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Kind of an open question here. I am not a climatologist and neither are most people. Climate science is subtle and easy to misinterpret (and hence, spin) on th

Kind of an open question here. I am not a climatologist and neither are most people. Climate science is subtle and easy to misinterpret (and hence, spin) on the mater of anthropogenic climate change, or ACC. To the average person, myself included, the arguments made by both "sides" (ACC exists, ACC does not exist) are equally convincing. That is, both seem logical and well-argued at the superficial level we can understand without training. To the average person, myself included, both "sides" have a profit motive in fudging the numbers. (If ACC exists, the energy industry will fight because it ultimately harms their profits. If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige and grants) Both sides are, ultimately, dirty, due to politicization if nothing else. Both sides, ultimately, cannot be simultaneously correct. And so I ask: Who should be trusted, why, and how, given the limited number of hours in the day available to people who aren't directly involved in climatology as their day job? For bonus points, do any of the answers to those questions not boil down to the genetic or appeal to authority fallacies? (The snark below in response to a legitimate, good-faith question is leading me to believe this topic cannot be discussed among reasonable people)

rayiner 9y ago
> If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige ang grants It would be better for "the academic lobby" to peddle the idea that climate science is unsettled, which would create more of a need for grants to study the issue.
- joesb 9y ago
  Correct. Academic's job is to study, it doesn't matter what the outcome is, they have grants either way.
  - voice_of_reason 9y ago
    It is not always true. Imagine the system, where the government is a primary source of grants. There is a possibility that government will prefer funding the scientists whose work supports government's political agenda.
rwoodley 9y ago
Neither we nor our politicians should adjudicate scientific results and pick and choose what makes sense to us. We are not qualified. Scientists have a process as well as peer review which determines valid vs invalid results. I subscribe to 'Science' magazine which is one of the most respected publications among scientists (along with 'Nature' magazine). The consensus among scientists is settled: ACC is real. ACC deniers do not get published in respected science magazines because their peers do not respect their results. Scientific results should be settled by the peer group of scientists, not by politicians or the general public (see vaccine conspiracies for example).
- voice_of_reason 9y ago
  How is consensus settled, when there are renowned scientists out there who object the CAGW hypothesis? Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, Freeman Dyson - are they all bought and paid for by oil industry?
  - bllguo 9y ago
    consensus as in general agreement, as in a majority. Pointing out that some minority group exists is hardly a refutation. Would you not say there is a consensus the Earth is round?
    - voice_of_reason 9y ago
      Why should one trust majority, and not minority, if "minority" people are also qualified and respected (Spencer, Curry)? There were episodes in the history of science, when the majority turned out to be wrong. Here's one example: https://www.insidescience.org/news/scientific-consensus-almost-never-wrong-%E2%80%94-almost https://www.insidescience.org/news/scientific-consensus-almo...
      - bllguo 9y ago
        I won't object to the fact that majorities can be wrong. There are many examples, ancient and recent. But that is a different argument from your other comment. I trust majority in science because it is rarely wrong. I'd need a bit more than "majorities have been wrong before!" to switch sides.
richardwhiuk 9y ago
If ACC doesn't exist, the future is much scarier. It suggest that the climate is changing, but that human kind isn't causing it, suggesting that it's much harder for us to revert, suggesting that we are much more likely to be screwed. Of the data we have, climate change being human caused is MUCH more preferable. The alternative is that the climate is changing and we aren't responsible.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  If this "alternative" were the case, would humanity best be served by not knowing it to be the case?
  - richardwhiuk 9y ago
    No. Lack of knowledge is never helpful.
bllguo 9y ago
How in the world is listening to climate scientists an "appeal to authority" fallacy? How are people supposed to get information about anything if this is your argument? Most of our knowledge comes from experts and specialists...
deleted 9y ago
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bwanab 9y ago
You assert that both sides have a profit motive, but there is a huge disparity in the quantity of profit. The fossil fuel energy companies profit to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. The academic lobby grants 1) are minuscule in comparison and 2) most of the concerned academics have plenty of other things they'd rather be studying - climate change is what they choose now because of its existential nature.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  I don't see how that matters - if you trained your whole life for one branch of science (or one career), you're a lot more likely to stay where you are rather than spend years starting from zero to move where you think more money might be. That's a risk many are not willing to take.
  - Oletros 9y ago
    Why they should move to another career?
  - Avshalom 9y ago
