Look at this "Global Warming"

[Johnnypenso]

Nuclear is clean but it's not a renewable source. It has a high fuel to power output but there isn't an unlimited amount of nuclear fuel around. What about the management of radioactive waste that is produced? They are still radioactive and will be for thousands of years. We're just digging holes and sticking them in the ground for now. So far, hydro seems to be the only renewable energy source (excluding wind and solar) and when Nuclear runs out (it's gonna be a long time but one day) how are we going to replace the 56.4 percent it's contributing now? I think Wind and Solar is a viable source just not refined enough for it to be an efficient source for now. Honestly, I get that Solar is still expensive but I can't understand how Wind is.

I noticed I went from Clean Energy to Sustainable Energy.

Why do you not think the marketplace will sort this out? The more scarce fossil fuels become the more viable other energy sources will be. Innovation is mainly driven by economic need and efficiency. People want stuff cheaper, faster, smaller, etc. etc. etc. Right now fossil fuels are cheaper and so that's what we use. As they begin to price themselves higher and higher, windmills, solar, batteries and whatever else pops up will become viable alternatives that can compete on their own merits without taking my tax dollars away from me to do so.

@Johnnypenso the reason wind, solar, green etc are expensive is because WE AREN'T PAYING FOR FOSSIL FUELS. It is very simple, the price we are paying for petrol, gas, coal etc is not the real cost. Not by a long shot.

Could you imagine the REAL cost of petrol - the price we would have to pay for a continuous sustainable-unending supply of petrol? (suppose there was no oil under the ground)

Petrol is an amazing energy storage, it is very valuable, it takes an extremely long time to make - yet we pay less for it then a bottle of water.
Human, with all their science and gizmos have not yet made an energy storage medium anything of the level of qualities, density, stability, ease of use etc that petrol and similar fuels has and yet we still give it very little monetary value. It's an old mentality learnt from we didn't know better.

Btw solar and wind can be reliable, we also have tidal and geothermal to make use of. For large scale energy storage problem we have salt batteries etc (ie a for solar farm at night). To me Hydro is questionable (impact of damming).

Nuclear fission is a stop gap, fusion is still a long long long way away.


We can do stuff now or we can let or great grandchildren take care of it with greater haste (oh crap we're out of oil, now lets make some electric cars. Oh crap the ocean's dead, now lets stop pouring chemicals in it) and have much larger impact on their lifestyles.

Stuff is being done but IMO no-where near enough though. I wish people would get serious about this and stop playing 3year politics or bending over for the greedy and self-entitled.

We overpay for fossil fuels. They are in plentiful supply and relatively cheap to refine and get to market. We pay much more for them because of OPEC and other reasons. OPEC controls supply to a large degree and artificially influences price in an upward direction.

The whole "grandchildren paying for it" argument is bogus IMO, it holds no water. Oil doesn't shut off like a kitchen faucet, supply will slowly dwindle over decades or centuries and other fuel sources (ever hear of fracking?) will come online. Eventually those too will run out and in the meantime, other energy sources will come online as they are economically feasible. We don't need the government to be involved in this in any way. If they can supply hydro to me for $0.08 kw/h by a combination of hydro, nukes, natural gas why would I pay Samsung $0.15 kw/h to do the same thing with wind. When the cost becomes $0.20 kw/h Samsung can erect all the windmills they can put up and they'll make plenty of money. Until then get lost and get the government out of the marketplace!

 

[R.S]

We overpay for fossil fuels. They are in plentiful supply and relatively cheap to refine and get to market. We pay much more for them because of OPEC and other reasons. OPEC controls supply to a large degree and artificially influences price in an upward direction.

We most certainly are not paying for fossil fuels. You must lose this 20th century mentality, it is completely and utterly wrong.

The whole "grandchildren paying for it" argument is bogus IMO, it holds no water.

It holds plenty of water while ever people keep saying it does not.
You can keep putting it off and a smooth 50 year phasing out of oil using devices becomes a 10, 5 or 2 year decline. (where people find their 10 year old car is now useless or banned and now need to find $20k for a new electric to get to work).

