What Climate Wars Did To Science

[newtogolf]

My point is that if you look at the literature your questions are answered.  They're only unanswered in the right wing echo chamber.  There is decades of study.  Nearly 100% of the people who've dedicated their lives to studying this have come to the conclusion that your questions are in fact answered.  The lion's share of the increase in CO2 is due to human carbon emissions, and it is causing and will continue to cause ever more damaging climate change.

You can't pretend to be on the high ground, just asking questions, if in fact those questions have been answered with decades of scientific study by thousands of independent scientists, and the only ones pretending they're not answered is people with prior political ideologies that don't allow them to accept an answer that will require policy they despise ideologically.

The studies you're referring to focus strictly on fossil fuels and ignore all the other possible causes for the increases in temperature of which there are many.

There are a ton of factors such as sun activity, ozone, water vapor, axis shift and normal temperature cycles along with human activity, yet you and the rest of the doomsdayers want to shut down major industries in the world and put tens of thousands of people out of work because the scientists Al Gore paid in the form of grants concluded what he wanted and you all choose to ignore findings from other scientists that have evidence that conflict with yours.

Basically you're saying the doomsday scientists are the only honorable, reliable scientists and any scientist that provides alternative viewpoints and proofs is on the payroll of oil and coal companies or the other political party.

Dr. Philip Lloyd, a South African physicist and climate researcher who once had significant recognition by the United Nations as one of the foremost authorities on climate change, analyzed all of the data collected by scientists who began recording weather information in the late 1800s. But Lloyd believed that even that information would reveal only a small part of the story. Thus, he personally examined ice core based temperature data going back 8,000 years in order to compare the information with what has been recorded in the 20th century.

What Lloyd discovered somewhat surprisingly was that standard deviations from temperature norms over the last 8,000 years are significantly higher than those deviations which have been observed in the 20th century. Deviations of the temperatures over the last 8,000 years is roughly 0.98 degrees Celsius. During the 20th century that deviation was only 0.85 degrees Celsius.

[davedove]

The whole situation comes down to a series of questions:

Is the climate changing?

Is human activity causing a significant part of the change?

Are the changes detrimental to our civilization?

Can we do anything to stop or reverse the change?

What are the current costs to society if we make the changes?

Most of the activists tend to forget that last question.  The everyday man cares about the planet, but he has to balance that care against the needs of his family today.  While he may be concerned about a rise in temperature/sea level/etc., none of that matters if he loses his job and can't feed his kids today.

In developing countries, activities that produce carbon are also helping hundreds of thousands, even millions of people rise up out of poverty.  How are you going to tell them they need to stop?

Some day clean sources of energy will help, but they aren't sufficiently developed yet.  So, yes we need to develop them further, but we can't stop using fossil fuels yet.

[newtogolf]

The whole situation comes down to a series of questions:

Is the climate changing?

Is human activity causing a significant part of the change?

Are the changes detrimental to our civilization?

Can we do anything to stop or reverse the change?

What are the current costs to society if we make the changes?

Most of the activists tend to forget that last question.  The everyday man cares about the planet, but he has to balance that care against the needs of his family today.  While he may be concerned about a rise in temperature/sea level/etc., none of that matters if he loses his job and can't feed his kids today.

In developing countries, activities that produce carbon are also helping hundreds of thousands, even millions of people rise up out of poverty.  How are you going to tell them they need to stop?

Some day clean sources of energy will help, but they aren't sufficiently developed yet.  So, yes we need to develop them further, but we can't stop using fossil fuels yet.

This was my point exactly.  I care about the planet, I care that it's in good shape for my kids and future grandkids but there has to be balance to the discussion.  Electric cars are great but if you plug them into outlets that are powered by coal or oil, what have you really done to save the planet?  What do we do with all these people that work on oil rigs, coal mines, in oil refineries and their management and support staffs who will be left without jobs?  We're not just talking about in the US, but world wide.  Without oil Russia's, Canada and the middle east economies would collapse.

This isn't a left / right issue, it's a discussion that has short term and long term impacts on the planets health and world economy.  Both sides are so busy arguing their position no one is considering the collateral damage.

