Should climate change deniers be disenfranchised?

[AiliailiA]

Skepticism is the default scientific position.

I don't know why people take issue when I say I'm skeptical of climate change.

I'm skeptical of everything.

The default scientific position doesn't mean squat unless you build some science on it.

As I said, you have some time to make up your mind and to educate yourself. You don't need a degree to have a valid (science-based) opinion, only to honestly and humbly seek the truth and put some effort in. And like you said, start from a position of skepticism ... like that's even possible. Skepticism about everything is the solipsistic dead-end, and has turned many an enquiring mind from philosophy to drink.

"Oh there is a house in New Objectivism
They call the Rising Sun!
And it's been the ruin of many a young mind
And me. Oh Ob, I am one.

My alma mater was a tailor
She sewed the hat I wear
And my failure was a gambling chance
Objective, I hope, I swear

Well it's one foot on the platform
And the other foot on the train!
I'm going back to my first choice
To try phil-os-ophy again."

*drinks more wine*

[Tubbsalot]

Was the rate of warming assumed to be linear and then found to be geometric? That would make sense, at least.

Well, I'm not sure of the details of how these models were built, but emissions are necessarily related to human activity - and since human activity increases exponentially, any decent model would have exponential temperature increase. Given the people who build these models are orders of magnitude cleverer than me, I'm sure they've always been geometric.

I suspect the problem is that we just didn't anticipate for the speed of growth of our activity - as I said, even the most pessimistic scenarios didn't reach high enough to reflect reality, and I'm sure there would have been a few models which assumed the world would basically say "fuck it, Kyoto is too much effort."

That said, the models have improved a lot more recently, such that overall changes now fall within expected bounds. The IPCC says that the biggest problem for models presently is that there are a number of small-scale processes which aren't well-understood:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
There is considerable confidence that climate models provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. ... models still show significant errors. Although these are generally greater at smaller scales, important large-scale problems also remain. ... The ultimate source of most such errors is that many important small-scale processes cannot be represented explicitly in models, and so must be included in approximate form as they interact with larger-scale features.

[Gauthier]

Hell no.

But, I do wish they'd stop appointing complete morons to the Science committee.

[AiliailiA]

I just noticed, I have the top-of-page post five pages in a row in this thread.

I swear by Bacchus I did not do that on purpose. I do not hold posts back to place them anywhere, and I hope no other poster holds their posts back to give me time to post or pride of place at the top of the page.

I just got lucky. I hope.

[Tubbsalot]

So climate change is happening. And now, so what? Is our planet static? Never was, never will be. And one would think, that neoluddites, primitivists and other environmentalists would understand that.

Also, long time ago there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than now. But it's somewhat problematic now, since we are not plants. So I understand complaints about CO2, since I am of human species.

And CO2 is not the only thing, that affects climate on the planet Earth. There is the Sun, the dust, the aerosol, methane etc. If there was some huge volcanic explosion it would probably make our planet cooler. And if you don't want to wait for a volcano to explode, you can always drop a few atomic bombs and induce atomic winter (that's actually the most effective way of fighting the global warming. I use the term global warming, because "climate change" will occur, no matter what. Unless we find a way, how to make our planet perfectly static.).

So, the so called deniers should not be disenfranchised, because they don't really matter, just like climate change doom-and-gloom people are not important. Climate change cannot be stopped. But we can, even with current technology, change climate. I say, let's drop a few atomic bombs of the Tsar class.

The problem is not that the planet's changing. You're right; that happens all the time. This time, though, humans exist. So while the other big changes didn't hurt us much, this one has the potential to fuck us. It doesn't matter how much carbon dioxide was present in the past - we care about what increasing carbon dioxide could do right now.

Nor is inducing nuclear winter a viable solution to our problems... we've considered the more manageable aerosol deployment to reflect light back out, but there are possible consequences such as large-scale destabilisation of ecosystems which make that a poor solution.

[Renegade Island]

Skepticism is the default scientific position.

I don't know why people take issue when I say I'm skeptical of climate change.

I'm skeptical of everything.

The default scientific position doesn't mean squat unless you build some science on it.

As I said, you have some time to make up your mind and to educate yourself. You don't need a degree to have a valid (science-based) opinion, only to honestly and humbly seek the truth and put some effort in. And like you said, start from a position of skepticism ... like that's even possible. Skepticism about everything is the solipsistic dead-end, and has turned many an enquiring mind from philosophy to drink.

