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cygnnus wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Back in the 1970s climate scientists believed we were heading into another ice age.

That's quite simply not true. I mean seriously... There are plenty of cases where people can disagree over what the facts actually are without repeating statements that are factually incorrect...

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

There are plenty of links in the Skeptical Science page for anyone who doesn't trust them per se...

Now, there was some PRESS hyping of the "coming Ice Age", but it was not based on the overall consensus of the scientific community, even in the 70's.

Valete,

JohnS

I remember that is being an attempted big deal. Life kept getting in the way though. Kind of like now.

Frazzled wrote:I remember that is being an attempted big deal. Life kept getting in the way though. Kind of like now.

That's likely because you're following the debate on climate change through popular media, and expecting it to be a reasonable summation of the general science. It isn't. It results in speculative theories formed by a small number of people in the earliest stages of a new school of science being given lots of exciting headlines, with no regard to the quality of science behind them. It also results in little credit being given to mature theories with a broad level of evidence behind them, even when they have almost universal agreement within the field.

Popular science reporting is there to make you excited. Taking it at face value will result in you believing a lot of nonsense. This might not be a problem if you screen carefully, and end up believing ideologically fitting nonsense.

dogma wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:I'm sure it has nothing to do with thousands of smoke stacks belching CO2 into the atmosphere 365 days a year.....

a couple of people brought up ice ages. they happen cyclically its true, but no one knows why. Its kind of blase to dismiss global warming as part of a natural cycle, since no one really understands what drives that cycle.
AF

Also, human life is quite natural, and therefore all the things that go with it (technology) are also quite natural.

The question isn't really about whether or not nature is affecting itself, the question is about whether or not humans are a significant component of nature's affect on itself.

how couldnt we be? There's almost 7 billion humans on the planet, on every continent, producing and consuming millions of tons of manufactured goods every day. We produce CO2 in massive quantities both through respiration and through industrial production. We eliminate the things that absorb CO2 through deforrestation. CO2 in the atmosphere causes the earth get hotter. Therefore humans are driving climate change.

What I want to know from the natural cycle people is - if scientists tell you that there's a natural cycle of climate changes, and then they tell you that right now humans are driving climate change, on what basis do you believe the 1st claim and disbelieve the 2nd? You dont have any qualifications to make an independent assessment; so logically you either accept science as a valid tool for understanding your world, and either practice it yourself or defer to the people who do, in which case you accept both claims, or you reject science as a whole and both claims. Picking and choosing which claims you want to believe, based on the kinds of politics you want to practice, is an exercise in self deception.
AF


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del'Vhar wrote:Whenever I read a thread where AF is arguing, I keep expecting him to suggest moving into mine shafts with a ratio of 10 women to 1 man, and that all the women would have to be sexually attractive.

they would of course have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
There would be much time and little to do....
[wouldnt that necessitate the abandonment of the so called male monogmous principle?]
regretably yes.... but it is a sacrifice that is required you know.... for the sake of the human race...

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
how couldnt we be? There's almost 7 billion humans on the planet, on every continent, producing and consuming millions of tons of manufactured goods every day. We produce CO2 in massive quantities both through respiration and through industrial production. We eliminate the things that absorb CO2 through deforrestation. CO2 in the atmosphere causes the earth get hotter. Therefore humans are driving climate change.

That's not really a sound conclusion given the premises you've set out. It doesn't matter how big any number might be if the context in which it is to be taken is left undefined. For example, trees scrub a lot of CO2 out of the atmospher, but when their role in compared to that of plankton and aquatic algae it looks much less important. That's the point of all the science surrounding this issue, it isn't enough to simply figure out how much CO2 is being dumped into the atmospher, you also have to figure out how much CO2 must be dumped into the atmosphere in order to produce a significant effect on it.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
What I want to know from the natural cycle people is - if scientists tell you that there's a natural cycle of climate changes, and then they tell you that right now humans are driving climate change, on what basis do you believe the 1st claim and disbelieve the 2nd?

More to the point, the fact that something is a natural cycle does not preclude the possibility that humans are a causal element in that cycle.


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sebster wrote:

BrockRitcey wrote:Like how scientists used to tell you smoking wasn't harmful. There has been data collected on how the more extreme the claim of danger the higher the funding the scientists got. When a scientist tells a politician, "we don't think anything is wrong but we want to study it." how much money do you think they get?

