Climate Change - convince me that this is really a big Net negative

[cameronfen]

"Yes you are using an anecdote and I'm discussing real data from 1900-2017.  Between 1938 and 1953 no Catagory 5 hurricane occurred.  Between 1961 and 1967 the same thing.  1980-1988... Thus it's not rare that category 5s don't appear once every 10 years.  Of course, there will be noise year.  But you look at long term data: between 1886-2005 there was an average of 9 hurricanes a year.  In 1945-2005 11 hurricanes per year, in 1990-2010 14 hurricanes per year.  Of course, you get variation across time but the trends stay consistent.  source: "

 

No, no, no, no anecdotes: 10 years without any hurricane landing in Florida!!!!!!! NONE AT ALL!!!!!

 

While you are quoting data with no category 5 hurricanes! Give me a break!

 

again i am quoting any category 5 in the atlantic.  doesnt have to land in florida.  Again it seems arbitrary to use a criteria of hitting florida to measure an effect of global warming.  Nothing suggests global warming will make hurricanes more likely to hit florida (conditional on them forming).  Rather look at all hurricanes that have formed in the atlantic in a given year.  Heres the third time I provide a different source for my claims:

 

http://www.stormfax.com/huryear.htm

 

As you can see, the number of named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes show a consistent uptrend if you look starting for the late 1800s early 1900s.  I'm too lazy to perform a hypothesis test, but I would be shocked if the mean number of hurricanes from 2000 onward or 2010 onward or 2005 onward wasnt significanttly different than the mean at the 1% level.

[cameronfen]

"Yes you are using an anecdote and I'm discussing real data from 1900-2017.  Between 1938 and 1953 no Catagory 5 hurricane occurred.  Between 1961 and 1967 the same thing.  1980-1988... Thus it's not rare that category 5s don't appear once every 10 years.  Of course, there will be noise year.  But you look at long term data: between 1886-2005 there was an average of 9 hurricanes a year.  In 1945-2005 11 hurricanes per year, in 1990-2010 14 hurricanes per year.  Of course, you get variation across time but the trends stay consistent.  source: "

 

No, no, no, no anecdotes: 10 years without any hurricane landing in Florida!!!!!!! NONE AT ALL!!!!!

 

While you are quoting data with no category 5 hurricanes! Give me a break!

 

Again no major hurricanes hit florida during that period but lots of minor hurricanes as well as tropical storms did. That's why I thought you were referring to catagory 5 storms. source:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes_(2000%E2%80%93present)

[cameronfen]

This feels like a politics thread?  Should/can the mods move it there?

[Read the Footnotes]

This feels like a politics thread?  Should/can the mods move it there?

Yes. Since most of us probably have no clue what we are talking about on this subject, it would seem to have more in common with the Politics section.  ;D

[muscleman]

The fact that there is a risk of catastrophic disaster is enough to pay attention.  Even scientists dont know exactly how melting of the ice caps could increase tempretures or how tempreture increase will effect the gulf stream. Considering a catastrophic effect which will drastically alter our lives (or future generations) has a small but non-zero chance of happening, taking small relatively costless policy changes seems like a prudent decision to make.

 

Am I missing something?  Relatively costless policy changes????  Aren't the proposals massively costly?  In the trillions in terms of the US economy.

 

The real question is what are the costs of doing nothing? If sea levels were to rise 10-20 feet, CAT 5 hurricanes become the norm, more extreme droughts, etc., what is the price tag of that?

 

Additionally, if you read about mass extinsions throughout world history, it's commonly theorized that sudden climate change (warming and cooling) has been a major factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event. This isn't a 50-100 year problem (more like 50-100 million yrs), but illustrative of the potential scope.

 

Remember the same group of scientists call this global cooling in the 70s then changed it to global warming and now climate change. Seems fishy to me of all their predictions

[cameronfen]

The fact that there is a risk of catastrophic disaster is enough to pay attention.  Even scientists dont know exactly how melting of the ice caps could increase tempretures or how tempreture increase will effect the gulf stream. Considering a catastrophic effect which will drastically alter our lives (or future generations) has a small but non-zero chance of happening, taking small relatively costless policy changes seems like a prudent decision to make.

 

Am I missing something?  Relatively costless policy changes????  Aren't the proposals massively costly?  In the trillions in terms of the US economy.

 

The real question is what are the costs of doing nothing? If sea levels were to rise 10-20 feet, CAT 5 hurricanes become the norm, more extreme droughts, etc., what is the price tag of that?

