Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility

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Climate deniers have no scientific credibility. Environmentalists also have no scientific credibility. The current climate change is real and it's man made. However, environmentalists just hurt there own cause when they say it will be the end of civilization. It won't be. Maybe a few hundred million people will die but that's no tragedy, there'll still be billions more. This could even help with our overpopulation problems (slightly). The best part is, the people most likely to die from global warming are the people who still cling to postindustrial habits of rapid population growth.

Global warming will change wind patterns which will cause famines that will effect people in undeveloped countries (not developing). For the rest of us the effects will merely be a major depression but that's not something we can't survive. Extinction? Not human extinction. Maybe a few million other species will go extinct but some of those other species are over sensitive to environmental conditions. They're not versatile species like humans and rats and ants. If those other species didn't want to go extinct they shouldn't have been so specialized. Didn't they learn anything from the other extinction events in history? The ants certainly did. They survived all of them.

We need to stop trying to preserve endangered species because that will interfere with evolution. They need to make way so new species can evolve. Saving the pandas might seem like a good idea now but will we still be preserving them in their current form a hundred million years from now? By that time it will be sort of ridiculous. If we want to preserve endangered species we should just take DNA samples. That way we could just clone them at a later date. The fact that we will be able to clone them means we won't have to. We'll just have peace of mind that we could clone them if we wanted to, without having to go to the trouble of actually doing it.

And what's all this talk about sea level rise? Global warming is real but that doesn't mean the sea level is going to rise. Al Gore said if all the ice in Antarctica melted, the sea level would go up six meters. So the temperatures going to go up 5 degrees C? That won't cause all the ice in Antarctica to melt, only a few percent of it. So the sea level will only go up by a tiny amount and it won't matter.

For me, the biggest question for environmentalism is, who will protect the environment from environmentalists? They want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Environmentalists are the ones increasing them. They demand all the nuclear power plants be shut down when they were producing gigawatts of carbon dioxide free electricity. They say wind turbines are bad because they think they will give them migraines. Even the ones who are pro wind turbines have no suggestions on how to produce baseload power. If someone tries to build a hydro plant to produce green energy, the environmentalists stop them just because it will flood one valley. Don't they know it could save millions of other valleys? If they do build some kind of alternate energy plant, the environmentalists will pat each other on the back high five eachother. They build some source of green energy that provides the city with less than 1% of the cities energy needs and the environmentalists say they've solved global warming. What about the other 99% of energy that's still coming from conventional sources? Environmentalists think solving 1% of the problem is the same as solving all of the problem. They even exaggerate how much energy they're producing. If they build a machine that can produce 1 megawatt, instead of saying it produces 1 megawatt, they'll say it produces 8,760 megawatt hours per year. Do they really think that will fool anyone? They only fool themselves. They all like eating their organic hipster chow. They don't realize organic food is nothing but giving up the farming advances of the last hundred years and that organic farming takes up twice as much land to grow the same amount of food. Then they protest land clearance while drinking their organic soy hipsterccino. And why are they against genetic engineering? That could further increase our yields per hectare. Yes, there's a small chance it could produce some supercrop that will escape into the wild and outcompete all natural fauna but selective breeding could already achieve the same thing. Most environmentalists don't even think of that, they just think ingesting GM food will actually harm them. How would that happen? It's not as though our genes absorb DNA from the food we eat. Maybe drought resistant crops could save some of the people in the aformentioned undevoloped countries.

Even though I find global warming to be inevitable, I'm not against educing it's effects. Yes it could hurt industry but we'd lose less money from that then we will from the mid 21st century depression. No matter though, civilization will go on either way. It will go on for trillions of years to come. Our civilization will outlast the sun. We'll be around until the heat death of the universe.

So you deny that it is unnatural for the climate to be warming as we leave the Little Ice Age?

It is more likely that there are both natural and man-made contributions to the change in climate and that which is predominant is unknown at this time.

That's kind of what I meant. Of course I realize there's such a thing as natural climate change. It's just if there's man made climate change being added on top of natural climate change than we can't hold ourselves blameless. Even if the climate was already warming by itself, it's not as though our activities would have no effect.

