Answer to the global warming skeptics/denier

[Max™]

you can't be sorta pregnant

You can be sorta right and sorta wrong about human effects on climate change though.


My biggest bitching point is the positive feedback discussion, do you know what a positive feedback is?

If a -> then b
If b -> then more a
If more a -> then more b
If more b -> then even more a
etc


If CO2 really had that effect on water vapor (as is required to make the models work) what exactly would stop this process?

Venus rotates much slower, is closer to the sun, has different atmospheric components, and no regulating carbon cycle. Venus was a small positive feedback that didn't have enough of a negative pressure to stop it.

The Earth is not, that's why I keep making "matches in a fireplace" analogies, we're tossing matches into an open flame, then blaming the fact that the fire didn't go out on the match.

[kareface]

You can be sorta right and sorta wrong about human effects on climate change though.


My biggest bitching point is the positive feedback discussion, do you know what a positive feedback is?

If a -> then b
If b -> then more a
If more a -> then more b
If more b -> then even more a
etc


If CO2 really had that effect on water vapor (as is required to make the models work) what exactly would stop this process?

Venus rotates much slower, is closer to the sun, has different atmospheric components, and no regulating carbon cycle. Venus was a small positive feedback that didn't have enough of a negative pressure to stop it.

The Earth is not, that's why I keep making "matches in a fireplace" analogies, we're tossing matches into an open flame, then blaming the fact that the fire didn't go out on the match.

Positive feedback is also responsible for the ice ages, does that also mean that we should be pluto? For a system in a positive divergence, you require greater negative feedback to achieve equilibrium. There will always be some negative feedback in the environment, what real scientists (I contrast that with "undiscovered scientists") are saying is the environment isn't in equilibrium and the major contributing factor is us. The answer to your questions would be found by simply searching climate change feedback.

[Max™]

Positive feedback is also responsible for the ice ages, does that also mean that we should be pluto? For a system in a positive divergence, you require greater negative feedback to achieve equilibrium. There will always be some negative feedback in the environment, what real scientists (I contrast that with "undiscovered scientists") are saying is the environment isn't in equilibrium and the major contributing factor is us. The answer to your questions would be found by simply searching climate change feedback.

Hmmm, is this your final answer?

[Neosutra]

Yes.

[bigrougabagel]

The qualifier there is stretching what is known by quite a bit. Yes, humans do have an impact on the environment, the question is how big is that impact. At the moment we do not have enough data to quantify how we are affecting the climate equation.

I personally am blaming the sun for global warming, if it didn't exist we would be a nice comfortable hunk of rock and ice, which after dogs days of summer, would be a nice change. So, how can we go about eliminating the sun?

[Max™]

What does the 60~75% of the greenhouse effect due to water vapor have to do with us?

[Effluo]

Global Warming ... Religion for scientists

[kareface]

Quite a large impact. Something as simple as painting all the roofs in the US white would have a dramatic impact on the amount of energy reflected back into space. This idea that man has little influence on the environment is silly. Just because we can't shape it to our will doesn't mean that we can't tear it a couple new assholes.

[Max™]

I actually posted an article about that in the LHC thread, my mother and I used to tell people if they were worried about it, get a smaller car, and paint your fucking roof white.

Though, I said to silver your roof, the roads too should have a higher albedo.

I'm not saying we're having no effect, or that we're the main effect, I'm saying there are processes going on which were already in place before we started fucking around on a global scale.

Those processes have inertia, and they have constraints we can infer due to the numerous times the planet had much higher CO2 but didn't runaway into a catastrophic scenario.

Learning more about the system, about how to better live with it, that is great. Using something as important as this in order to institute some political agenda or push class boundary bullshit is... well, bullshit.


A good scientist would never run up to you and say "I know X is absolutely certain, and if we don't stop Y then we're going to suffer from Z for sure! BE AFRAID!", that's how they do it in movies, it isn't how any of the scientifically minded posters here would act...

It is how a politician acts though.

[Demosthenes11]

Airplanes contribute more to global cooling than warming, we should just have cars emit the same kind of cloudy pollution that planes do and we are good to go

[BerenTebogo]

Humanity's impact on the cooling and heating cycles of planet Earth: being #1 since 3,490,000 years before we evolved.

(basing on approximate age of first amino acid formations as best I understand it. Do not quote this and go "hurrr Earth is 4.5 billion years old.)

[Azull]

We arent losing the battle to global warming. We are winning the battle agaisnt global cooling.

Really though, both sides overreact. If you listen to a global warmest you would think we are all going to be under 30 feet of water by this time next year. If you listen to a global warming skeptic then nothing is happening and everyone else is a lier lier pants on fire.

[Max™]

Smokey the Tailpipe says, "give a hoot, pollute, because only YOU can prevent glaciation!"

