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Not too long ago Carl Sagan and others were on TV breathlessly begging people to worry about global cooling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1970s

Not too long ago Carl Sagan and others were on TV breathlessly begging people to worry about global cooling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1970s_awareness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1970s_awareness http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compilation/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compila... Obviously, research changes and consensus changes. Being wrong in the past doesn't mean you're wrong today. Or being right in the past doesn't mean you're right today.

LordKano 11y ago
That's precisely why science needs to continue for its own sake and not as a tool to push political agendas. Just think how bad things would be if someone had taken that 70s era belief in global cooling and used it as a justification to require us to dump more CO2 into the atmosphere to mitigate it.
- carapat_virulat 11y ago
  The thing is, there is no guarantee that by doing nothing things will be better than by doing something. We no longer believe than nature is somehow an eternal system that humans disturb. We know there have been huge catastrophes before without any kind of human intervention. The only good thing about doing nothing in principle is that when something bad happens there's nobody to blame. Of course it may be the case that we have good reasons to believe that doing nothing is always safer than doing something, but we need some data and some models to support that belief, it's not enough holding it a priori just because many people still believe in "Mother Earth", even though they consider that "Father God" is dead.
anon1385 11y ago
>Not too long ago Carl Sagan and others were on TV breathlessly begging people to worry about global cooling. No he wasn't: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/07/28/if-you-wish-to-make-up-facts-from-scratch/183472 http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/07/28/if-you-wish-to-make-... There was never a widespread consensus about global cooling: >A 2008 paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society actually reviewed the climate research published in the 70s and concluded that "global cooling was never more than a minor aspect of the scientific climate change literature of the era, let alone the scientific consensus" and "emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated the scientific literature even then." WUWT is a climate change denial site run by conspiracy theorists. It's not a good place to get facts about anything.
- gadders 11y ago
  >> WUWT is a climate change denial site run by conspiracy theorists. "I disagree with their position so I will slander them."
  - anon1385 11y ago
    You will notice that I first presented hard evidence that they were wrong in the form of a scientific paper that actually reviewed the climate science published in the 70s. I then provided additional commentary about the quality of the site.
  - ticviking 11y ago
    Actually I believe the formal fallacy that makes climate skeptics sites unreliable is "Begging the question". Which isn't to say that climate & environmental science isn't a bit sick. It suffers from group-think and a pretty hefty anti-human bias. They in general did not begin from "I do not like the implication of the carbon emission -> global warming hypothesis to my business model so I will not consider explanations that force me(or my patrons) to stop making money from fossil fuels"
    - gadders 11y ago
      Again, an incorrect assertion of the motives of climate change sceptics. I may as well say that pro-Climate Change people are not convinced about the science but like the side-effects it may have on global inequality.
      - ticviking 11y ago
        True enough. That is my principal reason for opposing virtually every "Climate Change Solution" I see that has strongly re-distributive effects. That and the frankly anti-human bias of virtually all environmental scientists of my acquaintance. My point is that both are a valid critiques and should influence how you read the arguments made by both sides. I was mostly annoyed that you were calling skepticism for those biases slander instead of pointing out that both sides are biased, and thus we(as humans) are likely to fall for the side that our confirmation bias leads us to. Overall I'm convinced that warming is happening, and that human CO2 emissions are probably single largest cause of that. I'm also pretty well convinced that the impact of that warming is well below the alarmists views, and that we will move to renewables just as soon as it is efficient to do so.

LordKano 11y ago

That's precisely why science needs to continue for its own sake and not as a tool to push political agendas. Just think how bad things would be if someone had taken that 70s era belief in global cooling and used it as a justification to require us to dump more CO2 into the atmosphere to mitigate it.

carapat_virulat 11y ago
The thing is, there is no guarantee that by doing nothing things will be better than by doing something. We no longer believe than nature is somehow an eternal system that humans disturb. We know there have been huge catastrophes before without any kind of human intervention. The only good thing about doing nothing in principle is that when something bad happens there's nobody to blame. Of course it may be the case that we have good reasons to believe that doing nothing is always safer than doing something, but we need some data and some models to support that belief, it's not enough holding it a priori just because many people still believe in "Mother Earth", even though they consider that "Father God" is dead.

anon1385 11y ago

>Not too long ago Carl Sagan and others were on TV breathlessly begging people to worry about global cooling. No he wasn't: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/07/28/if-you-wish-to-make-up-facts-from-scratch/183472 http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/07/28/if-you-wish-to-make-... There was never a widespread consensus about global cooling: >A 2008 paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society actually reviewed the climate research published in the 70s and concluded that "global cooling was never more than a minor aspect of the scientific climate change literature of the era, let alone the scientific consensus" and "emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated the scientific literature even then." WUWT is a climate change denial site run by conspiracy theorists. It's not a good place to get facts about anything.

gadders 11y ago
>> WUWT is a climate change denial site run by conspiracy theorists. "I disagree with their position so I will slander them."
- anon1385 11y ago
  You will notice that I first presented hard evidence that they were wrong in the form of a scientific paper that actually reviewed the climate science published in the 70s. I then provided additional commentary about the quality of the site.
- ticviking 11y ago
  Actually I believe the formal fallacy that makes climate skeptics sites unreliable is "Begging the question". Which isn't to say that climate & environmental science isn't a bit sick. It suffers from group-think and a pretty hefty anti-human bias. They in general did not begin from "I do not like the implication of the carbon emission -> global warming hypothesis to my business model so I will not consider explanations that force me(or my patrons) to stop making money from fossil fuels"
  - gadders 11y ago
    Again, an incorrect assertion of the motives of climate change sceptics. I may as well say that pro-Climate Change people are not convinced about the science but like the side-effects it may have on global inequality.
    - ticviking 11y ago
      True enough. That is my principal reason for opposing virtually every "Climate Change Solution" I see that has strongly re-distributive effects. That and the frankly anti-human bias of virtually all environmental scientists of my acquaintance. My point is that both are a valid critiques and should influence how you read the arguments made by both sides. I was mostly annoyed that you were calling skepticism for those biases slander instead of pointing out that both sides are biased, and thus we(as humans) are likely to fall for the side that our confirmation bias leads us to. Overall I'm convinced that warming is happening, and that human CO2 emissions are probably single largest cause of that. I'm also pretty well convinced that the impact of that warming is well below the alarmists views, and that we will move to renewables just as soon as it is efficient to do so.