I'm not versed in climatology or environmental science, and frankly neither are most people.
As such the issue of global warming really confuses me, to the point that I'm now on the fence. I've seen people with no knowledge on the matter become violent when it is challenged. A typical rebuttal might be "Well the glaciers are disappearing" in the same way christian fundamentalists use one liners to negate evolution.
Science shouldn't be emotional, and I find that worrying.
As stated though, I don't know much about the issue first hand, I read the paper and have to make my assumptions based on it. If anyone can chime in and correct me then by all means feel free.
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P.S I have no doubt we are screwing up our environment and need urgent change, but the psychology surrounding global warming is a bit odd to me.
> Science shouldn't be emotional, and I find that worrying.
This, definitely. Was I the only science-minded person that saw the Al Gore presentation and was more convinced that global warming ISN'T an issue? Anytime someone speaks under the guise of science but has to use rhetoric and emotional appeal to prove a point, it makes me instantly doubt it. I don't know what to really think anymore. Clearly we aren't helping the ecosystem out, but to think we can extrapolate any realistic climate future out of just a sliver of information is lunacy. We can't predict tomorrow's temperatures with any reasonable accuracy, but somehow know the whole earth is going to turn into waterworld?
We need ecological change and responsibility, but fearmongering and cherry-picking data is not the way to achieve it.
We can't predict tomorrow's temperatures with any reasonable accuracy, but somehow know the whole earth is going to turn into waterworld?
Hold on a moment. I can't predict tomorrow's lottery numbers with any reasonable accuracy, but I can make an accurate long-term prediction about how often a given number is going to appear over the next decade of lotteries.
False analogy. You can indeed predict tomorrow's lottery numbers, or at least their probabilities, with extreme accuracy; the odds are defined and exact. This is why long-term predictions of lottery numbers are extremely accurate, because the day-to-day probabilities are known and exact.
Temperatures, however, are not random and probabilistic; they are the explicit result of many factors. These same factors are used to predict long-term climate change. If the climate models that use these factors work so well for the future, why do they not work well for the next week? It's the same model, the same factors. In the analogy of the lottery numbers, if you mess up the near-term probabilities, you can rest assured the error is magnified over a long term.
It's not a false analogy - predicting the precise temperature tomorrow is analagous with predicting the exact numbers tomorrow, not the probabilities of the numbers tomorrow. Climate predictions are predictions of long-run means and weather predictions are predictions of short-run outcomes.
Consider that the ball being drawn out of the lottery machine is not truly random and probabilistic, either - it is a direct result of the laws of physics, the starting condition of the ball-drawing machine and the inputs to it.
Just like the ball-drawing machine, the short-run weather in the next minute, hour, day or week is a highly noisy process that can be accurately modelled as a random, probabilistic process. This is how weather forecasts work - they'll give the probability of rain in the next 24 hours.
For the same reason that we can predict how a large body of mass will react to a collision but can't explain how the subatomic particles will react to that same event, or the overall trend of the stock market without being able to predict the behavior of any individual stock.
Scale matters. Most climate prediction software looks at weather on a far vaster, long-term scale than hours, days, or even weeks. Variations over such short periods ultimately have little effect on long-term trends.
The reason it introduces so much emotion is that it's used as political leverage and people get all uppety when red vs blue comes into the picture.
We're screwing up our direct environment for certain as that is directly observable, but we're not necessarily screwing up our climate. The latter is pseudo-science, despite how we wrap it up. We just haven't been around long enough to come up with a climate model that makes any sense.
> We're screwing up our direct environment for certain as that is directly observable...
Is it really? I guess it depends on what you mean by "we", but I was under the impression that major "tangible" environmental statistics in the U.S. have been on a positive trend for decades. Smog, acid rain, toxic metals etc.
It's a fair observation, but that is the US. There's a big rug in the far east with lots of toxic crap under it. There's also a lot of stuff we buried in various places and cross fingers it'll never escape.
That's fair, though. They'd rather have dirty, labor-intensive manufacturing to grow a middle class out of grinding agricultural poverty and we'd rather have desk jobs and cheap clothes.