[pahnphoenix]

the main thing i'm skeptical of is that the belief in global warming / climate change, human-driven or otherwise, is required to take responsible action. it's sort of an attitude thing...

i'd go on to say that it's mysterious to me that people can be stupid enough to vehemently deny a current scientific hypothesis without any particular background or training themselves... but that's not mysterious. propaganda isn't mysterious.

doubting is fine, though if you simply doubt that a certain action is destroying the world (instead of being reasonably sure it isn't) then you'd probably be in favor of people not taking said action. "snorting this amount of cocaine MIGHT kill me, but i'm not sure--i mean, i'm no pharmacist!" having such a belief... is it a reason to snort that amount of cocaine?

in other words, it's environmentally responsible to not take actions that might destroy the whole fucking world. not that controversial, don't you think? "but it costs more to do the responsible thing!" okay.

other possible response: "WHAT?? any action MIGHT result in any consequence! what are you talking about?? we shouldn't do ANYTHING AT ALL if we're so strict we prohibit things that might 'turn out bad'." this kind of sophistry completely misses how much we actually know about our world, cause and effect, etc. if you're honest, you know that eating whatever you ate for lunch isn't going to kill you by midnight. only 1st year philosophy student moron cartesian skeptics and people that make wayyyy too much of the intro to quantum physics book they read think that "ohhhhh anything can happen!" my sneezing isn't going to destroy the earth's climate. me drastically changing the level of something like carbon dioxide on earth, that might change it. maybe it won't, i don't know. but come on... i know that my punch to your face might hurt you (maybe you're a big bad man and it won't hurt you at all), as well as i know that my scratching my own balls won't hurt you. the world isn't so mysterious.

[kareface]

A good scientist would never run up to you and say "I know X is absolutely certain, and if we don't stop Y then we're going to suffer from Z for sure! BE AFRAID!", that's how they do it in movies, it isn't how any of the scientifically minded posters here would act...

It is how a politician acts though.

No good scientist is doing that. However people are saying there is enough data to see there is a negative impact from our actions. The timeline will shift depending on input, but the outcome of almost every model I've seen has been the same. I'm surprised someone who projects the persona of being interested in science would openly oppose a view almost unanimously held by the people researching the subject. There will always be elements of any theory that require refinement, and climate change is no different. However once you get enough information that suggests a common result, even if you don't scrupulously agree on every minute detail, the outcome is unlikely to be different. Conservative estimates put the bulk of the impact within the lifetime of our grandchildren or sooner with the lead up between now and then getting progressively more aggressive.

My question to you, what amount of data would be enough to convince you that the models are accurate enough to plot the outcome? There's more data in support of this theory than many of the ones I've seen you bring up in other threads. Your response to scientific consensus supported by a mountain of research is intuition. You really think that climatologists don't factor in the "processes going on which were already in place before we started fucking around". Skepticism is good, but there is a point where skepticism rides a fine line with ignorance. People like max who are skeptical in the face of evidence with out understanding the subject are usually on the wrong side of that line. How is this any different than people who are skeptical of evolution because, "humans aren't monkeys".

[Feedmenow]

Paint roofs white, use more hydroelectricity, increase average fuel economy.

PROBLEM SOLVED? PROBLEM SOLVED.

[Max™]

Lots of assumptions made, and I don't have time to answer them properly.

I'm skeptical because the political side of it gets it treated in a different manner than the scientific side should be, and I'm skeptical because the more I read about this shit, the more irritated I get at claims that it is almost certainly completely caused by human actions, if just for little things like lack of falsified alternative hypotheticals.

See, just because the model only works THIS way, that isn't the same as proving that no other way could fit observations, it could simply mean your model is wrong. Read through the IPCC reports sometime, it's the only thing I do when discussing the climate these days. I figure if people want me to site credible sources, they can't argue with their own, can they?

[Gadritan]

I'm surprised someone who projects the persona of being interested in science would openly oppose a view almost unanimously held by the people researching the subject.

Cept it's not.

There's data that supports both sides of the argument, or rather, interpretations of data.

Surprised no one has mentioned cow flatulence yet.

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthsci...lobal-Warming/

What was once thought to be a major contributor to green house gasses (and really, wtf would we do about it?) is now considered to be good for the environment by some.

It's the typical media shit. One day butter will cause cancer, the next day it heals it.

[kareface]

Cept it's not.

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

97.4% of climate scientists answered yes to "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?".

When talking with PHD's and masters in fields related to earth science which have been published within the last 5 years the responce was 'only' 82% yes, with ~twice the "I'm not sure" to "no" responses.

I'll end it with the quote: "It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."

All of this info was available on the site in my first post, if you took the time to McRead it.

[Gadritan]

97.4% of climate scientists answered yes to "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?".

Significant factor in changing mean global temperature? Sure. How many of them said that it was a significant contributing factor to global warming?

All of this info was available on the site in my first post, if you took the time to McRead it.

I did. Did you? What expertise do you have in this field by the way? PHD? Anything?