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Agreed. Nobody here (myself included) is really truely qualified to discuss the science beyond the basics.
Columbus Underground Messageboard » General Columbus Discussion
City school officials in Worthington feel the heat from global warming
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Analogue Kid
5th by West-Northwest
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Posted 2 years ago # -
myliftkk
Columbus, OH
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@Rockmaster - your climate appears to have definitively changed for the worse :)
You do bring up a good point. For those of us who are unburdened progeny, it's certainly tempting to press the red button (or in this case consume wantonly) and simply see what happens...
of course, when the conversation changes to one of unfunded government liabilities and impending esoteric financial doom for the same unborn progeny, it's interesting how cleany many switch teams from the "no problem" to the "chicken little" crowd and vice versa...
Posted 2 years ago # -
Rastapasta
Olde North
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Analogue Kid wrote >>
Rastapasta wrote >>
kit444 wrote >>
I find it interesting that the position a person takes on this scientific question typically correlates strongly with their political ideology.I am socially liberal-- but that doesn't mean I blindly follow the democratic party .. they are on the same team as the republicans. They are fighting on behalf of the elite against us plebs.
Global warming legislation offers the elite more control, power and of course massive financial gain at the expense of us common folk.Such notion is laughable given that ExxonMobil is the largest company in the world followed by PetroChina. It is oil companies who have everything to lose if comprehensive climate legistlation is passed.
I am not dumb enough to think some executives at Exxon have any real power. Executives are highly paid puppets. The best way to win (profit) is to play both sides of any 'fight'. The elite know this very well, and have been practicing this for all of history. You really think all this carbon credit trading crap is being set up for our benefit?
People are getting rich off this stuff... hell, as a small time plebian I am up 50% in 3 months on my VRNM stock (at one point was up 65%) riding the coat tails of all this silly legislation coming out of Washington..
Posted 2 years ago # -
gramarye
In Exile
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Analogue Kid wrote >>
Rockmastermike's soliloquy
Agreed. Nobody here (myself included) is really truely qualified to discuss the science beyond the basics.Then how do you account for the rest of your quotes in this thread.
I don't claim to have all the answers. However, everyone needs to make decisions based on incomplete information regularly. It's a part of living in an imperfect world.
Posted 2 years ago # -
TomOver
herenowbeyond.org
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Let's assume that global warming or climate change is not real. Humanity still has a variety of other environmental concerns such as the spreading of deserts; dead-zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other bodies of water; the loss of topsoil; the draw-down of aquifers; and the loss of biodiversity.
There are other resource issues such as Peak Oil and also there is the threat of nuclear warfare and of major nuclear accidents. So, we have our hands full, with or without believing in global climate change.
Even if global warming or climate change is not real, many of the components of environmentalism are still good ideas such as: investing in local, organic agriculture, and investing in renewable energy.
With or without the threat of climate change, many aspects of environmentalism make sense in terms of economic development, national security, public health, and social justice.
Posted 2 years ago # -
gramarye
In Exile
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TomOver:
I remain a skeptic of the notion that peak oil is a serious environmental threat (rather than simply an economic inevitability that we'll adapt to like we've adapted to other materials getting more expensive in the past). However, I agree with the rest of what you wrote: saltwater dead zones, topsoil erosion, aquifer depletion, fading biodiversity (at least to a point), etc. I also agree with your point about unconventional energy sources. (I don't like the term "renewable" because nuclear fuel isn't renewable; it uses heavy elements that are only produced in the hearts of supernovae.)
The problem is that investing in local agriculture, for example, may not materially impact someone's carbon footprint. The same applies to many other environmental policies that I support, though changing our energy portfolio would materially affect our carbon output. Carbon regulation is proposed to go on top of the regulation of real pollutants, with effects on American industry that I think it's reasonable to assume would be utterly devastating.
