Setting Fire To Sleeping Strawmen (now with extra Toniiiiiiiiiight, you're right, you're right, you're right)
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Also, given OPEC's recent decisions to keep oil prices below profitability levels for US-based petro production ops
You realize most of the OPEC countries have production costs significantly higher than the US? As in, $30-40/bbl equivalents? They're hurting themselves more than they're hurting us, and if they want to keep playing that game, they should examine the end of the Cold War to see how that worked the last time someone tried that.
Obviously this time could be different, but if the price of oil is such that fracking is on the edge of unprofitability in the US, then countries like Saudi Arabia are looking at losing $30/barrel. That's not something they can do forever. Also, now that we know how to frack, the technology isn't going away. If US wells stop producing because it's not profitable, and OPEC causes oil prices to go back up to, say, $90/bbl, how many of those shuttered US wells do you think will stay closed?
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Cue an army of idiots ignoring any data compiled at SkS on the basis that they are "clowns" in 3... 2... 1...
I would never ignore something a clown said to me, especially if it was "I'm going to kill you and everyone else on the planet".
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@Intercourse said:
When one side of an argument has an overwhelming majority on their side, I tend to trust the scientific process.
When one side controls the journals and won't publish things that don't agree with their view, how do you know they have an overwhelming majority?
When one side does all kinds of suspicious things like altering raw temperatures, allowing the environment of temperature measurement stations to be contaminated (do you think a thermometer that used to be out in a field, but someone built a parking lot next to it, and now 17 air conditioning units blow hot air at it is still accurately reporting the area temperature?), use questionable sources (picking out one single set of tree ring data that disagrees with a bunch of others in the same area and then only using that one) and so on, can you trust what they say?
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@Intercourse said:
I bow out. I like all of the people in this thread, so I bow out before abject frustration sets in.
See above.
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You realize most of the OPEC countries have production costs significantly higher than the US? As in, $30-40/bbl equivalents?
But we have a wide range of costs of production (even within a single field). And most of the fracking is only taking place on private lands. Lots of stuff is still available in public lands.
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What they haven't proved via the scientific method (and really, they can't) is that climate change is even minimally influenced by human activity.
And remember, we know the planet is capable of much more far-reaching effects than we have to date. Tambora exploded in 1815, and put so much ash in the air that they called the next year "the year without a summer" all over the world. Meanwhile we have one tiny component of the atmosphere increasing a tiny amount and we think that's going to turn the entire planet into the Sahara.
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@Intercourse said:
Yes, it is entirely possible to prove such hypothesis. Computer modeling is one great way.
No it isn't. Not when they are constantly discovering new factors that influence the climate. I read a report in the last couple months about some new discovery about how ocean currents and atmospheric climate are linked. Bet that could make a difference in the models. There's also the fact that we don't really know how accurate our climate change models are since we don't have any real readings from a prior global climate change event. So we're supposed to test a hypothesis using a model built on a guess?
@Intercourse said:
We also have other available planets to compare atmospheric concentrations of gases with their amount of heat retention, etc. We can also simulate a very small atmosphere in a laboratory to examine the effects of small changes of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.
Ok, but that doesn't really tell us about the human impact. Climate is influenced by more than just the concentration of different gases in the atmosphere. For example, did you know that the earth has a axial-wobble that significantly influences the climate? And did you know that wobble has a period of about 26,000 years? And did you know that we're at about the point in that cycle when the earth's climate would tend to be warmer, due to the wobble? Did you also know that the arctic ice that has been slowly melting has some CO2 frozen in it, and that could also be contributing to the changing climate? And did you know that wider expanses of ice (which has been happening in the antarctic) also contributes to increasing global temperatures?
With all of that, how much do you think humans are really contributing to climate change?
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But what do you do when the simulations aren't good simulations of reality?
Indeed: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-view-from-space/
Note that chart is a year and a half old; the actual measured global temperature has pretty fallen off the bottom of all of the models' predictions since. Climate alarmists have taken to claiming the heat is buried deep in the ocean, except recent temperature measurements are showing that's not true either.
