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Well your evidence sure is overwhelming! Hundreds of man-years of research based on multiple, independent lines of evidence pointing towards a singular conclusi

Well your evidence sure is overwhelming! Hundreds of man-years of research based on multiple, independent lines of evidence pointing towards a singular conclusion and you, the voice of reason, here to refute it all without the aid of satellite data, ice cores, spectrometers or computers models.

skadamat 11y ago
I think this is exactly Bret's point that he makes in the essay. Citizens aren't empowered to find out for themselves and are instead asks to trust smart people: "And why trust them? Their rhetoric is catchy, but so is the horrific “denialist” rhetoric from the Cato Institute and similar. When the discussion is at the level of “trust me, I’m a scientist” and “look at the poor polar bears”, it becomes a matter of emotional appeal and faith, a form of religion. Climate change is too important for us to operate on faith. Citizens need and deserve reading material which shows context — how significant suggested actions are in the big picture — and which embeds models — formulas and algorithms which calculate that significance, for different scenarios, from primary-source data and explicit assumptions."
- Daishiman 11y ago
  Do you check psychology journals every time you want to consult with a psychologist? Check the materials of the replacement parts in your car and run them against a material model to make sure that they're within the specified bounds of safety? Put food fragments on petri dishes to check bacterial content? For 99.9% of people, scientifically validating the opinions of the scientific consensus in all fields of life is a non-issue, except here. We trust other human beings because society and ecology are systems far too complex for anyone to make falsifiable assertions about them without serious research beyond the scope of single individuals. If anything, on the thing we can actually check up on, which is the integrity of climate scientists as an institution, they've been a hell of a lot more trusworthy than dozens of other institutions for which we rely on all the time. Maybe you've heard of them: the FDA, SEC, WHO, AMA, and dozens upon dozens of bodies of researchers, advisors, and experts. They all fuck up significantly from time to time, but by and large, their assesments are useful and have helped to bring some of the benefits of modern society. Now, I'm all in favor of people wanting to verify and corroborate data and evidence, but let's keep in mind that realistically, very few of us are capable of even asking the right questions. The best we can do is read up a little and check for consistency and reasonable explanations coming from the very scientists. So far, anyone who has listened to dudes like Michael Mann, Jason Box, and a plethora of other climatologists cannot seriously question their legitimacy any more than their own peers.
ommunist 11y ago
Ironically all that system is not designed to find the truth. It is designed to find more funding to support itself. I know that, because I did that myself. A single set of glacial cores from Greenland tells you more that all that satellite BS. If you remotely closely familiar with principles of climatic modelling, you 'd be rotfl, looking at someone trying to validate or backtrace that models. Because you'd be familiar with valid and comparable data scarcity. We lack actual climate data. Ice cores are really the only thing we really have.
- Daishiman 11y ago
  Yeah, your assertion doesn't seem to be validated at all. Not only do Jason Box's reconstructions refute that, but the reality is that with the current temperatures we have in Greenland the level of glacial melt is unprecedented. If not, mind explaining to us how exactly, if average temperatures have been higher in Greenland, then it hasn't experienced the melt it's going through right now? https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=337 https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=337
  - ommunist 11y ago
    Well, climate change this than: http://yer.io/img/globalwarm-this.png http://yer.io/img/globalwarm-this.png And global warm that: http://yer.io/img/gisp-last-10000-new.png http://yer.io/img/gisp-last-10000-new.png
  - ommunist 11y ago
    It is evident from the observations of Sohn et al. (2008) & Reves-Sohn et al. (2008) that the Northwest Passage was opened up by powerful volcanic activity under the Arctic Ice along the Gakkel Ridge, while West Antarctic melting (as opposed to thickening of ice throughout the rest of Antarctica) can be explained by recent volcanic activity beneath the ice (Corr & Vaughan, 2008). Moreover, there are simply too many volcanoes to deny that the atmospheric concentration of the most erupted gas next to water is predominantly controlled by the balance or lack thereof between volcanic activity and photosynthesis. Furthermore, there is simply no established volcanic CO2 fingerprint by which we may distinguish atmospheric proportions of anthropogenic and volcanogenic contributions. This leaves us with no empirical method by which we may attribute the 20th century rise in CO2 to human energy consumption.

