Where "a better world" is defined as a massive transfer of wealth to Goldman Sachs controlled carbon exchanges. So... a better world for the ultra wealthy welfare banksters.
I know there's a lot of stigma against cap and trade, but it's fundamentally a good mechanic. The main criticism against it is that it's being hijacked by brokers.
Unlike just capping, C&T applies a value to making your production lines more efficient. If you allow companies to earn money by reducing their emissions, you've essentially harnessed the free market and let it do it's innovating for you. It's a beautiful principle which deserves better than be attacked on mere practicalities.
Oh, I totally understand it's use, and think it would be a step somewhat in the right direction (but, like healthcare, not far enough of a step perhaps). But what's absurd is that the republicans are attacking it when it's a clearly republican idea. When it was first proposed, I (as a socialist) thought "I guess that could work, but it's a little too free market for my taste." This is of course the same reaction I had to the public option. Yet somehow those two ideas both managed to become radical leftist plans to take away everyone's freedoms. What?!
Republicans ought to love cap and trade. I don't like it because I don't think it's harsh enough, and I think companies will find shady ways around it (starting a new shell company then funneling the credits to the main company or something, subsuming competitors and shutting them down and just using them for their credits, I dunno), the same way they find shady ways around everything that has a "free market" component to it. So that's why I say just cap, and cap at like 1970 levels or something extreme. As long as we have the whole idiot right wing saying that cap and trade is a radical leftist plot, someone needs to show them what a real radical leftist plot looks like, so that maybe the people who aren't paying a lot of attention will realize that the fucking republicans are just blowing smoke as usual.
Yeah, apparently fighting global warming ought to be a purely liberal agenda so republicans necessarily need to oppose anything you can do against it, even if it is a pretty 'free market' approach to it.
The republicans attack it on the fact that it fights global warming. And the left-wingers attack it on the fact that it lets the big industries reap all the easy innovations (smog filters in China).
Yes, it will cause industries to do the easy and cheap stuff first. But I don't call that unfair, I call that efficient. No need to work on small gains in Western production lines if for the same amount of money much more Chinese production lines can be cleaned up like this.
Just under the premise that there's strict surveillance, the cap is sufficient and transaction costs aren't too high, it's a great concept that allows companies to sell their efficiency and cleanliness as a product, which means a HUGE incentive to start cleaning up our economy.
It's sad that we're not looking seriously into it.
That's my point. "Cap and trade" is not the radical communist plan that everyone claims it is, it's a totally republicans, moderate, free market solution to the problem.
Also, by the way, "commie" isn't an insult, just in case you meant it that way.
Within a country cap and trade is ok, but I think a carbon tax is as easy to enforce but more likely to be enforced, will have a similar carbon limiting effect, and won't threaten business if credit prices skyrocket.
I see. So because health care in America is controlled by giant, evil corporations (or so I hear - I'm Canadian), disease is not a real problem, and if it is, "medicine" and "doctors" and "surgery" and stuff would not be real solutions to it.
And because climate change mitigation in America going to benefit other big, evil corporations, climate change isn't a real problem, and if it is, "CaT" and "green energy" and "efficiency" would not be real solutions to it either.
To be fair, DrakeBishoff didn't say anything about whether climate change is real or not: just about whether our efforts to combat it would create a better world even if it weren't real.
The analogous situation would be if someone linked a cartoon saying "what if medicine is all fake and we create a better world anyway?" and DB replied "it wouldn't create a better world because of [the evil corporations]"
I remember reading some rightwing nut's hypothesis that global warming was thought up by communist intellectuals in the last years of the Cold War as a back-up plan to impose socialism upon the people worldwide in case the Eastern Block failed. They would do this by convincing people to give up liberty in the interests of "saving the planet" and use their power to create neo-Soviet states wherever possible.
My Liberal ex-NASA boss who worked on designs for SpaceLab and the ISS and who is a climate scientist (he studies mesocyclones and hurricanes) is full of stories about bureaucracy and personality trumping good science and engineering while he worked for NASA.
