4 ms·

That's why PZ (author of the post) didn't do that. He said that climate change deniers lie. There are skeptics who argue in good faith, and they get drowned out

That's why PZ (author of the post) didn't do that. He said that climate change deniers lie. There are skeptics who argue in good faith, and they get drowned out by the sheer level of noise from the denialists who aren't interested in the truth. I admit, though, that the headline is somewhat inflammatory. I didn't want to change it for my submission, though, as I felt it would be best to let the author choose the headline.

jasonkester 17y ago
But there's the thing. The only part of the debate that most people see is the crazy people shouting from both sides. Each camp has Big Loud Liars trying to defame the other side. Unfortunately, that's the part of the discussion that does the least amount of good. Somewhere in the middle, there's a mildly interesting discussion to be had, about a little-understood phenomenon that might have some minor repercussions over the next few hundred years, some of which might be possible to mitigate by changing human behavior. This post doesn't help things at all. It just makes one side (the author's) look a little more crazy and thus a little bit less believable.
- cgranade 17y ago
  That's one hell of a false equivalency. Because the author chose to put a valid and rational argument under a valid but slightly inflammatory headline, you equate him with those intentionally misrepresenting the science? PZ is many things, but he is not a "Big Loud Liar trying to defame the other side." What he is doing here is showing the actual behavior of the other side and exposing it for what it is: a baldfaced lie, repeated by uncritical followers. Moreover, it is certainly not the case that climate change is "a little-understood phenomenon that might have some minor repercussions over the next few hundred years, some of which might be possible to mitigate by changing human behavior." While one can debate the magnitude of the probable consequences until the cows come home, there is near universal agreement within the scientific community that those consequences will likely be anything but minor.
  - jasonkester 17y ago
    Possibly. But if you're going to predict the End Of The World, you need to be careful about how you do it. Because you're competing with a long history of crazy people making the exact same sort of prediction, all of whom were wrong. So if you want to distinguish Climate Change from Asteroid Impacts, Africanized Killer Bees, Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria, Russian Nukes, Mayan Calendars, and the dozens of other things that we've forgotten about in the last few decades, all of which were set to End The World in the next few years, you'll need to tread lightly. I'd suggest being the reasonable side of the debate. The one with the facts, research and data. And the one that never resorts to name calling.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - cgranade 17y ago
      That's an odd list of catastrophes there. A couple of those, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and nuclear annihilation, turned out not to be catastrophes because efforts were taken to stop them from becoming catastrophes, not because scientists were wrong. In fact, the threat of antibiotic-resistant strains will never go away, but demands constant efforts to keep the problem in check. Let me add one to your list: Y2K. As we approached the year 2000, a lot of intelligent people noticed a problem, documented how it could adversely affect society and advocated fixing the problem. Millions of dollars were spent, and thanks to those efforts, the problems were almost entirely mitigated (at least, insofar as the general public was concerned-- many annoyances, inefficiencies and strange bugs remain due to the manner in which problems were dealt with). While some people took a religious bent on the problem and started stockpiling food and batteries, we were fortunate in that cooler heads prevailed and dealt with a major problem. Admittedly, Y2K never even threatened to be as large a problem as climate change is, but my point is that one can list examples all day long of times that society has faced a crisis and overcome it with lots of effort. That doesn't, however, mean that those who originally warned of the crises were wrong.
- btilly 17y ago
  Your phrase a mildly interesting discussion to be had, about a little-understood phenomenon that might have some minor repercussions over the next few hundred years makes it clear that you have failed to understand what the mainstream of science is saying. Even with small temperature changes there are large projected impacts from changing weather patterns causing drought in some areas and flooding in others. Think of the regular El Niño/La Niña oscillation to see how much small temperature changes change weather patterns. This is on top of ocean acidification which is already damaging coral reefs and could widely threaten all kinds of shellfish (and ecosystems dependent on shellfish) in our lifetimes. And there are small changes in ocean level projected, which have a disproportionately large economic effect because we have so much important commercial activity at the ocean/land boundary. In truth there is a fascinating discussion to be had about how much and when. There are a lot of open questions and that discussion is hardly one-sided. For instance look at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.ht... to see scientists projecting that the projected rate of increase of CO2 due to global warming (yes, increasing temperature releases natural CO2 which increases warming some more) is much less than had been projected. This will push us towards the lower end of what has been projected. Which, contrary to the yelling you hear from climate deniers, is far from nothing, and is not economically unimportant. In short there is a fascinating scientific discussion going on about significant impacts that are likely within the coming decades. And if you subtract out the yelling on both sides, you might be able to hear it.
  - cgranade 17y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly, modulo your very last sentence. I think that "yelling," as you put it, is a valid, defensible and necessary response to the yelling of the denialists, provided that one only yells things which are true. The other side has not been playing nice for quite some time, and that scientists have done themselves a disservice (along with the rest of society) by being unwilling to respond to denialist canards repeatedly and loudly. It's a tiresome and thankless job (just as the biologists), and one that I find myself poorly cut out for, but I do think it's needed.

