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"Yes, findings about climate are not reproducible in the straight and narrow sense of the scientific method" Full stop. And this is the most important misconc

"Yes, findings about climate are not reproducible in the straight and narrow sense of the scientific method" Full stop. And this is the most important misconception which most people don't understand. They actually think the science is settled and that it's provable through the scientific process. It's not not by any stretch. The problem is that this discussion, even the one we are having right now is mostly a politically based discussion not a scientific based one and yet non-scientists, people who have never even looked at the claims they support, will shame you for being a climate-denier for even suggesting it's not as simple as claimed. The claims are much more extreme than what the science support. "I take it that there is a broad consensus that climate change is man-made and that carbon emissions are very likely a huge driver of it. Many scientific professional organizations have issued statements about it. Many governments see the need to at least pay lip service to it." But that's not what you actually find. The 97% concensus actually include the socalled climate deniers, think about that for a while. You can't expect people to just buy something on faith when you can't actually prove your theory. Even if they are wrong, even if the claim about the consensus was right you can't actually expect them to just take it on faith, the very opposition of what science is based on. Science does not actually build on consensus it builds on falsification if you don't have falsification you have something else and much less precise than science, yet it's sold as if it's not and as long as this is not acknowledged you will not be able to have a rational discussion let alone solution. You don't even have agreement about what the problem will be, only a set of potential outcomes which is what you do in scenario planning. It's not science. Geologists are scientists and can measure but the people interpreting the date ads a layer of abstraction, interpretation and errors that's so large that it's actually antiscientific to use the "science says" argument. There IS disagreement, not even about whether the climate is changing but what it means and how much. If you don't think many climate scientists play lip-service to their donors (the politicians) then you haven't looked close enough. So there are all sorts of reasons not to just take anything by these organisations even if you agree that there is a problem and that the climate is changing. In other words you don't have to become a climate catastrophist just because you agree that climate is always going to be challenge to humans. "No, paradigm shifts help develop new and more accurate theory, but old theories still hold. Newtonian mechanics doesn't become obsolete even if a more accurate quantum picture has been developed. Even the primitive, less precise, yet intuitive Aristotelian notion of motion can be useful in many contexts, e.g. game physics that need to enable an unreal amount of control yet feel psychologically natural." No old theories don't still hold. They are still useful in limated scope but they don't hold as complete theories which means that things that might look like one thing isn't actually what it looks like. In Newtons world speed of gravity is infinite, in einsteins it's not, in quantum physics non-locality “disproves” the speed of light as the most fundamental force. Three different paradigms the two latter btw both proven to the extent we can prove things but fundamentally contradictory. In other words, Newton + Einstein + Bohr accumulates but there are fundmaental shifts that completely changes the reality they are trying to explain. "I don't see how the thrust of this statement is consistent with the immediate statement before" What is it that you don't see? Are you going for a gotcha momement or are you actually trying to understand what I am saying. Can you be more concrete about what it is that you don't understand? "I don't see how any general disposition of nature towards human society has any relevance toward my claim that solutions toward climate change must include an aspect that is not just technological products and services." Because to understand why you won't find the solution by some human "cometogetherness/political" movement you have to understand why that won't happen. "I contend that they can be an important part of the solution to the problem. If it becomes sufficiently socially unacceptable, these activities will see a significant decrease. Many citizens already considers many activities taboo and immoral due to the influence of their society; online fraud, adultery, taking more than their fair share of an obvious common good when they don't need it; it is possible to frame excessive air travel or meat consumption as immoral." You can frame anything anyway you want right untill you have to live by that framing then it all falls apart. You have hundreds of millions of people if not billions who would do anything to become just a fraction as rich as you and me and do not care one ounce about their climate footprint and what you consider immoral. It's a position you can have when you have the choice and even then you are not actually able to keep it yourself as you are using some sort of computer right now and thus adding to the very problem you talk about. "Similarly, I contend that collective agitation is important to enable the means that you cite. "more actual science, engineering and entrepreneurship" is enabled by voting for governments interested in funding research. The availability of science is enabled by the collective action of researchers and sponsors advocating for open access. The success and feasibility of entrepreneurship is enabled by voting for governments interested in limiting monopolies and anti-competitive behavior. The collective signaling of consumers that they are ready for alternatives encourage the establishment of businesses to cater to these alternatives, and to cater to them more efficiently. Without this signaling, one does not know if there is a market for it." That's actually not even close to true which China is a pretty clear example of.