[saevel25]

The whole situation comes down to a series of questions:

Is the climate changing?

Is human activity causing a significant part of the change?

Are the changes detrimental to our civilization?

Can we do anything to stop or reverse the change?

What are the current costs to society if we make the changes?

1) Yes, Climate changes all the time

2) Not entirely sure at this point.

3) In terms of Climate Change, I doubt it. In terms of influx in Cancer and other health risks, yes.

4) Yes

5) Depends on the technological advancement we make in terms of power production. Given that 35-45% of fossil fuel production is for electrical purposes. I think a development to sustainable power plus the creation of an electrical vehicle traffic grid would be good option.

Most of the activists tend to forget that last question.  The everyday man cares about the planet, but he has to balance that care against the needs of his family today.  While he may be concerned about a rise in temperature/sea level/etc., none of that matters if he loses his job and can't feed his kids today.

I think decreasing the size of homes, less energy. Decreasing the distance one has to travel to work. Improvement in vehicle technology, even if that means mandating the tech to the car companies. Improvement in sustainability. The adjustment in the expectation of what should be considered a need by people.

In developing countries, activities that produce carbon are also helping hundreds of thousands, even millions of people rise up out of poverty.  How are you going to tell them they need to stop?

Some day clean sources of energy will help, but they aren't sufficiently developed yet.  So, yes we need to develop them further, but we can't stop using fossil fuels yet.

I agree, we can't. I do think the developed countries could do all they can to decrease their foot print to help compensate. Especially China.

Here is the scary part. Here's the yearly CO2 emissions for the USA and some other countries (above). The scary one is Chine. The fact is that once you are outside of the major cities in China, it is basically farming. By farming I mean little to no machinery. The fact that China is producing 1/3rd more CO2 than us, and a lot of their country isn't even using fossil fuels like we do is crazy.

The other monster on the list is India. The potential CO2 for India is crazy high.

Here is the CO2 in terms of population size. China rate of CO2 production per person is half of ours. Yet they produce per year 1/3rd more.

I am not sure if the CO2 produced by these countries is actually causing an issue. As discussed previous in this thread. Still, if there is a decent effect it is scary to think that we are not even close to seeing the cap on what humans can produce in terms of CO2 per year. I think the developed countries need to take the lead in developing sustainable energy sources.

This was my point exactly.  I care about the planet, I care that it's in good shape for my kids and future grandkids but there has to be balance to the discussion.  Electric cars are great but if you plug them into outlets that are powered by coal or oil, what have you really done to save the planet?

35-45% of CO2 no naturally produced is caused by electricity production and heating, 25-30% is produced by transportation.

On average about 600 grams of CO2 are produced per kilowatt hour in terms of electricity produced. Electric vehicle uses about 34 kilowatt hours per 100 miles.

So lets say they get it up to a 200 mile max distance. That's 68 kilowatt hours. That's about 90 lbs of CO2 per 200 miles, or about 0.45 lbs per mile driven. A typical passenger car emits about 1.1 lbs of CO2 per mile. Electrical cars are 60% more efficient than a passenger car. That's a pretty significant change.

What do we do with all these people that work on oil rigs, coal mines, in oil refineries and their management and support staffs who will be left without jobs?  We're not just talking about in the US, but world wide.  Without oil Russia's, Canada and the middle east economies would collapse.

That's there fault for banking their economies on a commodity. Industries have went to the wayside all the time. We can't just keep industries open for because workers will be displaced. Given this isn't close to happening yet with oil and coal use. If a renewable energy source is found then those workers better find a way to gain new skills and find new jobs elsewhere.

[Golfingdad]

This was my point exactly.  I care about the planet, I care that it's in good shape for my kids and future grandkids but there has to be balance to the discussion.  Electric cars are great but if you plug them into outlets that are powered by coal or oil, what have you really done to save the planet?  What do we do with all these people that work on oil rigs, coal mines, in oil refineries and their management and support staffs who will be left without jobs?  We're not just talking about in the US, but world wide.  Without oil Russia's, Canada and the middle east economies would collapse. This isn't a left / right issue, it's a discussion that has short term and long term impacts on the planets health and world economy.  Both sides are so busy arguing their position no one is considering the collateral damage.