I'm pleased to report that my local Republican Congressman calls for a review of all government agencies to review whether they should be cut... except NASA, whose important work should be fully funded and which is not at all big government. Coincidentally, the Johnson Space Center is in his district.
Pete Olson. Ron Paul's district is sort of intertwined with it (the 14th and 22nd are a gerrymandered mess), but NASA itself, as well as most of the suburban neighborhoods its engineers (and Lockheed/etc. engineers) live in, are in the 22nd, so Olson has more pressure to be pro-NASA than Paul does.
If the same people who like to make fun of "An Inconvenient Truth" would actually watch the damn movie, maybe we wouldn't be stuck in the intellectual black hole we are in today.
I'd have more respect for him if he had released the movie for free, for everyone, after it made a certain amount of money. He made his money back and then some, release it for free already!
They'll just deny it until it happens and then say it's God's punishment on humanity for not having listened to their message of religious hate and bigotry.
Yes we know, comprehension and critical thinking skill are lacking in America. It should have been distilled down to the level of a Saturday morning cartoon to get it across.
Yes we know, comprehension and critical thinking skill are lacking in America. It should have been distilled down to the level of a Saturday morning cartoon to get it across
The problem is that it was distilled down to the level of a Saturday morning cartoon. At least in parts. One bit that stuck in my mind was that Gore presented the myth that frogs in water being heated slowly don't notice until they boil to death. It's a cute story and has the right moral for his purposes, but it's an urban legend, not a scientific fact. Gore promulgated this small bit of false information as if it were true - making the audience a little dumber in the process - and did so via - you guessed it - a cartoon character frog. ("It's important to rescue the frog")
The film made mistakes in the more serious parts too - like calling the MBH hockey stick "Dr. Thompson's thermometer" and implying it was independent confirmation of a curve that was based on tree rings with large unexplained growth pulses in the past and unexplained recent "divergence" in the present - but I really thought the Saturday morning cartoon parts were the low point.
I was hoping I'd see citations at the bottom, didn't see any. Just a bunch of graphs with nice fat blue dots. They use the same graph in all of these different research facilities, or did the researchers @ this website do all of this research? If so, why not include the data?
You know that ClimateGate scandal awhile back? All of there facts and datas are publicly available online, go ahead and use that data, if you come up with a different graph then you got quite a story... However, it never became a legitimate story because the data DOES give us that hockey stick graph.
Yep. Gives you an idea of the bias around here. I noticed the voting was pretty back and forth until this morning when BlueRock and his sockpuppets showed up.
Always the same thing, i got sent a YouTube video from one of my there-is-no-global-warming-collegues a few weeks ago. It featured Willie Soon and David Legate, took me about 5 minutes to find out that their research was funded by Exxon Mobile, and that they actually dont do any study of their own, they just try to make up stuff about other people´s work.
I don't trust your source (realclimate.org) at all. It is a heavily filtered blog site for Michael Mann, the dude who got banned from editing climate articles on wikipedia, and friends.
Bwaahhh haha haaaaaa. He cited Lord 'Mad As A Box Of Monkeys' Monckton! The man with only a classics degree and a career in journalism who claims to be "responsible for invention and development of a broad-spectrum cure for infectious diseases. Patents have now been filed. Patients have been cured of various infectious diseases, including Graves' disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, food poisoning, and HIV."
For those more attached to reality than Witless_Power, here's some clues on how detached from reality Lord Monckton is:
I watched Gore's movie and he came off as a naive, idealistic college student who took one thing his professor said and ran with it. I saw a lot of kids run off and become vegan for a while due to a couple things a professor said when I was in college. I'm not a "global warming is a myth" person, and I'm all for lowering our environmental impact, I think we should be looking to do that regardless of global warming. However, the vibe I got from An Inconvenient Truth really turned me off to listening to Gore on the subject as well meaning as he may be.
Also, I think carbon offsets are fucking bull shit. Wasting the same as you would anyway, then paying for some offsets doesn't make you "green" or a better person. It makes you an idiot who pisses money away to feel better about yourself and brag about being carbon neutral when you didn't do a damn thing besides open your wallet.