Also how do you explain the people in the rest of the world who are wary of climate science when they don't have rush talking to them?

In following the reasoning above you're pretty much rejecting science, which is basically the foundation for the modern world.

Its also off to disparage science while citing data collected scientifically.

sebster wrote:
Well, no. We should just spend time to recognise how much of the world's infrastructure in dependant on the current climate patterns. Then we should think about how much it will cost to change to adapt to those patterns, and compare it to the cost of controlling emission. This was done in the Stern Report, and his conclusion was pretty clear.

Sure, and that's how we would go about answering the question "Is the change beneficial?"

dogma wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
how couldnt we be? There's almost 7 billion humans on the planet, on every continent, producing and consuming millions of tons of manufactured goods every day. We produce CO2 in massive quantities both through respiration and through industrial production. We eliminate the things that absorb CO2 through deforrestation. CO2 in the atmosphere causes the earth get hotter. Therefore humans are driving climate change.

That's not really a sound conclusion given the premises you've set out. It doesn't matter how big any number might be if the context in which it is to be taken is left undefined. For example, trees scrub a lot of CO2 out of the atmospher, but when their role in compared to that of plankton and aquatic algae it looks much less important. That's the point of all the science surrounding this issue, it isn't enough to simply figure out how much CO2 is being dumped into the atmospher, you also have to figure out how much CO2 must be dumped into the atmosphere in order to produce a significant effect on it.

thats true but as Ive said I'm not a scientist and those figures are not available to me. The people who are scientists, however, and who have the best access to those figures, where they are known, have overwhelmingly concluded that climate change is real and that humans are driving it. So I think its best to defer to their judgement, which is what I'm arguing for.

The broad outlines of the argument do hold however. No climate scientists will tell you that the impact of trees on the absorbption of CO2 is inconsequential; no historian will disagree that deforrestation is not both real and pervasive; nor will any historian tell you that the number of people on the planet has not grown dramatically over the last 300 years. While I dont know the exact figures or have the scientific training to evaluate them if I did have them, my argument is a summary of the arguments of people who do have the figures (as near as they exist) and who do have the training to evaluate them. Under the circumstances deferring to their evaluation is the only sensible response.

dogma wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
What I want to know from the natural cycle people is - if scientists tell you that there's a natural cycle of climate changes, and then they tell you that right now humans are driving climate change, on what basis do you believe the 1st claim and disbelieve the 2nd?

More to the point, the fact that something is a natural cycle does not preclude the possibility that humans are a causal element in that cycle.

absolutely. nor is a natural cycle necessarily a benign one. natural climatic processes turned venus into a burning hell (because of a runaway greenhouse effect, incidentally); if such a process were underway here we would not, because it is natural, ignore it.

I agree with the climate change deniers that the earth is very large and it takes alot of activity to impact it; then again its taken us about 200 years of constant industrial production to get where we are, and there are a truly enormous number of people on the planet. In addition to that I dont think they appreciate how much stuff a modern industrial economy produces. Its unprecedented in human history; we have produced more stuff in the last 200 years than in all the thousands of years leading up to 1800. The scale of weather and climate patterns is huge, no doubt; but so is that of human activity. right now humans are the ecological fact on the planet. 2nd only to the sun.
AF




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Here's something for people who think human activity is too puny to impact global systems. Its a description of the most powerful nuclear device ever exploded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Compared to ww2 nuclear weapons fusion bombs are enormous. Their energy is released in only a single event; not a continuous process spanning 2 centuries.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:No climate scientists will tell you that the impact of trees on the absorbption of CO2 is inconsequential;

Just from the research that I've done in the past, I can tell you that isn't true. In fact, there a few scientists that will you that forests actually make global warming worse due their propensity to suffer periodic forest fires.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
While I dont know the exact figures or have the scientific training to evaluate them if I did have them, my argument is a summary of the arguments of people who do have the figures (as near as they exist) and who do have the training to evaluate them. Under the circumstances deferring to their evaluation is the only sensible response.

Well, there's a difference between granting someone deference, and abdicating al responsibility to understand the science. I'm not an environmental politics guys, but I have done work with it in the past simply because it was an easy way to make my work do double duty late in the term. And, while some of the science involves complicated mathematical modeling, its relatively easy to discern places where the argument is weakly supported. The most commonly mentioned issue being the present inability of climate scientists to produce a theory that obtains good, predictive results. Until they can do that, I'm not inclined to spend all that much time worrying about the issue, as its highly unlikely that any action on the matter will be forthcoming. And, honestly, there is a real sense in which it shouldn't be. There are definitely some serious economic issues that will arise from any climate change legislation, and I'm not sure its fair to ask people to incur those penalties in the absence of a good, sound plan of action.

