RadiantDanceMachine said:
Locknuts said:
This seems to be a sensitive issue for some people as it's become a political issue rather than a scientific one.
I have become fascinated as I have watched this whole thing play out. I looked into the science. Seemed legit. Co2 is a greenhouse gas (ie it traps and radiates heat), that is a fact and something that can be demonstrated in a lab environment. There is also a correlation between CO2 and global temperatures. Not only that, but the computer models appeared to be predicting an increase in global temperatures fairly well for a while.
But then something strange happened....
Observations started deviating from the predictions of the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so they quietly began lowering their short and medium term expected temperature rises.
But the alarmism seemed to get more drastic instead of dying down. People were and still are heavily emotionally invested in the idea that man made CO2 emissions are going to destroy the planet, despite the latest observations and peer reviewed literature showing that less alarm is actually warranted.
Not only that, but many powerful people and organisations are now heavily financially invested in carbon markets and other such schemes.
A paper titled 'The Consensus Project was trotted out in 2013 by John Cook et al. in the hope that if the public saw that there was a 'scientific consensus' on man made climate change then they would take it as gospel and insist that their governments take action. I have seen an interview with him where he stated that this was the purpose of his paper. I'm sure many of you have heard of the '97% consensus'. This is where that number came from, but the number is misleading and misused. Please read the paper, or at least the abstract of the paper to see how they arrived at that particular number. President Obama tweeted the 97% number, added that man made emissions were also 'dangerous' (this isn't mentioned in the consensus project), and the world bought it.
Instead of appealing to the data, there is an appeal to authority and consensus. That is not science, that's politics. Even if you do like to appeal to authority, most claim that the IPCC is the authority on man made global warming but do not actually read the literature from the IPCC (which is becoming less alarming with each report). Instead they listen to what politicians say about the IPCC literature. Since when are politicians ever truthful about anything?
I prefer to look at the data and peer reviewed literature, which indicates that the climate is far less sensitive to CO2 than previously thought, and that the atmosphere is far more complex than it was previously understood to be.
What do you think? Am I wrong? Is an apocalypse coming?
I get the feeling some people are so devoted to the solution, that they are failing to see that it is becoming a less urgent problem.
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Please explain why you think an appeal to authority is problematic when they are an actual authority?
- See a mechanic when your car requires maintenance.
- See a medical doctor when you're ill.
- See a golf pro when you want to improve your golf game.
You're thinking of an appeal to authority fallacy wherein one cites for instance an eminent physicist for a topic in which they are not credentialed as gospel.
97% consensus is fairly close to reality. If you include all of the published scientists from that study (they filtered for top 10% I believe) the figure only moves to 91%. It's been a while since I've had to bother dealing with deniers, so feel free to check my maths or really my memory.
The hysteria was not promulgated by scientists, it was put forth by media outlets. Let's at least criticize the appropriate culprits here.
While I do not hold to alarmism, it's actually quite obvious that we're contributing to climate change for reasons you even mention in your post. However, you seem to be committing an ignoratio elenchi fallacy by failing to acknowledge what I will call the "tipping point".
Suppose that you drop a bath tub in the middle of the rain forest. It rains, water goes in, it evaporates in the heat, repeat. Now, some person comes by and drops a glass of water into that tub every day. Now we've upset the natural cycle. If it continues in this manner, eventually the tub will be overflowing. That is really the fear. It becomes an unmanageable situation, a runaway effect.
Your comments about an apocalypse are again unscientific, this is nothing but media presence.
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Appealing to an authority is fine. As long as that authority isn't a politician. They are authorities on their own agendas. Likewise, the media seem to sway quite strongly either one way or another, all the while looking for the most dramatic scenarios they can find to get viewership. They are certainly not authorities.
I appeal to authority that shows data, like climate scientists and their actual peer reviewed work. The IPCC certainly have their faults, but there is truly a huge amount of data in their reports and they are improving with each one. So I don't have too much of a problem with the IPCC as an authority, but they are not nearly as alarmist as some would have me believe.
For example they're natural disaster experts find no links between AGW and extreme weather events.
As others have pointed out, the scientific consenus is almost fraudulent. It includes works by Richard Lindzen and I believe Roy Spencer, who are known sceptics. Regardless, a consensus is a very unscientific way of 'proving' something. It only takes 1 paper to prove 100 wrong.
Speaking of which, I am yet to find anything definitive on this 'tipping point'. It seems like more of an hypothesis. One which seems very difficult to test.
Do you have any papers on the tipping point that come up with anything substantial? I would actually be very interested to read it (I'm not being a smart arse, I really would like to read it to educate myself).
