The most important thing to do is actually spot-check references. This is so poorly and rarely done that you will very quickly sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to arguments about climate change. (And pretty much anything else.) Sure it takes time, but you learn a *lot* by following how people argue.
It is not too difficult to separate the signal from the noise, but you have to eschew black and white thinking. There are plenty of "earth-is-holy" nutcases out there who desperately believe in AGW, and have no friggin' clue about anything other than their spirit guide. But those people do not work in universities.
If you are interested in seeing some detailed analysis on "skeptic" arguments, then I recommend Peter Hadfield's excellent 5 video series on Monckton: Monckton Bumkin. Sure he makes fun of Monckton, but you'll see why if you actually watch some Monckton videos and then try and trace the arguments. Monckton walked away from a direct conversation with Peter Hadfield on Monckton responds to Potholer54 on the "skeptic" website WUWT.
If you are interested in how information flows through society, then Naomi Oreskes has an excellent book on the disinformation campaign: Merchants of Doubt. It is a little too detailed for a light read, but the details are stomach churning in their audacity.
Getting to the core of the scientific issues is more work. I'm working on a phd, and have a long background in math, modeling, and also some understanding of scientific culture. That type of experience doesn't just fall in your lap. skepticalscience does a good job.
Gee, you sound like a climate expert! CO2 has changed heaps in 4.5 billion years all right. So has the temperature of the earth. You think scientists don't quantify all of that with error bars? It is the fact that this has been done that we're having the discussion at all.
There is no long-term trend to remove *all* CO2. That is plain ridiculous. The carbon cycle will reach a plateau because volcanoes are always producing more CO2. If this didn't happen then there would still be glaciers at the equator, and the earth would be one big ice-sheet.
What is the *global* (not just Mauna-Loa) CO2 average? Is it rising precipitously? How fast? Its hard to get a straight answer for these questions from Google.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and pretend that you never heard of the IPCC reports, or wikipedia.
In my experience people are fine to talk about the industries built up around alternative energies. You talk of "spectacular" fiscal abuses, but it's almost certainly overblown in your imagination. For example, Solyndra was just a small blip in the larger loan guarantee program. It is peanuts compared to $4 billion that is *given* to big carbon each year in tax breaks. Note, it costs the government more to give away $4 billion each year, than to offer loans to start-ups which have a bankruptcy rate of 11%. Not all money is lost when a company goes bankrupt -- only 4% of it is at risk.
But I'm sure that's a *spectacular* fiscal abuse, and just forking $4 billion a year over to big carbon, because otherwise the the most profitable industry in history wouldn't have enough money to line the pockets of conservative think-tanks and politicians.
If you want to follow the money, then watch it trickle from big oil through think-tanks and politicians. It's seriously just a case of crony capitalism.
Sure cap-and-trade would have to be run in a market. Goldman Sachs makes money when people buy and sell stocks as well.
You don't like cap-and-trade, then what is wrong with a carbon tax? Suppose you got another wild crazy conspiracy theory about that too, right?
The presumption would be incorrect. There is a lot of land in the northern latitudes.
Ah!!! You found the logic that makes you trash the whole argument!!! Not to worry about 4C climate change, there is plenty of land in canada/siberia!!!
That is a terrible idea, even if it was possible. The methane will be in the atmosphere for less than a decade. The CO2 will be there for 1000s of years. The CO2 accumulates, and feeds back on H20 which amplifies the effect.
For all we know there could be more area that species could live in when the climate changed.
You think that ecologists don't study changing clines? This is a *huge* field of study, and scientists try to measure the speed at which species and travel, and the various obstacles. You could learn something about it, but it might not jive with your politics.
Yeah... junkscience says that insurance premiums aren't going to go up, so that must be correct. After-all, the founder Milloy, was never involved in disinformation campaigns, for example, saying the there are no problems with tobacco.
Guess who are developing their prediction models? The same people who make global warming predictions. It's no surprise they support each other.
You think you know that, but if you think about it, you don't know that they are the same people at all. Acturies calculate risk for insurance companies. They aren't authors in IPCC reports.
Birds and plants aren't authors either, and they're moving/changing. So are glaciers. That's one hell of a conspiracy you got to explain there.
But yeah, some guys working for "big-eco" are making the models deciding the fate of the world and you're fighting the good fight, right?
Back in 1975 we were supposed to be freezing by now. Anyone remember that?
As in some scientists asked the question, studied it, and rejected the theory after 5 or so years. There was never consensus, but the story was too good not to run in major newspapers.
Do YOU remember it?
