Climate Change

[Sunwoo]

Fair enough, but the point is that a lot of people don't seem to understand just how great of a change even one degree Celsius can be. And even if fish can live within inhospitable ranges for a remarkably long time, they're still going to go belly up at a certain point when it becomes too much. Even if humans are resilient enough to last through some of the worst predictions, do we really want to push our luck? At some point, we're going to reach a point where we can't adapt.

[Lord Raven]

Let's ignore fish; I'll crunch the numbers tomorrow night when I get home because I'm about to do homework, but 1 degree Celsius results in an incredible rise in sea levels throughout the world.

[The Geek]

I don't disagree with you, but sort of bad example. Fish definitely have a min-max but are pretty remarkable in their ability to live within those ranges as long as the change is slow. They don't just "up and die" over a swing unless it's incredibly drastic.

It depends on what kind of fish you're talking about and where they're coming from. Fish that live in freshwater environments like lakes are much more easily able to adjust since they come from environments which witness radical changes in physical properties (nutrient levels, temperature, pH, etc.) throughout the year. However, fish that live in the ocean can't adjust as easily because the ocean is fairly homogenous in its physical properties throughout the year merely due to its size.

[Life]

you people really need to do your research. i'm not talking about op-ed articles spoon-feeding you information (in favor of either side), i'm talking about reading the papers that actually show how apparent anthropomorphic climate change is. looking at the plots, checking the data. it isn't hard at all--quite simple actually. read lord raven's post. read here: http://climate.nasa.gov/

i am frankly fed up with having to deal with people that don't understand science here so the only opposition i'm going to respond to are scientific points (ie, arguments based on real, sourced, published data) and balz/other scientists here.

i'll be the first to say consensus doesn't actually matter, and isn't a real argument. i don't care if every scientist but one believes dinosaurs never existed--the moment we find a fossil, they're all wrong.

the kicker here, much like with dinosaurs, is that the data is clear.

Not denying that climate change exists.

​I am doubtful, however, that the government is the only thing that can stop global warming. Like Carbon taxes, for example.

[Time the Crestfallen]

Not denying that climate change exists.

​I am doubtful, however, that the government is the only thing that can stop global warming. Like Carbon taxes, for example.

Well what do you propose then?

[Life]

Well what do you propose then?

I think that legislating "care for the environment" is silly and it is simply more effective to promote science and just self-responsibility to care about the environment.

[Time the Crestfallen]

I think that legislating "care for the environment" is silly and it is simply more effective to promote science and just self-responsibility to care about the environment.

That might've worked a decade or two ago, but that's just not enough anymore. If any progress is to be made, then governments need to start taking serious steps towards this issue. Besides, as Euklyd said, this is literally an existential threat we're dealing with. Even if you think it's silly, I'd much rather take no risks.

[ping]

At this very moment, rich and influencial people are deliberately misinforming the population about climate change because they value their short-term financial gain higher than the ecosystem, y'know, surviving. I can't imagine that appealing to self-responsibility will work because it sure as hell isn't right now.

[Life]

That might've worked a decade or two ago, but that's just not enough anymore. If any progress is to be made, then governments need to start taking serious steps towards this issue. Besides, as Euklyd said, this is literally an existential threat we're dealing with. Even if you think it's silly, I'd much rather take no risks.

So forcing me at the end of a gun to accept your position on how to fix the environment is fine?

This is why I vote against stuff like Carbon taxes.

[UNLEASH IT]

I wonder if biogas is viable. I mean, yes, it's still methane gas but the methane produced from cattle production still ends up in the atmosphere anyway, might as well try to get some energy from it and reduce the need for oil based energy. Plus, it's very renewable, since you'll always have faeces being produced.

[Time the Crestfallen]

So forcing me at the end of a gun to accept your position on how to fix the environment is fine?

This is why I vote against stuff like Carbon taxes.

First of all, where the fuck did you pull 'forcing you to accept my position at the end of a gun from'? All I did was say that I disagree with your opinion and stated my own. How is the government taking steps to do something about this holding a gun to your head over anything? Is any government action that you disagree with holding a gun to your head? Are you holding a gun to my head and forcing me to accept your opinions when you give your opinions on what the government should do?

Additionally, I'd like to point out that you believe that Hillary should've been kept out of the White House at all costs, to the point that Trump was a better candidate by comparison but thinking that the government take steps to combat a literally civilisation-threatening, potentially extinction level crisis is 'silly' and 'holding guns to people's heads'. Right. Nice to see where your priorities lie, if nothing else.

[Phoenix Wright]

I think that legislating "care for the environment" is silly and it is simply more effective to promote science and just self-responsibility to care about the environment.

we arent worried as much about people. we help put lots of carbon up there, but legislature typically is for businesses that are refusing to lighten their carbon footprints. you know, industries. corporations that put out carbon order of magnitudes higher than people. entities that unless there is regulation or financial incentive, never will change.

it is much harder to regulate people like this, so obviously we don't. educating people and getting the very real fear of global damage and possible extinction across should be enough. but educating this populace is something the united states has never been able to do.

