6 ms·

> To be conservative (in the tribal sense) means holding disbelief in climate change To be fair it's not disbelief in climate change, it's a healthy skepticism

> To be conservative (in the tribal sense) means holding disbelief in climate change To be fair it's not disbelief in climate change, it's a healthy skepticism of man made climate change.

vonnik 10y ago
An extremely unhealthy skepticism that is not shared by any scientist in the field. That skepticism is the result of self-interested propaganda from energy companies spreading FUD. Unmerited skepticism is just as dumb as unmerited belief.
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  >> An extremely unhealthy skepticism that is not shared by any scientist in the field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
  - dwaltrip 10y ago
    The scientists on the list are any scientist, not specifically climate scientists or even related fields. Would you trust a chemist's diagnosis of your mother's cancer? Of course not. What's more, the vast majority of their statements doubting an aspect of climate change are not even part the peer reviewed scientific literature. They are simply opinion statements. And they only found a couple dozen people to put on the list? Not a very strong showing.. All of this is found in the linked Wikipedia article itself.
- narrowrail 10y ago
  >is not shared by any scientist in the field And that seems to be part of the problem: You just made a statement that is quickly proven false[0], which leads to further skepticism from these people. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
  - anon1253 10y ago
    Evidence should not be counted, it should be weighted
  - vonnik 10y ago
    And that, my friend, is a pitifully short list given the total number of climate scientists in the world. 97% say that humans are causing climate change. So yeah, keep spreading the BS and start shopping for real estate away from the coasts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_...
  - blueyes 10y ago
    This is the U in FUD. Online rando makes seemingly factual but ultimately irrelevant argument. Sure, some "scientists" are skeptical of human-generated climate change. But most of them are not climate scientists, and they have no more authority in the field than an entomologist would have when making pronouncements about theoretical physics.
  - yongjik 10y ago
    > Scientists arguing that global warming is primarily caused by natural processes I count eight people who seem to have worked in (broadly) related fields: Timothy Ball, historical climatologist, and retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology Anthony Lupo, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and professor of geology at Carleton University in Canada. Murry Salby, atmospheric scientist, former professor at Macquarie University and University of Colorado Nir Shaviv, professor of physics focusing on astrophysics and climate science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Roy Spencer, meteorologist; principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville George H. Taylor, retired director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University You could probably raid a single decent university and find more people working on understanding AGW better. This is the equivalent of saying "Zoologist X Somebody in University of North Carolina said there's no link between smoking and lung cancer!", and keeping smoking while having a lung cancer while ignoring mountains of research, except that it's not your own lung this time.
ravitation 10y ago
Healthy skepticism and being consciously ignorant are not the same thing.
tapes 10y ago
to be frank, conservatives only changed their tune on this when it was so painfully obvious that they had to. creative backtracking to still be against any action while looking less like a neanderthal != delightful open-mindedness. and many, like my dad, still call the entire thing a hoax.
- thisisdallas 10y ago
  > to be frank, conservatives only changed their tune on this when it was so painfully obvious that they had to I guess you don't know that in the 70's it wasn't global warming that was a serious issue but global cooling? Funny how that works.
  - dwaltrip 10y ago
    Veritassium debunks this claim on climate change, along with a dozen others, in less than 7 minutes in an informative and entertaining way. It's a great video, you should at least watch it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU In short, during the 70s, there were some papers on global cooling. But even then, there was still 6 times more papers on global warming. Science overall has been looking in the correct direction for a long time now. The narrative isn't changing.
    - thisisdallas 10y ago
      Ok, cool (no pun intended) thanks. I'll watch it.
rybosome 10y ago
I don't agree at all. Let's be honest about why conservatives have this "healthy skepticism": because the fossil-fuel industry has successfully linked belief in anthropogenic global warming with liberalism. It's a correct association to some degree in that part of the solution would mean more regulation of business, but the value of such an association is that it becomes an us-versus-them situation. You don't have to understand it to disagree with it. And to be quite frank, that's the case - the majority of people who hold a disbelief in climate change are ignorant of the basic premise. In fairness, the majority of people who hold a belief in climate change are also ignorant of the basic premise. This is because, as mentioned above, it's no longer a scientific issue in the mainstream view, it's a political one. Anecdotally, every "skeptic" I've ever met has used arguments to justify their disbelief such as: - "scientists are not always right" - "the climate changes all the time" - "the Earth is so big, how could we have any effect" - "if global warming is happening then how come it's so cold" - "CO2 rises and falls regularly" ...and on and on. These are not examples of "healthy skepticism", they are examples of ignorance. It's ludicrous to think that I could hold a "healthy skepticism" on the efficacy of heart transplants when I don't know the first thing about human anatomy, biology or medicine, but this is exactly what is happening with an equally complex scientific issue. I will treat an informed dissent respectfully, but let's not shit ourselves about how many opinions meet that bar.
- jbattle 10y ago
  I've said this before, and I'll say it again. But I know exactly how the next 20 years will play out. Climate change skeptic/deniers will go through the following evolution in the message: - The climate isn't changing in any meaningful way - The climate is changing, but not because of people - Sure the climate is changing because of people's actions, but changing our ways is too expensive, we'll just have to adapt - Of course everyone always believed we should have done something about climate change, but liberals stood in the way of the solutions we suggested (something invented about public vs private solutions)
  - dTal 10y ago
    "Liberals" have stood in the way, in their own way. Any kind of bold technological approach immediately runs afoul of "environmentalists", who are powerless to stop the existing destruction of ecosystems but will protest till the cows come home about anything new. They would sooner see the Great Barrier Reef die of acidification than a single new nuclear plant. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

> To be conservative (in the tribal sense) means holding disbelief in climate change To be fair it's not disbelief in climate change, it's a healthy skepticism of man made climate change.

vonnik 10y ago

An extremely unhealthy skepticism that is not shared by any scientist in the field. That skepticism is the result of self-interested propaganda from energy companies spreading FUD. Unmerited skepticism is just as dumb as unmerited belief.

