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> Or trigger HN spam flags from the succession of low karma deniers with "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records ba

> Or trigger HN spam flags from the succession of low karma deniers with "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" zero substance comments. > Which is a bit sad as it's one of the few places online I'd have hoped for a more engaging and productive discussion of the topic. How can you have a productive discussion when you immediately dismiss anyone who questions things as "low karma deniers"? Any meaningful discussion should start with addressing: "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" since they're very relevant points.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Except they're not relevant. I could understand someone in the 1980s and 1990s raising those in good faith, through poor understanding, before high general awareness. Just as I could understand someone raising points around fatty food and obesity in the same era. At least climate, unlike fat in food, hasn't had an entire irrelevant and possibly harmful industry spring up based on that FUD. Today, it isn't meaningful, it's just a distraction tactic to dilute and spread doubt. The most charitable interpretation of someone raising such points as today is they have got their terrible "understanding" from the most biased, disingenuous sources created and promoted by those with an agenda. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/23/harvard-scientists-took-exxons-challenge-found-it-using-the-tobacco-playbook https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...
- malvosenior 7y ago
  I mean they’re common sense no? If they are so obviously false or irrelevant then maybe you could address them. Calling people who come at this rationally “disingenuous” does nothing to further your argument. Every time an article headline states "Hottest Temperature Ever!" I just round file it. The earth was a molten ball of lava at some point, it's obviously hyperbole meant to prey on people's fears. What they maybe mean is "Hottest Temperature In The 100 Years We've Been Keeping Accurate Records". That's an article I would read. Humans have lived through multiple ice ages. The climate changes; regularly and drastically. Humans have always survived and I'm sure we'll continue to survive. I don't see anyone fretting about building an anti-asteroid system or talking about super volcanoes (both of which pose a much larger existential threat to humanity). I don't know how old you are, but for my entire life (and for a long time before that) people have been saying that the world is going to end for one reason or another. At some point you learn the signs of hype and just tune them out. Dishonest headlines and arguments are the #1 sign.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    I called the source disingenuous, not the person reading it. The "science" produced to an agenda and budget from Exxon or some thinktank who are also oil or politically funded - yet claim independence by lies and obfuscation. I hope at some point soon it's made illegal with heavy sentence - regardless of political or financial stance - or requires clear enough disclosure of interests they cannot weasel out of. If you round file some temperature headline that doesn't extend with precision the frame of reference, well that surely means you read no mainstream media on any topic as it encompasses them all - politics, sport, tech, climate, international relations, crime. Everything. I credit you, and most readers, with enough intelligence to know "hottest temperature ever" implies hottest temperature on record not hottest temperature since creation or some arbitrary historic era. They can do it with politics and business easily enough. I'm in my late fifties - climate is the first existential threat that has the credibility of scientific support, and repeated evidence from numerous indicators that are coming at accelerated rate. It's been undertood in varying degree and known for years. Cold War was never that. In fact for most people, most of the time, Bay of Pigs and missile crisis excluded, it was a complete non-event. Previous mis-reported headlines of some scientific finding or discovering cold fusion were never that. Media is bad at science, water is wet, news at 11. Asteroids and super-volcanoes? First let's quantify the risk - that right now seems vanishingly small. Climate is unrecognisable compared to my childhood and twenties, or my parents and grandparents descriptions of their youth in the early 20th C. Species and habitat loss is having weekly consequences. TL;DR it's the first credible existential threat in my entire life or in any of the periods of history I've read.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Except they're not relevant. I could understand someone in the 1980s and 1990s raising those in good faith, through poor understanding, before high general awareness. Just as I could understand someone raising points around fatty food and obesity in the same era. At least climate, unlike fat in food, hasn't had an entire irrelevant and possibly harmful industry spring up based on that FUD. Today, it isn't meaningful, it's just a distraction tactic to dilute and spread doubt. The most charitable interpretation of someone raising such points as today is they have got their terrible "understanding" from the most biased, disingenuous sources created and promoted by those with an agenda. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/23/harvard-scientists-took-exxons-challenge-found-it-using-the-tobacco-playbook https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

malvosenior 7y ago
I mean they’re common sense no? If they are so obviously false or irrelevant then maybe you could address them. Calling people who come at this rationally “disingenuous” does nothing to further your argument. Every time an article headline states "Hottest Temperature Ever!" I just round file it. The earth was a molten ball of lava at some point, it's obviously hyperbole meant to prey on people's fears. What they maybe mean is "Hottest Temperature In The 100 Years We've Been Keeping Accurate Records". That's an article I would read. Humans have lived through multiple ice ages. The climate changes; regularly and drastically. Humans have always survived and I'm sure we'll continue to survive. I don't see anyone fretting about building an anti-asteroid system or talking about super volcanoes (both of which pose a much larger existential threat to humanity). I don't know how old you are, but for my entire life (and for a long time before that) people have been saying that the world is going to end for one reason or another. At some point you learn the signs of hype and just tune them out. Dishonest headlines and arguments are the #1 sign.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  I called the source disingenuous, not the person reading it. The "science" produced to an agenda and budget from Exxon or some thinktank who are also oil or politically funded - yet claim independence by lies and obfuscation. I hope at some point soon it's made illegal with heavy sentence - regardless of political or financial stance - or requires clear enough disclosure of interests they cannot weasel out of. If you round file some temperature headline that doesn't extend with precision the frame of reference, well that surely means you read no mainstream media on any topic as it encompasses them all - politics, sport, tech, climate, international relations, crime. Everything. I credit you, and most readers, with enough intelligence to know "hottest temperature ever" implies hottest temperature on record not hottest temperature since creation or some arbitrary historic era. They can do it with politics and business easily enough. I'm in my late fifties - climate is the first existential threat that has the credibility of scientific support, and repeated evidence from numerous indicators that are coming at accelerated rate. It's been undertood in varying degree and known for years. Cold War was never that. In fact for most people, most of the time, Bay of Pigs and missile crisis excluded, it was a complete non-event. Previous mis-reported headlines of some scientific finding or discovering cold fusion were never that. Media is bad at science, water is wet, news at 11. Asteroids and super-volcanoes? First let's quantify the risk - that right now seems vanishingly small. Climate is unrecognisable compared to my childhood and twenties, or my parents and grandparents descriptions of their youth in the early 20th C. Species and habitat loss is having weekly consequences. TL;DR it's the first credible existential threat in my entire life or in any of the periods of history I've read.