Consensus On Consensus: Climate Experts Agree On Human-Caused Global Warming (theguardian.com) 795
mspohr quotes a report from The Guardian written by Dana Nuccitelli, environmental scientist and contributor to SkepticalScience.com: There is an overwhelming expert scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. Authors of seven previous climate consensus studies -- including Naomi Oreskes, Peter Doran, William Anderegg, Bart Verheggen, Ed Maibach, J. Stuart Carlton, John Cook, [Dana Nuccitelli] and six of her colleagues -- have co-authored a new paper that should settle this question once and for all. The two key conclusions from the paper are: 1) Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it's somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most of our studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists. 2) The greater the climate expertise among those surveyed, the higher the consensus on human-caused global warming.
Quoted from IOPscience: Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%-100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers also supported a 97% consensus. Tol comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.
Quoted from IOPscience: Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%-100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers also supported a 97% consensus. Tol comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.
Fun (Score:2)
This should be fun.
Re:Fun (Score:4, Insightful)
A recent meta-study concludes that the remaining 0-10% are actually correct in believing this will be a fairly shitty time, but are being silenced by a global cabal of carefree internet commenters who just want to have fun.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The new paper cites as evidence Cook's old paper (referenced as "C13"), which has been pretty thoroughly refuted [hi-izuru.org] by now. I mean, it's pretty amazing that these people can be caught red-handed lying about their methodology, beyond any reasonable doubt, and then act like nothing happened. The "C13" paper is utter garbage. I haven't read the entire new paper yet, but if it cites "C13" my expectations are extremely low.
And just FYI: I'm not going to argue about that fact.
Re:10%. 90% (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:10%. 90% (Score:4, Insightful)
As usual, Jane, you don't fail to amuse. The "people ripping it to shreds" is one guy, with what appears to be a personal grudge against John Cook and the Skeptical Science web site [skepticalscience.com], complaining about one chart used in the paper with much histrionics and hyperbole.
Is this some new meaning of "ripping it to shreds" that I've never heard of before or are you just repeating what you read on some retired weatherman's blog?
Re:Fun (Score:4, Interesting)
Science is not a once and for all deal *ever*. So odd thing to claim.
So get rid of the humans. (Score:5, Funny)
That fixes it.
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More accurate statement.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More accurate statement.... (Score:5, Informative)
"Some sort of impact" sounds like weasel words to me. The linked paper shows six independent studies that all agree; the consensus of 90-100% of scientists is that:
human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century
Which is a much stronger statement than you make out. Also, agreement with this position is correlated with expertise.
The exact climate sensitivity is still being debated, but your links are nearly five years out of date.
Also (Score:4, Insightful)
How much the planet will heat up and what level is even harmful, instead of helpful, is very much up for debate.
Since the next ice age is an inevitability, it's a race to see how much we as a people can prosper and prepare before we are all encased in a thousand years of winter - which is in the end vastly more a danger than even the most extreme warming forecasts.
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"the next ice age is an inevitability"
No, it's been cancelled, at least as long as human civilisation is around.
If we actually needed more global warming, therw are plenty of ways -- pumping out methane, for instance.
Look at the ways proposed to terraform Mars. They'd all be much easier to do here.
Of course, if we nuke ourselves back to the stone age, yes, the natural climate cycles will eventually reassert themselves.
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Actually it's twenty odd thousand years of ice age and there are underwater caves with stalagmites and stalactites that prove that along with the total destruction of coral barrier reefs due to exposure to atmosphere. Now when is the key. We are still forced to protect what we can, for as long as we can and punish those who accelerate problems. So if acceleration of a problem is no problem to you, let's accelerate the demise of the fossil fuellers and their backers, die twenty years from now or fifty, what
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How much the planet will heat up and what level is even harmful, instead of helpful, is very much up for debate.
Since the next ice age is an inevitability, it's a race to see how much we as a people can prosper and prepare before we are all encased in a thousand years of winter - which is in the end vastly more a danger than even the most extreme warming forecasts.
There will not be a new glaciation (ice age) as long as CO2 levels remain above 400 ppm. You can take that to the bank.
Re:More accurate statement.... (Score:5, Informative)
A more accurate statement:
Not really.
1. Over 90% of scientists think the Earth is more likely to be warming up than cooling down.
Yes, that's what TFA says.
Even skeptics usually agree with this.
Actually, the reason for studies like this is because there are plenty of "skeptics" (read, "deniers") who do NOT agree with this. Every time there's a story on Slashdot about climate change, there's a whole group of people who come out of the woodwork and try to cite how the data from the past X number of years is bad and the warming trend isn't real, etc. Or global cooling was a thing not so long ago. Or whatever.