"Oh there is a house in New Objectivism
They call the Rising Sun!
And it's been the ruin of many a young mind
And me. Oh Ob, I am one.

My alma mater was a tailor
She sewed the hat I wear
And my failure was a gambling chance
Objective, I hope, I swear

Well it's one foot on the platform
And the other foot on the train!
I'm going back to my first choice
To try phil-os-ophy again."

*drinks more wine*

OK, I'm not skeptical about everything. I completely believe in existence, for example.

[AiliailiA]

Hell no.

But, I do wish they'd stop appointing complete morons to the Science committee.

Could be worse. Science committee could be directly elected.

[AiliailiA]

The default scientific position doesn't mean squat unless you build some science on it.

As I said, you have some time to make up your mind and to educate yourself. You don't need a degree to have a valid (science-based) opinion, only to honestly and humbly seek the truth and put some effort in. And like you said, start from a position of skepticism ... like that's even possible. Skepticism about everything is the solipsistic dead-end, and has turned many an enquiring mind from philosophy to drink.

"Oh there is a house in New Objectivism
They call the Rising Sun!
And it's been the ruin of many a young mind
And me. Oh Ob, I am one.

My alma mater was a tailor
She sewed the hat I wear
And my failure was a gambling chance
Objective, I hope, I swear

Well it's one foot on the platform
And the other foot on the train!
I'm going back to my first choice
To try phil-os-ophy again."

*drinks more wine*

OK, I'm not skeptical about everything. I completely believe in existence, for example.

Aaarr, ye be hearty crew, ay ye sashay with will to me jolly shanty!

*cough*

Solipsism is a total bummer yes.

Skepticism is a good default position for anything in the realm of science ... distinguishing Science from Philosophy as knowledge based on repeatable observations rather than knowledge based on reasoning from "self-evidently true" assumptions.

It is good to establish assumptions held in common, before engaging another in either scientific or philosophical debate.

And it is a sign of good intentions in debate (to reach the truth, not just to avoid being proven wrong) to make clear ones assumptions before arguing. So congrats for that.

Now, as a pirate I ask you: shouldn't we be getting a share of the booty for Olympic Diving events, and indeed all competitive high diving events? Where's the respect for our intellectual property? We invented Walking The Plank did we not!?

[Wikipedia and Universe]

This is an utterly hideous idea, and I find the reasoning behind it unsettling and, frankly, a bit frightening. I don't think any massive elaboration is needed as to what makes it such, and the first reply sums it up quite succinctly:

No, we shouldn't disenfranchise people for their beliefs.

With that, I despise the notion that climate change skeptics are all "obstructionists" with petroleum interests who oppose all or most environmental protection. I'm a skeptic of artificial climate change (there, I said it ), but that does not mean I'm an obstructionist, "in with Big Oil", or opposed to environmental protection. In fact, I'm a big supporter of environmental protection and of clean, efficient energy. I support things like using forests, tree farms, and plantations to sequester carbon dioxide (whether or not CO₂ is actually driving climate change, sequestration would serve as a nice side benefit to primary functions), and I'm a proponent of energy sources such as Kudzunol, nuclear breeder reactors, hydrogen fuel cells, etc. Of course, none of this matters, as my views on the source of climate change still render me the environment's and humanity's Public Enemy #1.

Humanity is hardly doomed by climate change. Humanity will adapt.

I recall reading that over 10 millennia ago, during a time sometimes known as the Leonian Age, the climate got so warm (obviously not due to human activity) that the sea level rose by about 300 ft. Now, the people living during this ancient deglaciation, who had clearly far less accumulated knowledge, expertise, and technological/engineering capacity than we do today, managed to move and adapt to their changing conditions. As such, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest that we could adapt to similar theoretical conditions (it's worth noting that no IPCC sea level rise projection I could find, even for the next century, was anywhere near that bad) just as well, if not better.

[Renegade Island]

You're mixing up your pirates, good sir.

I'm more a bay pirate than a sea pirate.

relevant to the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=boj9ccV9htk#!

[Tubbsalot]

I'm a skeptic of artificial climate change (there, I said it )

hrrrrnnnnggggggggg

I recall reading that over 10 millennia ago, during a time sometimes known as the Leonian Age, the climate got so warm (obviously not due to human activity) that the sea level rose by about 300 ft. Now, the people living during this ancient deglaciation, who had clearly far less accumulated knowledge, expertise, and technological/engineering capacity than we do today, managed to move and adapt to their changing conditions.