More Big Scare tactics. These articles belong in the Science Fiction category so far. We don't know what's going to happen, we've never been there before, but we're assured that it's going to be bad and only by taking and transferring hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to someone else who is more Progressive than ourselves can we save us all.
The only big scare tactics I see are those who preach that the economy was crash if we tax pollution. It is baloney of course. There is empirical data that shows that the effect on the economy is * negligible*. The effect on the Koch brother's political influence will be non-negligible, but that's crony capitalism for you.
Did you even read the linked article? Scientists, as in, one?
There is such a thing as considered scientific opinion. For example, if you have cancer, there will be a consensus on the ways to go about treating that. You can use homeopathy if you want, that's your private choice. Unfortunately there are no private choices when it comes to polluting the atmosphere.
This link you made is a classic distraction. Just part of an endless process of dishonest argumentation. Why not choose the most *compelling* argument for AGW and try and argue against that. That would be honest. Do you even know what the compelling arguments are?
Important? or convenient excuses for people who make lots of money from carbon, and have bought of the media, think-tank, and political system.
Remember, tackling the ozone whole was going to *destroy* the us economy. So was tackling acid rain. Now taxing carbon is going to *destroy* the economy, so it *must* be true that global warming is no big deal. Except that it is a big deal, and doing something about it will have negligible (or positive) effect on the economy, as *evidenced* by countries that have done something, such as Germany, China, Australia, and northeastern USA.
That is it in a nut shell. Al invented the internet. Al just saved us from rebellion. Al flies in his private jet to GW conferences yet tells everyone they need to do without. Al is not your best front man if you didnt know already.
Yeah, Al is just this *horrible* guy, you see, and since he is for something, then we should be against it. 'Cause that's how us republicans roll.
Well, I think it would be prudent to widen the field of research to other factors in climate change than only CO2.
You'll find information about solar, methane, cosmic rays, and the full gamut of what *science* knows about climate change in the, wait for it, IPCC 2013 report.
Gee... an IPCC report will tell you the pretty-exact accounting. Suppose you think you know something about it, without ever having learnt something about it.
Consider this: CO2 lasts 1000s of years in the atmosphere, where-as methane less than a decade. The CO2 is effectively permanent, and it *builds* over time. See the difference?
there's not one D thing that we can do about it anyway. Stop burning fossil fuel? Sure, if you want to kill millions of humans
This is just simply wrong. A carbon tax would (in part) account for the cost of pollution, and encourage the search of alternatives. Works overseas. Works in the USA. Don't be so glum. The only thing stopping change is the stranglehold of big carbon on republican politics.
About the only hysterics I hear are those who claim the sky will fall in on the economy if carbon pollution is taxed. The audacity of calling scientists alarmists. GOP post-modern projection.
I've noticed that almost every climate-science story on slashdot is quickly followed by a bunch of comments that seem to come from people with the science education of young earthers, and then the conversation normalizes after a while. Wouldn't be surprised if astroturfers are trying to skew the discussion. That's how politics is done these days. There's lots of money for politically active groups with goals aligned to big carbon. I'm sure the astroturfers think they're doing a good thing, but I find it pretty despicable.
Except he didn't say that. He believes that global warming has something to do with desertification, but doesn't have a model that explains the data -- just something that he thinks is worth looking into. Besides, he is an expert in other fields.
I hope you're not too lazy to watch all twenty-two minutes of it
Ain't it true that a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
says, and he actually studies the topic experimentally
CO2 enrichment experiments in natural vegetation including forests and rangelands (both of which are agricultural as defined by USDA) usually show an initial increase in productivity that quickly comes to a hard stop as nitrogen limitation is expressed, usually within a few years. Same is true for unmanaged ecosystems.
If you value intellectual integrity, then you're going to have to reach for another argument for not doing anything about CO2 pollution. Or you could just follow what the data says.
The disconnect is basic physics dictates that things take time to change. For example, if you put water on the stove, it does not boil instantly, even though the heat output of the hotplate is the same when it is boiling.
It will take 100s of years to lock in the effects of current carbon.
Slashdot Mirror
The most important thing to do is actually spot-check references. This is so poorly and rarely done that you will very quickly sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to arguments about climate change. (And pretty much anything else.) Sure it takes time, but you learn a *lot* by following how people argue.
It is not too difficult to separate the signal from the noise, but you have to eschew black and white thinking. There are plenty of "earth-is-holy" nutcases out there who desperately believe in AGW, and have no friggin' clue about anything other than their spirit guide. But those people do not work in universities.
