't drag Manning in there; that's an entirely different case.
Yes, and the same data tells us that if we continue that way, we will invariably head for a civilization destroying glaciation event, likely within a few thousand years.
And the same data tells us that this is far below the carbon or temperatures that Earth experienced during most of the time that mammals and primates evolved and that there is no reason to believe that higher CO2 concentrations are anything but favorable.