It's a fantasy to believe there's anything more than a marginally better alternative. Certainly China is going to industrialize a lot "cleaner" and faster than we did, and when they have a real middle class they'll start caring about pollution a lot more. And it won't be "too late", I suspect.
Regarding screwing up the direct environment- I only want to say that I believe a historical survey, and economics, would support the perception that as societies advance in standard of living, they tend to clean up their local environments.
People start having higher standards for everything, including the quality of their local environment, when mere survival is no longer the primary concern.
So, it could be said that this environmental damage is more a sign of poverty than a result of success. And that if/when the world economy is unleashed and allowed to grow for a couple decades, as a side effect of eliminating poverty we'd likely see massive improvements to the direct environment.
This is also consistent with the evolution of business- when its more competitive you want to minimize waste because its cheaper to use more efficient methods, which has a positive environmental side effect.
This is a fair point and one I agree with, however the issue at the moment at least is that as standard of living grows, problems are pushed to other places. This is because they are truly uneconomical to solve locally due to people wanting to protect their standard of living.
The lowest rung of the ladder always gets to solve the problem at the end of the day.
The IPCC has a great website with a lot of information. There are books you can download which explain the science and answer questions from skeptics. Its very calm and very respectful of the intelligence of the reader.
In my view, the climate debate gets emotional because it's scary and upsetting to see so many people refusing to accept what is now essentially solid science, and in such a way that the future wellbeing of humanity (not to mention other species) is put at serious risk.
It's probably also the case that those who have a vested interest in climate change denial (or 'scepticism') would like it to get emotional, because if you're arguing about emotions than nobody gets to be right.
> vested interest in climate change denial
> (or 'scepticism')
Just one more example. How about skepticism without quotes?
Calling something solid science does not necessarily make it so. To me looks like climate is still much like nutrition: there is more guessing than science.
There is certainly plenty of "here's a probability distribution, subject to caveats". There is also some radical uncertainty (unknown unknowns).
However, I understand that the balance of evidence is that it is certainly worth doing significantly more than we are right now to mitigate climate change.
This is particularly so since there are currently still some win-win options -- i.e., options where we gain however bad climate change is or isn't (e.g. energy efficiency, cutting fossil fuel subsidies).
If you like, you can see this (in the non-win-win case) as a kind of insurance. I am not certain that my house is going to burn down -- in fact, I hope and trust that it's very unlikely. But I'm still more than happy to insure my house for a few hundred pounds a year to hedge against it.
How would you feel about the argument that, while I can't prove god exists, you should give %30 of your income to the church anyway. IF there is no god, you've still helped the world by funding the spread of his word. And if there is a god, you've saved your soul?
Ok, wait, that's not a correct analogy. It would be correct if I was advocating that men with guns go around and force you to give up %30 of your income to the church and saying that forcing you to do it was justified because its like insurance, right?
If the policies that the IPCC etc. are advocating are put into place, one estimate I've seen is that 100 million people will be killed as a direct result in the next 20-50 years due to increased starvation worldwide. (and that this is a "conservative" number where it likely would be 1 billion.)
"cutting fossil fuel subsidies" is dishonest, because fossil fuels are not subsidized, they are highly taxed, and increasing those taxes will hurt poor people the most by driving up food costs, increasing starvation... remember the IPCC et. al want to do this globally.
But there might be a god, right? So its worth it that they should die, right? (Just putting your argument in a different context so you can see the shape of it. I don't think you really want people to die, you probably think you're advocating for the less death alternative... but since your position is not grounded in science, you're ending up doing what the USSR did. They thought they were making a better society (or claimed they were) but they rejected science (specifically economics) and advocated policies that caused starvation.)
>Ok, wait, that's not a correct analogy. It would be correct if I was advocating that men with guns go around and force you to give up %30 of your income to the church and saying that forcing you to do it was justified because its like insurance, right?
You realise that you just described taxes, don't you?
Let me make it clear upfront: I'm responding to the issue of emotional talk about this issue, not trying to debate the science with you.
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The IR absorption of CO2 is less than that of water vapor, is it not? CO2 is rising while the planet is getting colder. The models have never shown to be predictive. Shouldn't a "solid science" be able to make even short term predictions?