If you are interested in seeing some detailed analysis on "skeptic" arguments, then I recommend Peter Hadfield's excellent 5 video series on Monckton: Monckton Bumkin. Sure he makes fun of Monckton, but you'll see why if you actually watch some Monckton videos and then try and trace the arguments. Monckton walked away from a direct conversation with Peter Hadfield on Monckton responds to Potholer54 on the "skeptic" website WUWT.
If you are interested in how information flows through society, then Naomi Oreskes has an excellent book on the disinformation campaign: Merchants of Doubt. It is a little too detailed for a light read, but the details are stomach churning in their audacity.
Getting to the core of the scientific issues is more work. I'm working on a phd, and have a long background in math, modeling, and also some understanding of scientific culture. That type of experience doesn't just fall in your lap. skepticalscience does a good job.
Gee, you sound like a climate expert! CO2 has changed heaps in 4.5 billion years all right. So has the temperature of the earth. You think scientists don't quantify all of that with error bars? It is the fact that this has been done that we're having the discussion at all.
There is no long-term trend to remove *all* CO2. That is plain ridiculous. The carbon cycle will reach a plateau because volcanoes are always producing more CO2. If this didn't happen then there would still be glaciers at the equator, and the earth would be one big ice-sheet.
What is the *global* (not just Mauna-Loa) CO2 average? Is it rising precipitously? How fast? Its hard to get a straight answer for these questions from Google.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and pretend that you never heard of the IPCC reports, or wikipedia.
In my experience people are fine to talk about the industries built up around alternative energies. You talk of "spectacular" fiscal abuses, but it's almost certainly overblown in your imagination. For example, Solyndra was just a small blip in the larger loan guarantee program. It is peanuts compared to $4 billion that is *given* to big carbon each year in tax breaks. Note, it costs the government more to give away $4 billion each year, than to offer loans to start-ups which have a bankruptcy rate of 11%. Not all money is lost when a company goes bankrupt -- only 4% of it is at risk.
But I'm sure that's a *spectacular* fiscal abuse, and just forking $4 billion a year over to big carbon, because otherwise the the most profitable industry in history wouldn't have enough money to line the pockets of conservative think-tanks and politicians.
Do you see the double-standard there?
If you want to follow the money, then watch it trickle from big oil through think-tanks and politicians. It's seriously just a case of crony capitalism.
Sure cap-and-trade would have to be run in a market. Goldman Sachs makes money when people buy and sell stocks as well.
You don't like cap-and-trade, then what is wrong with a carbon tax? Suppose you got another wild crazy conspiracy theory about that too, right?
The presumption would be incorrect. There is a lot of land in the northern latitudes.
Ah!!! You found the logic that makes you trash the whole argument!!! Not to worry about 4C climate change, there is plenty of land in canada/siberia!!!
(Face-palm)
That is a terrible idea, even if it was possible. The methane will be in the atmosphere for less than a decade. The CO2 will be there for 1000s of years. The CO2 accumulates, and feeds back on H20 which amplifies the effect.
For all we know there could be more area that species could live in when the climate changed.
You think that ecologists don't study changing clines? This is a *huge* field of study, and scientists try to measure the speed at which species and travel, and the various obstacles. You could learn something about it, but it might not jive with your politics.
Yeah... junkscience says that insurance premiums aren't going to go up, so that must be correct. After-all, the founder Milloy, was never involved in disinformation campaigns, for example, saying the there are no problems with tobacco.
And he isn paid to fight for big carbon, but I'm sure he's a man of science.
But what of his claim? What does the insurance industry have to say on the matter.
But I'm sure the skeptics are right. After-all, they're right about everything.
Guess who are developing their prediction models? The same people who make global warming predictions. It's no surprise they support each other.
You think you know that, but if you think about it, you don't know that they are the same people at all. Acturies calculate risk for insurance companies. They aren't authors in IPCC reports.
Birds and plants aren't authors either, and they're moving/changing. So are glaciers. That's one hell of a conspiracy you got to explain there.
But yeah, some guys working for "big-eco" are making the models deciding the fate of the world and you're fighting the good fight, right?
Back in 1975 we were supposed to be freezing by now. Anyone remember that?
As in some scientists asked the question, studied it, and rejected the theory after 5 or so years. There was never consensus, but the story was too good not to run in major newspapers.
Do YOU remember it?
More Big Scare tactics. These articles belong in the Science Fiction category so far. We don't know what's going to happen, we've never been there before, but we're assured that it's going to be bad and only by taking and transferring hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to someone else who is more Progressive than ourselves can we save us all.
