4 ms·

It is not impossible for both sides to have their share of simpletons.

southern_cross 8y ago
There are plenty of clear-thinking, level-headed folks out there who, while they might have genuine concerns about climate change in general, aren't really buying into the doomsday aspects of it or that it's all caused by man. But those folks usually don't get much of an airing in the press or elsewhere, and if they do they're usually treated with derision. Instead the simpletons steal the show. You know, at this point I don't know what's worse - that so many so-called experts seem to be spewing end-of-the-world nonsense, or that there appear to be so many folks out there who are all too willing to believe this stuff. I seriously question the qualifications and motivations of the former, and the mental health status of the latter.
- kaybe 8y ago
  You would make the whole community overjoyed if you gave us sound arguments for why we don't have a problem. We see it in the data, and do our very best to run simulations to predict the future of this chaotic system (we should have the main influences down), and it looks bad. You can doubt the doomsday aspect of it, since that is determined by society's response and resilience, but more CO2 in the atmosphere increasing radiative forcing and thus temperature as a 0th level effect are very basic physics. The fact that humanity caused a substantial increase on atmospheric CO2 is very obviously true as well. Anything saving us must be a higher level effect. The natural way of CO2 sequestration, rock weathering and subsequent precipitation into ocean sediment, takes at least 10k years to get rid of an increase. Please tell us if there is something big we miss. Everyone could use some good news by now because the current state is pretty depressing.
  - southern_cross 8y ago
    > We see it in the data Does that "we" actually include "you"? And if so, how much of that data have you looked at personally, and now closely? I ask because (as I have already referenced elsewhere in this thread) I went to the trouble of doing that some years ago - downloaded thousands of data files making up a particular temperature data set, consisting of hundreds of thousands of data entries. This after having heard some particularly inane and quite clearly wrong statements made about my local climate by the folks at NOAA or wherever. And you know what I found? The "raw" data there showed a definite but modest increase in temperatures in my area over the past 130 years or so. But the "adjusted" data (which was being used as the basis for making those statements) had been so badly mangled as to become completely unreliable, yet this was done in such a way as to make it show a rather dramatic increase in temperatures. It ultimately turned out that the whole data set was mangled, too (I spot checked several other locations), and that I wasn't the only person who had gone to such troubles and found much the same issues. Of course, that was just one data set and that's been almost ten years ago now. But for easily the past 15 years or so, and continuing up to this day, folks outside of the climate research field who have gone to similar troubles to do basic analysis on various climate-related data sets have often come to similar conclusions - everything from "This [apparently very real] data is just too dirty and unreliable to be of much practical use, even after you try to clean it up" to "OMG, it looks like they're just wholesale making stuff up here!" And so on. BTW, whenever someone mentions "the data" I always ask this question, and I almost never get an actual answer back: Is the data that you're referring to raw data, or adjusted data, or proxy data, or modeled data, or infilled data, or what? Apparently most people just assume that the data being referred to is real, live, actual data, but whenever I've followed up on the matter myself this almost always turns out not to be the case. > Please tell us if there is something big we miss. As I believe I have already said elsewhere, I don't think that it's so much that things get missed as it is that they seem to get willfully ignored, or maybe are just under-appreciated in their potential effects. But other folks outside of the climate research field who have noted various troubling things here might disagree with my assessment of the situation. > Everyone could use some good news by now because the current state is pretty depressing. Again, as I have already noted, folks who come along and say "Good news everyone! The situation may not be as dark as it first appeared." often just get beaten down mercilessly. And in the press, for whatever reasons, if a "good news" type article appears it tends to fade out rarely quickly, while the "even more bad news" type articles may get hyped to no end. And even with the good news articles, often the reporter seems to go out of their way trying to track down so-called climate experts who will say "True, perhaps - but this actually changes nothing!", and who may then try to impune the motives of the person making the good news statement - "Probably a fossil-fuel funded climate denier!", or similar. If you want to take a step back and get a breath of fresh air, consider the fact that throughout human history various episodes of doomsday-cult type thinking have come and gone repeatedly, usually with minimal aftereffects. This is very true for recent predictions made by scientists and such, too. For example, recently there was some discussion about how many of at least the most dire predictions being made around the time of the first Earth Day never came to pass. There may be several valid reasons for this, but the simple fact of the matter is that most of those predictions had no real basis in reality to begin with. I expect that at least the most dire predictions currently being made about climate change will turn out much the same way.
