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I don't know everything there is to know about global warming...but one thing I do know is that the conspiracy theory that it's all just one big leftist hoax so that the government can take over and veer the world's governments further left doesn't make any sense. Every time I hear that, it makes me want to tear my hair out.

If you believe that, you do not understand how rational thought processes work. Calm down and go back a step. Think about the pros and cons here. Ask yourself the following question:

Are gas taxes and emissions regulations more likely to make your political party more popular...or less?

Remember the French riots awhile back? France had the perfect system going. Most of their electricity came from clean energy sources like nuclear power. All they needed to do was push society more towards using more clean energy sources with hefty gas taxes and they would have been home-free. The people hated that though...even in a country with such massive amounts of easily accessible clean energy.

Nobody likes gas taxes. Nobody likes carbon taxes. Nobody likes having to pay for things in general.

Now, again, let's think about this. Suppose I wanted to shift my government into some kind of dystopian globalist communism. Am I more likely to get elected by pissing my voter-base by mandating that they pay a bunch more for stuff...or would I have better luck not doing that?

MrShittles 7 May 19
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I see the issue as far less of a political one and far more of a corporate profiteering one. Individuals and assorted groups contribute to government influences (governments themselves and or lobbyists) with open disclosed payment as well as hidden secret payments. Government are often used as an instrument to gain some action that benefits the investors.
Regarding the environment and issues surrounding that topic, it is being used as an excuse to build a ton of societal control and economic influence. Example is Al Gore and individuals who created the IPCC decided to "invent" carbon credits. Basically a fiction, not really a product or service, just a reference to something that previously didn't exist. Corporations can still go on polluting basically unconstrained, all they have to do is purchase some fictional carbon credits and it's suddenly all good. al Gore and those who are changes on with the IPCC will get filthy rich by selling piles of their fiction.
Add in the influence of a gathering of reps from nations called the United Nations. Numerous of the policies created by that herd of psychopaths bring on ideas like "sustainable development" such as Agenda 21 and now Agenda 2030. This is all economic and societal CONTROL and it's based on money far more than the environment. Far too few Canadians realize about these topics, even though those topics are and will affect our lives dramatically bringing serious change and fee charges to our lives.
In other words, we have to look above and beyond just government. Our so called government is like a gaggle of puppets who jump with the commands from their masters who are never elected. Both sides fo the political arena are in the same bed. Different wings of the same bird. We need to see past them.

The following is my assumption:

Carbon credits assist the environment by punishing C02 production, which also encourages companies to develop more environmentally friendly technologies for their own benefit, which also prolongs our oil supply. Also, I'm assuming that the money goes to fund some kind of other, useful, project that assists the nation or humanity somehow.

Now...you appear to believe some of that is incorrect. Why?

1

CO2 is about .04% of the atmosphere.
Anthropomorphic CO2 is about 3% of that: .0012% of the atmosphere.
3% of 400ppm is 12ppm; well within the noise of natural regional variance.
We could double our output, and it wouldn't even move the needle. The Earth's forests and our crops will eagerly consume it and still want more; and flourish as a result.

Or; we could reduce our output to zero at epic, devastating cost to lives and livelihoods, economies, political stability, forests and food production, all over the world... and it still wouldn't even move the needle on "climate change."

Developing nations need affordable energy infrastructure to advance to the next stage of prosperity and independence from the U.N.
It's the IPCC's job to prevent that from happening.
That's all this is about.

Our atmosphere is about 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen and C02, like you mentioned, makes up an extremely small percentage of Earth's atmosphere. Water vapor is different in that it's percentage varies from 0-4% depending on where you are and the time of day and other conditions.

From what I understand though, Nitrogen and Oxygen have basically zero ability to contain heat. So...even though there's very little C02 in our atmosphere, there isn't much else doing much of anything except water vapor, and water vapor only increases in the atmosphere once something else heats up the planet first.

I don't know where you're getting that 3% of that coming from human activities. My source says that 32% of that came from human activities. [sciencealert.com]

Also, according to this since 2004 C02 in the atmosphere has increased by about 7%...so humans have pretty clearly contributed a lot more than 3%. [climate.nasa.gov]

I have thought about the fact that developing nations need affordable energy infrastructure. That's why environmentalists are complaining so much about not investing enough energy into clean energy technologies, or cap and trade systems that provide those nations with a financial incentive to industrialize into clean energy techs, or anything that results in them not industrializing into coal. When they talk about that stuff though, everybody says they're globalist commies trying to destroy the world.

@MrShittles the 3% is from the IPCC, more specifically: I think they were calculating the percentage of the increase that we've seen since the beginning of the "industrial age", to be 3% anthropomorphic... which is actually more like 7.5ppm.
I'll let nasa argue with the IPCC, my point is just that it ain't much; and that more CO2 in the atmosphere is actually better anyway.

"Clean" energy ain't all that clean in the first place, but it will never be as viable as coal power for developing nations, let alone right now... which is when they need it.

[archive.ipcc.ch]

from that IPCC link:

"Rate has fluctuated between 0.9 ppm/yr and 2.8 ppm/yr for CO2 and between 0 and 13 ppb/yr for CH4 over the period 1990 to 1999."

Also from the IPCC link:

"Pre-industrial concentration = 280ppm.
1998 concentration = 365 ppm

the pre-industrial concentration refers to the year 1750.

Not all of that increase will be caused by humans.

(again, the following is from the link)

"The average rate of increase since 1980 is 0.4%/yr. The increase is a consequence of CO2 emissions. Most of the emissions during the past 20 years are due to fossil fuel burning, the rest (10 to 30%) is predominantly due to land-use change, especially deforestation. As shown in Figure 9, CO2"

so, 0.4% minus 10 to 30% of that...let's say 20%, would be a zero-point-thirty-two-percent increase in atmospheric C02 each year caused by humans according to the IPCC. (0.32%). That's a 12.8% total increase caused by humans since 1980 alone...over that 40 year period.


That's keeping in mind that the U.S. produces 14% of the world's human produced C02 and only has 4.25% of the world's population. That rate's going to go up by quite a bit.


Now the world coal association says the following:

"There are an estimated 1.1 trillion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that there is enough coal to last us around 150 years at current rates of production. In contrast, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent to around 50 and 52 years at current production levels."

So...there might be an argument to be made that perhaps we should just wait until all of those resources run low enough that they naturally become more expensive than renewable energy. I very much doubt rates of production are going to go anywhere but up, even though they'll find more reserves...so that coal and oil might not be around for more than a couple centuries or less...if that website's right.

However...that could be quite risky. This study suggests that could make average global temperatures rise between 6.4 and 9.5 degrees Celsius [phys.org]


If you look at graphs of glacial and interglacial periods, like this one: [giss.nasa.gov]

the maximum temperature differences between the warmest parts of the interglacial periods, and the coldest parts of the glacial periods has been about 5 degrees celsius. I've seen other graphs that make the difference look like it's a little higher...up to maybe about twice that, but I figure NASA is a pretty good information source.

Also, we are currently in an interglacial period - a warm part of the cycle...so that would be like changing Earth's temperature to the extent that it changes between glacial and interglacial periods, in a couple hundred years, in a direction our planet, and basically all life on it life on it, has not experienced in millions of years.