But currently oil usage is, erm... going up... Yes let's keep doing this path...



Fracking? You're not serious right? Do you enjoy eating food?


There is no or very little business case for building clean energy when fossil fuels are soo cheap.
That's what taxes and government are about - to balance this out more, too bad though, people still think they can have everything for free and next year politicians get voted in who have no interest in balancing the playing field, who have no interest in the future beyond their term in power.

 

[Johnnypenso]

We most certainly are not paying for fossil fuels. You must lose this 20th century mentality, it is completely and utterly wrong.

Uber convincing argument you almost had me. Only one thing missing - facts. Please convince me that the free market cannot solve our energy problems forever and ever. And I sure wish that $150 a week I put in my truck was free...I'd be a lot happier. The floor is yours.

Fracking? You're not serious right? Do you enjoy eating food?

Again, super convincing but a little short on facts. Please explain how fracking means I can't eat cause it's going on all over the place and I'm eating every day. Alberta alone has 150,000+ (last time I checked)fracking wells and as far as I know it's still the bread basket of Canada. Lots of cows there too. I drove several hundred kilometres all over the province last summer and it looked pretty pristine to me. I'll bet you didn't even know about fracking and how evil it was until you saw a 30 second story on it on CNN

 

[Tornado]

We most certainly are not paying for fossil fuels. You must lose this 20th century mentality, it is completely and utterly wrong.

And yet you've failed to give an explanation why paying how much something costs to make/how much the market is willing to pay (roughly, ignoring the pseudo cartel present in that particular industry) is the wrong way to think about how an energy source is valued when it is the way that it is valued and will always be the way that it is valued. They aren't going to charge $300 for a gallon of gasoline because it's more "convenient" than the equivalent 6 pounds of uranium when the massive convenience relative to other energy sources is what drives the costs down; because the convenience applies to the end user and the distributor. The even more convenient/efficient nature of natural gas in comparison to gasoline is similarly why it is almost always even cheaper than petrol.

 

[Beeker1972]

Meanwhile in Mesa Arizona ...

http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/85203

hahaha

 

[R.S]

you've failed to give an explanation why paying how much something costs to make/how much the market is willing to pay is the wrong way to think

Well there would be nothing wrong with that.... except for the fact we are not paying the REAL cost to MAKE fossil fuels are we.... Digging it up is not making it.


Whilst ever a resource supply is being emptied it is undervalued and in some ways being sold at a loss. It's like a shop selling stuff it found out of an abandoned warehouse for so cheap it can't even afford to buy new stock in.

But lets say to sustain human lifestyles a new shop must be open with a new product, this new product is not found for free in a massive abandoned warehouse but instead must be bought or created with human effort and time.

Do you think this shop can succeed whilst ever the other shop is selling stuff that it didn't pay for?
Sure eventually the original shop will shut but what it leaves behind is a completely screwed up economy for whatever it was selling.

In this case energy, because we aren't paying a real cost for it, it has become undervalued. Simple.

People need to lose the thinking that new technology is always going to be better, more efficient, easier or cheaper. We've had a good run but it won't last forever.

 

[Tornado]

Ah. So basically what Johnnypenso already said, then.

 

[R.S]

Ah. So basically what Johnnypenso already said, then.

Not quite sure what you're saying but I think you're suggesting at the idea that the market place and buyers will sort it all out eventually without intervention of any sort.


Lets take all grants and incentives away from new research because the market place will always work it out.

Yes that's right, they're going to sell a worse product for more money and people are going to buy it.......yup

In other words you want to wait for it to fall apart because IMO only then will the free market 'sort out the problems itself', right after your lifestyle has been ripped apart.



Once again, remember, fuel usage is going up, coal mines are constantly expanding... free market is doing great at solving it isn't it.


EDIT, Should this thread should be merged with the other global warming thread?

 

[Northstar]

In other words you want to wait for it to fall apart because IMO only then will the free market 'sort out the problems itself', right after your lifestyle has been ripped apart.

Nope, it will sort itself out when someone comes along with a cost-effective solution that doesn't make you sacrifice the abilities of current technology.