You say it is "essentially solid science" you do this instead of making an argument, or citing evidence to indicate that it is settled. I gave three quick ones above to indicate it isn't. But right after you say it is solid, you talk about the "wellbeing of humanity (not to mention other species) is put at serious risk". Is this not an appeal to emotionalism? ("You're going to die" is pretty emotional, isn't it?) You spent more words on that than you did even referencing a scientific argument.
The thing I find perplexing-- and I'm not trying to argue the science here, merely pointing out the issue of emotionalism-- is that the first, and often, only, defense for AGW that I see from proponents is the claim that the science was settled (or "essentially solid" as you put it.)
This was the claim 6 years ago. This was the claim 12 years ago. This was the claim the first time I'd ever heard the phrase "global warming".
When did the debate happen that settled it, so that proponents of this scientific theory never seem to feel that they need to justify their belief in it, and can move right onto the "we're all in trouble" claims?
Honestly, climate change was a bad way to go on the "we're all going to die" front.
Ocean acidification is a much juicier target. As carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, more of it is dissolved in the oceans. As more carbon dioxide is dissolved in the oceans, the pH of the oceans drops and the acidity increases.
And then everything in the ocean dies and then we all die.
Well, the last couple of parts are extrapolation and up for argument, but the great thing about ocean acidification (so to speak) is that it's indisputable up to a point. We know we're increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and from there it is high school chemistry that the pH of the ocean will decrease by a certain amount. Granted, most of us didn't pay enough attention to high school chemistry to do the maths ourselves, but it's like two equations.
From there the only question is how bad the rapid acidification of the oceans actually is. We know that corals are probably screwed, because the calcium carbonate reacts poorly to the acidification, but on the other hand the single-celled organisms are probably fine, just because they have tens of thousands of generations to react to the change. Everything in the middle is fair game.
Oh, and ocean acidification is a much more rapid process than climate change, because it takes much less time for the ocean to reach a new equilibrium with the carbon in the atmosphere than the atmosphere to reach a new temperature equilibrium. (Recall that CO2 isn't supposed to increase temperatures directly, it increases the amount of heat retained in the atmosphere from year to year.)
In my opinion, ocean acidification is a much better reason to worry about atmospheric CO2 than climate change
"but on the other hand the single-celled organisms are probably fine, just because they have tens of thousands of generations to react to the change. Everything in the middle is fair game."
Maybe not the single-celled organisms that build shells out of acid-sensitive materials like calcium carbonate.
This isn't the place, and I'm also not the person, to summarise the whole of climate science for you. That's why I provided a link to more information. Here's another: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide
"You're going to die" -- or "you or your descendants stand a decent chance of living less happily and/or less long" -- is indeed pretty emotional. I'm afraid that's inevitable, and was part of the point I was making.
"Science shouldn't be emotional, and I find that worrying."
This.
Science is just science, looking for answers trying to ask the question in different ways see if you get the same answer, trying create theories by which you can predict changes and thus validate (or not) your theories.
Climate changes over time. We know this because there have been hot periods and ice ages and everything in between on the planet. Rapid climate change has caused mass extinctions, this too is also in the fossil record. The idea of everyone being dead is scary, and therein lies the problem.
Humans are creatures of emotion, that emotion can stir them to action, action at random is like entropy, of little use. Concerted action however is power. Some humans have used fear to cause other humans to act, and by their action, to achieve the objectives of the humans scaring them.
The very same mechanisms the Church used to cause 'regular' people to go out and kill other people in the crusades, is being used to get people to go out and kill corporations, policies, Etc. The mechanism harnesses fear, faith, and redemption in a three way linkage of motivation.
That said, this part is where you should step off the train: "I have no doubt we are screwing up our environment and need urgent change," That is simply apologizing for being rational, you shouldn't have to do that. We aren't "screwing up our environment" any more than a fish swimming is "screwing up the glassy surface of a pond." We exist, we live, we breed, we do things, in what is effectively a closed system. We are the fucking environment. We should (and do) seek out opportunities to do things in way that maximizes our benefit and minimizes our pain, sometimes that changes the environment in difficult to reverse ways. But we keep living, moving, and changing.