The last time Earth was that warm, globally, was the Eocene:

"Scientists frequently look to the Eocene to understand how the Earth responds to higher levels of carbon dioxide. During the Eocene, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was more than 560 parts per million, at least twice preindustrial levels, and the epoch kicked off with a global average temperature more than 8 degrees Celsius - about 14 degrees Fahrenheit - warmer than today, gradually cooling over the next 22 million years." [pnas.org]


The good news is that phytoplankton, the tiny plants near the ocean's surface that provide our planet with something over half it's oxygen supply, have historically been great at dealing with climate change. They survived through the Eocene, with some species going extinct but others bouncing back to take their places. [sciencedaily.com]

Also, phytoplankton seem to do well in heat:

"The researchers found that phytoplankton in ponds that had been warmed by four degrees, had 70% more species and higher rates of photosynthesis, and as a result, have the potential to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."
[sciencedaily.com]


However, phytoplankton tend to mutate a lot during those sorts of rapid changes. Hopefully that swift of a temperature increase doesn't cause some new ultra-fast-spreading species of red tide or something:

"Cold water usually wards off the algae before tourists arrive, he said, but warmer temperatures made a suitable home for red tide. As a result, red tide bloomed in the fall of 2017 and then extended through 2018 and into this year.

“Red tide is impacted by climate change, not because the water is getting warmer, but because it isn’t getting cold enough,” Landau continued.

Little was known about the relationship between climate change and red tide. Facing a lack of information or support, Landau encountered a sense of hopelessness, but he ignored the naysayers and carried out his research."
[bradenton.com]


So...that's potentially a workable strategy to just let everybody burn coal. That's one hell of an experiment though. I like the idea of just investing lots of money in clean energy technology now and spreading it around the world instead.

www.jaymaron.com/earth.html

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I wonder if it's just a simpler matter of whether these taxes are actually going to solve anything, are they just a rich First World conscience salver, where are they going to, will they actually address the problem.People are justifiably skeptical...

I won't say it's unwise to be skeptical. Governments do tend to be bumbling and bureaucratic. Every once in awhile my dad, who's an architect, goes down to argue that his property taxes are too high, because he knows something about building prices and the city pretty much hires uneducated bureaucrats...and every time he goes they lower his property taxes. They just kind of figure, "Well...this person sounds like he knows what he's talking about. He's probably right, and I don't want to deal with the topic anymore today."

1

The original post author might need a bit more exposure to Leftist attitudes to understand. The Left still hates nuclear power. There are only a handful of Global Warmists/Climate Change activists who advance nuclear power as an alternative to carbon-based sources, despite its obvious practical green benefits. . The push is exclusively for "Renewables": Solar, Wind, tide. This is why France is dismantling its nuclear power system against all common sense.

For further evidence. consider the Climategate e-mails. The university that was the nerve center of climatology and thus Global Warmism (it wasn't rebranded as "climate change" then) engaged in systematic suppression of dissenting Global Warming Opinions. They did their best to insure that research papers that disagreed with them were routed to Global Warming loyalists for peer review, insuring they wouldn't be published in prestigious journals and tried to get credible journals discredited if they deviated from the "settled science" perspective. This is before we talk about how they cherry-picked data to support Global Warming and otherwise blew off the usual rigors of scientific procedures to advance their cause.

The author might also take a lesson from the current pandemic and the governors of some US states. Governors of New York, Colorado, New Jersey and especially Michigan are using the crisis to rule by decree, as if the US Constitution can be disposed of for the duration of a crisis. To keep the power, all one has to do, in theory, is maintain the crisis. And you see that in states that extend further and further lockdown orders. to their citizens.

Thanks for your outlook on my posted statement. I receive emails from a group called "Electroverse" who report on scientific information regarding the activity of the Sun and the effects on Earth's climate because of reduced Sun activity. Areas on Earth that don't experience cold or snow are seeing record cold temperatures and snow fall. The Sun has gone hundreds of day with little or no sun spot surface activity. They anticipate this is a solar minimum as has happened long ago causing severe crop shortages and cold temperatures on Earth. If their findings are factual we may be facing the NEED for increasing out production f energy to help our survival. Increasing energy production won't hel[electroverse.net] crop production, but it may become necessary for us. Solar and wind has proven very unreliable. See:
[electroverse.net]

0

Wow! To think the political left doesnt want control over all aspects of society through fear and indoctrination is beyond me. People who think left are fine. But the political party is clearly evil. All the states in the U.S. that are Democrats are ruined with extreme poverty and extreme unemployment because they depend on a government that doesnt care about them, only their vote.
The climate HOAX that is man made climate change is a lie. I'm cool with environmental thinking and becoming greener and to stop polluting the rivers and oceans etc. But it's all for a lie if we are told that co2 is responsible for any warming when the SUN and its magnetic influence on the solar system are not even considered in their shit models. Until the effects of solar influence are pit into these models they are not at all acceptable. Its all a form of control. Same as this PANDEMIC. if they say we can't gather in groups because of a virus.... when will there not be a virus? It's a form of control. How can we stand up to the tyranny if we can't gather in groups because our government said we can't because of public health? It's my damn choice to leave my house and risk getting sick in public or private gatherings. What I the government told you you had to leave your house for 1 he a day because of lack of vitamin D from no exposure to the sun? Would that be ok? What about people who cannot leave their house? Arrest them? No it's all a form of control and I'm over it. You can't lie to me and say its science. You can't lie to me for the better of the planet. No. We must draw a line and it is being drawn. Here in canada the left has taken control and we are in big trouble but people on the left are saying "imagine of it was the conservatives in charge how much worse it would be?"
Bullshit. Show me another graph that shows if we were conservative how much worse it will be lol. Graphs are wrong all the time. Some are useful but if ou have any data that is not true and proven and calculated prperlyt then they are always wrong

#1. I live in the United States. For all I know I'd be extremely right-wing in Canada. I'm definitely something not right-leaning here. I've known a couple Canadians who came down to the U.S. to escape from the more left-leaning government up there...then decided that the right here are all crazy too, because our right are WAY more right-leaning than the Canadian right, so far as I understand.

I'll give you an example. In my state, we nearly elected Todd Akin. Todd Akin is remembered as the 'legitimate rape" candidate for saying, "if it's legitimate rape, the body has ways to shut the whole thing down," while explaining why he didn't want to allow abortion in instances of rape. If you are concerned about the left...your battle is not necessarily with me. Nor is it necessarily with many left-leaning Americans. Many of us are probably your country's center-right.

Would many places in Canada nearly elect a "legitimate rape" candidate who wanted to ban the morning after pill?

#2. Where are you getting that all the Democrat states are ruined by extreme poverty and unemployment? All the articles I keep seeing keep asking why poor states vote Republican.

#3. The Sun doesn't need to be considered in climate change models because it hasn't been increasing in activity since the 1970's or so...despite Earth's temperature steadily increasing. On a side note...the climate change models have been pretty much on the mark in terms of predicting global temperature increases.

#4. You know that the goal of discouraging gathering in large groups is to keep the hospitals from flooding like they did in Italy, right? In italy, they had to stop giving respirators to anyone over age 60.

and the rest of your comment is pretty much just ranting that I'm going to ignore.

