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My question for you would be, what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious). Is that global climate change exists at all? Or that it’s somehow being

My question for you would be, what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious). Is that global climate change exists at all? Or that it’s somehow being misprepresented? To me it’s always just come down to which do I think is more likely: A) 99% of all scientists are intentionally duping society into believing global warming for some unknown agenda that they all share and we don’t know about for an unknown benefit B) the people who stand to make billions (maybe trillions) of dollars by claiming that global warming doesn’t exist or is at least to some degree a conspiracy are behind the idea that globally warming isn’t real When i want to find out who is behind something, I typically look at who stands to make the most money from their viewpoint being accepted as the dominant one. To me it seems, given the enormous amount of money at stake, that scenario b is much more likely.

UncleEntity 8y ago
Meh, no delete button and I should've known better to ponder on such subjects...
- gotocake 8y ago
  Like all things the truth is probably somewhere in the middle... That’s a fallacy. Between anti-vaxxers and modern medicine the truth isn’t in the middle. Between Nazi ideology and its victims, the truth wasn’t in th middle. Between people who think that cell phone towers are controlling their minds with alien rays, and the rest of us, the truth isn’t in the middle. Some shit is just wrong.
credit_guy 8y ago
>what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious) I was fully convinced that the science about global warming is settled until I read Crichton's novel "State of Fear" [1]. That one planted some seeds of doubt in my mind. I know, a lot of climate change advocates say the novel was debunked (and maybe it was), but after I read the novel, I started thinking that maybe I should take a closer look and try to draw my own conclusions. And what I saw was not always good. Not always bad, mind you. To be honest, in the last 2 years or so, I get less and less skeptical, but overall, I still consider myself skeptical. Let me list a few things * A large part of Earth's land mass is in remote areas of Russia, Africa, South America. It's likely that more than 50% of the land mass does not have good temperature records. * Many temperature stations, while somewhat appropriate for reporting temperature for purposes of weather forecast, are not appropriate for climate change science (e.g. they are located in a parking lot, subject to the heat of the asphalt). * The temperature in a hot desert often drops below freezing during nighttime. Why? Because the air is dry, in other words the greenhouse effect is much lower. That should tell you that water vapors in the atmosphere are a very powerful greenhouse gas. Climate scientists admit as much. More powerful than CO2? Well, you will not get a straight answer to that question. You'll start hearing jargon such as "forcing", and in the end it will sound like CO2 is a more potent greenhouse gas. But behind all the jargon is the fact that CO2 in itself is not such a potent greenhouse gas, but only considering all various feedbacks (including water) that it induces. But those feedbacks are only modeled on a computer, they are not facts. Are they tested, validated, as good science would require? Oh well, it turns out that climate scientists don't believe a whole lot in falsification and validation. * By the way, did I mention that greenhouse effect is a miss-nomer? Actual greenhouses are not hot because of the "greenhouse effect"[2] * Bjorn Llomborg [3]. For those who don't know, the guy is a statistician who decided to take a look at the climate science through the eyes of a statistician. He wrote a book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist", which had a pretty moderate tone in my opinion. He was viciously attacked by the climate science community. For example, here's a quote from the wikipedia page: "The Climate Feedback reviewers assessed that the scientific credibility ranged between 'low' and 'very low'". If any scientist gets the modern day Giordano Bruno treatment, it's never climate science consensus scientists, always climate skeptics. I could keep going, but I don't want to write a wall of text. I'll stop here, and if people want more bullet points, I'll put them in some separate comments. Oh, and just to clarify. Many times I looked into the science, it did check out. For example, some skeptics point out to volcanic emissions. I spent time finding the numbers, and yes, it turns out that volcanoes emit peanuts compared to what we put in the atmosphere. I could go on with things that check out as well, but as I said above, I don't want to get people bored. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg
- lithiumfrost 8y ago
  I am on a bus, but I want to point out here that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas because of its volume and its residence time. Its half-life in the atmosphere is far far longer than the H2O molecule, so its corresponding contribution to the greenhouse effect is also greater over time.
  - credit_guy 8y ago
    It depends how you look at that. Currently about 1/3 of our carbon emission are absorbed by the ocean [1]. H2O is pretty much entirely absorbed by the ocean, and then re-released (the well-known water cycle in the nature). Now, when people say that the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is 1000 years or so, they generally neglect that part where some CO2 is dissolved in the ocean, presumably because it can be re-released later. But that's (trivially) the same with H2O. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_pump#Anthropogenic_changes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_pump#Anthropogenic_...
- canhascodez 8y ago
  Crichton was not honest or well-informed. Broadly speaking, the temperature record has little to do with the validity of AGW. Suggesting that "climate scientists don't believe a whole lot in falsification and validation" is untrue, and something of an insult to the profession. Suggesting that the greenhouse effect is misnamed is a non sequitur. Your characterization of the study of H2O forcing is basically counterfactual. Berkeley Earth disagrees with your claim about temperature stations. You don't seem to have a handle on the actual mechanism of carbon-induced warming. I find it most useful to examine science from a historical perspective: as a series of questions about the universe works. As such, I recommend The Discovery of Global Warming: [0] https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm This will also tell you about how AGW was completely discredited (by multiple independent lines of evidence) for five decades, and had to fight its way back to academic credibility. That should serve as conclusive evidence that there is not a conspiracy or cabal shutting down alternative research: an 12-decade international conspiracy theory to maintain the credibility of a theory is implausible, but there's no way to reconcile that with the theory being discredited for its initial half-century.