[Skfoos]

Even if there's some regulation that prevents the addition of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, average climate temperatures will still rise for years (maybe decades) to come. The gases that are already in the atmosphere have created a positive feedback loop that accelerates the process, and because of the huge time delay it'll continue to affect temperatures. All of this synergizes into itself, compounding the effects and honestly I sometimes feel like it's too late to prevent some of the possible consequences of this.

So even if we do stop emmiting greenhouse gases, a bunch of uncontrollable factors ensures that this problem won't go away no matter what we do for a very long time.

[Excellen Browning]

Re reloaded: Its decades. A few decades, iirc, but still decades. The gasses used in fridges and aerosol cans, before their ban (freons and such) rise through the atmosphere at a snails' pace, and inhibit the formation of ozone when it finally gets that high up. It will be years before their effect on the ozone layer decreases.

Also relevant to climate change; acid rain(definitely caused by humans) and other changes in air composition, like the increase in nox and cox content(definitely caused by humans), and the increase of heavy metal content into the air(definitely caused by humans).

The increased acidity of water (and rainfall) is already affecting soil organisms, and by extension plant life. Forcing all new cars to come with a catalytic converter in the 80's, as well as other laws, did much to halt the increase of acidity, but did not stop it. This is still an ongoing problem, and even if it is reversed, will probably take decades before normality is reached.

Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are both poisonous to afaik all aerobic life. The carbon gas content in the air has been increasing for decades. One of the core tenets of toxicology is that all substances are toxic if exposed to enough of it. The point of air turning toxic to various life forms is coming closer.

Also a lulzy example, human hormones from the pregnancy pill are owed out into the world and has upset hormonal balances in various aquatic species, causing fertility issues.

In any case, human footprint on the world around them is definitely real, and things need to be undertaken to limit and reverse their effects.

[euklyd]

The length of time that a greenhouse gas remains in the atmosphere depends on the gas itself. CO₂ is estimated to stay in the atmosphere for ~70-100 years iirc (although this is complicated, some amount will stick around for much longer), while methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas, only sticks around for ~10 years.

It pretty much already is for me and my brother. It's become a joke that you should never bring it up around us.

I'm just lucky that the candidates that align with my views on climate tend to align with my views on everything else, too.

[Balcerzak]

I haven't spent a lot of recent time or effort keeping up on developments, but a brief evening's wander has left my prior conclusions unchanged. The spectre of climate change as it is popularly presented to the masses is mostly a hollow bogeyman that doesn't live up to the hype. I doubt that I'll have the energy to vigorously defend such a controversial opinion over a protracted period, but refusing to post at all isn't any better, and if the few things I do link below end up getting better researched and refuted, at least it's better than a pure echo chamber for either side.

The "97% consensus" claim is worse than the "77 cents on the dollar" wage gap claim, and shouldn't be treated seriously at all.

However, inspection of a claim by Cook et al. (Environ Res Lett 8:024024, 2013) of 97.1 % consensus, heavily relied upon by Bedford and Cook, shows just 0.3 % endorsement of the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic.

(source 1, source 2, source 3)

Models for temperature predictions routinely overestimate the observed warming. Badly.

During all periods from 10 years (2006 - 2015) to 65 (1951 - 2015) years in length, the observed temperature trend lies in the lower half of the collection of climate model simulations, and for several periods it lies very close (or even below) the 2.5th percentile of all the model runs.

(source, image from previously cited heritage.org report)

Some of the most iconic data presented to advance anthropogenic climate change, the famous "hockey stick graph", collapses into meaningless noise after accounting for flawed methodology. (source)

And so on and so forth.

[Skynstein]

Warmest winters and summers here in years, I guess I'll side with the scientists.

[Dark Holy Elf]

My partner actually worked in climate science for some years. I can assure you that while the exact figure may depend on how you define things, 97% sounds about right. It's a completely accepted scientific fact that human activities are causing an increase in temperature, as well as ocean acidification. Whether it is "most" of the reason for temperature change or not is irrelevant; it is certainly significant.

from Wikipedia:

Carbon dioxide is a significant greenhouse gas. Since the Industrial Revolution, anthropogenic emissions - including the burning of carbon-based fossil fuels and land use changes (primarily deforestation) - have rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. It is also a major cause of ocean acidification because it dissolves in water to form carbonic acid

It could scarcely be clearer. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, therefore putting more of it in the atmosphere, as humans inarguably have (cutting down trees and burning of huge amounts of fossil fuel), will result in a net increase in the world's temperature, all other factors being equal. It has already increased from about 320 ppm to 400 over the last 50 years, and is going to continue to rise for at least the next few years. That's kind of a big deal.