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But we have a wide range of costs of production (even within a single field). And most of the fracking is only taking place on private lands. Lots of stuff is still available in public lands.
Well, yes. But the current talk is about "OPEC keeping production high to strangle US fracking." Except that the average cost of a fracked barrel of oil in the US is about $70, and in a lot of OPEC countries it's $80-100. (Actually it's a bit more complex than that; the cost isn't just the cost to extract, but includes the social programs directly paid for by profit from that oil.)
It's really hard to put someone else out of business by lowering your prices, when their costs are lower than yours. Unless you have a vast reserve of cash. Plus, like I said, assuming OPEC manage to get most of the US to stop fracking again, the most likely thing they'd do is raise the price of oil again by restricting production. At that point there's no good reason for the US to turn the pumps right back on.
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And did you know that we're at about the point in that cycle when the earth's climate would tend to be warmer, due to the wobble?
Not only that but if you look at estimated global temperatures for the last few hundred thousand years, you see each intervening period between ice ages has a significantly higher temperature, and, in fact, the average temperature in the past during interglaciation has been even higher than current temperatures. In other words, it might just be normal, what we're seeing.
Again, as others have said, we're as a species generally better off when it's a few degrees warmer, anyway, because it means a lot more land becomes farmable. We should be considering celebrating the idea of another couple of degrees temperature rise. (That's not to say that 10-15 or more degrees wouldn't necessarily bad, but even the most unrealistic estimates no longer suggest that.) Ten years ago they were talking about ocean rises of, what, 10 meters or more? Nobody thinks that's going to happen now.
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Nobody thinks that's going to happen now.
It's funny what happens when predictions don't match reality.
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@Intercourse said:
Yes, it is entirely possible to prove such hypothesis. Computer modeling is one great way.
DISCLAIMER: I wrote this before reading the rest of the thread. Now that I've caught up, it may seem to be piling on, but there is a distinct point here that I don't think anyone else has made so I'll post it anyway.
You're posting here so you should know better. What's a computer model? It's a program that takes a set of input data and generates more data based on assumptions that go into how the program is written. As such, it cannot prove anything. At most, it can give us more data points. Whether those data points are accurate or not depends both on the input data and the validity of the assumptions. Accurate output depends on us knowing enough about climate to accurately model it. If we knew that, we wouldn't need the models to prove AGW.
Filed under: a correct use of the term "begging the question"
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What they haven't proved via the scientific method (and really, they can't) is that climate change is even minimally influenced by human activity.
Who cares. If it turned out that the climate was naturally warming and it was a bad thing for our current society, then we would have no less motivation to intervene than if the change was man made.I've been waiting for ten years for the discussion to move past "is it happening?" and "did we do it?" to "should we do anything about it?". The answers to the first two questions are largely irrelevant.
Climate change is the perfect crucible for the world's largest case of the Politician's Syllogism. Personally, I think the right solutions won't be invented for tens of years and most of the money we are currently throwing at the problem is being wasted. Pretty much everyone admits that if the worst case predictions are true, then none of the measures that are in the works will make any difference at all.
My suggestion - pour tons of money into fusion and solar research. Create state-sponsored incentives to keep smart people working in the right direction. When a solution comes along that has an actual chance of working, implement it. Before that, take simple and conservative steps.
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What's a computer model? It's a program that takes a set of input data and generates more data based on assumptions that go into how the program is written. As such, it cannot prove anything. At most, it can give us more data points. Whether those data points are accurate or not depends both on the input data and the validity of the assumptions.
When dealing with simulations, there are two major things that are done to evaluate them:
- Verification: Does this model do what it claims to do (i.e., it's design specs)? IOW, if it's based on some sort of equation, is it actually doing that?
- Validation: Does this model accurately represent the thing it's attempting to simulate?
I'd be willing to stipulate that climate models could pass #1, but that clearly none of them are passing #2 when it comes to predicting temperatures.
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Who cares. If it turned out that the climate was naturally warming and it was a bad thing for our current society, then we would have no less motivation to intervene than if the change was man made.