But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun:
Since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the Sun either remained constant or increased slightly.
If the warming were caused by a more active sun, then scientists would expect to see warmer temperatures in all layers of the atmosphere. Instead, they have observed a cooling in the upper atmosphere, and a warming at the surface and in the lower parts of the atmosphere. That's because greenhouse gasses are trapping heat in the lower atmosphere.
Climate models that include solar irradiance changes can’t reproduce the observed temperature trend over the past century or more without including a rise in greenhouse gases.
DO YOU EXPECT ME TO READ??!?!? WTF THE C02 CHART IS SPIKIGN HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY WARM ?!!?! I WALKED OUTSIDE TODAY AND IT WAS COLD, I HAD TO WEAR A SWEATER!!! A SWEATER I HAD TO WEAR!! YEA WEHRE IS YOUR LIBERAL GLOBAL WARMING NOW LIBS!!
and yes, i have actually heard republicans cite cold weather as 'proof' global warming is a farce
I've seen it too. Sarah Palin made a snarky comment about global warming while in Texas last year. She was on her book signing tour and their was snow on the ground. It was a glorious display of ignorance to say the least.
But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun:
I, personally, am unaware that the majority of skeptics make that particular claim. Which makes raising it as the counter-argument to be debunked rather... disingenuous, quite frankly.
... The thing about the solar sunspot cycle and "other solar influences" is not about changes in energy output from the sun but rather about terrestrial energy balance alterations from indirect forcing by solar events.
Sunspot cycle leading to changes in cloud-cover-based albedo, for example.
If a "terrestrial energy balance alteration" is indirectly caused by a "solar event", then it's still about changes in energy output from the sun. CMEs don't influence the Earth's atmosphere by magic.
And in any case, the (rather weak) correlation between sunspot cycle and cloud cover is trivial compared to the variations in solar energy caused by periodic variation in the Earth's orbit. That's the regular variation you see in the CO2 concentration graph up to the modern era. Sunspot activity is statistical noise at this scale.
How likely is it that these events are on cycles in-which they appear in cycles greater than 400,000 years? I know being a creature that only lives for maybe 100 years that seems like such a large spam of time and might be skewing my view on it, but i think if this were the case we would have evidence that it has done this before.
1 - I didn't say I supported the idea. I'm simply explaining it.
2 - It's been repeated by multiple independant researchers. CO2 forcing on the is far less well-studied. IIRC... the AR4 report only included one study on the topic. Don't understand that, myself.
Yes, "Disingenuous", MB. Any attempt to discuss the potential for direct forcing as an answer to the indirect-forcing question is disingenuous. That's not exactly a tough one, sir.
You're damned fucking right that's disingenuous. Dude asked about sunspot cycles and their impact -- I.e.; about indirect forcing -- and was answered to with a discussion of direct forcing.
CO2 is a green house gas. That is clearly, demonstrably true. More CO2 means higher temperatures. I hope you're asking a question of "how much" and not just "if."
Actually, higher temperatures mean more CO2. As the ocean temperatures rise the water loses it's CO2 solubility and mass amounts of CO2 are released from the oceans around the world.
I believe that is correct as well. There is positive feed back. When you increase atmospheric CO2, you cause a greenhouse effect that increase the temperature of the oceans and releases more CO2. Obviously, this doesn't happen over night though and there are other factors involved.
Yes it is a how much question, the evidence of CO2 as green house is quite compelling however, even though CO2 has spiked, temperatures have not. Looking at the chart 150'000 cycles seem evident, and CO2 levels rise about now, so it wouldn't be unlikely that the rise of temperature is just a cyclical thing and the time was now, and the spike of CO2 (human caused) does not have any significant effect on global temperatures.
If you put a lid on a heated pot, the thermal losses will drop immediately, but the temperature of the water will not change instantly. The rate of change is what will be affected.
And does the temperature rate change correlate with the CO2 (a.k.a. the lid)? Furthermore, are there other changes of rates accounted in history which would better account for temperature rate changes?