    "Climate Scientists" did not train their entire life to be climate scientists they come to it from a general background in geology, environmental science or physics with a two-three class "focus" during undergrad, another two to three class focus during grad school and maybe a phd. Maybe. Some of them just wound up there because they were the only people in the department with the Fortran chops to get the models working.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    Climate scientists could deal with long-term weather prediction and other stuff. They don't need climate change to stay relevant.
pveierland 9y ago
> To the average person, myself included, the arguments made by both "sides" (ACC exists, ACC does not exist) are equally convincing. That is, both seem logical and well-argued at the superficial level we can understand without training. Understanding climate change requires high degrees of expertise, the collection of large amounts of data, the use of large mathematical models, and the cooperation of a large number of scientists. A large number of scientists work very hard to track the state of climate change, and their assessment is that "climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities" [0]. > If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige ang grants) Please see the list of scientific bodies and their statements on climate change [1]. The idea that a large majority of all scientists with knowledge pertaining to climate science in the world would be corrupted, falsify results, and make false statements over many years to fund further studies seems exceedingly unlikely. > And so I ask: Who should be trusted, why, and how, given the limited number of hours in the day available to people who aren't directly involved in climatology as their day job? You should trust what 97% (or more) of all climate scientists agree upon. Arguing that a group of experts of a domain should be trusted is not logically fallacious. [0] http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048... [1] https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
- Karunamon 9y ago
  It doesn't have to be knowingly false, though - you think that all of the studies in psychology that wound up being non-reproducible were all submitted by pathological liars? Keep in mind that I never even mentioned deception, that was something you just set up and knocked down on your own. I have no doubt that most climatologists are doing exactly what they should be doing and aren't Saturday morning cartoon villains, But if there's a more meta issue involved, such as bad data, I argue that it'll never see the light of day given the political incentives. (In other words, the politicians are the villains, not the scientists running the data)
  - pveierland 9y ago
    > It doesn't have to be knowingly false, though - you think that all of the studies in psychology that wound up being non-reproducible were all submitted by pathological liars? > But if there's a more meta issue involved, such as bad data, I argue that it'll never see the light of day given the political incentives. This is why single studies alone should not be the basis for large changes in policy. The current consensus in climate science is based on a large number of studies from different universities, science bodies, countries, using different sources of data, using different methods, and over a period of time. All of these factors makes it likely that the consensus is something which we should believe, and which should guide our policies. > Keep in mind that I never even mentioned deception, that was something you just set up and knocked down on your own. You stated that scientists have a profit motive for fudging their numbers, which if they did would be deceptive behavior.
notadoc 9y ago
I take this same "both sides" approach to gravitation in particular. Gravity is subtle and easy to misinterpret but to the average person, myself included, the arguments made by both "sides" are equally convincing.
- mac01021 9y ago
  I don't think this is a good argument. Anyone who has passed a freshman physics class is equipped to (with significant effort) verify Newton's law of gravitation. Any middle school student with a stopwatch and a tower can drop things off and determine that there are laws describing the ways that unsupported objects move downward. Everyone who ever lived has been in a position to independently observe many of the properties of gravitation without needing to trust even a single statement or datapoint provided by another person. In order to even understand the theory of ACC, much less test it, requires a person to first have a ton of education and then to navigate a substantial amount of academic literature.
  - notadoc 9y ago
    It doesn't matter what you think. What are the other sides of the statements you make? We need to hear hear them out and debate them as well. You assume that so-called "freshmen physics" is a legitimate source of material and that middle school students are being taught legitimate science to begin with, when it could all be part of a pro-science agenda put forth by academic science thumpers promoting self-interested concepts of scientific ideology so that these people can continue to be employed and earn upwards of $40,000 per year as science propagandists. Let's not ignore the fact there's a lot of money at stake on these issues here, and for the involved parties getting you to believe in concepts like middle school science of freshmen physics are entirely based on a monetary incentive, despite what the evidence may show and even against contradictory evidence. Also you assume that gravitation is proven beyond a theory or a concept, which is demonstrating your pro-gravity bias. The understanding of so-called "gravity" is based on nothing more than a theory, but general relativity and quantum theory are entirely incompatible with one another which basically debunks the entire thing as many leading scientists would agree, but again this assumes that any of the so-called "science" or the basis of any of this is even legitimate in the first place. Finally, and this is very important, all of this completely disregards what religions might say too, and we need to hear each of the arguments of each individual religion and belief system and what their opinions and thoughts are on so-called "gravity", which, by the way, is not even mentioned in any holy books or writings whatsoever. That "gravity" is left out of every religious teaching entirely is very telling, and it demonstrates that from a theological standpoint that "gravity" has absolutely no basis in truth whatsoever, otherwise it obviously would be a subject of these belief systems and written about endlessly if it were a real thing. Can you really dispute or discount the words of supreme beings, let alone every God and belief system?