I've been waiting for ten years for the discussion to move past "is it happening?" and "did we do it?" to "should we do anything about it?". The answers to the first two questions are largely irrelevant.
But if we didn't do it, then changing our irrelevant behavior wouldn't be doing anything about it anyways. You seem to be advocating:
the Politician's Syllogism.
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But if we didn't do it, then changing our irrelevant behavior wouldn't be doing anything about it anyways.
Are you suggesting that we can't change things that we didn't create?
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Are you suggesting that we can't change things that we didn't create?
Not at all. I'm saying "did we do it?" is part of an analysis of what the cause is. If we "didn't do it," and the cause is not what popular opinion seems to think it is, then what's the point of the action? We're doing something just to do it. We're a cargo cult.
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Who cares. If it turned out that the climate was naturally warming and it was a bad thing for our current society, then we would have no less motivation to intervene than if the change was man made.
I've been waiting for ten years for the discussion to move past "is it happening?" and "did we do it?" to "should we do anything about it?". The answers to the first two questions are largely irrelevant.
Ok, what could we do about it? If we did cause it, then we should be able to do something to reverse it. If we didn't cause it, we're probably up the figurative creek.
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Just came across an article about BAHFest (Festival of Bad Ad-Hoc Hypotheses) that put me in mind of this conversation:
Six presenters, each armed with reams of research, vied to win over a panel of judges with a different bogus scientific theory. The winner got a statue of Darwin looking dubious—shoulders shrugging, hands turned upward....The presenters spent 10 minutes each describing fake evolutionary theories while citing real scientific evidence.
They were quizzed on their research by a panel of four judges, who graded them on factors including creativity, scientific credibility and delivery. An applause meter registered the audience’s enthusiasm, which also figured in the scores.
And the winner:
Michael Anderson, a Boston lawyer specializing in First Amendment cases, sought to explain the ubiquity of belly fat in middle-age men.
His conclusion: In ancient times, men’s “spare tires” served as a flotation device for them to rescue their families in times of flooding. Primitive art supports the theory, he said. The earliest depictions of humans were mainly stick figures. But when people began to settle down near rivers and other bodies of water, human images began to take on abdominal bulges, Mr. Anderson claimed.
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You're posting here so you should know better. What's a computer model? It's a program that takes a set of input data and generates more data based on assumptions that go into how the program is written. As such, it cannot prove anything. At most, it can give us more data points. Whether those data points are accurate or not depends both on the input data and the validity of the assumptions. Accurate output depends on us knowing enough about climate to accurately model it. If we knew that, we wouldn't need the models to prove AGW.
+1
This very thing is why I hate computer models. Far too many people, especially those without a programming background, think if the computer says it's so, then it must be so. But all a computer model is is some kind of simulation performing arbitrary tasks on a set of data. It's not even really a model, more of an algorithm based on an abstract, theoretical model. And if that abstract model is wrong, the computer will not give you useful data.
Imagine someone with a compiled version of
OMG all our probability theories are wrong! The computer model says so!
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Ok, what could we do about it? If we did cause it, then we should be able to do something to reverse it. If we didn't cause it, we're probably up the figurative creek.
We solved a food crisis in the 70's by inventing genetically modified crops. There's no reason to believe that we couldn't do climate engineering if our existence depended on it.At it's core, "did we do it?" is just a more specific version of the proper question "by what mechanism does it operate?". You can go directly to the second question without passing through the first.
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We solved a food crisis in the 70's by inventing genetically modified crops. There's no reason to believe that we couldn't do climate engineering if our existence depended on it.
By that logic, there's no reason why we haven't cured cancer. We could probably do some other stuff that would have unpredictable effects, climate engineering wise. The food crisis of the 70s is orders of magnitude simpler and easier to solve than a problem that isn't even easily defined.
You can go directly to the second question without passing through the first.
You really can't talk about the first without answering the second.
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By that logic, there's no reason why we haven't cured cancer.
Uhhh... no. I was told that we can't solve it because we didn't cause it. I provided a counter-example of a problem that we solved that we didn't cause. That does not imply that I believe we can solve all problems.
