Global Warming aka Atheism's Wrong Turn

[midcan5]

Funny how this thread moved from religious belief to scientific belief, I guess maybe that is at the core of much of these arguments. But even scientists disagree on GW as the following debate demonstrates.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/anderson07/anderson07_index.html

We 'brights' should hope the scientists are wrong, the religious should pray the scientists are wrong. But the pollution we have done to this beautiful earth should show anyone who pays attention, we sure as hell can destroy a good thing, be it a field, river, or lake. If we can do it on a small scale the large scale seems more certain. Ever see a superfund site in the middle of what should be paradise? I road by one today with my son around Princeton NJ.

 

[Diuretic]

That scientists disagree is good, it's part of science I think, to test everything and to accept nothing unless it's been proven (I still don't understand the falsifiabilty thing but I do get replication). But from the policy point of view I think a harm minimisation stance is the way to go while the science is continuing to be worked out.

Now I suppose I'll get bombarded by the denialist chorus

 

[Annie]

That scientists disagree is good, it's part of science I think, to test everything and to accept nothing unless it's been proven (I still don't understand the falsifiabilty thing but I do get replication). But from the policy point of view I think a harm minimisation stance is the way to go while the science is continuing to be worked out.

Now I suppose I'll get bombarded by the denialist chorus

What is this in response to?

 

[Diuretic]

The temps have warmed up, the gist of the argument from my pov, is there certainly isn't a consensus on the cause of it. It may be man made, it's possible. Equally, perhaps indeed more likely is cyclical. I posted this earlier:

http://usmessageboard.com/showthread.php?p=629680#post629680

This was written by someone with much better credentials:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220

Then there's this very jargon loaded discussion of models:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.html

I don't have much truck with hysteria-merchants and extremists. I'm not that fond of blind-faith denialists either. Just don't call me a fence-sitter because I've made my mind up to support a cautious, harm-minimisation approach to global climate change.

I don't believe we need to freeze our arses off in the dark because we shut down power-stations too early or that we need to start trekking to more moderate climes while they still exist but I do think we need to take that cautious, harm-minimisation approach. I bristle at outright denialism, I get cranky with wild-eyed doomsayers. I don't understand science well enough to read the journals but I do take notice of cautious warnings from those without axes to grind.

 

[Annie]

I don't have much truck with hysteria-merchants and extremists. I'm not that fond of blind-faith denialists either. Just don't call me a fence-sitter because I've made my mind up to support a cautious, harm-minimisation approach to global climate change.

I don't believe we need to freeze our arses off in the dark because we shut down power-stations too early or that we need to start trekking to more moderate climes while they still exist but I do think we need to take that cautious, harm-minimisation approach. I bristle at outright denialism, I get cranky with wild-eyed doomsayers. I don't understand science well enough to read the journals but I do take notice of cautious warnings from those without axes to grind.

I'm serious here, I've read your 'rants' about US, I've now posted some things that really make me wonder. There are 3 listed, can you give me your take, doesn't matter a whit if I agree or not, just wondering. I've found you very fair and rational, I hope you'd say the same.

 

[jillian]

I've never once seen Dee rant about anything.

So must be some pretty benign *rants*

 

[Annie]

I've never once seen Dee rant about anything.

So must be some pretty benign *rants*

It's just like when I rag at you, others take it wrong. He knows what I mean. He also has answered in some degree.

 

[Diuretic]

Stick around jillian, when rant season hits me it can be hysterical

Peter Foster's article is nothing new. It's the usual stuff from the right who want to whip up hysteria that the science of climate change is just an attempt by those crazy commos to slam capitalism into the dirt. Except it's nothing of the sort. He does the usual banging on about how governments are now captives of the global climate change proponents, aided by a compliant media (no doubt he's spewing that none other than Rupert Murdoch is concerned about global climate change).

The problem isn't capitalism, it's industrialism. The Soviets managed to turn much of Russia and its associated states into environmental disasters - the Aral Sea for example. Foster fails to understand that there are no economic ideology wars any more. When the Soviet Union crashed and burned there went the ideas of the command economy. Any country with an ounce of pragmatism about it is in favour of the mixed economy. The only squabbling nowadays is the ratio. So Foster can quit dredging up the spectre of Marxism, it's no longer seen as a valid economic theory (although it does retain some use as a tool for social analysis). But in his article there is it, front and centre.

On China and India and the other latecomers to industrialism - since we're all on the same planet we have to convince their governments and their people that there are other ways of bringing up the standard of living. And while we're at it we should remind them that creating massive wealth for a few and consigning the overwhelming majority of the population of each country to poverty is not how it's supposed to work, but that's another argument.