jasonkester 17y ago

But there's the thing. The only part of the debate that most people see is the crazy people shouting from both sides. Each camp has Big Loud Liars trying to defame the other side. Unfortunately, that's the part of the discussion that does the least amount of good. Somewhere in the middle, there's a mildly interesting discussion to be had, about a little-understood phenomenon that might have some minor repercussions over the next few hundred years, some of which might be possible to mitigate by changing human behavior. This post doesn't help things at all. It just makes one side (the author's) look a little more crazy and thus a little bit less believable.

cgranade 17y ago
That's one hell of a false equivalency. Because the author chose to put a valid and rational argument under a valid but slightly inflammatory headline, you equate him with those intentionally misrepresenting the science? PZ is many things, but he is not a "Big Loud Liar trying to defame the other side." What he is doing here is showing the actual behavior of the other side and exposing it for what it is: a baldfaced lie, repeated by uncritical followers. Moreover, it is certainly not the case that climate change is "a little-understood phenomenon that might have some minor repercussions over the next few hundred years, some of which might be possible to mitigate by changing human behavior." While one can debate the magnitude of the probable consequences until the cows come home, there is near universal agreement within the scientific community that those consequences will likely be anything but minor.
- jasonkester 17y ago
  Possibly. But if you're going to predict the End Of The World, you need to be careful about how you do it. Because you're competing with a long history of crazy people making the exact same sort of prediction, all of whom were wrong. So if you want to distinguish Climate Change from Asteroid Impacts, Africanized Killer Bees, Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria, Russian Nukes, Mayan Calendars, and the dozens of other things that we've forgotten about in the last few decades, all of which were set to End The World in the next few years, you'll need to tread lightly. I'd suggest being the reasonable side of the debate. The one with the facts, research and data. And the one that never resorts to name calling.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - cgranade 17y ago
    That's an odd list of catastrophes there. A couple of those, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and nuclear annihilation, turned out not to be catastrophes because efforts were taken to stop them from becoming catastrophes, not because scientists were wrong. In fact, the threat of antibiotic-resistant strains will never go away, but demands constant efforts to keep the problem in check. Let me add one to your list: Y2K. As we approached the year 2000, a lot of intelligent people noticed a problem, documented how it could adversely affect society and advocated fixing the problem. Millions of dollars were spent, and thanks to those efforts, the problems were almost entirely mitigated (at least, insofar as the general public was concerned-- many annoyances, inefficiencies and strange bugs remain due to the manner in which problems were dealt with). While some people took a religious bent on the problem and started stockpiling food and batteries, we were fortunate in that cooler heads prevailed and dealt with a major problem. Admittedly, Y2K never even threatened to be as large a problem as climate change is, but my point is that one can list examples all day long of times that society has faced a crisis and overcome it with lots of effort. That doesn't, however, mean that those who originally warned of the crises were wrong.
btilly 17y ago
Your phrase a mildly interesting discussion to be had, about a little-understood phenomenon that might have some minor repercussions over the next few hundred years makes it clear that you have failed to understand what the mainstream of science is saying. Even with small temperature changes there are large projected impacts from changing weather patterns causing drought in some areas and flooding in others. Think of the regular El Niño/La Niña oscillation to see how much small temperature changes change weather patterns. This is on top of ocean acidification which is already damaging coral reefs and could widely threaten all kinds of shellfish (and ecosystems dependent on shellfish) in our lifetimes. And there are small changes in ocean level projected, which have a disproportionately large economic effect because we have so much important commercial activity at the ocean/land boundary. In truth there is a fascinating discussion to be had about how much and when. There are a lot of open questions and that discussion is hardly one-sided. For instance look at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.ht... to see scientists projecting that the projected rate of increase of CO2 due to global warming (yes, increasing temperature releases natural CO2 which increases warming some more) is much less than had been projected. This will push us towards the lower end of what has been projected. Which, contrary to the yelling you hear from climate deniers, is far from nothing, and is not economically unimportant. In short there is a fascinating scientific discussion going on about significant impacts that are likely within the coming decades. And if you subtract out the yelling on both sides, you might be able to hear it.
- cgranade 17y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly, modulo your very last sentence. I think that "yelling," as you put it, is a valid, defensible and necessary response to the yelling of the denialists, provided that one only yells things which are true. The other side has not been playing nice for quite some time, and that scientists have done themselves a disservice (along with the rest of society) by being unwilling to respond to denialist canards repeatedly and loudly. It's a tiresome and thankless job (just as the biologists), and one that I find myself poorly cut out for, but I do think it's needed.