@MrShittles

#1: SF author Larry Niven wrote a bunch of semi random truisms about writing and life. One of them is "You cannot find a cause so noble that you will not find an idiot following it." That's true of the Right in the US.

I consider myself solid-Right and there are people on the Right that I myself would want to hide sharp objects around, not make eye contact and back away slowly from.

It's the amount of emotion that's been injected into the debate. The phenomenon of tribalism has free run here. People who make decisions out of instinctive tribal loyalties are easier to control and direct. Both political parties exploit this, albeit in different ways.

#2: visit San Francisco sometime. Or downtown LA. Or any part of Detroit.

#3 The Sun's energy output is not stable. It does wax and wane, not unlike its sunspots.

#4 New York, no doubt fearing that hospitals would be overrun, made a point of forcing elderly Wuhan Virus patients back into nursing homes, preparing for a flood of younger patients that never happened. The Wuhan Virus is more contagious but less impacful to healthy people that was first thought with those dire 3% - 4% death estimates that fueled the first lockdown orders.

Italy was hard hit in part because it had an aging population. The bulk of Wuhan virus deaths are over 60 for a reason.

@Vorlonagent

#1.I agree with your views about the tribalism.

#2.The Sun's energy output has been pretty stable since the 1970's...despite Earth's temperature steadily rising during that time. It of course has had the usual 11 year cycles of strengthening and weakening, but no long strengthening trends that could have resulted in so many decades of steady warming. [climate.nasa.gov]

Some would describe the Sun as having been in a mild cooling phase since the 1970's. Others would describe the Sun's activity as being pretty stable. Nobody worth their salt would describe solar activity as having increased since the 1970's though.

#4. And Americans are very often overweight. That's a risk factor too...and most first world nations tend to veer towards having aging populations.

@MrShittles

The counterpoint to #2 is that graphs of global temperatures should show the 22-year max-mix cycle of solar energy output. But none I've seen do. It's always up-up-up, hockey stick. I'd trust them more if I saw what I expected to see.

I've stopped looking. Climategate finished any notion that Global Warming/Climate Change is science. It's activism with a science veneer intended to deflect criticism and encourage blind acceptance. It's an "appeal to authority" fallacy writ large.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

@Vorlonagent They're 11 year cycles...not 22 year cycles.

"One way to track the solar cycle is by counting the number of sunspots. The beginning of a solar cycle is a solar minimum, or when the Sun has the least sunspots. Over time, solar activity—and the number of sunspots—increases.

The middle of the solar cycle is the solar maximum, or when the Sun has the most sunspots. As the cycle ends, it fades back to the solar minimum and then a new cycle begins."
[spaceplace.nasa.gov]

Her is a graph of solar activity.
[skepticalscience.com]

Note the dips and valleys. I assume those are the 11 year cycles. It doesn't say so specifically...but they look like they're about 11 years.


@Vorlonagent Regarding Climategate...the scientists who had sent those e-mails had been cleared of any wrongdoing many years ago: [forbes.com]

[scientificamerican.com]

Here's a Factcheck.org article on Climate gate that came while the investigation was still ongoing, but gives some hints about what might have went on:

[factcheck.org]

Now...the question I'm curious about is, did you not know that for the same reason I didn't, because you just didn't bother to check it out for several years (humans just sometimes do odd things like that)...or were you conned by some climate skeptic organization that told you the researchers were not cleared of any wrongdoing? Because those types of con-artists are swarming everywhere throughout the climate skeptic movement. I see them constantly and am constantly finding proof that they've intentionally misquoted people or outright lied to attempt to brainwash their viewers.

That's why I'll just tend to blindly trust the IPCC on a lot of issues. They haven't let me down yet in any way I can prove. I'm quite skeptical of those who think they don't know anything though...and that's a weakness, but if I blindly trust the great number of people smarter than me on a topic, even if I'm wrong sometimes, I'm going to be right more often than the people to think that group of smart people don't have any idea what they're talking about.

Skepticism is respectable in many ways. Totally ignoring the smart authorities on any issue is, however, quite foolish...and I just showed you an example of why.

@MrShittles

Here's a counter-question. Why present me as in some way duped by a third party, which is an ad hominum attack? We were having such a nice discussion.

So the Climategate scientists have been "cleared of wrongdoing." Yay team. What are we to make of the e-mails themselves, which nobody has shown to be anything but accurate? The text of credentialed scientists talking about colluding to control the scientific narrative is still there and still, as far as I have heard, and as far as your links have told me, authentic. That a transnational body clears such an obvious indicator of wrongdoing says more to me about the transnational body than Climategate. To me it just sounds like another "appeal to authority" fallacy. "We're the prestigious group and we say..." Meh, I'll make up my own mind.

On that note: Never, ever "blindly trust" anybody. Technically that's a tenet of science itself. That's what "skepticism" means in a scientific context. Science is about what you can prove about the world, not who you can trust to tell you about it.

I, myself am willing to give a fair amount of trust to scientists right up until politics enters the picture. Once that happens, the first thing I look for is how an activist with a Ph.D is trying to con me.

So why doesn't any of the hockey-stick graphs show the 22-year cycles of solar energy output? Why is it a smooth curve? You never addressed that. It couldn't possibly be because the curve is propaganda and every apocalyptic prediction made in the name of Global Warming/Climate Change has failed to materialize.

The "Inconvenient Truth" about the movie "Inconvenient Truth" is that every prediction, every end-of-the-world or point-of-no-return deadline made in it has come and gone. And we are still here. When AOC's now-famous 12 year deadline passes (in another 11 years), we will still be here. Greta Thunberg can look forward to a lifetime filled with issues to solve, many kicked down the road by the adults she harangued at the UN, but climate won't be one of them.

@Vorlonagent Because you seemed to have been duped. I didn't think I was being impolite, merely encouraging caution. You also don't seem to have a whole lot of knowledge about this topic. It's pretty important, and pretty easily available knowledge, to find out that the Sun has not been increasing in activity since the 1970's, despite Earth's temperature steadily increasing since then. That was one of the first things Iearned about global warming, and it's it's a vital piece of the foundation of knowledge about the topic. If you're not confident about that...that shows you haven't looked at much information because nobody worth noting disagrees with that. Also...it's not very uncommon knowledge that the Sun has 11 year cycles of activity. I therefore see you as a bit of a newbie when it comes to researching global warming.

Most people don't look into global warming nearly enough to have accurate perspectives. It took me several hours to respond to 1 twenty minute long video...verifying the links and researching responses, before I found out it was probably an intentionally misleading piece of propaganda. People know how long that sort of thing takes, and they know most people won't do the work...and so they create these misleading pieces of propaganda in video-form that sound impressive but you have to do a few hours of research to find out that they're not, oftentimes, in my experience. Maybe some people can do that research faster. I can't.

@Vorlonagent

*AOC is a politician. She has nothing to do with the IPCC. Anything she says is beside the point if we're concerned about the perspectives of actual researchers. Yeah...that was poorly phrased. Meanwhile, Trump called global warming a myth invented by China...and he's the president. AOC is just a congressional representative. Now...what she was referring to was this:

"A particularly influential report was published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October 2018. It found that global warming could still be held to 1.5°C, or 2.7°F, of warming relative to preindustrial levels, especially if:

Net human-caused carbon dioxide emissions decline by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, and reach "net zero" by roughly mid-century.
The catch: While there were only 12 years left till 2030 when the IPCC report came out, the reality is that we have a diverse array of choices before us in terms of how soon to make emissions cuts and how significant and costly they are, top climate scientists told Axios. Their comments were about the framing of a rigid 12-year timetable in general, not specifically in reaction to Ocasio-Cortez's remarks."

