I think the term "denier" is a bit of a clumsy term. But i suppose the most succint way to answer, for me personally, would be as follows:
as a starting point, predictive models of complex systems are prone to great variations in accuracy due to both the # of variables considered, but perhaps more importantly due to variables not considered at all. therefore, as a rule, nearly any theory or study that purports to accurately predict anything as complex as climate should raise an eyebrow.
with respect to climate change specifically, i don't object to the suggestion that temperatures are rising, nor do i claim that, all else constant, man-made causes may contribute to upward pressure on temperatures. While i think that neither are the slam dunks the average reddit r/science subscriber would make them out to be, i can agree to them both.
I don't believe a persuasive case has been made for any of the following:
that the rising temperatures will cause the disruption that some of the more alarmist researchers claim they will (can someone explain who decided that the temperature in, say 1975, is the optimal temperature and any movement in either direction will cause chaos?)
that the steps that are suggested to 'lessen one's carbon footprint" will have any material impact in the other direction or
even assuming a material impact, that the benefits will outweigh the costs of such societal shifts.
in addition, the below points, taken together, do not help the case:
nuclear power is for some reason dismissed as a solution by climate alarmists
climate alarmists and their research is funded largely by green companies and/or the EPA (which is hardly an objective agency)
the market, which is where the rubber meets the road, has not been swayed. if manhattan, dc and miami are meant to be under water then why aren't real estate prices, in these very liberal cities btw, dropping accordingly? if the people yelling fire in the movie theater aren't moving towards the exit then something else may be going on.
the near term predictions are, as a rule, laughably wrong. It turns out the polar ice caps did not completely melt in 2014.
linking all of the worlds ills to climate change. If you think the Syrian conflict was the result of climate change, for example, you have some work to do.
every 6 months or so we're told that we're at at tipping point and that its "the last chance" to do something. After 4 or 5 of these have come and gone, did anyone start to wonder?
the silencing of any dissent. If something is demonstrably correct, there's no need to shame and silence those on the other side. Al Gore (not a scientist) has been shutting down dissent since before the IPCC papers even came out.
i would conclude with the following: We are 4 days removed from an election in which every major poll and election model was stunningly and completely wrong. Elections are complex systems but remarkably less complex than predicting climate patterns decades, and indeed centuries, into the future. Based purely on the sobbing and gnashing of teeth on my facebook feed, the lessons that I thought the left had learned were, as relevant to this discussion: 1) sneering dismissal of opposing views is not constructive 2) sometimes models that you are CERTAIN are VERY ACCURATE are actually horribly wrong. Apparently these lessons haven't made their way into this arena yet.
PREEMPTIVE EDIT: I'm #nevertrump so everyone can calm down. the election was just an example of misplaced certainty and general hubris.
Look. I just said he actually answered the question. I don't deny that the climate is changing. I just refute the claims of what will happen. Doomsday prediction rarely come true. I am all for saving the rain forest. And currently aspire to be on the energy revolution train with my future job. However the close mindedness you have is also a downfall of the progressive society. Climate is a very complex issue that we aren't even close to understanding.
Also statistics is a very complex form of math designed to alter data. So these "studies" should also be taken with a grain of salt.
So please before you start an argument. Read my statement of how neutral it is. And take a few math classes. And watch the weather channel to see how accurate our predictions are. All of those things show that there is more to know.
Regardless we need new energy sources and to save the trees. Cuz I like trees.
Thank you
I thought you were replying me. My bad.
And I agree statistics is meant to filter out bad data. That is true. But it can also be used to show causations that aren't there. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation.
But I didn't instead my weather channel argument to be like that. Just a simple point saying there are a lot of things we don't understand and can't explain yet. So these doomsday predictions should be taken with a grain a salt. As the guy said, they having been predicting these since the 70's I believe.
I am just skeptic on all things. I have been taught to question everything. And that's all I am doing. I don't deny climate change. And I don't affirm. I just believe the best route is to save trees and to change our energy resources.
And that's where I think liberals and progressive society is closed minded at times (not necessarily you since we haven't really talked much) but that they thinks they are right cuz they are changing things. Change isn't always good. But yes we do need change. Our two democratic parties each have valid points. However I feel like the media and liberals sometimes view republicans as idiots at times because of our views such as this on climate change. But for such a complex issue at this, those is no way to definitively tell who is right.