But how much of an affect? And in which direction?

Remember that pollution can act to reflect sunlight back into space and reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface. It may very well be that halting warming is quite easy -- more pollution.

1) While there is a great deal of speculation as to the amount of warming and its causes, we really don't know much. A great deal of research remains to be done to find out how much is really going on.

2) After more research into what is really going on and how much, the question of what we can effectively do to counter will remain. I think that any efforts to counter Global Warming without really understanding it and without a great deal of research into figuring out what can be done is a complete waste of resources. There are plenty of naive suggestions of what to do, but they are often more of a knee-jerk reaction and are entirely unreasoned.

3) Once we understand the true nature of the changes to climate and once we have done the research to determine what we can effectively do to counter the climate, there will remain the question of whether we should actually do anything about it. After all, if you look at our history, it is undeniable that mankind has flourished under warmer climates and is seriously threatened by colder climates. To those in a panic about it, history makes no difference at all and we can learn nothing from it. To the contrary, our only salvation is to give them total control and let them take us out of this so-called emergency. Giving them that control would be insane -- it is far more likely that they would cripple the entire country.

Those who are in a panic (i.e, those who label themselves as "concerned") don't believe in waiting and are too impatient to wait for science and real answers. They just want to jump to conclusions. Naturally, those in a panic are uninterested in doing the research and waiting for real results.

There is no need to panic -- that is the absolutely worst thing that we can do.

Yeah, some research would be nice. I often find myself disagreeing with both sides of the debate. One side wants to protect industry at all costs (and industry won't stay the same forever regardless of climate change) and the other side is prone to exaggerating the problem. It could be a very serious problem but there's no need to make it seem even worse than it already is. Between these two factions I'm not sure if we're going to get much research. How much climate change will there be? What will cause it? We might only find the answers to these questions after it's happened. The trouble is, the world is run by politions, not scientists. I'm sure you've had the opportunity to be disgusted with both sides of politics. Haven't we all. Every election feels like a Hobson's choice.

We flourished under warmer climates? Someone is always flourishing either way. Think of all the things that were achieved in the little ice age. The birth of science, the Enlightenment, your American Revolution. I'm sure they didn't mind if the Delaware was a little icy. Most of all the industrial revolution and that was in one of the cooler countries. People did just fine in the last glaciation. They continued their march across the world. It doesn't matter if the climate gets cooler or warmer. There'll always be groups of people who likes things as they are and is harmed by any change and some opportunist who takes advantage of the situation. Change is inevitable either way. If there are famines it will not be because agriculture is no longer possible, it will just be that it may no longer be possible in the same locations it was before and some farmers will refuse to move. There'll always be people who refuse to accept change.

Progress didn't wait for the Little Ice Age, but continued through the Little Ice Age.

But during the glaciation, people did not do fine. They survived. I suspect that hunter gatherer societies cannot possibly lead to civilization as we knew it today. Consequently, it took a warm period for civilization. It is no accident that civilization's early steps were during a period when it was noticably warmer than it is today.

Returning to another period of glaciation would be a major disaster. Resource will be much thinner and there will undoubtedly be major wars over those resources. The rule will be win or perish.

As for agriculture not being possible -- that is incomprehensible. The crops may change but we will surely be able to grow far more than today. For example, the farmers of central and southern Mexico can raise two crops of wheat per year instead of the one crop in most of the world. Want to grow more wheat -- a warmer planet would enable that. A cooler planet, in contrast, would mean crop failures.

The problem is that the planet, in itself, does not matter. What matters is the life on the planet. Life does not adjust well to rapid, drastic temperature changes. We are seeing some adjustment, but that cannot continue for ever and is not suitable everywhere.

We can determine human beings are the source of the anomaly.
1) We know greenhouse gases cause the greenhouse effect
2) We know the greenhouse effect is responsible for the temperature of the planet
3) We know humans are releasing more greenhouse gases than ever.