Evolution, survival of the fittest, advancing safer technologies ... It's all the same. Adapt.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by newtogolf

This was my point exactly.  I care about the planet, I care that it's in good shape for my kids and future grandkids but there has to be balance to the discussion.  Electric cars are great but if you plug them into outlets that are powered by coal or oil, what have you really done to save the planet?  What do we do with all these people that work on oil rigs, coal mines, in oil refineries and their management and support staffs who will be left without jobs?  We're not just talking about in the US, but world wide.  Without oil Russia's, Canada and the middle east economies would collapse.

This isn't a left / right issue, it's a discussion that has short term and long term impacts on the planets health and world economy.  Both sides are so busy arguing their position no one is considering the collateral damage.

Evolution, survival of the fittest, advancing safer technologies ... It's all the same.

Adapt.

This is what engineers do all the time.

[davedove]

That's there fault for banking their economies on a commodity. Industries have went to the wayside all the time. We can't just keep industries open for because workers will be displaced. Given this isn't close to happening yet with oil and coal use. If a renewable energy source is found then those workers better find a way to gain new skills and find new jobs elsewhere.

I completely agree with this.  Businesses should not be artificially maintained just to keep jobs open.  As society and technology changes, some industries will be lost while others are gained.  What I do object to are industries being shackled and even destroyed not by evolution but by a political agenda.  This isn't happening yet to the fossil fuel industry, but many activists would like for it to happen, whether or not a viable replacement is ready.  When the time comes, "big oil" will decline and other industries will take its place.  At that time, the workers need to adapt and change.

[RandallT]

I'm not personally expert enough, nor do I have deep enough knowledge of the field and its literature, to take down every single denier quoted fact or curmudgeon.  But just step back for a second.  It's a known physical fact that CO2 and methane are green house gases that trap heat near the earth's surface and warm the climate.  A historically unprecedented warming has occurred exactly concurrently with humans increasing the level of CO2 by nearly 50% over just 200 years.  The other, non-human-caused physical changes in that time period that could contribute are conflicting or indeterminate.  Among thousands of scientists who've independently analyzed this problem from a huge number of points of view and angles, there are literally only a handful of curmudgeons whose work hasn't led them to conclude that global warming is real and that humans are mostly responsible.  Among the millions of people who deny that this conclusion is true, essentially 100% are not themselves scientists or knowledgable in any personal way, and essentially 100% are in fact political conservatives who are, first and foremost, skeptical of or dislike liberals, academics, and the sort of serious government regulation that dealing with global warming requires.

Given these sets of facts, is it really more likely that nearly 100% of the people who've dedicated their lives to analyzing and studying this issue from a rational, dispassionate, scientific point of view have been brainwashed and have developed a complex, dispersed, interwoven body of work that provides strong evidence but have colluded to universally exclude a few absolutely key pieces of information.  Or that a group of people predisposed to dislike both the sorts of people making the climate change argument and the sorts of government actions it requires in response have grabbed whatever straws are available to convince themselves that nearly every scientist in the world with personal expertise in a critical, widely studied topic is wrong and deluded and that the three or four curmudgeons who agree are the only ones who understand?

...

You're implicitly claiming that essentially 100% of the experts who've ever studied this question are in collusion to pull off an unprecedented, complex, distributed hoax, and the non-experts looking for evidence that supports their prior political preferences (no pricing of externalities) understand the science and data better.

And the "it can't hurt" argument is one only made in the right wing media as a straw man on behalf of those who support regulating GHG emissions.  The actual argument is that we're nearly certain we're causing a disaster, and we should make every effort to minimize the damage we have/are going to cause.

My point is that if you look at the literature your questions are answered.  They're only unanswered in the right wing echo chamber.  There is decades of study.  Nearly 100% of the people who've dedicated their lives to studying this have come to the conclusion that your questions are in fact answered.  The lion's share of the increase in CO2 is due to human carbon emissions, and it is causing and will continue to cause ever more damaging climate change.