triangleman 9y ago
The philosopher Karl Popper explained in 1934 that scientific theories need to be falsifiable in order to be considered scientific. I would say that AGW theory has not yet met that standard.
- ch4s3 9y ago
  How so? If you could demonstrate a natural process that accounted for the data, that would pretty well falsify the claim that human production of greenhouse gases is the leading cause of climate change.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Haven't there been some studies about sun output? That seems natural?
    - ch4s3 9y ago
      That's been pretty well refuted as well.[1] Basically, the solar cycle can affect ocean temperature in the pacific to the degree that it can change circulation and some weather patterns, but has been shown to not be the cause of observed average temperature increases over the past 50 years. [1]https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/ https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/0...
  - triangleman 9y ago
    It doesn't work like that. The null hypothesis is that natural processes fully account for observed temperature data. In order to generate enough thrust to escape the gravity of the null hypothesis, you must do the following, according to Karl Popper (cribbed from here [1]): 1) Describe a difficulty or gap in scientific knowledge, a "general problem", clearly defined, and show that the problem needs to be addressed. 2) Formulate a hypothesis, a "tentative theory", addressing the general problem, stated as clearly as possible in the language of science, which is mathematics. 3) Try to invalidate the tentative theory, and apply a certain scientific ethic described by Richard Feynman in his famous essay "Cargo Cult Science"[2] I'm not sure the "general problem" has even been established. From 1880 to 2015 the Earth's temperature has gone from 288 K to 288.8 K, a 0.3% increase. So first of all you need to prove that the Earth system is not able to keep the climate stable. Then you need to prove that recent increases in temperature are fundamentally different from past increases in the same system, i.e. the current interglacial period of the last 10,000 years. Again, this is not conclusive at all. Then you need to prove that CO2 plays a huge part in the recent temperature changes. Correlation does not imply causation. Two independent variables can both increase and you have not proven that they are causally linked (beyond the first-order effects of course). All we have so far are computer models which, so far, are no more than best-fit lines on observed data. In order for a computer model to be a good enough piece of evidence to favor dropping the null hypothesis and accepting the basis of the model, you would have to leave the model alone and see how well it predicts climate going forward. So far the models have not done well predicting actual climate [3]. QED. [1] https://www.scribd.com/document/23499288/Lord-Monckton-Caught-Green-Handed https://www.scribd.com/document/23499288/Lord-Monckton-Caugh... [2] http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm [3] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/28/173948/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/28/173948/
tome 9y ago
> If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige and grants "The academic lobby"? Christ. If ACC doesn't exist why wouldn't they just go and get grants to study something else?
tstactplsignore 9y ago
>To the average person, myself included, both "sides" have a profit motive in fudging the numbers. Yeah, this is almost entirely wrong. I'm sure there is slightly more public funding available in the Earth sciences because of the urgency of climate change, but not much- NSF funds for Earth science projects have been pretty steady for the last 20 years [0] and before that too. If climate change simply didn't exist, researchers would just get grants to work on the plethora of other important Earth science issues- human water usage, the ozone layer, ocean acidification, forest fires, coral bleaching, agricultural runoff, glacier retreat. There was no shortage of important Earth science problems- why on Earth would researchers go to such (impossible) lengths to fabricate one? The idea that international researchers have created some conspiracy to increase funding in their field is bizarre and incoherent and just demonstrates a lack of understanding of how science funding works. It also doesn't explain the international consensus on climate change- how has every major scientific organization and metereological society agreed upon it, when all of them have completely different funding situations? And if they have, well then surely they would have realized that this plan has not drastically increased their public funding in 20 years and given up on it by now! But in all seriousness, this idea is just insulting to the scientists and the fact that it's popular amongst American conservatives is pretty telling of how scientifically ignorant that ideology is. [0] https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/CJS%20NSF%2015hc.jpg https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/CJS%20NSF%2015hc.jp...
