6 ms·

My thoughts exactly. The planet goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. Man made "climate change" of any stripe is a hoax.

by yobb 13y ago

crazy1van 13y ago
"hoax" seems like way too charged of a word. But I don't understand the intellectual condescension towards people who are skeptical about a theory that claims to not only predict the future behavior of an entire planet's climate but also how much one element of the planet (humans) impacts the climate.
- onetwofiveten 13y ago
  The condescension comes because of the quality of the arguments used. People who claim to be "skeptical" use fallacious arguments, misrepresent information and make general emotive points rather than pointing to scientific data and statistical interpretation. For example, you make a point about predicting "the future behaviour of an entire planet's climate". But you could equally say that we should be skeptical of Newton's theory of gravity because it predicts the future physical movements of every atom of an entire planet. It was a specious point. You just said something that was true in a way that sounded impressive. You didn't even mention the models, let alone give any criticisms of the current state of climate model validation. You just made the target of the model sound complicated, without giving any detailed consideration of how complicated it actually is when taken in aggregate. If you're going to criticise a science then use science to do it. The quality of the criticism has to be on a par with the interpretation it criticises. Otherwise it's clear you're arguing from ignorance. While it makes sense to be skeptical while ignorant, you can't expect people who aren't ignorant to take your views seriously.
  - crazy1van 13y ago
    Newton's law of universal gravity is a thing of beauty in its simplicity and power. It is simple enough that basic experiments can be run in any high school physics class, and yet so powerful that it can with a great deal of accuracy predict the movement of the planets. I'm contending that current climate science is different. I think it is too complex to ever boil down to a nice little F = G x (m_1 x m_2) / r^2 package. But perhaps we just haven't discovered that piece yet. Please understand that I'm not arguing we shouldn't study climate change. The complexity of what climate science is trying to predict just gives me pause.
    - acqq 13y ago
      Contrary to your claim, the effects of CO2 are comparably simple formula: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmosphericwarming/climatsensitivity.html https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmospheri... And no scientist disproved it. And anybody who is able to calculate the orbits is able to use the CO2 formula too. And it's also nothing new, first such scientific work is by Arrhenius, 1895, that is 120 years ago: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/arrhenius_2.php http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/arrheniu... And even then he also "stood on the shoulders" of other scientists: "Arrhenius relied heavily on the experiments and observations of other scientists, including Josef Stefan, Arvid Gustaf Högbom, Samuel Langley, Leon Teisserenc de Bort, Knut Angstrom, Alexander Buchan, Luigi De Marchi, Joseph Fourier, C.S.M. Pouillet, and John Tyndall."
      - crazy1van 13y ago
        Interesting reading. Thanks for the link. So what does that formula say the average temperature will be in 2014? Because I'm pretty sure we'll be able to predict very precisely where Pluto will be throughout the year.
        acqq 13y ago
        I will assume that you are honestly interested. Moreover I'll assume that you don't know enough of hard science, otherwise you wouldn't ask the question. So I'll have to use an analogy: Imagine we're a colony of super-smart ants, living on the mountain slope, and as the product of our ant economy we pump through some smart pipes some water to some point some meters above our ant city, and there the water is released. That water produces the creek, sloshing around our city, like the water does, irregularly. The ant scientists are able to calculate that the increased sloshing practically didn't exist before the ants started to pump the water. They can estimate the proportion of the waves around the city and claim that if the increase of the pumping continues the water will in a span or two of ants lives reach the city. The ant deniers then claim: "you scientists can't predict a single wave from minute to minute, so we can be skeptical and continue what we're doing, it's good for our economy." The additional catch? The mechanism which the ants use doesn't respond immediately, it has a built-in delay and built-in amplifier. Even if the ants stop now the amount of water will raise, or maybe even blow the fuses of the mechanism, where the increase of the water will never stop. That's where we are now. Asking for the height of the moment of the single wave doesn't invalidate the formula we know: more CO2 gives more heat on Earth. And we should be aware of the mechanism, which has both the delay and the amplifier. The humanity released in the atmosphere around 10 billion tons of CO2 in 2012 alone. Around 150 years ago it was cca 50 million tonnes per year, that is two hundred times less than now. The concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in the ppm (parts per million). Even difference in such small concentrations provably increases the heat on the Earth, the basic formulas are indisputable. In 2013 the atmosphere reached 400 ppm of CO2, that is 0.04% concentration indisputably produced by human activity: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/14/record-400ppm-co2-carbon-emissions http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/14/record-40... If you're really interested, do read the article.