If you look at it like...she's obviously exaggerating (which I think is harder to get from Trump's comment about global warming being a myth invented by China, personally) it's not that big of a deal. Plus...the emphasis on sooner action than later action makes a bit of sense because the longer we go without doing much the more feedback loops will trigger, increasing the affect of global warming.


Greta Thunberg won't be alive when the greatest changes caused by global warming occur either. The IPCC predicts a temperature increase of, I believe it was last, 1.5 degrees celsius to 4.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. That doesn't say what temperature increases we'll have during the next century though, if all the third world nations industrialize into coal.


The climate models have been more or less perfect in terms of predicting future global temperatures. They haven't been going for very long, but while they've been going, temperatures have remained pretty much in the center of predictions: [climate.nasa.gov]


So...there are no 22 year cycles of solar energy output. It's 11 years...as in, the low solar activity begins at the start of the 11 years, and finishes at the end of the eleven years. You can see those solar cycles here...in the link I provided you with earlier: Note the sharp rises an falls every approximately 11 years.

Here's the same graph I linked to before, but from NASA...I'm pretty sure the lighter lines represent the 11 year cycles while the darker line represents the average: [climate.nasa.gov]

There's even been a slight downward trend in solar activity...although sometimes people describe it as relatively stable. There's nothing misleading about that. It's pretty straitforward except for a slightly confusing description of what the lines mean. If you're looking for misleading propaganda...that's not it.

@Vorlonagent I don't have time to not "blindly trust" authorities...in some ways...and I spend a lot more time researching global warming than most people...definitely dozens...maybe even a few hundred hours discussing and researching it.

I'll never know as much as the experts though...so what my job is, and what most people's jobs should be, in my opinion, is to trust the authorities until we see a sign their wrong, then investigate that. Then if we see no signs they're wrong, go back to trusting them. That's all anyone has time for, i think. If we find out they are wrong...we can't abandon them entirely, because they're the trusted authorities for a reason. There isn't really anyone else with their level of expertise. They'll still be right, at least most of the time, even though they'll be wrong sometimes. Or that's my opinion, anyway.

I think the problem with most climate skeptics is that they totally abandon the IPCC then pay close attention to anything any right-wing group says and don't even do enough research to find out the most obvious truths the IPCC has to say. In their defense, even looking up the obvious stuff can take up a lot of time.

Most people who believe in climate change do so merely so because they've chosen to trust the authorities...and that's not ideal, but they'll still be right more often than most skeptics, because the authorities became authorities because they know what they're doing most of the time, a lot better than most people do.

@MrShittles

In the main I agree with your attitude. In the special case of Climate Change I'd argue that we have more than enough reason to doubt authority. Obviously you disagree but there we are.

In the case of Climate Change there has been a propaganda campaign waged to suppress dissent. You yourself point to it in your dismissive tone towards "climate skeptics". Skepticism is a fundamental tool of science. And dissent is always important. But not in Climate change. Skepticism is treated as a tool of the Devil.

But in matters of, say, particle physics, I'll happily defer to the experts and expert consensus. There's no partisan political Cause that bears on the fortunes of a given physics theory. The way science was supposed to work was no better illustrated than an ill-fated effort to measure the speed of the neutrino several years back. They got back a faster-than-light result, which if correct, would break Relativity. The team announced their results and invited people to come in and tear their experiment apart.

Climate Change, this doesn't happen. The veneer of infallibility is maintained at all times, and I can see why. It's nigh incalculable how many trillions of dollars, how much personal ego and prestige, how much social change is riding on Climate Change's authority. Electric cars, Wind Turbines, solar power and tidal power would all but collapse without the (to me contrived) crisis of Global Warming/Climate Change.

All that forms a perverse incentive to continue to suppress dissent. A scientist committed to liberal/progressive goals could convince themselves that they would be taking on the small sin of suppressing the truth in order to bring about the larger, nobler goal of a better world. But in the process, what they'd be doing ceases to be science. And (I believe) that is why the director of the East Anglia Institute eventually resigned his position over the Climategate e-mails.

In Climatology, experts are held up as absolute authorities by the virtue that they are "the experts" which is just a fancy veneer for "Appeal to Authority" fallacy. There's plenty about Climate Change that I believe is rightly of concern. But you disagree and I cannot convince you or I already would have.

@Vorlonagent From my link:

"Like the other investigations, the NSF found no evidence of falsifying data, manipulation of data, or destruction of data by Dr. Michael Mann or any of the climate research scientists based at the University of East Anglia." [forbes.com]

Where are you getting that researchers are trying to control data? What's your source? My links don't say anything about that, so far as I can tell...and this was just one source of information too that these e-mails came from, not the whole IPCC's sources of information.

Where did you see any obvious signs of wrongdoing? Nothing in my links pointed to that. On the contrary, I thought the Factcheck.org article gave a pretty believable explanation for why some e-mail material seemed sketchy, but actually wasn't.

Furthermore...this was just one source of information for the IPCC. I think it's pretty unreasonable to believe the whole organization is worthless just because of this one incident.


I go to factcheck.org a lot. They reliably tell all sides of issues, regardless of politics.

Then...NASA has close ties to the IPCC, and both those are international organizations, so we'd be talking about multiple governments all over the world...Japan...Germany...Australia...etc...cooperating to mislead the public....and for what? I could imagine motivations for misleading the public a little, but not if there is little to no evidence for what they are arguing. If you believe those organizations are totally not worth listening to...I think you have a moral obligation to have found some extremely convincing evidence that they are unreliable.

There's healthy skepticism...and then there's flat-earther/we didn't land on the moon-type skepticism where there is no way to convince the person of anything.


I never saw Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" I don't care what's in it. He's a politician. Maybe his movie was accurate. Maybe not.

I could say more, but I've already ranted on a lot as it is.

@Vorlonagent My comments about climate skeptics are factual accounts of my experiences. That's not an attempt to silence the truth. That's just the way things are and anyone who is honest and has done enough research will agree that there is a TON of misleading lies coming from climate skeptics. I would say, probably, most videos and information sources I've seen questioning manmade global warming have contained clear lies, foolish lacks of reasearch, intentional missquotes, and other forms of shadiness.

Ignoring those sorts of sources...which are the vast majority of climate skeptics arguments, in my experience, is understandable. Now, there are skilled professions who can be found now and then complaining that their criticisms aren't being taken seriously enough. I've looked at some of them. It's hard to tell whether they were fired for not "towing the line" the right way, or for something they've truly done wrong, or how worthwhile their ideas are.

That's what's hard about being a layperson. It's hard for we laypersons to judge the worth of the arguments more educated about those arguments than I am.

So yeah, I'm sure there is, in a sense, an attempt to silence climate skeptics, at minimum in the same way that geologists seldom have an interest in having public debates with flat Earthers. How much that attitude extends to experts and professionals and people who deserve to have their opinions heard but question manmade climate change...I don't know. That's hard to tell. There will always be disagreement amongst scientific communities.


