Almost no one (including me, honestly) understands the science behind the arguments of those debating catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (henceforth CAWG). All I and most people really have to go are the total number of scientists backing each position. If I understand the issue right, there are special interests on both sides, which casts doubt on what anyone is saying. Do pro-CAWG advocates have anything more to gain/less to lose than anti-CAWG advocates do? If not, then it makes more sense to me to believe the pro-CAWG fellows, because they’re in the majority as far as I’m aware. Is this true?
PLEASE cite reputable sources when answering. I’m leaning towards anti-CAWG as it stands, but I think my political views are making me biased in that direction, and I want to be as objective about this as is humanly possible.
The pro-CAGW special interests have a lot more to gain, since if CAGW was excepted by all, the state would be invested with virtually unlimited power. This would then allow a vast array of parasites to obtain a free lunch. In addition to this one must not discount the ideological psychic profits that certain individuals would gain from the all controlling state - the true believers of communism and environmentalism yearn for total government and a return to the Stone Age.
As for the assertion that the majority of ‘scientists’ are pro-CAGW, the fact that the majority of academics are leftist (since intelligent individuals who are not anti-market generally seek success outside the academy) and that the funding of science comes from appropriation by the state, it is fairly simple how such a gross abuse has come about. If one desires funding for a project, all one has to do is insert ‘global warming’ somewhere in the proposal - even in the humanities.
I have yet to see a single bit of empirical evidence - observed evidence - to suggest that humans had much to do with the warming observed during two periods of the last century. I mean not a bit. They have simplified computer models which cannot account for the heating so it is ascribed to CO2 emissions. Patent nonsense!
Every human being should be more than leaning “anti-CAWG” until they can actually come up with some evidence. The entire thing is preposterous!
Trust more in the scientific literature than the news reports about the scientific literature. If any of you are into the YouTube community, there’s a guy named Potholer54 (really known as Peter Hadfield) who was a scientific journalist for quite some time. He has a series of videos going through various claims about climate change as well as other topics (creationism and evolution for example. Note that its very biased against creationism).
It’s easy to look up the sources for a news report’s claims and find out their errors (which is why it’s sad the erroneous claims go uncorrected among the masses). Potholer touches on many topics, such as global cooling, Christopher Monckton’s work, Al Gore’s work, and others.
The vibe I get from his videos is that global warming may be occuring (whether human-caused, I dunno; I don’t remember videos concerning that topic at the moment) but there is a lot of erroneous reporting and exaggeration going on. So to answer your question fully, get rid of your biases and follow the data (which seems to be your aim, which is excellent). Get into the scientific journals instead of the news reports.
I don’t know if we can name which scientists, but we can eliminate those who are getting things wrong.
As for policy decisions from scientists, I don’t get too worked up about those. It’s almost inevitable that they’ll advocate some sort of government involvement. I wonder if there are many libertarian-leaning scientists.
Got done listening to some of his stuff and I wasn’t really impressed. While his debunking of Monckton was generally good, his reliance on terrestrial thermometers does not inspire confidence. The problems with those - due to technical problems as well as outright mendacity on the part of scientists - have been well documented and any scientist relying on them has some explaining to do.
Climategate. I’d say that should be evidence enough that one shouldn’t exactly put any stock in the theory. Empirically speaking, it’s getting colder each winter, so I would say by my own experience, global warming doesn’t exist either.
Mark Levin discusses sometimes the fact that CO2 in the atmosphere is nothing but plant food, but even then it doesn’t correlate to any global warming. Michael Savage discusses Climategate in his book Trickle Up Povery on page 287.
The unified global tax on industrial output kinda gives away the agenda, doesn’t it, regardless of what the “truth” is? “Believe us. Replacing the sovereign tax systems with a one world tax is not an attempt to further the unexitable one world state. It’s just a huge coincidence.”
Once upon a time everyone lived near where he worked. Now we’re forced to travel great distances by the communist zoning system that does not allow the combination of residence and commerce/industry. Of course, conveniently nobody notices this minor detail that causes most pollution. It’s just straight to the taxes.
it is a video that briefly discussing the dunning-kruger effect (where unskilled people suffer from the illusion of superiority). the idea is pretty simple. people that are totally unskilled in one area greatly over estimate their competence at that subject relative to people who are truly skilled. one reason that might be the case is that if you are totally unskilled/ignorant of a particular area, you will also likely be ill equipped to evaluate your incompetance in that area.
for example, if you have never been trained at climate science, you would be unlikely to know whether the arguments you make regarding climate science are good or utter crap. but the dunning-kruger implies that this wont stop you from confidently believeing that you know more about climate science than actual climate scientists.
now, i see a lot of people confidently saying “there is no evidence for anthropogenic climate change” and that the vast majority of climate scientists are simply wrong.
how many of these posters can claimed to have been formally trained in climatology? if so, elaborate on your background please.
