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Is there any irony in observing the fickle preferences of man in regards to geoengineering? Perhaps our understanding is more limited than some are willing to a

Is there any irony in observing the fickle preferences of man in regards to geoengineering? Perhaps our understanding is more limited than some are willing to admit. 63 years ago, there was a push to warm the arctic. In 1978, doomsayers predicted a new ice age. For all of the predictions of apocalypse, none have materialized. However, throughout history fear has been a powerful tool for motivating and manipulating the public. "Ice Age 1978 Leonard Nimoy" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAYXQPWdC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAYXQPWdC0 "List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...

dTal 5y ago
Of "man"? Your language is as outmoded as your disbelief in anthropogenic climate change.
- hardlianotion 5y ago
  I don't think parent is blaming women
ceejayoz 5y ago
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/05/manipulated-time-cover-on-climate-recirculates/ https://www.factcheck.org/2019/05/manipulated-time-cover-on-... > We’ll again refer to the 2008 study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society that found there was not a scientific consensus in the 1970s on the cooling idea. The authors, by surveying the peer-reviewed literature between 1965 and 1979, found quite the opposite.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Fact check sites like the one you listed will increase their stature when they acknowledge that science is not a process of consensus. I look forward to reading a "fact check" site which "debunks" this ridiculous turn of phrase. Even if we accepted this misnomer in your quote, we can easily observe that "scientific consensus" has shifted throughout history. >(00:12:30) The climatic record in these deep sea cores tells us that there have been eight ice ages in the last 700,000 years. It also tells us when they have occurred. This provides us with a test of various theories of the ice ages. We now have a theory that tells us that changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit act as a pacemaker for the ice age succession. Since this theory can precisely predict when ice ages occured in the past, it also can predict when ice ages will occur in the future. From this theory we can say with confidence that we are currently heading towards another ice age. Dr. James D. Hays https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%20et%2076%20Science%20194-1121.pdf https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%2...
  - Infernal 5y ago
    https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%20et%2076%20Science%20194-1121.pdf https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%2... Somehow, your link was missing a hyphen.
    - aww_dang 5y ago
      Thank you.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > Fact check sites like the one you listed will increase their stature when they acknowledge that science is not a process of consensus. Science is absolutely about consensus. Being right is entirely meaningless if you can't produce enough evidence to convince others of your rightness. There's a very significant difference between "basically everyone in the field agrees there's enough evidence for X" and "one guy advocates X".
    - aww_dang 5y ago
      I'd describe a consensus as a political event, not a scientific one.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        Sure, and if you get enough of a consensus for that definition change, that'll be meaningful.
      - bumby 5y ago
        Shouldn’t consensus in policy be led by science rather than rigid dogma? “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” -Keynes Science is about understanding the facts that inform policy.
        aww_dang 5y ago
        The question frames a false alternative in 'rigid dogma'. In a generous interpretation, I'd say that this line of reasoning quickly devolves into a chicken and egg scenario. 1) I changed my mind about the facts. 2) I declare that the facts have changed. 3) You must also change your mind or else I'll accuse you of adhering to dogma. 4) My view is now more popular. It is the prevailing dogma. You're against the consensus if you disagree with my "facts". The word "Facts" does heavy lifting here. Ultimately, facts can't make any assertions, only humans can. At the core of Scientism, there's always a presumptuous attempt to lay claim to objective truth. Science becomes a dogma and belief rather than a method of investigation.
dathinab 5y ago
None of them had anywhere the level "scientific consensus" on the topic as climate change has. In difference to that, we now have a scientific consensus and while there is a lot discussion about many details there is pretty much an agreement on: - it's a lot of warming - it's coming way to fast - it's man made - it already started - the consequences if we don't change the current trajectory will be bad, very very bad Doesn't mean it's an apocalypse and maybe the thread to the survival of humanity was larger during the cold war (not that ware aren't somewhat at the beginning of a new cold war), but then the a cold war can be resolved by everyone agreeing to not do anything. Climate change needs everyone to do something (change their power production and potential even living style). Which is bad, because people are better at not acting then they are at acting when it comes to hard decisions.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Yes, that's one of the possibilities here. However the point of the comment and what the article illustrates in my view, is that these grand projects can turnout to be horribly misguided in retrospect. And you may say to that, "but this time is different, because..." >None of them had anywhere the level "scientific consensus" on the topic as climate change has. Which is fine as far as that goes. However, consensuses have been wrong before, even when dressed in the pretenses of science. Cannabis prohibition would be a good example where research was exclusively funded to show the harms of cannabis. Today CBD is presented as a cure all. A common thread would be the underlying financial and political incentives for prohibition. Incentives matter. Another parallel might exist in the fear based promotion of prohibition. >Climate change needs everyone to do something... Yes, and as we examine the proposed solutions most of them revolve around new taxes and supranational bodies issuing currency in the form of "carbon indulgences" or "carbon credits". We are supposed to believe that those horrible oil companies have every incentive to distort the facts about the climate. Yet simultaneously we should also believe there are no malign incentives for or distortions surrounding the inverse. We should unquestioningly believe there are no ulterior motives for those who would appoint themselves to issue carbon credits, permission slips to consume energy needed by every human on Earth. That's a bit of a stretch, but it is possible. It is also possible that just like the proposed project in 1958, which was imagined as a boon for the Siberian region, future geoengineering projects will also have unanticipated dangers. It looked good at the time, just like the drug war looked good at one time. Today the climate agenda and geoengineering looks appealing to many. Maybe not. Maybe we don't know as much as we think we know?