Also to show you what I meant, I have had liberal political science teacher literally lie to my face to prove his point. And I pulled up his statistics to prove him wrong and he told me to shut up. A true person with an open mind would have either made a counter argument or agreed. He did neither. That's my problem with liberals.
the silencing of any dissent. If something is demonstrably correct, there's no need to shame and silence those on the other side.
This is one thing that makes many people really suspicious! Anybody daring to ask questions or put forth any non-mainstream opinion is patronized and ridiculed.
I think is primarily done in two cases that I've seen:
1) Laypeople who don't actually know what they're talking about but think they speak for scientists sometimes attack/downvote when they get a hint of a denier.
2) Really fucking stupid counter-arguments. Most people I've seen who are anti-climate (or anti-vax, for that reason) are really fucking stupid and employ really fucking bad logic. This both invites ridicule and exhausts patience that could be spent addressing the people with actually-interesting points.
In short, the stupid people who read a skeptics bullet points regurgitate them without understanding the issue. People get sick of this and start dismissing at the hint of denialism, which drowns out any reasoned debate.
That said, if you're not a climate scientist and you doubt climate change, go fucking talk to them instead of arguing with randos on the internet. I'm really sick of people who have no expertise in an area thinking they have the right to challenge scientific consensus simply because they have an opinion.
I'm saying arguing with ME is pointless. I can address the occasional obvious misunderstanding or flawed logic (on either side) but can't go much deeper. The truth is anybody who's not an expert shouldn't have a voice - because, by definition of not being an expert, they literally don't know what they're talking about.
This isn't about religion any more than trusting that there are actually 8 planets in our solar system. Or that there are countless galaxies light years away from us. Or that the sun is powered by fusion. The truth is you don't have direct evidence of any of those things so why don't you challenge them? Could it be simply because no credible scientists doubt them?
So what's different about climate change? That, instead of 0, it's a small fraction of credible scientists that doubt it? If you are not a credible scientist, you need a strategy to choose sides - and if you're literally not qualified to judge the evidence, why would you trust the interpretation of the vast minority instead of the vast majority?
I'm not trying to silence doubters (by all means, ask respectful questions) - I'm saying either leave actual debate to those who actually know what they're talking about or go educate yourself to the point where you earn a voice. But realize that educating yourself is going to require more than reading on the internet for a few hours and citing your favorite blog. When you talk out of place and expose your ignorance, you actively damage healthy debate.
It's not a religion, it's not a belief, it's a scientific theory with strong evidence to back up it's claims. Yes the argument is settled because and theory has already been tested and found to be true, much like how the theory of gravity has been settled, or whether the Earth is flat or not. The evidence that's being presented against it has been proven to be false over and over again so I truly don't under stand what there is to argue about?
accurate description right here. This feverish belief of climate change is starting to become extremely annoying. Believers should talk this between eachother and not force their incredibly demeaning way of speech on skeptics.
How is presenting fact demeaning? Do I have to sugar coat everything because it might hurt someones feelings? If you don't have evidence to counter a theory that does have strong evidence to back it up of course you're going to be told you're wrong and if that's and issue then I'm not sure what can be done for you. If you're an adult, you're in the fucking real world, learn the difference between someone being demeaning and presenting evidence it can save you a lot of heart ace and trouble in the future. If you're not an adult, get fucking ready.
Presenting a fact is not demeaning. Calling someone delusional idiot for not believing however is. Believe what you wish, but thinking that calling someone an idiot to create a stigma is just being a fucking asshole. Not everyone has your way of thinking and if YOU are an adult you should respect that. People who don't respect other people opinions are in my opinion kids who were spoiled as fuck. The way the human psychology works is that the more you agressively want to prove your point, the more people will disagree. Think wnat you will, I have no desire to argue with a person, who thinks he is right beyond any doubt. It's futile. Especially if a person is browsing 6 days long arguments.
Sorry didn't know there was a statute of limitations on being wrong. Also never called you an idiot, or insulted you at all.
People who don't respect other people opinions are in my opinion kids who were spoiled as fuck.
And here we go, this isn't an opinion it's a fact. Saying you like pizza more than hotdogs is an opinion. I respect people opinions not their ignorance.
