The Glade 4.0

Important to who?

Obviously we shouldn't be short-sighted and ignore the benefits nature gives us. However, things only "matter" in terms of human thought and ideas. Morality is a human product. If you want to argue we should follow God's commands for the Earth you can, but those aren't exactly clear either. If you want to argue that the views of certain species like some Dolphins might be important, fine, but what are they, and how much importance do they carry?

Either way, Taly is right. Change to the environment is just that, change. Any "moral" obligation we'd have to preserve it in a certain way would be for no reason other than satisfying our own ideas of morality regardless of practical considerations.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's hard to find any when such contrary research can't get funding or publication in the first place.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't think it requires morals to understand that preserving our current environment on Earth would benefit every creature living on and inside of it. Large changes to our global climate will not only push some species into extinction, it could also put human lives in danger. Shouldn't we try to avoid that?

If I get time this weekend I'll pull some. It used to get posted a lot back when Monty was around, but then it just got shouted down as "shill for the oil companies! Shill for the Koch brothers!" that most of us finally just stopped bothering to cite.

The 97% number got used a lot back then too, and the counterpoint was exactly the same.



It's not about impact. It's about impact that outweighs every other factor in nature. And that's the notion I can't understand: that we're so significant that we outweigh the sun, geological formations, asteroid impacts, etc.



That's fine, you are of course entitled to your opinion. I imagine, then, you would have also been one of those who censured Galileo or Copernicus?





Well, no. Studies that fail to prove a hypothesis can be a basis for future research. So they're useful in that sense: to other scientists.

To the general public? Correct, they're not useful.

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

As to the former: it depends.

As to the latter: I doubt the likelihood.

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

That's like saying that just because we're all going to die some day that I shouldn't bother wearing sun screen or trying to avoid cancer. Just because some natural events can make faster, more drastic changes than we have, means we shouldn't bother correcting our likely-harmful behavior?

Well, I don't even argue against HIGW. It's the alarmism that goes with it I object to, most.

I also have issue with the lower standard of evidence that we (and by we I mean, humans in general, including scientists) seem to have agreed to accept here. The most stringent climate change scientist will still admit that they don't have the type of data here that they would require to consider some new quantum or relativistic effect as fact. They don't have a very long set of data, they don't have any testable evidence. They have a very small sample of data, to show a very thin trail of evidence, and some believable models based on that data and our very incomplete knowledge of climate and geological science. I would argue that a human caused greenhouse effect appears "likely." In truth, I think the vast majority of the so-called consensus would say the same thing. But they seem to be loathe to use uncertainty in their language. Like George W. Bush so absolutely sure of Saddam Hussein's nonexistent Weapons of Mass Destruction, I find the use of such absolute terminology to be insulting to my intelligence. (I even believed Bush was likely right about WMDs, too...I just objected to the statements of absolute surety in the lack of strong evidence.)

I know why they do it. They think people are less likely to take it seriously if they state it with proper scientific skepticism...and they are right. There's a reason for that. In the absence of certainty, people remain undecided. As well they should. Nobody talks about the human cost of reducing carbon emissions. This type of thing will always hit the poorest people in every culture the hardest. THe more money you have, the less such measures impact you.

Furthermore, unscrupulous companies sucker the public into spending billions of dollars in "green" products that are nothing of the sort. (See electric automobiles.) Governments use it as an excuse to take more of your hard-earned money. Grocery stores start charging for flimsy plastic bags to "discourage their use." Bullshit.

The science itself? I have no issues with that. It looks as solid as one can hope for with only a few years of data. It looks as if it is worth continuing to investigate. But don't come to me with your "We have to act now or we'll destroy the entire ecosystem!" bullshit. Let's stick to actual science.

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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
█ ♣ █

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

It could put human lives in danger, it might result in net benefits for us, depending on what we gained from altering our environment. Benefiting other living creatures is only important because of their benefits to us (which includes appreciation and understanding of those same creatures). The fact is, however, that we don't know how much or to what degree we're changing our environment. These scientists claim to, but the nature of their conduct is suspect, and scientists in general are prone to believing they understand things far better than they claim to. In any case, our environment is never static, so preserving it is really not reasonable anyhow. I think what you mean is reduce the degree to which humans influence its changes.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Not saying that.

But if we wanted to talk about, say, deforestation in regions of the Amazon. That's essentially a "micro" problem from an ecological perspective. (Mainly because I'm not aware of something between "micro" and "macro".)

I believe that humans are very much capable of micro-level harm to the ecology/environment. I think that we were particularly good at it (which is to say did a lot of it) in the 1800's.

That does not mean that I believe we are capable, to any large degree, of "harmful" macro changes. There are some glaring examples of exceptions to this belief, including one from the same timeframe (1800's) which is the American buffalo. That said, in general, I do not believe our macro level harms outweigh other macro level influencers.

