4 ms·

You seem to be arguing that if there were an asteroid that's going to collide with the earth, we would all ignore it.

akiselev 10y ago
And the Morning Strawman Award goes to... drum roll... CWuestefeld. If it's anthropogenic then it is a brand new phenomena in geological time and will throw many ecological systems into disarray or destroy them completely because they never evolved the adaptations. If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. If it's a natural cycle that we're not contributing to then we have nothing to fix. What in the world does this have to do with asteroids?
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. Your conclusion doesn't follow. Just because man didn't create it [1] doesn't mean that it's necessarily cyclical. The earth has changed in many ways in its lifetime. Some of those changes are indeed parts of cycles. Other changes are strictly one-way. [1] hypothetically; I'm not actually making that claim, just following that line of argument
  - akiselev 10y ago
    If its neither cyclical nor anthropogenic then what can we do about it other than adapt to higher temperatures? If it's not human caused than there is nothing we can do short of geoengineering on a mind boggling scale which makes no sense. If centuries of industrialization haven't caused climate change then what's the chance that we can reverse a natural process on a planetary scale?
    - CWuestefeld 10y ago
      I don't see it as a stretch to expect that we can go further in a given direction by dedicating resources to accomplish it, compared to what might happen accidentally by chance. That's not to say that such a thing is without danger. I'm particularly wary of unintended consequences. But the people that are pursuing vast reductions in emissions aren't giving very much thought to the unintended consequences of their approach, either. My point is that the arguments are being made with a huge amount of assumption on all sides. That's not the way to get to a good answer. We need to really consider what the likelihoods of possible outcomes are, in terms of lost human utility; and we might be able to do about them, including their costs and likelihood of success. I don't see a lot of real pro-vs-con debate - most of what I see is the Al Gore tactic of intentionally exaggerating claims to frighten people into acquiescence.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 10y ago
    Even if it is cyclical that doesn't matter. What matters is if the change is good for humanity. If it is, let the change happen. If it's not (evidence overwhelmingly points this way) then we should be trying to stop the change, even if it's natural.
pjc50 10y ago
In the present day, if there were an asteroid that could only be prevented by permanently ending certain lucrative businesses? There would be a massive media campaign to discredit observations of the asteroid, and dismissal of concerns about it, and someone would run for president on an explicit platform of asteroid denial.
sdoering 10y ago
Funny, how you (tried to) turn my argument on it's head. I never argued for ignorance. I just stated, that this is what lot's of people do, when stating, that climate change is not manmade. No, we should look at it, we should deal with it (in the best possible way) regardless of it being manmade or not. The anthropogenic part of the argument shouldn't have any weight at all in the decision to act or not to act (I am for acting). It only should play a role in understanding the causes so to better fight the effects.

And the Morning Strawman Award goes to... drum roll... CWuestefeld. If it's anthropogenic then it is a brand new phenomena in geological time and will throw many ecological systems into disarray or destroy them completely because they never evolved the adaptations. If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. If it's a natural cycle that we're not contributing to then we have nothing to fix. What in the world does this have to do with asteroids?

CWuestefeld 10y ago
If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. Your conclusion doesn't follow. Just because man didn't create it [1] doesn't mean that it's necessarily cyclical. The earth has changed in many ways in its lifetime. Some of those changes are indeed parts of cycles. Other changes are strictly one-way. [1] hypothetically; I'm not actually making that claim, just following that line of argument
- akiselev 10y ago
  If its neither cyclical nor anthropogenic then what can we do about it other than adapt to higher temperatures? If it's not human caused than there is nothing we can do short of geoengineering on a mind boggling scale which makes no sense. If centuries of industrialization haven't caused climate change then what's the chance that we can reverse a natural process on a planetary scale?
  - CWuestefeld 10y ago
    I don't see it as a stretch to expect that we can go further in a given direction by dedicating resources to accomplish it, compared to what might happen accidentally by chance. That's not to say that such a thing is without danger. I'm particularly wary of unintended consequences. But the people that are pursuing vast reductions in emissions aren't giving very much thought to the unintended consequences of their approach, either. My point is that the arguments are being made with a huge amount of assumption on all sides. That's not the way to get to a good answer. We need to really consider what the likelihoods of possible outcomes are, in terms of lost human utility; and we might be able to do about them, including their costs and likelihood of success. I don't see a lot of real pro-vs-con debate - most of what I see is the Al Gore tactic of intentionally exaggerating claims to frighten people into acquiescence.
- SAI_Peregrinus 10y ago
  Even if it is cyclical that doesn't matter. What matters is if the change is good for humanity. If it is, let the change happen. If it's not (evidence overwhelmingly points this way) then we should be trying to stop the change, even if it's natural.

pjc50 10y ago

In the present day, if there were an asteroid that could only be prevented by permanently ending certain lucrative businesses? There would be a massive media campaign to discredit observations of the asteroid, and dismissal of concerns about it, and someone would run for president on an explicit platform of asteroid denial.

sdoering 10y ago

Funny, how you (tried to) turn my argument on it's head. I never argued for ignorance. I just stated, that this is what lot's of people do, when stating, that climate change is not manmade. No, we should look at it, we should deal with it (in the best possible way) regardless of it being manmade or not. The anthropogenic part of the argument shouldn't have any weight at all in the decision to act or not to act (I am for acting). It only should play a role in understanding the causes so to better fight the effects.