We're all buggered and Sir David Attenborough says so.

[Bulletpoint]

Sorry mate it appears we have a different perspective on what is HUGE and proportion. This happens a lot with words.

HUGE problems to me are not fixed by agreements to decrease sulphur dioxide omissions and agreements to phase out chemicals. A HUGE problem to me is something that you cant agree away and something that you cant control.

Its all perspective and proportion I guess.

As I see it, a huge problem is something that has huge consequences unless solved, and that solving the problem is difficult. Maybe it seems like child's play now, but it's not easy making the whole world agree to something. The reason they were able to agree on solving those problems so quickly back then was because the consequences were so serious.

NASA made an interesting study where they simulated what would have happened if the world had not banned CFCs. They predicted that the ozone layer would have gotten thinner and thinner until around 2050. Then it would have collapsed completely. In 2065, you'd get more UV radiation by stepping outside than when inside a tanning bed today. Turning the world into a giant solarium would have been a huge problem, I think. But we thankfully avoided that, because world leaders stepped up and took responsibility for once.

Here's the study if anyone's interested:

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/world_avoided.html

 

[Bulletpoint]

Fact is that these so called scientists have tampered with the numbers on numerous ocasions. Probally so that they can keep on getting funds, and keep their jobs.

People have been busy studying the climate for hundreds of years, and they are in no risk of losing their jobs, climate change or not. Understanding the climate means better weather prediction, and that's worth a fortune to shipping and agriculture.

Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry has enormous vested interests in making you believe there's no problem. Total worth of oil, coal, and gas companies: about five trillion dollars. (source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance 2014).

 

[A Canadian Cat]

nderstanding the climate means better weather prediction, and that's worth a fortune to shipping and agriculture.

Well said - the people that first discovered what was happening were doing exactly this. It was people who were trying to make better weather predictions that noticed the trends and that started people trying to figure out why it was happening and how it compared to geological trends. Multiple people trying to figure out how things work and arguing about what they find until theories emerge that stand up to testing and scrutiny. That is how science works. And it works pretty damn well.

 

[Hardradi]

As I see it, a huge problem is something that has huge consequences unless solved, and that solving the problem is difficult. Maybe it seems like child's play now, but it's not easy making the whole world agree to something. The reason they were able to agree on solving those problems so quickly back then was because the consequences were so serious.

NASA made an interesting study where they simulated what would have happened if the world had not banned CFCs. They predicted that the ozone layer would have gotten thinner and thinner until around 2050. Then it would have collapsed completely. In 2065, you'd get more UV radiation by stepping outside than when inside a tanning bed today. Turning the world into a giant solarium would have been a huge problem, I think. But we thankfully avoided that, because world leaders stepped up and took responsibility for once.

Here's the study if anyone's interested:

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/world_avoided.html

Fair enough, even if I don't see it as a big problem I would still like see more action by governments. Cleaner, normal air is fine by me. I had a look around a few websites including your one. Its scary if it is true.

 

[Josey Wales]

Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry has enormous vested interests in making you believe there's no problem. Total worth of oil, coal, and gas companies: about five trillion dollars. (source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance 2014).

Hear, hear! The oil and gas industries are the primary source of misinformation about the climate change issue, in the same way the tobacco companies tried to inform everyone that smoking cigarettes did not cause cancer. I've been involved in the UK renewable energy industry since 2007 and set up my own solar company in 2014. I can say hand on heart that I am certainly not in it for the money, if I wanted to get rich I would be working for Shell!

 

[Buckykatt]

All I can say is that I was Scuba diving in Cozumel Mexico in the early to late 90's and into the early 2000's and you can see the effect a rise in water temps a degree or 2 has on the coral reefs, let alone the goddamn cruise ships dragging anchors through them......just sayin

 

[Wastemoreland]

I suppose I should - it would only be fair. I assume you meant it was foolish of me to assert that our contribution dwarfs volcanic and solar activity. While it is possible for volcanic activity to dwarf our contributions the fact is it has not for the time we have been actively burning fossil fuels.


No he is not who I was referring to, he might be a bad actor in the sense he cannot act. I was referring to any hypothetical scientist who was doctoring their results. I say hypothetical only because I am not aware of a specific case - I'd name them if I were. Those people are bad actors in the sense that they are doing damage to our knowledge and therefore society.