Just look at horses, for centuries they were pretty much the sole form of transport on land(unless you walked) and it wasn't until this guy game around in 1908 that something better and more cost-effective came along(Cars were a luxury item before Ford revolutionized the world).

 

[R.S]

Nope, it will sort itself out when someone comes along with a cost-effective solution that doesn't make you sacrifice the abilities of current technology.


Just look at horses, for centuries they were pretty much the sole form of transport on land(unless you walked) and it wasn't until this guy game around in 1908 that something better and more cost-effective came along(Cars were a luxury item before Ford revolutionized the world).

Once again, here is the assumption that there will always be a new better and more cost effective technology. It is incredibly difficult to do this if not impossible when the current technology is using fuels that are not actually being paid for.
How many times do I need to say this.

We have grown up in a time of massive technology and efficiency advances and basically free fuel, we seem to expect that this will continue and some amazing advancement will always come.
I say this will not always be the case, we will reach physical limits where cost-effective improvements are-not-possible.

 

[Lain]

No amount of R&D can move clouds or make it windy.

Gee, thanks. I didn't know that.

You could just, I dunno, use R&D to make solar/wind more efficient so that excess energy could then be stored via batteries or supercapacitors for cloudy/windless days.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Once again, here is the assumption that there will always be a new better and more cost effective technology. It is incredibly difficult to do this if not impossible when the current technology is using fuels that are not actually being paid for.
How many times do I need to say this.

We have grown up in a time of massive technology and efficiency advances and basically free fuel, we seem to expect that this will continue and some amazing advancement will always come.
I say this will not always be the case, we will reach physical limits where cost-effective improvements are-not-possible.

You need to say it until you prove it has anything to do with the marketplace not being able to sort out technological innovation around our energy needs. I suspect you'll be saying it for a long time in that case.

Gee, thanks. I didn't know that.

You could just, I dunno, use R&D to make solar/wind more efficient so that excess energy could then be stored via batteries or supercapacitors for cloudy/windless days.

Yes, and when the market prices oil high enough that solar/wind etc. become feasible, a ton of money will be poured into innovation because there will be a ton of money to be made. At this point when innovation is mainly fueled by government subsidy or grant, the primary goal of the one receiving the government money is...wait for it...to continue receiving the government money.

Simply put, when you are trying to figure something out for your own gain (capitalism if you will) you're going to do a much better job than if you are relying on someone else to fund your research and dependent on that person for your survival. I have several billion historical case studies if you need references. Not that innovation isn't possible through government subsidy of course it is, it's just that it'll always be much slower and much less efficient than a free market.

 

[R.S]

If you want to wait for fossil fuel prices to be stupidly high enough you will be waiting a loooong time.

If you want to wait for coal power station to be more expensive than a solar farm you will be waiting a looooong time. These guys are not paying for capture of energy and they are not paying for clean up of their rubbish (pollution). How can you compete with that unfair playing ground.


As someone said there is many decades/centuries supply left and new supplies being found.



But does it being there, and being undervalued mean that we should be using it until it runs out?
Or do we want to stop releasing heat-trapping particles/gasses into the air?

 

[Johnnypenso]

If you want to wait for fossil fuel prices to be stupidly high enough you will be waiting a loooong time.

If you want to wait for coal power station to be more expensive than a solar farm you will be waiting a looooong time. These guys are not paying for capture of energy and they are not paying for clean up of their rubbish (pollution). How can you compete with that unfair playing ground.

As someone said there is many decades/centuries supply left and new supplies being found.

Perfect. Hundreds of years from now we can start working on solar and wind and whatever else comes long. Until then burn them fossil fuels. 👍

 

[R.S]

Perfect. Hundreds of years from now we can start working on solar and wind and whatever else comes long. Until then burn them fossil fuels. 👍

I don't think that fixes the issues of Co2 emissions does it. lol

We listen to the weather and climate scientists everyday predicting the weather in a weeks time within a degree or two and what time of day it will rain, yet when they tell us humans are causing a problem with the atmosphere - we tell them that scientists are rubbish and phonies. We are soo afraid to give up our luxuries.