ZenoArrow 9y ago
Changes in temperature and sea-levels based on man made actions are harder to convince people of than other factors. My go-to in cases like this is ocean acidification. The following is a straightforward introduction to this part of climate change: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/critica... The process seems fairly simple. Oceans absorb a high proportion of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. This changes the pH levels of oceans, which then alters the environment that marine animals live in, causing a necessity to adapt. You could perform water pH experiments to prove the effects on marine life if you needed to convince yourself (though I wouldn't want to promote animal testing if there was another way to reach clarity on this).
- ch4s3 9y ago
  Couldn't you demonstrate that more acidic solutions break down calcium carbonate?
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    What would that result imply for living water-borne organisms?
    - ch4s3 9y ago
      Many of them have shells made of calcium carbonate of live in reefs, the structure of which is made of calcium carbonate.
polotics 9y ago
Shut up or put up: Come back when you have implemented your own model that reproduces the 21st century's climate to date without human CO2. This is the standard that scientists are judging themselves by. For bonus points predict 2003 based on 1800-2002.
mdpopescu 9y ago
Yep. Same point was raised by Scott Adams in some of his blogs, like [1]. [1] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154082416051/the-non-expert-problem-and-climate-change-science http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154082416051/the-non-expert-pro...
Oletros 9y ago
> (If ACC exists, the energy industry will fight because it ultimately harms their profits. If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige and grants) Why climate scientists won't have grants if there is no climate change? Climate doesn't need to be studied? > Both sides are, ultimately, dirty, due to politicization if nothing else Please, give me examples of climate scientists dirty by politization. > For bonus points, do any of the answers to those questions not boil down to the genetic or appeal to authority fallacies? Well, if you think that Theory of Evolution is appeal to authority, yes. When the big majority of a field have consensus, you have to look at the motives and arguments of the minority dissenting, not saying that the majority appeals to authority
mac01021 9y ago
Though open, this is a fantastic question, and one that everyone who is not a climate scientist should ask. The answer inevitably will vary depending on what you are willing to take people's word for, and how much time you're willing to spend digesting enough evidence to be convinced one way or another. As shorthand in the following I will say that everyone, on this issue, can be classified as an "agnostic", an "alarmist", or a "denier", and I will trust you not to take those labels to insinuate anything about who is right or wrong (I myself am mostly in the alarmist camp). IMO, the alarmists win A LOT of points (maybe not quite the whole game) for having a coherent, universally accepted, physics-based theory of the temperature of planets which correctly predicts observations from a variety of planets and requires radiative forcing from greenhouse gases in order to do it, while the deniers (as far as I can tell) do not propose an alternative theory or even generally agree on which part of the alarmists' chain of inference is broken. In, fact, until I see such a theory presented by the deniers (why are the planets we know the temperatures that they are, and what is the relationship between those temperatures and atmospheric GHG concentrations?), I really think the only sane stances to take are that of the alarmist or that of the agnostic. Now, if you doubt that people can agree on the current surface temperatures and atmospheric compositions of Venus, Earth, the moon, and Mars, and are unwilling to spend the time to convince yourself that they do, then you're likely doomed to agnosticism. Same deal if you doubt that we can agree on the amount of CO2 we're emitting as a species on an annual basis. Even then, you'll have to remain agnostic unless (1) you're willing to accept an appeal to authority or (2) you're willing to spend tens (but probably not hundreds) of hours understanding the basic theory of ACC, which holds that a doubling of the earth's CO2 concentration will result in an increase of 3C (plus or minus 1.5C) in the Earth's equilibrium temperature. If you want to spend those tens of hours, you could start with this article[1] or this video lecture[2] or the wikipedia articles on "Planetary Equilibrium Temperature", "Radiative Forcing", and "Climate Sensitivity". The trick to not spending more than tens of hours is to remain laser-focused on understanding what those three terms mean, how they're related, and how one can try to measure climate sensitivity. In particular, a lot of discussions about prehistoric climate, on feedback mechanisms, and on the specific effects of global warming on specific regions of the globe will lead you astray if you let them. If you don't have even a few hours to dig in on climate science, all I can say is that appeals to authority become a lot less unpalatable when the authorities appealed to are sufficiently numerous. Even if you think it not unlikely that NASA, NOAA, the EPA (all of whom are definitively, officially in the alarmist camp according to their websites) are in conspiracy with faculty at dozens or hundreds of universities, what about the 197 nations that were engaged in negotiating the recent Paris Climate Accord, or the 84 signatories of the Kyoto Protocol? Lastly, just out of curiosity, in what form do you tend to see the genetic fallacy applied for or against ACC? I'm not sure I've encountered it.