I do remember and the bad actors in that were the ones shilling that there was some great conspiracy of scientists tricking us. I do not recall if anyone was actually shown to have really done what those bad actors trying to deny climate change accused them of. Those shills are the bad actors I'm talking about. The ones that are actively ling to you - by trying to attack personally scientists doing good work. I am, of course, open to the possibility that someone somewhere has done something wrong but the assertion that there is a grand conspiracy is just silly and even if one or more people are actually shown to have done something wrong that still does not mean there is a conspiracy to trick us into thinking that climate change is fake.

I have heard several interviews with researchers who have been personally harassed because of their work (just spent time trying to find the pod cast and failed - searching is a solved problem people grrrr). I am not talking about having their work argued against with quality science showing a different conclusion. I mean personally harassed and stocked. The way to win a scientific debate is to bring good science, not conduct character assassinations.



I realize there are tons of problems with the media but actively helping some non existent conspiracy is not one of them. I have a problem with the quick reaction to conduct ad homenum attacks on opponents instead of engaging in real debate. We can and should be talking about what to do in response to climate change. Should be even try to cut our emissions? Is the two degree target good enough? Is it too aggressive, can we switch to five degrees instead? Should we invest in infrastructure to stop the effects of rising sea levels? Should we move people? And many other topics. That's where the conversation we should be going.

You mentioned how it´s wrong to go for the da homenum tactic on more than one occasion now. Feel free to remind in what sentence I´ve done that. Yet you persistantly call Scientist whom happen to disagree with the man made global warming for actors and liars? Thats pretty ad homenum isn´t it?
Maybe I wasn´t clear enough in my first posts. I don´t dispute that the climate is....acting strangely. But what I, and thousands of scientists, DON´T agree on is that it is man made.
So does that mean that I don´t think we should manage our planet any better? Ofcourse not!

 

[Meat Grinder]

The bottom line is that global population is still rising, but slower. It's expected to level off at around 11 billion people at the end of the century.

:shocknaz:

But of course it would be much better for nature if we were fewer people.

On that, we agree.

 

[Buckykatt]

Bill Barr on population control

 

[Meat Grinder]

 

[Bulletpoint]

I point out that the Pangean super-continent just ain't what it used to be and humanity had nothing to do it's demise. Our planet rotates with a wobbly axial tilt, in a shifting elliptical orbit around a variable output fusion fueled star which itself moves through a rotating galaxy in an expanding universe. While mankind is entirely responsible for managing our environments, we do not control our planet's climate.

Yesterday I couldn't sleep, because I kept thinking about this question:

Why do you believe scientists when they tell us that there was a super-continent 300 million years ago, and that the universe is expanding, but not when they say the Earth is warming because of human activity?

 

[Lee_Chester_Jr]

You mentioned how it´s wrong to go for the da homenum tactic on more than one occasion now. Feel free to remind in what sentence I´ve done that. Yet you persistantly call Scientist whom happen to disagree with the man made global warming for actors and liars? Thats pretty ad homenum isn´t it?
Maybe I wasn´t clear enough in my first posts. I don´t dispute that the climate is....acting strangely. But what I, and thousands of scientists, DON´T agree on is that it is man made.
So does that mean that I don´t think we should manage our planet any better? Ofcourse not!

I believe your sentence is misleading. There is no thousands of scientists disagreeing that climate change is related to human activity. In fact there is in this field the highest agreement (consensus) that can be expected. This is not an absolute one, but there is no such thing in science.

Sure you will find scientist disagreeing. But they are few, and isolated.

Edit: just so my answer would not be misread as a mere contradictory opinion, here one of my source

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002/pdf

 

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

Population size definitely has a huge impact, and nobody's denying that. But the world has been limiting its population growth for a long time now.

From the latest UN report:

"In the past 150 years, and particularly since the 1960s, fertility rates have fallen in almost every country. From a past situation where all countries of the world had fertility rates of five or more children per woman, today a majority of countries with populations of 1 million or more have fertility rates of 2.5 or lower. "

It takes about 2.33 child per woman to sustain the population size at the same level. Anything less means the population is decreasing.

India is now at 2.31. China is at 1.63.

You're forgetting the biggest "problem": Africa

 

[Bulletpoint]

You're forgetting the biggest "problem": Africa

True. Just didn't want to write a whole essay...

African birthrates and child mortality are also going down. But slower than elsewhere.