Well there's no predictive model of war history or politics either, but we are compelled to act in these theaters by the mete fact of their existence. Its possible that climate scientists are wrong - but what if they're right?

Jared Diamond wrote an excellent book called Collapse that tells the stories of human societies that are known to have imploded because of environmental mismanagement. It's not theory - the ruins are there for anyone to see, and the cause of their destruction is pretty plain to see. Cities in the middle of deserts, islands completely devoid of forests, jungle-covered ruins in central America. If it happens on a global scale there's nowhere to go.

Forget that the argument in it's broad outlines is simple, coherent, and backed by mountainsf observational data.

Forget that the people who have dedicated their whole lives to studying the subject are practically screaming from the roof tops that the problem is real and we've got to do something about it

Forget that climate changes detractors are fueled by corporate interests who have billions riding on the outcome of the debate.

Just remember that there's only 1 earth and if we screw it up we won't get another. Isn't that by itself enough to argue for a Proactive response?
AF

AbaddonFidelis wrote:Well there's no predictive model of war history or politics either, but we are compelled to act in these theaters by the mete fact of their existence. Its possible that climate scientists are wrong - but what if they're right?

Jared Diamond wrote an excellent book called Collapse that tells the stories of human societies that are known to have imploded because of environmental mismanagement. It's not theory - the ruins are there for anyone to see, and the cause of their destruction is pretty plain to see. Cities in the middle of deserts, islands completely devoid of forests, jungle-covered ruins in central America. If it happens on a global scale there's nowhere to go.

Forget that the argument in it's broad outlines is simple, coherent, and backed by mountainsf observational data.

Forget that the people who have dedicated their whole lives to studying the subject are practically screaming from the roof tops that the problem is real and we've got to do something about it

Forget that climate changes detractors are fueled by corporate interests who have billions riding on the outcome of the debate.

Just remember that there's only 1 earth and if we screw it up we won't get another. Isn't that by itself enough to argue for a Proactive response?
AF

So do you drive a car?
Is your house powered by solar energy?
Do you buy little plastic toys that are shipped all across the world?
Are you actually living like the world is ending or do you live like everyone else and expect the government to fix it for us?

Brock
Nobody's talking about dismantling the modern idustrial economy. That's obviously impossible. What we're talking about is regulation targetted at those parts of the economy that are having the largest impact.
AF

dogma wrote:Sure, and that's how we would go about answering the question "Is the change beneficial?"

Thing is, haven't we largely answered the question? The exact impacts cannot be known for certain, but we do know that our infrastructure is built around the expectation of certain weather patterns - if those change we have to build entirely new infrastructure. That kind of thing is expensive.


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BrockRitcey wrote:So do you drive a car?
Is your house powered by solar energy?
Do you buy little plastic toys that are shipped all across the world?
Are you actually living like the world is ending or do you live like everyone else and expect the government to fix it for us?

You've made the assumption that correcting the problem would require every person to stop driving cars, and to stop global trade. It isn't necessary, no-one has claimed anything like that would be necessary, so why have you assumed it?

The point is if you believe that the billions of people spewing CO2 into the atmosphere is causing global warming then why aren't you acting in a way that reduces the amount of CO2 you pollute.

Why do we fret over the climate from the past 300 years? What about the last 300 million years? CO2 levels were much higher in the Mesozioc era. What was the world like? It was mostly tropical and covered in forest. We also had much higher atmospheric levels of oxygen which helped support very large lifeforms (dinosaurs). Oxygen levels are lower now and I don't think dinosaurs could breath very well in our atmosphere.

300 million years ago the Earth produced the vast amounts of Limestone rock we have around the world. Limestone is Calcium Carbonate, CaCO3. CO2 went into this production. You need warm water and lots of it. Right now Limestone is being produced in two small spots on the planet, back then it was produced everywhere. There are more carbon sinks then just trees.

The average person puts 2.3 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere per day. That's 7.8 million tons of CO2 each day from humans breathing on Earth. (2.8 billion tons a year - nearly as much as Coal and Petroleum) The incideous truth is as more people live on Earth, could their breathing be what is increasing CO2 levels.?