My thoughts exactly. The planet goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. Man made "climate change" of any stripe is a hoax.

by yobb 13y ago

My thoughts exactly. The planet goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. Man made "climate change" of any stripe is a hoax.

crazy1van 13y ago

"hoax" seems like way too charged of a word. But I don't understand the intellectual condescension towards people who are skeptical about a theory that claims to not only predict the future behavior of an entire planet's climate but also how much one element of the planet (humans) impacts the climate.

onetwofiveten 13y ago
The condescension comes because of the quality of the arguments used. People who claim to be "skeptical" use fallacious arguments, misrepresent information and make general emotive points rather than pointing to scientific data and statistical interpretation. For example, you make a point about predicting "the future behaviour of an entire planet's climate". But you could equally say that we should be skeptical of Newton's theory of gravity because it predicts the future physical movements of every atom of an entire planet. It was a specious point. You just said something that was true in a way that sounded impressive. You didn't even mention the models, let alone give any criticisms of the current state of climate model validation. You just made the target of the model sound complicated, without giving any detailed consideration of how complicated it actually is when taken in aggregate. If you're going to criticise a science then use science to do it. The quality of the criticism has to be on a par with the interpretation it criticises. Otherwise it's clear you're arguing from ignorance. While it makes sense to be skeptical while ignorant, you can't expect people who aren't ignorant to take your views seriously.
- crazy1van 13y ago
  Newton's law of universal gravity is a thing of beauty in its simplicity and power. It is simple enough that basic experiments can be run in any high school physics class, and yet so powerful that it can with a great deal of accuracy predict the movement of the planets. I'm contending that current climate science is different. I think it is too complex to ever boil down to a nice little F = G x (m_1 x m_2) / r^2 package. But perhaps we just haven't discovered that piece yet. Please understand that I'm not arguing we shouldn't study climate change. The complexity of what climate science is trying to predict just gives me pause.
  - acqq 13y ago
    Contrary to your claim, the effects of CO2 are comparably simple formula: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmosphericwarming/climatsensitivity.html https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmospheri... And no scientist disproved it. And anybody who is able to calculate the orbits is able to use the CO2 formula too. And it's also nothing new, first such scientific work is by Arrhenius, 1895, that is 120 years ago: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/arrhenius_2.php http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/arrheniu... And even then he also "stood on the shoulders" of other scientists: "Arrhenius relied heavily on the experiments and observations of other scientists, including Josef Stefan, Arvid Gustaf Högbom, Samuel Langley, Leon Teisserenc de Bort, Knut Angstrom, Alexander Buchan, Luigi De Marchi, Joseph Fourier, C.S.M. Pouillet, and John Tyndall."
    - crazy1van 13y ago
      Interesting reading. Thanks for the link. So what does that formula say the average temperature will be in 2014? Because I'm pretty sure we'll be able to predict very precisely where Pluto will be throughout the year.
      - acqq 13y ago
        I will assume that you are honestly interested. Moreover I'll assume that you don't know enough of hard science, otherwise you wouldn't ask the question. So I'll have to use an analogy: Imagine we're a colony of super-smart ants, living on the mountain slope, and as the product of our ant economy we pump through some smart pipes some water to some point some meters above our ant city, and there the water is released. That water produces the creek, sloshing around our city, like the water does, irregularly. The ant scientists are able to calculate that the increased sloshing practically didn't exist before the ants started to pump the water. They can estimate the proportion of the waves around the city and claim that if the increase of the pumping continues the water will in a span or two of ants lives reach the city. The ant deniers then claim: "you scientists can't predict a single wave from minute to minute, so we can be skeptical and continue what we're doing, it's good for our economy." The additional catch? The mechanism which the ants use doesn't respond immediately, it has a built-in delay and built-in amplifier. Even if the ants stop now the amount of water will raise, or maybe even blow the fuses of the mechanism, where the increase of the water will never stop. That's where we are now. Asking for the height of the moment of the single wave doesn't invalidate the formula we know: more CO2 gives more heat on Earth. And we should be aware of the mechanism, which has both the delay and the amplifier. The humanity released in the atmosphere around 10 billion tons of CO2 in 2012 alone. Around 150 years ago it was cca 50 million tonnes per year, that is two hundred times less than now. The concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in the ppm (parts per million). Even difference in such small concentrations provably increases the heat on the Earth, the basic formulas are indisputable. In 2013 the atmosphere reached 400 ppm of CO2, that is 0.04% concentration indisputably produced by human activity: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/14/record-400ppm-co2-carbon-emissions http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/14/record-40... If you're really interested, do read the article.