 

[A Canadian Cat]

You mentioned how it´s wrong to go for the da homenum tactic on more than one occasion now. Feel free to remind in what sentence I´ve done that. Yet you persistantly call Scientist whom happen to disagree with the man made global warming for actors and liars? Thats pretty ad homenum isn´t it?

No, no, no I am *not* saying *you* are making ad homenum attacks. I am saying you are being sucked in those that are. I am urging you to listen to the body of science that has reached a consensus that humans are the main cause of climate change. That's all I'm doing.

I can see that some might say that my calling the presenters of the "humans are not the cause" are lairs as an Ad Homenum attack but that is not what a true ad homenum attack is. I am saying they are lairs because they see the same evidence and try to manipulate others into believing conclusions that are not supported by that evidene. In other words they are lying. An ad homenum attack would be if I exposed information about their personal flaws and then tried to say that because of their debt, sexual discretion, criminal children (just examples) therefore they cannot be trusted. Ad homenum attacks are about distracting from the actual argument. My point is that this is what has happened to many of the people who have done the good scientific work in this area.

One side conducts research using the scientific method and debates the quality of each others work to find the likely truth. The other side digs up personal dirt and tries to discredit those doing that work or threatens their safety while at the same time finding shills who present poor quality work as definitive when it is not. These two things are *not* equivalent and should not be seen as such.

 

[Buckykatt]

I don't side with anyone in the whole climate change thing, but what I will say is that I've been on the planet for 63 years in June and the weather sure isn't what it was when I was a kid. Hell, I haven't had to use my snowblower the past 3 winters. The weather around here DOES seem different, how different, I'm not sure.

 

[Badger73]

Yesterday I couldn't sleep, because I kept thinking about this question:

Why do you believe scientists when they tell us that there was a super-continent 300 million years ago, and that the universe is expanding, but not when they say the Earth is warming because of human activity?

Aaargh, man-made global insomnia . . . :shockaroona:

That's a long and circuitous discussion requiring more beer than I currently have in stock. (By the way, I keep meaning to find a store that sells Tuborg hereabouts).

I suspect it's because no one politicizes the science of Natural History the way current societies politicize and radicalize climate science reasoning today. The contrarian in me questions the motives of those who scientifically claim climate change is entirely man-made yet objectively deny the science of embryonic human life. I think there is something dishonest in the shaping of climate change discussions as wholly human caused with it's undercurrent that Western Civilization is entirely culpable.

In short, I accept the science that the Earth's climate naturally changes (Proterzoic-Paleozoic-Mesozoic-Cenozoic with future 'zoic's and 'cenes yet to come) and that such geologic transitions extinguish myriad species. I believe sufficient evidence exists that some human actions play a role in climate effects. I reject the prevalence of selective root cause analysis and its cockamamie outcomes. I lament that particular people are more interested in winning ill-considered and self-serving arguements than dispassionately solving existential problems.

However, I applaud how such diverse opinions have been intelligently and respectfully exchanged by the membership here at FGM. And I believe that those who abide the better angels of our nature will prevail and intelligently surmount issues like this.

Sleep better, my friend. I would not distress your slumber . . .

 

[Meat Grinder]

@Badger73 use big words. Make @Meat Grinder 's head hurt.

 

[Bulletpoint]

I suspect it's because no one politicizes the science of Natural History the way current societies politicize and radicalize climate science reasoning today.

We agree that climate science is extremely politicised and that politicians from all sides are trying to spin it their way. That's fine with me as long as we can agree on the basic facts. It's important to be critical, but the answers to most of the critical questions are actually readily available. The climate skeptic youtube videos typically 'forget' to mention that.

For example, scientists agree that the climate is also changing naturally, but that it happens extremely slowly over thousands of years. They also know that there are many natural causes of climate change apart from humans. Such as the sun, volcanoes, axial tilt (Milankowich Cycles), etc. But those things are well known and taken into account in the computer models.

Just to round off, I want to make clear that I don't have any personal horse in this race, and I'll happily drink a Tuborg with people I disagree with. Heck, last weekend I met a guy in the pub who tried to convince me that radiation from the new 5G cellphone towers would burn us all up from the inside.

In the end, I'm just interested in what the truth is. I'd actually love to be able to disprove climate change, but so far the arguments have held up.

 

[Badger73]

@Badger73 use big words. Make @Meat Grinder 's head hurt.

Why am I not surprised . . . ?