However, there is definitely a massive amount of propaganda all over the internet being put forth to attempt to brainwash society to not believe in manmade global warming as well...even if there is an attempt to brainwash society into believing in manmade global warming.


You have made no attempts to convince me of anything. I'm constantly changing my mind.I am extremely openminded, as my comments and data-based responses should have revealed. I will change my mind if you give me a reason to, but that will require the type of work on your part I've spent a lot of; doing...probably several hours, if you get lucky, minimum. I am intelligent, highly educated person in this area who has selflessly devoted a great deal of time to the study of climate change without any benefit to myself, because I want to have accurate perceptions, and you will probably not think of anything I have not already thought up unless you put a lot of work into it. I am proud of my hard work, and I think I deserve a great deal of respect for it.

I would need data to change my mind though. I would need convincing arguments. I found the climatgate e-mails, if you're interested in reading them. I may read through them eventually.
[lavoisier.com.au]


I will respond to any arguments you make, and watch any videos you tell me to, and look over any sources of information you advise that I look over. Like I mentioned before, Friday I spent several hours looking over 1 20 minute video.

You will not find many people more interested in seeking truth than me.

@MrShittles

The climategate e-mails detail exactly the sort of activity the NSF cleared Dr. Mann of. In such a situation one must choose which to believe. I can't tell you which you should believe, only that, because the e-mails are valid and genuine, I find them more credible (they are primary source material) than the NSF. and therefore must adjust the credibility I give the NSF downward.

We don't get many glimpses behind the scenes when people think nobody is watching. Climategate is all we have. While the release of the e-mails is one "incident", they detail any number of unethical actions taken to either support Global Warming or discredit its critics.

Why would unelected bureaucrats in multiple countries collude along with NASA and other government bodies in the US to create a global warming hoax? You mean besides the power than comes with being able to leverage the (manufactured) crisis to assert control over what the world eats, the transportation systems it uses to move around, and how it generates the power to run itself? Global Warming/Climate change activism invades every aspect of how first world countries live their lives and how 3rd world countries develop.

I mention "Inconvenient Truth" because global warmists love their apocalyptic predictions, which always turn out to be false. The coming climate apocalypse forms the basis of the activist call to action. We are told we are destroying the Earth with carbon. That's the "How dare you!" of Greta Thunberg. It's why we have to shift from carbon-based sources to "renewables" regardless of cost, why we can't eat beef anymore or travel by air (unless you're a climate activist like Gore of course. He gets a private jet). The whole Green New Deal, really. Solar, wind, tides, EVs and hybrids, all these and more are ultimately driven forward on the basis of averting the Coming Climate Apocalypse and would waste away without it.

When you are a layperson your first and best guild to how to follow a given thread of science is asking yourself if partisan politics are involved. If it is, be damned the theory. follow the money and power. Who wins, who loses and what is there to gain? Look at the theory itself. Is it essentially stagnant? Science is all about being flexible of mind enough to throw out what doesn't work and keep what does. The explosion of computers, cubesats and smaller more powerful and detailed instrumentation has forced us to revise and rework areas of most if not all non-political scientific disciplines.

Politics will tend to fix the theory it bears on in place. How has Climate Change evolved over the last 15 years? How has the revolution in computing power and instrumentation changed it? What new and theory-altering facts have come to light? Your research should be able to tell you the answer. If I'm not mistaken Global Warming/Climate Change is the same theory now as when Al Gore was peddling it in movie theaters. New technology has given more data and more detailed underpinning to the theory but hasn't changed what it is and how it works. I consider that a telltale giveaway that the fix is in.

You do not appear open-minded to me. You appear dependent on the pronouncements of others in authority and unwilling to venture or even consider venturing where they disapprove. If I haven't given you anything to jar your faith in authority figures, it isn't for lack of trying.

I am done here. We're starting to rehash old ground over and over which is a sure signal there's nothing further here for either of us. If you want it, you may have the last word.

1

Everything moves in cycles, there are many cycles on this planet and there are many cycles beyond this planet.

If I put two different size balls on a trampoline the denser ball shapes the reality of the less dense ball. You can do all sorts of affects to the smaller ball, and yet the presence of the larger ball will bring the smaller ball back into a state of eventual equilibrium . This scales at all perspectives of reality.

The effect of humans on the various cycles of earth typically fails to account for the much larger ball (the sun) and the trampolines impacts (our galaxy). When we begin to factor this in our impact at scale is minimal when speaking about the climate and its likely trajectory.

If I put a bunch of ants on my smaller ball on the trampoline what could they possibly do to affect the small balls movements?

It's momentum alone carries so much more energy than even atom splitting ants could imagine, let alone alter. With effort they could disrupt their local space temporarily but that is akin to dropping something in a swirling vortex. There might be a moment of disruption, but the overall power of the swirl re-asserts itself and whatever dropped now becomes apart of the system.

this has nothing to do with politics it is the reality we inhabit. The idea that you want this to be political is the very root of the problem facing the world. The politic ship has a sailed - bought and paid for with years of corruption and erosion of rights not by any particular party but the $$$ behind them. Your vote doesn't count on any sort of scale that could impact this bottom line. Your adherence to the illusion that you are not a slave because you have a "say" and "freedom" is a grand deception. Wake up

#1. The Sun is not a factor. Since about 1970 or so, solar activity has, more or less, not increased. Our planet's temperature has been steadily increasing since then. Why more people don't know that, I have no idea.

#2. I don't have any idea what the heck you are talking about in your last paragraph...nor do I care because it appears to have little to do with me.

#3. On Earth those "cycles" happen because of our position in the solar system. Those cycles are referred to as interglacial and glacial periods. The last ice age peaked about 20,000 years ago or so, and ever since we've been in an interglacial period. We may or may not be at what would ordinarily be about the end of that interglacial period if not for humanity. At the start of an interglacial period, Earth's position is thought to result in it warming a bit more (somehow). This is soon followed by oceans outgassing C02, which causes Earth's temperature to rise further. C02 level and Earth's temperature tend to be quite closely tied together.

The IPCC's projections for global climate change in terms of worldwide temperature increase have been pretty much on the money so far. Humanity is currently pumping far more C02 into the atmosphere every year than volcanoes do...and nobody seems to be able to think of alternative explanations for global warming besides humanity...based on what I've seen.

@MrShittles
lol you clearly have no concept of the science happening currently yet feel so self-assured and confident to make absolute statements - your handle fits.

The sun has everything to do with what is happening and it's not about the sunspot cycles it is about the magnetic coupling of the sun/earth (and other objects) and the effects that has on not just weather but seismology and other geologic events have a strong correlation to perturbations in this circuit.

The second paragraph was certainly meant for you because it illustrates the logic of this phenomena if you can't look beyond agencies run by people into the actual mechanics of what is happening then enjoy the kool-aid you're in for a wild ride.

@Propheticus The person I responded to made a really pointless, horrible comment. Your's was not...so why are you defending that horrible nonsense I responded to, when my comments had nothing to do with what you are arguing here? There are issues I'm not confident about. What you're talking is one of my areas of reduced understanding.