 

Additionally, if you read about mass extinsions throughout world history, it's commonly theorized that sudden climate change (warming and cooling) has been a major factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event. This isn't a 50-100 year problem (more like 50-100 million yrs), but illustrative of the potential scope.

 

Remember the same group of scientists call this global cooling in the 70s then changed it to global warming and now climate change. Seems fishy to me of all their predictions

 

Scientists aren't generally monolithic and those who are saying that are misleading you.  Some scientists believed there was global cooling, most were unsure or critical.  With global warming, almost all climate scientists are in agreement. 

 

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

[clutch]

"Yes you are using an anecdote and I'm discussing real data from 1900-2017.  Between 1938 and 1953 no Catagory 5 hurricane occurred.  Between 1961 and 1967 the same thing.  1980-1988... Thus it's not rare that category 5s don't appear once every 10 years.  Of course, there will be noise year.  But you look at long term data: between 1886-2005 there was an average of 9 hurricanes a year.  In 1945-2005 11 hurricanes per year, in 1990-2010 14 hurricanes per year.  Of course, you get variation across time but the trends stay consistent.  source: "

 

No, no, no, no anecdotes: 10 years without any hurricane landing in Florida!!!!!!! NONE AT ALL!!!!!

 

While you are quoting data with no category 5 hurricanes! Give me a break!

 

again i am quoting any category 5 in the atlantic.  doesnt have to land in florida.  Again it seems arbitrary to use a criteria of hitting florida to measure an effect of global warming.  Nothing suggests global warming will make hurricanes more likely to hit florida (conditional on them forming).  Rather look at all hurricanes that have formed in the atlantic in a given year.  Heres the third time I provide a different source for my claims:

 

http://www.stormfax.com/huryear.htm

 

As you can see, the number of named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes show a consistent uptrend if you look starting for the late 1800s early 1900s.  I'm too lazy to perform a hypothesis test, but I would be shocked if the mean number of hurricanes from 2000 onward or 2010 onward or 2005 onward wasnt significanttly different than the mean at the 1% level.

 

That test will only confirm that the number of major hurricanes varies across different time periods, but nothing about the effect of climate change on such number.

[cameronfen]

"Yes you are using an anecdote and I'm discussing real data from 1900-2017.  Between 1938 and 1953 no Catagory 5 hurricane occurred.  Between 1961 and 1967 the same thing.  1980-1988... Thus it's not rare that category 5s don't appear once every 10 years.  Of course, there will be noise year.  But you look at long term data: between 1886-2005 there was an average of 9 hurricanes a year.  In 1945-2005 11 hurricanes per year, in 1990-2010 14 hurricanes per year.  Of course, you get variation across time but the trends stay consistent.  source: "

 

No, no, no, no anecdotes: 10 years without any hurricane landing in Florida!!!!!!! NONE AT ALL!!!!!

 

While you are quoting data with no category 5 hurricanes! Give me a break!

 

again i am quoting any category 5 in the atlantic.  doesnt have to land in florida.  Again it seems arbitrary to use a criteria of hitting florida to measure an effect of global warming.  Nothing suggests global warming will make hurricanes more likely to hit florida (conditional on them forming).  Rather look at all hurricanes that have formed in the atlantic in a given year.  Heres the third time I provide a different source for my claims:

 

http://www.stormfax.com/huryear.htm

 

As you can see, the number of named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes show a consistent uptrend if you look starting for the late 1800s early 1900s.  I'm too lazy to perform a hypothesis test, but I would be shocked if the mean number of hurricanes from 2000 onward or 2010 onward or 2005 onward wasnt significanttly different than the mean at the 1% level.

 

That test will only confirm that the number of major hurricanes varies across different time periods, but nothing about the effect of climate change on such number.

 

Yes but there are no such statistical methods that prove causality in any definitive way.  The best you can do is an unbiased conditional estimator.

However, once you string together lots of correlation arguments along with a consistent theory, that's as close to proving causality as we can get. 

[clutch]

The fact that there is a risk of catastrophic disaster is enough to pay attention.  Even scientists dont know exactly how melting of the ice caps could increase tempretures or how tempreture increase will effect the gulf stream. Considering a catastrophic effect which will drastically alter our lives (or future generations) has a small but non-zero chance of happening, taking small relatively costless policy changes seems like a prudent decision to make.

 

Am I missing something?  Relatively costless policy changes????  Aren't the proposals massively costly?  In the trillions in terms of the US economy.

 

The real question is what are the costs of doing nothing? If sea levels were to rise 10-20 feet, CAT 5 hurricanes become the norm, more extreme droughts, etc., what is the price tag of that?