As for Foster's reference to Lomborg - well, Lomborg hasn't much credibility despite the best efforts of the denialist fluffers, he really can't get it up any longer - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bjorn_Lomborg

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Stick around jillian, when rant season hits me it can be hysterical

Peter Foster's article is nothing new. It's the usual stuff from the right who want to whip up hysteria that the science of climate change is just an attempt by those crazy commos to slam capitalism into the dirt. Except it's nothing of the sort. He does the usual banging on about how governments are now captives of the global climate change proponents, aided by a compliant media (no doubt he's spewing that none other than Rupert Murdoch is concerned about global climate change).

The problem isn't capitalism, it's industrialism. The Soviets managed to turn much of Russia and its associated states into environmental disasters - the Aral Sea for example. Foster fails to understand that there are no economic ideology wars any more. When the Soviet Union crashed and burned there went the ideas of the command economy. Any country with an ounce of pragmatism about it is in favour of the mixed economy. The only squabbling nowadays is the ratio. So Foster can quit dredging up the spectre of Marxism, it's no longer seen as a valid economic theory (although it does retain some use as a tool for social analysis). But in his article there is it, front and centre.

On China and India and the other latecomers to industrialism - since we're all on the same planet we have to convince their governments and their people that there are other ways of bringing up the standard of living. And while we're at it we should remind them that creating massive wealth for a few and consigning the overwhelming majority of the population of each country to poverty is not how it's supposed to work, but that's another argument.

As for Foster's reference to Lomborg - well, Lomborg hasn't much credibility despite the best efforts of the denialist fluffers, he really can't get it up any longer - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bjorn_Lomborg

And yet you can not answer simple straight forward questions that anyone that does or does not believe in Man made Global warming should know in order to make an informed decision. You have simple stated you will "faithfully" believe the supposed consensus , when science is not about consensus at all.

You trot out a claim that the vast majority of scientists believe something that they do not. You can not articulate anything of substance on the subject except " pollution is bad" and want us to take you seriously.

I and most people that have not bought into the BS of man made Global Warming are not denying anything. You are the denier , you can not answer simple questions. The west has been busy since the 60's working diligently to improve anti pollution devices and technology, they have been working steadfastly to lower emissions, they have been working to clean up old mistakes.

Meanwhile China, India and a host of third world countries are busy polluting with impunity, ignored by the supposed saviors of mankind and the planet. While the west is told to emasculate its economies the 3rd world is told not to worry, continue to do as you please.

There is no science involved in a 20 year blip on a world with billions of years of history. And true scientists know it and are speaking out even though in the past anyone that did had their careers and years of training schooling and work destroyed by character assassination and worse.

 

[Larkinn]

And yet you can not answer simple straight forward questions that anyone that does or does not believe in Man made Global warming should know in order to make an informed decision. You have simple stated you will "faithfully" believe the supposed consensus , when science is not about consensus at all.

Science isn't about consensus? Then pray tell, what is it about? Please explain how things are thought to be facts if its not about consensus? Please explicitly describe how, without a consensus, we as a society come to acknowledge things as facts.

You trot out a claim that the vast majority of scientists believe something that they do not. You can not articulate anything of substance on the subject except " pollution is bad" and want us to take you seriously.

Do you consider yourself an expert on anything? Ever watch two amateurs argue about something which you, as an expert, find ludicrous? This is why you and him, or you and me arguing about global warming is stupid. Listen to the experts. Believe them or not, but you won't find the anwser yourself.

I and most people that have not bought into the BS of man made Global Warming are not denying anything. You are the denier , you can not answer simple questions. The west has been busy since the 60's working diligently to improve anti pollution devices and technology, they have been working steadfastly to lower emissions, they have been working to clean up old mistakes.

And emissions have been going down then right?...oh wait, nope.

Meanwhile China, India and a host of third world countries are busy polluting with impunity, ignored by the supposed saviors of mankind and the planet. While the west is told to emasculate its economies the 3rd world is told not to worry, continue to do as you please.

Our economies are masculine? Awesome. Anyway, some individuals I think find it a bit unappealing to ask a country to stop its economic engines when the economic engines are currently providing things like food, clean water, and housing to vast numbers of extremely poor people. That, and oh, by the way, the US has been polluting for how long exactly? Lets add up how much each country has polluted during its existence and THEN figure out how much it needs to reduce, shall we?

There is no science involved in a 20 year blip on a world with billions of years of history.

Actually there is science involved in it. Blips don't happen on there own. They are caused by something. Discovering the causes natural phenomena is a practice humans have taken up. We even have a name for it. Its called "science".