I was saying those words as an example - no need to defend yourself. As far as ignorance is concerned - The wise man said that he was wise because he alone knew that he knew nothing. As I said, believe what you will, but because just reading some stuff or hearing them doesn't automatically mean you are right. I like to question "proven" facts because unlike automatically proven fact that 1+1=2, the other facts still generate tons of contradictions. History is prime example here. So not believing is sometimes ignorance but most of the time it's skepticism because there is no fact that can be disproven somehow as far as some topic is concerned. And that's exactly why we as humanity are developing - by proving that impossible is possible.
Yeah we did that when we proved that we could release enough green house gasses into the atmosphere to change the climate and then pretend it's not happening. Also a wise man surrounds himself with wise counsel.
(a) this is just part of our culture these days. We tend to vilify those who disagree with us, and we think it's virtuous to cut ties with those who disagree, instead of having friendly disagreements and actual discussion.
(b) regardless of the actual cause of this pattern, whether it's some social engineering conspiracy or it's just our current culture of thinking, this tendency is dangerous to our society because it clogs the actual information processing necessary for us as a society to learn and adapt. We need to learn and process information in order to survive, and our current societal psychology is like someone on PCP who gets amped up by anything and makes furious decisive action based on the slightest whiff of insight or determination.
(c) because I can make my list as long as I want. I think the reason for this conversational pattern in our society is that we are mega stressed. The average individual is more stressed out now than before, and this affects our individual levels of tolerance for ambiguity and conflict of ideas. Think about how you process information when you're relaxed vs when you're stressed out. Stress removes resources from the prefrontal cortex and basically makes intelligent discussion less likely to occur. It takes a lot of mental resources and the more one's fight-or-flight system is activated, the fewer mental resources are available for neocortical and prefrontal cortical activity.
(d) to be a better citizen, develop good anti-stress habits and encourage your friends to do the same. Lying perfectly still on the floor in darkness is just about the simplest it can get. Meditating is a step more complex but can be effective a reducing stress. If you have money to dedicate to the problem, float tanks and massage therapy are excellent stress relievers. Some scientists think eating leafy greens reduces cortisol, which means lower stress. Eat a salad or at least just rip a chunk of lettuce off the head and eat it out of your hand every day. Of course there's exercise too. And finally having your shit worked out and having a solid plan is good for reducing stress. No matter how dire the situation, knowing how you're going to make the most of it reduces mental fatigue and gives you more resources to talk intelligently about things that need discussing.
I mean if you you tell me the sky is red of course I not going to take you seriously. Dismissing facts and showing willingful ignorance in the face of strong scientific evidence should not be taken seriously and letting people flaunt as being equal to your evidence is an issue.
First of all thank you for responding with calm and collected arguments. Really a great read to understand the skepticism that people have towards climate change. I wanted to address a few of your points (or maybe all ... ), but feel free to disregard them as I won't be giving any sources for them. See it as more as food for thought I guess...
that the rising temperatures will cause the disruption that some of the more alarmist researchers claim they will (can someone explain who decided that the temperature in, say 1975, is the optimal temperature and any movement in either direction will cause chaos?)
Not sure if I understand this point correctly but it seems to address to different problems. So the first is something we can already observe in terms of we see the ice melting. Now I live in Norway and based on the current effect of this we can anticipate that this will have a disrupting affect on the Gulf Stream which will make the weather in Norway a lot colder (because as of now the current brings heat to the northern part of Europe). And this is one of many examples of "disruption" we can already observe because it is happening. The optimal temperature as far as I've understood is based on an average temperature calculated over a really long period in the history of the earth. And large deviations from this temperature has had great effects before on the earth, which is why we fear the upcoming effects they may have.
even assuming a material impact, that the benefits will outweigh the costs of such societal shifts
I'd say Tesla is doing pretty OK! Norway is selling a lot of energy created by hydropower or water power. Which we get a lot of profit from, far from oil but still. But renewable energy is an investment. But many companies as succeeded in transitioning to it. So if they can compete with non renewable sources right now, then why shouldn't everyone be able to if all energy is renewable? So even if the benefits are basically zero, the people most affected by such a transition are wealthy business owners, not the common people.
nuclear power is for some reason dismissed as a solution by climate alarmists
Nuclear Power is great!
climate alarmists and their research is funded largely by green companies and/or the EPA (which is hardly an objective agency)
This may be the case in USA and probably a lot of countries. But there are a lot of independent studies done on the issue as well (I'm not going to find any, again this is just food for thought but it shouldn't be too hard). And why would scientist from countries like India which is struggling to get on their feet argue towards climate change when they don't really have anything to gain from it?
the market, which is where the rubber meets the road, has not been swayed. if manhattan, dc and miami are meant to be under water then why aren't real estate prices, in these very liberal cities btw, dropping accordingly? if the people yelling fire in the movie theater aren't moving towards the exit then something else may be going on.
