Climate Change. Real or hoax?

[Robert]

Can't recall where I saw how much energy it took to make a car, to forge all the metal parts like the engine block, and it took a fuck load. But nonetheless, stalwart and progressive (Soviet era poster) mankind has churned out many, many millions of these energy suckers for a hundred years and, I'm sorry. I know, all the methane produced from cows and now I hear from you about the danger of cheese. Cheese. Really? Last night we slept through a typhoon. It is typhoon season. When I peeked out the window at 5am it looked ferocious. But then when I woke again at 7 I saw the streets littered with blasted off leaves and some very small damage to the roof of my building, but all that wind and rain had passed to somewhere else and it really is a pretty nice day today, sunny and warm. How is it by you? You know I had heard, albeit from a climate skeptic but a climate scientist nonetheless, Prof. Judith Curry, that the weather we are experiencing now is perhaps the best weather humankind has ever had. Enjoy.

I am sure they're having a ball over here:

[Hightea]

thankful the children around the world get the issue.


https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/world/gallery/climate-strike-2019/index.html

[Jimbo]

thankful the children around the world get the issue.


https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/world/gallery/climate-strike-2019/index.html

Nice pics. The kids couldn't have chosen a better day to protest. The weather is gorgeous!

[`]

The dummies' guide to humanity-accelerated climate change

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e_btn_link

[Hightea]

The dummies' guide to humanity-accelerated climate change

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e_btn_link

Nice data charts

[Jimbo]

[Jimbo]

.

[Mike Boom]

[copehead]

The issue is that scientists do not have conclusive evidence that current climate change is being affected by man. Around 98% of scientists believe that it is, but that 2% don't. That 2% might be small, but it is still vital in the scientific method because doubt remains. The practice of science cannot proceed thoroughly if the theory has not been conclusively proven correct or incorrect.

Ultimately I feel that our knowledge of the weather and the climate is still perilously small.

I am afraid this is pretty scientifically illiterate when it comes to how science works.

You can find a handful of scientists who disagree about practically everything up to and including gravity because just like a small % of people are whacked out weirdos whose parents didn't love them or people who put their politics or payment ahead of ethics there are scientists like that too.

The scientific consensus is large enough to be called scientific fact for all practical purposes such as taking global governmental action for the simple reason that the 2% ( actually far less than that in the case of publishing climatologists ) have not come up with that most important of things - a competing hypothesis.

Until that happens they are just usually people muddying the waters for an hydrocarbon industry pay check or a sort of weird contrarian who wants to be on the opposite side of any argument and most usually someone arguing outside their area of expertise on top of that.

The whole point of science is doubt always remains, that is why we have theories rather than facts, even if we believe things are factual like climate change or evolution they never progress beyond a theory because that would discount future contrary evidence.

After all we could find out that it is a 12 metre high purple aardvark called Dave who lives under Wollamaloo that is actually causing climate change.

The level of scientific understanding amongst the general population when it comes to the mechanics of science is a constant source of pain to me.

How hard is it to teach children the basics of how science works? Compared to something like the meiosis it is fairly basic and easy to understand and yet we rarely if ever teach it. Even scientists are not usually taught this stuff until they start publishing.

And you will be all glad to know that as of last week I am now a publishing scientist again as my co-authored paper - A Late Silurian Crisis in the Welsh Basin - goes to press.

That paper is tangentially about climate change too.

[copehead]

Furthermore, science like Darwin's theory of evolution, which was once thought to be utterly conclusive, is now openly questioned. The notion of science being "correct" in many fields is often proven to be disastrously incorrect many years later due to new evidence.

As such I think people are right to be sceptical if the theory has not been conclusively shown to be correct.

Darwin's theory of Evolution is not questioned it is added to.

His theory of evolution through natural selection is still the bed rock of modern biology, but with the coming of genetics, the discovery of DNA and epigenetic the theory has been added to.

Einstein's theory of Relativity did not question Newtonian physics is showed it was a special case and broadened it.

And well done for grasping that science his always open to new evidence that is its greatest strength not a weakness.

It is not dogmatic, scientists may be but science isn't.

But work odd this:

the theory has not been conclusively shown to be correct

Because if someone tells you this about any scientific theory they are lying to you.

I have no doubts that Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Anthropic Climate Change are both essentially correct.

I have no doubt they will both be added to in the future

I have no doubt that neither will ever be conclusively shown to be correct.