rayiner 9y ago

> If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige ang grants It would be better for "the academic lobby" to peddle the idea that climate science is unsettled, which would create more of a need for grants to study the issue.

joesb 9y ago
Correct. Academic's job is to study, it doesn't matter what the outcome is, they have grants either way.
- voice_of_reason 9y ago
  It is not always true. Imagine the system, where the government is a primary source of grants. There is a possibility that government will prefer funding the scientists whose work supports government's political agenda.

rwoodley 9y ago

Neither we nor our politicians should adjudicate scientific results and pick and choose what makes sense to us. We are not qualified. Scientists have a process as well as peer review which determines valid vs invalid results. I subscribe to 'Science' magazine which is one of the most respected publications among scientists (along with 'Nature' magazine). The consensus among scientists is settled: ACC is real. ACC deniers do not get published in respected science magazines because their peers do not respect their results. Scientific results should be settled by the peer group of scientists, not by politicians or the general public (see vaccine conspiracies for example).

voice_of_reason 9y ago
How is consensus settled, when there are renowned scientists out there who object the CAGW hypothesis? Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, Freeman Dyson - are they all bought and paid for by oil industry?
- bllguo 9y ago
  consensus as in general agreement, as in a majority. Pointing out that some minority group exists is hardly a refutation. Would you not say there is a consensus the Earth is round?
  - voice_of_reason 9y ago
    Why should one trust majority, and not minority, if "minority" people are also qualified and respected (Spencer, Curry)? There were episodes in the history of science, when the majority turned out to be wrong. Here's one example: https://www.insidescience.org/news/scientific-consensus-almost-never-wrong-%E2%80%94-almost https://www.insidescience.org/news/scientific-consensus-almo...
    - bllguo 9y ago
      I won't object to the fact that majorities can be wrong. There are many examples, ancient and recent. But that is a different argument from your other comment. I trust majority in science because it is rarely wrong. I'd need a bit more than "majorities have been wrong before!" to switch sides.

richardwhiuk 9y ago

If ACC doesn't exist, the future is much scarier. It suggest that the climate is changing, but that human kind isn't causing it, suggesting that it's much harder for us to revert, suggesting that we are much more likely to be screwed. Of the data we have, climate change being human caused is MUCH more preferable. The alternative is that the climate is changing and we aren't responsible.

jessaustin 9y ago
If this "alternative" were the case, would humanity best be served by not knowing it to be the case?
- richardwhiuk 9y ago
  No. Lack of knowledge is never helpful.

bllguo 9y ago

How in the world is listening to climate scientists an "appeal to authority" fallacy? How are people supposed to get information about anything if this is your argument? Most of our knowledge comes from experts and specialists...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

bwanab 9y ago

You assert that both sides have a profit motive, but there is a huge disparity in the quantity of profit. The fossil fuel energy companies profit to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. The academic lobby grants 1) are minuscule in comparison and 2) most of the concerned academics have plenty of other things they'd rather be studying - climate change is what they choose now because of its existential nature.

Karunamon 9y ago
I don't see how that matters - if you trained your whole life for one branch of science (or one career), you're a lot more likely to stay where you are rather than spend years starting from zero to move where you think more money might be. That's a risk many are not willing to take.
- Oletros 9y ago
  Why they should move to another career?
- Avshalom 9y ago
  "Climate Scientists" did not train their entire life to be climate scientists they come to it from a general background in geology, environmental science or physics with a two-three class "focus" during undergrad, another two to three class focus during grad school and maybe a phd. Maybe. Some of them just wound up there because they were the only people in the department with the Fortran chops to get the models working.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Climate scientists could deal with long-term weather prediction and other stuff. They don't need climate change to stay relevant.