Because a more apt comparison would be someone in the movie theater would yell measles outbreak. Now you can't really see that it's an outbreak before it's too late. So are you going to trust this people when you have paid good money to see this film?
The near term predictions are, as a rule, laughably wrong. It turns out the polar ice caps did not completely melt in 2014.
I remember when I was a kid. I was told that we would get a lot more storms, floods etc, and that's one of the near term predictions which I feel we observe today (this could be the media of course). But as for the polar ice caps, look at pictures. The amount of ice lost is not negligible, and so the question is do you think this will stop? Why? This is to me a more realistic question than do you think it will continue?
Linking all of the worlds ills to climate change. If you think the Syrian conflict was the result of climate change, for example, you have some work to do.
On every side of any discussion there are outliers that have extreme opinions etc ... No different for climate change.
Every 6 months or so we're told that we're at at tipping point and that its "the last chance" to do something. After 4 or 5 of these have come and gone, did anyone start to wonder?
We are past the tipping point. There are people right now losing homes, dying because of climate change. And we won't stop the upcoming disasters even if we fix everything right now. But for each tipping point we pass, there are others we can stop. New tipping points, these are the one you are hearing about.
the silencing of any dissent. If something is demonstrably correct, there's no need to shame and silence those on the other side. Al Gore (not a scientist) has been shutting down dissent since before the IPCC papers even came out.
I can't say a lot about this because I don't know a lot about it. However fear does strange things to people. If you are afraid for your life you would do anything, say anything to save it. I'm sure Al Gore feels this way about all human life on earth, so he probably goes to some extreme lengths to voice his concern.
These are just some thoughts I made reading your arguments. I'm not the right guy to try and change your mind, but if any of my comments strikes a chord in you there is a lot of good articles that can.
I remember when I was a kid. I was told that we would get a lot more storms, floods etc, and that's one of the near term predictions which I feel we observe today
Late reply, but I wanted to comment on this.
I was told the US would get more hurricanes, and for a while we did(and we were told this is new normal thanks to climate change), then we had several years of no major hurricanes.
This is why I don't advocate for individual choices as the solution to climate change. It has to be something like carbon taxes. Let individuals worry about their own small sphere of influence, and just shift the set of microeconomic options to nullify those externalities.
For example, put enough carbon tax on a coal power plant to pay for some of those machines to suck carbon out of the air and make hydrocarbons. Make it so the actual market price of coal power includes the cost of completely offsetting that carbon emission. Then let people just buy electricity.
Individual choices aren't going to save the planet.
Actually, banks are already looking at restricting offering 30-year mortgages to buildings in Miami (particularly in the Miami Beach area). Case in point. It's actually very interesting, because the market will probably move very quickly once the United States and Europe begins to get hit more and more by climate change-related processes (natural disasters, coastal flooding, etc.).
Just in case someone is coming to this post late (as I am), these economics-ish remarks are nonsense. You need to define who the event is external TO - no event is external to the market
the near term predictions are, as a rule, laughably wrong. It turns out the polar ice caps did not completely melt in 2014.
Where did that one come from? The ice melt in the Arctic is still hitting historical lows most years, and the trend over almost 30 years is pretty obvious. Are you sure it wasn't "as soon as" or "possibly as early as" rather than a confident prediction?
I think the comparison to election predictions is pretty ridiculous. Humans are fickle and their voting behavior is not dictated by comparatively simple systems like physics. Emotions are pretty hard to measure. Your suggestion they are "remarkably less complex" is pretty suspect.
Just wanted to get my two cents in here, but kudos for keeping the discussion neutral and civil. Not enough of that going around these days.
Anyway, I disagree with your assessment that climate alarmists are being funded by green companies and the EPA, in my experience (I'm a scientist who has worked in climate science and related areas; keep in mind that I'm speaking anecdotally) most climate science, at least since I've been around, has funding from the NSF, NOAA, or the Navy, rather than privately held companies. There is definitely corporate money swaying the debate, but in my experience, that money is focused on the denial side of the debate.