That Aardvark may be doing evolution too

[copehead]

The overwhelming issue we face is population more than climate, because continents with burgeoning populations like Africa are going to be making enormous carbon emissions that will dwarf anything the West is making right now.

This tends to be the argument of deniers because it pushes it into the realms of the - nothing can be done about it so let's do nothing.

Yes human population is the major problem but it is speaking and will start coming down

The things that will make it come down faster are greater equality of wealth distribution and greater sexual equality - especially access to education and jobs.

These will have an effect over hundreds of years as reproduction goes below replacement globally rather than just in the Western world.

But it is an absolute abdication of our responsibility for this mess to say it is only a problem of population; it is also a problem of capitalism that strives for ever increasing growth on a planet of finite resources and which concentrates more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

It is those hands that are driving the denial side of the political debate ( there is no scientific debate about whether this is happening )

I would also point out that you are not looking at this rationally because you are looking at it from a position of profound ignorance of the Science that is heavily skewed by your political leanings.

[copehead]

The Earth's climate has been changing dramatically on an ongoing basis for billions of years. The big difference currently is that those whose underlying interest is in income redistribution have found it politically expedient to seize upon the phenomenon to further their agenda. It's just that simple.

Actually the big difference currently is that it is being done through the production of CO2 by human beings and that it is being done many times faster than at any point in the geological record.

You are living through an unprecedented experiment in the conseqie=uences of changing global temperature rapidly, how exciting is that?

I would point out that every other similar experiment in the past has lead to mass extinctions where all the larger animal species died out, but we are a resourceful species so perhaps we will find a way to survive it.

And you can remain happy in the knowledge that you haven't allowed nasty leftists to get their hands on the many billions that a few people globally now hoard.

Imagine how pleased your descendants will be with you that you didn't let the prospect of civilisational failure get in the way of protecting very wealthy people.

Moreover because the thought of "global warming" was welcome to many of those freezing their butts off in cold winters and was inconveniently susceptible to contra-indicting evidence, the hand wringers with a vested interest in redistributing wealth to underdeveloped countries switched to the phrase "climate change" which of course can't be denied. The climate will continue to change over the millennia. Nor should any prudent man expend any effort trying to change the inevitable.

You need to learn the difference between, weather, seasons and climate.
Don't worry it won't hurt and if it shouldn't take more than 20 mins to get the basics.

This idea that that there has been some deeply underhand move from global warming to climate change that serves some nefarious purpose is nonsense that even a moron could see through with a few moments research that so that, again, is a stroke of luck.

Both terms have always been used Global Warming is what is happening due to the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere and then basic radiative physics, climate change is the inevitable result of that warming.

Nor of course do those with a vested interest in preaching about mankind's complicity in climate change see any need to give up jetting around the globe, ferrying their kids to school in minivans and then driving to the supermarket. I mean "Walk?! Heaven forbid!" Changing their own behaviour would be far too inconvenient. It's everybody else who should change their ways....

I'm pretty sure you are well aware of the litany of logical failures in this style of argument.
You live in the world you lib=ve in, living in that world does not preclude you from wanting to change it. You don'=t have to live in a cave and eat berries to want to change the world in a positive way

[copehead]

There was a programme on Curiosity Stream about mass excitation events where 70% - 95% of life on earth has been wiped out. They pinpointed 5 such events over the past 500 millions years. After each, life came back again - but differently.

One of them was an asteroid but the others were caused by events on earth. Volcanic mostly, global warming and cooling played a part.
The Gulf countries would have once been dense tropical forest which is where all the oil comes from.

I got the feeling after watching it that we're speeding up a natural process

You were correct.

The Permian extinction eradicated 95% of life on earth and nearly all species bigger than dog.

That took place over a lot longer period of time, literally tens of thousands of times slower than what we are doing at the moment.

Anyone with any understanding of climate history on this planet is concerned, most people will be very worried, our only real saving grace will be we will be dead long before the worst of it happens.

The only things that can save us is one of two things:

A massive change it=n global lifestyle and politics so that we radiacally redistrubu=te wealth on a global scale.

Not going to happen is it?

A massive scientific intervention to remove CO2 from the atmosphere on a scale that would dwarf the moon landings

I'm pinning my hopes on 2 because if we don't do that our grand children generation will be living out some sort of Fall Out 4 existence at best

[copehead]

You are too! You're slyly insinuating that these greenhouse gases are the underlying cause of these climate changes. Do you deny this?

Im not slyly insinuating it, Im saying it as plainly as I can - as are 98% of the scientific community. The global warming we have been experiencing for the last 200 or so years is due to mans burning of fossil fuels and pumping CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the air.