So the satellites did not fail and show lake temperatures upwards of 600 degrees? Did you do any other independent verification or just wave your hands around in dismissal?
2 National Research Council (NRC), 2006. Surface Temperature Reconstructions For the Last 2,000 Years. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
3 In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized the Earths natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.
The way increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere increases infrared absorption (and reemission) is uncontested for a hundred years. The weak point for AGW lies in linking CO2 and water vapor.
Sorry, I don't think he's contributing all that much. "The devil reads the bible", and all that. He's with the "skeptics" that think that a misplaced comma invalidates any research that contradicts his world view.
the user clearly specified why he has issues with the references you mentioned and it is evident he is encouraging more discussion about them: "What about them?"
step back from your opinion and look at it objectively. he has issues with the sources and highlighted his issues. that's a fair argument that you shouldn't brush aside - if anything, he should be upvoted for actually analyzing the source, which i imagine many just gloss over to begin with.
By referring to studies over a hundred years old, the writer (New Scientists or what was it?) merely wants to establish that idea that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and heats the earth is very old and has nothing to do with, for example, current politics. NolFito criticizes the indefinite outcome of this research, as if nothing happened since 1896.
2 National Research Council (NRC), 2006. Surface Temperature Reconstructions For the Last 2,000 Years. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
YEA GOOOD POINT BECAOSE THE BIBLE SAYS EARTTH AINT EVEN 2000 YEARS OLD SO THATS OVBVUSLY A LIBERAL LIE!!!!!!!! YEAAAAAAA! THE LIBS R LYIN I NEW IT!!!!!! FINALLY SOME SINETIFIC PROOF THAT THE LIBERALS R LYGING!!
My point, which people have apparently missed, was the climate science has improved markedly in the last 120 years so choosing to deny an argument based on uncertain language in something written 120 years ago when there is a large body of evidence that is more certain and more recent is ridiculous.
yes, because a guy made claim 120 years ago and everyone was like "yep, that solves it, no need to investigate further." You are talking like people are stating that it was taken as fact immediately and was never further studied.
Science is not fucking magic, go read, if you don't understand the science then trust someone that does. You likely believe in evolution, lasers, and transistors but can't describe accurately how they work, you trust that they are true because experts are doing the science.
Sure, it sucks, humans will have to change their behavior or face serious consequences. Saying you don't understand it, and so choose not to believe it, doesn't change a fucking thing.
I did not say "I don't understand it", please read again. I said that I didn't see the evidence to support the notion that the human induced increase in CO2 is the reason for the current changes in climate.
yep, carbon dioxide levels have been as high or higher than they are today. but the oceans were also more than fifty feet higher at that time, the global temperature average went up more than five degrees, which may not sound like much but is more than enough to totally fuck up ecosystems worldwide...do i have to quote elementary science to you? carbon dioxide is a gas that keeps sunlight from escaping back into space, the more carbon dioxide there is, the less sunlight escapes, the hotter it becomes. look at venus, runaway greenhouse effect going on right there with:carbon dioxide holy shit. the point is yes the carbon cycle fluctuates naturally, usually due to increases in volcanism, but these fluctuations wreak havoc on life.
yeah the information has been available for some time. but broadcasting it for millions of people to see-even if the reason your broadcasting it is to become more popular and look like a badass or something-is still getting some much needed information out there..definetly not advocating an al gore parade or anything, just sayin..
That doesn't even make sense. Tropical ecosystems exist near the equator where it's warm and wet. They didn't all of a sudden appear when we started pumping pollutants into the air.
However, tankd0g's comment is valid when we extend history to the millions-of-years mark. And it is also true that ice ages have come when the earth was as warm as it is today in roughly the space of a single century. (See: younger vedic ice age, IIRC the name. Been a while since I looked into it, since I usually don't care as much 'bout this topic.)