Yes, legitimate "skeptics" about the role of humans in climate change do generally believe that the planet is still warming. But there are plenty of others who dispute that.
2. Most of these scientists said humans had some sort of impact on the climate, but exactly how much was under debate.
Actually, most of the studies cited in TFA required that the respondents committed to belief that humans were a "significant" contributor to climate change, and some asked respondents whether humans were the "dominant" cause. The wording varied from study to study, and you can read the details in the full metastudy.
Regardless, most of the studies in TFA imply something much stronger than your statement.
In fact, the consensus view at present is that the impact of CO2 is overestimated.
Nope. That's not the current consensus view. There have been some studies which have rejected the more dire models for CO2. But your links are a few years old. Basically, your links are referring to issues where models didn't predict the "slowdown" in climate change that happened in the early 2000s. It has now picked up again.
And this is likely just due to random elements in a chaotic system. Subsequent studies have suggested that randomness in the earth's climate from year-to-year probably has multiple times the amount of impact that alterations to the CO2 model (or other factors, like sunlight absorption models, ocean absorption models, etc.) have.
Bottom line: the validity of these models has to be judged over longer timespans, to avoid the year-to-year blips in a chaotic system. With that taken into account, the general CO2 models likely aren't that far off.
Problems, problems.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Carbon caps are shit. 1% increases in efficiency here and there are shit.
This leaves a few options:
1. A tech breakthrough in energy production.
2. Massive decrease in energy consumption, meaning a loss of lifestyle for a couple billion people.
3. A stopgap until item 1 happens. This means nukes.
Why is it we are not afraid to dump tons of radioactive elements into the air from coal plants (dilute yes), not to mention the ash and slag? We are not afraid to blow mountains to bits to do this: http://explore.org/photos/6235... [explore.org], but we are afraid to set aside areas for relatively safe plants and storage? WTF is wrong with us as a species where we will keep giving money to barbaric warlords for fossil fuels, but not invest in better sources? Who is responsible for the drumbeat of fear that prevents makes this our current reality?
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In our defense, the drumbeats *are* very soothing [schlockmercenary.com].
Re:Problems, problems.... (Score:5, Informative)
1. A tech breakthrough in energy production.
We already have nuclear technology available to us, ready to implement that produces nearly no waste (by reprocessing), is very safe, and burns much more abundant thorium for fuel (also burns most of what we currently consider waste, via reprocessing.) It would solve energy needs for the foreseeable future. Why is no one building these things?
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You forgot option 4 (not mutually exclusive with the other options): Researching methods to actively cool the planet, by increasing albedo, blocking insolation, etc.
You know, it really doesn't matter whether the warming is anthropogenic or not. The planet is warming, and that's bad for us. We know that Earth has been much hotter than it is now, and much colder than it is now, and neither extreme is pleasant for humans. Until fairly recently we assumed that temperature changes happened slowly, but ice core
Re:Problems, problems.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, economists have been saying for decades that a price on carbon is the most effective [wikipedia.org] way to reduce emissions with least impact on the economy. And increases in efficiency have saved hundreds of billions [iea.org] annually.
Further, we've already had tech breakthroughs in energy production, with solar and wind to name a few. These have allowed [iea.org] us to decouple emissions growth from economic growth for the first time in history. With renewable energy prices still dropping and storage technology improving fast, even fully-green baseline power is already achievable; no further breakthroughs required, and we don't need to slash our energy consumption either.
For the record, I believe nukes should still be on the table, as there are cases where they still make the most sense. But their advantages have to be balanced against their price (both full-lifecycle cost, and potential failure risks), so I don't expect them to be widespread.
Re:Problems, problems.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, economists have been saying for decades that a price on carbon is the most effective way to reduce emissions with least impact on the economy.
Yes and politicians have made certain that none of the market based mechanisms implemented so far can help reduce emissions in any meaningful way.
Re:Problems, problems.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with nuclear power is the cost. If you can find a way to make it cost competitive, then by all means, promote that idea. Complaining about it it doesn't seem like a useful strategy to solve the problem.
How much of that cost is regulatory red tape?
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Re:Problems, problems.... (Score:4, Informative)
According to this article [pitt.edu], regulations and red tape quadrupled the cost of a nuclear plant in the US from 1970 to 1980
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the only reason it is expensive is because of the draconian regulatory structure.
Then fix it.
Not to mention there aren't trillions in green energy subsidies.
Then advocate for more green energy subsidies.
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I'm starting to think that YOU are the problem, since your role seems to be to complain and not actually solve any problem or contribute in any useful way.