No. Science isn’t about majority opinion. If you can’t judge a subject for yourself the default position should be skepticism. Keep in mind that climate scientists would essentially be unemployed if it wasn’t for global warming, society wouldn’t have much need for their skills. Also most climate scientists do not understand the core of the climate change science - the precise chemical reaction in the atmosphere that supposedly leads to warming - so their consensus opinion is shouldn’t matter. They do related research, but they are not in a position to judge the core science. Currently governments hand out research grants and they greatly favor scientists who support climate change, thus paying lip service to climate change is the wise choice for any scientist.
Understanding all the science may be difficult, but discrediting the alarmism actually isn’t very hard to do. Definitely check out the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. I believe that climate change is caused by the sun, which causes the oceans to heat up and emit CO2. Human emissions have no effect.
If you are in doubt about climate change, just consider how remarkably unlikely it is that the atmosphere would actually react to minuscule changes in emissions quickly and predictably. What’s the chance that human emissions are dangerous, but not so dangerous that we can’t do anything about it? It’s insanely unlikely. But the alarmists are telling us that precisely that is the case. Also, it just so happens that the solutions to global warming are exactly the kinds of political changes big government statists tried to push through for decades. It’s all a little too convenient, don’t you think?
If interested, take a look atsomeofmyposts on the subject from another thread.
Yeah, how often has humanity made the mistake of implementing too little statism too late?
As far as I am concerned, the AGW types are just like the ‘endangered species’ types; who basically ignore opportunity costs and are more interested in advocating statism than any realistic solution; even if such a problem exists.
First of all, climatology is not like basic physics, the levels of uncertainty are enormous, there are so many uncontrolled variables. It’s not like those who doubt the so-called “climate consensus” are insisting that heavy objects fall faster than light objects and refuse to go to the tower of Pisa to be proven wrong or look through the telescope to observe Jupiter’s moons. The data are what the data are. The debate is all about what we can reasonably infer from the data. Reasoned disagreement is certainly possible, just look at economics.
Secondly, it is indisputable that there has been political interference in climatological science (as Dr. Hal Lewis has laid out in his letter of resignation from the American Physical Society). Surely, political interference in a science is deleterious to the reliability, or at least the value, of the work being done within that science. It doesn’t matter whether that interference has been exclusively in favor of climate change, exclusively opposed to climate change or a mix of both, the science itself is corrupted by interference.
Lastly, the entire concept of “scientific consensus” is anti-scientific and absurd. The essence of science is that one reliable observation and one solid theory built on that observation is sufficient to overthrow the entire establishment. Electrodynamics didn’t used to think that “cloaking” was physically possible. With the advent of metamaterials, it’s not only possible, it’s coming soon.
And I don’t need to be a climatologist to know any of these points.
Yeah, it’s not really about whether people find the science to be convincing. Belief in global warming pretty much goes along political lines; those who want socialism “believe” in global warming, those who don’t, don’t. Environmentalism is a crypto-socialist movement.
it is a video that briefly discussing the dunning-kruger effect (where unskilled people suffer from the illusion of superiority). the idea is pretty simple. people that are totally unskilled in one area greatly over estimate their competence at that subject relative to people who are truly skilled. one reason that might be the case is that if you are totally unskilled/ignorant of a particular area, you will also likely be ill equipped to evaluate your incompetance in that area.
This for stress. I think this will fit in nicely with many biological, sociological, economic, and psychological narratives as well. Honestly run this through valid narratives you are aware of and see how well it works.
I would also add there is much less cost when you are not actually tied down to the trade in question and can just speculate on about it while having people listen to your speculations. This is huge, and I think I like this line of thinking even better than the one that Student suggested. In other words, I am talking about Schupetarian intellectualism
I said before in a related thread. The economics of profession creates an incentive structure to be partisan rather than scientific. There is no benefit to being a good scientist other than peace of mind.