However, I am an outdoorsman (as much as possible) and a conservationist, so I believe in attempts to minimize micro level harms. This is for various reasons.


But here's the ultimate thing, while we can cause lots of issues and debate the micro v. macro impact of things such as species extinction or deforestation, one cannot argue (effectively, anyway) that CO2, specifically generated or released from human activity, is more damaging nor outweighs other environmental factors.

Certainly not to the degree that we should cut the global population in half, stop using electricity of any kind, relinquish commercial control the government, and all eat bugs. Which, for the record, is what the serious die-hard greenniks want.

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

If we take care of the "micro" things, as you call them, the "macro" things, if they are an issue, will take care of themselves.

CO2 exists is only a tiny part of our atmosphere because of earth's flora eating it up. Less flora means more CO2 builds up in the atmosphere. Let the rainforests recover, reduce urban sprawl, and we can counterbalance some of any possible greenhouse effect to which we may be contributing. Your concern for forests and woodlands is the type of thing that could possibly solve potential warming issues.

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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
█ ♣ █

I don't get this argument. I like clean air and clean water regardless of the climate, so we should be curbing our activities that take those away.

In other words, I don't care what the temperature is in Beijing, I don't want to live in this ****:

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That is exactly DFK's argument above, Hopwin. And I agree.

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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
█ ♣ █

Much like a choose-your-own-adventure novel I got to page 3 and skipped to the ending.

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This is an absurd mis-characterization of what "serious die-hard greenniks" want

I'm not sure if you're trying to say that the die-hards are more or less hardcore than that.

No, it's really not. They may articulate it differently and in some cases may not even realize that's what they're asking for, but it is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It comes down to who are you going to listen to? Which group do you trust? And don't flippantly and cynically say "no one", or "I'll make my own choices", because you don't, and you can't. Societies simply aren't set up that way. In general, I tend to place more credence in what the scientific community is positing based on their studies, over politicians or corporate executives or union bosses or goodness-forbid the uneducated public at-large. And it's not the 'scientific community' pushing any ill-defined public policy as a solution. Of course a few of them may make suggestions, but they're human after all. They don't enact policy.

It's interesting to see that some of those who tended to deny it at first now begrudgingly accept it but have other "outs", like 'there's nothing we can do about it now', or 'it might all turn out to be a net positive'. Some however still cling to completely unfounded assertions that the entire climate science community is biased and is directed to reach a particular conclusion based on their funding, for which there is no evidence.

All I can humbly ask everyone is to give this video a listen, and then listen to the other videos on the topic of climate change from this person, because I think he takes the most reasonable approach of anyone I've heard.

He says several things I've already said in this thread, and doesn't address any of my issues. In fact, he reinforces them, by reiterating that the alarmism and doom and gloom statements are not coming from the scientists doing the studies, but rather from politicians and activists

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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
█ ♣ █

I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone participating in this thread that "consensus" is a political term, and that good science isn't democratic.

Carry on.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Never thought of it that way. What amazing insight.

I think this is something that a lot of people on the skeptic side misunderstand. Yes, "consensus" in the political arena involves persuasion, bargaining, compromise and a degree of democratic majoritarianism, and none of that makes for good science. However, when we talk about "consensus" among climate scientists, that's not what we mean. Rather, we mean that numerous experts have indepenently reviewed and/or developed the data, models and methodology, and they've pretty much all reached the same basic conclusions. It's "consensus" in the sense of multiple doctors examining a patient and each of them making the same diagnosis or multiple mathematicians running through a calculation and all coming up with the same answer.

This is an issue of perspective. If you have appropriate perspective on the issue, then you understand that the solution lies in listening to the engineers. There are things we can solve at the local level. Local is a fantastic place to work. For all of your blather about grass roots organization and mobilization, you still don't get it. If you motivate people to move as they can, within reason, and by improving their quality of life slowly, gradually, and in meaningful ways at the local level. Sooner or later you of necessity must, can, and will resolve larger problems or suspected larger problems.

You can't see the trees for the overwhelming sense the forest is too god damned important. If you can save one tree, you can probably save another. It's a matter of increment and finding practicable solutions through solid engineering and sound research. And, as Rynar said, good science is not necessarily democratic. The consensus is a political label.

Complex systems are complex, and while we're continually getting smarter, we don't understand everything.

Also, dinosaurs still roam the earth

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Here's some more one-liners:









By the by, no, RD, 2 degrees C is NOT best case, it's more like average case.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-a ... -emissions

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Not really.

Two brief and simple examples (there are a lot, lot more):

The UN itself just released a report saying how and we why should all eat more bugs.

The green movement started in the 70's with overpopulation scares. Those people haven't gone away.

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