5 ms·

Can I use this as a tangible example of climate change when discussing with my doubting f̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶ friends?

by saym 13y ago

mvalle 13y ago
Not necessarily: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen#Northwest_Passage_.281903.E2.80.931906.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen#Northwest_Passag...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- hristov 13y ago
  There is a difference between Amundsen a seasoned explorer making the passage in a tiny 46 ton ship by hugging the coast and dodging ice and a 75 THOUSAND ton ship making the trip.
- cromulent 13y ago
  It took less than 3 weeks. Amundsen (awesome as he is) took 3 years and 3 foot of water.
hristov 13y ago
Yes.
clarkmoody 13y ago
Do your friends doubt climate change is happening at all? Or do they doubt that it's our fault?
- saym 13y ago
  I love the man, but my father listens to Rush Limbaugh. It's difficult to find facts he accepts on global warming. For all the vitriol he spews, Rush does an impressive job at framing situations so that he's impossible to argue with.
- rotten 13y ago
  yes.
- guelo 13y ago
  It's true that the more aware deniers updated their propaganda 5 to 10 years ago with the non-anthropogenic argument. But there are still a lot of less informed deniers that swallow the hardcore right-wing conspiracies whole. i.e. there is no warming, it was invented by Al Gore to take away our freedoms and establish a one world government.
  - vixen99 13y ago
    Real climate has disproved all models to date. There has been no forthcoming explanation for the 15 year hiatus in warming. In other words the science underlying climate is far from known. As Feynman reminds us “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”. Thus we have to push on and cannot advise politicians. Since 1979 the IPCC report has published a best estimate for the climate sensitivity. Its latest report says "No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.". It is not a question of denying or conspiring. It's a matter of discovering the science behind our climate. Let's do it without the silly rhetoric. By the way, if you believe the very worst prediction (proposed on the basis of failed models) then you will be interested in this link which asks what the cost of 'doing something' is. http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/ http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/
    - saalweachter 13y ago
      What are you talking about? http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/02/GlobalT-15yrs.png http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/02/Glo...
      - pdonis 13y ago
        That's because they carefully picked 1997 as the starting year. What does the trendline look like if you pick other starting years? More generally, why do we assume that a linear trendline is the appropriate way to analyze this data? Has anyone actually done an analysis that doesn't start from that assumption?
- mikeash 13y ago
  If they're anything like the ones I know, it depends on the particular day and particular discussion. There is no one stance on climate change, just a general contrarian theme. If the discussion leaves room for doubting warming in general, that will be done. If too much evidence for warming is presented, it'll switch to doubting human causes for it.
yetanotherphd 13y ago
You could, but to be intellectually honest, you could only use that argument if you yourself would be convinced that no shrinking of the sea ice was evidence against global warming. Belief in global warming can really only come down to belief in the experts, especially the IPCC. My understanding is that the most important evidence is global temperature trends. This is (and should be) analyzed very critically since the data is very complex and suffers from many issues. However it seems that the debate has already been won.
- pdonis 13y ago
  Belief in global warming can really only come down to belief in the experts, especially the IPCC. Let's transfer this claim to another domain: "Belief in how to best organize our economy for prosperity can only come down to belief in the experts, particularly Wall Street investment bankers." Does it still seem reasonable? (And, btw, I suspect you may not have meant that you think belief in the experts is a good thing; if so, I'm giving another reason for not thinking it is.) Also, it's easy for people to believe in experts that say things they want to hear; not so easy to believe in experts who say things they don't want to hear. How well are the experts in biology doing in convincing creationists to accept the theory of evolution? (Which, by the way, is much better supported scientifically than any theory about how the climate works.) The plain fact is that you can't trust experts. You can't trust anyone. You also can't verify every single fact for yourself. There is no magic formula that will guarantee that we can get the right answers. There may not even be any right answers. With regard to climate change, even if we accept for the sake of argument some particular set of predictions about how the climate will change, there will still be plenty of disagreements about whether that change is good or bad. China and India don't seem to care much that they are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere by building new coal-fired power plants like gangbusters. If we in the US decide to emasculate our economy in order to "prevent" global warming, all we may end up doing is making ourselves into a much poorer country while China prospers.
  - yetanotherphd 13y ago
    Experts in climate change are not obviously biased in the same way as investment bankers might be. They do not profit directly from the outcome of their recommendations, and they are in principle paid by the government to be objective. That said, any set of beliefs can be self-reinforcing, and I was initially skeptical of global warming because there are strong incentives to toe the official line. I'm sure that many researchers keep on playing with their data until they get a "result" i.e. evidence for global warming. However there has also been a lot of outside scrutiny, and I also think that in spite of this bias, academia also has the ability to be self correcting. I've never heard any argument that global warming might be good. China and India both recognize the importance of CO2 emissions. However, they claim that since their per capita emissions are lower than the West, it is the West who should reduce their emissions first. They claim that any global cap-and-trade system should be based on per-capita quotas.