I eagerly await any arguments you have to offer about why your ideas are true. If I see it, I will research it. I literally spent several hours researching and discussing someone's else's suggested video.

0

Nobody ever accused climate alarmists of making any sense

Well...you're a poopy head. Nyaaah!

3

There's nothing new under the sun re " global warming," That moniker wasn't scaring the sheeple. So a new one was developed. This time "Climate Change, Or later still, Climate Disruption Was supposed to scare the beejesus out of the sheeple in order to tax the shite out of them. In my local daily newspaper, and other day news reports, I recently read that giant Kangaroos and enormous crocodiles lived just 40.000 years ago in a tropical Northern Australia. But these creatures died out because of a changing climate.
I was in the neutral corner until the con artist extraordinair Al Gore came along.
Now, a Swedish brat is lecturing adults about " stealing here future."
The seas haven't swamped all coastal areas throughout the planet. Pacific atolls that 20 years ago were predicted to be under water by now have actually grown in size. The North Pole is still covered in a massive ice sheet, as is Greenland. Perhaps mankind has contributed perhaps 0.5C to the Earth's temperature over the past century or so at most.
Remember, it's the Earth that evolved mankind, not mankind who evolved Earth.

According to the below source, the last ice age peaked about 20,000 years ago (we're currently in an interglacial period - a warmer period between ice ages). Back then, our world was supposedly about five degrees celsius colder than they are today, and in some areas perhaps 22 degrees celsius colder.
[geology.utah.gov]

IPCC reports suspect that Earth's temperature will rise between 1.5 and 5 degrees celsius by the end of this century. So let's say it takes 2 centuries for Earth's temperature to rise 5 degrees celsius. We've just done an amount of change to the Earth it would ordinarily take thousands of years to occur, in 2 centuries. Imagine the dramatic changes between now and the last ice age, but in the other direction. Then, keep in mind that whatever those changes are, they'll probably keep increasing with time. I don't see humanity every reaching 0 C02 output at any point before a couple centuries from now...if not longer.

We've still got a ton of coal in the world and that's the cheap way to go in terms of energy currently. That's what those third world nations are all going to industrialize into unless we very quickly develop cheaper forms of clean energy or some other method to encourage those third world nations to industrialize into clean energy rather than coal.

That half a degree seems like a lot more when you consider that the difference between now and the last ice age was only 5 degrees.

0

I spent a lot of time studying global warming and what seems clear is the anthropomorphic warming is real but clearly exaggerated. That said we really don't know what even a 1 to 2 degree celsius increase will cause. As the background temperature is only 32 degrees it seems that it could be significant. The problem is there are other significant unknowns because all the resources were invested in the effect of increased co2. Little effort has been put into establishing what the background temperature would be minus human source co2. That is a major scientific irregularity. There has also been little discussion of near starvation co2 levels that the planet had been experiencing.

In general the margins of error has been so great that reasonable planning based on the current science is impossible.

More importantly the historical evidence has been all but ignored. Warming is not the worst possible climate condition we face. Not only does nothing grow on an ice sheet but the historical record shows that our civilization is vulnerable to short term cooling. We have a 7 month food supply in the West and in developing nations even less. A year without a Summer could be a serious problem. The possibility of another little ice age can also not be ruled out. These are not conditions based on theoretical models they are events that we know have happened and are almost certain to happen again.

As to the motivations of people promoting the threat of global warming I don't see it as particularly important. Their competence to determine public policy is an important issue. The evidence is that bureaucratic states are not particularly desirable. We now have plenty of examples of failed socialist states and I don't see that it matters all that much if they are democratic socialist or plain old socialist. I also don't buy the argument that just because states such as Sweden maintain a good deal of capitalism that the distinction is particularly relevant to this discussion. By whatever term you want to use the global warming alarmist are calling for the socialization of the energy sector. Note that did not go so well in Venezuela. By far the best thing to do is just let people vote with their pocket book. If they want green energy then let the market provide it to them. If we can't adapt to warming I don't think we have much of a future anyway.

I'm perfectly willing to revise my opinion if the warming alarmist open their models and data to public scrutiny and if as much money is invested in background temperatures, alternative research, etc. as has been invested in the effects of increased co2. From a scientific perspective the money has not been well spent in my opinion.

You say the historical evidence has been ignored. I have heard of nothing that could lead to any noteworthy cooling effects on our planet at any point in the next century. The Grand Solar Minimum is not thought to decrease Earth's temperature by much 2100...something a lot less than Earth's temperature is usually anticipated to rise by on its own.. We are perhaps near the end of an interglacial period...but I can't think of anything that would trigger significantly rapid cooling worldwide in the next couple centuries or so, aside from a Yellowstone eruption...but that might not erupt for several centuries or thousands of years.

There could be issues with our planet's orbit and position in the solar system that trigger the beginning of glacial periods...but C02 levels and our planet's temperature are closely tied together and our planet's C02 amount in our atmosphere is only increasing. It'd be extremely unusual for our planet to become dramatically colder while C02 is increasing.

Normally, our planet warms through milankovitch cycles a bit...starting an interglacial period, which causes our oceans to outgass C02, which supposedly causes our planet to warm a lot more...although I don't yet understand why those interglacial periods stop yet and become glacial periods...just that that's associated with less C02 in the atmosphere.

My big concern is global warming...far more than global cooling, because whatever results in global cooling will have some stopping point, or else it will take an extremely long time period to reach the low end of the cooling.

With global warming, on the other hand, there will probably be a lot less of a ceiling...nothing like Earth turning into Venus, but areas can become uninhabitable if they're humid enough and hot enough just from people not being able to work outside for long...and to me, the issue is that just increasing with time. No matter how small of an effect humans have on global warming, without working towards environmentally friendly technologies it'll probably just keep increasing in time for quite awhile.

From what I understand...the "Little Ice Age" was only about 1 degree celsius cooler than at present. That's a lot less than our planet is probably going to increase in temperature over the next century...if the IPCC studies are right.

You say that the concerns are exaggerated. Are you talking about the concerns of the general public worrying about the end of the world...or are you referring to the IPCC's concerns about Earth's temperature increasing by...I think it might have been...1.5 to 5 or so degrees Celsius by the end of the century?


You talk about socialisms failing...but every nation already has socialist policies. We can't just denounce all socialist policies...like the military and the police and the public school system, for example. Emissions standards are nothing new. That's the sort of thing that would inspire the development of environmentally friendly technologies. States already have gas taxes.

I don't pretend to know the best economic strategy for dealing with global warming...only that stronger government will probably be the only way to get anything done and I don't like the idea of our planet perpetually getting hotter over the course of the next four hundred years strait.

On another note...given that NASA pretty clearly has no motivation to lie more than a little...and given that they are a worldwide respected organization...and given that other space programs and environmental agencies and international organizations work alongside NASA....

Why the heck is the most rational route not to, for the most part, just trust NASA and the IPCC that humans are causing some noteworthy percentage of global warming unless we have some powerful, damning evidence that they're wrong? The amount of cooperation required to pull off what they're doing if there's very little chance humans are causing any global warming would be awe-inspiring beyond belief, and without any rational motivation.