 

Additionally, if you read about mass extinsions throughout world history, it's commonly theorized that sudden climate change (warming and cooling) has been a major factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event. This isn't a 50-100 year problem (more like 50-100 million yrs), but illustrative of the potential scope.

 

Remember the same group of scientists call this global cooling in the 70s then changed it to global warming and now climate change. Seems fishy to me of all their predictions

 

Scientists aren't generally monolithic and those who are saying that are misleading you.  Some scientists believed there was global cooling, most were unsure or critical.  With global warming, almost all climate scientists are in agreement. 

 

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

 

Which actually indicates the psuedo-scientific nature of climate predictions. You don't need agreements to show that the pressure of air rises with increased temperature. You can run as many experiments as you want to reject the null hypothesis, and that's that. It's only when such empirical testing is not possible -- as in the case of climate change predictions -- people resort to "scientific consensus", which should be always up to debate and cannot be taken as absolute truth.

[clutch]

Last message I will post here... Per Wikipedia:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science)

 

"Scientific theories are testable and make falsifiable predictions.[1] Thus, it is a mark of good science if a discipline has a growing list of superseded theories, and conversely, a lack of superseded theories can indicate problems in following the use of the scientific method."

 

Considering the stance taken by today's climate scientists (and their supporters), one could conclude that their discipline is based on horrible science.

[cameronfen]

Last message I will post here... Per Wikipedia:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science)

 

"Scientific theories are testable and make falsifiable predictions.[1] Thus, it is a mark of good science if a discipline has a growing list of superseded theories, and conversely, a lack of superseded theories can indicate problems in following the use of the scientific method."

 

Considering the stance taken by today's climate scientists (and their supporters), one could conclude that their discipline is based on horrible science.

 

So you are telling me because every physicist agrees that gravity is a fundamental force that invalidates it?  The reason no one is challenging CO2 = global warming is that no explanation makes more sense.  It's important to know that, climate models are continually improving, so while they all generally agree that carbon causes global warming, they have taken into account more factors like the melting ice caps, Siberia, gulf stream etc (this is not my area of expertise so I don't pretend to know these things well), so they are improving.  At some point attempts to falsify climate change caused by carbon have failed and so the refinements all take that as given.  That is also how science progresses.  Once given enough evidence, some things are taken as given and further theories build upon these facts to model even more nuanced phenomena.   

[Cigarbutt]

It does feel like some there is some type of climate change cult and it would very helpful to have data that is not fraudulent in some cases. 

 

I just don't think it is a big deal if the average temperature rises 1-2 degrees in 100 yrs.  A bit more hurricanes or sea level we can deal with.  I live in Texas and it is very hot in the summer - we get by.  Fear sells papers.  But I may be wrong on not seeing the long term effects. 

 

Either way there are people dying today from solvable problems so I think those areas - clean water, sanitation, vaccines are better to focus on.

A way to make up your mind may be based on instinct, gut feelings, superficial or technical aspects but like value investing, it may be helpful to, if the topic really interests you, to take a look at fundamentals. Just like going through 10-Ks and coming across various opinions, a healthy dose of skepticism is necessary and echo-chambers are to be avoided. Incentives also matter.

 

Do you still believe in your institutions? It seems that trust has gone down and the pendulum has been swinging to a somewhat darker age context but below is a reference that was produced by your 'deep state' but I find it has value. It describes the historical context and evolution of the scientific position on the topic and addresses concerns mentioned by posters above. There is no certainty here and you may want to define yourself a margin of safety. The scientific approach for such a question cannot be purely experimental. The meta-analysis field is very credible and is a way to combine findings in order to increase or decrease the weight of the evidence. On a weighted basis, it is getting warmer and human activity has been a significant contributor.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45086.pdf

 

You may also want to follow Mr. Bill Gates on his blog (do you think he is a nutty and fraudulent ideologue?) and read his upcoming book on climate change to be published in 2020.

 

Given the intellectual challenge by the younger generation and after having looked at the relevance of these changes in relation to potential investments (ski resorts, PG&E), I've been impressed by the longer-term trends and how non-linear changes could occur. My thinking has evolved significantly after looking at fundamentals here.

 

BTW I have appreciated that my climate has been getting warmer and my summers longer.

But you can choose to avoid factual or rational discussions but it may become hard to care and ignore at the same time.

[Aberhound]

So far climate change has been within natural variability. I prefer to call it natural variability because that more accurately describes what we have been experiencing.   

