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I don't get why climate change is disputed. It's obvious that as society grows, we have increase CO2 output through record levels of burning fossil fuels. > En

I don't get why climate change is disputed. It's obvious that as society grows, we have increase CO2 output through record levels of burning fossil fuels. > Energy arrives from the sun in the form of visible light and ultraviolet radiation. The Earth then emits some of this energy as infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere 'capture' some of this heat, then re-emit it in all directions - including back to the Earth's surface. https://skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm https://skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enha...

ilikehurdles 7y ago
Because energy companies and "free market"/"prosperity" thinktank lobbying groups dump a ton of resources into getting politicians and media moguls to broadcast well-known lies. It was never an organic movement.
- smichael 7y ago
  The https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled podcast is a great primer on this.
starbugs 7y ago
It's a hard sell. It's devastating to think about, very negative, and it almost always means that people need to quit doing things they've come to love. It's like trying to get someone who's addicted off their drugs and telling them that even if they are successful with quitting, it won't protect them unless all others stop doing drugs simultaneously.
- eropple 7y ago
  It's worse than things they've come to love. It's things they think are normal and necessary.
  - adnzzzzZ 7y ago
    How are they not normal and necessary? Are you willing to give up electricity for 6 hours of your day to combat climate change? I think most people aren't willing to do that. If you were to take the problem seriously you'd need to start doing things like that and no one wants for their quality of life to decrease that much.
    - eropple 7y ago
      "No electricity for six hours a day" at an individual/consumer level is not the solution and obviously never will be even if the math lined up. Think economically, not individually. Commuting is normal but it is not necessary. Suburban and rural living at consistent standards of living (necessarily higher-consumption factors due to diseconomies of scale) are not necessary. You're right in that people won't do it, but that doesn't make it necessary. And I'm putting enough solar on my roof to run the house and charge my in-the-near-future EV, so, yeah...
      - starbugs 7y ago
        This discussion reflects an additional problem. There is no agreement about the solution. Try selling people a problem without a solution. Good luck!
        user5994461 7y ago
        There are plenty of solutions, but none that people would willingly participate in. If you can't think of something, ask Thanos ;)
        starbugs 7y ago
        So there are — effectively — none. And even the hypothetical solutions nobody wants to commit to are being disputed in the style you can witness above.
      - maximente 7y ago
dx87 7y ago
Some people are just super stubborn about it because they don't want to be wrong. I used to work with a guy who said climate change wasn't real, then after about a year of being the only person at work with that viewpoint, he accepted that it was real, but with the caveat that it's a good thing. He said that man-made global warming was going to help hold off the next ice age, so warming the planet now will pre-emptively save lives in the future. That makes no sense though, because we're experiencing extreme weather and mass extinction right now, and the next ice age isn't supposed to happen for over a thousand years.
jcranmer 7y ago
Some of the most extreme assertions about climate change are strongly disputable or outright wrong (for example, even the current high-end estimates wouldn't set records for Earth's temperature--merely the hottest in the Quaternary). It's not hard for many people to go from "this theory is partially wrong" to "there is no validity anywhere in the theory."

ilikehurdles 7y ago

Because energy companies and "free market"/"prosperity" thinktank lobbying groups dump a ton of resources into getting politicians and media moguls to broadcast well-known lies. It was never an organic movement.

smichael 7y ago
The https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled https://www.criticalfrequency.org/drilled podcast is a great primer on this.

starbugs 7y ago

It's a hard sell. It's devastating to think about, very negative, and it almost always means that people need to quit doing things they've come to love. It's like trying to get someone who's addicted off their drugs and telling them that even if they are successful with quitting, it won't protect them unless all others stop doing drugs simultaneously.

eropple 7y ago
It's worse than things they've come to love. It's things they think are normal and necessary.
- adnzzzzZ 7y ago
  How are they not normal and necessary? Are you willing to give up electricity for 6 hours of your day to combat climate change? I think most people aren't willing to do that. If you were to take the problem seriously you'd need to start doing things like that and no one wants for their quality of life to decrease that much.
  - eropple 7y ago
    "No electricity for six hours a day" at an individual/consumer level is not the solution and obviously never will be even if the math lined up. Think economically, not individually. Commuting is normal but it is not necessary. Suburban and rural living at consistent standards of living (necessarily higher-consumption factors due to diseconomies of scale) are not necessary. You're right in that people won't do it, but that doesn't make it necessary. And I'm putting enough solar on my roof to run the house and charge my in-the-near-future EV, so, yeah...
    - starbugs 7y ago
      This discussion reflects an additional problem. There is no agreement about the solution. Try selling people a problem without a solution. Good luck!
      - user5994461 7y ago
        There are plenty of solutions, but none that people would willingly participate in. If you can't think of something, ask Thanos ;)
        starbugs 7y ago
        So there are — effectively — none. And even the hypothetical solutions nobody wants to commit to are being disputed in the style you can witness above.
    - maximente 7y ago

dx87 7y ago

Some people are just super stubborn about it because they don't want to be wrong. I used to work with a guy who said climate change wasn't real, then after about a year of being the only person at work with that viewpoint, he accepted that it was real, but with the caveat that it's a good thing. He said that man-made global warming was going to help hold off the next ice age, so warming the planet now will pre-emptively save lives in the future. That makes no sense though, because we're experiencing extreme weather and mass extinction right now, and the next ice age isn't supposed to happen for over a thousand years.

jcranmer 7y ago

Some of the most extreme assertions about climate change are strongly disputable or outright wrong (for example, even the current high-end estimates wouldn't set records for Earth's temperature--merely the hottest in the Quaternary). It's not hard for many people to go from "this theory is partially wrong" to "there is no validity anywhere in the theory."