I'm not sure why it would be a "bogeyman". To say that is pretty much to say an entire field of scientists (a group of people who are to a large degree motivated by a desire to discover the mechanics of the world we live in) to create an elaborate lie for little to no gain. (By contrast, climate change deniers usually have very, very clear financial and/or ideological incentives to do so, and typically aren't scientists, funnily enough. Also for some crazy reason they tend to be localised in specific countries where the issue has become politicised, like the US.)

The issue of whether government or other avenues are the best way to deal with it is an acceptable political debate (I would argue that governments have a great position to do so, because it only requires an agreement between a few major powers to legislate change, instead of requiring agreement of large number of individual businesses), as is what methods would work best (I'm a pretty big fan of revenue-neutral carbon taxes, as they allow businesses to figure out the most economically efficient way to handle reducing CO2 emissions, and being revenue-neutral makes them much less political). Implying that climate change is not something we should be concerned about, though, is ignorant at best and outright vile at worst.

[Life]

My partner actually worked in climate science for some years. I can assure you that while the exact figure may depend on how you define things, 97% sounds about right. It's a completely accepted scientific fact that human activities are causing an increase in temperature, as well as ocean acidification. Whether it is "most" of the reason for temperature change or not is irrelevant; it is certainly significant.

Yes but that's not proof of anything aside from consensus.

​Once upon a time, 97% of scientists believed that the sun revolved around the earth.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Obviously scientists can be wrong, but they're still far more likely to be right about their subject than someone who has not studied it.

Put it this way: it's a lot like the fact that 90-some percent of doctors believe that smoking causes cancer. Sure, they could be wrong; after all, doctors have been wrong about things in the past. But they're probably not, and if the overwhelming majority of doctors (/medical scientists) are saying one thing and cigarette companies are saying another, well, I know who I'm gonna trust.

[Life]

Obviously scientists can be wrong, but they're still far more likely to be right about their subject than someone who has not studied it.

Put it this way: it's a lot like the fact that 90-some percent of doctors believe that smoking causes cancer. Sure, they could be wrong; after all, doctors have been wrong about things in the past. But they're probably not, and if the overwhelming majority of doctors (/medical scientists) are saying one thing and cigarette companies are saying another, well, I know who I'm gonna trust.

Yes but the argument of consensus is used as "well 97% scientists agree so disagreeing with them is being anti-science".

Even 100% of scientists agreeing doesn't make disagreement anti-science. It is only anti-science if you deliberately lie about proven facts.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Life

[Excellen Browning]

Yes but that's not proof of anything aside from consensus.

​Once upon a time, 97% of scientists believed that the sun revolved around the earth.

This is a load of bunk. The controversy over heliocentrism was theological in nature.

[UNLEASH IT]

This is a load of bunk. The controversy over heliocentrism was theological in nature.

But at that time, science and theology were intertwined with each other and most of the major scientists were also very religious men.

[Phoenix Wright]

we were very limited in our ability to measure and observe these things. though, actually, the church actively sought to end scientific inquiries like this at the time. science and the church were definitely not "intertwined."

Edited November 11, 2016 by Phoenix Wright

[Phoenix Wright]

double post because i dont care really and this is sort of important.

I haven't spent a lot of recent time or effort keeping up on developments, but a brief evening's wander has left my prior conclusions unchanged. The spectre of climate change as it is popularly presented to the masses is mostly a hollow bogeyman that doesn't live up to the hype. I doubt that I'll have the energy to vigorously defend such a controversial opinion over a protracted period, but refusing to post at all isn't any better, and if the few things I do link below end up getting better researched and refuted, at least it's better than a pure echo chamber for either side.

The "97% consensus" claim is worse than the "77 cents on the dollar" wage gap claim, and shouldn't be treated seriously at all.
(source 1, source 2, source 3)

Models for temperature predictions routinely overestimate the observed warming. Badly.

(source, image from previously cited heritage.org report)

Some of the most iconic data presented to advance anthropogenic climate change, the famous "hockey stick graph", collapses into meaningless noise after accounting for flawed methodology. (source)

And so on and so forth.

i already said, long before this post, that "scientific consensus" is typically not an argument.

um...so because the theoretical modeling is wrong, anthropomorphic climate change is invalid? i don't follow. what about the very fact that we know what sorts of impacts happen when co2 is in the atmosphere? what about ice cores? sea level rise? the ph level of the oceans? glacial retreats?

modeling precisely is difficult, but that doesn't make the hypothesis invalid. still reading, but this lengthy analysis of ipcc models seems to not really agree with the analyses linked by you. here's ipcc's analysis.

knowing the nature of ipcc models, the first source does not really qualify why 100+ models was anything but arbitrary. the ipcc runs thousands of models with a range of temperatures--how does an avg of less than 10% of models show anything? which ones were picked? what was the methodology? altogether i would say the paper is put together poorly. you're a physicist, right? you should know this source is atypical of a quality paper.

edit: the second paper is very poor. no data, no math, no plots. this isn't science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy

Edited November 18, 2016 by Phoenix Wright