 

Since the sun is driven by changes in aether flux density and this drives everything else we are not in a position to accurately predict. All we can say is that based on the current aether flux density the sun is moving into a cooling period. This is based on the recent model which has been back tested to a 97% accuracy. I am doubtful of the accuracy of that prediction based on back testing as the current aether flux density seems to have changed significantly.

 

Considering that the solar spectrum has shifted to more UV we can infer that something caused the change. I argue that the change is caused by a change in the aether flux density as the heliosphere moved into a new region of the galaxy with less dust. A changed solar spectrum could be that the atmosphere thinned meaning less filtering of UV to lower frequencies but if you check pressure at sea level there is little change. The increased water vapour should reduce not increase UV and certainly the increased volcanism we experienced in the northern pacific this summer creating orange skies in BC at sunset is a natural UV filter so there were no forest fires this year unlike the previous two. The shifted UV spectrum has predictable effects. In the ocean we can predict a cooling effect driven by UV light dumping more energy at the surface. This increases ocean evaporation which is cooling and decreases infrared radiation warming the depths. This will tend to cause the oceans to cool decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But at the same time we will experience more apparent heat in summer as the increased UV warms our skins more like all surfaces are now warmed more, especially metals. This increases the heat island effect in cities. But deep baking of the rocks, for instance of the Canadian shield, is reduced as there is less infrared so Ontario now gets warmer days but cooler nights which most Ontario residences have prayed for in past sweltering summers. The increased UV considerably increases the risk of forest fires.

 

We have also experienced considerable solar dimming due to the geoengineering efforts dumping coal fly ash into the atmosphere. The seems to have abated in Vancouver and we have enjoyed the return of more normal looking weather to the most part. The spraying certainly changed the refraction index of light which was easily seen in the more frequent sun dogs. This cooled the surface and dessicated the air while increasing the severity of storms by ionizing the air. The aluminum in the coal fly ash is a fire accelerant and in our acid forest soils weakens or kills trees by decreasing uptake of phosphates both of which made the forest fires much worse than they needed to be. I wish they would spray fulvic acid instead and thereby detoxify the land and build the soil while also dramatically increasing the drought tolerance of trees. What we need is more climate resilience which calls for better soils not worse so there are less droughts and floods as the better soils absorb far more water.

 

Most of the human caused carbon dioxide release has be caused by degradation of the soil caused by NPK fertilizer. NPK fertilizer gives a false illusion of fertility by breaking down soil rapidly which degrades it. The fertilizer also kills worms which build soil and glyphosate and other poisons kill soil building bacteria. The soil is largely comprised of carbon dioxide from the air which is then released as the soil degrades. There is more carbon dioxide in the soil than there is in all the plants and trees and all the air.  The NPK fertilizer also destroys much of the nutritive benefit of the food grown so here we have the cheapest way of solving the so called carbon dioxide problem. Simply stop using NPK and use worms and compost instead. Perhaps we will have less food but more nutrition. We might even get the benefit of increased intelligence instead of idiocracy. We need more animals on the grassland, not less but managed better so that the the grass gets more heavily manured but given more rest to grow deeper roots. Alan Savory explains this well. More carbon dioxide has been beneficial to plants and to human health and is likely the cause of most of the increase in human longevity. If carbon dioxide drops below 200 ppm photosynthesis stops so that is the risk we must avoid most.

 

The earth has natural cycles which keeps the temperature from running away into catastrophe. Perhaps all stars and planets are conscious like Gurdjieff and other mystics say as there seems to be a control mechanism keeping things stable. This is evidenced by the beauty we see in the galaxy instead of the entropy predicted by the godless scientists. Scientists only have access to a tiny part of the spectrum and can only predict based on what they measure. They would do better to observe and copy nature. More humility and a better understanding of the mysteries of nature would be a better approach than the wasteful second rate methods used to date. And we would all benefit by trying to be more like Tesla who seemed to get outside help from elsewhere. Tesla himself had no idea where his inventiveness came from but certainly he was more spiritual than most of us. Give us all good food and good water for 50 years, get spiritual then ask for help and I bet we have any problem licked in ways we have not yet anticipated.

[tede02]

This feels like a politics thread?  Should/can the mods move it there?

Yes. Since most of us probably have no clue what we are talking about on this subject, it would seem to have more in common with the Politics section.  ;D

 

LOL. Probably spot on.

 

One analogy that always struck me goes as follows. No one can prove that taking steriods resulted in Barry Bonds or Mark McGuire hitting any specific home run. But it's obvious to anyone that steriods greatly contributed to the over all increase in volume.