Are you ignorant of any of those facts, or unable to follow them to their logical conclusion>

At least, in the controlled conditions of a laboratory. The real world atmosphere is far more complex. For the time being, we are merely guessing as to the actual effects of greenhouse gases in the real world.



That can be interpreted a couple of different ways, but either way it is not true.

Without a greenhouse effect, the temperature would be considerably cooler. We need a greenhouse effect to keep this planet warm enough to live in.

If you are referring to the minor increase in temperatures that we have seen recently, we have no idea if that is due to increased greenhouse gases. I think that it is likely at least partially due to that but that is not the only thing that affects the temperature.

Essentially, greenhouse gases have a vital part to play in keeping this planet inhabitable, but they do not, by themselves, determine the temperature.



You are at least correct about that.



It might help to get the real facts first -- something that nobody has today anywhere in the world. Without the facts, it is just speculation and jumping to conclusions.

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Last edited by mikassyna on 17 Nov 2013, 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Last edited by mikassyna on 17 Nov 2013, 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Life on the planet will continue to exist even with drastic climate changes. Life exists in even the most inconceivably harshest conditions on this planet.
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/ex ... index.html
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/ex ... index.html

What you are saying is that human beings cannot adjust well to rapid, drastic temperature changes. And perhaps those cute cuddly things that human beings are so partial to? Human beings will adapt, and that is why scientific advancements are important, so we can "weather" those changes as best we can as comfortably as we can, because those changes are inevitable, regardless of what we do.

The status quo cannot exist forever. Nor should we want it to. Stagnation is a terrible thing!

Last edited by mikassyna on 17 Nov 2013, 7:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

Note that the quoted part is not from me.

I edited the post to correct the error, sorry!

You just contradicted yourself...

We know that greenhouse gases make the planet warmer because if they didn't then the planet would be a lot colder.

Then given that greenhouse gases have an impact on global temperature, it would follow that, a priori, releasing more of them would raise the temperature, no? It isn't guaranteed, because there could be something we don't know about, but without making any observations it would seem reasonable to predict that more greenhouse gases= warmer Earth?

Then we see that, as we burn more fossil fuels and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations go up, the temperature actually does rise. The basic prediction fits the basic facts.

Then we look at radiative forcing:
[img][800:673]http://www.realclimate.org/images/ipcc_rad_forc_ar5.jpg[/img]

And we model the change we'd expect with our current understanding:

http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/ ... -1860_1269

If humans are not affecting temperature, the models say things would be a fair bit cooler.
If nature is not affecting the temperature, then the models would still be off (though not as much).
If both are having an impact, then our current understanding fits what is really happening very well.

(This is pretty much a textbook case of philosophy of science. Hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. The experimental data matches the hypothesis, thus strengthening it. And there's a lot of experimental data)


Our knowledge of the greenhouse effect and climate change is comparable to our knowledge of evolution. This is reflected by the similar level of uncertainty in the two theories. Is evolution "speculation and jumping to conclusions"?

In both cases, we know an awful lot, and we can be confident that what we know is accurate, though of course we cannot be certain.

Even if the climate models are in fact horribly wrong and global warming is a massive hoax propagated by the elitist liberal media...when upwards of 95% of scientists who have devoted their lives to studying climate change are in full agreement over it's cause, and all data seems to arrive at the same conclusion, would it not be prudent to take the conservative approach of reducing emissions, rather than fight and bicker over the validity of tree ring data for the next 50 years? (after which it may be too late to make any changes). We have the technology available to dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels, it just requires a large upfront investment (and one that will likely pay off in the future, even for reasons completely irrespective of global warming).

After all, these scientists know what they're doing...they aren't just some crackpots living in a basement making wild claims and conjectures. All of their conclusions and predictions are based on huge amounts of data and observations, and they know full well that all of their data comes with inherent error, I doubt they could even be published in a peer-reviewed journal without taking it into account.

The difference between evolutionary scientists/anthropologists from climate scientists is that the former are not affecting public policy based on their conjectures and wild predictions, diverting a boatload of money toward said predictions instead of other efforts like curing cancer or funding veterans' benefits or--well the list is endless.