There is no 'nirvana' of living in balance and peace with the world. This planet kills off all life periodically. It did it to the dinosaurs, it has done so several times. You and I will end up dead at some point. Humans will, if history is a good predictor, end up all dead at some point. Get over it.
In the mean time, its great to develop new science around how the planet's climate is related to all sorts of things.
I always suggest Spencer Weart's 2008 history of climate change, published by the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics at http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm (also available as a book). It provides a lot of technical detail and shows how, for example, climate models were improved over time. Reading it resolved the question for me: global warming's theory and observations developed over time, much like any other scientific field.
I think that part of the issue is the old school title of 'global warming' - as a whole it may well be that the planet earth is warming - but many (may) see their areas get cooler, or nothing happen at all.
I prefer to refer to it as 'climate change' - you can add 'man made' to the front of that if you wish, but just slightly changing the term of reference stops at least a few of the standard comments in the UK; "well the last few summers have been rubbish, so there is no global warming!".
I'm with the parent on this one. The politics really make it difficult for a normal person to see the wood for the trees, let alone the science.
There are interest groups on all sides, and I have a couple of research scientist friends who've told me that they've been able to find funding for research that otherwise wouldn't be available as long as they can relate that research in terms of climate science, which also makes me feel as though the whole thing is politicised.
I think I can definitely agree that the climate is changing, so the term climate change would (at least as far as I can tell as a layman, not a climate scientist) be accurate. Historical records in either direction show that the climate has changed, and that continuation makes a lot of sense. It would also make sense to me that changes in one area in one direction may be different to others, making it more difficult to measure in a simplified manner.
There is no divinely ordained "natural" temperature for the planet, either in the past, the future, or the present. That's pretty much all you really need to know.
What about the increase in average temperature. A well documented and statistical fact.No doubt this has a global effect on a complex system as the Earth. You don't have to be a climatologist to feel uncomfortable about this, yes maybe to explain it or put in perspective.
What about the increase in average temperature. A well documented and statistical fact.No doubt this has a global effect on a complex system as the Earth. You don't have to be a climatologist to feel uncomfortable about this, yes maybe to explain or put in perspective.
There are uncounted[1] numbers of glaciers in alaska alone. I mean that literally.
There are so many glaciers on the planet that nobody has ever even counted them, let alone done a study on whether they are, on average, advancing or declining. They do both, advance and decline as a natural part of changes in weather not climate...they'll do one for a very long time and then change as weather patterns change. This is certainly an indicator of changes in local weather patterns, but to draw global conclusions requires a global survey of some sort.
I don't see evidence that we are screwing up our environment. I see that as taken as an article of faith, and when I attempt to discuss the issue with people, as soon as they detect that I'm not a believer, they decide I'm a denier. And once they decide you're a denier, they seem to think that the rules of science no longer apply, because by being a "denier" you're somehow irrational by definition.
I think the Glaciers example you bring up is one of the best... because it is purely unscientific. (If someone's got an example of a holistic study of glaciers, let me know. I have never seen one.)
Another unscientific claim is that all scientists agree with global warming, therefor it is scientifically "true" that it is happening. This simply isn't right. I've never seen evidence that even a majority agree, and even if a majority do agree, that itself is not an actual argument. What percentage of them are experts on the area? Certainly most scientists are not climatologists (and even this "specialty" seems to be brand spanking new, and basically seems to include acceptance of the AGW hypothesis in its definition of what a "climatologist" is.)
The argument that a majority believing makes it true is like saying that science is based on consensus or democracy, and it is not.
Most people in the USA are christians (according to demographics.) While scientists may be more likely to be atheists, I believe that most of them are going to be christians as well.
Since a majority of scientists are christians, and thus believe in god, does that translate into proof of gods existence, scientifically? (If not, why does this same mechanism work for the AGW hypothesis?)
At the same time I've seen many examples of prominent scientists coming out against the theory, or parts of it, and read about a petition with, I think, 45,000 signatures from scientists.
The reason that this issue is so prominent is not that it is a scientific controversy, but a political one. The IPCC and the UN at large sees it as an opportunity to get the UN some control, some global governmental powers, and politicians in individual countries see it as a political opportunity.