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
>> An extremely unhealthy skepticism that is not shared by any scientist in the field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
- dwaltrip 10y ago
  The scientists on the list are any scientist, not specifically climate scientists or even related fields. Would you trust a chemist's diagnosis of your mother's cancer? Of course not. What's more, the vast majority of their statements doubting an aspect of climate change are not even part the peer reviewed scientific literature. They are simply opinion statements. And they only found a couple dozen people to put on the list? Not a very strong showing.. All of this is found in the linked Wikipedia article itself.
narrowrail 10y ago
>is not shared by any scientist in the field And that seems to be part of the problem: You just made a statement that is quickly proven false[0], which leads to further skepticism from these people. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_th...
- anon1253 10y ago
  Evidence should not be counted, it should be weighted
- vonnik 10y ago
  And that, my friend, is a pitifully short list given the total number of climate scientists in the world. 97% say that humans are causing climate change. So yeah, keep spreading the BS and start shopping for real estate away from the coasts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_...
- blueyes 10y ago
  This is the U in FUD. Online rando makes seemingly factual but ultimately irrelevant argument. Sure, some "scientists" are skeptical of human-generated climate change. But most of them are not climate scientists, and they have no more authority in the field than an entomologist would have when making pronouncements about theoretical physics.
- yongjik 10y ago
  > Scientists arguing that global warming is primarily caused by natural processes I count eight people who seem to have worked in (broadly) related fields: Timothy Ball, historical climatologist, and retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology Anthony Lupo, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and professor of geology at Carleton University in Canada. Murry Salby, atmospheric scientist, former professor at Macquarie University and University of Colorado Nir Shaviv, professor of physics focusing on astrophysics and climate science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Roy Spencer, meteorologist; principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville George H. Taylor, retired director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University You could probably raid a single decent university and find more people working on understanding AGW better. This is the equivalent of saying "Zoologist X Somebody in University of North Carolina said there's no link between smoking and lung cancer!", and keeping smoking while having a lung cancer while ignoring mountains of research, except that it's not your own lung this time.

ravitation 10y ago

Healthy skepticism and being consciously ignorant are not the same thing.

tapes 10y ago

to be frank, conservatives only changed their tune on this when it was so painfully obvious that they had to. creative backtracking to still be against any action while looking less like a neanderthal != delightful open-mindedness. and many, like my dad, still call the entire thing a hoax.

thisisdallas 10y ago
> to be frank, conservatives only changed their tune on this when it was so painfully obvious that they had to I guess you don't know that in the 70's it wasn't global warming that was a serious issue but global cooling? Funny how that works.
- dwaltrip 10y ago
  Veritassium debunks this claim on climate change, along with a dozen others, in less than 7 minutes in an informative and entertaining way. It's a great video, you should at least watch it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU In short, during the 70s, there were some papers on global cooling. But even then, there was still 6 times more papers on global warming. Science overall has been looking in the correct direction for a long time now. The narrative isn't changing.
  - thisisdallas 10y ago
    Ok, cool (no pun intended) thanks. I'll watch it.

rybosome 10y ago

I don't agree at all. Let's be honest about why conservatives have this "healthy skepticism": because the fossil-fuel industry has successfully linked belief in anthropogenic global warming with liberalism. It's a correct association to some degree in that part of the solution would mean more regulation of business, but the value of such an association is that it becomes an us-versus-them situation. You don't have to understand it to disagree with it. And to be quite frank, that's the case - the majority of people who hold a disbelief in climate change are ignorant of the basic premise. In fairness, the majority of people who hold a belief in climate change are also ignorant of the basic premise. This is because, as mentioned above, it's no longer a scientific issue in the mainstream view, it's a political one. Anecdotally, every "skeptic" I've ever met has used arguments to justify their disbelief such as: - "scientists are not always right" - "the climate changes all the time" - "the Earth is so big, how could we have any effect" - "if global warming is happening then how come it's so cold" - "CO2 rises and falls regularly" ...and on and on. These are not examples of "healthy skepticism", they are examples of ignorance. It's ludicrous to think that I could hold a "healthy skepticism" on the efficacy of heart transplants when I don't know the first thing about human anatomy, biology or medicine, but this is exactly what is happening with an equally complex scientific issue. I will treat an informed dissent respectfully, but let's not shit ourselves about how many opinions meet that bar.

jbattle 10y ago
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. But I know exactly how the next 20 years will play out. Climate change skeptic/deniers will go through the following evolution in the message: - The climate isn't changing in any meaningful way - The climate is changing, but not because of people - Sure the climate is changing because of people's actions, but changing our ways is too expensive, we'll just have to adapt - Of course everyone always believed we should have done something about climate change, but liberals stood in the way of the solutions we suggested (something invented about public vs private solutions)
- dTal 10y ago
  "Liberals" have stood in the way, in their own way. Any kind of bold technological approach immediately runs afoul of "environmentalists", who are powerless to stop the existing destruction of ecosystems but will protest till the cows come home about anything new. They would sooner see the Great Barrier Reef die of acidification than a single new nuclear plant. The perfect is the enemy of the good.