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This is the same argument that has been used for decades and centuries to worry about population explosion, though. Was that mere book selling? We've now seen a

This is the same argument that has been used for decades and centuries to worry about population explosion, though. Was that mere book selling? We've now seen a trend of below replacement in places like Japan lasting for decades now, and they've luckily been able to change their society to be more welcoming to immigrants in order to compensate, but that only works if there are countries with higher birth rates to compensate.

EGreg 8y ago
Or climate change? (Ducks) PS: I realize now that people downvote not based on the content of the post or the argument but based on whether they don’t think the argument should be made because they dont like the conclusion.
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  No, climate change was predicted well before a temperature change was observed (i.e. over 100 years ago), and it was based on the fact that the world burns enormous amounts of coal and the fact that CO2 has a certain infrared absorption spectrum. It was a prediction based on basic physics before an empirical observation of the global result was seen. But there is something analogous: look at birthrates, and you have a pretty good idea about which direction the population will trend to within a few decades. It's a pretty straightforward, fundamental relationship.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    Right, but like all things it ignores other variables, such as for example the sun going into a cooler period or the gulfstream or el nino changing. Obviously the former is global while the latter likely won’t counteract the warming effect much. But it’s extrapolating based on the assumption that we know there won’t be any other mechanisms — feedback, collapse, new phenomena being activated by this like the growing of new phytoplankton-like organisms or trees outside human habitats which automatically sequester trillions of tons of carbon back) https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-globe-greener/article26147272/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-gl... https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-carbon-into-atmosphere-than-expected https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-c... We can’t do it ourselves: https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-cant-save-us-2017-5?utm_content=buffer367e0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-biuk&r=UK&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-c... And https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161435.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161435.h... I happen to think that the extrapolation is going to closely approximate what will actually happen, but I could be wrong.
    - ggggtez 8y ago
      I think your understand of the issue is a bit fuzzy. For example, the business insider article seems to imply that we can't "plant our way out" using trees. But you interpret this to mean "we can't do it ourselves". But no one ever said planting trees is the only thing we can do to stop climate change. We can also: change our crop and animal yields, use less fossil fuels, etc. Same thing with the arizona article about dead forests releasing less CO2 than expected. That isn't to say that they don't release any. And it also isn't to say that live ones release more (live trees consume CO2 and produce O2, if you recall). That article is from 2013, so any climate scientist is going to already be using those findings in their models, so it's ridiculous to assume that a 6 year old article with a minor tweak to a variable means that today's cutting edge scientists are uninformed. [edit] I'm not even gonna touch the thing about the "cold sun" conspiracy. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-nasa-data-conspiracy-theory-and-the-cold-sun/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-na...
      - EGreg 8y ago
        I’m saying climate scientists were missing a lot 6 years ago and 30 years ago, and it’s unreasonable to expect that exactly now they finally are “totally informed”. There are tons of external factors and it’s hubris to think the map is the territory when it comes to such a complex system as the entire planet! Or how about the entire solar system... I am not talking any conspiracies. I am saying our global warming may in useful and actually happen to coincide with a cooling period by the sun: https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/sun-is-likely-to-cool-down-causing-a-mini-ice-age-on-earth-1167580-2018-02-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs... https://www.livescience.com/61716-sun-cooling-global-warming.html https://www.livescience.com/61716-sun-cooling-global-warming... Stop assuming the worst of your discussion partners :) And of course the above headlines ard also hubris because we don’t even know if the sun dimmed a lot or if that was the main cause of the little ice age: Foukal emphasized this dimming might not have been the only or even main cause of the cooling seen during the little ice age. "There were also strong volcanic effects involved — something like 17 huge volcanic eruptions then," he said. I prefer to talk about CO2 pollution as a pollution problem, to avoid exactly this argument about temperature predictions.
- ggggtez 8y ago
  I downed this because you posted 4 words with no thought or reasoning behind it. The lack of thought and self awareness that this is a discussion forum, not Reddit, is why this is downvoted.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    The reasoning was provided by the previous comment, mine was that it can apply to climate change, a much more accepted theory

EGreg 8y ago

Or climate change? (Ducks) PS: I realize now that people downvote not based on the content of the post or the argument but based on whether they don’t think the argument should be made because they dont like the conclusion.