You can't pretend to be on the high ground, just asking questions, if in fact those questions have been answered with decades of scientific study by thousands of independent scientists, and the only ones pretending they're not answered is people with prior political ideologies that don't allow them to accept an answer that will require policy they despise ideologically.

I believe you are referring to this "97% consensus". From Salon.com, not a right-wing publication:

Writing in the Washington Post, Jason Samenow said as much last year:

What the consensus study does not address is the level of concern about the human role of climate change expressed in the studies surveyed or by the studies’ authors.  Nor does it provide a sense of what the studies say about how severe climate change will be, and the consequences.

Your "100%" is a bit high, although I'm not absolutely clear what you are saying there is consensus about. Were you referring to the 97% thing above?

There is not 97% consensus about the "sensitivity" of the earth to CO2 ("sensitivity" meaning the rise in temperature resulting from a doubling of CO2).

There is not 97% consensus about the impact of a 2 degree rise in temperature on the planet. James Hansen's paper about a 2 degree C rise being catastrophic is interesting, but I do see some debate on it that doesn't look political to me.

There is no 97% consensus on these two things, to my knowledge. Feel free to prove me wrong.

And of course, we all want to be good stewards of the planet and limit our CO2 footprint. (others have covered that well here in the discussion). Even us "deniers."  Many deniers simply feel we have time, and that it is a better solution to solve it with technology over time, rather than panic now. We do not come to this conclusion lightly, as it would be much easier to go with the flow of society and practice "goodthink," lest we become an "unperson."

Your claim that there is 100% consensus might even prove the OP's point that the climate wars are damaging science, as we are seeing intelligent people such as yourself make dubious claims of massive consensus, seemingly to bully or taunt the other side into making them think they are nut-jobs. That hurts science, because that is simply not the case, and there is room for reasoned debate on a lot of these issues. We welcome a reasoned debate on the sensitivity of the earth and the impact of temperature rise. Debate is healthy, and we can always stand to learn more about breakthroughs in climate science.

Lastly, Patrick Moore, in this video below, is a scientist that people sounding the alarm love to hate. Take this video for what it's worth. In my mind, he's a bit too optimistic about the benefits of the extra CO2 and doesn't try to debunk any of the potential negative climate impacts of CO2, but it is interesting to see a positive spin on CO2.

According to him, the IPCC says:

Or we are TOAST.  Is there 97% consensus on this claim? It would be an interesting poll. My guess is that the majority of climate scientists would support that idea, but not be 100% certain it is correct.

[mdl]

Your claim that there is 100% consensus might even prove the OP's point that the climate wars are damaging science, as we are seeing intelligent people such as yourself make dubious claims of massive consensus, seemingly to bully or taunt the other side into making them think they are nut-jobs. That hurts science, because that is simply not the case, and there is room for reasoned debate on a lot of these issues. We welcome a reasoned debate on the sensitivity of the earth and the impact of temperature rise. Debate is healthy, and we can always stand to learn more about breakthroughs in climate science.

Or we are TOAST.  Is there 97% consensus on this claim? It would be an interesting poll. My guess is that the majority of climate scientists would support that idea, but not be 100% certain it is correct.

Look, obviously I'm not going to convince anyone hell-bent on disbelieving.  My point is simply that, yes, climate science is a large, complex field, and so of course you can find a few curmudgeons to quote who are convinced their research disproves entire literatures of work.  And since it's complex, it's also easy to find particular points where experts would agree we don't have a sharp understanding, and that can be used in arguments among non-experts to make it look like the main questions are in doubt still.  But if you look at the literature and field as a whole, there just isn't any debate that the questions have been answered.  The planet is warming, humans are mostly responsible, the repercussions aren't precisely forecastable but will be somewhere between really bad and civilization ending, and we could at least mitigate the damage with dramatic action.

I'm not arguing against debate.  I'm saying the debate has been happening for 50 years, the scientific work has been done, and while there's a ton we don't understand, the simple questions of whether the planet is warming, we're the reason, and it's going to have really bad consequences have been debated, studied, and answered.  You may not like the answers, or the public policy that should rightly motivate, but that's simply a fact.

