What Climate Wars Did To Science

[DrvFrShow]

I had a post written and the more I wrote, the more depressed I got. There is no hope. We have passed GO. There are too many people on the planet. There will be over 9 billion people on it by the time I die. The world just cannot support that many. Our species is doomed.

[Done Four]

On ‎7‎/‎16‎/‎2015 at 8:22 AM, rkim291968 said:

 

It will be on the catastrophic level over time.   The changes has been gradual - relatively speaking to human life span.   Politicians have no motivation to address the issue b/c they are more worried about their next election than what the climate or env. will be like in two decades.  Unfortunately for many communities in the world, the climate & env changes have caught up with them.   It's hitting their health, businesses, livelihood, ....  The alarmists have been saying it's almost too late and the time to act is now.   But I just don't see how acting now is possible given the human nature.   For vast majority, it's the next generation issue to deal with.   For some, they don't even agree there is an issue.

Well said, we need to start seeing with better eyes and bigger hearts. As with any addiction to fossil fuels, plastics etc... we need to start being truthful to ourselves and admit that we are the most toxic component. Tread lightly

[rkim291968]

5 hours ago, DrvFrShow said:

I had a post written and the more I wrote, the more depressed I got. There is no hope. We have passed GO. There are too many people on the planet. There will be over 9 billion people on it by the time I die. The world just cannot support that many. Our species is doomed.

Agreed.   Human population will continue to grow faster than we know what to do with our waste.   Even if vast majority of developed nations work on improving the env., it will be negated by numerous 3rd world countries who can't/won't handle their env.  issues.  Even a huge economy power like China can't/won't do much. 

[Golfingdad]

Haven't been keeping up with this thread, so apologies if this is OT or redundant or whatever, but it seems apropos and is pretty interesting (and funny too) ...

http://xkcd.com/1732/

[newtogolf]

So scientists can be bought...

[Buckeyebowman]

38 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

So scientists can be bought...

Indeed they can. It might have been a joke line on Big Bang Theory, but it cut very close to the truth when a researcher there said he applied for a government grant to study a laser based anti-ballistic missile defense system. Someone asked him if that could work. He said, "Hell, no! But I get the grants and spend the money on booze and broads!"

Scientists are people too!

And if you need any convincing about how invasive sugar has become in our food supply, just try reading a few ingredient labels. HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) is in damn near everything you buy!

[newtogolf]

6 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

Indeed they can. It might have been a joke line on Big Bang Theory, but it cut very close to the truth when a researcher there said he applied for a government grant to study a laser based anti-ballistic missile defense system. Someone asked him if that could work. He said, "Hell, no! But I get the grants and spend the money on booze and broads!"

Scientists are people too!

And if you need any convincing about how invasive sugar has become in our food supply, just try reading a few ingredient labels. HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) is in damn near everything you buy!

Spoiler

But when it comes to the climate they are all telling the truth...

 

[Ernest Jones]

9 hours ago, newtogolf said:

  Hide contents

But when it comes to the climate they are all telling the truth...

 

Lol. Yeah, the melting ice caps, California drought, dying sequoia trees and receding watersheds are all part of a clever ruse. 

C'mon Joe, are you seriously a climate change denier?

[nevets88]

There's a climate change thread somewhere else, we're complaining about sugar here!

[Ernest Jones]

9 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

There's a climate change thread somewhere else, we're complaining about sugar here!

Lol, fair enough. @newtogolf brought it up, not me.  

 

[newtogolf]

7 minutes ago, Ernest Jones said:

Lol, fair enough. @newtogolf brought it up, not me.  

 

Not a denier but I also don't blindly believe what a scientist tells me because they are a "scientist".  There may have been a time when they wouldn't compromise their ethics for money but clearly by this NY Times article at least a percentage of them can be bought to "prove" anything the guy paying the money wants them to.  

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Not a denier but I also don't blindly believe what a scientist tells me because they are a "scientist".  There may have been a time when they wouldn't compromise their ethics for money but clearly by this NY Times article at least a percentage of them can be bought to "prove" anything the guy paying the money wants them to.  

How about thousands of scientists? And who exactly is paying them?

[newtogolf]

45 minutes ago, iacas said:

How about thousands of scientists? And who exactly is paying them?

Let's see, government, electric car industry, solar industry, wind mill industry and any other alternative power industry.  How many scientists were involved in the sugar cover up?  Why didn't scientists that knew the data was wrong come forward sooner?  

I know you like to paint me as a conspiracy theorist but I'm really a just a realist and maybe a bit of a cynic.  

I know with enough money, just about anything can be bought and very few individuals ever do anything that doesn't at some point benefit them, usually financially.  

[Groucho Valentine]

What climate wars did to science is that you have politicians and other political buffoons thinking they know more about science than actual scientists.

Political or economicial inconvenient discoveries are discredited and marginalized and a scientist who dares come up with a groundbreaking discovery is put in jail and has e pluribus unum tattooed on his forehead. Its like...storybook..

[Gunther]

Polar ice caps are not retreating, NASA data.  This has been public for a couple years now but it's not surprising many aren't aware.  Media doesn't enjoy this narrative.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/05/19/updated-nasa-data-polar-ice-not-receding-after-all/#39a926d432da

[boogielicious]

42 minutes ago, Gunther said:

Polar ice caps are not retreating, NASA data.  This has been public for a couple years now but it's not surprising many aren't aware.  Media doesn't enjoy this narrative.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/05/19/updated-nasa-data-polar-ice-not-receding-after-all/#39a926d432da

And yet you only look at the information you want to be true.

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-study-shows-global-sea-ice-diminishing-despite-antarctic-gains

[iacas]

17 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

And yet you only look at the information you want to be true.

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-study-shows-global-sea-ice-diminishing-despite-antarctic-gains

From that article:

Quote

Sea ice increases in Antarctica do not make up for the accelerated Arctic sea ice loss of the last decades, a new NASA study finds. As a whole, the planet has been shedding sea ice at an average annual rate of 13,500 square miles (35,000 square kilometers) since 1979, the equivalent of losing an area of sea ice larger than the state of Maryland every year.

And…

1 hour ago, newtogolf said:

Let's see, government, electric car industry, solar industry, wind mill industry and any other alternative power industry.  How many scientists were involved in the sugar cover up?  Why didn't scientists that knew the data was wrong come forward sooner?  

I know you like to paint me as a conspiracy theorist but I'm really a just a realist and maybe a bit of a cynic.

No… the government colluding with the electric car industry, the solar industry, and those hippies that make windmills to pay off nearly every climate scientist (as well as those who aren't really even studying the climate, but in related fields) doesn't sound like a conspiracy at all…

1 hour ago, newtogolf said:

I know with enough money, just about anything can be bought and very few individuals ever do anything that doesn't at some point benefit them, usually financially.  

Sometimes scientists are happy to just do their work, particularly when they think (know?) that their work is important and could help improve the lives of their loved ones, their grandchildren, whatever…

---

I'm gonna go ahead and apply Occam's Razor to this one: thousands of scientists are nearly uniform in saying "we're having a drastic and negative effect on our planet," and the simplest explanation is that they're seeing data which leads them to that conclusion.

[djfajt71]

My wife and I debate this topic occasionally.  We both believe that there is climate change and that it is getting warmer.  However, our attribution percentages are where we differ.  We agree that it is a mix of global cycles and man-made, and woman-made, to harken back to another thread.  She says it is 75/25 waste/global cycles where as I am more 40/60. Either way, we should be absolutely doing more to slow the process.  We will probably never reverse it, as it is a naturally occurring cycle.  But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to keep from helping it approach.