Thank you Bohm - pretty conclusive! Why people insist on ignoring the evidence in favour of uninformed opinion is beyond me.....
IPCC Climate Change Report........
by cantleave 153 Replies latest social current
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sammielee24
I would like to ask everyone what their solution is then.
I think humans have changed the face of the planet in ways that have been destructive - it would be like having one ant in your house or being invaded by a million ants eating through the wood in your attic and collapsing your house. So what do you think the answer is?
You cannot exist in a capitalist society where everything nailed down or not is up for grabs. Where profit is law and exceeds the rights of humans to live with dignity, health and security. Where the laws are changed from one of cohesion and living within a sustainable community to one where money is the prime motivator for surival. The vast majority of the population in the world live in some form of poverty but the leaders in most countries live with great comfort and wealth. So what is the answer?
Whether or not the issue here is climate change as a topic of discussion - the underlying reasons for those changes as how humans affect it, need to be discussed. Co-existing is the environmental impact of humans on all the planet and you cannot delink the number of people from the capital system to governments to politics to the forests and rivers and land and air. So what are the solutions - real solutions - not money grabbing solutions from those who guilt out their product and themselves are part of the problem. sammieswife
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bohm
sammies: I think asking what should be done will only get the thread more off-topic as it tend to drive the tin-foil crowd out of their caves; perhaps start a new thread with that question?
My answer for now is to inform the public about what is happening
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slimboyfat
This is a good article about confirmation bias in relation to climate change and the trouble a layperson has in evaluating competing claims. This particular writer's response is to accept the consensus view among experts in the relevant field as best he can ascertain it. So he buys into the dominant global warming narrative.
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adamah
SBF said-
I'm talking about the temperature figures that have not risen as expected.
You sound almost disappointed? Anyone else would see that as a reprieve, AKA good news.
Anyway, methinks you are confusing the Bible-based definition of prophecy as an ASSURED promise of a future event occurring, with science-based concept of predicting outcomes based on trendlines. The latter "prediction" is typically more humble as it operates on the assumption that there ALWAYS is a measure of uncertainty in predicting future events (since no one can tell the future, not even an imaginary God). Hence most scientists include disclaimers by saying something like, "if the current trend continues....." or the like. Unfortunately, most laypeople prefer false claims of ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY over honest disclosures of UNCERTAINTY: most of you probably wouldn't be reading JWN right now if you hadn't made that mistake in the past of going with a "sure bet".
But the fact is, very little phenomena in nature can be tracked or predicted based on it occurring in a nice tidy linear manner; in fact, every chemistry freshman learns that one of the dead giveaways that someone is "dry labbing" (i.e. making up data without actually running the experiment) is data that is "too clean".
But even more important is that many phenomena in the Natural Sciences occurs in a logarithmic/exponential manner (eg rate of bacterial population growth), at least until the trend encounters a growth-limiting or rate-limiting factor that "clamps" it from growing in an uncontrolled explosive manner. If you've ever heard audio feedback on a PA system at a KH, then you've heard this phenomena: the screeching gets louder and louder as the amp's transistors go into overload, and are outputting their maximum: they just can't output any more signal than the power supply can provide to them. That's an exponential increase in volume until the amps are "pegged".
The problem is that as a natural trend gets started, it gets harder and harder to control, and we just don't know enough about how the climate system will respond. If it's like other natural phenomena, it's hard to predict what will happen, and to know IF a growth-limiting factor exists.
So the question is, are you comfortable with the idea of men tinkering with the climate in this manner, in essence running a real-time experiment on the Planet in order to find out what happens? Because that's EXACTLY what doing nothing to try and limit the KNOWN contributors to GCC is calling for: running an experiment to find out what happens.
Adam
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bohm
SBF:
This particular writer's response is to accept the consensus view among experts in the relevant field as best he can ascertain it. So he buys into the dominant global warming narrative.
So your proposal for how the layperson should evaluate "competing" claims is to largely accept the minority view as propagated by the tabloid press and other journalistic avenues, focus on hypothetical future data that might affirm your views "soon" all while not bothering to read what the climate scientists are actually saying due to some vague tin-foil conspiratorial reasons along the lines of "they are all out to misinform me because they are just interested in money/fame".
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adamah
Bohm said:
So your proposal for how the layperson should evaluate "competing" claims is to largely accept the minority view as propagated by the tabloid press and other journalistic avenues, focus on hypothetical future data that might affirm your views "soon" all while not bothering to read what the climate scientists are actually saying due to some vague tin-foil conspiratorial reasons along the lines of "they are all out to misinform me because they are just interested in money/fame".
You didn't read the article SBF posted: the author was saying that unless you're willing to become an "expert", you HAVE to trust authorities, and the opinion of authorities on the subject is that GCC is real. He's saying that only the crackpots will hold on to their biases in a manner like adherants of religion, at this point.
From the article-
I've decided who to trust, and it's mainstream scientific opinion: the Royal Society, the Royal Institution, Nasa, the US National Academy of Sciences, the US Geological Survey, the IPCC, the national science bodies of 30 or so other countries.
BTW, I noted the article was written in 2012.
Adam
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bohm
adamah: Yes I did; however SBF clearly does not go with the majority view in this case.
Not that i am advocating to simply go with the majority view on this issue.
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besty
@SBF
the article you quote pretty much sums up my position on this:
I've decided who to trust, and it's mainstream scientific opinion: the Royal Society, the Royal Institution, Nasa, the US National Academy of Sciences, the US Geological Survey, the IPCC, the national science bodies of 30 or so other countries. And that gives me a possible route out of the confirmation-bias trap: I have, in advance, outsourced my judgment to expert bodies. If several of them changed their position, I would change mine. It's far from perfect, but short of becoming a climate scientist myself, it's the only option I have; otherwise my reasonable belief that the climate is changing due to human behaviour becomes an article of faith. As it is, although it is mediated through authority, it's still, I hope, based on empirical data, on the scientific method.
I'm unclear why you (and other deniers on JWD) have chosen an alternative position.
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slimboyfat
Well it was my position, and I still think global warming is more likely true than not (I think) but the recent disconfirmatory data, as well as the discursive strategies of global warming advocates to silence opposition give me pause for (skeptical) thought. Isn't that reasonable?