The Glade 4.0

Posted without comment, except to say that it seems like a useful starting point for discussing common "HIGW is b.s." arguments.

Once again, you are posting links from an obvious biased and politically invested website that adheres to beliefs you already hold; links and information take for granted the following:

Human Induced Global Climate Change is real.

Climate Change skepticism is tantamount to Ostrich-type Luddism.

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Spare me the "once again" well-poisoning. As for the rest, why do you believe the site is obviously biased and politically invested? Do you have specific examples of bias and political activity/affiliation, or is it just that it contradicts "beliefs you already hold" and information you "take for granted"?

Note that I've spent all of maybe 10 minutes browsing that site, so I have no particular investment in it. But (to engage in a little well-poisoning of my own, I suppose), you tend to describe everyone and everything you disagree with as obviously biased, agenda-driven, idiotic, etc., and I know HIGW is particularly likely to trigger your ire, so I'm...skeptical (Ha! See what I did there?)...of your quick dismissal.

Let's look at the two quotes, because I'm busy can't be bothered to go to the original site.

Humans are the dominant force. - This is, at best, "contested" science and at worst blatantly false. Volcanoes such as the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010 spew huge amounts of greenhouse gases. Atmospheric water vapor content changes affect climate more than CO2. Finally, the sun has a more dramatic effect than any human endeavor (though that isn't to speak it is the sole cause of change).

Which brings us to the next point:

In the last 35 years of warming sun and the climate are going different directions - First of all, let's address the key reason it's now "climate change" instead of "global warming," which is that temperatures are not on the steady uptick the believers want us to think.

Second of all: blatant lie.
[img]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... roxies.png[/img]

Note the uptick in sunspots. And yes, while sunspots are cooler, they're affiliated with increases in solar flares. Solar flares, as you may know are "huge" releases of energy. [No similar chart could be found for solar flare activity, so we have to go on the correlation].


Additionaly, regarding the sun (which I'll note I said is a factor and not the sole causal item): tempature and sun activity have some correlations, but are 100% NOT going "the opposite direction."





Picture sources:
1) Wikipedia
2) Wikipedia
3) Reason.com



Ultimately, the point is this: the global climate is far more complicated than the schmucks who believe the Al Gore want you to think. Is climate change occurring? Yes. Is it impacted by humans? Probably. Is it caused by humans? Absolutely not. And most importantly: is it "bad?" It depends.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I'm a skeptic, in the true sense of the word. Before i would commit to believing something, and more importantly, to taking action on it, I want to see some empirical evidence and the reasons for it.

Climate Change alarmism fails for several reasons.

I find the concept that we are changing the climate plausible, for sure. Even likely. I see the numbers given by groups like the IPCC and I think, "Okay, sure. While your evidence and rationale are thin, this is a reasonable hypothesis." Worst-case scenarios have Earth's average temperatures warming a couple degrees over the next century.

This very well may be human caused, and may be the primary current driving force behind climate change. That's all fine.

So what?

The climate has changed by amounts much greater than that in shorter periods several times during recorded human history, and even more so during prehistorical periods such as at the end of the last ice age. Okay, it may be likely that we're changing the climate. The evidence is not conclusive, but it makes sense, and it fits. Now tell me why we need to rip apart our economic system resulting in greater poverty and possibly even millions or billions of deaths for two degrees over the next century. it's not even clear that a 2 degree change will have primarily negative effects -- the overall impact to human survivability may be positive.

Taking drastic action to change our behavior here seems to be about as silly as basing all your morals and life's course around an invisible imaginary friend's rules written down by a bunch of desert nomads between 2000 and 3500 years ago. It doesn't satisfy my skepticism. Much like the panic over "genetically modified" foods, or radio signals in mobile phones beside our heads, nobody has shown a shred of evidence that it's bad for us. At all. Want me to care? You have to do better than that.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

RangerDave:

If you've only spent 10 minutes on the site, you're quoting and using its links because they confirm some position you already hold; that's confirmation bias. That is, in point of fact, the issue with your links from almost anywhere of late: you never post information, any more, that contradicts the position we already know you hold. So, when you link a site whose tagline is -- Being Skeptical about Climate Change Skepticism, guess what? You're posting stuff from an agenda driven site that falls in line with your preexisting beliefs.

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The fatal flaw the HIGW suffers from is the exact same flaw that caused the Occupy Wallstreet movement to accomplish exactly nothing. There isn't a unified theory supported by a structure of quantified metrics from which we can distill, distinct, actionable macro-actions which can be used to direct human behavior.