skadamat 11y ago

I think this is exactly Bret's point that he makes in the essay. Citizens aren't empowered to find out for themselves and are instead asks to trust smart people: "And why trust them? Their rhetoric is catchy, but so is the horrific “denialist” rhetoric from the Cato Institute and similar. When the discussion is at the level of “trust me, I’m a scientist” and “look at the poor polar bears”, it becomes a matter of emotional appeal and faith, a form of religion. Climate change is too important for us to operate on faith. Citizens need and deserve reading material which shows context — how significant suggested actions are in the big picture — and which embeds models — formulas and algorithms which calculate that significance, for different scenarios, from primary-source data and explicit assumptions."

Daishiman 11y ago
Do you check psychology journals every time you want to consult with a psychologist? Check the materials of the replacement parts in your car and run them against a material model to make sure that they're within the specified bounds of safety? Put food fragments on petri dishes to check bacterial content? For 99.9% of people, scientifically validating the opinions of the scientific consensus in all fields of life is a non-issue, except here. We trust other human beings because society and ecology are systems far too complex for anyone to make falsifiable assertions about them without serious research beyond the scope of single individuals. If anything, on the thing we can actually check up on, which is the integrity of climate scientists as an institution, they've been a hell of a lot more trusworthy than dozens of other institutions for which we rely on all the time. Maybe you've heard of them: the FDA, SEC, WHO, AMA, and dozens upon dozens of bodies of researchers, advisors, and experts. They all fuck up significantly from time to time, but by and large, their assesments are useful and have helped to bring some of the benefits of modern society. Now, I'm all in favor of people wanting to verify and corroborate data and evidence, but let's keep in mind that realistically, very few of us are capable of even asking the right questions. The best we can do is read up a little and check for consistency and reasonable explanations coming from the very scientists. So far, anyone who has listened to dudes like Michael Mann, Jason Box, and a plethora of other climatologists cannot seriously question their legitimacy any more than their own peers.

ommunist 11y ago

Ironically all that system is not designed to find the truth. It is designed to find more funding to support itself. I know that, because I did that myself. A single set of glacial cores from Greenland tells you more that all that satellite BS. If you remotely closely familiar with principles of climatic modelling, you 'd be rotfl, looking at someone trying to validate or backtrace that models. Because you'd be familiar with valid and comparable data scarcity. We lack actual climate data. Ice cores are really the only thing we really have.

Daishiman 11y ago
Yeah, your assertion doesn't seem to be validated at all. Not only do Jason Box's reconstructions refute that, but the reality is that with the current temperatures we have in Greenland the level of glacial melt is unprecedented. If not, mind explaining to us how exactly, if average temperatures have been higher in Greenland, then it hasn't experienced the melt it's going through right now? https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=337 https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=337
- ommunist 11y ago
  Well, climate change this than: http://yer.io/img/globalwarm-this.png http://yer.io/img/globalwarm-this.png And global warm that: http://yer.io/img/gisp-last-10000-new.png http://yer.io/img/gisp-last-10000-new.png
- ommunist 11y ago
  It is evident from the observations of Sohn et al. (2008) & Reves-Sohn et al. (2008) that the Northwest Passage was opened up by powerful volcanic activity under the Arctic Ice along the Gakkel Ridge, while West Antarctic melting (as opposed to thickening of ice throughout the rest of Antarctica) can be explained by recent volcanic activity beneath the ice (Corr & Vaughan, 2008). Moreover, there are simply too many volcanoes to deny that the atmospheric concentration of the most erupted gas next to water is predominantly controlled by the balance or lack thereof between volcanic activity and photosynthesis. Furthermore, there is simply no established volcanic CO2 fingerprint by which we may distinguish atmospheric proportions of anthropogenic and volcanogenic contributions. This leaves us with no empirical method by which we may attribute the 20th century rise in CO2 to human energy consumption.