 

The same concept is true for climate change. It's a trap to single out any one storm or extreme season. But is it really a leap to conclude that putting millions of pounds of heat trapping gas into the atmosphere every hour, 365 days per year, is going to have some meaningful consequences?

 

My dad read a book a few years ago on dark money in the political system. He said one part of the book talked about how a lot of people who worked for the tobacco industry to cast doubt on the addictiveness and health risks before the big 1990s settlements quickly found new work in the energy sector muddying the waters on climate science. It's quite evident that these efforts have been effective.

 

I personally worry about this issue. The risks are totally unknown. In some ways it's shocking to see how dismissive a significant segment of the population is. In other ways it's not surprising at all. I see people cover their ears and hum regularly when facing unpleasant news.

 

All that said, I'm actually rather optimistic that we will solve this challenge. I find innovation in the energy sector very interesting and read about it regularly. I'm no expert, but from what I gather, the technical solutions actually already exist. The problem is the world economy was built around fossil fuels. So you have the challenge of converting existing infrastructure and systems and changing established habits. And of course you have all these entrenched interests, just like in healthcare, that will fight like hell to protect their economic interests.

[Castanza]

Just spit balling here on my phone:

 

There are 62,500 power plants in the world. Let’s assume they are all terrible red tag coal plants (max pollution) 725,000 tons each a year. Earths Atmospheric volume is 5140 trillion tons.

 

Power plants produce 0.00000815% of the total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be .0012 % of atmospheric volume.

 

There are 3 trillion trees on the planet. Trees are estimated to absorb 13-48 pounds of CO2 a year. Let’s just take it less than average and say 25lbs of CO2 a year captured by a single tree. Soooo 75 trillion pounds or  37.5 billion tons of CO2 is sequestered by trees a year.

 

Trees sequester 0.00000729% of the total atmospheric volume a year in CO2.

 

So for shits and giggles let’s use the trees to offset the coal plants...0.00000089% of the earths total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be 0.000129% of atmospheric volume.

 

Yes, this ignores other forms of pollution, volume density of gases etc, but it also ignores other “anti pollution?” mechanisms. What all this means? No effing clue but that percentage makes it hard for me to believe we have any significant impact on anything. Could we get to 1% if we included every source of pollution? It’s like saying a natural gas burning pilot light would eventually heat a domed sports arena located in Antarctic.

 

Again, I can’t answer for the impact of these percentages.

 

 

Edit: apparently all automobile and industrial activities produce 24 billion tons of CO2 a year. So that would be 0.000004ish % of total atmospheric volume.

 

 

 

[cameronfen]

Just spit balling here on my phone:

 

There are 62,500 power plants in the world. Let’s assume they are all terrible red tag coal plants (max pollution) 725,000 tons each a year. Earths Atmospheric volume is 5140 trillion tons.

 

Power plants produce 0.00000815% of the total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be .0012 % of atmospheric volume.

 

There are 3 trillion trees on the planet. Trees are estimated to absorb 13-48 pounds of CO2 a year. Let’s just take it less than average and say 25lbs of CO2 a year captured by a single tree. Soooo 75 trillion pounds or  37.5 billion tons of CO2 is sequestered by trees a year.

 

Trees sequester 0.00000729% of the total atmospheric volume a year in CO2.

 

So for shits and giggles let’s use the trees to offset the coal plants...0.00000089% of the earths total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be 0.000129% of atmospheric volume.

 

Yes, this ignores other forms of pollution, volume density of gases etc, but it also ignores other “anti pollution?” mechanisms. What all this means? No effing clue but that percentage makes it hard for me to believe we have any significant impact on anything. Could we get to 1% if we included every source of pollution? It’s like saying a natural gas burning pilot light would eventually heat a domed sports arena located in Antarctic.

 

Again, I can’t answer for the impact of these percentages.

 

 

Edit: apparently all automobile and industrial activities produce 24 billion tons of CO2 a year. So that would be 0.000004ish % of total atmospheric volume.

The ozone layer is 3 millimeters thick on average in the atmosphere, yet we agree that it has significant effects in blocking UV rays.  The entire atmosphere is 8Km high. 

 

source:

 

https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/facts/dobson_SH.html

[Castanza]

Just spit balling here on my phone:

 

There are 62,500 power plants in the world. Let’s assume they are all terrible red tag coal plants (max pollution) 725,000 tons each a year. Earths Atmospheric volume is 5140 trillion tons.