Yes, they managed to move because humans spent all their time moving, because they were bands of hunter-gatherers. So going a few kilometres inland over the course of a few decades is not a huge deal.

These days, however, we live in cities, and astounding oversights in city planning mean these cities are unable to rise up on a system of hydraulic legs and roam the landscape at will. As a result, rising sea levels imply many large cities (which are usually coastal) will become uninhabitable.

[AiliailiA]

I'm a skeptic of artificial climate change (there, I said it )

And you said it so well.

"Artificial climate change" has the same meaning as "anthropogenic climate change", is shorter, and more correctly targets human actions instead of human existence.

I say Wikipuni has earned a double ration of rum! What say you me hearties?

[AiliailiA]

I'm a skeptic of artificial climate change (there, I said it )

hrrrrnnnnggggggggg

I recall reading that over 10 millennia ago, during a time sometimes known as the Leonian Age, the climate got so warm (obviously not due to human activity) that the sea level rose by about 300 ft. Now, the people living during this ancient deglaciation, who had clearly far less accumulated knowledge, expertise, and technological/engineering capacity than we do today, managed to move and adapt to their changing conditions.

Yes, they managed to move because humans spent all their time moving, because they were bands of hunter-gatherers. So going a few kilometres inland over the course of a few decades is not a huge deal.

These days, however, we live in cities, and astounding oversights in city planning mean these cities are unable to rise up on a system of hydraulic legs and roam the landscape at will. As a result, rising sea levels imply many large cities (which are usually coastal) will become uninhabitable.

Aaar ...

*is consigned to the brig by mutinous crew*

*faintly heard from the brig*
... aaAArr! ... scurvy dogs ... landlubbers ... Davy Jones ... stinking landlubbers ...

[Ethel mermania]

Skepticism is the default scientific position.

I don't know why people take issue when I say I'm skeptical of climate change.

I'm skeptical of everything.

The default scientific position doesn't mean squat unless you build some science on it.

As I said, you have some time to make up your mind and to educate yourself. You don't need a degree to have a valid (science-based) opinion, only to honestly and humbly seek the truth and put some effort in. And like you said, start from a position of skepticism ... like that's even possible. Skepticism about everything is the solipsistic dead-end, and has turned many an enquiring mind from philosophy to drink.

"Oh there is a house in New Objectivism
They call the Rising Sun!
And it's been the ruin of many a young mind
And me. Oh Ob, I am one.

My alma mater was a tailor
She sewed the hat I wear
And my failure was a gambling chance
Objective, I hope, I swear

Well it's one foot on the platform
And the other foot on the train!
I'm going back to my first choice
To try phil-os-ophy again."

*drinks more wine*

now that is poetry

[Free South Califas]

Should climate change promoters be removed from society?

Doesn't sound so nice when it's reversed, does it?

Factory owners, you mean? It might strike FDB as quite acceptable, actually. Reminds me of one of the gameside issues.

[Galla-]

Which, of course, in the grand scheme of things is less important than the human race surviving.

Yeah, that's what I tell people who keep whining about your stupid shitty cancer. Humanity will survive, isn't that enough for you?

Whoops, I mean, that's not what I do at all, because 'survival of humanity' is shockingly not the only thing that matters.

Sea levels will rise by 20 feet in <10 years.

Trufax.

The only way to stop this is to stop industrial civilisation tbh. Unless you demand we go back to agrarian society, the sea level will rise, people will build sea walls or move away from coastal areas, and the world will continue living. Sorry that's not enough doom, gloom, etc. for you though. ):

[Halloween Karaoke]

Yeah, that's what I tell people who keep whining about your stupid shitty cancer. Humanity will survive, isn't that enough for you?

Whoops, I mean, that's not what I do at all, because 'survival of humanity' is shockingly not the only thing that matters.

Sea levels will rise by 20 feet in <10 years.

Trufax.

The only way to stop this is to stop industrial civilisation tbh. Unless you demand we go back to agrarian society, the sea level will rise, people will build sea walls or move away from coastal areas, and the world will continue living. Sorry that's not enough doom, gloom, etc. for you though. ):

Doom and gloom is good. Doom and gloom makes people take the issue seriously.

You know, I hope, that of all geographic distinctions in population nothing is clearer than "people live on the coast" yeah?

[Halloween Karaoke]

Should climate change promoters be removed from society?