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I was told that we can't solve it because we didn't cause it.
No one told you that.
That does not imply that I believe we can solve all problems.
No, but your example showed that you didn't understand that being able to solve one thing doesn't mean anything about our ability to solve an unrelated problem.
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No one told you that.
I was responding to this:
@abarker said:If we didn't cause it, we're probably up the figurative creek.
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No, but your example showed that you didn't understand that being able to solve one thing doesn't mean anything about our ability to solve an unrelated problem.
My example wasn't intended to show that. It was only intended as a counter-example to abarker. I never made any claims about our ability to solve anything, other then the problem that we only had enough food to feed four billion.
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I was told that we can't solve it because we didn't cause it.
Careful with absolutes there. I said that we probably can't. There's a little wiggle room in what I said.
As for your counter example of cancer, that's apples and oranges. Cancer is pretty well understood. Sure, we don't know all the causes, but we understand the behavior very well, and we're getting a pretty decent idea of what might reverse it. And that's after decades of dedicated study. Climate on the other hand is a massive, complex system, with many inputs. We're just getting our first look at global climate change in action. Good luck going from that to deliberate, targeted manipulation any time soon.
It was only intended as a counter-example to abarker.
A counter example to what? I simply said (emphasis added in case you missed my point about absolutes):
If we didn't cause it, we're probably up the figurative creek.
From the context of the conversation, it's obvious that "it" refers to climate change. Apparently you've built yourself a strawman to tear down.
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As for your counter example of cancer, that's apples and oranges. Cancer is pretty well understood.
I didn't bring up cancer.I understand climate engineering is hard, but if it becomes a survival issue, hard won't matter. We'll try and either succeed or fail. Thinking about the difficulty of the problem will be a waste of energy.
@abarker said:From the context of the conversation, it's obvious that "it" refers to climate change. Apparently you've built yourself a strawman to tear down.
Of course "it" referred to climate change; I never implied otherwise. Boomzilla brought up cancer. All I did was say that our solving the problem doesn't depend on the answer to the question "who caused it?". It does depend on the answer to the question "by what mechanism does it operate?", but that's not the question that makes news.
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I was responding to this:
I figured. But I stand by my statement.
It was only intended as a counter-example to abarker. I never made any claims about our ability to solve anything, other then the problem that we only had enough food to feed four billion.
Your example was still wrong, because that's a problem we created, anyways.
It does depend on the answer to the question "by what mechanism does it operate?", but that's not the question that makes news.
The news assumes it already knows the answer.
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I didn't bring up cancer.
Whops, mixed up you and @boomzilla in my head. Still, my point about apples and oranges stands (even more so). Solving a food crisis using genetic engineering? Pretty simple stuff compared to curing cancer or modifying a climate. Also, we did create the food crisis in the 70s: by breeding. Your counter-example fails on multiple levels.
It does depend on the answer to the question "by what mechanisms does it operate?"
FTFY. As I keep saying: climate is complex and has multiple input mechanisms. Besides, trying to solve the climate problem would be a live experiment that would put billions of lives at risk, when there is no real evidence that the changing climate is actually a problem.
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Besides, trying to solve the climate problem would be a live experiment that would put billions of lives at risk, when there is no real evidence that the changing climate is actually a problem.
In this thread, I have been careful never to say whether I believe if it is or isn't a real problem. I merely said that that's the question we should be asking instead of asking who did it. Please don't argue against a point you thought I made.
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In this thread, I have been careful never to say whether I believe if it is or isn't a real problem. I merely said that that's the question we should be asking instead of asking who did it. Please don't argue against a point you thought I made.
No, you haven't said whether you thought it was a real problem. At least not outright. But you have said we should take steps to correct climate change:
My suggestion - pour tons of money into fusion and solar research. Create state-sponsored incentives to keep smart people working in the right direction. When a solution comes along that has an actual chance of working, implement it. Before that, take simple and conservative steps.
