5 ms·

I'd like to say politics could be avoided on this but not knowing anything about the science, historical stats, etc I've always had a simple nagging question on

I'd like to say politics could be avoided on this but not knowing anything about the science, historical stats, etc I've always had a simple nagging question on this issue that hopefully someone can help me understand. Elementary school science classes teach basic cause and effect. My question is: How is it possible the planet can be billions of years old, then all of a sudden we discover fossil fuels in the past few hundreds years and start extracting and burning them at incredible rates, releasing them into the atmosphere. Isn't it safe to assume there would be a basic cause-effect relationship here with /some/ kind of consequence? It just strikes me as a "no free lunch" scenario - I don't fundamentally understand how you could all of a sudden start burning all of this stuff and argue against there being negative effects for the overall atmosphere, ecosystem, etc. Can someone help me understand how/why this wouldn't be the case?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
No one can because it's clearly not true. The only people arguing it isn't true are the various think tanks, foundations, coalitions, online PR bots, and the rest funded by the fossil fuel industry - working to persuade those who don't understand the issue, but are sure their opinion is very important. Atmospheric CO2 science has been researched since the 19th century. In the 70s Exxon/Mobil had its own climate scientists making shockingly accurate predictions of what would happen. The IPCC climate change models - produced from 1990 onwards - have usually been conservative. That is the objective reality. Everything else is spin, FUD, and noise. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...
- majesticglue 3y ago
  those think tanks really did a number. the climate denialists, have made moving goal of going from denial to climate change is not man made. The amount of americans who can't stand that fact that they were wrong on the matter is incredible.
- zackees 3y ago
  [dead]
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Why are weather stations even still a meme in these discussions? I used satellite surface temperature data nearly 20 years ago, it wasn't novel even then.
    - revelio 3y ago
      Because governments announce new "records" based on single thermometers that are located on the tarmac of airports, at the moment that jet fighters are landing.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        Guess which bit of the planet the aforementioned satellite temperature data I used was? Not many airports in the oceans. Satellites covered everything, of course, but I was working with marine biologists at the time. Now, do you want to try again, this time with an argument that isn't so trivial to dismiss with the stuff I did 20 years ago in the middle of my degree?
        revelio 3y ago
        But we're not talking about what you, random HN poster, did twenty years ago. You asked, "Why are weather stations even still a meme in these discussions?" and the answer is "because governments keep announcing records based on them". Why would they not be a "meme" in this discussion, given that fact? If governments didn't use data from weather stations anymore for climatological purposes, indeed, discussion of them would eventually disappear. They will never do that because satellite data only goes back to the early 1970s and they want to talk about trends longer than that, therefore, weather stations will remain a meme. So there's nothing to try again here. Your question was answered correctly the first time.
        3y ago
nerdchum 3y ago
Everyone is so sensational about climate change but never looks at Earth's history. Were at the tail end of an ice age. For most of Earth's history, there were no polar ice caps. For 400 out of 500 million years the earth was warmer than it is now. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte... https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_620_original_image/public/graph-from-scott-wing-620px.png?itok=Jgi659bn https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_widt...
- ShellfishMeme 3y ago
  The earth is 4.5 billion years old so I don't understand what you mean with "400 out of 500 million years". Also for a lot of that time earth was a hellishly hot place with little life.
  - nerdchum 3y ago
    The past 500 million years have been rich with life.
- austinjp 3y ago
  That's disingenuous misdirection. The current change is a threat to humanity of our own making.
  - nerdchum 3y ago
    > threat to humanity of our own making. How? Do you have concrete examples or just fear based conjecture?
ldehaan 3y ago
[dead]
nojvek 3y ago
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m This book goes into good detail in human population growth, growth in energy use, and growth in use of coal, oil and other energy sources. Highly recommended. Lots of stats, charts and math. It’s not about climate change, the book is about understanding human growth and energy (across its various forms) and their implications.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

No one can because it's clearly not true. The only people arguing it isn't true are the various think tanks, foundations, coalitions, online PR bots, and the rest funded by the fossil fuel industry - working to persuade those who don't understand the issue, but are sure their opinion is very important. Atmospheric CO2 science has been researched since the 19th century. In the 70s Exxon/Mobil had its own climate scientists making shockingly accurate predictions of what would happen. The IPCC climate change models - produced from 1990 onwards - have usually been conservative. That is the objective reality. Everything else is spin, FUD, and noise. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...

majesticglue 3y ago
those think tanks really did a number. the climate denialists, have made moving goal of going from denial to climate change is not man made. The amount of americans who can't stand that fact that they were wrong on the matter is incredible.
zackees 3y ago
[dead]
- ben_w 3y ago
  Why are weather stations even still a meme in these discussions? I used satellite surface temperature data nearly 20 years ago, it wasn't novel even then.
  - revelio 3y ago
    Because governments announce new "records" based on single thermometers that are located on the tarmac of airports, at the moment that jet fighters are landing.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Guess which bit of the planet the aforementioned satellite temperature data I used was? Not many airports in the oceans. Satellites covered everything, of course, but I was working with marine biologists at the time. Now, do you want to try again, this time with an argument that isn't so trivial to dismiss with the stuff I did 20 years ago in the middle of my degree?
      - revelio 3y ago
        But we're not talking about what you, random HN poster, did twenty years ago. You asked, "Why are weather stations even still a meme in these discussions?" and the answer is "because governments keep announcing records based on them". Why would they not be a "meme" in this discussion, given that fact? If governments didn't use data from weather stations anymore for climatological purposes, indeed, discussion of them would eventually disappear. They will never do that because satellite data only goes back to the early 1970s and they want to talk about trends longer than that, therefore, weather stations will remain a meme. So there's nothing to try again here. Your question was answered correctly the first time.
        3y ago

nerdchum 3y ago

Everyone is so sensational about climate change but never looks at Earth's history. Were at the tail end of an ice age. For most of Earth's history, there were no polar ice caps. For 400 out of 500 million years the earth was warmer than it is now. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte... https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_620_original_image/public/graph-from-scott-wing-620px.png?itok=Jgi659bn https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_widt...

ShellfishMeme 3y ago
The earth is 4.5 billion years old so I don't understand what you mean with "400 out of 500 million years". Also for a lot of that time earth was a hellishly hot place with little life.
- nerdchum 3y ago
  The past 500 million years have been rich with life.
austinjp 3y ago
That's disingenuous misdirection. The current change is a threat to humanity of our own making.
- nerdchum 3y ago
  > threat to humanity of our own making. How? Do you have concrete examples or just fear based conjecture?

ldehaan 3y ago

[dead]

nojvek 3y ago

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m This book goes into good detail in human population growth, growth in energy use, and growth in use of coal, oil and other energy sources. Highly recommended. Lots of stats, charts and math. It’s not about climate change, the book is about understanding human growth and energy (across its various forms) and their implications.