[RandallT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandallT

Your claim that there is 100% consensus might even prove the OP's point that the climate wars are damaging science, as we are seeing intelligent people such as yourself make dubious claims of massive consensus, seemingly to bully or taunt the other side into making them think they are nut-jobs. That hurts science, because that is simply not the case, and there is room for reasoned debate on a lot of these issues. We welcome a reasoned debate on the sensitivity of the earth and the impact of temperature rise. Debate is healthy, and we can always stand to learn more about breakthroughs in climate science.

Or we are TOAST.  Is there 97% consensus on this claim? It would be an interesting poll. My guess is that the majority of climate scientists would support that idea, but not be 100% certain it is correct.

Look, obviously I'm not going to convince anyone hell-bent on disbelieving.  My point is simply that, yes, climate science is a large, complex field, and so of course you can find a few curmudgeons to quote who are convinced their research disproves entire literatures of work.  And since it's complex, it's also easy to find particular points where experts would agree we don't have a sharp understanding, and that can be used in arguments among non-experts to make it look like the main questions are in doubt still.  But if you look at the literature and field as a whole, there just isn't any debate that the questions have been answered.  The planet is warming, humans are mostly responsible, the repercussions aren't precisely forecastable but will be somewhere between really bad and civilization ending, and we could at least mitigate the damage with dramatic action.

I'm not arguing against debate.  I'm saying the debate has been happening for 50 years, the scientific work has been done, and while there's a ton we don't understand, the simple questions of whether the planet is warming, we're the reason, and it's going to have really bad consequences have been debated, studied, and answered.  You may not like the answers, or the public policy that should rightly motivate, but that's simply a fact.

Fair enough. I guess I've watched too many Hollywood movies where "the man" was wrong, and the old curmudgeon that nobody wanted to believe turned out to have the true wisdom. Damn Hollywood.

FWIW, here's how I think a lot of deniers assess this statement (notice the progressive gradation of disagreement):

The planet is warming, ( 100% agreed )

humans are mostly responsible, ( agreed )

the repercussions aren't precisely forecastable ( agreed )

but will be somewhere between really bad and civilization ending, ( or possibly just the low end of bad or better )

and we could at least mitigate the damage with dramatic action. ( or we could significantly make our civilization worse by unintended consequences, hurting economy and creating unintended suffering when there was no crisis to act )

If you're on the east coast, we can grab a beer like these guys :

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/a-climate-campaigner-bill-mckibben-and-climate-change-critic-anthony-watts-meet-in-a-bar/?_r=0

Here’s a short excerpt, focusing on what Watts perceived as areas of agreement:

We both agreed that tackling real pollution issues was a good thing. When I say real pollution issues, I mean things like water pollution, air pollution, Ocean plastics pollution, and other real tangible and solvable problems.

We both agreed that as technology advances, energy production is likely to become cleaner and more efficient.

We both agreed that coal use especially in China and India where there are not significant environmental controls is creating harm for the environment and the people who live there.

We both agreed that climate sensitivity, the response to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, hasn’t been nailed down yet. Bill thinks it’s on the high side while I think it’s on the low side…. [N]either of us thought the number had been correctly defined yet. (RandallT note: this is my major point in this thread)

We both talked about how nuclear power especially Thorium-based nuclear power could be a solution for future power needs that would provide a stable base electrical grid while at the same time having far fewer problems than the current fission products based on uranium and plutonium. (RandallT note: my passion/background is nuclear power)

[jsgolfer]

Fair enough. I guess I've watched too many Hollywood movies where "the man" was wrong, and the old curmudgeon that nobody wanted to believe turned out to have the true wisdom. Damn Hollywood.

FWIW, here's how I think a lot of deniers assess this statement (notice the progressive gradation of disagreement):

The planet is warming, (100% agreed)

humans are mostly responsible, (agreed)

the repercussions aren't precisely forecastable (agreed)

but will be somewhere between really bad and civilization ending, (or possibly just the low end of bad or better)

and we could at least mitigate the damage with dramatic action. (or we could significantly make our civilization worse by unintended consequences, hurting economy and creating unintended suffering when there was no crisis to act)

If you're on the east coast, we can grab a beer like these guys :

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/a-climate-campaigner-bill-mckibben-and-climate-change-critic-anthony-watts-meet-in-a-bar/?_r=0

RandallT - We pretty much are on the same page.