Since that narrative is completely inconsistent with all previous instances of climate change including instances of global warming, I completely reject it. For example, if it's mankind's burning of fossil fuels that's causing global warming, what caused the glaciers of the last Ice Age to melt? Neanderthal campfires? Woolly mammoth farts?

Like I say, the simplest explanation is the best. And since mankind had nothing to do with the previous instances of global warming, the simplest explanation is that mankind has nothing to do with this one either.

You are so scientifically illiterate it isn't even funny.

What caused the end of the last ice age was the Earth's precession known as Milankovitch cycles you enormous dimwit.

It is possible for a action to have more than one cause you know.

I wonder what people like you make of the fact that we have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 2 centuries and due to its radiative absorption and emission spectra this makes it a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere.

We can measure that increase we can show the properties of the CO2 molecule with respect to heat radiation. experimentally quite simply.

We have known. this stuff for well over 100 years.

How stupid do you have to be not to be able to grasp this simple stuff?

[copehead]

Your going to throw Occam's Razor at me? Actually I'll throw it right back at you the easiest explanation for the rapid increase in global climate change is that man is speeding this along. Hence why the scientific community agrees.

So why then was the bouncing back from the Little Ice Age precisely the conventional wisdom in the scientific community until self-admitted socialist and advocate of world government Maurice Strong's 1992 Earth Summit? That's when Strong's acolytes realized that not only could the spectre of global warming be used to pry wealth from the Western economies and re-distribute it to their pet third world economies (including China), but there was also big money to be gained for themselves in the form of research grants by beating the global warming drum.

The idea that you and Jimbo think the majority of scientists are in it for the money and funding and not to find the truth is ridiculous. I get it yes there are plenty of shady scientists but I'm sorry the majority of them are in it for the science and facts not falsehood and lies.

Well Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, put it this way "Most scientific studies are wrong, and they are wrong because scientists are interested in funding and careers rather than truth."

And have you not heard of the "verifiability crisis" when it comes to scientific testing?

Once again we are talking about 98% of scientist(or hell lets say that number is high how about 80%). You seem to be telling us that more than 75% of the scientific community are in it for the funding and all lie. I'm sorry that is about the silliest thing I've ever heard scientists are not Trump. You also haven't answered my question do you believe that currently the earth is getting warmer? I don't care who or what is causing it. If you don't believe the earth is currently getting warmer you need to get off your couch and travel. I'm fully aware of scientific testing and don't need to be schooled on the bullshit of some guy who thinks most scientific studies are wrong because of looking for funding. I would tend to think its more like some not most.

It's also ridiculous because scientists get funded to do research not to find specific outcomes.

Scientists don't want this to be true

They have a vested interest in disproving.

So far they have been unable to disprove it and have only further strengthened that arguments.

If a scientist could disprove AGW he would become one of the most feted and celebrated scientists in human history

[Robert]

Well spoken Copehead!!

You have more patience than I do.

[Sneelock]

I was listening to some young women from "the sunshine movement" here in Los Angeles.
they were talking about how many in their group refuse to bring children into the world. they spoke of their concerns - why they made this decision and the emotional process of weighing such a decision.

when you hear people talk like that, if you take them at their word, without questioning their motives, it's hard to listen to all that other stuff. it's especially hard since all that other stuff has become very familiar and relies so heavily on questioning the motives of others.

[Jimbo]

That paper is tangentially about climate change too.

Of course it is. Doesn't have to be full on climate change to get some cred.

It's utter horseshit. It's eugenics. It's the tulip bulb panic. It's Russiagate.

I was watching surfing on TV. Surfing will be featured in the Tokyo Olympics and I saw how the Japanese contingent practices and competes. All I could think of was how fine those waves looked. No one was complaining about climate change and how the waves were disappearing. A bitchin wave is a bitchin wave. So I just Googled surfers and climate change and the top thing was Climate Change for Surfers: Why It Matters and I will post the link. Just about everything is "will happen" etc. and there was no complaining about disappearing waves - currently. Oooooh ... 2050 ...

https://911surfreport.com/the-edge-volume-48/

[Flower]

A possible good investment if he goes public ....

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/04/kelly-s ... rfing.html

[Jimbo]

A possible good investment if he goes public ....

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/04/kelly-s ... rfing.html

But ... yeah ... If waves do disappear we, mankind, has figured out how to make artificial waves. We can do amazing shit. Stop with the panic. It'll be all right. (Except for the nukes.)