    - kaybe 8y ago
      It seems like you looked more closely than I did at this kind of dataset. What kind of data did you look at, local temperature measurements? Did you figure out by which rules the data was 'mangled'? (Maybe I should invest some time over the weekend and do it too.. hm. ) > BTW, whenever someone mentions "the data" I always ask this question, and I almost never get an actual answer back: Is the data that you're referring to raw data, or adjusted data, or proxy data, or modeled data, or infilled data, or what? Raw data in itself is not much use as you have mentioned. Nobody wants to look at spectra and electronic counts. (Properly) adjusted data is better, but not a lot is available for the less recent past. Proxy data also needs to be adjusted for the processes that left the record, but can then be used. Modelled or infilled data does not count since it is not 'real' data. So, adjusted data and proxy data. If you look at all the datasets in Figure TS.1 (https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINA...) here, do you really believe all of those datasets are problematic? Do you have a problem with the assertion that an increase in CO2 increases the energy coming into the Earth System? Where do you believe it goes, if not? > folks who come along and say "Good news everyone! The situation may not be as dark as it first appeared." often just get beaten down mercilessly I've never found anyone with good arguments backing them up, sadly. The hopeful ones who want to employ technology and engage in climate engineering make sense, at least, though many of the proposed techniques have.. interesting side effects in the models and don't all fully work. It's a chance, but it's better if we don't have to try. (Long term we need this tech anyway; who wants an ice age? That'd be even worse. Let's just test it on Venus first.) > If you want to take a step back and get a breath of fresh air, consider the fact that throughout human history various episodes of doomsday-cult type thinking have come and gone repeatedly, usually with minimal aftereffects. That would be good. But also consider that many of these problems were non-issues because action was taken to prevent them (such as the acid rain problem, the ozone hole, smog and freshwater pollution(where it applies)), and they were local and fixable fast (stop emitting pollution with a short lifetime and be done with the problem within a few days). If expectations such as yours prevent us from acting, that might be a problem. I also don't expect the most dire predictions to come true, because I want to believe we either don't go the 'business as usual' emission plan or find a last-minute save in a technique for fast CO2 sequestration. Both of those require action though, and accepting that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to changes. (We have enough refugees everywhere already, and citizens in other places unhappy about it.) (Btw, I like how clearly you express your thoughts!)

There are plenty of clear-thinking, level-headed folks out there who, while they might have genuine concerns about climate change in general, aren't really buying into the doomsday aspects of it or that it's all caused by man. But those folks usually don't get much of an airing in the press or elsewhere, and if they do they're usually treated with derision. Instead the simpletons steal the show. You know, at this point I don't know what's worse - that so many so-called experts seem to be spewing end-of-the-world nonsense, or that there appear to be so many folks out there who are all too willing to believe this stuff. I seriously question the qualifications and motivations of the former, and the mental health status of the latter.

kaybe 8y ago
You would make the whole community overjoyed if you gave us sound arguments for why we don't have a problem. We see it in the data, and do our very best to run simulations to predict the future of this chaotic system (we should have the main influences down), and it looks bad. You can doubt the doomsday aspect of it, since that is determined by society's response and resilience, but more CO2 in the atmosphere increasing radiative forcing and thus temperature as a 0th level effect are very basic physics. The fact that humanity caused a substantial increase on atmospheric CO2 is very obviously true as well. Anything saving us must be a higher level effect. The natural way of CO2 sequestration, rock weathering and subsequent precipitation into ocean sediment, takes at least 10k years to get rid of an increase. Please tell us if there is something big we miss. Everyone could use some good news by now because the current state is pretty depressing.