Doesn't sound so nice when it's reversed, does it?

Factory owners, you mean?

So unfair. Factory owners stay in business because consumers buy their goods.

Why blame the producer, who produces to make money, but not blame the consumer who spends for their own satisfaction? It's called a fucking market, you hippy!

[Galla-]

Sea levels will rise by 20 feet in <10 years.

Trufax.

The only way to stop this is to stop industrial civilisation tbh. Unless you demand we go back to agrarian society, the sea level will rise, people will build sea walls or move away from coastal areas, and the world will continue living. Sorry that's not enough doom, gloom, etc. for you though. ):

Doom and gloom is good. Doom and gloom makes people take the issue seriously.

No it doesn't. Doom and gloom does this:



This won't be an issue for at least another century, which is too far away for anyone on this forum to see it and too soon to stop it, tbh. Better to just build sea walls or smth and adapt as it comes instead of saying "WE'LL ALL DIE TOMORROW IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING THIS VERY MOMENT".

Humanity has never reacted to doom and gloom that way. We only react when something forces us to. Generally when you react to things like this with "DOOM GLOOM BAWW" you get people like me, who don't give a fuck until something happens and then deal with it.

[Tubbsalot]

The only way to stop this is to stop industrial civilisation tbh. Unless you demand we go back to agrarian society, the sea level will rise, people will build sea walls or move away from coastal areas, and the world will continue living. Sorry that's not enough doom, gloom, etc. for you though. ):

Yes, we'll all just throw up some walls and everything will be fine. What's all the fuss about, I don't know why these stupid scientists are so worried.

With the combination of populations being forced inland, the disruption of agricultural activity and industrial supply chains, ecological disturbances (such as increased pest ranges), increased frequency and severity of natural disasters, the cost of protective and adaptive measures, a general collapse in globalised society is conceivable. It's not likely, but it's quite plausible.

So will we continue living? Sure. I literally just said that in the post you quoted, so good on you for catching that point. You're still struggling with the other one though, which was probably the more important one - there will be a severe deterioration in our standard of living, even in the West.

That's why it's preferable to mitigate climate change now - it will cost us, but it'll cost us a hell of a lot less than it'll cost 30 years from now.

[Tubbsalot]

This won't be an issue for at least another century

Why on earth would you say that when you clearly haven't got the first clue what you're talking about?

Go and read the IPCC's fourth assessment report. Educate yourself before you start vomiting words out of your face.

[Galla-]

The only way to stop this is to stop industrial civilisation tbh. Unless you demand we go back to agrarian society, the sea level will rise, people will build sea walls or move away from coastal areas, and the world will continue living. Sorry that's not enough doom, gloom, etc. for you though. ):

Yes, we'll all just throw up some walls and everything will be fine. What's all the fuss about, I don't know why these stupid scientists are so worried.

With the combination of populations being forced inland, the disruption of agricultural activity and industrial supply chains, ecological disturbances (such as increased pest ranges), increased frequency and severity of natural disasters, the cost of protective and adaptive measures, a general collapse in globalised society is conceivable. It's not likely, but it's quite plausible.

So will we continue living? Sure. I literally just said that in the post you quoted, so good on you for catching that point. You're still struggling with the other one though, which was probably the more important one - there will be a severe deterioration in our standard of living, even in the West.

That's why it's preferable to mitigate climate change now - it will cost us, but it'll cost us a hell of a lot less than it'll cost 30 years from now.

Sounds unprofitable and expensive.

Won't be done.

[Tubbsalot]

Hmm. I should have listened to Ailiailia.

Edit: yeah, too slow, I saw that.

[Galla-]

Hmm. I should have listened to Ailiailia.

Edit: yeah, too slow, I saw that.

Yeah, where i live will be a desert or something when the ice caps melt I'm sure.

I mean if you have a better idea than sea walls and a coordinated emergency management system, I'm all ears.

Unless it involves stopping the progress of industrial civilisation. Sure.

edit: I think doom prophets and scientists should be disenfranchised so political apathy can be allowed to continue.

[Vitaphone Racing]

If you switched off coal powerplants and replace them with nuclear reactors, you'd cut anywhere between 20% to 50% of carbon dioxide emissions by doing so. It's fucking easy to make drastic cuts to our emissions at the moment. The problem is the coal boards, oil companies, anti-nuclear campaigners and any self-righteous developing country that is taking advantage of the situation.