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Why has this been modded down? Climate change is expected to force billions of humans to leave their home in the next century. The answers for the refugee problem this creates are all not pleasing.
Who needs the scientific method? We have CONSENSUS (Score:3, Insightful)
Who needs the scientific method when we have CONSENSUS? Let's just call it a day and go home now.
Re:Who needs the scientific method? We have CONSEN (Score:5, Insightful)
Who needs the scientific method when we have CONSENSUS? Let's just call it a day and go home now.
Consensus is PART of the scientific method. It's the only way we actually get to DO "science".
Imagine "science" without the possibility of consensus:
"Hey, that whole gravity thing could be bogus! I know other researchers have verified it thousands of times, but maybe they're wrong. Let's just do some calibration tests every day in the lab to be sure stuff doesn't randomly start floating UP instead of falling down. After all, we can't accept consensus!"
"Well, I was going to do a chemistry experiment today, but I don't really believe that whole atomic theory of matter. I mean, there's 'consensus' on the idea that molecules are made up of atoms, and a substance has consistent properties based on that. But maybe water isn't really made up of H2O. Maybe if I zap it with electricity, it will turn out that it's actually made of microscopic gnomes! The gnomes could be magically giving the illusion of molecular structure. Before I start my chem experiments, I need to be sure my hypothetical gnomes aren't going to ruin the properties of my solvent. So let's test for gnomes every day!"
Obviously these are ridiculous examples. But actual science in practice requires that we accept a bunch of "givens" to actually make progress. Those are generally derived through scientific consensus. Yes, sometimes even those fundamental assumptions are shown to be wrong, at which point we have a "paradigm shift" (in Thomas Kuhn's terms) or modify the "hard core of our research program" (in Imre Lakatos's terms).
But "normal science" simply couldn't operate without foundational assumptions. Acting like there's no role for consensus in science is just ridiculous.
Now -- I understand that there may be greater range for doubt in the scientific community about how climate change works exactly than, say, for the basic idea of gravity or that water molecules are H2O. That's reflected in TFA -- the numbers vary from 90% to 99% consensus... I assume for gravity and water the numbers would be more like 99.999%.
There's still room for people to try to question the foundational assumptions within normal science. But TFA notes that for most scientists, they consider questioning the assumption itself to be less worthy of attention than refining the models within the paradigm. That's how science works... in reality. The bizarre pseudo-Popperian nonsense that sometimes gets spouted around here that "every scientific fact is always up for falsification!" simply isn't true.
If your lab equipment seemed to indicate that your water was made of tiny gnomes, the vast majority of scientists would probably assume there was something wrong with the equipment -- or that someone was playing a prank. And that would be a heck of a lot more likely than that they had just falsified the atomic theory of matter by discovering tiny magical gnomes that produced the illusion of molecular structure. Realizing this is part of being a scientist, and that involves accepting current consensus about foundational concepts.
Re:Who needs the scientific method? We have CONSEN (Score:4, Informative)
Consensus is PART of the scientific method. It's the only way we actually get to DO "science".
No it's not, the scientific method is based on proof and a chain of reproducibility. If you ask, "How do we know X is true?" You can find a paper, and reproduce its results. The paper is probably based on other papers, and if you want to, you can reproduce those results. If you want to, you can follow the chain all the way back to Galileo dropping balls off the leaning tower of Pisa.
As soon as you get to a point where someone says, "We know X because we voted and have consensus," the chain of reproducibility has been broken. Suddenly you are relying on the authority of the group, not on evidence. There always needs to be the option to reproduce, otherwise it's not science. Surveys are not climate science, they are political science.
Re:Who needs the scientific method? We have CONSEN (Score:4, Insightful)
Suddenly you are relying on the authority of the group, not on evidence. There always needs to be the option to reproduce, otherwise it's not science. Surveys are not climate science, they are political science.
Exactly. Surveys among scientists are a way to derive policy from science. How else would you do it ? Have the President and Senate go out with thermometers and test it themselves ? Of course, scientists themselves are not basing their opinion on consensus. They are free to disagree and show evidence for their position.
Your all in denial of the solution... (Score:4, Funny)
Lets get on with it. Everyone kills themselves except for me and 30,000 of the most genetically fit women. It will totally work. Problem solved.
So who now is in denial?
Ok, lets say we all 100% agree... So? (Score:2)
For all the harping of the issue, lets pretend for a min that 100% of everyone agrees, AGW is real and it is a problem.
Now what?
What I do NOT see is anyone putting fourth solutions that will prevent it from becoming a massive problem over time.