Suggesting a solution indicates that you think there is a problem (why suggest a solution to a non-existent problem?). So I am arguing a point you made, albeit inadvertently. Another point that your suggestions imply (which I won't argue with you): You think that humanity is having an impact on climate change. All your short term suggestions revolve around getting us off fossil fuels.
Even if humanity wasn't around, the earth is heading toward a warmer period in the its climate cycle:
For example, did you know that the earth has a axial-wobble that significantly influences the climate? And did you know that wobble has a period of about 26,000 years? And did you know that we're at about the point in that cycle when the earth's climate would tend to be warmer, due to the wobble? Did you also know that the arctic ice that has been slowly melting has some CO2 frozen in it, and that could also be contributing to the changing climate? And did you know that wider expanses of ice (which has been happening in the antarctic) also contributes to increasing global temperatures?
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I merely said that that's the question we should be asking instead of asking who did it. Please don't argue against a point you thought I made.
I didn't think you were really saying that's the question we should be asking, since you proposed solutions that assumed the question was already answered. But I agree that we should be trying to answer the "what caused it" question.
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No, you haven't said whether you thought it was a real problem. At least not outright. But you have said we should take steps to correct climate change:
We are going to run out of fossil fuels (well at least dwindle the supply to the point where they are expensive). A replacement is eventually necessary whether the climate or oil scarcity pushes it. My main suggestion is to stop legislating stupid crap like ethanol and jump directly to the only viable alternatives that can meet our growing energy apatite - nuclear and solar. So, my suggestions don't really indicate my beliefs on climate change - just on energy policy. Fortunately, we have tens of years at a minimum to come up with something.
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My wife is an atmospheric chemist. That fact has made reading this thread very amusing.
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We are going to run out of fossil fuels
Oil will be gone (expensive) soon, gas soon after, but coal will probably last (remain cheap) for hundreds of years.
stop legislating stupid crap like ethanol
Ethanol is for drinking, not driving. Stupid politicians.
jump directly to the only viable alternatives that can meet our growing energy apatite - nuclear and solar.
You also need to work out how to store that energy with sufficient density and portability.
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IOW, you're making an argument based on emotion
What? I don't see "let's work to prevent this possible significant humanitarian problem" as arguing from emotion. Is saying "it's cold out, I should wear a coat" arguing from emotion? Or going on a 3-week long trip on which there's a 10% chance of it getting quite cold, and so I decide to pack coat? I mean, sure, I guess in some sense it is -- I'm trying to avoid the emotion of unpleasantness brought about by the fact that I'm cold. (Let's assume I'm not talking about a situation in which a lack of a coat is likely to lead to getting hypothermia and dying.) But in a more practical sense, in both cases I'm looking at the two alternatives ("wear a coat" and "don't wear a coat") and picking the one that is very clearly better. For a number of reasons that's a lot more clear than GW of course, but I think the principle's the same.(Was the US entering WW2 based on emotion? I mean, sure, it kind of was... it was done a couple days after Pearl Harbor for crying out loud. But that doesn't mean anything close to that it wasn't a well-founded decision or was the wrong course of action.)
Comparing something like the climate to flipping coins is, however painfully dumb.
It's obviously simplistic (like my coat example above). I brought it up to counter the stated argument ("we can't predict tomorrow's weather so how can we predict the climate") because that argument is just fallacious, because things that are short-term unpredictable are often predictable in the long term. So saying that temperature falls into the "short-term unpredictable" case says very little.Arguing it's hard to predict long term climate is a very easy case to make, and it's one that I will actually very much agree with, and I'm not saying we have achieved that.
(I argue against bad arguments as much as I argue for/against positions, and the weather-climate thing is a bad argument for the reasonable position that climate is hard to forecast, albeit one that is often used to argue something I disagree with. :-))
If you mean that we need to make cheap energy artificially more expensive, then we should take this to the evil ideas thread. If you're saying something like, "let's invest in R&D in new energy sources," then I think you might be on to something.
I think it depends on what you mean by "artificially more expensive," but I'd say I mainly fall into the latter camp. However, I also don't think things like other environmental regulations (e.g. to help prevent or clean up from oil or chemical spills) are even close to artificial when they are reasonably well-grounded in protecting from plausible outcomes. I also think that, e.g., governmental help with R&D, education, and other means of increasing sustainable production and cutting consumption is more than appropriate.And claiming that CO2 is a pollutant is a big assertion that's far from proven.
