EPTI'm all for making the air cleaner and recycling etc. It's just 99% of the World Population just doesn't give a shit.
The melting of the polar ice caps - Page 3
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Psyonic_Reaver
United States4336 Posts
I'm all for making the air cleaner and recycling etc. It's just 99% of the World Population just doesn't give a shit. | ||
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Freyr
United States500 Posts
On December 23 2009 11:59 micronesia wrote: As true as your message is, I'm reminded of the fact that it took millennia before people refuted the popular belief that heavier items fall faster... and all you have to do to disprove it is take two dissimilar items out of your pocket and drop them... On the other hand I don't think that counterexample applies well to such heated contemporary issues as global warming or evolution. I think it does apply - there is absolutely a greater need for critical examination of issues than currently goes on, in my opinion. Questions like those of the original poster should absolutely be raised, but not without a significant attempt on the part of he/she who raises them to answer them in an educated manner. Asking difficult questions without a significant attempt to answer them and educate is of course what you do when you want to discredit the opposing agenda without any real discrediting information... | ||
TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
At this point, alarmists are trusting a bunch of scientists who are also happen to be very politically motivated. I don't buy all of the skeptical arguments, but until the scientists open up everything for review, it is a religion as far as I am concerned because it's all based on having faith in several key climate scientists and a bunch of climate models that have little track record for getting things right. | ||
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Freyr
United States500 Posts
On December 23 2009 13:54 TanGeng wrote: I'll believe the global warming climate alarmists as soon as they open up all their data and methodology up for review and their results can be replicated. At this point, alarmists are trusting a bunch of scientists who are also happen to be very politically motivated. I don't buy all of the skeptical arguments, but until the scientists open up everything for review, it is a religion as far as I am concerned because it's all based on having faith in several key climate scientists and a bunch of climate models that have little track record for getting things right. Are you saying people are making arguments based on things that aren't in the literature? Have you checked? You're right that you shouldn't just believe what random people tell you, but you also shouldn't automatically believe the opposite! You should believe nothing at this point, while entertaining the possibilities. If you are really interested, then you should take the time to further educate yourself, and actually read the literature. There is much debate over atmospheric modeling and such, but I don't believe there is any serious debate anymore about the physics of the greenhouse effect, or the anthropogenic increase of greenhouse gases. These, assuredly, are well published. As such, in the absence of significant cooling effects, it seems reasonable to conclude that Earth is getting hotter - we just don't know the timescale, or if any observed warming is actually the result of human activity. However, because of the possibility, acting on the claims of 'alarmists' actually seems to me to be the cautionary approach in this case. | ||
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
The effects of greenhouse gases is documented. It's also documented that methane and CFCs are hundreds of times more potent than CO2 because it exists in such smaller concentration in the atmosphere than CO2. Many of the CO2 abatement credits under Kyoto has been related to methane and CFCs abatement rather than cutbacks to CO2. Every doubling of CO2 produces 1 C of temperature increase. Human liberation of carbon into the atmosphere is going at a furious level. It's probable that humans are the cause of the rise of the CO2 as well. The methodologies in climate science that are unclear or the results are not conclusive are the positive feedbacks assumed in the IPCC climate models - which also have no clear track record for making accurate climate predictions - and the long term records of surface temperature and proxy chronologies. These parts of the "consensus are black boxes. Looking at GISS, HADCRUT3, NCDC, and GHCN, there isn't remotely enough information to verify if their methodology is correct. The so called independent verification of Mann's hockey stick are not independent verifications. Many of the these "verifications" use the same sets of proxies. Furthermore, the original hockey stick is over a thousand years of temperature reconstructions while newer "hockey sticks" agreement charts start off in 1400, omitting the era known as the medieval warm period. When the new reconstructions are extended further they put modern temperatures solidly within the confidence interval of the temperatures of the medieval warm period. So perhaps current temperatures aren't so unprecedented? Frankly, I am tired of these misleading and incomplete arguments being pushed by proponents of CAGW. I don't like the misleading arguments of the skeptical side either, but at least they aren't proposing trillion dollars of taxation around the world in the form of carbon trading schemes - an inefficient and corruption-laden mechanism for cutting carbon emission. As for the precautionary principle for acting before hard proof exist, that is a hedging strategy. It is proper to hedge, but precaution doesn't warrant such costly hedging like immediate CO2 abatement. It would instead suggest small amounts of hedging while putting more resources into verifying the risk - including funding the skeptics to poke holes in the CAGW thesis. | ||
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Osmoses
Sweden5302 Posts