Next let's put CO2 levels into a more historic context. Just before the Industrial revolution we had atmospheric CO2 levels of about 270 ppm. During the Cretaceous Period (T-Rex time) we had levels of about 1000 ppm. During the Jurassic (Stegosaurus time) we had levels about 1500 ppm. Before that in the Devonian Period ( Age of Fishes - 300 million years ago) we had atmospheric levels of CO2 at close to 3000 ppm.

Don't fret, the World is not coming to an end.

DarthDiggler wrote:Why do we fret over the climate from the past 300 years? What about the last 300 million years? CO2 levels were much higher in the Mesozioc era. What was the world like? It was mostly tropical and covered in forest. We also had much higher atmospheric levels of oxygen which helped support very large lifeforms (dinosaurs). Oxygen levels are lower now and I don't think dinosaurs could breath very well in our atmosphere.

The issue is not the temperature alone. The issue is the rate of change in temperature. While it has been hotter and colder at different times, the rate of temperature change is entirely unprecedented. This is because human industry is entirely unprecedented.

This rate of change is a significant problem, because we have agricultural and industrial infrastructure based around existing weather patterns - the cost of adapting is immense.

The average person puts 2.3 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere per day. That's 7.8 million tons of CO2 each day from humans breathing on Earth. (2.8 billion tons a year - nearly as much as Coal and Petroleum) The incideous truth is as more people live on Earth, could their breathing be what is increasing CO2 levels.?

The 2.8 billion tons emitted by humans is trivial compared to the 25 gigatons emmitted through industry each year. Breathing accounts for about 1/10 of all human emissions. The insidious truth is that factoids given without context can only serve to deceive.

We can then add some context to the 25 gigatons produced by humans, which itself is quite small compared to the 440 gigatons produced by animals and plants. Thing is, there are carbon sinks to account for the natural emissions - nature being nature and competition being competition things tend towards equilibrium (there will be ebbs and flows, hence the slow drifts up and down in historic CO2 levels). The point is that the 25 gigatons produced by humans has no natural sink, so every year there's an additional 25 gigatons put out into the atmosphere. Over a decade that's 250 gigatons, and that starts to stack up significantly against the total global emissions.

Next let's put CO2 levels into a more historic context. Just before the Industrial revolution we had atmospheric CO2 levels of about 270 ppm. During the Cretaceous Period (T-Rex time) we had levels of about 1000 ppm. During the Jurassic (Stegosaurus time) we had levels about 1500 ppm. Before that in the Devonian Period ( Age of Fishes - 300 million years ago) we had atmospheric levels of CO2 at close to 3000 ppm.

For the last half a million years CO2 ppm have been between 200 and 300. This has grown in recent times to 380 ppm. A rise over such a short period of time is unprecedented in history.

You mention the Devonian Period, and you're right that CO2 ppm were much higher than we see today. And you'd be aware that those changes occurred over a period of around 10 million years. Change over the course of 10 million years is very different to change over the course of a couple of centuries. The point is not that CO2 have changed over history (well duh) the point is the rate of that change.

Don't fret, the World is not coming to an end.

There's that crazy idea that comes up among so many climate change deniers... that either we're looking at apocalypse or everything is fine. It seems impossible for them to consider there could be anything in between, that climate change could represent an immense cost in resources and increase in hardship for many, but not necessarily an apocalypse.


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BrockRitcey wrote:The point is if you believe that the billions of people spewing CO2 into the atmosphere is causing global warming then why aren't you acting in a way that reduces the amount of CO2 you pollute.

Why did you assume I'm not? You assumed that the only way to reduce emissions was to stop driving and to stop buying any imported goods, and that just isn't true.

sebster wrote:
Thing is, haven't we largely answered the question? The exact impacts cannot be known for certain, but we do know that our infrastructure is built around the expectation of certain weather patterns - if those change we have to build entirely new infrastructure. That kind of thing is expensive.

Sure, but we also have to remember that we've built, and re-built/replaced infrastructure for as long as humanity has existed in a civilized fashion. And, while its certainly been really expensive, its also been spread across a long period of time. The fact that infrastructure must be adapted to circumstance goes pretty much without saying, so at this point it seems like the most significant question regards the speed at which climate change can expected to occur. Unfortunately, as I understand it, that's also one of the most contentious topics in climatology.