I see numbers that are "safe" from 300 up to 450 PPM CO2, but the problem is, even the White House Council on this says that to keep CO2 at 450 PPM that every nation must cut at least 60% CO2 and every industrial nation must cut by at least 80% by 2050.
The US put out
With carefully redefined terms ... (Score:2, Interesting)
With carefully redefined terms [wikipedia.org], it is possible to make any statement truthful. For example, if we denounce any "skeptic" as not an expert (and worse) [realclearscience.com], the above-quoted statement automatically truthful.
And if the denounced non-scientists insist on voicing their ridiculous opposition, we prosecute them as racketeers [scienceblogs.com]. Surely, such felons can not be considered "experts", can they be?
Problem solved — 100% unanimity achieved...
I too believe global warming is real and man made (Score:2)
I too believe global warming is real and man made, but I also recognize that scientific "consensus" means absolutely nothing whatsoever when controversial ideas are involved. At one point the scientific consensus was in favor of earth being flat, and not washing hands before surgery. If you want a more recent example, look up the discovery of heliobacter pylori as a cause of ulcers. Dude almost got laughed out of his scientific field because "consensus" at the time was that ulcers are "because of the nerves
Re:Who the fuck cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Who cares if the experts agree. After all, they are not the politicians seeking to get elected/re-elected by saying the opposite while putting cash in their pockets from polluters.
Re:Who the fuck cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange how the naturalist position is that species extinction is perfectly to be expected, even essential, in the context of evolution. Unless it happens now, where it is some sort of moral travesty.
Ah, the famous "it would have happened anyway" fallacy. According to your logic, we shouldn't investigate homicides and prosecute murderers, as people will die anyway.
Re:Who the fuck cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Basic scientific fact: all species drive the evolution of all other species, and thus form interdependent chains. Natural extinctions tend to be caused by calamities that hit very nearly *all* species at once, meaning the leftovers can start from scratch.
Taking out species one at a time however is almost entirely unprecedented in evolutionary history, and it happening repeatedly in a short space of time IS entirely unprecedented in evolutionary history. There is no way to know how the death of *any* species will end up impacting us (contrary to common belief: we are not special or any less dependent on the interdependent networks of species than any other). The cause of our own species end could be the extinction of one unknown single-celled organism we didn't even know existed. That is an entirely LIKELY scientific scenario.
The main reason to preserve biodiversity is because it's utterly impossible to even begin to predict the impact of any extinction on all other species -and we're one of the species being impacted.
Extinction is part of nature, but so are we - extinction should be something we, like all other species, try to avoid - not something we fucking cause. There will never be a time when doing so is not self-defeating to the point of insanity.
Seriously "things go extinct naturally so we can cause whatever extinctions we want and it doesn't matter" has about the same effect on a biologist as you would have on a physicist if you told him you were busy banging two pieces of subcritical uranium together to keep warm.
Re:Who the fuck cares (Score:5, Insightful)
The problems don't start till 2100, and I'll be dead by then. Global warming is future people's problem, NOT mine!
This is the true consensus, exampled by humanity's action (or lack thereof.) I personally don't care what/who caused it, blaming is pointless. The fact nothing is changing to slow it down (if that's even possible at this point, science is still out on that) is all I really care about, and there's of course the 'I won't be around to see the effects.' thought too.
From the few articles I've read, it seems like even if we stopped all CO2 emissions this very instant, we're still in for some rough changes to the climate. So it's pretty easy to get on board with the 'future humans are fucked, no matter what, so why even care?' line of thought.
But again, blaming does nothing, it doesn't fix anything, it doesn't make positive changes. So just spinning our wheels doing 'science' to prove the science is right. How about some solutions people? And cutting emissions is not going to fly, we need a different solution than just cutting emissions, we're past the cutting emissions is gunna amount to much of anything. And it's never going to happen anyway, so solutions that work with the emissions are what is needed.
Re:Who the fuck cares (Score:4, Interesting)
Well not every little change really needs to be about save the planet stop global wappa.
Just look at Tokyo I'm sure they wish they had started working on emissions controls years ago as its going to take something like 30 years to get everything switched out with things that pollute less.
But still yet its worth doing for the quality of life improvement alone.
Led bulbs are now well priced taking less than 2 years to break even.
In my living room I have 6 65w bulbs when I get them switched out with LEDs the total for all 6 LEDs will be 60w for all 6 so less than 1/6th the power usage for the same amount of light.
I'm not doing that to stop global warming I'm doing that because it makes very good economic sense to do so.
India is making plans to become the first 100% EV country.