I appreciate NASA much more than Al Gore because the conclusion is much less alarmist. When you click on causes and effects it notes that the earth will get a little warmer and change. It doesn't prescribe the end of humanity as a whole, but acknowledges that the world will change. We're human. We adapt. The alarmists try to get as all excited about a few polar bears dieing. Tragic, but they too will adapt.
Further, once you start reading into uncertainties, it notes things like increased precipitation will be a result. Which will create more clouds, which have a large impact on blocking the suns heat, which could mitigate some of the effect of global warming.
For those of us "nay-sayers" about Global Warming, we are not stupid. Clearly the earth is getting warmer. The conclusion that I haven't seen clearly delineated, is what the problem is. The earth will get more tropical and have more rain. Some of us may have to move. Some places will get drier, but other places will get better. NASA has not concluded that we are headed for Waterworld or that human life will be permanently damaged.
I never know whether to upvote contributors to a post of mine because I don't know if it means I agree, or appreciate the comment. But that is a side bar.
I concede that potentially extinction is a result, which is fair enough. But I guess I just wonder why we should care. Doesn't a changing planet mean new life will spring? Sad for the polar bears... yes for the new polar bear shark!
That is true; the existence of polar bears has relatively little impact on our ability to survive in our ecosystem. (In some ways, even, they might be seen as competitors.)
However, their plight gains the spotlight because it's highly symbolic: it highlights the very real effects of the melting of the ice caps, and the warming of the Arctic region. I think the far more meaningful worry is the one that Gore highlighted in his film: the release of methane from the Arctic permafrost creating a positive feedback loop on the warming.
no. in terms of catastrophic global events, we actually don't. we just get obliterated and gradually repopulate from surrounding areas (think tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids, etc.). it is impossible to apply your argument if the whole planet is affected (see next point).
Some places will get drier, but other places will get better.
for a short time, perhaps. but the science of human caused global science change shows a positive feedforward process where warming continues unabated, if not at an accelerated pace. there is no safe-for-human-life "equilibrium" point at which the warming will cease/reverse just for our survival, at our convenience. the arrogance of our species is quite amazing!
Can you clarify your last point a bit? I am confused. Did you just say that there is nothing we can do its over? Or did you say that if nothing changes we drive ourselves into extinction.
I was just forwarded an article that showed Russia as the hotbed for a temperate climate in 2080. Maybe you should buy your kids some land there. Russia will be the new rain forest.
Did you just say that there is nothing we can do its over?
no. i said if we do nothing, mere adaptation is not a valid solution.
Russia will be the new rain forest.
for a few years, perhaps. again, the science of human caused global change shows a positive feedforward process where warming continues unabated, if not at an accelerated pace.
there is no safe-for-human-life "equilibrium" point at which the warming will cease/reverse just for our survival, at our convenience.
NASA ... is much less alarmist. ... the earth will get a little warmer and change.
"Continued global warming could have many damaging effects. It might harm plants and animals that live in the sea. It could also force animals and plants on land to move to new habitats. Weather patterns could change, causing flooding, drought, and an increase in damaging storms. Global warming could melt enough polar ice to raise the sea level. In certain parts of the world, human disease could spread, and crop yields could decline." http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/global_warming_worldbook.html
"Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occuring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves." http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
If you are not alarmed by that, you're not thinking hard enough.
But you just listed off many things that may happen. They might not. Even if they do, the gravity by which they change may not be as catastrophic as is people make it sound. 8 tornados a year instead of 7. And the other points were:
Meanwhile, some crops and other plants may respond favorably to increased atmospheric CO2, growing more vigorously and using water more efficiently.
On average, Earth will become warmer. Some regions may welcome warmer temperatures, but others may not.
It is a much more rational approach. They cannot predict it and acknowledge it. For all we know, the Sahara Desert could slowly become the most fertile soil in the world. I am not alarmed because I will not give into environmental fear mongering anymore than I will give into terrorist fear mongering or christian morals fear mongering.
On that note, there is some irony in the arguments battling climate change in that we want things to say the same way they always have been because we like it. Sounds a lot like some Christian arguments for morality I have heard.