Never liked the word denier, I don't deny that the climate has warmed, something like 0.7 degrees C over the last century.  Whether that's bad or not is up for debate (And how accurate that is is another thing). Humans have some part in the game, aside from more CO2 in the air (concrete jungles and deforestation).   The models so far are horrible at prognostication, in fact they can only get the past climate correct when they tune the models.  And then with the tuned models running forward, they are still terrible.  What's the low end of bad, I think that there is a chance that it will be better.  Dramatic action based on a model may be worse for everyone, because the models are wrong.  Nothing that is currently going on in the world is a cause to upend economies and keep 3rd world countries in the dark ages.  The dust bowl of the thirties lasted about 8 years, hurricanes have been less, tornadoes aren't going up.  Ocean's aren't rising significantly fast, millimeters per year.  So I personally have a hard time believing the models can predict the future with any certainty.

I'm always up for a nice IPA.

Look, obviously I'm not going to convince anyone hell-bent on disbelieving.  My point is simply that, yes, climate science is a large, complex field, and so of course you can find a few curmudgeons to quote who are convinced their research disproves entire literatures of work.  And since it's complex, it's also easy to find particular points where experts would agree we don't have a sharp understanding, and that can be used in arguments among non-experts to make it look like the main questions are in doubt still.  But if you look at the literature and field as a whole, there just isn't any debate that the questions have been answered.  The planet is warming, humans are mostly responsible, the repercussions aren't precisely forecastable but will be somewhere between really bad and civilization ending, and we could at least mitigate the damage with dramatic action.

I'm not arguing against debate.  I'm saying the debate has been happening for 50 years, the scientific work has been done, and while there's a ton we don't understand, the simple questions of whether the planet is warming, we're the reason, and it's going to have really bad consequences have been debated, studied, and answered.  You may not like the answers, or the public policy that should rightly motivate, but that's simply a fact.

Here is where we are at the different end of the spectrum.  You would peg me as a disbeliever, when I've said no such thing.  Climate science is a large field, however, with the data fixing, proxy data being used as an accurate measure of past temperature, and the models being inept at predicting the current non-warming, I believe there is room to start looking at this again.  According to the models, we should already be in Armageddon by now.  Something is going on, either the planet can take care of itself without our help, or something else is going on (maybe the models and our current thinking is incorrect).  The massive feedbacks that are required for runaway warming don't seem to be there (read the article that RandallT provided).

Here lies the problem, far too many people are so convinced that CO2 is the issue, that no one outside of a few "curmudgeons" look for anything else.  Reminds me of the 10th man doctrine in World War Z movie.

Namely, "whenever 9 people looking at the same information come to the same conclusion, it's the 10th's duty to disagree and actively look for evidence to the contrary."

And no one in the government is looking for any evidence to the contrary, because they know they are right.

So we just disagree on how bad (or better), you think it will be really bad or less bad, I think it will be much less so. Humans are pretty good at adapting to whatever is going on.

[newtogolf]

RandallT - We pretty much are on the same page.

Never liked the word denier, I don't deny that the climate has warmed, something like 0.7 degrees C over the last century.  Whether that's bad or not is up for debate (And how accurate that is is another thing). Humans have some part in the game, aside from more CO2 in the air (concrete jungles and deforestation).   The models so far are horrible at prognostication, in fact they can only get the past climate correct when they tune the models.  And then with the tuned models running forward, they are still terrible.  What's the low end of bad, I think that there is a chance that it will be better.  Dramatic action based on a model may be worse for everyone, because the models are wrong.  Nothing that is currently going on in the world is a cause to upend economies and keep 3rd world countries in the dark ages.  The dust bowl of the thirties lasted about 8 years, hurricanes have been less, tornadoes aren't going up.  Ocean's aren't rising significantly fast, millimeters per year.  So I personally have a hard time believing the models can predict the future with any certainty.

I'm always up for a nice IPA.