The reason I put forth this question was because, as has been said and said better by other people, we've yet to have consensus on pretty much any of the environmental issues from our best and brightest, even about whether the issues exist at all! Showing neat charts off the internet doesn't really help when either side's arguments can be complete bullshit. Take the tooth paste commercials. What the fuck is fluor anyway and where could I find documented test results showing its positive effect on teeth if I gave a shit? Test results that were not doctored to shit to make us buy more tooth paste. ... So I figured the possibility that the rising water levels were not in fact catastrophic was a perfectly reasonable assumption. Every single day we are bombarded with fear, be it African killer bees, terrorists, Bush or Aids, and though I am by no means a conspiracy theorist (except on the internet, for the funsies), wouldn't it be terrific if it turns out the whole global warming thing was all an elaborate hoax to fund the government's drug habits? Obviously they wouldn't come out and actually say that there was never any evidence to support it, they'd just throw some smoke screens and dawdle until the next big fear came along. I'm thinking the next time it will be the slowing of the earth's core, due to all the mobile phones. | ||
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Freyr
United States500 Posts
On December 23 2009 17:06 TanGeng wrote: Oh, I believe in very limited set of ideas, where the real consensus exists. The effects of greenhouse gases is documented. It's also documented that methane and CFCs are hundreds of times more potent than CO2 because it exists in such smaller concentration in the atmosphere than CO2. Many of the CO2 abatement credits under Kyoto has been related to methane and CFCs abatement rather than cutbacks to CO2. Every doubling of CO2 produces 1 C of temperature increase. Human liberation of carbon into the atmosphere is going at a furious level. It's probable that humans are the cause of the rise of the CO2 as well. The methodologies in climate science that are unclear or the results are not conclusive are the positive feedbacks assumed in the IPCC climate models - which also have no clear track record for making accurate climate predictions - and the long term records of surface temperature and proxy chronologies. These parts of the "consensus are black boxes. Looking at GISS, HADCRUT3, NCDC, and GHCN, there isn't remotely enough information to verify if their methodology is correct. The so called independent verification of Mann's hockey stick are not independent verifications. Many of the these "verifications" use the same sets of proxies. Furthermore, the original hockey stick is over a thousand years of temperature reconstructions while newer "hockey sticks" agreement charts start off in 1400, omitting the era known as the medieval warm period. When the new reconstructions are extended further they put modern temperatures solidly within the confidence interval of the temperatures of the medieval warm period. So perhaps current temperatures aren't so unprecedented? Frankly, I am tired of these misleading and incomplete arguments being pushed by proponents of CAGW. I don't like the misleading arguments of the skeptical side either, but at least they aren't proposing trillion dollars of taxation around the world in the form of carbon trading schemes - an inefficient and corruption-laden mechanism for cutting carbon emission. As for the precautionary principle for acting before hard proof exist, that is a hedging strategy. It is proper to hedge, but precaution doesn't warrant such costly hedging like immediate CO2 abatement. It would instead suggest small amounts of hedging while putting more resources into verifying the risk - including funding the skeptics to poke holes in the CAGW thesis. I don't think we really disagree at all, or rather, on any issue on which I'm sufficiently informed to have an opinion. It seems like you don't really disagree with the principle of taking some action (even without conclusive science, which undoubtedly on many fronts we lack) but rather with the nature of current approaches to the issue. Anyway, I appreciate that you clarified your stance - I worried, initially, that your first post might to the hasty reader seem to validate a blindly anti-global-warming-activism stance, which ultimately is just as problematic as a blindly pro activism stance. Also, you spoke assertively and aggressively on the internet, but you actually (as far as I can tell) had the knowledge to back it up. You are a rare breed - I think I love you.  Osmoses - I like that you asked this as well. I think it's helpful to be skeptical, so long as you are indiscriminately skeptical (rather than just toward things you hope are false! :p) I prefer to take anything remotely questionable with a grain of salt and file it under "pending further investigation" if you see what I mean. Ultimately I think it's clear that humans are doing things that might in the future affect the climate (if not already), and it's clear that climate change could be potentially problematic (assuredly for biodiversity even if humans could avoid serious consequences), but the immediate connection between current climate trends and human activities is not at all well established. Night everyone. | ||
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pubbanana
United States3063 Posts
On December 23 2009 11:49 Alethios wrote: How could you possibly think something as vastly complex as the earth's climate can be solved with one short sentence? This is precisely why I hate this website so fucking much sometimes and why I continuously rail against the "TeamLiquid Know-it-alls" Seriously, guys. You're not that fucking intelligent. | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
On December 23 2009 18:44 pubbanana wrote: This is precisely why I hate this website so fucking much sometimes and why I continuously rail against the "TeamLiquid Know-it-alls" Seriously, guys. You're not that fucking intelligent. maybe because 1 line per post equals more posts per day? | ||
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pubbanana
United States3063 Posts
On December 24 2009 04:18 Artisreal wrote: maybe because 1 line per post equals more posts per day? ... So what? | ||
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