pveierland 9y ago

> To the average person, myself included, the arguments made by both "sides" (ACC exists, ACC does not exist) are equally convincing. That is, both seem logical and well-argued at the superficial level we can understand without training. Understanding climate change requires high degrees of expertise, the collection of large amounts of data, the use of large mathematical models, and the cooperation of a large number of scientists. A large number of scientists work very hard to track the state of climate change, and their assessment is that "climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities" [0]. > If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige ang grants) Please see the list of scientific bodies and their statements on climate change [1]. The idea that a large majority of all scientists with knowledge pertaining to climate science in the world would be corrupted, falsify results, and make false statements over many years to fund further studies seems exceedingly unlikely. > And so I ask: Who should be trusted, why, and how, given the limited number of hours in the day available to people who aren't directly involved in climatology as their day job? You should trust what 97% (or more) of all climate scientists agree upon. Arguing that a group of experts of a domain should be trusted is not logically fallacious. [0] http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048... [1] https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Karunamon 9y ago
It doesn't have to be knowingly false, though - you think that all of the studies in psychology that wound up being non-reproducible were all submitted by pathological liars? Keep in mind that I never even mentioned deception, that was something you just set up and knocked down on your own. I have no doubt that most climatologists are doing exactly what they should be doing and aren't Saturday morning cartoon villains, But if there's a more meta issue involved, such as bad data, I argue that it'll never see the light of day given the political incentives. (In other words, the politicians are the villains, not the scientists running the data)
- pveierland 9y ago
  > It doesn't have to be knowingly false, though - you think that all of the studies in psychology that wound up being non-reproducible were all submitted by pathological liars? > But if there's a more meta issue involved, such as bad data, I argue that it'll never see the light of day given the political incentives. This is why single studies alone should not be the basis for large changes in policy. The current consensus in climate science is based on a large number of studies from different universities, science bodies, countries, using different sources of data, using different methods, and over a period of time. All of these factors makes it likely that the consensus is something which we should believe, and which should guide our policies. > Keep in mind that I never even mentioned deception, that was something you just set up and knocked down on your own. You stated that scientists have a profit motive for fudging their numbers, which if they did would be deceptive behavior.

notadoc 9y ago

I take this same "both sides" approach to gravitation in particular. Gravity is subtle and easy to misinterpret but to the average person, myself included, the arguments made by both "sides" are equally convincing.

mac01021 9y ago
I don't think this is a good argument. Anyone who has passed a freshman physics class is equipped to (with significant effort) verify Newton's law of gravitation. Any middle school student with a stopwatch and a tower can drop things off and determine that there are laws describing the ways that unsupported objects move downward. Everyone who ever lived has been in a position to independently observe many of the properties of gravitation without needing to trust even a single statement or datapoint provided by another person. In order to even understand the theory of ACC, much less test it, requires a person to first have a ton of education and then to navigate a substantial amount of academic literature.
- notadoc 9y ago
  It doesn't matter what you think. What are the other sides of the statements you make? We need to hear hear them out and debate them as well. You assume that so-called "freshmen physics" is a legitimate source of material and that middle school students are being taught legitimate science to begin with, when it could all be part of a pro-science agenda put forth by academic science thumpers promoting self-interested concepts of scientific ideology so that these people can continue to be employed and earn upwards of $40,000 per year as science propagandists. Let's not ignore the fact there's a lot of money at stake on these issues here, and for the involved parties getting you to believe in concepts like middle school science of freshmen physics are entirely based on a monetary incentive, despite what the evidence may show and even against contradictory evidence. Also you assume that gravitation is proven beyond a theory or a concept, which is demonstrating your pro-gravity bias. The understanding of so-called "gravity" is based on nothing more than a theory, but general relativity and quantum theory are entirely incompatible with one another which basically debunks the entire thing as many leading scientists would agree, but again this assumes that any of the so-called "science" or the basis of any of this is even legitimate in the first place. Finally, and this is very important, all of this completely disregards what religions might say too, and we need to hear each of the arguments of each individual religion and belief system and what their opinions and thoughts are on so-called "gravity", which, by the way, is not even mentioned in any holy books or writings whatsoever. That "gravity" is left out of every religious teaching entirely is very telling, and it demonstrates that from a theological standpoint that "gravity" has absolutely no basis in truth whatsoever, otherwise it obviously would be a subject of these belief systems and written about endlessly if it were a real thing. Can you really dispute or discount the words of supreme beings, let alone every God and belief system?

