7 ms·

However, the way Al Gore has presented Climate Change has not at all been like scientific discussion, it has been portrait as a topic where the discussion and d

• pierrefar 17y ago
  There is plenty of room for debate if the skeptics stop polarizing and politicizing the debate. Also, if anyone in this debate can be counted on to change their mind, it's the scientists: we do it all the time when shown evidence to the contrary of the current belief. I sincerely doubt that your average skeptic walking into this debate is actually willing to change their mind if shown evidence. Their mind is already made up and it won't change. So yes, plenty of room for debate, but it needs the right mentality. BTW, I once convinced a very creationist skeptic that evolution just might be correct in like 3 hours. How? He was willing to listen and see that there just might be an alternative explanation to the things he's seeing. He was willing to accept a different point of view and my job was to present my case. Luckily I did OK.
  • jswinghammer 17y ago
    Wait you're accusing the skeptics of politicizing the debate? It's the climate change promoters (many of whom are scientists) who have been saying that the sky is falling and that we need to cut our emissions now through massive government intervention. I don't know how that isn't politicizing the debate.
    • pierrefar 17y ago
      So when doctors say "we need to vaccinate all our kids through massive government intervention", that's OK?
    • philwelch 17y ago
      This kind of strikes me as absurd: A: It seems like releasing greenhouse gases has detrimental effects on the climate. We should find a way of releasing fewer greenhouse gases. B: Nothing you say is true, and you're politicizing the debate. It will require massive government intervention to release fewer greenhouse gases! A: Okay. But if we don't reduce greenhouse gases, these things are going to happen. B: You're politicizing the debate!
      • InclinedPlane 17y ago
        You're missing the point and co-mingling different parts of the debate. There is a scientific debate about whether or not AGW is happening and the degree to which it may be happening. There are secondary debates about the degree to which the effects of AGW may be harmful to Earth's ecosystem and to human civilization and whether or not and to what degree we should take steps toward avoidance or remediation of those effects. It is critically important that the 1st debate not be influenced by the others, yet today that's not the case at all. Climatology is an incredibly young science. It is still struggling with problems of collecting data and its theories are still immature. There is no consensus in climate modelling, there is a cacophony of competing climate models, each with their own assumptions and fudge factors, none of which have proven reliable in predicting past climate with any degree of accuracy. But this is fine, this is how science works, theories and models are tested by data, reformulated, and retested until ultimately a theory that can make predictions which prove to be backed up by data wins the day. And yet, despite this lack of consensus in climate modelling, there is remarkable consensus among the climatology community regarding AGW. Yet neither the quality of the data nor the models backs up such a consensus. And people who express skepticism about AGW (to any degree) are frequently compared to holocaust deniers or anti-evolutionists (those exact comparisons have been made in this very comment thread). This is what is meant by "politicizing the debate". When one cannot engage in the legitimate scientific debate without being shouted down as an unbeliever who hates the Earth or the human race.
        • philwelch 17y ago
          The reason people who express skepticism about AGW are compared to creationists is because they make the exact same kinds of arguments creationists make--unquantified claims about "there isn't enough evidence" mixed with misrepresenting whatever evidence does exist and loudly complaining that they're being shut out of the scientific discussion. Hell, they're even represented by the same political party in the United States.
  • randallsquared 17y ago
    There is plenty of room for debate if the skeptics stop polarizing and politicizing the debate. You're suggesting that the global warming folks would be willing to avoid politicizing? If it weren't for the policy prescriptions and other political fallout, the skeptics mostly wouldn't even care. I'm sure the vast majority of the skeptics would be willing, even eager, to drop all potential politics from the debate, but the whole reason it's important (from the viewpoint of such a skeptic!) is that it's now more about politics than science.
    • pierrefar 17y ago
      Absolutely it's more about politics than science. What I don't understand is that why politics got so injected so fiercely into the debate. Because of all the anti-climate change efforts, the climate change case actually got better as scientists did what they do best: they found more evidence to settle the points of contention raised by the skeptics. Are the skeptics listening to this new evidence objectively? All I hear from them is "Ah yes, that may be so, but...".
      • fnid 17y ago
        Politics got injected because a lot of money is being spent on climate change research, clean energy, carbon credits, etc. Kyoto was all politics. A lot of money stands to be made or lost on climate change issues. You think Al Gore is doing what he is doing for free?
