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As a former more than sceptic: The first sentence is spot on. Sadly (or not, I'll come back to that) I think the rest is a misunderstanding: These two points

As a former more than sceptic: The first sentence is spot on. Sadly (or not, I'll come back to that) I think the rest is a misunderstanding: These two points are easy. What you are arguing against is people like my former self who accepts measurable physics but find (found) the A of AGW thing fishy for other reasons: * The broad push that seems to come from non-scientists. * No mention about how much of the annual CO2 releases are anthropogenic vs coming from other sources. * Any question, however reasonable, get shouted down with "consensus", "denialist", "troll", "shill" etc etc. It was only when I started reading the actual report that I got a more enlightened (hopefully) look at it. All this shouting and bullying does little good and is basically collecting sheep and preaching for the choir IMO. Now the good part is I think a lot of us aren't evil, trollish shills paid by big oil, we just had a strong false positive on on BS detectors, asked and have been flamed ever since. (Full disclosure: not pushing AGW hard myself but it seems reasonable to assume it is correct and take action to reduce anyway. It also aligns with things I already do because I find them smart anyway like trying to conserve energy by using public transit (oil independence, economic reasons, can work on my way to work), recycle(reduce need for mining, conserve energy, pollute less) etc etc.)

humanrebar 10y ago
This is more or less where I'm at as well, except my BS detector is still going off. > it seems reasonable to assume it is correct and take action to reduce anyway I'm not sure there's any reason here. There's no empirical evidence that any palatable recourse will actually stop or reverse global warming. It's good science (as far as I can tell) up until we get the the "What now?" question. Someone having good proof of a problem does not make them qualified to rearrange entire industries, slow down global growth (when we already have widespread stagnation and growing unrest in the West), and spend trillions and trillions of dollars on things that might not even help. The inability to predict climate at a useful granularity certainly doesn't help. It means attempts to address greenhouse gas levels won't objectively succeed or fail. The fact that AGW proponents do not acknowledge these difficulties is what sets off my BS detector.
- XorNot 10y ago
  People who argue we should do nothing though have a sticky moral quandry: if you can show evidence of something bad happening (and there's a lot, and plenty more to come) then you have to argue that these are all acceptable losses. Which tends to open more sticky questions like refugee policy, or just how many you're willing to let die in famine from drought, and so where should the aid budget of the biggest, highest emitting countries be allocated. EDIT: For example, what should our policy on disappearing pacific island nations be? What should our military posture be if we can expect more divergence from established geopolitical norms by extremized climate conditions? How much should be banked to deal with the increased major climate events per decade, compared to historical norms (aka how frequently is a katrina scale hurricane expected to make landfall going forward?) Turns out, once you start adding up those costs, we don't really want to pay for any of them, but it would also just be morally repugnant to suggest that, really, abandoning the poor of coastal cities is what we want to do. Don't worry, we'll pray really hard and donate far less then <10% of our yearly incomes to help when it happens. But only while it's in the news.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    Those are all interesting and terrifying scenarios, but there's no science showing cap-and-trade or particular levels of carbon taxes will produce better outcomes. If they're both dead-end approaches, we need to focus even more on less obvious solutions or building up infrastructures and organizations to deal with the consequences. Pouring more good resources after bad in those cases will only make us less likely to be able to help refugees, build better levees, etc.
    - JoBrad 10y ago
      Cap and trade and carbon taxes are political solutions to address the scientific problem. It's hard to make people do something, and that's what they're trying to do. Don't confuse a solution you don't like with the science showing the problem.
      - 10y ago

humanrebar 10y ago

This is more or less where I'm at as well, except my BS detector is still going off. > it seems reasonable to assume it is correct and take action to reduce anyway I'm not sure there's any reason here. There's no empirical evidence that any palatable recourse will actually stop or reverse global warming. It's good science (as far as I can tell) up until we get the the "What now?" question. Someone having good proof of a problem does not make them qualified to rearrange entire industries, slow down global growth (when we already have widespread stagnation and growing unrest in the West), and spend trillions and trillions of dollars on things that might not even help. The inability to predict climate at a useful granularity certainly doesn't help. It means attempts to address greenhouse gas levels won't objectively succeed or fail. The fact that AGW proponents do not acknowledge these difficulties is what sets off my BS detector.

XorNot 10y ago
People who argue we should do nothing though have a sticky moral quandry: if you can show evidence of something bad happening (and there's a lot, and plenty more to come) then you have to argue that these are all acceptable losses. Which tends to open more sticky questions like refugee policy, or just how many you're willing to let die in famine from drought, and so where should the aid budget of the biggest, highest emitting countries be allocated. EDIT: For example, what should our policy on disappearing pacific island nations be? What should our military posture be if we can expect more divergence from established geopolitical norms by extremized climate conditions? How much should be banked to deal with the increased major climate events per decade, compared to historical norms (aka how frequently is a katrina scale hurricane expected to make landfall going forward?) Turns out, once you start adding up those costs, we don't really want to pay for any of them, but it would also just be morally repugnant to suggest that, really, abandoning the poor of coastal cities is what we want to do. Don't worry, we'll pray really hard and donate far less then <10% of our yearly incomes to help when it happens. But only while it's in the news.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  Those are all interesting and terrifying scenarios, but there's no science showing cap-and-trade or particular levels of carbon taxes will produce better outcomes. If they're both dead-end approaches, we need to focus even more on less obvious solutions or building up infrastructures and organizations to deal with the consequences. Pouring more good resources after bad in those cases will only make us less likely to be able to help refugees, build better levees, etc.
  - JoBrad 10y ago
    Cap and trade and carbon taxes are political solutions to address the scientific problem. It's hard to make people do something, and that's what they're trying to do. Don't confuse a solution you don't like with the science showing the problem.
    - 10y ago