jhanschoo 8y ago
> So there are all sorts of reasons not to just take anything by these organisations even if you agree that there is a problem and that the climate is changing. In other words you don't have to become a climate catastrophist just because you agree that climate is always going to be challenge to humans. Nevertheless, these climate claims are consistent with what I know to be true: that ecologies collapse when there is a great change in temperature (even when geology is similar), that carbon is a greenhouse gas, that we are emitting it at an unprecedented scale, and that carbon in the biosphere is conserved. I haven't seen a compelling model that assumes otherwise that does not predict the existence of a system that we haven't yet observed. One has to make a risk-cost decision either way on imperfect information, and I think the more consistent and conservative theory and its associated greater costs is the more optimal decision. > Old theories don't still hold > They are still useful in limated scope On the other hand, it is usually more likely that phenomena predicted after a paradigm shift have more limited application, due to the principle that more inaccessible phenomena are more difficult to exploit. Even with the paradigm shift, it only gives us more accurate predictions about phenomena that we already have, agreeing with it to a large degree in most human-experience aspects. Consider that quantum mechanics see less application than newtonian mechanics. The old theory still holds in most situations indeed, whereas quantum theory requires an intractable amount of computation to obtain predictions. Quantum chemistry see less application than traditional models of chemistry. Similarly, any new findings on climate change solutions are very likely to be tougher to exploit than current solutions. So I do not think it is rational to wait for a technological hail mary. > you have to live by that framing then it all falls apart. You have hundreds of millions of people if not billions who would do anything to become just a fraction as rich as you and me and do not care one ounce about their climate footprint and what you consider immoral I think I have given sufficient examples that disagree with what you are saying. With respect to less prosperous communities, it is often the case that they have a more collectivistic mindset and community and in fact live under more taboos. Consider superstitions, rituals, and religious dietary restrictions. Also consider the case of British society a couple centuries ago, where the aspirational class lived more prudishly than the upper class or the lower class, based on a certain idealistic gentility. > That's actually not even close to true which China is a pretty clear example of. I don't know which aspect of the Chinese economy you are referring to. The electronics part, where there is no lack of signal from the countries it exports to, or its investment in green tech, in which case we may consider the Govt. one disproportionately strong actor in collective signalling.

jhanschoo 8y ago

> So there are all sorts of reasons not to just take anything by these organisations even if you agree that there is a problem and that the climate is changing. In other words you don't have to become a climate catastrophist just because you agree that climate is always going to be challenge to humans. Nevertheless, these climate claims are consistent with what I know to be true: that ecologies collapse when there is a great change in temperature (even when geology is similar), that carbon is a greenhouse gas, that we are emitting it at an unprecedented scale, and that carbon in the biosphere is conserved. I haven't seen a compelling model that assumes otherwise that does not predict the existence of a system that we haven't yet observed. One has to make a risk-cost decision either way on imperfect information, and I think the more consistent and conservative theory and its associated greater costs is the more optimal decision. > Old theories don't still hold > They are still useful in limated scope On the other hand, it is usually more likely that phenomena predicted after a paradigm shift have more limited application, due to the principle that more inaccessible phenomena are more difficult to exploit. Even with the paradigm shift, it only gives us more accurate predictions about phenomena that we already have, agreeing with it to a large degree in most human-experience aspects. Consider that quantum mechanics see less application than newtonian mechanics. The old theory still holds in most situations indeed, whereas quantum theory requires an intractable amount of computation to obtain predictions. Quantum chemistry see less application than traditional models of chemistry. Similarly, any new findings on climate change solutions are very likely to be tougher to exploit than current solutions. So I do not think it is rational to wait for a technological hail mary. > you have to live by that framing then it all falls apart. You have hundreds of millions of people if not billions who would do anything to become just a fraction as rich as you and me and do not care one ounce about their climate footprint and what you consider immoral I think I have given sufficient examples that disagree with what you are saying. With respect to less prosperous communities, it is often the case that they have a more collectivistic mindset and community and in fact live under more taboos. Consider superstitions, rituals, and religious dietary restrictions. Also consider the case of British society a couple centuries ago, where the aspirational class lived more prudishly than the upper class or the lower class, based on a certain idealistic gentility. > That's actually not even close to true which China is a pretty clear example of. I don't know which aspect of the Chinese economy you are referring to. The electronics part, where there is no lack of signal from the countries it exports to, or its investment in green tech, in which case we may consider the Govt. one disproportionately strong actor in collective signalling.