dTal 5y ago

Of "man"? Your language is as outmoded as your disbelief in anthropogenic climate change.

hardlianotion 5y ago
I don't think parent is blaming women

ceejayoz 5y ago

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/05/manipulated-time-cover-on-climate-recirculates/ https://www.factcheck.org/2019/05/manipulated-time-cover-on-... > We’ll again refer to the 2008 study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society that found there was not a scientific consensus in the 1970s on the cooling idea. The authors, by surveying the peer-reviewed literature between 1965 and 1979, found quite the opposite.

aww_dang 5y ago
Fact check sites like the one you listed will increase their stature when they acknowledge that science is not a process of consensus. I look forward to reading a "fact check" site which "debunks" this ridiculous turn of phrase. Even if we accepted this misnomer in your quote, we can easily observe that "scientific consensus" has shifted throughout history. >(00:12:30) The climatic record in these deep sea cores tells us that there have been eight ice ages in the last 700,000 years. It also tells us when they have occurred. This provides us with a test of various theories of the ice ages. We now have a theory that tells us that changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit act as a pacemaker for the ice age succession. Since this theory can precisely predict when ice ages occured in the past, it also can predict when ice ages will occur in the future. From this theory we can say with confidence that we are currently heading towards another ice age. Dr. James D. Hays https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%20et%2076%20Science%20194-1121.pdf https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%2...
- Infernal 5y ago
  https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%20et%2076%20Science%20194-1121.pdf https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_206/09-0303/Hays%2... Somehow, your link was missing a hyphen.
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    Thank you.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > Fact check sites like the one you listed will increase their stature when they acknowledge that science is not a process of consensus. Science is absolutely about consensus. Being right is entirely meaningless if you can't produce enough evidence to convince others of your rightness. There's a very significant difference between "basically everyone in the field agrees there's enough evidence for X" and "one guy advocates X".
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    I'd describe a consensus as a political event, not a scientific one.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Sure, and if you get enough of a consensus for that definition change, that'll be meaningful.
    - bumby 5y ago
      Shouldn’t consensus in policy be led by science rather than rigid dogma? “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” -Keynes Science is about understanding the facts that inform policy.
      - aww_dang 5y ago
        The question frames a false alternative in 'rigid dogma'. In a generous interpretation, I'd say that this line of reasoning quickly devolves into a chicken and egg scenario. 1) I changed my mind about the facts. 2) I declare that the facts have changed. 3) You must also change your mind or else I'll accuse you of adhering to dogma. 4) My view is now more popular. It is the prevailing dogma. You're against the consensus if you disagree with my "facts". The word "Facts" does heavy lifting here. Ultimately, facts can't make any assertions, only humans can. At the core of Scientism, there's always a presumptuous attempt to lay claim to objective truth. Science becomes a dogma and belief rather than a method of investigation.

dathinab 5y ago

None of them had anywhere the level "scientific consensus" on the topic as climate change has. In difference to that, we now have a scientific consensus and while there is a lot discussion about many details there is pretty much an agreement on: - it's a lot of warming - it's coming way to fast - it's man made - it already started - the consequences if we don't change the current trajectory will be bad, very very bad Doesn't mean it's an apocalypse and maybe the thread to the survival of humanity was larger during the cold war (not that ware aren't somewhat at the beginning of a new cold war), but then the a cold war can be resolved by everyone agreeing to not do anything. Climate change needs everyone to do something (change their power production and potential even living style). Which is bad, because people are better at not acting then they are at acting when it comes to hard decisions.

aww_dang 5y ago
Yes, that's one of the possibilities here. However the point of the comment and what the article illustrates in my view, is that these grand projects can turnout to be horribly misguided in retrospect. And you may say to that, "but this time is different, because..." >None of them had anywhere the level "scientific consensus" on the topic as climate change has. Which is fine as far as that goes. However, consensuses have been wrong before, even when dressed in the pretenses of science. Cannabis prohibition would be a good example where research was exclusively funded to show the harms of cannabis. Today CBD is presented as a cure all. A common thread would be the underlying financial and political incentives for prohibition. Incentives matter. Another parallel might exist in the fear based promotion of prohibition. >Climate change needs everyone to do something... Yes, and as we examine the proposed solutions most of them revolve around new taxes and supranational bodies issuing currency in the form of "carbon indulgences" or "carbon credits". We are supposed to believe that those horrible oil companies have every incentive to distort the facts about the climate. Yet simultaneously we should also believe there are no malign incentives for or distortions surrounding the inverse. We should unquestioningly believe there are no ulterior motives for those who would appoint themselves to issue carbon credits, permission slips to consume energy needed by every human on Earth. That's a bit of a stretch, but it is possible. It is also possible that just like the proposed project in 1958, which was imagined as a boon for the Siberian region, future geoengineering projects will also have unanticipated dangers. It looked good at the time, just like the drug war looked good at one time. Today the climate agenda and geoengineering looks appealing to many. Maybe not. Maybe we don't know as much as we think we know?