triangleman 9y ago

The philosopher Karl Popper explained in 1934 that scientific theories need to be falsifiable in order to be considered scientific. I would say that AGW theory has not yet met that standard.

ch4s3 9y ago
How so? If you could demonstrate a natural process that accounted for the data, that would pretty well falsify the claim that human production of greenhouse gases is the leading cause of climate change.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Haven't there been some studies about sun output? That seems natural?
  - ch4s3 9y ago
    That's been pretty well refuted as well.[1] Basically, the solar cycle can affect ocean temperature in the pacific to the degree that it can change circulation and some weather patterns, but has been shown to not be the cause of observed average temperature increases over the past 50 years. [1]https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/ https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/0...
- triangleman 9y ago
  It doesn't work like that. The null hypothesis is that natural processes fully account for observed temperature data. In order to generate enough thrust to escape the gravity of the null hypothesis, you must do the following, according to Karl Popper (cribbed from here [1]): 1) Describe a difficulty or gap in scientific knowledge, a "general problem", clearly defined, and show that the problem needs to be addressed. 2) Formulate a hypothesis, a "tentative theory", addressing the general problem, stated as clearly as possible in the language of science, which is mathematics. 3) Try to invalidate the tentative theory, and apply a certain scientific ethic described by Richard Feynman in his famous essay "Cargo Cult Science"[2] I'm not sure the "general problem" has even been established. From 1880 to 2015 the Earth's temperature has gone from 288 K to 288.8 K, a 0.3% increase. So first of all you need to prove that the Earth system is not able to keep the climate stable. Then you need to prove that recent increases in temperature are fundamentally different from past increases in the same system, i.e. the current interglacial period of the last 10,000 years. Again, this is not conclusive at all. Then you need to prove that CO2 plays a huge part in the recent temperature changes. Correlation does not imply causation. Two independent variables can both increase and you have not proven that they are causally linked (beyond the first-order effects of course). All we have so far are computer models which, so far, are no more than best-fit lines on observed data. In order for a computer model to be a good enough piece of evidence to favor dropping the null hypothesis and accepting the basis of the model, you would have to leave the model alone and see how well it predicts climate going forward. So far the models have not done well predicting actual climate [3]. QED. [1] https://www.scribd.com/document/23499288/Lord-Monckton-Caught-Green-Handed https://www.scribd.com/document/23499288/Lord-Monckton-Caugh... [2] http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm [3] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/28/173948/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/28/173948/

tome 9y ago

> If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige and grants "The academic lobby"? Christ. If ACC doesn't exist why wouldn't they just go and get grants to study something else?

tstactplsignore 9y ago

>To the average person, myself included, both "sides" have a profit motive in fudging the numbers. Yeah, this is almost entirely wrong. I'm sure there is slightly more public funding available in the Earth sciences because of the urgency of climate change, but not much- NSF funds for Earth science projects have been pretty steady for the last 20 years [0] and before that too. If climate change simply didn't exist, researchers would just get grants to work on the plethora of other important Earth science issues- human water usage, the ozone layer, ocean acidification, forest fires, coral bleaching, agricultural runoff, glacier retreat. There was no shortage of important Earth science problems- why on Earth would researchers go to such (impossible) lengths to fabricate one? The idea that international researchers have created some conspiracy to increase funding in their field is bizarre and incoherent and just demonstrates a lack of understanding of how science funding works. It also doesn't explain the international consensus on climate change- how has every major scientific organization and metereological society agreed upon it, when all of them have completely different funding situations? And if they have, well then surely they would have realized that this plan has not drastically increased their public funding in 20 years and given up on it by now! But in all seriousness, this idea is just insulting to the scientists and the fact that it's popular amongst American conservatives is pretty telling of how scientifically ignorant that ideology is. [0] https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/CJS%20NSF%2015hc.jpg https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/CJS%20NSF%2015hc.jp...

