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You may find this resource useful: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the-ultimate-climate-change-faq http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the

by gmac 14y ago

You may find this resource useful: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the-ultimate-climate-change-faq http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the-ultimate-cl... In my view, the climate debate gets emotional because it's scary and upsetting to see so many people refusing to accept what is now essentially solid science, and in such a way that the future wellbeing of humanity (not to mention other species) is put at serious risk. It's probably also the case that those who have a vested interest in climate change denial (or 'scepticism') would like it to get emotional, because if you're arguing about emotions than nobody gets to be right.

rimantas 14y ago
> vested interest in climate change denial > (or 'scepticism') Just one more example. How about skepticism without quotes? Calling something solid science does not necessarily make it so. To me looks like climate is still much like nutrition: there is more guessing than science.
- gmac 14y ago
  There is certainly plenty of "here's a probability distribution, subject to caveats". There is also some radical uncertainty (unknown unknowns). However, I understand that the balance of evidence is that it is certainly worth doing significantly more than we are right now to mitigate climate change. This is particularly so since there are currently still some win-win options -- i.e., options where we gain however bad climate change is or isn't (e.g. energy efficiency, cutting fossil fuel subsidies). If you like, you can see this (in the non-win-win case) as a kind of insurance. I am not certain that my house is going to burn down -- in fact, I hope and trust that it's very unlikely. But I'm still more than happy to insure my house for a few hundred pounds a year to hedge against it.
  - nirvana 14y ago
    How would you feel about the argument that, while I can't prove god exists, you should give %30 of your income to the church anyway. IF there is no god, you've still helped the world by funding the spread of his word. And if there is a god, you've saved your soul? Ok, wait, that's not a correct analogy. It would be correct if I was advocating that men with guns go around and force you to give up %30 of your income to the church and saying that forcing you to do it was justified because its like insurance, right? If the policies that the IPCC etc. are advocating are put into place, one estimate I've seen is that 100 million people will be killed as a direct result in the next 20-50 years due to increased starvation worldwide. (and that this is a "conservative" number where it likely would be 1 billion.) "cutting fossil fuel subsidies" is dishonest, because fossil fuels are not subsidized, they are highly taxed, and increasing those taxes will hurt poor people the most by driving up food costs, increasing starvation... remember the IPCC et. al want to do this globally. But there might be a god, right? So its worth it that they should die, right? (Just putting your argument in a different context so you can see the shape of it. I don't think you really want people to die, you probably think you're advocating for the less death alternative... but since your position is not grounded in science, you're ending up doing what the USSR did. They thought they were making a better society (or claimed they were) but they rejected science (specifically economics) and advocated policies that caused starvation.)
    - Produce 14y ago
      >Ok, wait, that's not a correct analogy. It would be correct if I was advocating that men with guns go around and force you to give up %30 of your income to the church and saying that forcing you to do it was justified because its like insurance, right? You realise that you just described taxes, don't you?
nirvana 14y ago
Let me make it clear upfront: I'm responding to the issue of emotional talk about this issue, not trying to debate the science with you. --- The IR absorption of CO2 is less than that of water vapor, is it not? CO2 is rising while the planet is getting colder. The models have never shown to be predictive. Shouldn't a "solid science" be able to make even short term predictions? You say it is "essentially solid science" you do this instead of making an argument, or citing evidence to indicate that it is settled. I gave three quick ones above to indicate it isn't. But right after you say it is solid, you talk about the "wellbeing of humanity (not to mention other species) is put at serious risk". Is this not an appeal to emotionalism? ("You're going to die" is pretty emotional, isn't it?) You spent more words on that than you did even referencing a scientific argument. The thing I find perplexing-- and I'm not trying to argue the science here, merely pointing out the issue of emotionalism-- is that the first, and often, only, defense for AGW that I see from proponents is the claim that the science was settled (or "essentially solid" as you put it.) This was the claim 6 years ago. This was the claim 12 years ago. This was the claim the first time I'd ever heard the phrase "global warming". When did the debate happen that settled it, so that proponents of this scientific theory never seem to feel that they need to justify their belief in it, and can move right onto the "we're all in trouble" claims?
- gmac 14y ago
  This isn't the place, and I'm also not the person, to summarise the whole of climate science for you. That's why I provided a link to more information. Here's another: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide "You're going to die" -- or "you or your descendants stand a decent chance of living less happily and/or less long" -- is indeed pretty emotional. I'm afraid that's inevitable, and was part of the point I was making.
- saalweachter 14y ago
  Honestly, climate change was a bad way to go on the "we're all going to die" front. Ocean acidification is a much juicier target. As carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, more of it is dissolved in the oceans. As more carbon dioxide is dissolved in the oceans, the pH of the oceans drops and the acidity increases. And then everything in the ocean dies and then we all die. Well, the last couple of parts are extrapolation and up for argument, but the great thing about ocean acidification (so to speak) is that it's indisputable up to a point. We know we're increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and from there it is high school chemistry that the pH of the ocean will decrease by a certain amount. Granted, most of us didn't pay enough attention to high school chemistry to do the maths ourselves, but it's like two equations. From there the only question is how bad the rapid acidification of the oceans actually is. We know that corals are probably screwed, because the calcium carbonate reacts poorly to the acidification, but on the other hand the single-celled organisms are probably fine, just because they have tens of thousands of generations to react to the change. Everything in the middle is fair game. Oh, and ocean acidification is a much more rapid process than climate change, because it takes much less time for the ocean to reach a new equilibrium with the carbon in the atmosphere than the atmosphere to reach a new temperature equilibrium. (Recall that CO2 isn't supposed to increase temperatures directly, it increases the amount of heat retained in the atmosphere from year to year.) In my opinion, ocean acidification is a much better reason to worry about atmospheric CO2 than climate change

by gmac 14y ago

rimantas 14y ago

> vested interest in climate change denial > (or 'scepticism') Just one more example. How about skepticism without quotes? Calling something solid science does not necessarily make it so. To me looks like climate is still much like nutrition: there is more guessing than science.

