By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
VAMatt on 21 June 2020
Edit Thread
RolStoppable said:
VAMatt said:

I'm 40 years old. I recall pretty well the last 35 years of my life, and there has been a never-ending stream of impending climate emergency proclamations for those 35 years. It's always just a few years off. But those few years keep coming and going, any nothing serious ever happens.  Older people tell me that the same kind of thing was happening previous to the beginning of my memories in the early 80s. I know there was a big scare about global cooling before I was born. So, I put absolutely zero stock in the proclamations of so-called environmental experts.

That doesn't mean that I think environmental issues are unimportant. On the contrary, I think such issues are far too important to entrust to people or organizations that have been wrong about them over and over and over again.

Yup, it's a constant in our lives that we see climate models that predict our imminent doom. In the 1980s it was about the growing ozone hole approximately above Australia that would make our lives miserable. But technologies got adjusted and improved, so in 2020 we got the news that the ozone hole has been mending itself. This demonstrates that our planet can heal itself if given the opportunity and time.

The current climate change is very much the same thing. Virtually all of the predictive models show us that it's going to get worse if humanity keeps doing the same thing, but that's just it: Humanity can change their ways. And there is change, albeit slow change. It's not possible to change in a big way from one year to the next because otherwise our wealth and peace can't be secured, but change is happening nonetheless. It's going to keep getting warmer for a while, but eventually temperatures should stabilize and afterwards even go down a bit again. That's a process of several decades though.

I don't disagree with your underlying point.  Clearly, the earth can heal itself.   The impact that humans have on the long term health of the earth is less clear, but certainly it is something.  Those facts aren't at issue here.

The issue is that we have been told repeatedly that we'll be fucked by year X if Y doesn't happen.  Y never happens, and year X always comes and goes, and we're never fucked.  So, "climate scientists" (a commonly used term that we could spend a whole thread discussing) as a group lack credibility. 

They're wrong every time.  They cry wolf, but no wolves ever show up.  So, fewer and fewer people pay attention to each successive cry.  Frankly, to the extent that "climate science" is an important field (and I believe it is pretty important), they owe it to humanity to stop constantly making wildly inaccurate claims. Only then will we be able to actually hear them if there truly is something that needs prompt attention.