      • krschultz 17y ago
        It is extremely easy to see how politics got injected into the debate. There was a move from "these are our findings" to "lets try and stop global warming". The second step requires government action. Hence, politics. If the climate change scientists had stayed in the "lets refine our findings" area then it would never be political. As soon as you say "lets get the government to do something about this", it is political. There will always be people who question why you should expand government. And it is up to the people trying to expand the government to clearly show WHY we need to. What are you expecting? Some people show up with their computer models and say LOOK, WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING, and no one would object? No one would look at it critically? If the science was so indisputable then the bill would be passed, just like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts were when they showed real science on pollutants.
  • krschultz 17y ago
    Where are the skeptics trying to get the government to pass a bill stopping climate change research? Skeptics have no goals politically other than to STOP the legislation put forward by people politicizing climate change research.
    • philwelch 17y ago
      You're asking people to simultaneously: -believe that continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause rising sea levels, displacing hundreds of millions of people, as well as causing less predictable consequences we will be ill-prepared to respond to, but also -not want to actually do anything to prevent it. It's a self-contradictory argument. You're better off just convincing people that part 1 isn't true.
  • yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Regarding politicizing the debate, riddle me this: which side usually asks to see more data and more transparency? And which side accuses the others of being greedy corporate shills while comparing them to creationists and holocaust deniers?
    • philwelch 17y ago
      Creationists and holocaust deniers, incidentally, usually hide behind "asking to see more data and more transparency". You're mischaracterizing. Skepticism is fine on its own, but the thing about the skeptic's game is that you can keep playing it forever no matter how much evidence is on the other side. At some point it's not about skepticism anymore, it's about obstruction and obfuscation. Here's my concession to the skeptic: let's pin a 25% credence on the risk of severe changes in sea level. I'm willing to give the skeptic 3/4 odds that I'm wrong. Now let's look at a map of human population distribution by elevation and calculate the cost of displacing all of those people. And let's look at the other long term costs and benefits from leaving our energy usage unchanged, and build our policies from there. Incidentally, while it's marginally true that climate researchers have certain incentives and motivations of their own, it's also very, very true that there is a lot of established money which has a lot to lose if we do anything about the climate.
      • yummyfajitas 17y ago
        I've never once heard a creationist demand that the human genome project release their data onto the internet, or that they release species taxonomic data. (I can't comment on holocaust deniers since I've never encountered any.) If you read some of the hacked emails, you realize that's exactly what McIntyre (of climate audit) was doing, and that's what the people at the research center were fighting against.
        • philwelch 17y ago
          Creationists are chronically unsatisfied with the evidence that exists, regularly demand to see evidence of more transitional species (even when transitional species are discovered), and take every mistaken conjecture about the specific shape of past evolution as damning evidence against the theory itself.
• tome 17y ago
  There may be room for debate, but is there time for debate? Is there a plausible case that we cannot afford to wait?
  • tome 17y ago
    This is a valid question I think. "An Inconvenient Truth" came out three years ago. In that time it may or may not have come to light whether or not we can afford to wait. I think it's likely that it in fact has. If you disagree please reply instead of downmodding.
    • fnid 17y ago
      I think if the earth has actually been cooling since 1980, that's pretty good evidence we can wait. It's actually evidence that it isn't human action causing the climate change, so we can forget about trying to change whatever behaviors it is of ours that are causing it and focus on the real problem: How do we adapt to a warmer planet? That is the real problem with the whole debate. It is centered on "humans have cause climate change." If the reality is that the sun is causing climate change or, "Climate change happens in cycles," which it has since the earth formed, then the response and the path forward is very different from the ones currently proposed. EDIT: You know, in a way, saying climate change is human responsibility is enabling us to avoid doing what we have to do now. For example, if sea levels will continue to rise for 100 years, we should stop all new coastal development. Saying humans can stop the warming and lower the sea levels allows us to keep building on the coasts. Essentially, saying, "In the future, we can stop climate change" allows us to do nothing in the present. Imagine the difference if we knew it was not caused by humans or in fact, there is nothing we can do, the planet will continue to get hotter for 100 years, then we start building cities underground, moving civilization to the poles of the earth, inventing more heat tolerant crops, better local climate control, etc.
      • tome 17y ago
        Your point in your EDIT about being unaware or unaccepting of (potential) real ways to mitigate climate is an excellent one, thanks!
• spoondan 17y ago
  OK. We get it: You don't like Al Gore. But he is completely, utterly irrelevant to this discussion. He's your bugaboo. Bringing him up is just trolling. Also, the quote you've selected is quite obviously not the author saying, "These data can legitimately be used to prove urban warming." He's rather plainly saying that he thinks the data will be misinterpreted and so needs to be placed in its proper context. This is neither nefarious nor even the least bit notable.