And from what I've read they want to do it because it will be cheaper not because of some concern for the environment.
Yet all of the above will likely still help anyway even if helping wasn't the reason it was done.
So next time you have to explain to someone why they should do x for the environment start out with explaining how much money it will save them.
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Solutions exist. You might not like them, but they exist : http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... [www.ipcc.ch] ... ;)
Smaller cities, less car, less meat, no planes, less useless gadgets that break after 1 year, smaller flats, better insulation, seasonal and regional food, solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, nukes,
As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger
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Solutions exist. You might not like them, but they exist : http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... [www.ipcc.ch] ... ;)
Smaller cities, less car, less meat, no planes, less useless gadgets that break after 1 year, smaller flats, better insulation, seasonal and regional food, solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, nukes,
As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger
You missed the most important, and most difficult to swallow solution: reduce the population.. by a lot.
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As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger ;)
You missed the most important, and most difficult to swallow solution: reduce the population.. by a lot.
So are you saying that we should kill the messenger? Well, if it'll save the planet, I suppose...
Re:Who the fuck cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientists now are not trying to prove that human-made global warming is true, they are trying to quantify it, like they always did. The consensus is simply the result of error margins being smaller.
The error is still present though, and it is big, that's why now we don't know much besides "global warming is happening" and that's why research is still going on.
Quantifying is very important because we have solutions but none of them are without drawbacks. There is the solution of doing nothing, which may not be that bad, and there are ridiculous solutions like covering the oceans with white stuff and there is everything in between.
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"Denial much, guys? Do you work for coal/oil companies?"
If you want to see industrial-strength denial, just point out to a Church of Warminetics Operating Thetan that eliminating carbon would mean switching from fossil energy sources to nuclear.
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The earth is actually at the center of the universe.
Re:Newsflash (Score:5, Insightful)
Setting aside that it is unclear that 100% of cartographers believed anything like that, considering that it was known since Ancient Greece that the Earth was round, a cartographer, particularly in that period, did not work under the scientific method.
In any case, I am less concerned with the truth of the statement as I am with the effects and the proposed solutions. There's some pretty crazy shit out there for how people want to deal with the issue, some of it impossible unless you end modern civilization.
If the effect is that we get some more tornadoes and hurricanes and ice melt and all of that, its a problem but not insurmountable. We'd have to move people away from the seacoasts a bit and some island nations would cease to exist above the waves. Not good, but not worth chucking civilization for, since even more people would die or be extremely inconvenienced without it. We've dealt with climate change before as humans lived through Ice Ages and a Little Ice Age in recent memory. So, let's not go doing anything rash.
If it means we end up like Venus, that's a much bigger problem. I don't think anyone is suggesting that, however.
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There's some pretty crazy shit out there
And if you actually try to make some concrete suggestions that don't agree with crazy, the whole thing becomes a screaming match.
Carbon sequestration through reforestation: Good. But only if its forests in the Amazon where we can funnel money to indigenous people (and Al Gore). If ADM comes up with a GMO tree that grows faster and gobbles up more carbon, no sale. The climate crisis people just retire to their corner and whine. If the climate is a real problem, then we can't afford to ignore ideas that don'
Re:Newsflash (Score:4, Informative)
The climate crisis people just retire to their corner and whine. If the climate is a real problem, then we can't afford to ignore ideas that don't fit some secondary agenda. On the other hand, if we do rule them out, then maybe climate wasn't as bad a problem as some claimed.
You mean like nuclear power? I see this a lot, the claim is that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity, national security, whatever, and therefore we must have some radical plan to solve this. I then propose nuclear power and people go nuts, "we can't do that, people will die!" or some shit. Well people will die, we've established that. What we should to is make it so as few people as possible die and the people that survive can live a healthy and happy life. This is assuming of course that future nuclear power plants will blow up like Chernobyl did, which they won't.
Nuclear power has the best safety record of any power source we have. Big failures that happen once every thirty years or so make the news but little failures don't. By little failures I mean people falling from windmills and solar panels, people crushed to death in a coal mine, people suffocating from a natural gas leak, or people run over by trains and trucks carrying coal, oil, and ethanol. I'm not saying people won't die from nuclear power, it has its industrial accidents like any other industry, but fewer people would die if we used nuclear power.
Instead of real solutions like nuclear power we have distractions like wind, solar, and ethanol. Instead of actually solving the problem we have dictators with their hands out at the UN demanding money from the free nations of the world because the poor people of their nation are harmed by the carbon released by the wealthy free nations. Never mind that this money would never actually reach the people harmed, it would just buy them a bigger palace to live in. Never mind that these people would be much better off with coal power to light and air condition their homes, and things like clean water to drink and sewage treatment plants.