And true scientists know it and are speaking out even though in the past anyone that did had their careers and years of training schooling and work destroyed by character assassination and worse.

Right...as if you have the qualifications to determine what makes a "true" scientists or not?

Just like your opinion of court cases comes from reading summaries of them from eyoz or whatever that site was, right?

 

[Diuretic]

And yet you can not answer simple straight forward questions that anyone that does or does not believe in Man made Global warming should know in order to make an informed decision. You have simple stated you will "faithfully" believe the supposed consensus , when science is not about consensus at all.

I've pointed out, several times, my position. And several times you've accused me of "belief". The same tired old ad hominem argument.

You trot out a claim that the vast majority of scientists believe something that they do not. You can not articulate anything of substance on the subject except " pollution is bad" and want us to take you seriously.

See above.

I and most people that have not bought into the BS of man made Global Warming are not denying anything. You are the denier , you can not answer simple questions. The west has been busy since the 60's working diligently to improve anti pollution devices and technology, they have been working steadfastly to lower emissions, they have been working to clean up old mistakes.

It's more than pollution. Get with the current programme.

Meanwhile China, India and a host of third world countries are busy polluting with impunity, ignored by the supposed saviors of mankind and the planet. While the west is told to emasculate its economies the 3rd world is told not to worry, continue to do as you please.

We'll see what comes out of Bali.

There is no science involved in a 20 year blip on a world with billions of years of history. And true scientists know it and are speaking out even though in the past anyone that did had their careers and years of training schooling and work destroyed by character assassination and worse.

Speak of irrelevant, why did you quote my post and not address it? You just sprayed a bunch of generalisations. Are you working off a script?

 

[Gunny]

I don't have much truck with hysteria-merchants and extremists. I'm not that fond of blind-faith denialists either. Just don't call me a fence-sitter because I've made my mind up to support a cautious, harm-minimisation approach to global climate change.

I don't believe we need to freeze our arses off in the dark because we shut down power-stations too early or that we need to start trekking to more moderate climes while they still exist but I do think we need to take that cautious, harm-minimisation approach. I bristle at outright denialism, I get cranky with wild-eyed doomsayers. I don't understand science well enough to read the journals but I do take notice of cautious warnings from those without axes to grind.

What would work REALLY well with me is if some of this hysteria was channeled toward an actual determination as to the cause PRIOR TO trying to cure it.

If it's al cyclical change in the Earth's climate, then all the meetings, treaties, and witchdoctor cures will have the same effect as pissing into the wind.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

What would work REALLY well with me is if some of this hysteria was channeled toward an actual determination as to the cause PRIOR TO trying to cure it.

If it's al cyclical change in the Earth's climate, then all the meetings, treaties, and witchdoctor cures will have the same effect as pissing into the wind.

You haven't been paying attention, according to Larkinn and D it is all decided, We have caused it and must fix it. Science has of course forgotten the middle step, you know, the part where they show us WHAT we did to cause it?

But we are denialists because we want such a silly thing as evidence of man actually causing a problem, since if we do not know what caused it, we obviously can not "fix" it.

Now Larkinn has decided that he is just to dumb to actually want to know what it is we have done that we supposedly will fix. And D, well he thinks we should just stop doing everything that might possibly, maybe, could have caused it, while still heating all our homes and running all our business, I assume on mud water?

 

[Diuretic]

What would work REALLY well with me is if some of this hysteria was channeled toward an actual determination as to the cause PRIOR TO trying to cure it.

If it's al cyclical change in the Earth's climate, then all the meetings, treaties, and witchdoctor cures will have the same effect as pissing into the wind.

The hysteria we can all do without. I get pretty ticked off when the eye-rollers come on and tell us the world is going to burst into flames next Friday if we don't all stop breathing immediately.

As I've said in the thread I'm no scientist, I don't have a hint of a scientific mind so I can't pronounce on the science and I just try and follow the mainstream (rather than the esoteric) debate. But it seems to me that cyclic change is part of the Earth's climate yes.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/timeform.html

Now that sort of stuff I learned at high school. The question for me is have humans, through industrialism, caused climate change to get out of whack (I told you I was unscientific).

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

 

[RetiredGySgt]

From your link...

United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali poised for political breakthrough
Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia
3 December 2007
The United Nations Climate Change Conference - Bali, 2007 got underway Monday, poised for a breakthrough in international climate change negotiations.
pdf-icon Press release (130 kB

 

[jillian]

It's just like when I rag at you, others take it wrong. He knows what I mean. He also has answered in some degree.

Fair enough!