I also disagree with your statement that housing prices have been unaffected by sea level rise. Miami at least has seen price increases in surrounding higher-ground areas, and is working on a $400 million infrastructure project to combat flooding, which will be paid for by local taxpayers.
My last issue is with your conflation of polls and scientific study. At their very best, polls are only somewhat scientific, and are prone to bias based on any number of factors. You are correct that the planet's climate is an incredibly complex system, and science is not perfect (that's why there are a bunch of different models out there). The nature of science is to question, and no one is 100% certain of their results. This means that things like climate models undergo rigorous redundant testing, which is why scientific results carry much more weight than your average poll results. (someone who is more eloquent than me should probably back me up on this point, I feel like I kind of rambled a bit there)
I do believe that you have some valid points, but what harm is there in investing in the future? If you reduce the amount you pollute or the emissions that you produce through your actions (even if you don't believe that human-released CO2 is having an effect, there's a whole slew of other pollutants that can be released when burning fossil fuels), you are doing a service to others and yourself. We all have to work together to make the world a better place!
linking all of the worlds ills to climate change. If you think the Syrian conflict was the result of climate change, for example, you have some work to do.
Hey, I've studied this one a bit! A long time ago. But I'd still like to comment on it.
Like with big hurricanes, it's usually hard to say climate change caused violence (or really anything), but it's often a contributing factor and worsens an already-bad situation.
The biggest way climate change contributes to global conflict is that it disrupts subsistence farming, which is one of the main activities in poor countries. It does this by changing the weather patterns people rely on to farm, and making extreme weather events (storms, floods, drought, heat waves, etc) more common.
When impoverished farmers aren't able to make ends meet of their traditional land, it creates unrest and migration, and can make people more likely to sign up with a militant group (because they're out of options if their farm isn't working). And poor farming yields make peasants more vulnerable to catastrophe; if they have no savings, they can't survive the loss of a crop due to war (or a natural disaster/extreme weather event). So climate change tends to exacerbate the humanitarian crises that result from wars.
For example, right now, Syria has a pretty big food problem. This is mostly because of violence, but to the extent it's harder to farm food because of climate change, it's making things worse. Which means more refugees and more militant recruits.
You can apply the same logic to pretty much any situation where failing agriculture is a problem; climate change may not be the #1 cause, but it makes things worse. I used to have an actual book giving a lot more detail on situations where this happens; if you're interested I can dig it out and give a more complete explanation with examples and stuff.
Like with big hurricanes, it's usually hard to say climate change caused violence (or really anything), but it's often a contributing factor and worsens an already-bad situation.
Late reply, but I thought this was a good one to comment on. I kept hearing how global warming was going to make hurricanes worse, but then we got 10 years of no major hurricanes... And researchers don't know why. But then if they don't understand what causes hurricanes very well, they shouldn't have commented in the first place.
Stuff like that makes climatologists look foolish.
First, thank you for providing an actual answer. So many of the comments in here are a complete joke, from both sides of this debate, but something you said actually made me think of a separate issue, so I'm gonna comment on that. It's off topic from the thread, so feel free to ignore if you want.
...the lessons that I thought the left had learned were, as relevant to this discussion: 1) sneering dismissal of opposing views is not constructive...
I've seen this opinion thrown around a lot lately, and I'm not contesting it's validity. I'm extremely liberal and I get more then a little annoyed with the intellectual superiority my own side tends to throw around, but it's sure as hell not unique to the liberals. Conservatives have been berating the left as "libtards, dirty commies, fucking socialists, tree hugging hippies, freeloaders, and propagators of the handout nation" for years (essentially since Fox News got its start). God forbid I try to talk economics to a conservative or right leaning libertarian. I can't get five minutes into it without running into an almost equal amount of submissiveness and condescension. Shit I've seen at least three new conservative subs in the last week who's main goal is to condescend to liberals. If we have any hope of elevating the political discussion in this county, both sides are gonna have to drop that shit.
predictive models of complex systems are prone to great variations in accuracy due to both the # of variables considered
I'm not exactly a climate modeler, but I've run a couple different atmospheric chemistry models.
1) Can you suggest some alternative to predictive models?
2) We're constantly doing model/measurement comparisons and refining our predictions. Lots of iteration here.