The problem isn't that these people are seeing sea level rise, or more extreme weather events. The problem is that they don't have the freedom to build a better life without some war lord coming along to burn it all down.
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I lump the people who are anti-GMO right in with the people who are anti-AGW, since they are both anti-science (when it comes to things they disagree with for non-scientific reasons, so yeah, anti-science).
I would LOVE for someone to come along with some real scientific evidence that shows AGW is bullshit. I have absolutely zero vested interest in it being true. But unfortunately I don't get to pick and choose when the scientific method applies and when it doesn't.
As an aside, the GMO CO2-sucking-super-tree
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Not good, but not worth chucking civilization for...
Sometimes I wonder how different our lives are really comparing back before the industrial revolution and how different they would be after, if it should peter out.
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Improving the electric grid, switching to a grid supported primarily by nuclear, solar, wind, hydro with small amounts of natural gas will not crash civilization. Switching to electric cars and hybrids will not crash civilization. Reducing meat consumption will not crash civilization. All the necessary changes are small. And you can support the easy ones without much effort. You can eat less meat and take public transport or buy a more efficient car or an electric car (the new Tlsa 3is really nice!) . You
Re:Newsflash (Score:5, Insightful)
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In any case, I am less concerned with the truth of the statement as I am with the effects and the proposed solutions. There's some pretty crazy shit out there for how people want to deal with the issue, some of it impossible unless you end modern civilization.
Yet, strangely, you can't enumerate what these ideas are, and describe how they would bring an end to our civilisation. It seems odd that you think we should be concerned about A problem that you can't or won't describe in enough detail to critically examine whether the problem you imagine even exists.
If the effect is that we get some more tornadoes and hurricanes and ice melt and all of that, its a problem but not insurmountable. We'd have to move people away from the seacoasts a bit and some island nations would cease to exist above the waves. Not good, but not worth chucking civilization for, since even more people would die or be extremely inconvenienced without it.
Again, what "civilisation ending" plan is actually being considered? Do you have any modelling to justify your conclusion that adapting the climate change will be cheaper and less disruptive than mitigating ag
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If the effect is that we get some more tornadoes and hurricanes and ice melt and all of that, its a problem but not insurmountable. We'd have to move people away from the seacoasts a bit and some island nations would cease to exist above the waves. Not good, but not worth chucking civilization for, since even more people would die or be extremely inconvenienced without it. We've dealt with climate change before as humans lived through Ice Ages and a Little Ice Age in recent memory. So, let's not go doing anything rash.
I agree. We need to take action that is commensurate with the costs of inaction. A moderate approach is warranted, but since the cost of inaction is > $0, it means we need to take some action. At the same time, we can embrace the future, adopt emerging technologies, and become the leaders in the new energy economy.
Re:Newsflash (Score:4, Informative)
become the leaders in the new energy economy
We had a chance with Solar...but the GOP stopped any grants to an industry until it could stand on it's own. Now it's all in China.
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At the same time, we can embrace the future, adopt emerging technologies, and become the leaders in the new energy economy.
I've often thought that since climate change was such a contentious issue, that it might make more sense to sell solutions, like new energy, on their other merits. The result would be the same (e.g. less coal, more wind and solar) but it would avoid the divisive and politically changed issue altogether.
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Whether climate change is caused by mankind remains a theory at best.
Great! So you're saying that climate change being caused by mankind has achieved the highest level of certainty that any scientific conclusion can reach?
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Show us the failed predictions about climate, not weather.
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Why would Watts try to suppress a video calmly showing how his 'discovery' of bad weather stations was totally bunk? They compared the stations Watts' said were good with the full set...and the data from them was *exactly* the same as the whole data set Watts claimed is flawed because of the bad stations; which the gov readily admits have issues. I.e. they know about the issues and mitigate them as any good scientist does when working with imperfect data where you know the imperfections.
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I recall a recent event when he criticised NOAA for incorrectly reporting some temperature figure, but it turns out he had misread the article. So he edited his own with commentary but obfuscated the flaw in his reasoning, and then at the end half admitted to the mistake, but blamed it on NOAA for not being clear in the original source. It was clear, if you have working brain cells.
Ironically I saw it when some denialists posted the article as proof that the temperature hadn't
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It even further points out that the 'bad' stations Watts identified were indeed measuring incorrectly - they were 'cooler' than they should have been had they been put in 'good' locations. Sorta blows his point to bits.