UncleEntity 8y ago

Meh, no delete button and I should've known better to ponder on such subjects...

gotocake 8y ago
Like all things the truth is probably somewhere in the middle... That’s a fallacy. Between anti-vaxxers and modern medicine the truth isn’t in the middle. Between Nazi ideology and its victims, the truth wasn’t in th middle. Between people who think that cell phone towers are controlling their minds with alien rays, and the rest of us, the truth isn’t in the middle. Some shit is just wrong.

credit_guy 8y ago

>what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious) I was fully convinced that the science about global warming is settled until I read Crichton's novel "State of Fear" [1]. That one planted some seeds of doubt in my mind. I know, a lot of climate change advocates say the novel was debunked (and maybe it was), but after I read the novel, I started thinking that maybe I should take a closer look and try to draw my own conclusions. And what I saw was not always good. Not always bad, mind you. To be honest, in the last 2 years or so, I get less and less skeptical, but overall, I still consider myself skeptical. Let me list a few things * A large part of Earth's land mass is in remote areas of Russia, Africa, South America. It's likely that more than 50% of the land mass does not have good temperature records. * Many temperature stations, while somewhat appropriate for reporting temperature for purposes of weather forecast, are not appropriate for climate change science (e.g. they are located in a parking lot, subject to the heat of the asphalt). * The temperature in a hot desert often drops below freezing during nighttime. Why? Because the air is dry, in other words the greenhouse effect is much lower. That should tell you that water vapors in the atmosphere are a very powerful greenhouse gas. Climate scientists admit as much. More powerful than CO2? Well, you will not get a straight answer to that question. You'll start hearing jargon such as "forcing", and in the end it will sound like CO2 is a more potent greenhouse gas. But behind all the jargon is the fact that CO2 in itself is not such a potent greenhouse gas, but only considering all various feedbacks (including water) that it induces. But those feedbacks are only modeled on a computer, they are not facts. Are they tested, validated, as good science would require? Oh well, it turns out that climate scientists don't believe a whole lot in falsification and validation. * By the way, did I mention that greenhouse effect is a miss-nomer? Actual greenhouses are not hot because of the "greenhouse effect"[2] * Bjorn Llomborg [3]. For those who don't know, the guy is a statistician who decided to take a look at the climate science through the eyes of a statistician. He wrote a book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist", which had a pretty moderate tone in my opinion. He was viciously attacked by the climate science community. For example, here's a quote from the wikipedia page: "The Climate Feedback reviewers assessed that the scientific credibility ranged between 'low' and 'very low'". If any scientist gets the modern day Giordano Bruno treatment, it's never climate science consensus scientists, always climate skeptics. I could keep going, but I don't want to write a wall of text. I'll stop here, and if people want more bullet points, I'll put them in some separate comments. Oh, and just to clarify. Many times I looked into the science, it did check out. For example, some skeptics point out to volcanic emissions. I spent time finding the numbers, and yes, it turns out that volcanoes emit peanuts compared to what we put in the atmosphere. I could go on with things that check out as well, but as I said above, I don't want to get people bored. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg

lithiumfrost 8y ago
I am on a bus, but I want to point out here that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas because of its volume and its residence time. Its half-life in the atmosphere is far far longer than the H2O molecule, so its corresponding contribution to the greenhouse effect is also greater over time.
- credit_guy 8y ago
  It depends how you look at that. Currently about 1/3 of our carbon emission are absorbed by the ocean [1]. H2O is pretty much entirely absorbed by the ocean, and then re-released (the well-known water cycle in the nature). Now, when people say that the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is 1000 years or so, they generally neglect that part where some CO2 is dissolved in the ocean, presumably because it can be re-released later. But that's (trivially) the same with H2O. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_pump#Anthropogenic_changes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_pump#Anthropogenic_...
canhascodez 8y ago
Crichton was not honest or well-informed. Broadly speaking, the temperature record has little to do with the validity of AGW. Suggesting that "climate scientists don't believe a whole lot in falsification and validation" is untrue, and something of an insult to the profession. Suggesting that the greenhouse effect is misnamed is a non sequitur. Your characterization of the study of H2O forcing is basically counterfactual. Berkeley Earth disagrees with your claim about temperature stations. You don't seem to have a handle on the actual mechanism of carbon-induced warming. I find it most useful to examine science from a historical perspective: as a series of questions about the universe works. As such, I recommend The Discovery of Global Warming: [0] https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm This will also tell you about how AGW was completely discredited (by multiple independent lines of evidence) for five decades, and had to fight its way back to academic credibility. That should serve as conclusive evidence that there is not a conspiracy or cabal shutting down alternative research: an 12-decade international conspiracy theory to maintain the credibility of a theory is implausible, but there's no way to reconcile that with the theory being discredited for its initial half-century.