 

Power plants produce 0.00000815% of the total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be .0012 % of atmospheric volume.

 

There are 3 trillion trees on the planet. Trees are estimated to absorb 13-48 pounds of CO2 a year. Let’s just take it less than average and say 25lbs of CO2 a year captured by a single tree. Soooo 75 trillion pounds or  37.5 billion tons of CO2 is sequestered by trees a year.

 

Trees sequester 0.00000729% of the total atmospheric volume a year in CO2.

 

So for shits and giggles let’s use the trees to offset the coal plants...0.00000089% of the earths total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be 0.000129% of atmospheric volume.

 

Yes, this ignores other forms of pollution, volume density of gases etc, but it also ignores other “anti pollution?” mechanisms. What all this means? No effing clue but that percentage makes it hard for me to believe we have any significant impact on anything. Could we get to 1% if we included every source of pollution? It’s like saying a natural gas burning pilot light would eventually heat a domed sports arena located in Antarctic.

 

Again, I can’t answer for the impact of these percentages.

 

 

Edit: apparently all automobile and industrial activities produce 24 billion tons of CO2 a year. So that would be 0.000004ish % of total atmospheric volume.

The ozone layer is 3 millimeters thick on average in the atmosphere, yet we agree that it has significant effects in blocking UV rays.  The entire atmosphere is 8Km high. 

 

source:

 

https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/facts/dobson_SH.html

 

What’s your point? The Ozone makes up .00000038% of the total atmosphere by your numbers. So what, 9mm of pollution a year? No idea what the distribution of this is in the 8km layer.

 

[clutch]

Last message I will post here... Per Wikipedia:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science)

 

"Scientific theories are testable and make falsifiable predictions.[1] Thus, it is a mark of good science if a discipline has a growing list of superseded theories, and conversely, a lack of superseded theories can indicate problems in following the use of the scientific method."

 

Considering the stance taken by today's climate scientists (and their supporters), one could conclude that their discipline is based on horrible science.

 

So you are telling me because every physicist agrees that gravity is a fundamental force that invalidates it? The reason no one is challenging CO2 = global warming is that no explanation makes more sense.  It's important to know that, climate models are continually improving, so while they all generally agree that carbon causes global warming, they have taken into account more factors like the melting ice caps, Siberia, gulf stream etc (this is not my area of expertise so I don't pretend to know these things well), so they are improving.  At some point attempts to falsify climate change caused by carbon have failed and so the refinements all take that as given.  That is also how science progresses.  Once given enough evidence, some things are taken as given and further theories build upon these facts to model even more nuanced phenomena. 

 

The existence of gravity and its theory are not just based on scientific consensus/agreement, but they can be objectively confirmed (or refuted) using empirical evidence. The model (law) of gravity can predict forces/motions of objects with 99% accuracy (e.g., we get rockets on the Moon). The climate change theories and models (horribly inaccurate), as of now, are mostly based on subjective consensus and insufficient data; therefore, inferences made based on them should not be taken as scientific facts.

[RichardGibbons]

Longhaul, to answer your question, it's pretty easy to know that it's a problem and that it will likely have massive effects because there are a huge number of brilliant scientists looking at this issue with a widespread consensus that it is true. (If you want to leave some room for doubt, you can act as if there's only a 99.99995% chance of the theory being true, rather than a 100% chance of it being true. It won't affect most of your actions or decisions.)

 

People like to pretend things are way more complicated than they are, but climate change is basically proven at this point. Deniers are roughly equivalent to anti-vaxxers, anti-evolutionists, and flat-earthers.

[John Hjorth]

The existence of gravity and its theory are not just based on scientific consensus/agreement, but they can be objectively confirmed (or refuted) using empirical evidence. The model (law) of gravity can predict forces/motions of objects with 99% accuracy (e.g., we get rockets on the Moon). The climate change theories and models (horribly inaccurate), as of now, are mostly based on subjective consensus and insufficient data; therefore, inferences made based on them should not be taken as scientific facts.

 

Lack of or weak ability to predict future climate change in existing models for climate change aren't making the issue at hand [man made climate change, not just climate change] existent or not. You have to make a risk assessment on the matter at hand, because we have only one Earth. The risk connected to climate change is like going all in on one stock on margin, and then getting it wrong, albeit if you screw up with debt, you perhaps have the option to get debt relief by some legal procedure. For climate change there is no "Undo" button like in MS Word or MS Excel. There is an element of potential moral hazard to the issue also, because those who are in risk for being the subjects & victims of getting this wrong are the future generations of the human species. A bit like getting exactly that extra kid, that you actually knew that you would not be able to satisfactory provide for, impacting in a negative way not only the childhood for that child, but also for the elder siblings of that child, your spouse and yourself.