When we finally get a sound, predictive model I think we'll see more, and better, action. Until then, and maybe even then, many people will remain unconvinced.


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AbaddonFidelis wrote:Well there's no predictive model of war history or politics either, but we are compelled to act in these theaters by the mete fact of their existence.

Actually, there are quite a few predictive models in war and politics. Regardless, those things have the benefit of playing out over relatively short periods of time. For example, we can easily see, and even reasonably predict with good accuracy, what will happen in most coming elections. Climatology doesn't play out that quickly, and hasn't shown itself able to predict future temperatures with good accuracy.

You should also note that in many instances political and military planners will conclude that he best course of action is to do nothing, so isn't quite correct to presume that dealing with a thing necessarily means doing anything about that thing.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
It's not theory - the ruins are there for anyone to see,

It actually is a theory. It is a fact that the various civilizations Diamond discusses collapsed. It is not a fact that they collapsed because of environmental decay. Just about any statement based on the establishment of causal relationships is theoretical.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
Forget that the people who have dedicated their whole lives to studying the subject are practically screaming from the roof tops that the problem is real and we've got to do something about it

I'm a member of the Academy, take it from me that people who make their living doing analysis will scream from the rooftops whenever they think they're right. It doesn't really have any bearing on whether or not they are right. Or, for that matter, sufficiently specific in their rightness to offer realistic recommendations for progress.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:
Just remember that there's only 1 earth and if we screw it up we won't get another. Isn't that by itself enough to argue for a Proactive response?

Ultimately the question has nothing to do with the Earth. The question is really about insuring the survival of as many people as possible, and that doesn't necessarily from a proactive response to environmental regulation. One of my biggest beefs with environmentalist movement is its heavy lean on normative language and concepts. I want to know what will happen to the environment if certain events come to pass, not whether or not someone else feels like it is best called 'damage'.

dogma wrote:Sure, but we also have to remember that we've built, and re-built/replaced infrastructure for as long as humanity has existed in a civilized fashion. And, while its certainly been really expensive, its also been spread across a long period of time. The fact that infrastructure must be adapted to circumstance goes pretty much without saying, so at this point it seems like the most significant question regards the speed at which climate change can expected to occur. Unfortunately, as I understand it, that's also one of the most contentious topics in climatology.

That's a fair point, I was working with the assumption of a significant rate of change, which is the dominant assumption but is still contraversial. One of the problems with having to rehash entirely non-contraversial elements of the debate, such as the existance of warming and the fact that it's caused by man, is that we lack the time to debate the real areas of dispute, such as the rate of change.

When we finally get a sound, predictive model I think we'll see more, and better, action. Until then, and maybe even then, many people will remain unconvinced.

That's assuming the majority of opposition is based on people reviewing the existing models and finding them lacking.

BrockRitcey wrote:The point is if you believe that the billions of people spewing CO2 into the atmosphere is causing global warming then why aren't you acting in a way that reduces the amount of CO2 you pollute.

the point, brock, is that you're missing the point. the point isnt eco terrorism or trying to destroy the modern industrial economy. The point is taking *limited* *achievable* *realistic* steps to curb climate change.

If you're going to be (or actually are) a 14 year old just forget it, ok?
AF


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DarthDiggler wrote:Why do we fret over the climate from the past 300 years? What about the last 300 million years? CO2 levels were much higher in the Mesozioc era. What was the world like? It was mostly tropical and covered in forest. We also had much higher atmospheric levels of oxygen which helped support very large lifeforms (dinosaurs). Oxygen levels are lower now and I don't think dinosaurs could breath very well in our atmosphere.

300 million years ago the Earth produced the vast amounts of Limestone rock we have around the world. Limestone is Calcium Carbonate, CaCO3. CO2 went into this production. You need warm water and lots of it. Right now Limestone is being produced in two small spots on the planet, back then it was produced everywhere. There are more carbon sinks then just trees.

The average person puts 2.3 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere per day. That's 7.8 million tons of CO2 each day from humans breathing on Earth. (2.8 billion tons a year - nearly as much as Coal and Petroleum) The incideous truth is as more people live on Earth, could their breathing be what is increasing CO2 levels.?

Next let's put CO2 levels into a more historic context. Just before the Industrial revolution we had atmospheric CO2 levels of about 270 ppm. During the Cretaceous Period (T-Rex time) we had levels of about 1000 ppm. During the Jurassic (Stegosaurus time) we had levels about 1500 ppm. Before that in the Devonian Period ( Age of Fishes - 300 million years ago) we had atmospheric levels of CO2 at close to 3000 ppm.