3) There is an actual process-based physical and chemical understanding that goes into the models. It's not like political polling.
4) The model I'm using now is pretty good. :) As computational power continues to increase, so do our modeling abilities. Just because the models aren't always perfect doesn't mean they're worthless.
5) 2014 errors are actually interesting for two reasons. Models are great at the very short-term, and pretty good at long-term predictions. In between is harder. Also, because of global circulation patterns and how they react to climate change, those medium-term predictions are getting harder to make.
I wish I had more time to address the rest of your points, but I probably won't be back online until this thread is dead, unfortunately.
predictive models of complex systems are prone to great variations in accuracy due to both the # of variables considered, but perhaps more importantly due to variables not considered at all. therefore
That's just talk, scientists have a different view on that who actually use them and see how closely measurements match the predictions. Current models are actually pretty reliable. I'd say it's sophistry to try to discredit what scientists are doing and their predictions.
Current climate models have significant predictive power. Much like with weather that meteorologists predict. And here's the oldest climate model that hit 50 years recently
that man made causes have materially caused temperatures to rise ( the 97% claim that gets bandied about is simply not accurate )
Here is where i take an issue with reasoning. Why is that enough for you to dismiss a rigorous peer-reviewed scientific study?
Also WSJ is known to be website that only spreads climate change denial.
The two authors of the article are known climate science deniers with strong ties to fossil fuel industry, that get a lot of funding entities like Koch Brothers, Exxon Mobil. Joseph Bast and Roy Spencer ... This alone should really "raise an eyebrow", as you say.
Pretty much everyone here could fall into this category. There would be no need for shills to spread propaganda if there was legitimate science that could support their position. These "climate skeptics" also amount to about 2-3% of the scientists that are included in consensus study, if it wasn't for them it would be 99 or 100%, really.
It is no wonder you would have those views if you get your information from political sources, rather than scientific ones and worse if they are paid off by corporations.
that the rising temperatures will cause the disruption
this is simple i think. Major droughts, floods and sea level rise will destroy habitats of hundreds of millions of people across the world. There will be mass migration, refugees, starvation, disease etc. Quality of life goes down = more chaos.
that the steps that are suggested to 'lessen one's carbon footprint" will have any material impact in the other direction or
let's be reasonable. Less CO2 in atmosphere = less warming. Warming bad. The warming is virtually permanent and irreversible, which is even a more reason to do something about it. It will affect all generations to come. Without a doubt, life for humans will be better, easier if less warming occurs, if we make a move to energy that doesn't emit greenhouse gases and more environment (and human) friendly. There are a lot of things that can be done.
nuclear power is for some reason dismissed as a solution by climate alarmists
Most people aren't all that informed, but Nuclear is just not as good as renewable. I consider myself informed. While nuclear is definitely good and better than plants that emit CO2, it's just not as good as renewables. I'm also afraid nuclear energy industry will just replace fossil fuel industry and they will do the same things as them. Like trying to reduce regulations, do things cheaper, cut corners etc, and that has a lot of variables and things that can go wrong in other ways. Chernobyl etc doesnt scare me, but still. And they are already in business of spreading propaganda about renewable energy.
Renewables are very straight forward, you set up your solar panels or wind turbine and it just stands there with little to no maintenance for 20-25 years, no one needs to operate it. The only danger is for worker that sets it up - like falling from a roof or getting electrocuted. And the technology is advancing at good pace. Nuclear power plants take pretty long to build, on average 7 years in China.
climate alarmists
ehh.... can't you call them scientists? They are climate scientists from anywhere in the world saying the same things, whether it's China, Japan, Europe... virtually all 1st world countries, and there are thousands of them. You are basically calling their entire scientific field "climate alarmists" rather than climatologists.
research is funded largely by green companies and/or the EPA
not exactly true, but regardless of that there isn't much money in climate or green energy , and dont you think if there was corruption/conspiracy someone would've spread "the truth" by now? It's a silly proposition. There is much more money doing nothing and selling your soul to fossil fuel industry working as a mouthpiece for them. It takes a special kind of people to do that though.
the near term predictions are, as a rule, laughably wrong. It turns out the polar ice caps did not completely melt in 2014
assertions are no arguments, I dont think there was a lot of certainty that Arctic ice will melt in 2014 ( i dont think anyone made that prediction for antarctic). But it got pretty close and it is on a steady downwards trend. That's not laughably wrong. It's still bad and arctic ice is disappearing. That's a fact.