What is global warming? How much is happening? How much can be controlled and at what economic (quality of life) cost?

Nothing presented by anyone in the community even attempts to answer those questions. It's like creating an joint international scientific body dedicated to figuring out what we're going to "do" about gravity.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I know there are records going back decades for cave temps. When those records show the earth has changed temperature then I'll believe the earth is warming. So far, all I've ever found is statements of the "constant temps, 60 degrees year round" variety.
http://www.gorp.com/weekend-guide/trave ... 60350.html

Measuring air temperature is too variable. Measure the temperature of something with some mass, then talk to me.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I've seen some interesting proposals that are within our current technological capabilities(including seeding the upper atmosphere with reflective particles)--personally this sounds kinda hard to undo it. I would think Mylar cloud reflector at the L1 point would be an easily 'tunable' solution, but thats just idle speculation on my part.


Thats all really a moot point though. The fact is that oil-based fossil fuels are a limited, non-renewable resource. Furthermore, they still produce acid rain, smog and produce averse reactions in oxygen breathing life.

Just because the extent of HIGCC is undefined (from non-existent to a major force) there are plenty of other reasons to continue with 'green' legislation.

There are plenty of reasons to push forward with green technologies but there's not necessarily a reason it has be executed by mandated legislation.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

There are no reasons, ever, to proceed with 'green' legislation. The United States doesn't need more legislation. The United States and the World at large need LESS government telling people and businesses how to conduct themselves.

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that sort of absolutism is beyond absurd.

I disagree.

Government is rarely a good answer to anything.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I'm trying to see where you're coming from, not trying to set up a strawman here-- but is it your argument that it should be legal for a company to pollute a river and poison a community downstream?

I said "Rarely."

That would actually fit into a fairly broad category that is ultimately Government's only legitimate purpose... protecting the individual rights of its citizens.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

One liners with links doesn't seem to be understood by the posters in this thread. Www.red.com

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

"Global climate change" is a problem to solve with engineers, not legislators. It's an energy generation and load flow problem involving various mechanical, electrical, and chemical systems. Unless you have representatives from those three disciplines in the room, there's nothing to talk about.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Penn Gillette put it this way:
Is the earth getting warmer?

If so is it our fault?

If it's our fault can we stop it? (I can push a truck down a hill but that doesn't mean I can stop it)

If we can stop it, is it a bad thing?

If its a bad thing is massive government regulation the answer?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I agree.

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Yes. And no. But climate is changing.

Maybe a bit.

No, but it would be a good thing to pollute less and use more "green" energy.

We can't stop it. And we don't know.

It isn't maybe, but absolutely not.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Someone has to set the standard for how much "poison" is acceptable in the air, water, etc. Even if the courts end up doing it through precedent, that's still "the government" essentially making the rules.

Also, without government regulation, you've pretty much guaranteed the extinction of all species where the supply and demand curves meet above the extinction threshold.

Xequecal:

Do you exist? If 'yes', then your second statement is an absolute falsehood. If 'no', Lucy has some 'splainin' to do.

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I support research on climate change, because the end result is humanity being able to control the climate of the Earth the way we currently control the climate inside our houses. With that in mind, here are a few problems with the climate change issue.

1) The signal-to-noise ratio is very poor. Much of the talk is carried out between environmental hippies and Rapture enthusiasts, neither of whom have the slightest clue what the **** they're talking about.

2) The environmental hippies don't want clean energy. They want fewer humans, and they want the humans we do have to stop using technology. The simple fact of the matter is that technology is powered by energy, and every time a utility company tries to build a wind farm, hydroelectric plant, or other such "green" plant, the environmental hippies who claim to want green energy find some reason to protest the plant's construction.

3) The vast majority of humanity is completely out of touch with what's required to turn on the lights in their house. Everybody wants the solution to be free, like it's as simple as just not using so much. Nobody wants to face the cold, hard truth that solving a problem requires money.

4) Environmental scientists are poorly educated on the subject of energy transfer. They think they've identified a problem, but have no idea how to go about solving it. They want someone else to fix it for them. That's fine, except that they think they're the ones in charge of approving the solution.

If you want to solve a complex problem, you need people who specialize in complex problems. Ultimately what has to happen is that the issue of the world's climate gets turned over to engineers. You're going to need a multidisciplinary team to deal with it. Meanwhile, everyone else is going to have to sit down and shut the **** up while they work. That includes lawmakers and environmental scientists.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.