Don't fret, the World is not coming to an end.

It could be the end of the world. A runaway green house effect is what makes venus an inhospitable hell hole.
At the very least it will be the end of the 1st world standard of living that you all are taking for granted. There are alot of major cities in this country alone that are right next to the ocean. New York. New Orleans. Los Angeles. Washington DC. Miami. Savannah. Seattle. Most people live on the East or West coast and would be directly affected by climate change. If we have to build a massive set of public works to save those cities it will cost billions of dollars in taxes that, one way or another, either directly or through a decreased standard of living, you will have to pay for. Even if your actual lives arent at stake, your quality of living most definitely is. If you think it's just a bunch of green wak jobs who take it seriously, then look here:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0504editors.htm
do you think the pentagon is run by tree huggers?
AF


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dogma

I'm not saying action is always the best thing to do. I'm saying its the best thing to do in this case. As in war and politics one acts when the broad outlines of the problem and its solution are clear and when one wishes to favor one outcome voer another. we want things to stay the same. they're not staying the same. we know why. we can act without major disruptions. we ought to do it.

most people who are climate change deniers are unconvinced bc theyre engaged in massive efforts of self deception. the thought process goes something like this: I dont like hillary, muslims, poor people, or black people. the people who like that stuff - the democrats - say climate change is real, so I'm suspicious. so I look on the internet and find an article, and it confirmed for me what I knew all along - that its all just a conspiracy to ruin america. Its not any more complex than that. The american electroate is dumber than a box of rocks.

About Diamond - no, it's pretty clear what happened on easter island. The whole area used to be covered in forests. they chopped them all down, then they couldnt go fishing anymore, then they starved, then they ate each other, then life on Easter Island sucked permanently for everybody. Thats environmental mismanagement and it couldnt be clearer. Same thing with the Anasazi and in the Middle East. I'll grant you the maya and the greenland colonies are more conjectural but I think it's pretty obvious that civilizations derive their most important resource *food* from that earth, that maintaining enough food production to sustain the population requires sound management, and that in the absence of it a civilization must either import its food from an area that does manage its agriculture wisely or else they will *starve.* As causal relationships go its pretty obvious.

about screaming from the roof tops. Look I'm going to say here what I've said from the beginning: these guys are the scientists, they have the training, if they say it's real you've got to believe them. Unless you want to become a scientist and debunk their theory. By all means have at if that's the plan. Otherwise you have no business second guessing them, you dont have the training.

what will happen if the environment continues to change at the present rate:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0504editors.htm
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/cli_effects.html
http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1620995,00.html

They're all best guesses but the only way to get scientific knowledge is to perform an experiment, which is right now obviously impossible. Predicitive models are still a long ways off. If the disaster gets here before the model is ready, then what? We say oh well we tried? The broad outlines of the problem and its solution are clear. We ought to act.
AF

It is pretty easy to reduce your household energy consumption 20 to 25% by changing light bulbs to low energy type, insulating your loft and some other simple things like that.

Americans have an extra advantage that they can switch to smaller cars more easily than Europeans or Japanese.

Lots of people are doing these things, so don't use the point that they haven't gone to live inside the corpses of woolly mammoths as an excuse to do nothing.

Reducing energy and waste is a good thing and will save money even if you don't believe in or care about globular climate warming change disturbation upset.

Brock's point was that environmentalists want us all to go back to the dark ages in order to save the planet. that's nonsense. I do use energy efficient light bulbs; I do recycle; I am careful of my water consumption; I dont own a loft and therefore cannot insulate it.
AF

AbaddonFidelis wrote:Brock's point was that environmentalists want us all to go back to the dark ages in order to save the planet. that's nonsense. I do use energy efficient light bulbs; I do recycle; I am careful of my water consumption; I dont own a loft and therefore cannot insulate it.
AF

Haven't most studies show that recycling usually pollutes more than making the item from scratch.

I also never said that environmentalists want us to go back to the stone age. My point was that lots of people who are worried about global warming don't act like it. There are plenty of alternatives to driving, try a bus or walking or a bike. The point is taking *limited* *achievable* *realistic* individual steps to curb climate change isn't something that global warming alarmists are doing. Until you do something your self you shouldn't be asking other people to do it.