Depends what you mean by pollutant. Lab results show that it has the capability to cause the greenhouse effect; arguing that is well inside crackpot territory. The effect on real climate is not... but there's still some evidence for it. In fact, according to Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise (which has a chapter on GW predictions), recent temperature changes have actually correlated very well recently (small numbers of decades; I don't have a copy, only got it from the library) with CO2 levels, to the point where you would actually have a reasonably good prediction if you went solely off of CO2 concentrations if I remember right. Now obviously correlation != causation, but there is both correlation and a very viable mechanism for causation.There seems to be a lot of evidence that historically recent levels are really damn low (and still are).
I'm going to want a citation for that. I did a very quick level for "historic CO2 levels" and hit all of one link, and didn't read much text, but these are the graphs Wikipedia has:
(Image CC-BY-SA3, by Robert A. Rohde)
The first graph shows that current levels are a full 1/3 higher than any time in the past 400,000 years, based on whatever data went into that. (Full disclaimer: it was made for something called the "Global Warming Art" project.) Note that the second graph's axis is reversed from the first: now is on the left side of the graph. So CO2 levels were higher in the past... but pretty long past. Like dinosaur times.
According to this National Geographic article, current CO2 levels are probably as high as they have been any time in the last 3 million years. Wikipedia cites this saying perhaps the last 20 million.
The problem is along with all the record heat in Australia and California, people were also claiming record heat in Nebraska, which was nowhere near true. If anything, it was more of a cold record, though we've certainly had colder before.
Fine, fair enough. Care to give any links, because I can't exactly evaluate what I have no idea you're talking about. (A couple quick Googles for "nebraska warm winter" or similar terms didn't return anything looking particularly relevant.)[More coming in a bit]
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So the "fact" that humans are influencing climate change is really a hypothesis.
I wholeheartedly agree with this... but I still go back to what I said before about why I think we need to work to curb CO2. If you wait until we have really really really solid evidence, that will be a century from now, and there's enough of a chance that bad things will have actually already happened by then that I don't think we have the luxury of waiting. Sometimes you have to work from imperfect information -- sometimes very imperfect information. And sitting around relaxing doing nothing about it is as much a decision as trying to take action is anyway, so it's not like you're actually avoiding decisions.@Intercourse said:
Yes, it is entirely possible to prove such hypothesis. Computer modeling is one great way.
I'm actually going to play skeptic here. [This has been said by others, but whatever I wrote it so I'll leave it.] Computer models are great as far as they go, but you still need to validate them somehow before claiming that they are a good reflection of reality.Again, I'm not saying they're anything close to worthless (see the above paragraph about working from incomplete information), but even if they are backed by very good theory they only go a small amount toward the end goal.
And remember, we know the planet is capable of much more far-reaching effects than we have to date. Tambora exploded in 1815, and put so much ash in the air that they called the next year "the year without a summer" all over the world. Meanwhile we have one tiny component of the atmosphere increasing a tiny amount and we think that's going to turn the entire planet into the Sahara.
The difference is that the volcano debris was short-lived. CO2 levels have been elevated with respect to the last couple million years for a very prolonged period in comparison, and show no signs of abating.Besides, "the planet is capable of doing this on its own" is only slightly comforting... after all, it's also capable of mass extinctions and other significant events on that scale. If all you are concerned about is the survival of the species, I think GW presents no issue. But I suspect most people would care about rather more than that.
"Note the continuing downward trend in Antarctic land ice during the last decade." Right, because the Earth has existed for only a decade, and not several billion years...
I'm not sure what the sea ice on Antarctica a billion years ago has to do with refuting the claim that "Arctic ice drastically increased in the last few years."
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This topic has to be the biggest derailing one I have ever seen... not that it started in good shape.
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"My wife is an atmospheric chemist. That fact has made reading this thread very amusing."