ZenoArrow 9y ago

Changes in temperature and sea-levels based on man made actions are harder to convince people of than other factors. My go-to in cases like this is ocean acidification. The following is a straightforward introduction to this part of climate change: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/critica... The process seems fairly simple. Oceans absorb a high proportion of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. This changes the pH levels of oceans, which then alters the environment that marine animals live in, causing a necessity to adapt. You could perform water pH experiments to prove the effects on marine life if you needed to convince yourself (though I wouldn't want to promote animal testing if there was another way to reach clarity on this).

ch4s3 9y ago
Couldn't you demonstrate that more acidic solutions break down calcium carbonate?
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  What would that result imply for living water-borne organisms?
  - ch4s3 9y ago
    Many of them have shells made of calcium carbonate of live in reefs, the structure of which is made of calcium carbonate.

polotics 9y ago

Shut up or put up: Come back when you have implemented your own model that reproduces the 21st century's climate to date without human CO2. This is the standard that scientists are judging themselves by. For bonus points predict 2003 based on 1800-2002.

mdpopescu 9y ago

Yep. Same point was raised by Scott Adams in some of his blogs, like [1]. [1] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154082416051/the-non-expert-problem-and-climate-change-science http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154082416051/the-non-expert-pro...

Oletros 9y ago

> (If ACC exists, the energy industry will fight because it ultimately harms their profits. If ACC doesn't exist, the academic lobby will fight for their prestige and grants) Why climate scientists won't have grants if there is no climate change? Climate doesn't need to be studied? > Both sides are, ultimately, dirty, due to politicization if nothing else Please, give me examples of climate scientists dirty by politization. > For bonus points, do any of the answers to those questions not boil down to the genetic or appeal to authority fallacies? Well, if you think that Theory of Evolution is appeal to authority, yes. When the big majority of a field have consensus, you have to look at the motives and arguments of the minority dissenting, not saying that the majority appeals to authority

mac01021 9y ago

Though open, this is a fantastic question, and one that everyone who is not a climate scientist should ask. The answer inevitably will vary depending on what you are willing to take people's word for, and how much time you're willing to spend digesting enough evidence to be convinced one way or another. As shorthand in the following I will say that everyone, on this issue, can be classified as an "agnostic", an "alarmist", or a "denier", and I will trust you not to take those labels to insinuate anything about who is right or wrong (I myself am mostly in the alarmist camp). IMO, the alarmists win A LOT of points (maybe not quite the whole game) for having a coherent, universally accepted, physics-based theory of the temperature of planets which correctly predicts observations from a variety of planets and requires radiative forcing from greenhouse gases in order to do it, while the deniers (as far as I can tell) do not propose an alternative theory or even generally agree on which part of the alarmists' chain of inference is broken. In, fact, until I see such a theory presented by the deniers (why are the planets we know the temperatures that they are, and what is the relationship between those temperatures and atmospheric GHG concentrations?), I really think the only sane stances to take are that of the alarmist or that of the agnostic. Now, if you doubt that people can agree on the current surface temperatures and atmospheric compositions of Venus, Earth, the moon, and Mars, and are unwilling to spend the time to convince yourself that they do, then you're likely doomed to agnosticism. Same deal if you doubt that we can agree on the amount of CO2 we're emitting as a species on an annual basis. Even then, you'll have to remain agnostic unless (1) you're willing to accept an appeal to authority or (2) you're willing to spend tens (but probably not hundreds) of hours understanding the basic theory of ACC, which holds that a doubling of the earth's CO2 concentration will result in an increase of 3C (plus or minus 1.5C) in the Earth's equilibrium temperature. If you want to spend those tens of hours, you could start with this article[1] or this video lecture[2] or the wikipedia articles on "Planetary Equilibrium Temperature", "Radiative Forcing", and "Climate Sensitivity". The trick to not spending more than tens of hours is to remain laser-focused on understanding what those three terms mean, how they're related, and how one can try to measure climate sensitivity. In particular, a lot of discussions about prehistoric climate, on feedback mechanisms, and on the specific effects of global warming on specific regions of the globe will lead you astray if you let them. If you don't have even a few hours to dig in on climate science, all I can say is that appeals to authority become a lot less unpalatable when the authorities appealed to are sufficiently numerous. Even if you think it not unlikely that NASA, NOAA, the EPA (all of whom are definitively, officially in the alarmist camp according to their websites) are in conspiracy with faculty at dozens or hundreds of universities, what about the 197 nations that were engaged in negotiating the recent Paris Climate Accord, or the 84 signatories of the Kyoto Protocol? Lastly, just out of curiosity, in what form do you tend to see the genetic fallacy applied for or against ACC? I'm not sure I've encountered it.