Also since 10% of scientists think that AGW is false, would it not be reasonable to assume that 10% of the general population could come to the same conclusions when presented with the same data?

BrockRitcey wrote:Haven't most studies show that recycling usually pollutes more than making the item from scratch.

No. Studies have shown that some of the more popular methods of recycling paper use more energy than starting with new wood pulp. It's a good thing to keep in mind to temper the idea that any and all kinds of recycling are automatically beneficial. But it really, really isn't the same as the idea that recycling in general pollutes more in general.

I also never said that environmentalists want us to go back to the stone age. My point was that lots of people who are worried about global warming don't act like it. There are plenty of alternatives to driving, try a bus or walking or a bike. The point is taking *limited* *achievable* *realistic* individual steps to curb climate change isn't something that global warming alarmists are doing. Until you do something your self you shouldn't be asking other people to do it.

You asked if people drive a car at all, or purchased just one set of products manufactured overseas. You created a false standard well beyond what most people would be willing or able to achieve, and miles beyond what is actually necessary to start making a difference. You did this because you wanted to claim that people arguing for emission controls are hypocrits.

It's a really poor line of argument.

Also since 10% of scientists think that AGW is false, would it not be reasonable to assume that 10% of the general population could come to the same conclusions when presented with the same data?

The problem there is using 'scientists' as though a particle researcher necessarily had a better understanding of climate research data than some guy on the street. Science is incredibly diverse, and expertise in one field will not give you working knowledge in another. What really matters is what the people actively working in climate change think, and there 97% believe that man is having a marked effect on the climate. I wish that the general debate showed numbers anywhere near 97% agreement. Instead in the general public it hovers around 50-50, and is closely tied to general political affiliation - indicating the cause for belief and disbelief is generally ideological and not based on the science.

No Brock it wouldn't: not anything like 10% of Americans have the training to evaluate the data. AF

I would be interested to know if there is a correlation between political alignment and status of belief in climate change.

Kilkrazy wrote:I would be interested to know if there is a correlation between political alignment and status of belief in climate change.

Here's a survey showing Republicans are less likely to believe in global warming at all, and much less likely to believe it is caused by man;
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/828/global-warming


And here's one showing a strong correlation between religious belief and belief in climate change;
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1194/global-warming-belief-by-religion

AbaddonFidelis wrote:No Brock it wouldn't: not anything like 10% of Americans have the training to evaluate the data. AF

It's a good thing I didn't say americans then. Not every county has as many idiots as america. We actually finish highscool and go to college in canada.

BrockRitcey wrote:Not every county has as many idiots as america. We actually finish highscool and go to college in canada.

Why aren't you the smooth talking bigot. Stay classy. Also, you forgot to capitalize the 'A' in America, High School is two words and is also misspelled, and Canada should also be capitalized. When you want to insult someone's education it helps not to spell and sound like an idiot yourself.

BrockRitcey wrote: My point was that lots of people who are worried about global warming don't act like it.

There's also lots that do.

There are plenty of alternatives to driving, try a bus or walking or a bike. The point is taking *limited* *achievable* *realistic* individual steps to curb climate change isn't something that global warming alarmists are doing.

I don't see how you can say that : there's loads of people who don't do X/Y/Z because of concerns for all manner of things.

Also since 10% of scientists think that AGW is false, would it not be reasonable to assume that 10% of the general population could come to the same conclusions when presented with the same data?

Only if you assume that the general population has the same level of understanding of the data and techniques involved.

Not every county has as many idiots as america.

They might well not have as many really smart guys either.

But that's largely irrelevant to the topic at hand, so please refrain from making insulting comments about peoples/nationalties please.*



*With the clear and mandated exception of Lichtenstein. Obviously.

BrockRitcey wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:No Brock it wouldn't: not anything like 10% of Americans have the training to evaluate the data. AF

It's a good thing I didn't say americans then. Not every county has as many idiots as america. We actually finish highscool and go to college in canada.

As atman pointed out you arent helping your case any by misspelling "high school."
anyway nonsensical comments are more or less the norm for you so I'm going to just disregard everything you say from this point on. Life's too short to go back and forth with people like you.
AF

BrockRitcey wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:No Brock it wouldn't: not anything like 10% of Americans have the training to evaluate the data. AF

It's a good thing I didn't say americans then. Not every county has as many idiots as america. We actually finish highscool and go to college in canada.

Live the dream. It must suck to have an economy smaller than California's.

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