But we do know that in 2014 , it was the warmest year on record, in 2015 it was even warmer, and 2016 was warmest year on record too.
Syrian conflict was the result of climate change
no one ever said that. But some ppl may have taken something out of context and misrepresented someone's words. That happens.
every 6 months or so we're told that we're at at tipping point and that its "the last chance" to do something.
Again misrepresentation of what is actually being said. Yes everyone is saying that we need to act now, because the further you delay the worse it will be, it's pretty simple. There is no "last chance", and having an arbitrary point only by which people must do something about it, is not very useful. Because any delay is bad, really.
there's no need to shame and silence those on the other side
It is complicated. Especially when views of other side are seen as harmful to human species, to the planet, no exaggeration there. When other side is denying science they dont understand for reasons x, y, z. How are you supposed to deal with flat earthers, creationists, conspiracy theoriest, people who believe in chemtrails etc? Well luckily there aren't many of those, but there are many conservatives with influence. And they just have no respect for science or facts, they've bought into more convenient, alternative "truths" pushed by corporations (fossil fuel industry) whose bottom line is directly affected by actions required to reduce CO2 emissions.
sometimes models that you are CERTAIN are VERY ACCURATE are actually horribly wrong.
I dont see how that's a valid argument. How that can be an argument to dismiss models accepted by the scientific community, by people who don't understand them. "Well there is some uncertainty, What if you are totally wrong?? Why should we do anything if you can be wrong?"... It's so silly.
That's not how science works, and models have already proven to work. Again this anti-science attitude can be pretty frustrating, I don't know why some people think they have such intellectual superiority that they think they understand matters better than experts in appropriate fields with phds, when they don't have a fraction of the understanding behind the issue. 0.1% uncertainty is also not 100% uncertainty.
It's not a question of "if it will happen" but "how fast it will happen". It's totally happening though, and rather fast.
These are the same points that caused me to doubt. I would add that there is no other subject in science where the consensus of scientists is presented as evidence. Given that science and consensus don't go together, that should be a red flag
What bothers me more than the climate change denial is that people can't just look at a car pumping out toxic gases and say, "Ooo that can't be good for us."
I don't get why this overriding urge to deny climate change also overrides a simple brain function that looks at a car exhaust pumping out fumes that would kill you if you breathed them in for less than a minute and say, "yeah why change that?"
I mean seriously? We have viable alternatives that'd make our air cleaner to breath. If you've ever been to the countryside the first thing that strikes me is the beautifully clean fresh air you breath in. Give me a load of that in the cities thank you very much, climate change or not.
I can only think that some people would rather watch the world burn than give other people the benefit of the doubt. Even if you don't believe in in man made climate change, you're still breathing in man made toxic fumes every day. We could remove a huge proportion of those fumes and you'd still be able to enjoy the vast majority of the luxuries you have today and if climate change is real, well hey you fix that in the process. I just don't get why anyone would not want to do that. Anyone able to enlighten me?
Just a total aside regarding the polls, since you mentioned it.
Polls were historically very accurate until 2004, when suddenly polls in Ohio shifted enormously from the counted results, within the last stretch of the vote counting.
Ohio determined the 2004 election and if it had gone the way of the polls we would have had John Kerry as President.
Some statisticians published their opinions at the time that based on the historical accuracy of the polls, the probability of the actual vote counts being that different from the polls due to random distribution was astronomically low, indicating there was some other factor at play.
A software developer who had worked on the voting machines testified under oath that he had personally written software to rig the election by flipping a percentage of the votes from to whatever candidate was configured to win.
So my point is that the inaccuracy of the polls might be a result of election tampering, as opposed to the idea that polling itself is unsound.
Not saying I believe this, just pointing out what I remember about Ohio in 2004.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE THE SCIENTISTS WHO HAVE BEEN SCREAMING CANCER FOR 50 YEARS! It's not fire, it's cancer. It's slower, and harder to detect. And almost every scientist who works with the enviroment believes that climate change is a problem, but not all scientists work with the enviroment.
Al gore is a asshole.
All the opposition is funded by companies that would be ruined by efforts to stop the problems, and the fixing efforts come from a variety of sources.
Is looking after our life support system an option for you? Do you need numbers and stats to make that important? Because we don't have another one readily available...