 

Nassim Taleb et. al. : Climate models and precautionary measures.

 

...We have only one planet. This fact radically constrains the kinds of risks that are appropriate to take at a large scale. Even a risk with a very low probability becomes unacceptable when it affects all of us – there is no reversing mistakes of that magnitude. ...

 

&

 

... This leads to the following asymmetry in climate policy. The scale of the effect must be demonstrated to be large enough to have impact. Once this is shown, and it has been, the burden of proof of absence of harm is on those who would deny it.

 

It is the degree of opacity and uncertainty in a system, as well as asymmetry in effect, rather than specific model predictions, that should drive the precautionary measures. Push a complex system too far and it will not come back. The popular belief that uncertainty undermines the case for taking seriously the ’climate crisis’ that scientists tell us we face is the opposite of the truth. Properly understood, as driving the case for precaution, uncertainty radically underscores that case, and may even constitute it.

[Cigarbutt]

A similar paradigm has played out a few years ago with the ozone depletion challenge. The science was relatively uncertain and diehard skeptics as well as paid consultants by vested interests suggested that the ozone layer depletion and hole concepts had natural causes unrelated to human activity (or CFC compounds) and that nothing could be done to change the outcome. To figure out the best outcome, people came together, determined a reasonable course of action and the ozone depletion has reversed and it looks like it will re-normalize in a few decades. These slow evolving challenges need slow thinking but sometimes decisive actions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol

https://theconversation.com/the-ozone-hole-is-both-an-environmental-success-story-and-an-enduring-global-threat-100524

"The Montreal Protocol was the first international treaty to address a global environmental regulatory challenge; the first to embrace the "precautionary principle" in its design for science-based policymaking; the first treaty where independent experts on atmospheric science, environmental impacts, chemical technology, and economics, reported directly to Parties, without edit or censorship, functioning under norms of professionalism, peer review, and respect; the first to provide for national differences in responsibility and financial capacity to respond by establishing a multilateral fund for technology transfer; the first MEA with stringent reporting, trade, and binding chemical phase-out obligations for both developed and developing countries; and, the first treaty with a financial mechanism managed democratically by an Executive Board with equal representation by developed and developing countries."  (my bold)

 

Since then, some 'statisticians' have built models to show how many lives were saved by lowering the incidence of malignant melanomas (skin cancers) in relation to the application of the Protocol. One can criticize these models as to how many lives were saved but I can live with the potential range of outcomes.

[rkbabang]

Last message I will post here... Per Wikipedia:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science)

 

"Scientific theories are testable and make falsifiable predictions.[1] Thus, it is a mark of good science if a discipline has a growing list of superseded theories, and conversely, a lack of superseded theories can indicate problems in following the use of the scientific method."

 

Considering the stance taken by today's climate scientists (and their supporters), one could conclude that their discipline is based on horrible science.

 

It's what happens whenever you mix science with politics.  Just look at the science of nutrition from the 1950s - 2010s.  When there is a political addenda and government funding on the line, nothing that comes from the "science" can be trusted.

 

The world needs a separation of science and state.  It is even more important than separating religion and state.

 

[Castanza]

People like to pretend things are way more complicated than they are, but climate change is basically proven at this point. Deniers are roughly equivalent to anti-vaxxers, anti-evolutionists, and flat-earthers.

 

That is a very ignorant statement as it conflates scientific fact and scientific theories. Vaccines and flat earth is testable and repeatable. People who don't believe in the benefits of vaccines or that the earth is round are blatantly ignoring science.

 

When talking about evolution there are two things that people tend to lump together. The first is Natural Selection and the other is evolution of life from single cell organism to complex organism transitioning between species. The first is clearly proven. It's found both in documented history and in the fossil record and even today in modern life (dogs, horses, etc). The other which includes transitional species is not found in the fossil record. If there is a field of science that has the least amount of certainty it would be paleontology.

 

Climate change is certainly a mix of both and I think that is the reason why most people are frustrated with it. That and because it has to potential to actually impact your life financially where the others mentioned have zero bearing on your life except maybe the anti-vaccine nonsense. I don't think we should be making any rash decisions but at the same time should focus on it as an issue. But the community needs to be more open to causes and reality. My personal issue with it is the clear political agenda and power grab from the UN down.