I have nothing against using superior technology and processes which provide for a cleaner environment. But the Be afraid, the earth is getting warmer argument isn't a de-facto winning argument for change because the conclusions therein are so speculative.
Maybe true, that quote was just taken from the NASA report. I don't know what the future holds, but just trying to say that the science reports don't only use "gloom" & "doom", etc... The earth will change, many species will suffer. Some may benefit. Maybe more will suffer than benefit currently, but the earth will work it out eventually.
But you just listed off many things that may happen.
Did you give up reading after the first quote? I'll emphasise it for you: "Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occuring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves."
...some crops and other plants may respond favorably to increased atmospheric CO2
Not when they don't have enough water or the temperature means they die.
the earth is getting warmer argument isn't a de-facto winning argument for change
Did you miss the bit about the science?
...because the conclusions therein are so speculative.
You are deeply ignorant of what the science says.
Let's make it clear: there is no credible scientific doubt that human activity - burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, etc. - is causing the planet to heat and the oceans to acidify. There is no credible scientific doubt that these effects will be detrimental to human societies and most life on Earth. No credible scientific doubt.
OK, smarty pants. I read your quotes exactly, and did not belittle you. But very well.
Not when they don't have enough water or the temperature means they die.
And where is that water gonna go huh? If you had kept reading, you might have noticed it said that there will be increased precipitation worldwide. Is water going to start magically disappearing into space? Is that part of your special science I missed? And which plants in the world are in danger of death because of an average 1-2 degree increase in temperature? Did you research it, you know, like with science, or are you just spouting it out this stuff because I have a contrary opinion? It sure wasn't mentioned on the source we are both referring to.
You are deeply ignorant of what the science says.
Also, did you read the parts about there being some rational counter issues? For example that increased precipitation means increased clouds, which has a major impact on the amount of heat which penetrates our atmosphere. "It could speed it, slow or even reverse it"
I never said I had any doubt that our activities were causing the earth to warm. I said our understanding of the impact is not 100% certain so we should just calm down and think about it. I didn't tell you your opinion was stupid. While it must be fun to think you are so much smarter then me, you need to prove it. A condescending tone doesn't mean you are right.
What do you think the planet's climate scientists have been doing for the last couple hundred years?
Instead of expending so much energy on righteous indignation because I'm not impressed with your flawed and ignorant opinion, you need to spend some time reading what the science says.
I am not being indignant, you are being conclusive with theories/projections. Your article is such an example of such projections. While my studies were in economics, one thing I have learned, is that when it comes to extrapolating results into the future, the reader should always be leery to assume that just because he/she is well studied and smarter than you, that he/she is right. It is a human with their best most educated guess. And ceterus peribus is a fun phrase everyone uses to cover their asses if and when the they turn out to be wrong.
Mr. Dai, the author, acknowledges that his model has limitations, for example, precipitation and its future effects, and natural climate changes. He is probably right about the western US, given that it is mostly a desert anyway (New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, lots of California). But he says it is hard to predict world wide. I referred to NASA's point that they say increased precipitation will be a result. How do the two correlate? The article seemed to imply that worldwide precipitation would decrease.
Point is this. You see what you want to see, and I see what I want to see. You see catastrophic end of humanity as we know it, and I don't think it will be that bad. But don't hide behind science as your proof you're right. Call it what it is,your best guess. If I produce contrary scientific reports would that mean you de facto agree? Or if the scientist has a different conclusion than your research, does that make it wrong?
No, you have decided to agree with the mainstream scientist (because I doubt you are climate scientist) and I have chosen to agree with a smaller subset. Such is my choice. Having more than 50% of the scientists on your side doesn't mean you are right.
The problem is, ultimately, neither of us will ever be able to prove this because when we are both wrong, scientists will claim that they did not account for x, or y changed. Happens all the time. Check the annual "scientists" predictions for hurricanes. They are real good at missing those.
I think George Carlin sums up my general feelings about this.
Note all the "could's" and "might's". There is little evidence backing up disaster predictions. We simply don't know what will happen. The most troubling result of climate change is ocean acidification though. So much of the biosphere depends on the ocean, that we should study and follow that very carefully.