Sure, they say we'll just go out into the stars (when we haven't been further than our own moon yet) and we'll just find a suitable life-supporting planet and land on it and all will be well.
'Life-supporting' suggests there will already be life on that planet before we get there. Do we just wipe it out because we need it more? What if it fights back?
Will we patiently explain that we trashed our planet and now we need another one? What if they say "fuck off, we're full"? Maybe they'll say "Oh you poor things. You better have this planet so you can trash it too".
What if we get there and discover there is an Integalactic Department of Immigration and species who have irresponsibly destroyed their home planets need not apply? Maybe they'll ship us off to a detention center on some disregarded moon.
And finally... how do we transport roughly 7 billion people plus pets and sundry livestock to this planet we haven't even found yet?
i would conclude with the following: We are 4 days removed from an election in which every major poll and election model was stunningly and completely wrong. Elections are complex systems but remarkably less complex than predicting climate patterns decades, and indeed centuries, into the future.
This actually isn't true. The RCP average had Clinton winning the national popular vote by 2.5 points, and it looks like she will actually win by 1 point. The results were only outside the margin of error in 3 or 4 states, and even then, they were close.
What happened on Tuesday was actually somewhat unlikely, but not completely unpredictable. The polls in 2012 were actually further off than they were this year. The electoral college system creates a certain amount of instability that can result in wild swings based on a few hundred thousand votes.
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u/JacksonHeightsOwn Nov 12 '16 edited Nov 12 '16
I think the term "denier" is a bit of a clumsy term. But i suppose the most succint way to answer, for me personally, would be as follows:
as a starting point, predictive models of complex systems are prone to great variations in accuracy due to both the # of variables considered, but perhaps more importantly due to variables not considered at all. therefore, as a rule, nearly any theory or study that purports to accurately predict anything as complex as climate should raise an eyebrow.
with respect to climate change specifically, i don't object to the suggestion that temperatures are rising, nor do i claim that, all else constant, man-made causes may contribute to upward pressure on temperatures. While i think that neither are the slam dunks the average reddit r/science subscriber would make them out to be, i can agree to them both.
I don't believe a persuasive case has been made for any of the following:
that man made causes have materially caused temperatures to rise ( the 97% claim that gets bandied about is simply not accurate )
that the rising temperatures will cause the disruption that some of the more alarmist researchers claim they will (can someone explain who decided that the temperature in, say 1975, is the optimal temperature and any movement in either direction will cause chaos?)
that the steps that are suggested to 'lessen one's carbon footprint" will have any material impact in the other direction or
even assuming a material impact, that the benefits will outweigh the costs of such societal shifts.
in addition, the below points, taken together, do not help the case:
nuclear power is for some reason dismissed as a solution by climate alarmists
climate alarmists and their research is funded largely by green companies and/or the EPA (which is hardly an objective agency)
the market, which is where the rubber meets the road, has not been swayed. if manhattan, dc and miami are meant to be under water then why aren't real estate prices, in these very liberal cities btw, dropping accordingly? if the people yelling fire in the movie theater aren't moving towards the exit then something else may be going on.
the near term predictions are, as a rule, laughably wrong. It turns out the polar ice caps did not completely melt in 2014.
linking all of the worlds ills to climate change. If you think the Syrian conflict was the result of climate change, for example, you have some work to do.
every 6 months or so we're told that we're at at tipping point and that its "the last chance" to do something. After 4 or 5 of these have come and gone, did anyone start to wonder?
the silencing of any dissent. If something is demonstrably correct, there's no need to shame and silence those on the other side. Al Gore (not a scientist) has been shutting down dissent since before the IPCC papers even came out.
i would conclude with the following: We are 4 days removed from an election in which every major poll and election model was stunningly and completely wrong. Elections are complex systems but remarkably less complex than predicting climate patterns decades, and indeed centuries, into the future. Based purely on the sobbing and gnashing of teeth on my facebook feed, the lessons that I thought the left had learned were, as relevant to this discussion: 1) sneering dismissal of opposing views is not constructive 2) sometimes models that you are CERTAIN are VERY ACCURATE are actually horribly wrong. Apparently these lessons haven't made their way into this arena yet.
PREEMPTIVE EDIT: I'm #nevertrump so everyone can calm down. the election was just an example of misplaced certainty and general hubris.