Re:Biased source? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Guardian is a newspaper. It's reporting on a scientific article published in a peer reviewed journal. If you don't like The Guardian, you can read the original article (both are linked in the summary). If you don't like science... well, I don't know what to say.
Re:Biased source? (Score:4, Insightful)
Climate science is the same science that puts out the weather predictions every morning.
Re:My god... (Score:4, Interesting)
they are selling this hard. I mean when Einstein's theory of relativity was in question, did they take a survey and consider the matter settled? I mean that took nearly 40 years to have experimental proof, and they want to put it to bed now?
The theory of (CO2 forced) climate change has been around for 150 years. For the first 120, it wasn't particularly controversial. I'm not sure why we would consider it particularly controversial now, random guys on the internet trolling the science notwithstanding. Mostly because this makes for more views if the media frames it as a controversy, rather than merely pointing out what we've known for a long time which is that CO2 in the atmosphere impacts the climate, so changing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere changes the climate. Sorry.
The point of highlighting the consensus is to ensure that people who want to dispute the established science understand that they need to provide proof.
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I mean when Einstein's theory of relativity was in question, did they take a survey and consider the matter settled?
That was about a subject of not large importance back then. Einstein didn't say that all industrialized and industrializing countries should invest trillions to re-design their energy processing systems to not rely on climate harming material. He did not say that countries whose economy bases on export of oil and gas should stop extracting in order to save the world. All he said was some theory about stuff whose influence you need a telescope or have to build satellites with atomic clocks in order to tell a
Conservapedia vs Relativity (Score:2)
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A certain segment of the population also condemns the scientific theory of evolution and that earth is older than five thousand years.
I mean criticising Hawking's theories about black holes makes total sense, as they never were confirmed in reality, hawking radiation is in fact so small for usual black holes that its lower than the CMB: the black hole gains more mass through CMB radiation that enters it than it loses to hawking radiation. Wake me up when a black hole is found that's so small that its Hawkin
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Yep. It's not hard to recognize a snow job when you see one. Perhaps these guys can all fly private planes to Bali and bemoan the fact that people don't take them seriously.
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Well, I looked at the horizon. And then I held up something straight to compare it to (the handle of my hockey stick). Looks flat to me. Check mate!
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Does the horizon really look flat to anyone? Show of hands, please.
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however, climate denialists are not the ones trying to prove anything. the burden of proof lies on the ones making the claim.
That's right.
(A) Climate Denalists claim there's a problem with the science, it's up to them to prove that claim, the burden of proof, as you rightly point out, belongs to them.
(B) Climate denialists claim that mitigating our CO2 output will lead to the end of civilisation, it's up to them to prove that claim.
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Re:Every Intelligent person knows that (Score:4, Insightful)
Every "denier" or sceptic I've ever dealt with accuses the politicians of trying to monetize it, and the scientists as being on the take. IMHO its a case of projection.
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Effectively 100% of scientists in the field publishing papers in peer reviewed journals which all agree on the consensus is not a "popularity contest". It is sound science. If there was a genuine question as to whether anthropogenic climate change was real, there would be at least a handful of papers published by real scientists with expertise in the field indicating so. Please cite one of these papers.
Irrational people jump on anything that supports their existing beliefs and preconceptions, regardless of its veracity. You are one of those irrational people.
No, you are one of those irrational people who will find any reason to ignore the science on this one issu
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I think the AC was complaining, like so many other ACs here, that there are problems with the study (specific methodological problems, and fundamental philosophical problems [the importance of consensus to the veracity of AGW] ) that make it questionable.
That is, the AC is saying that you can and should criticize this study for being poor science, particularly if you hold the consensus position, as using bad science to support good science isn't rational. (From the third sentence in the AC's second paragrap
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I'd say the drought in California, the increased wildfires in Texas and say....Florida being underwater pretty squarely fall in its wheelhouse.
SCOTUS agrees [c2es.org]
The Clean Air Act has been modified many times under it's proscribed authority as new pollutants are discovered and/or become a serious threat.
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Skepticism means demanding to be disproved by evidence. You seem to have the word confused with cynicism, which is being distrustful of the motives of others.
Generally I find that climate change deniers fall into the latter category.
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A little bit ago I said I was most interested in finding out how much it would cost me to feel I'd done my share and how much extra I'd need to pay to look down my nose at other people.
I was wrong. What I really want more is to know is how I can cash in.