The only big scare tactics I see are those who preach that the economy was crash if we tax pollution. It is baloney of course. There is empirical data that shows that the effect on the economy is * negligible*. The effect on the Koch brother's political influence will be non-negligible, but that's crony capitalism for you.
Yeah! Let's go back to 4000ppm! After-all, that's what it was 450 million years ago, so it must be good!!!!
Did you even read the linked article? Scientists, as in, one?
There is such a thing as considered scientific opinion. For example, if you have cancer, there will be a consensus on the ways to go about treating that. You can use homeopathy if you want, that's your private choice. Unfortunately there are no private choices when it comes to polluting the atmosphere.
This link you made is a classic distraction. Just part of an endless process of dishonest argumentation. Why not choose the most *compelling* argument for AGW and try and argue against that. That would be honest. Do you even know what the compelling arguments are?
Didn't think so.
This is what counts as evidence for you. Did you ever find some counter evidence? Almost certainly not, right?
For those who are interested, you can read about Beck 2008 here, here, and here.
For the full effect, make sure you actually read through Beck 2008.
Proof that you only need a few bits of junk our there, and that's enough for politics.
Important? or convenient excuses for people who make lots of money from carbon, and have bought of the media, think-tank, and political system.
Remember, tackling the ozone whole was going to *destroy* the us economy. So was tackling acid rain. Now taxing carbon is going to *destroy* the economy, so it *must* be true that global warming is no big deal. Except that it is a big deal, and doing something about it will have negligible (or positive) effect on the economy, as *evidenced* by countries that have done something, such as Germany, China, Australia, and northeastern USA.
That is it in a nut shell. Al invented the internet. Al just saved us from rebellion. Al flies in his private jet to GW conferences yet tells everyone they need to do without. Al is not your best front man if you didnt know already.
Yeah, Al is just this *horrible* guy, you see, and since he is for something, then we should be against it. 'Cause that's how us republicans roll.
FACE-PALM.
Well, I think it would be prudent to widen the field of research to other factors in climate change than only CO2.
You'll find information about solar, methane, cosmic rays, and the full gamut of what *science* knows about climate change in the, wait for it, IPCC 2013 report.
Gee... an IPCC report will tell you the pretty-exact accounting. Suppose you think you know something about it, without ever having learnt something about it.
Consider this: CO2 lasts 1000s of years in the atmosphere, where-as methane less than a decade. The CO2 is effectively permanent, and it *builds* over time. See the difference?
there's not one D thing that we can do about it anyway. Stop burning fossil fuel? Sure, if you want to kill millions of humans
This is just simply wrong. A carbon tax would (in part) account for the cost of pollution, and encourage the search of alternatives. Works overseas. Works in the USA. Don't be so glum. The only thing stopping change is the stranglehold of big carbon on republican politics.
How about you get labeled a Climate Hysteric?
About the only hysterics I hear are those who claim the sky will fall in on the economy if carbon pollution is taxed. The audacity of calling scientists alarmists. GOP post-modern projection.
I've noticed that almost every climate-science story on slashdot is quickly followed by a bunch of comments that seem to come from people with the science education of young earthers, and then the conversation normalizes after a while. Wouldn't be surprised if astroturfers are trying to skew the discussion. That's how politics is done these days. There's lots of money for politically active groups with goals aligned to big carbon. I'm sure the astroturfers think they're doing a good thing, but I find it pretty despicable.
Drink too much water, and you'll kill yourself. Doesn't mean water is a vicious evil poison. Too much of anything is no good.
majority of our global warming issues
Except he didn't say that. He believes that global warming has something to do with desertification, but doesn't have a model that explains the data -- just something that he thinks is worth looking into. Besides, he is an expert in other fields.
I hope you're not too lazy to watch all twenty-two minutes of it
Ain't it true that a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
says, and he actually studies the topic experimentally
CO2 enrichment experiments in natural vegetation including forests and rangelands (both of which are agricultural as defined by USDA) usually show an initial increase in productivity that quickly comes to a hard stop as nitrogen limitation is expressed, usually within a few years. Same is true for unmanaged ecosystems.
If you value intellectual integrity, then you're going to have to reach for another argument for not doing anything about CO2 pollution. Or you could just follow what the data says.
The disconnect is basic physics dictates that things take time to change. For example, if you put water on the stove, it does not boil instantly, even though the heat output of the hotplate is the same when it is boiling.
It will take 100s of years to lock in the effects of current carbon.
It's really very simple physics.