It does not cost much to have our luxuries in a sustainable way, it does cost more and will for a loong time - but not by much.

 

[Imari]

I don't think that fixes the issues of Co2 emissions does it.

You're mixing up your reasons for not using fossil fuels. In one post you say it's because they're a limited resource that's underpriced, and then in another you're claiming it's because they produce too much CO2.

We listen to the weather and climate scientists everyday predicting the weather in a weeks time within a degree or two and what time of day it will rain, yet when they tell us humans are causing a problem with the atmosphere - we tell them that scientists are rubbish and phonies.

And even a week out the weather forecasts are hardly rock solid. Depending on where you live, they can be woefully inaccurate. Some areas are easier to predict for than others, and a whole planet contains a LOT of hard to predict areas.

So given that sometimes weather forecasting on a very short timescale can be inaccurate, what credence should be given to people claiming to be able to predict weather decades or centuries into the future, for an entire planet?

I'd suggest that while there may be funny stuff going on with the weather, I don't think anyone is in a state where they're able to claim that they understand it well enough to predict what will happen hundreds of years from now.

 

[R.S]

You're mixing up your reasons for not using fossil fuels. In one post you say it's because they're a limited resource that's underpriced, and then in another you're claiming it's because they produce too much CO2.

No what I am saying is the green solutions have an unfair playing field due to fossil fuels being underpriced. They are not paying for energy capture and not paying for cleanup.

My reasons for stopping fossil fuels usage is simply this, in one word - sustainability. What is so hard to understand about that.

Stop talking like a politician who has nothing to say other than picking words apart. This is not debate school. Argue the points, not how I put them across or use bad examples.

Sustainability is the key that includes continuous supply and no ill effects on health or environment etc.
If there is no alternative and no nasty lasting effects on the environment, well OK we can make exceptions to the continuous supply rule, I don't mind if you dig up gold and stuff because that is just a small hole in the ground and nothing more.




The evidence for Co2 having a warming effect is quite well documented. I'm not going to explain how, do your own searches. (no that does not invalidate the point)

The signs of global warming is quite clear also. (whether human influenced or not)

The evidence for Co2 having a noticeable effect on global warming is not so clear, however I'm inclined to listen to the hundreds of thousands of scientists who have been studying and measuring this stuff since like 1860's - who suggest it is very likely an important factor.


Remember that all science is a theory, the "correct" theory is the one that is most likely to be true.

If we aren't going to listen to scientists when they suggest our world and oceans will become overheated and that we have a chance to stop this if we make some simple changes - we might as well just shoot them all, close all schools and burn all books.

 

[Imari]

The signs of global warming is quite clear also. (whether human influenced or not)

Is it now? You'll have no trouble explaining the last 17 years of no statistically significant warming or cooling in the stratosphere then.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/12/18/no-global-warming-for-17-years-3-months-a-monckton-analysis/

The evidence for Co2 having a noticeable effect on global warming is not so clear, however I'm inclined to listen to the hundreds of thousands of scientists who have been studying and measuring this stuff since like 1860's - who suggest it is very likely an important factor.

Hundreds of thousands, eh? Got any evidence of that?

And I suppose that there isn't hundreds of thousands that take opposing views, or abstain because they feel that there's not enough evidence for a concrete decision yet?

Remember that all science is a theory, the "correct" theory is the one that is most likely to be true.

If we aren't going to listen to scientists when they suggest our world and oceans will become overheated and that we have a chance to stop this if we make some simple changes - we might as well just shoot them all, close all schools and burn all books.

Wow, of course. Doubting one area of science because it's based almost entirely on theoretical models about systems that are poorly understood with huge numbers of fudge factors means we should throw the entirety of science out. OF COURSE. .

If you actually read stuff like the IPCC reports, they use specific language to define the potential error in their predictions. It's large.

It is clear that carbon dioxide in theory warms the earth. What is not understood is the horrendously complex system of the earth and how it responds to excess CO2. Not to mention how it's also responding to many of the other things that are going on with it, because CO2 is a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the atmosphere's total makeup. Aerosols, cloud cover, other hydrocarbons, distribution and mixing of all the components of the atmosphere, heat sinks, chemical sinks, transition times, interactions of all the above and more.