Well, then, let's hear what she finds amusing about it.
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lolwhat:
Wait, what was that you said?
Hey look, I don't know how to quote
Mobile Dicksores is shit for quoting.
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I don't see "let's work to prevent this possible significant humanitarian problem" as arguing from emotion
You had stated above:[quote=EvanED]OK, now the concessions: I am probably less convinced than the
scientific consensus that GW is human-caused. That's concession 1.Concession 2 is that I'm also not convinced that the predictions are
going to be very accurate. I recently listened to the audiobook version
of Nate Silvers The Signal and the Noise, and that reinforced
that point of view; actual climatologists are often fairly skeptical of
the models as well. There's a lot of uncertainty to it.[/quote]Perhaps, the better way to say it would be that you're working off a hunch. You think that if we don't do something, climate chaos will continue to get worse. That's all well and good - go ahead and act on it on your own behalf, by installing your own solar panels or whatever. However, if you then take that hunch and advocate for increased cost of living for everyone in the short to medium term - not just for privileged white people, but for the Third World, most of which would rather live and work in something more energy-intensive than mud huts - then kindly fuck off.
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Mobile Dicksores is shit for quoting.
Hey look, I don't know how to quote on mobile
You where able to copy/paste text so you did 75% of the work already ... just select text and hit the reply button.
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For a number of reasons that's a lot more clear than GW of course, but I think the principle's the same.
The difference is in how much "more clear" we're talking about. If you're looking at the science, I'd say there's no comparison. If we're talking about normal human fears about unreasonable things, then OK.
It's obviously simplistic (like my coat example above). I brought it up to counter the stated argument ("we can't predict tomorrow's weather so how can we predict the climate") because that argument is just fallacious, because things that are short-term unpredictable are often predictable in the long term.
And you completely failed. Sure, some things are. But you can't simply beg the question about the climate (and get away with it).
I think it depends on what you mean by "artificially more expensive,"
I'm thinking principally of various tax or cap and trade sort of schemes.
Depends what you mean by pollutant.
I gave a definition somewhere earlier (probably a different thread). Basically, something that causes harm.
ecent temperature changes have actually correlated very well recently (small numbers of decades
There is also geological evidence of correlation, but given that the CO2 changes lagged the temperature changes.
I'm going to want a citation for that. I did a very quick level for "historic CO2 levels" and hit all of one link, and didn't read much text, but these are the graphs Wikipedia has:
I was really thinking geological time (should have been clearer). Your second chart demonstrates what I'm talking about. Another example:
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If you wait until we have really really really solid evidence, that will be a century from now, and there's enough of a chance that bad things will have actually already happened by then that I don't think we have the luxury of waiting.
What about the good stuff? Honestly, sometimes I worry about "what if those guys are right?" But as mentioned above, that's just emotion, really. It's an example of humanity's love for end of the world doomsday stuff. Once I go back and look at their case, it all falls apart.
So doing things that are going to make us worse off (ethanol, cap and trade, solar boondoggles) just makes me angry and sad.
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I'm not sure what the sea ice on Antarctica a billion years ago has to do with refuting the claim that "Arctic ice drastically increased in the last few years."
I'm saying that on a geologic timescale, ten years is nothing. The Proterozoic era, when free oxygen in the atmosphere was sufficient for lifeforms to develop, started around 2.5 billion years ago. Even the Phanerozoic era, which is when abundant animal life existed, began ca. 542 million years ago. Ten divided by 542 million equals 1.845E-8. You can have as many temperature, CO2 or ice area data points as you want, but a decade's worth simply isn't a representative sample when you consider geologic timescale.
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You where able to copy/paste text so you did 75% of the work already ... just select text and hit the reply button.
Ah, but mobile Dizzcurse gives no visual indication of this when you highlight text. When one's first experience with Dickers is via desktop, one might expect that indication on mobile also. But thank you for the edification.
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Which mobile platform? I sometimes don't see the quote reply box on Android, mainly when only selecting from one line, but it's intermittent and Jeff insists that it doesn't happen because he has a screenshot of a Nexus 7 where the box appears.