If you make carbon a pollutant, then you have the power to regulate every industry, even eventually, people themselves (as carbon emitters). That's significant power!
[1] If you want to disagree with me on this, please first give me a link to some exhaustive survey that shows how many glaciers there are, then we can have a basis for any question not whether a statistical number of them are growing or declining.
"If you make carbon a pollutant, then you have the power to regulate every industry, even eventually, people themselves (as carbon emitters). "
Shit is a pollutant. People themselves are emitters. And people are regulated as emitters of shit. Sanitation is rather important. Poor sanitation by UN troops in Haiti led to a massive cholera outbreak and thousands of deaths. (The UN troops were from Nepal, where cholera is endemic. Cholera hadn't appeared in Haiti for decades prior.)
If you disagree that shit is a pollutant, prove it: don't wipe your ass for a month.
> (If not, why does this same mechanism work for the AGW hypothesis?)
Because your comparison is flawed in multiple ways.
> Another unscientific claim is that all scientists agree with global warming, therefor it is scientifically "true" that it is happening.
This is something of a straw man. I have no doubt that there are people out there making this claim...just as there are people out there who think unicorns exist. It does nothing to refute this claim because only a small kooky minority are making it.
The REAL point is that "Most experts in the field believe it is true, therefore it is reasonable to go with that belief until we have a reason to think otherwise".
You are confusing "scientific proofs" with how one should act when faced with making a decision. We cannot say that "AGW is true because So-and-so says it is"....that is an argument from authority. However, as citizens trying to make decisions about how to run our society, it's reasonable to go along with the consensus of (expert) scientists in matters of science.
This brings up another point, it's not a matter of what scientists as a whole statistically believe... it's a function of what field the scientists are in, their experience, and their expertise. The assertion is that most experts in the field of climate science (and related fields) agree with AGW and that it is a somewhat concerning issue (though the issue of to what degree is in debate), and there is a sort of rippling of agreement throughout semi-related fields which is worthy of consideration but less heavily weighted.
Where your point is fatally flawed is you are making a false comparison. You cannot compare Christianity which is a vague cultural identity with what they have found via research.
I think if you talk to the majority of scientists who are Christian, you will find that they are Christian mostly only in culture. They are not fundamentalists. They believe there is something called God, and there was this guy a few thousand years ago with some good ideas and maybe he was connected with this God....but if you press them I think you will find they are generally flexible and admit they don't know for sure and are just going on belief.
What you are talking about is an UNSCIENTIFIC BELIEF that they have arrived at completely arbitrarily. It's the same as if you found out that the majority of scientists prefer chocolate ice cream....that doesn't lend some validity to chocolate...it's just an interesting statistic.
AGW on the other hand IS a scientific idea. It's something that was arrived at THROUGH A SCIENTIFIC PROCESS. The fact that most experts agree with it (if it's true) lends it credibility because they either:
a) were able to reproduce the results with their process
b) studied the process of others and found them reasonable
You can argue that the science is flawed, or argue that most experts DON'T agree with it...but it's perfectly reasonable and correct to think that something is more likely to be true if the experts say it is in proportion with the amount of consensus...when you are talking about science . The logical fallacy is only if you claim it is DEFINITELY true, particularly based on a small amount of consensus.
The opinion of scientists absolutely has weight....in matters of science. Christianity as a whole is entirely outside the realm of science, and therefore the fact that many scientists happen to be Christian is irrelevant.
Furthermore, if you do a survey of all the scientists in the world, I think you may find that the majority of them are not Christian. However, the consensus for AGW and it's potential harm will remain.
As such the issue of global warming really confuses me, to the point that I'm now on the fence. I've seen people with no knowledge on the matter become violent when it is challenged. A typical rebuttal might be "Well the glaciers are disappearing" in the same way christian fundamentalists use one liners to negate evolution.
Science shouldn't be emotional, and I find that worrying.
As stated though, I don't know much about the issue first hand, I read the paper and have to make my assumptions based on it. If anyone can chime in and correct me then by all means feel free.
--- P.S I have no doubt we are screwing up our environment and need urgent change, but the psychology surrounding global warming is a bit odd to me.