 

[Annie]

Stick around jillian, when rant season hits me it can be hysterical

Peter Foster's article is nothing new. It's the usual stuff from the right who want to whip up hysteria that the science of climate change is just an attempt by those crazy commos to slam capitalism into the dirt. Except it's nothing of the sort. He does the usual banging on about how governments are now captives of the global climate change proponents, aided by a compliant media (no doubt he's spewing that none other than Rupert Murdoch is concerned about global climate change).

Well if financial times is Murdoch owned, I didn't know it. Reading it after borrowing your glasses, I can see how you arrive at your conclusion regarding his trying to panic people.

The problem isn't capitalism, it's industrialism. The Soviets managed to turn much of Russia and its associated states into environmental disasters - the Aral Sea for example. Foster fails to understand that there are no economic ideology wars any more. When the Soviet Union crashed and burned there went the ideas of the command economy. Any country with an ounce of pragmatism about it is in favour of the mixed economy. The only squabbling nowadays is the ratio. So Foster can quit dredging up the spectre of Marxism, it's no longer seen as a valid economic theory (although it does retain some use as a tool for social analysis). But in his article there is it, front and centre.

On China and India and the other latecomers to industrialism - since we're all on the same planet we have to convince their governments and their people that there are other ways of bringing up the standard of living. And while we're at it we should remind them that creating massive wealth for a few and consigning the overwhelming majority of the population of each country to poverty is not how it's supposed to work, but that's another argument.

As for Foster's reference to Lomborg - well, Lomborg hasn't much credibility despite the best efforts of the denialist fluffers, he really can't get it up any longer - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bjorn_Lomborg

I've put on my own glasses now. Pollution is way down in the US from where it was even 15 years ago. We no longer have smog, the Lake is cleaner. I can only tell about my own area. From what I've read though, pretty much holds across the states. People here are enviro aware. Our grocery has encouraged cloth sacks over plastic or paper. Those that can afford it have returned to having milk delivered in reusable glass bottles. We totally recycle refuse. Cars are much cleaner running, SUV's are not as popular and the ones being sold are getting better mileage.

I think the problem is, we don't like OUR government telling us to this or that, much less some 'august' body that also is hitting our pocketbook, while labeling us 'bad folk' and giving a pass to others. China and India are not only industrializing, they are not taking care to put cleansers into new buildings, while the US corps are retrofitting old ones-which is much more expensive. Many of the oil producing countries are consuming more gallons of oil than US, the first time ever.

Then there are the countries that pushed for Kyoto, hypocritically not making the scores they pledged to, not paying the offsets they agreed to. All the while screaming about the US not signing. Meanwhile, the US has made most of the markers that would have been ours if we signed. It's not that the US citizen doesn't care about 'the world', rather we just get to it as we can, don't need another piece of paper.

Just my pov, as of this morning.

Oh yeah, harking back to MSG post, I'm NOT convinced that 'global warming' is man made, however, that doesn't mean that taking affordable steps, which for the most part, US is doing, can cause harm. As said, we are doing better than most at cleaning up our bit of the world.

 

[Diuretic]

I remember back in about 1966 or 1967 or thereabouts watching a tv programme here which looked at pollution in the Derwent River (on which Hobart sits) and the programme flagged some terrible pollution being created by a business on the Derwent River. Here we are in 2007 and Tasmania has a reputation of being environmentally aware and a "clean" state (good for its major industry - tourism - oh, if you're coming to Australia, don't overlook Tasmania, it really is beautiful).

I also remember reading Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". Nowadays you can find plenty of people who will come down on Carson. But guess what? She belled the cat. We listened. We benefited.

From a personal point of view I have to say I'm not arguing for a return to things of stone and wood (Chips will get the musical reference). I am not in favour of shutting everything down and creating a new Dark Ages for our species. I am in favour of us taking appropriate and conservative steps in dealing with global climate change. I'd like us to do the small steps now so that we don't need to actually take radical steps in the future, radical steps such as destroying the benefits of industrialism and advanced capitalism.

If you found a suspicious lump would you ignore it? Would you wait to be told that it metastised?

 

[Gunny]

You haven't been paying attention, according to Larkinn and D it is all decided, We have caused it and must fix it. Science has of course forgotten the middle step, you know, the part where they show us WHAT we did to cause it?

But we are denialists because we want such a silly thing as evidence of man actually causing a problem, since if we do not know what caused it, we obviously can not "fix" it.

Now Larkinn has decided that he is just to dumb to actually want to know what it is we have done that we supposedly will fix. And D, well he thinks we should just stop doing everything that might possibly, maybe, could have caused it, while still heating all our homes and running all our business, I assume on mud water?

Is mud water cheaper than wood?

 

[Diuretic]

We have a saying here in Aus, "there's money in mud."
It contrasts with the poverty that is in dust.