 

 

[cameronfen]

Just spit balling here on my phone:

 

There are 62,500 power plants in the world. Let’s assume they are all terrible red tag coal plants (max pollution) 725,000 tons each a year. Earths Atmospheric volume is 5140 trillion tons.

 

Power plants produce 0.00000815% of the total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be .0012 % of atmospheric volume.

 

There are 3 trillion trees on the planet. Trees are estimated to absorb 13-48 pounds of CO2 a year. Let’s just take it less than average and say 25lbs of CO2 a year captured by a single tree. Soooo 75 trillion pounds or  37.5 billion tons of CO2 is sequestered by trees a year.

 

Trees sequester 0.00000729% of the total atmospheric volume a year in CO2.

 

So for shits and giggles let’s use the trees to offset the coal plants...0.00000089% of the earths total atmospheric volume in pollution a year. Over 150 years that would be 0.000129% of atmospheric volume.

 

Yes, this ignores other forms of pollution, volume density of gases etc, but it also ignores other “anti pollution?” mechanisms. What all this means? No effing clue but that percentage makes it hard for me to believe we have any significant impact on anything. Could we get to 1% if we included every source of pollution? It’s like saying a natural gas burning pilot light would eventually heat a domed sports arena located in Antarctic.

 

Again, I can’t answer for the impact of these percentages.

 

 

Edit: apparently all automobile and industrial activities produce 24 billion tons of CO2 a year. So that would be 0.000004ish % of total atmospheric volume.

The ozone layer is 3 millimeters thick on average in the atmosphere, yet we agree that it has significant effects in blocking UV rays.  The entire atmosphere is 8Km high. 

 

source:

 

https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/facts/dobson_SH.html

 

What’s your point? The Ozone makes up .00000038% of the total atmosphere by your numbers. So what, 9mm of pollution a year? No idea what the distribution of this is in the 8km layer.

 

Sorry I was unclear.  My point is something with 1/1000000 of the atmospheric volume of earth can have large impacts on us as humans, so your argument that CO2 being such a small part of the atmosphere and thus can't cause a noticable impact is wrong by analogy. 

[cameronfen]

Last message I will post here... Per Wikipedia:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science)

 

"Scientific theories are testable and make falsifiable predictions.[1] Thus, it is a mark of good science if a discipline has a growing list of superseded theories, and conversely, a lack of superseded theories can indicate problems in following the use of the scientific method."

 

Considering the stance taken by today's climate scientists (and their supporters), one could conclude that their discipline is based on horrible science.

 

So you are telling me because every physicist agrees that gravity is a fundamental force that invalidates it? The reason no one is challenging CO2 = global warming is that no explanation makes more sense.  It's important to know that, climate models are continually improving, so while they all generally agree that carbon causes global warming, they have taken into account more factors like the melting ice caps, Siberia, gulf stream etc (this is not my area of expertise so I don't pretend to know these things well), so they are improving.  At some point attempts to falsify climate change caused by carbon have failed and so the refinements all take that as given.  That is also how science progresses.  Once given enough evidence, some things are taken as given and further theories build upon these facts to model even more nuanced phenomena. 

 

The existence of gravity and its theory are not just based on scientific consensus/agreement, but they can be objectively confirmed (or refuted) using empirical evidence. The model (law) of gravity can predict forces/motions of objects with 99% accuracy (e.g., we get rockets on the Moon). The climate change theories and models (horribly inaccurate), as of now, are mostly based on subjective consensus and insufficient data; therefore, inferences made based on them should not be taken as scientific facts.

 

Global warming is also confirmed and could have been disconfirmed by empircal evidence.  Global tempratures have been getting warmer since the industrial revolution.  Even if we can't get the exact magnitude of some hidden phenonenom, doesnt mean we can't say with high certainty what the direction is.  For example demand is downward sloping ie when price goes up quantity, goes down.  The elasticity of demand with respect to price cannot be accurately measured, but economist are sure to the point that it has become axiomatic that, generally, demand is downward sloping. 

 

Someone commented about how when politics effects science, science can't be trusted.  I think many of these models were developed before there was such political controversy in these topics.  Keep in mind it wascthe scieintist who first pushed this movement.  What changed is the former tobacco lobbiest who told you not to believe what basically every climate scietlntist will tell you is true.  Academics have liberal biases generally yes, but if you can demonstrate that a theory such as man made climate change is false, this would get you fame in the academic community equivalent to something like a Nobel.  Thus there is hige incentive for people to challenge the prevailing wisdom. The fact that no one can do this, means that scientists are all in agreement and the fact is likely true.