Posted 2 years ago # -
HeySquare
German Village
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Tenzo wrote >>
That is why, logically, the proof rests on the person making the statement. If someone can poke holes in your data or assumptions it's a fail.I think that is a pretty simplistic statement for a very complex discussion. There are a lot of scientific issues that are contradictory. All my life I have been taught that breast self-exams could help me screen for breast cancer; however, recently, new guidelines were released that say breast self-exams are not worthwhile, and that the health literature shouldn't focus on them. It doesn't mean that breast cancer doesn't exist, or even that a BSE hasn't been effective for some people in detecting breast cancer. There is no field of study that hasn't had bad data or false assumptions at some level of research-- if that were true, we would still believe that the sun rotates around the earth, and that cigarettes don't cause cancer. Rigorous inquiry should reveal weak methodology and question assumptions... but it doesn't negate the body of research.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Manatee
The eternal present
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gramarye wrote >>
TomOver:
I remain a skeptic of the notion that peak oil is a serious environmental threat (rather than simply an economic inevitability that we'll adapt to like we've adapted to other materials getting more expensive in the past). However, I agree with the rest of what you wrote: saltwater dead zones, topsoil erosion, aquifer depletion, fading biodiversity (at least to a point), etc. I also agree with your point about unconventional energy sources. (I don't like the term "renewable" because nuclear fuel isn't renewable; it uses heavy elements that are only produced in the hearts of supernovae.)
The problem is that investing in local agriculture, for example, may not materially impact someone's carbon footprint. The same applies to many other environmental policies that I support, though changing our energy portfolio would materially affect our carbon output. Carbon regulation is proposed to go on top of the regulation of real pollutants, with effects on American industry that I think it's reasonable to assume would be utterly devastating."Environmental" measures should by definition, address our carbon footprint. But even though I applaud the intent behind things like cap and trade, I think they're BS and won't make much difference.
Taking things away from people won't work. We have to be gentle with people and support positive changes in their lives, or else just, as Mike said, batten down the hatches and get ready for Mother Nature to smack down our population spike. I vote for the former but I suspect it's going to have to be a blend of the two--- whatever works provisionally in the moment.
Posted 2 years ago # -
gramarye
In Exile
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HeySquare wrote >>
Tenzo wrote >>
That is why, logically, the proof rests on the person making the statement. If someone can poke holes in your data or assumptions it's a fail.I think that is a pretty simplistic statement for a very complex discussion. There are a lot of scientific issues that are contradictory. All my life I have been taught that breast self-exams could help me screen for breast cancer; however, recently, new guidelines were released that say breast self-exams are not worthwhile, and that the health literature shouldn't focus on them. It doesn't mean that breast cancer doesn't exist, or even that a BSE hasn't been effective for some people in detecting breast cancer. There is no field of study that hasn't had bad data or false assumptions at some level of research-- if that were true, we would still believe that the sun rotates around the earth, and that cigarettes don't cause cancer. Rigorous inquiry should reveal weak methodology and question assumptions... but it doesn't negate the body of research.
The Climategate revelations were more serious than that, though. There have been no serious allegations that breast cancer research was deliberately politicized in order to support heavyhanded government policies that would otherwise be rightly rejected by a free people. The CRU e-mails and the IPCC revelations that have followed in its wake paint a different story. Many of the revelations both call into question the officially published data themselves *and* suggest a seriously unscientific (i.e., political) motive behind the distortions of the data. If the errors were truly random, it would be less likely that *every* error resulted in an upward bias in the official warming figures.
Also, revealing weak methodology and questioning assumptions (if the question leads to a reevaluation rather than a reaffirmation of those assumptions) intrinsically does "negate" at least some part of a body of research. It's important to try to avoid throwing out wheat with chaff, of course, but part of the whole point of the inquiry you're talking about is to negate bodies of work that were the fruits of suspect processes.
Posted 2 years ago # -
HeySquare
German Village
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This opinion piece sums up my thoughts.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/16/opinion/la-oe-sarewitzthernstrom16-2009dec16
Posted 2 years ago #
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