Can I use this as a tangible example of climate change when discussing with my doubting f̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶ friends?

by saym 13y ago

Can I use this as a tangible example of climate change when discussing with my doubting f̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶ friends?

Not necessarily: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen#Northwest_Passage_.281903.E2.80.931906.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen#Northwest_Passag...

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
hristov 13y ago
There is a difference between Amundsen a seasoned explorer making the passage in a tiny 46 ton ship by hugging the coast and dodging ice and a 75 THOUSAND ton ship making the trip.
cromulent 13y ago
It took less than 3 weeks. Amundsen (awesome as he is) took 3 years and 3 foot of water.

hristov 13y ago

Yes.

clarkmoody 13y ago

Do your friends doubt climate change is happening at all? Or do they doubt that it's our fault?

saym 13y ago
I love the man, but my father listens to Rush Limbaugh. It's difficult to find facts he accepts on global warming. For all the vitriol he spews, Rush does an impressive job at framing situations so that he's impossible to argue with.
rotten 13y ago
yes.
guelo 13y ago
It's true that the more aware deniers updated their propaganda 5 to 10 years ago with the non-anthropogenic argument. But there are still a lot of less informed deniers that swallow the hardcore right-wing conspiracies whole. i.e. there is no warming, it was invented by Al Gore to take away our freedoms and establish a one world government.
- vixen99 13y ago
  Real climate has disproved all models to date. There has been no forthcoming explanation for the 15 year hiatus in warming. In other words the science underlying climate is far from known. As Feynman reminds us “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”. Thus we have to push on and cannot advise politicians. Since 1979 the IPCC report has published a best estimate for the climate sensitivity. Its latest report says "No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.". It is not a question of denying or conspiring. It's a matter of discovering the science behind our climate. Let's do it without the silly rhetoric. By the way, if you believe the very worst prediction (proposed on the basis of failed models) then you will be interested in this link which asks what the cost of 'doing something' is. http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/ http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/
  - saalweachter 13y ago
    What are you talking about? http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/02/GlobalT-15yrs.png http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/02/Glo...
    - pdonis 13y ago
      That's because they carefully picked 1997 as the starting year. What does the trendline look like if you pick other starting years? More generally, why do we assume that a linear trendline is the appropriate way to analyze this data? Has anyone actually done an analysis that doesn't start from that assumption?
mikeash 13y ago
If they're anything like the ones I know, it depends on the particular day and particular discussion. There is no one stance on climate change, just a general contrarian theme. If the discussion leaves room for doubting warming in general, that will be done. If too much evidence for warming is presented, it'll switch to doubting human causes for it.

yetanotherphd 13y ago

You could, but to be intellectually honest, you could only use that argument if you yourself would be convinced that no shrinking of the sea ice was evidence against global warming. Belief in global warming can really only come down to belief in the experts, especially the IPCC. My understanding is that the most important evidence is global temperature trends. This is (and should be) analyzed very critically since the data is very complex and suffers from many issues. However it seems that the debate has already been won.

pdonis 13y ago
Belief in global warming can really only come down to belief in the experts, especially the IPCC. Let's transfer this claim to another domain: "Belief in how to best organize our economy for prosperity can only come down to belief in the experts, particularly Wall Street investment bankers." Does it still seem reasonable? (And, btw, I suspect you may not have meant that you think belief in the experts is a good thing; if so, I'm giving another reason for not thinking it is.) Also, it's easy for people to believe in experts that say things they want to hear; not so easy to believe in experts who say things they don't want to hear. How well are the experts in biology doing in convincing creationists to accept the theory of evolution? (Which, by the way, is much better supported scientifically than any theory about how the climate works.) The plain fact is that you can't trust experts. You can't trust anyone. You also can't verify every single fact for yourself. There is no magic formula that will guarantee that we can get the right answers. There may not even be any right answers. With regard to climate change, even if we accept for the sake of argument some particular set of predictions about how the climate will change, there will still be plenty of disagreements about whether that change is good or bad. China and India don't seem to care much that they are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere by building new coal-fired power plants like gangbusters. If we in the US decide to emasculate our economy in order to "prevent" global warming, all we may end up doing is making ourselves into a much poorer country while China prospers.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  Experts in climate change are not obviously biased in the same way as investment bankers might be. They do not profit directly from the outcome of their recommendations, and they are in principle paid by the government to be objective. That said, any set of beliefs can be self-reinforcing, and I was initially skeptical of global warming because there are strong incentives to toe the official line. I'm sure that many researchers keep on playing with their data until they get a "result" i.e. evidence for global warming. However there has also been a lot of outside scrutiny, and I also think that in spite of this bias, academia also has the ability to be self correcting. I've never heard any argument that global warming might be good. China and India both recognize the importance of CO2 emissions. However, they claim that since their per capita emissions are lower than the West, it is the West who should reduce their emissions first. They claim that any global cap-and-trade system should be based on per-capita quotas.