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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 an

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.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      Likewise, we shouldn't conflate science and non-scientific solutions. We are confusing solutions we like with the science showing the problem. Calling people irrational and unscientific for seeing that is unfair and, again, not in keeping with healthy scientific exploration.
Nursie 10y ago
"Here's a problem" "Lies!" "Huh? Here's my data" "Lies!" 20 years later... "Ok, I agree there's a problem" "Cool, so how about we try to stop making it worse" "You're insane!"
- joantune 10y ago
  Yup! In a nutshell that's exactly how this is going. I would also add this kind of thing going on: 1 - "Here's a problem" 2 - "Are you sure?" 1 - "Humm, maybe not, let me get back on that" Some years and a push for false studies made meanwhile by 2 1 - "We're definitely sure, the thousands/millions of us experts concur" 2 - "but wait, I have experts Jay and Jane here that say otherwise" 1 - "But what if they are wrong? Won't the crisis that ensue be devastating?" 2 - "But those two [that we handsomely paid] can be right!! [don't take our business away because your cities will be under water and turmoil will take over the world, how would we get our money]" 2 proceeds to pay SIGs and a major political US party that kisses the boots of the Koch brothers (which is one of the embodiments of n.2)
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    > We're definitely sure, the thousands/millions of us experts concur More friendly advice: if you want do discuss with reasonable peers, don't do this. "Millions of experts" is wild hyperbole IIRC, even in the 2500 scientists UN report a few years ago it turned out that quite a few of them vere authors etc. Also, from an outsider but scientific/engineering background perspective this makes it sound fishy: in other disciplines debate is encouraged, in climate science it seems to be 2500 good scientists and anyone else is a quack, a troll or a paid shill.

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.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    Likewise, we shouldn't conflate science and non-scientific solutions. We are confusing solutions we like with the science showing the problem. Calling people irrational and unscientific for seeing that is unfair and, again, not in keeping with healthy scientific exploration.

Nursie 10y ago

"Here's a problem" "Lies!" "Huh? Here's my data" "Lies!" 20 years later... "Ok, I agree there's a problem" "Cool, so how about we try to stop making it worse" "You're insane!"

joantune 10y ago
Yup! In a nutshell that's exactly how this is going. I would also add this kind of thing going on: 1 - "Here's a problem" 2 - "Are you sure?" 1 - "Humm, maybe not, let me get back on that" Some years and a push for false studies made meanwhile by 2 1 - "We're definitely sure, the thousands/millions of us experts concur" 2 - "but wait, I have experts Jay and Jane here that say otherwise" 1 - "But what if they are wrong? Won't the crisis that ensue be devastating?" 2 - "But those two [that we handsomely paid] can be right!! [don't take our business away because your cities will be under water and turmoil will take over the world, how would we get our money]" 2 proceeds to pay SIGs and a major political US party that kisses the boots of the Koch brothers (which is one of the embodiments of n.2)
- reitanqild 10y ago
  > We're definitely sure, the thousands/millions of us experts concur More friendly advice: if you want do discuss with reasonable peers, don't do this. "Millions of experts" is wild hyperbole IIRC, even in the 2500 scientists UN report a few years ago it turned out that quite a few of them vere authors etc. Also, from an outsider but scientific/engineering background perspective this makes it sound fishy: in other disciplines debate is encouraged, in climate science it seems to be 2500 good scientists and anyone else is a quack, a troll or a paid shill.