I don't see it as a problem that climate science can't fully model the earth's atmosphere yet. They're trying, they get some good results sometimes and there's some good theories available. There's nothing wrong with not being able to explain absolutely everything. Physics doesn't have a grand unified theory of the universe yet, and that doesn't make people cry for throwing out all science. Physics predicts where it can, and keeps working on it where it can't. But somehow me suggesting that climate science doesn't yet know all the answers is reason for you to doubt everything that every scientist ever said. Cool.

There's a lot of ground between knowing nothing and knowing something well enough to sensibly make predictions based on it. I feel sorry for the climate scientists, most of whom probably know this and yet are being pressured for answers by politicians and reporters, who rarely take into account things like error bars on predictions.

Climate science isn't at the stage where it can make predictions on the decade level (see the 17 year pause) let alone the century level. That's fine, but people shouldn't take it personally when it's pointed out that there's still a lot to learn.

 

[Touring Mars]

You'll have no trouble explaining the last 17 years of no statistically significant warming or cooling in the stratosphere then.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/12/18/no-global-warming-for-17-years-3-months-a-monckton-analysis/
A paper published in Nature just a couple of weeks ago seeks to explain the observed warming hiatus:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2106.html

Interestingly, even climate expert extraordinaire Lord Monckton appears to accept that warming has occurred and is "more likely than not" to resume at some point, albeit at a lower rate than predicted by others (although how he knows this is beyond me). In the article you posted above, Monckton says "Since CO2 does cause some warming. it is more likely than not that global warming will return eventually".

 

[Keef]

Deep enough to close roads and stop traffic. Dad had to walk home.

This made us laugh here in Ohio and we don't even get that much snow, usually. The fact that people in Atlanta knew there was going to be snow and knew they couldn't handle it but went out anyway is laughable. I know an inch of snow is passable in just about any sports car - my buddy was driving his M3 with Pilot Sport Cups on snowy, slushy, terrible roads after a quick 3-inch snow the other day. He didn't die or anything. Didn't have to abandon his car.

We do have our share of idiotic winter drivers but obviously it's not such a common problem as it is down there. Despite the fact that many Atlantans had possibly never seen snow, they've gotta know it's slippery and they should probably just stay home.

 

[Dagger311]

This made us laugh here in Ohio and we don't even get that much snow, usually. The fact that people in Atlanta knew there was going to be snow and knew they couldn't handle it but went out anyway is laughable. I know an inch of snow is passable in just about any sports car - my buddy was driving his M3 with Pilot Sport Cups on snowy, slushy, terrible roads after a quick 3-inch snow the other day. He didn't die or anything. Didn't have to abandon his car.

We do have our share of idiotic winter drivers but obviously it's not such a common problem as it is down there. Despite the fact that many Atlantans had possibly never seen snow, they've gotta know it's slippery and they should probably just stay home.

Well, dad was working in an old chevy s10 (His work truck, he's an auto glass replacer), if you hit mud in it you spin out .

But on the part of the state government, really crappy job on getting the snow off. They didn't even try to use salt or anything, they just closed the roads for a few days.

So to sum up, dad was in a truck that barely runs, nevermind in the snow, and the government didn't act on it.

 

[Dotini]

During the Maunder minimum ("the little ice age"), a time noted for lack of sunspots, the Thames froze solid for several winters. People, horses, wagons, pavilions, commercial and social activities covered the iced-over river with no danger of falling through.

Now, the sun is near its 11 year maximum, yet solar magnetism and sunspots are far weaker and fewer than is usual for a maximum. In fact, it is more like a minimum, and solar researchers are wondering what the coming minimum is going to look like.

It has been over 10,000 years since the last ice age. For the last million years or more, the pattern has been ice age for ~90,000 years, warm period for ~10k years, then back to 90k year ice age. The transition to and from ice ages is thought to be swift and dramatic, possibly as little as 10-100 years.