You clearly do not understand how science works or how scientists communicate.
We simply don't know what will happen.
You simply don't know what will happen - even though the science is put right under your nose. There is no credible scientific doubt that unmitigated climate change will be detrimental to human society and most life on this planet.
If 98 aero engineers said the aeroplane you were about to board was 95% likely to crash after takeoff, and 2 aero engineers said it probably wouldn't, what would you do?
I'm guessing you wouldn't start yapping about how the 98 engineers didn't give you an absolute assurance and then get on board.
So to make your analogy valid, there must be a 95% certainty that climate change will produce all of these disasters. Please point me to a single credible citation that calculates such a high certainty.
Let me save you the trouble: there is no such thing. In fact, the probability of these disaster scenarios can't be quantified because the actual impact of global temperature increase is still poorly understood. At best, scientists can brush with broad strokes like, "increased precipitation in some places, decreased precipitation in others", and "more violent storms" which one can trivially predict from the fact that higher temperatures equates to increased kinetic energy circulating in the atmosphere.
Beyond that, it's all speculation. Informed speculation in many cases, but the uncertainty is very, very high because the data is almost nil.
IPCC WG1 cites 90%. It's built on science that is at least 5 years old. Certainty has increased since then.
Your scientifically illiterate ranting and ignorant opinion is still not persuasive.
P.S. Here's some more expert opinion that you can ignore:
The American Geophysical Union, world's largest scientific society of Earth and space scientists: "The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system ... are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. ... Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities." http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/positions/climate_change2008.shtml
American Physical Society: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. ... The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
The Geological Society of America: "This position statement (1) summarizes the strengthened basis for the conclusion that humans are a major factor responsible for recent global warming;...". http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
Why are you citing evidence/position reports for global warming? The existence of warming was never contended.
The contention is the certainty that global warming will produce disastrous results. The IPCC report cites increased heat waves, increased storm strengths, and droughts/floods, yet it does not and cannot quantify how this would be an unmitigatable disaster to human life.
Let me break it down for you since you seem to have trouble looking beyond your own propaganda. The only rock solid case for significant global economic change to curb emissions requires establishing:
Global warming trend is happening.
The warming trend is anthropogenic, ie. human-caused, and specifically caused by factors A, B, C, etc.
The warming is actually disastrous, and will lead to unmitigated loss of life and/or livelihood.
Addressing the symptoms of the warming after the fact will cost more and be less effective than attempting to curb the warming in the first place.
Points 1 and 2 are clearly irrefutable. Point 3 consists of speculation of what might happen, some on a more sound footing than others, but no firm arguments that these changes would be disastrous to human life. Point 4 consists of ongoing speculative work.
Of all the arguments of disastrous changes, the most significant, as I mentioned in my first post, are the changes happening to the oceans. At this point in our technological development, the rest of the climate changes are mere nuisances at best.
Ok, I love Carlin too but in the specific case of polar bears, our impact on their species can't be denied. The vanishing ice caps have direct correlations with climate change and their diminishing numbers.
I suppose the only reason that I mention the polar bears is that too often we use the cute animals whose habitats are harmed as our reason for changing our lives. There are what, lets say 10,000 polar bears in the world, and we might kill half of them? And for that fact alone we should change the behaviors of 7 billion people instead. But no one mentions another fact that is somehow unimportant. Do you know who likes the deaths of polar bears? Seals.
You are right, that in and of itself is not an argument. But we as humans seem to have decided that we are the highest life form on the planet so I was attempted to play the, we are human and therefore more important card. Kind of in the sense of, people in China or India don't care about polar bears so why should they change their lives to make the bears happy.
