Anthropogenic Climate Change: Skepticism and why science is never settled

[safeorigin]

Climate Change. Global Warming. Carbon Dioxide. We often hear and read it in television, radio, and printed media. The airwaves have been littered with bullet point presentations and talking points by various influential people - including the President of the US, and even the Pope - Mankind contribute to climate change. Inaction will spell humanity's doom! The science is settled. Or is it?

Carbon Dioxide, as everyone knows, is the world's boogeyman. Depending on who you ask, it accounts for around 400 parts per million, or 0.04% of the atmosphere. A rise in Carbon Dioxide is said cause runaway greenhouse effect. The scientist said so, so must be true! They even made a graph for it! Perfect correlation, right?

Well... not if you stretch the time line to 600 million years.



But wait. But the science is settled. All this information must make me a climate change denier, right? Well, believe it or not, climate has been changing regardless of human activity. Even the climates of different planets in our Solar system are constantly changing. What about Inconvenient Truth? That hockey stick is frightening! We must do something about it, right? It's the Truth, after all. And it's settled science! Well, if check Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report(page 61) we will discover that there is, in fact, a pause in mean global temperature even though CO2 has been increasing. In this graph, we can see that NASA data shows that there's a pause for nearly 2 decades.

But. But. But. That paper has been debunked by NOAA, right? So the science must be settled then, right? Err... no. It has been peer reviewed and you might be surprised with the comment. But that can't be right! There is, after all, a 97% consensus that Climate Change is man made! Yeah, sure if you are creative enough with numbers.

So, if Carbon Dioxide isn't the primary driver of global temperature, what is? Now that we've established that the science certainly isn't settled, there are multiple candidates/drivers for this: The sun, for non-obvious reasons(magnetism, droplet nucleation); ocean oscillations(El Nino/La Nina cycle); cosmic rays; water vapor. Note that these aren't definitive and we're barely scratching the surface.

Hmmm... I suppose you have a point, then. But what if you're wrong? Shouldn't we get rid of fossil fuels altogether because they're harmful to the environment? Besides, there's already alternative sources of energy! It's renewable so it must mean we have unlimited amounts of power from it, right? Probably, no.

[minicarph]

Link ba Ito? Or you're question or answering yourself ..

[safeorigin]

Don't mind me. I'm just debating among my multiple personalities.

[minicarph]

Speaking of fossil fuel, sa tingin mo bakit mas masarap ang wine sa Italy saka France?

Kasi lagi nag-gyera dun nun araw ala Greek mythology. Yuh naiinom natin wine, fossil energy ng mga tao na bumagsak dun sa battlefield na yun nun araw

Kasi mahilig ako uminom ng Italian or French Red, para mapasa sa akin yun energies na yun

[pyramid00]

and to add to the confusion, a prolific indian blogger call climate change and al gore a lot of bs. he says that the real cause of climate change is methane. the world is now using very less cfc's but the hole in the ozone layer is still growing bigger!
source: ajitvadakayil.blogspot.com

[Vodka]

haha there was a time when there was "skepticism" about the health effects of smoking cigarettes. skeptics paid for by the tobacco industry

guess what the petroleum industry is doing now?

[dr. d]

haha there was a time when there was "skepticism" about the health effects of smoking cigarettes. skeptics paid for by the tobacco industry

guess what the petroleum industry is doing now?

well, nat king cole believed smoking improved his voice, and indulged in it heavily. he died of lung cancer.

[Vodka]

well, nat king cole believed smoking improved his voice, and indulged in it heavily. he died of lung cancer.

exactly

anyway i don't believe humans as a species are smart enough to solve major world problems. we are held back by our primitive hunter-gatherer tribal mentality. intelligence that's only good enough to survive in the harsh african savannah, but not enough to solve major problems that we've caused in the first place

[safeorigin]

haha there was a time when there was "skepticism" about the health effects of smoking cigarettes. skeptics paid for by the tobacco industry

guess what the petroleum industry is doing now?

getting paid works both ways...

National Review Online

[safeorigin]

Catherine McKenna on Twitter: "DYK: The threat of #climatechange is not gender neutral? Women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than men."

DYK: The threat of #climatechange is not gender neutral? Women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than men.

lol

I guess every issue is now a gender issue

because it's 2016

HAHAHA

[minicarph]

climate change is relative. usually mga conscious sa climate change mga matataba. ewan ko ba, gusto nila magkarun ng green living pero sarili nila katawan ni di nila ma-balance

[b_9904]

Your conclusions will be faulty if you build upon the wrong assumptions.

Example: assuming we understand climate science, or CO2 is a major greenhouse gas (by effect), or by failing to use your ACE or any other historical data (to verify an assumption).

[b_9904]

Safeorigin why not post the NASA finding that the polar ice caps increased its surface area in 2014?

[dr. d]

no one has lived long enough, to assume anything as correct.
we are all guessing here.

[b_9904]

no one has lived long enough, to assume anything as correct.
we are all guessing here.

Yup. Because we do not understand the science yet, which is the point.

[safeorigin]

Yup. Because we do not understand the science yet, which is the point.

indeed. this is exactly the point I was making. climate "scientists" and political figures are insisting that the science is settled when it's definitely not. there aren't any climate models they've made that I am aware of that justifies their fear mongering.

in fact, if one checks polar sea ice extent from both poles...



there's no reason for alarm. but then people will say that antarctic ice is melting rapidly. Hidden Volcanoes Melt Antarctic Glaciers from Below

and no, polar bears aren't going extinct because of "melting polar ice" Global polar bear population size is about 26,000 (20,000-32,000), despite PBSG waffling | polarbearscience

[dr. d]

Safeorigin why not post the NASA finding that the polar ice caps increased its surface area in 2014?

surface area is fine..
but what about volume? after all, this is what determines whether our coastline gets changed or not..

[b_9904]

surface area is fine..
but what about volume? after all, this is what determines whether our coastline gets changed or not..

You missed my point, you use it to debunk many assumptions about climate change.

Check your ACE, temp history, etc. Same story.

All in all, the science is not settled. If so, we cannot use what we currently know for policy making.

At most, what we MUST DO is to ensure our immediate environment is livable; an issue that is different from climate science.

[dr. d]

You missed my point, you use it to debunk many assumptions about climate change.

Check your ACE, temp history, etc. Same story.

All in all, the science is not settled. If so, we cannot use what we currently know for policy making.

At most, what we MUST DO is to ensure our immediate environment is livable; an issue that is different from climate science.

we appear to be thinking at two different levels.
i suppose that's why we both miss the other's point.

[b_9904]

we appear to be thinking at two different levels.
i suppose that's why we both miss the other's point.

Yup. We are.

To prove that answer this: do we affect the climate? If so, can we control it?