A bit of global warming would not overly harm the human race, and maybe more net food could be grown. But an ice age would be of grave concern for the global population of 7 billion, many if not most of whom already live in hunger and poverty.

 

[R.S]

Look at some graphs starting from the 19th century, there are plenty of flat spots, or spots where the temperature is going downwards for 20 years, but the general trend is definitely upwards.

Look at some graphs of arctic ice thickness, look at some sea level graphs (I suppose the extra water is rain from space?)

Unfortunately we don't appear to have accurate temperature data before late 19th century, that just happens to be the same time that we start regularly burning coal, would have been nice.

Wow, of course. Doubting one area of science because it's based almost entirely on theoretical models about systems that are poorly understood with huge numbers of fudge factors means we should throw the entirety of science out. OF COURSE.

The implications are potentially huge, it must be taken seriously even if the evidence is not 100%. It's not like they are pushing some questionable new fat reduction tablet. This is a much bigger issue.

There may never be any accurately measureable evidence to any climate/warming theories. Just one day we realise that we should have tried something more.

Te err on the side of caution would be a good idea... This is not a small issue to ignore and wait for the perfect evidence.

An upward temperature trend over 150 years could well be part of a larger natural fluctuation (data we don't have) but if we can't look at the data we do have and take something from it - then yes we we might as well just put science in the shredder, because that is all science is, best guess from the data and existing theories we do have.


If Co2/climate change was a fat reduction tablet, sure the evidence probably would not be enough to allow this tablet for sale (or be sued for false advertisement) but climate change is a much bigger issue and we should be far more concerned about it - this means holding back on the "insufficient evidence hammer".

 

[Keef]

Well, dad was working in an old chevy s10 (His work truck, he's an auto glass replacer), if you hit mud in it you spin out .

But on the part of the state government, really crappy job on getting the snow off. They didn't even try to use salt or anything, they just closed the roads for a few days.

So to sum up, dad was in a truck that barely runs, nevermind in the snow, and the government didn't act on it.

In their defense, I hate it when cities use salt. Usually the idea is that the salt will melt the snow as it falls on the roads, but that never works. Inevitably it accumulates faster than it melts, resulting in snow covered roads with a layer underneath of nasty slush, stuff that even good snow tires won't grip. It's pretty dangerous, frankly. After that, the roads don't become passable until everything packs down hard in the frigid cold. Then my snow tires work like magic and by then nobody else is on the roads anyway so I'm drifting pretty much everywhere. If they could just stop salting the roads until they plow the pack overnight, that'd be great.

Way up north in Michigan they don't even plow half the time. If they do they leave a layer of snow. Snow grips a lot better than the slush or ice underneath.

 

[BobK]

Using the same logic that @R.S. is using, shouldn't we all be arming ourselves against an alien invasion? I mean, sure, we don't know if one is coming or not. But think of the ramifications if it does happen and we're not prepared!

 

[Touring Mars]

Using the same logic that @R.S. is using, shouldn't we all be arming ourselves against an alien invasion? I mean, sure, we don't know if one is coming or not. But think of the ramifications if it does happen and we're not prepared!

Not really... NASA doesn't have an entire website dedicated to the presentation, analysis and discussion of the scientific evidence for alien invasions.

 

[Adamgp]

In their defense, I hate it when cities use salt. Usually the idea is that the salt will melt the snow as it falls on the roads, but that never works. Inevitably it accumulates faster than it melts, resulting in snow covered roads with a layer underneath of nasty slush, stuff that even good snow tires won't grip. It's pretty dangerous, frankly. After that, the roads don't become passable until everything packs down hard in the frigid cold. Then my snow tires work like magic and by then nobody else is on the roads anyway so I'm drifting pretty much everywhere. If they could just stop salting the roads until they plow the pack overnight, that'd be great.

Way up north in Michigan they don't even plow half the time. If they do they leave a layer of snow. Snow grips a lot better than the slush or ice underneath.

I got a friend who works for the village public works and drives a snow plow in the winter. He told me the reason they lay down salt before it snows is to create that layer of slush between the snow and the road surface. It's to make it easier for the plows pushing the snow, and also makes for a much neater and cleaner road surface when plowed.