gmac 14y ago
There is certainly plenty of "here's a probability distribution, subject to caveats". There is also some radical uncertainty (unknown unknowns). However, I understand that the balance of evidence is that it is certainly worth doing significantly more than we are right now to mitigate climate change. This is particularly so since there are currently still some win-win options -- i.e., options where we gain however bad climate change is or isn't (e.g. energy efficiency, cutting fossil fuel subsidies). If you like, you can see this (in the non-win-win case) as a kind of insurance. I am not certain that my house is going to burn down -- in fact, I hope and trust that it's very unlikely. But I'm still more than happy to insure my house for a few hundred pounds a year to hedge against it.
- nirvana 14y ago
  How would you feel about the argument that, while I can't prove god exists, you should give %30 of your income to the church anyway. IF there is no god, you've still helped the world by funding the spread of his word. And if there is a god, you've saved your soul? Ok, wait, that's not a correct analogy. It would be correct if I was advocating that men with guns go around and force you to give up %30 of your income to the church and saying that forcing you to do it was justified because its like insurance, right? If the policies that the IPCC etc. are advocating are put into place, one estimate I've seen is that 100 million people will be killed as a direct result in the next 20-50 years due to increased starvation worldwide. (and that this is a "conservative" number where it likely would be 1 billion.) "cutting fossil fuel subsidies" is dishonest, because fossil fuels are not subsidized, they are highly taxed, and increasing those taxes will hurt poor people the most by driving up food costs, increasing starvation... remember the IPCC et. al want to do this globally. But there might be a god, right? So its worth it that they should die, right? (Just putting your argument in a different context so you can see the shape of it. I don't think you really want people to die, you probably think you're advocating for the less death alternative... but since your position is not grounded in science, you're ending up doing what the USSR did. They thought they were making a better society (or claimed they were) but they rejected science (specifically economics) and advocated policies that caused starvation.)
  - Produce 14y ago
    >Ok, wait, that's not a correct analogy. It would be correct if I was advocating that men with guns go around and force you to give up %30 of your income to the church and saying that forcing you to do it was justified because its like insurance, right? You realise that you just described taxes, don't you?

nirvana 14y ago

Let me make it clear upfront: I'm responding to the issue of emotional talk about this issue, not trying to debate the science with you. --- The IR absorption of CO2 is less than that of water vapor, is it not? CO2 is rising while the planet is getting colder. The models have never shown to be predictive. Shouldn't a "solid science" be able to make even short term predictions? You say it is "essentially solid science" you do this instead of making an argument, or citing evidence to indicate that it is settled. I gave three quick ones above to indicate it isn't. But right after you say it is solid, you talk about the "wellbeing of humanity (not to mention other species) is put at serious risk". Is this not an appeal to emotionalism? ("You're going to die" is pretty emotional, isn't it?) You spent more words on that than you did even referencing a scientific argument. The thing I find perplexing-- and I'm not trying to argue the science here, merely pointing out the issue of emotionalism-- is that the first, and often, only, defense for AGW that I see from proponents is the claim that the science was settled (or "essentially solid" as you put it.) This was the claim 6 years ago. This was the claim 12 years ago. This was the claim the first time I'd ever heard the phrase "global warming". When did the debate happen that settled it, so that proponents of this scientific theory never seem to feel that they need to justify their belief in it, and can move right onto the "we're all in trouble" claims?

gmac 14y ago
This isn't the place, and I'm also not the person, to summarise the whole of climate science for you. That's why I provided a link to more information. Here's another: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide "You're going to die" -- or "you or your descendants stand a decent chance of living less happily and/or less long" -- is indeed pretty emotional. I'm afraid that's inevitable, and was part of the point I was making.
saalweachter 14y ago
Honestly, climate change was a bad way to go on the "we're all going to die" front. Ocean acidification is a much juicier target. As carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, more of it is dissolved in the oceans. As more carbon dioxide is dissolved in the oceans, the pH of the oceans drops and the acidity increases. And then everything in the ocean dies and then we all die. Well, the last couple of parts are extrapolation and up for argument, but the great thing about ocean acidification (so to speak) is that it's indisputable up to a point. We know we're increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and from there it is high school chemistry that the pH of the ocean will decrease by a certain amount. Granted, most of us didn't pay enough attention to high school chemistry to do the maths ourselves, but it's like two equations. From there the only question is how bad the rapid acidification of the oceans actually is. We know that corals are probably screwed, because the calcium carbonate reacts poorly to the acidification, but on the other hand the single-celled organisms are probably fine, just because they have tens of thousands of generations to react to the change. Everything in the middle is fair game. Oh, and ocean acidification is a much more rapid process than climate change, because it takes much less time for the ocean to reach a new equilibrium with the carbon in the atmosphere than the atmosphere to reach a new temperature equilibrium. (Recall that CO2 isn't supposed to increase temperatures directly, it increases the amount of heat retained in the atmosphere from year to year.) In my opinion, ocean acidification is a much better reason to worry about atmospheric CO2 than climate change