Re:Climate science doesn't act like science (Score:4, Insightful)
The hypothesis is that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas; adding more of it to the atmosphere will cause the atmosphere to get warmer, and this is the primary driver of climate change from, say, 1900-2100. The greenhouse effect is undeniable, otherwise the Earth would be a very cold place. It's pretty damn certain that adding more greenhouse gases will cause warming. The problem is that the models (hypotheses of how Earth's climate system behaves) predict a much larger warming than has been observed. The models are run with a variety of emissions scenarios ranging from stopping virtually all carbon emissions (low end; little warming) to business as usual (high end; lots of warming). Our emissions have tracked at the high end of the range, yet temperatures are at the low end of the spread among models. While we're establishing records, they're not nearly as high as the models predict.
Turns out that this is not true [skepticalscience.com]. Not that it matters. To avoid "significant negative impacts" to the global economy and environment from climate change, we need to restrict the change to a maximum of 2-2.5 degrees from pre industrial baseline. We have already observed a change of approximately 1 degree. Which means we are halfway there already. It doesn't take anything other than high school maths to figure that we need to do something, and right now. The models are certainly useful, in predicting a large number of parameters (sea level, glacial behaviours, changes in weather patterns, etc.) they will help us save money by highlighting areas where we can mitigate against the effects of climate change. But they don't really contribute to proving the underlying hypothesis - that happened long ago.
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Ah, the usual bait and switch: taking a plausible but inconsequential result ("humans probably have contributed to warming") and then pretending as if any climate activist policy were justified because of it.
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While ever this situation continues we need to also continue to advocate for a continued, repeated effort to re-prove what we already know to be true, otherwise these people will never
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Really? Insightful for this?
Just because we know the answer to some questions, doesn't mean we know the answer to all of them. There is plenty of good research yet to be done.
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I know, right? Science is all BS.
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Nice strawman. Can always count on climate to bring a spectacular and interminable parade of logical fallacies
BS science is BS.
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So a meta study on several crappy papers with significant methodological problems can yield a sterling paper?
Science!
It's interesting that all the climate science deniers do is complain about "crappy" papers when the studies that produced those papers are relatively easy and inexpensive to do? Why don't they publish their own rebuttal paper? Probably because they know they couldn't produce significantly different results than said "crappy" papers. All they've got left is to do is to nitpick.
Re:Meta study? (Score:4, Informative)
As much as I hate rewarding lazinness. Plenty of papers out there that argue TCR is well south of 2deg per doubling of CO2: a position that surely will get you labelled as a filthy denier. What value TCR/ECR actually is is the ultimate 64 trillion dollar question that heavily influences what is a sensible policy response to CO2 caused global warming (mitigate, adapt or do SFA)?. Be careful handling subversive materials not sanctioned by your tribal elders...
http://link.springer.com/artic... [springer.com]
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Re:scientists (Score:5, Informative)
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the historyWhen people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
"According to Google Scholar and Yokohama National University, Dr. Itoh has not published any work in the area of climate change in peer-reviewed science journals." (http://www.desmogblog.com/kiminori-itoh).
Also of interest is this [google.com] which is the article which (for some reason) you seem to have copied verbatim. Not sure why, since the guy who was actually in the debate [glennmurray.com.au] says:
I had a debate with a denier on Google+ the other day. He quoted 18 scientists to support his argument. But when I actually had a close look at them, they weren’t very persuasive. Of the 18, only 12 of the quotes were specifically denying man-made climate change. The rest were just peripheral. And of the 12 that specifically denied it, only 1 was from an actual climate scientist (Dr. Steven M. Japar).
Really, you shouldn't post things that can be so easily googled.
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You found 9 quotes from among the 0 to 10% who disagree. That took a bit of searching, but in the context of a meta study means between nothing and negative infinity.
And yet two idiots modded you up. For what, illustrating that a sub unanimous consensus has some people who disagree?
Explain?
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Nope, those guys are all corrupt because one of them has a gas company branded credit card that earns him a slight discount when he fills up his car.
You shouldn't listen to paid shills. Trust the guys raking in billions of government dollars instead.
Re:JESUS FUCKING CHRIST - THIS is Slashdot's colle (Score:5, Insightful)
I've found a few intelligent people who adamantly deny global warming, and their reasoning usually revolves around "If someone says don't do something or something bad will happen, it's purely an attempt to control you".
I somewhat understand that as the call against terrorism has always seemed like a giant power/vote grab to me, but then again we're all free to see the numbers of how little terrorism is a threat in day to day life.
The fact that different scientists all over the world do studies and come to a general consensus just makes them nervous of a global conspiracy instead of it might be the underlying truth, or somehow by default the more experts that agree on something the wronger it is.
The universal truth for these people is authority is bad and will always try to lie to you and screw you 100% of the time. I'm not sure how you educate against such an absolutist view.