Therefore, why would anyone in the world not believe that NASA and the IPCC are basically telling the truth...with the exception of a few fibs here and there perhaps? There is zero motivation not to be, for the most part, telling the truth. Yeah...greedy people exist. They don't however, form international organizations filled with idealistic scientists who could sell out to the oil companies if they really were interested in nothing but money.

And that's one thing that bugs me about the Republican party. It's becomming a group of conspiracy theorists. Rather than thinking, "Well, humans are probably causing some noteworthy percentage of global warming" or, after extensive research, explaining why they are not in respectful detail, they just usually prefer to assume the vast majority of our entire scientific establishment is an evil cabal.

And that's also why I don't understand why conservatives always seem so unified. I hate my fellow democrats all the time. There's got to be some of you who look around at your fellow right-wingers and think, "Well...I agree with most of their end goals...but wow, some of these people are crazy."

@MrShittles

I think Jordan Peterson is right in that the people that come up with ideas, scientific and otherwise, are not the right people to manage the implementation.

I'm actually not a right winger but I'm old enough to remember that Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty and Jimmy Carter's answer to petroleum shortages came with a lot of unintended consequences. The leftists are now in bed with the Globalists, Corporatists, and Technocrats which has shifted the likelihood that the unintended consequences of the response to Global Warming will be the empowerment of authoritarianism. If you look at the response to Covid 19 you see this clearly. It is bad enough that burden for social policy falls primarily on the working class and poor but as it turns out authoritarians do not fear other authoritarians. When the left abandoned the working class it became evil.

The authoritarianism we should fear is exemplified by the Chinese Communist Party. With whom the now authoritarian left is rather cozy. As are the Banksters, Globalists, Corporatists and Technocrats. Priority for liberals was once freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, a fair deal for the working class, judging people by their character not immutable characteristics, etc. but power corrupts and seeks more power.

Global Warming may prove a significant challenge but at the moment we are in an economic war with authoritarians. We cannot allow them to dictate the policies for dealing with those challenges. People forget that history shows that the authoritarian left is as evil the authoritarian right.

@MrShittles

I was talking about short term cooling, think 1816. The little ice age is more about consequences. I may come back to that later.

As I mentioned below it's the politics that I'm concerned about.

I believe that "socialism" is here to stay. At least 20 percent of the population is due to emotional or intellectual inadequacies are unable to care for themselves. The question is what form will being our brother's keeper take.

Unfortunately the cult of Marxism has had considerable influence on the intellectual elites. In ways I don't thing they are conscious of. For some time it has been fashionable to take Marx seriously as a thinker. Although many intellectuals will openly dispute how much influence he has you only need to look at are universities and how "social justice", post modernism, feminism etc. have transformed them. All the major intellectual leaders of these movements have been heavily influenced by Marx.

Not only was Marx a poor economists he was a horrible philosopher and a horrible husband and father along the lines of Rousseau. Both men were oblivious to the hierarchical nature of civilization. They were proposing systems based on our primitive instincts where a fast lifestyle is compatible with an easy but unstable environment. A dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing more than social organization at the tribal level imposed on a complex civilization.

I know it's very hard to see how this fits in with authoritarianism but again that is because if you propose a system based on instinct or emotions fit for tribalism the ends will always justify the means and might will end up meaning right. As soon as the left gains power it becomes authoritarian. You can see it in the response to the pandemic. It's how it came to be in league with the Technocrats, Banksters, Globalists, and Corporatists. More remarkably the fascist communist party of China.

The bottom line is that fighting authoritarianism is more important than Global Warming. It puts people like me in a strange partnership with conservatives. The U.S. was founded on liberal principles by men who had tried to reproduce the aristocratic system of Europe. In the new world that system didn't work because the serfs could just run off to the frontier. That not only accounts for racial slavery but the natural independence of individuals in a frontier society which wrote the constitution. Jared Diamond got the importance of geography right he just didn't appreciate the role of competence hierarchy in complex societies.

We can adapt to warming but what's the point if the price is authoritarianism. I could go on and explain more of the apparent contradictions but that requires a deep dive into group selection. Something that our intellectual elites reject because of mental pathogens.

@wolfhnd You ask what the point is of dealing with global warming if the price is authoritarianism. Not many people alive today know the answer to that question in our first world nations. Every single one of our ancestors living prior to about a couple hundred years or so does though.

You can get used to any culture. The extreme majority of our ancestors were willing to just kind of do what their chieftain said if it meant they'd have enough food for the winter though.

I would love American culture to become more similar to South Korea in some ways, temporarily, during pandemics. South Korea mandates that sick people download an app that lets the government monitor their movement. They also have tons of cameras all over the place so that they can track down all the people who contacted sick persons...and the result of all that is that they're dealing just fine with the coronavirus, whereas in the U.S. we've had to choose between quite possibly having millions die and flooded hospitals, and losing trillions from everyone staying home.

You talk about authoritarianism as if it's some specific form of government. It's not...not any more of a clear concept than socialism. You experience authoritarianism now. You obey traffic lights. You pay parking tickets and taxes. These ways you obey authoritarian rules are usually for the greater good.

It's never an issue of some kind of great, evil dragon, lurking in the shadows that we need to avoid. Those types of dragons, like the one responsible for WW2 don't exist anymore in first world nations. We've hunted them all to extinction. What still exist, however, are their smaller, sneakier, more snake-like cousins. They're not some single, evil concept like Nazism that can be defeated all at once. They cause harm through factors like inefficiency, or unrealistic idealism, or a lack of attention to nuance...in lots of little subtle ways but no big obvious ways.

Authoritarianism is a useful tool...and not considering using it, at least at times, is literally suicide. Our species will without question have more problems with pandemics in the future as society gets more intertwined...unless we have international policies and organizations focused on hunting down and stopping outbreaks, and probably having government systems we can immediately put into place to stomp out outbreaks before they grow large couldn't hurt either. That's going to require taxation and policies people are going to think of as globalist policies, and people temporarily losing their freedoms.

Regarding your claim that we can adapt to global warming...I don't see how. I'd think it would be pretty difficult to adapt to perpetually rising temperatures and a constant shifting of local weather patterns because of it. Furthermore, any research into clean energy technology now gives us exponentially more power than later research done. Every second that goes by that third world nations lack cheap clean energy technology or some motivation to industrialize into it (such as a cap and trade system where they get paid more for a decreased C02 output) they are industrializing into coal.

Also...most of coastal flooding will not happen due to melting ice caps. It'll happen due to warmer ocean temperatures expanding the ocean. That means the coasts will just keep shrinking the warmer Earth gets...with or without melting ice. That'll be tough to adapt to too.

The concern is less about what'll happen over the next century and more about what'll happen after that if the third world nations all industrialize into coal. Even now...long before that has happened, the IPCC is predicting an increase of temperature of perhaps 1.5 to 5 degrees celsius by the end of the century. The last ICE AGE was only 5 degrees celsius colder than modern temperatures globally...so we could be making an equivalent change to our planet as what happened between the last ice age and now, but in the other direction...and it could be a much larger change.

It's not extremely hard for an environment to become uninhabitable due to heat. Earth will never become like Venus...but it can become hot and humid enough that people just won't be able to work outside for long.