- southern_cross 8y ago
  > We see it in the data Does that "we" actually include "you"? And if so, how much of that data have you looked at personally, and now closely? I ask because (as I have already referenced elsewhere in this thread) I went to the trouble of doing that some years ago - downloaded thousands of data files making up a particular temperature data set, consisting of hundreds of thousands of data entries. This after having heard some particularly inane and quite clearly wrong statements made about my local climate by the folks at NOAA or wherever. And you know what I found? The "raw" data there showed a definite but modest increase in temperatures in my area over the past 130 years or so. But the "adjusted" data (which was being used as the basis for making those statements) had been so badly mangled as to become completely unreliable, yet this was done in such a way as to make it show a rather dramatic increase in temperatures. It ultimately turned out that the whole data set was mangled, too (I spot checked several other locations), and that I wasn't the only person who had gone to such troubles and found much the same issues. Of course, that was just one data set and that's been almost ten years ago now. But for easily the past 15 years or so, and continuing up to this day, folks outside of the climate research field who have gone to similar troubles to do basic analysis on various climate-related data sets have often come to similar conclusions - everything from "This [apparently very real] data is just too dirty and unreliable to be of much practical use, even after you try to clean it up" to "OMG, it looks like they're just wholesale making stuff up here!" And so on. BTW, whenever someone mentions "the data" I always ask this question, and I almost never get an actual answer back: Is the data that you're referring to raw data, or adjusted data, or proxy data, or modeled data, or infilled data, or what? Apparently most people just assume that the data being referred to is real, live, actual data, but whenever I've followed up on the matter myself this almost always turns out not to be the case. > Please tell us if there is something big we miss. As I believe I have already said elsewhere, I don't think that it's so much that things get missed as it is that they seem to get willfully ignored, or maybe are just under-appreciated in their potential effects. But other folks outside of the climate research field who have noted various troubling things here might disagree with my assessment of the situation. > Everyone could use some good news by now because the current state is pretty depressing. Again, as I have already noted, folks who come along and say "Good news everyone! The situation may not be as dark as it first appeared." often just get beaten down mercilessly. And in the press, for whatever reasons, if a "good news" type article appears it tends to fade out rarely quickly, while the "even more bad news" type articles may get hyped to no end. And even with the good news articles, often the reporter seems to go out of their way trying to track down so-called climate experts who will say "True, perhaps - but this actually changes nothing!", and who may then try to impune the motives of the person making the good news statement - "Probably a fossil-fuel funded climate denier!", or similar. If you want to take a step back and get a breath of fresh air, consider the fact that throughout human history various episodes of doomsday-cult type thinking have come and gone repeatedly, usually with minimal aftereffects. This is very true for recent predictions made by scientists and such, too. For example, recently there was some discussion about how many of at least the most dire predictions being made around the time of the first Earth Day never came to pass. There may be several valid reasons for this, but the simple fact of the matter is that most of those predictions had no real basis in reality to begin with. I expect that at least the most dire predictions currently being made about climate change will turn out much the same way.
  - kaybe 8y ago
    It seems like you looked more closely than I did at this kind of dataset. What kind of data did you look at, local temperature measurements? Did you figure out by which rules the data was 'mangled'? (Maybe I should invest some time over the weekend and do it too.. hm. ) > BTW, whenever someone mentions "the data" I always ask this question, and I almost never get an actual answer back: Is the data that you're referring to raw data, or adjusted data, or proxy data, or modeled data, or infilled data, or what? Raw data in itself is not much use as you have mentioned. Nobody wants to look at spectra and electronic counts. (Properly) adjusted data is better, but not a lot is available for the less recent past. Proxy data also needs to be adjusted for the processes that left the record, but can then be used. Modelled or infilled data does not count since it is not 'real' data. So, adjusted data and proxy data. If you look at all the datasets in Figure TS.1 (https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINA...) here, do you really believe all of those datasets are problematic? Do you have a problem with the assertion that an increase in CO2 increases the energy coming into the Earth System? Where do you believe it goes, if not? > folks who come along and say "Good news everyone! The situation may not be as dark as it first appeared." often just get beaten down mercilessly I've never found anyone with good arguments backing them up, sadly. The hopeful ones who want to employ technology and engage in climate engineering make sense, at least, though many of the proposed techniques have.. interesting side effects in the models and don't all fully work. It's a chance, but it's better if we don't have to try. (Long term we need this tech anyway; who wants an ice age? That'd be even worse. Let's just test it on Venus first.) > If you want to take a step back and get a breath of fresh air, consider the fact that throughout human history various episodes of doomsday-cult type thinking have come and gone repeatedly, usually with minimal aftereffects. That would be good. But also consider that many of these problems were non-issues because action was taken to prevent them (such as the acid rain problem, the ozone hole, smog and freshwater pollution(where it applies)), and they were local and fixable fast (stop emitting pollution with a short lifetime and be done with the problem within a few days). If expectations such as yours prevent us from acting, that might be a problem. I also don't expect the most dire predictions to come true, because I want to believe we either don't go the 'business as usual' emission plan or find a last-minute save in a technique for fast CO2 sequestration. Both of those require action though, and accepting that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to changes. (We have enough refugees everywhere already, and citizens in other places unhappy about it.) (Btw, I like how clearly you express your thoughts!)