Robotbeat 8y ago
No, climate change was predicted well before a temperature change was observed (i.e. over 100 years ago), and it was based on the fact that the world burns enormous amounts of coal and the fact that CO2 has a certain infrared absorption spectrum. It was a prediction based on basic physics before an empirical observation of the global result was seen. But there is something analogous: look at birthrates, and you have a pretty good idea about which direction the population will trend to within a few decades. It's a pretty straightforward, fundamental relationship.
- EGreg 8y ago
  Right, but like all things it ignores other variables, such as for example the sun going into a cooler period or the gulfstream or el nino changing. Obviously the former is global while the latter likely won’t counteract the warming effect much. But it’s extrapolating based on the assumption that we know there won’t be any other mechanisms — feedback, collapse, new phenomena being activated by this like the growing of new phytoplankton-like organisms or trees outside human habitats which automatically sequester trillions of tons of carbon back) https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-globe-greener/article26147272/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-gl... https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-carbon-into-atmosphere-than-expected https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-c... We can’t do it ourselves: https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-cant-save-us-2017-5?utm_content=buffer367e0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-biuk&r=UK&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-c... And https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161435.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161435.h... I happen to think that the extrapolation is going to closely approximate what will actually happen, but I could be wrong.
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    I think your understand of the issue is a bit fuzzy. For example, the business insider article seems to imply that we can't "plant our way out" using trees. But you interpret this to mean "we can't do it ourselves". But no one ever said planting trees is the only thing we can do to stop climate change. We can also: change our crop and animal yields, use less fossil fuels, etc. Same thing with the arizona article about dead forests releasing less CO2 than expected. That isn't to say that they don't release any. And it also isn't to say that live ones release more (live trees consume CO2 and produce O2, if you recall). That article is from 2013, so any climate scientist is going to already be using those findings in their models, so it's ridiculous to assume that a 6 year old article with a minor tweak to a variable means that today's cutting edge scientists are uninformed. [edit] I'm not even gonna touch the thing about the "cold sun" conspiracy. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-nasa-data-conspiracy-theory-and-the-cold-sun/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/the-na...
    - EGreg 8y ago
      I’m saying climate scientists were missing a lot 6 years ago and 30 years ago, and it’s unreasonable to expect that exactly now they finally are “totally informed”. There are tons of external factors and it’s hubris to think the map is the territory when it comes to such a complex system as the entire planet! Or how about the entire solar system... I am not talking any conspiracies. I am saying our global warming may in useful and actually happen to coincide with a cooling period by the sun: https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/sun-is-likely-to-cool-down-causing-a-mini-ice-age-on-earth-1167580-2018-02-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs... https://www.livescience.com/61716-sun-cooling-global-warming.html https://www.livescience.com/61716-sun-cooling-global-warming... Stop assuming the worst of your discussion partners :) And of course the above headlines ard also hubris because we don’t even know if the sun dimmed a lot or if that was the main cause of the little ice age: Foukal emphasized this dimming might not have been the only or even main cause of the cooling seen during the little ice age. "There were also strong volcanic effects involved — something like 17 huge volcanic eruptions then," he said. I prefer to talk about CO2 pollution as a pollution problem, to avoid exactly this argument about temperature predictions.
ggggtez 8y ago
I downed this because you posted 4 words with no thought or reasoning behind it. The lack of thought and self awareness that this is a discussion forum, not Reddit, is why this is downvoted.
- EGreg 8y ago
  The reasoning was provided by the previous comment, mine was that it can apply to climate change, a much more accepted theory