Here is where we are at the different end of the spectrum.  You would peg me as a disbeliever, when I've said no such thing.  Climate science is a large field, however, with the data fixing, proxy data being used as an accurate measure of past temperature, and the models being inept at predicting the current non-warming, I believe there is room to start looking at this again.  According to the models, we should already be in Armageddon by now.  Something is going on, either the planet can take care of itself without our help, or something else is going on (maybe the models and our current thinking is incorrect).  The massive feedbacks that are required for runaway warming don't seem to be there (read the article that RandallT provided).

Here lies the problem, far too many people are so convinced that CO2 is the issue, that no one outside of a few "curmudgeons" look for anything else.  Reminds me of the 10th man doctrine in World War Z movie.

Namely, "whenever 9 people looking at the same information come to the same conclusion, it's the 10th's duty to disagree and actively look for evidence to the contrary."

And no one in the government is looking for any evidence to the contrary, because they know they are right.

So we just disagree on how bad (or better), you think it will be really bad or less bad, I think it will be much less so. Humans are pretty good at adapting to whatever is going on.

They also would like to collect more tax revenue in the form of cap and trade or carbon footprint taxes.

[davedove]

They also would like to collect more tax revenue in the form of cap and trade or carbon footprint taxes.

I think that's a big part of the problem.  A lot of people just feel the government is using climate change as an excuse to gain more control over business and raise tazes.

[Lihu]

[QUOTE name="newtogolf" url="/t/83264/what-climate-wars-did-to-science/144#post_1176988"]   They also would like to collect more tax revenue in the form of cap and trade or carbon footprint taxes. [/QUOTE] I think that's a big part of the problem.  A lot of people just feel the government is using climate change as an excuse to gain more control over business and raise tazes.

Not just a feeling. The government is far too big and costs too much to operate.

[Gunther]

Not just a feeling. The government is far too big and costs too much to operate.

Amen.

[saevel25]

Namely, "whenever 9 people looking at the same information come to the same conclusion, it's the 10th's duty to disagree and actively look for evidence to the contrary."

And no one in the government is looking for any evidence to the contrary, because they know they are right.

So we just disagree on how bad (or better), you think it will be really bad or less bad, I think it will be much less so. Humans are pretty good at adapting to whatever is going on.

Depends in the information accurately shows that is actually happening. Correlation versus Causation. There are a lot of instances were something is correlated but you ca not find action part. 9 people can look at the information and say, "Yep CO2 is rising, Temperature is rising, CO2 must be causing it". Yet they don't specify how. It can take the 10th guy to sit back and say, "Well what is the exact cause and by how much is human CO2 production contributing to the rise in temperatures".

Compared to the overall time earth has been around versus how long since the start of the industrial revolution is a very small time. The earth was due for a warming period coming out of the little ice age. I am not entirely sure that scientist have taken that into consideration just how significant that natural rise is effecting temperatures. In the end CO2 produced by humans might only have contributed to a small fraction of the natural temperature rise that was happening.

This has been seen over the past 10 years with the global temperatures starting to stabilize a bit. The current temperatures over the past 10 years have not matched what should have been the predictive trend by those in the late 1990's and early 2000's.

I think that's a big part of the problem.  A lot of people just feel the government is using climate change as an excuse to gain more control over business and raise tazes.

I'd say for some it's a reason for them to just be able to collect more taxes. For others I think they do believe that industries are being harmful to our world. Mostly the government has gotten into the habit of discouraging through economic means, tax them to make it less of an incentive to produce CO2. Two means use the same method.

Not just a feeling. The government is far too big and costs too much to operate.

Yep. GM gave us a good example of what happens when you get bloated. The only problem is GM can't print money ;)

[saevel25]

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/trouble-obamas-clean-power-plan

Quote:

When it comes to future climate change, mainstream scientific projections, which appear to be running to hot, predict about 2.5°C of warming by the end of the century as a result of carbon dioxide emitted from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas). Nearly 90% of this warming is expected to come from developing nations such as China, India, and countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the remaining warming, amounting to about 0.3°C, about half will come from U.S. emissions.

[newtogolf]

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/trouble-obamas-clean-power-plan

China is firing up coal burning power plants at a rate of 1 per week, I guess they didn't get the memo.