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Climate change is man-made. We know how much oil we're burning, and we can measure the atmospheric CO2 carbon ratios, and also measure volcanic emissions. The p

Climate change is man-made. We know how much oil we're burning, and we can measure the atmospheric CO2 carbon ratios, and also measure volcanic emissions. The picture is very consistent. There's also no real hope for an alternate mechanism. The actual effect of an increased partial pressure of CO2 is to push the CO2-rich region further out into space. Physics dictates that this must warm the Earth, by ~3.7 W/m^2 per doubling[0]. The history of the theory is perhaps relevant here. CO2-induced climate change was proposed in 1896[1], and shortly thereafter it was stunningly refuted, by multiple independent lines of evidence. Over the next fifty years, the soundness of that evidence was called into question, and eventually the weight of evidence was sufficient to shift the consensus. We have been trying to disprove AGW for more than twelve decades. At this point, we need a very large effect, because the H2O-CO2 feedback loop is pretty ugly, and the effect also needs to be small enough to not notice. There's not really any candidate theories beyond absurdities like, "everything we know about thermodynamics is wrong," or "CO2 molecules have free will and like to play practical jokes on scientists". Failing that, I'm deeply sorry to say that AGW is real. [0] https://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-crock-6-climate-sensitivity.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-crock-6-climate-sen... [1] http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf

splintercell 8y ago
I guess you don't know "Pascal's Wager" argument for climate change. Because this is equivalent of hearing "But Bible is real, God himself wrote that in the bible, how dare you suggest that there might be 1% chance of God not being real?" in an actual 'Pascal's wager' argument.
- canhascodez 8y ago
  Do you know what empiricism is?
  - splintercell 8y ago
    Do you know what a thought experiment is?
    - canhascodez 8y ago
      Are thought experiments empirical?
      - splintercell 8y ago
        Nope
        canhascodez 8y ago
        So then, thought experiments can be valuable aids to scientific understanding, but they can't establish the truth or falsehood of any empirical claim. The two statements, "I have faith that God exists," and "carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas" are not only not equivalent, they are not comparable. But, even setting aside issues of validity, your premise is that there is a not-inconsiderable chance that global warming is not caused by humans, and this premise may be rejected. Error is inherent to measurement, but that does not mean that all statements are equally likely. You don't get to just say, "Assume that the error bars are convenient for my argument"; that's not how empiricism works. AGW is predicated on optics and thermodynamics, and saying that AGW is not true is equivalent to saying that there is a problem with our understanding of those topics. That's the sort of claim where you should really be very specific and have strong evidence, but really, if you're arguing with thermodynamics, you're going to have a bad time. If you really want to offer a skeptical argument, it must be an empirical argument. In order to make a plausible empirical argument, you need to take into account all observations relating to that phenomenon. This can't be done without learning the science. There are empirical avenues which could lead to the invalidation of AGW (it was considered disproved for decades, after all), but thought experiments are not empirical.

splintercell 8y ago

I guess you don't know "Pascal's Wager" argument for climate change. Because this is equivalent of hearing "But Bible is real, God himself wrote that in the bible, how dare you suggest that there might be 1% chance of God not being real?" in an actual 'Pascal's wager' argument.

canhascodez 8y ago
Do you know what empiricism is?
- splintercell 8y ago
  Do you know what a thought experiment is?
  - canhascodez 8y ago
    Are thought experiments empirical?
    - splintercell 8y ago
      Nope
      - canhascodez 8y ago
        So then, thought experiments can be valuable aids to scientific understanding, but they can't establish the truth or falsehood of any empirical claim. The two statements, "I have faith that God exists," and "carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas" are not only not equivalent, they are not comparable. But, even setting aside issues of validity, your premise is that there is a not-inconsiderable chance that global warming is not caused by humans, and this premise may be rejected. Error is inherent to measurement, but that does not mean that all statements are equally likely. You don't get to just say, "Assume that the error bars are convenient for my argument"; that's not how empiricism works. AGW is predicated on optics and thermodynamics, and saying that AGW is not true is equivalent to saying that there is a problem with our understanding of those topics. That's the sort of claim where you should really be very specific and have strong evidence, but really, if you're arguing with thermodynamics, you're going to have a bad time. If you really want to offer a skeptical argument, it must be an empirical argument. In order to make a plausible empirical argument, you need to take into account all observations relating to that phenomenon. This can't be done without learning the science. There are empirical avenues which could lead to the invalidation of AGW (it was considered disproved for decades, after all), but thought experiments are not empirical.