 

[BobK]

Not really... NASA doesn't have an entire website dedicated to the presentation, analysis and discussion of the scientific evidence for alien invasions.

Maybe not NASA, but there's no lack of websites out there devoted to the topic.

 

[Imari]

A paper published in Nature just a couple of weeks ago seeks to explain the observed warming hiatus:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2106.html

Interestingly, even climate expert extraordinaire Lord Monckton appears to accept that warming has occurred and is "more likely than not" to resume at some point, albeit at a lower rate than predicted by others (although how he knows this is beyond me). In the article you posted above, Monckton says "Since CO2 does cause some warming. it is more likely than not that global warming will return eventually".

Certainly. Don't get me wrong, the data shows that warming has occurred since we started taking reasonably accurate records of temperature. CO2 does cause some warming.

Warming is also almost guaranteed to return at some point, simply because the other options are no change and colder. If those are the only things that happen to the climate in the future then we end up as Snowball Earth.

@R.S

I think there are several sections to the climate "debate" that tend to get lumped together.

There's the historical data, some of which is of dubious accuracy, but in general it's just numbers. It's hard to disagree with the numbers, because they're only numbers, they don't mean anything in and of themselves. They're just data that hypotheses can be drawn from.

There's hypotheses and theories to explain the historical data. These are of limited value I feel, because hindsight is 20/20, and climate science is not a science where you can replicate conditions at will. It's tough to go out and exhaustively test a hypothesis or theory to destruction, you're simply waiting for conditions to eventuate that may disprove it. That can take a long time.

Then there's the hypotheses and theories to predict future climate. These are the most interesting, because everyone wants to predict the future. When they're correct, they should also accurately predict the past when the appropriate numbers are plugged in. The problem seems to be that anyone can manipulated equations so that they fit past data based on a given number of factors, but the models tend to diverge pretty quickly away from what is observed in the real world. The 17 year steady state is an example, that showed up in very few models prior to it actually happening. So climate science is still trying to refine it's models to take into account the things that their models didn't predict. It's an iterative process and things are getting better, but I don't see much to convince me that this isn't still a science in it's infancy. There's huge amounts left to learn, and a lot of knowledge from other branches of science that need to be tied together in a sensible way.

I'm not convinced that climate scientists understand well enough to be dictating policy, and in that situation I'd rather they didn't. I'm fairly comfortable that catastrophic global warming doesn't happen overnight, and that if push came to shove and it was "fix climate or die", the world has a lot of resources that could be dedicated to fixing the problem pretty quick smart. World military budgets dedicated to sequestering carbon for a few years should do it.

What I think is that the problem is less well understood than most reporters would have you believe, but that some people have identified that there's advantages to be had by pushing a carbon economy. Perhaps I'd be less cynical if there weren't a bunch of industries which otherwise wouldn't be viable making bank off the whole system. But it seems like a ploy to me. Not that there isn't climate change, there obviously is. Just that it gets inflated into this world killing problem, when that's probably not the case.

Really, it's just the latest example of moral panic. In another ten years people will be saving energy where they can because it's a good thing to do, but there won't be an economy based around it and people won't be vilified for saying that they're not sure that climate change is really that big a deal. There's be another villian for society and the newspapers to chase after, and climate change/energy efficiency will go back to being just another thing that you can do to help your planet, like recycling. Remember what it was like back when the big recycling push was on and the media messages that were given then, and they're not wholly different.

 

[LeMansAid]

Trouble is, it's not only (allegedly) hard to find the truth, it's also hard to learn the truth that has been found. There is money and political leverage to be had in these things. That can mean covering up truths found, or manufacturing and distorting "truths", for gain. Buying politicians seems to be great bang for buck in business and chances are that both sides of the global warming debate are at equal risk of being taken for fools. There is a truth, and while both sides are preoccupied with flinging insults at each other and claiming to know the truth, the real villains will continue to get a free ride. The enemy is not the one with the opposite view, it's the one(s) withholding and distorting.

Edit: Oh, and the mere fact that this specific thread even exists is evidence of "us" being manipulated.