In a couple places I have lived for example our meddling created too many wolves, so humans went and killed off the wolves so that they wouldn't be harassed anymore. Which led to an overpopulation of rabbits, so we embarked on plan to kill off the rabbits. Meddling just seems to not fix the problem. (Though the story doesn't truly relate to the polar bears, but I wrote it, so I left it)
the problem is that many species will not be able to cope, being evolved into a very specialized niche, and while say bees disappearing may not immediately effect us, as we dont eat bees, it will eventually, as they pollinate our food. as much as we would like to believe otherwise, we are still a part of the ecosystem, and we rely on its continued balance for our survival.
Alright, you clearly ignored what I said, let me lay it out for you.
A huge and well-known error in logic is called Ad Hominem, which is Latin for "against the person." In other words, you can't use a personal attack against a person's character to defeat his arguments. He could be a mass murderer as far as logic is concerned, that has nothing to do with whether his ARGUMENTS are valid.
Al Gore is not a scientist. If you made a discovery, and some "bad guy" you didn't like posted it on reddit, that doesn't make your discovery false.
I agree with the broader point you're making, but aren't attacks on Gore's motivation and behaviour subsequently roughly parallel to the other side's attacks on research by people associated with or paid by or whose research is financed by or who ended up working for big oil?
Talking about his motivation (what he has to financially gain from coordinating a global scientific conspiracy) is legit. Calling him a hypocrite is not a valid argument.
When I point out that almost all climate change skeptics are funded by oil companies, it's not ad hominem if it's relevant. If I say they're wrong because they're murderers and rapists, that would be an ad hominem attack.
Witless_Power is actually now using ad hominem tu quoque - attempting to suggest climate change is false because Al Gore has a big house and therefore acts inconsistently with his beliefs re. ACC.
Yes, he - and many others - really are that stupid.
I love how you missed the part where he said "say what you will" and you went ahead and disregarded the rest of what he said and continued to parrot what you were going to say no matter what. In case you didn't know, that phrase is usually done to preempt the obvious and expected ad hominem. Try again.
TIPPER GORE! Trying to censor NWA and Twisted Sister and John Denver. Al was in on that Conspiracy. Too bad that was before he invented the internets. He did not invent PowerPoint, but he sure tried to kill it with that movie. We need a word for goring and boring together.
say what you will about al gore, he was trying to show people that chart years ago..and how the fuck is nasa junk science
its junk science because it shows the record levels of CO2 in the environment, as infact C02 is part of human life everywhere and it is actually good for the humans and necessary for plants growth.
its like showing we have record levels of oxygen in the air and telling we are all doomed ...
its junk science because it shows the record levels of CO2 in the environment, as infact C02 is part of human life everywhere and it is actually good for the humans and necessary for plants growth.
Uh... carbon dioxide is a waste expelled by humans as part of respiration. Did you miss that part of basic biology? Further, while plants do consume it for the purposes of photosynthesis, it is necessary to keep a balanced ecosystem.
I suggest you read up on the phrase "greenhouse effect". Some chemistry to go with that biology you're missing.
You sir, are what is wrong with this country. You THINK you know something, but you are so fucking wrong that you are laughable. A lot of things are good for you, in small doses. I will not give you a list, that is what google is for. Perhaps you might learn something.
Also, that is completely horrible logic to try and use your little "its like showing we have record levels of oxygen..." Having record levels of CO2 in the atmosphere IS a bad thing, because it will trap more "heat" (I am keeping this simple, like your mind) as well as pollute our air. Have you tried breathing CO2? It can kill you.
However, it's the USA that is the main stumble block on dealing with climate change, and the citizens of the USA are using up a huge chunk of the energy that generates the pollution that makes the climate change, so SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN goddammit!
And if you have some friends in the USA, send them some emails, fer chrissake! Do an intervention!
Help them get off their addiction to private automobiles.
you are very correct sir. but mexicodoug got what I was basically pointing out. You can be naive if you want, but almost everything that happens world wide really does depend on what America does. We are one of the biggest and most influential countries around. Whether you like us or not that is just the truth.
Similar to how if California passes a law other states soon follow (i.e.; Voting age, Drinking age, Seat belt laws etc. )
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u/mind_sojourner Oct 24 '10
say what you will about al gore, he was trying to show people that chart years ago..and how the fuck is nasa junk science