Also...note that the climate models of the IPCC, at least in terms of predicting average global temperatures, have been pretty much right on the money: [climate.nasa.gov]

@wolfhnd Not allowing the government to deal with climate change means not dealing with it. You either want some degree of authoritarianism...or you want to ignore global warming, with a few rare exceptions, so far as I can tell. Individuals outside of the government just don't have any motivation to put a lot of effort into concerning themselves with the fate of their fellow citizens. We're all very small. We know there's very little power we have to help each other, and we don't have the organization to know how best to do that. Big business leaders are different. They have plenty of power to assist their fellow citizens. They also, however, have an obligation to ignore their fellow citizens and put their business needs first or they'll get fired by whatever other powers have the ability to do that.

There is basically no way to change society without relying on government force. We need to be considering what types of force to use, and what types cause harm...not inventing ideologies that demonize all government force. That's no better than ceasing driving because we might crash.

Human beings, I think, have a powerful impulse to be dragon slayers. We're always hunting for some giant, evil concept to destroy. What we tend not to realize though, is that almost all of those dragons went extinct with the sabertooths. The truth is...any concept that gets popular enough to cause problems probably has some kind of benefits too...and the solution is almost always weighing the pros and cons rather than demonizing the whole concept.

What our society needs to fear most is not authoritarianism, or Republicans, or liberals. It's blind idealism, anti-intellectualism, and oversimplification, I think.

@MrShittles

What made you think I didn't believe in government. We just have the wrong people in government.

I think we are having a communication problem, I apologize for being obtuse. Right now I just don't have the energy to deal with it.

@MrShittles

Don't confuse authoritarianism with competency hierarchies.

@wolfhnd I'm not. Authoritarianism is what I've described it as. Dictionary.com describes it as "The enforcement of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedoms" That's taxes.

There's nothing about dealing with global warming that's going to require any bigger changes to our society than taxes would be to some society that had previously paid none.

@wolfhnd I never assumed you were an anarchist. I did, however, get the impression that you saw increasing the size and power of our government as more or less evil and I see that as a destructive mentality. In some ways it will be useful to decrease the size of government. However, in terms of dealing with climate change...I think you need more government control or you're not going to accomplish anything. How much you can do about it will be directly related to how much control your government has over the issue.

@MrShittles

As I say it's all about who is in charge.

@wolfhnd That's not what your point has been before now. You've argued about authoritarianism, and global warming, and how people have handled the coronavirus. Fine...but that's not even been remotely related to your point during the extreme majority of our discourse. You're pulling a bit of a u turn here...just saying.

4

The climate change agenda is maybe 5% science, 25% economics and 70% politics, although the economics and politics of the left get blended in a weird stew, so those figures are estimates.

Here’s the problem with the science: it’s settled. True science is a never-ending quest for knowledge and a deeper understanding of our physical reality. As soon as it becomes “settled,” it’s no longer science, it’s religion. The fraud, bullshit and lies attending the “science” of climate change would take a book, and many have been written. Do your homework. And do yourself a favor: don’t talk about those 97% of all scientists who support the climate change agenda. Trust me on that one. You’ll just embarrass yourself.

The economics are simple. The industrialized West is the villain, the impoverished third world is the victim, relegated to that state because the developed nations stole their prosperity, in the course of destroying the planet. That’s why every so-called solution never does a damn thing for the climate, but levies heavy fines and taxes on first world nations, ostensibly to kick-start development in the third world. The Paris Treaty from which Donald Trump removed us is only the latest example. Not only does it mandate a massive transfer of wealth from us to them, it leaves the world’s two biggest polluters, China and India, untouched by regulation.

The politics is obvious. Free-market capitalism, having produced the afore-mentioned unregulated industrialization, is evil and must be replaced by a totalitarian socialism that is able to regulate things like carbon emissions, energy production and use, and, just for shits and giggles, since they have the power, wealth distribution. All in the name of “saving the planet,” you understand. Notice how our would-be Stalin’s always push their agenda in the name of something? In the name of “the people;” in the name of “public health;” in the name of “social justice;” or, one I love, “the greater good.”

The truth is, free-market capitalism has created the greatest standard of living in history and lifted more people out of slavery into freedom than can be counted. In 1800, the United States was a poor, agrarian nation. 100 years later we were already the richest country on earth and well on our way to becoming the most powerful. Where was this wealth previously? Did we really steal it? How? It didn’t exist. The magic of capitalism is that it creates wealth from nothing but ingenuity, entrepreneurial effort and hard work. All it requires is a free citizenry, unfettered by the oppressive iron hand of government control.

That’s why the left latches onto climate, health or social justice to try to taint the freedoms we enjoy as much as possible. Theirs is an ideology of enslavement, responsible for 100 million deaths, simply as a matter of state policy, that has an unbroken century and a half track record of failure every time it’s been attempted, that cut a path of poverty, starvation, enslavement and mass murder through history. These are people who wake up in a cold sweat, thinking about all those areas of our society that have yet to succumb to their intervention, manipulation and control. “Climate science” is just one more phony narrative behind which they try to hide their true agenda.

#1. You appear to misunderstand some things. For example, right now neither the impoverished nations, nor the first world nations, have much incentive to adopt environmentally friendly technologies. A "cap and trade" system would provide both sorts of nations with that motivation. Nations with higher C02 outputs could pay a fine for the amount of C02 they produce over some limit. This would give them a financial incentive to adopt environmentally friendly technologies. Third world nations would receive that fine-money, because they almost always have very low C02 outputs and would be well below the aforementioned limit. This would provide them with a financial incentive to industrialized into technologies besides coal and oil, ideally.

That doesn't have anything to do with the first world nations being the "bad guys." That's simply one way for our species to increase its odds of survival over the long run. We need to spread environmentally friendly technology around now, or as soon as possible, so that all those third world nations don't industrialize into coal and oil and screw us. Clean energy is expensive. Nations just aren't going to adopt it most of the time unless we either develop the technology to make it cheaper, or provide some financial incentive to adopt it.


#2. And some climate scientists argue that there is too much confidence that humans are causing a great deal of global warming. What there isn't any disagreement about, however, is that Earth is warming. That's been proven. You can just look at the data and see it. You straw-manned the whole world in in your description I talked about in point #1. Now you appear to be straw-manning climate scientists as well.

Obama's emissions regulations...were a great idea. They would have inspired clean energy technologies to be invented by auto-companies...but those companies aren't going to invent those technologies unless they're forced to. Gas taxes...carbon taxes...they're often good ideas because they both reduce C02 output while inspiring the development of clean technologies.


#3. India is nowhere near being a bigger polluter than any first world nations. They're way, way below us and may never come anywhere near us...if you keep in mind their larger populations. Obviously, it's the amount of C02 created per person that matters...not the total amount of C02 produced.

China is still a smaller C02 producer than the top C02 producers...but they're gaining on us. Their people are used to not driving...but they use a lot of coal. They're well below the U.S., Australia, and Canada in terms of C02 production...but the U.K. is producing less C02 than them. I don't know if they should have to pay anything or not. I guess that depends on whether or no the U.K. does.

I thought that the Paris Climate Accords involved nothing mandatory though at this point? I thought your nation just kind of promised to do so and so, and wasn't held to that?


#4. You love talking about the evils of people in government. You appear to have forgotten that those same evil natures will inevitably apply to the owners of business. The main differences are that those owners of businesses will have an obligation to benefit their companies as much as possible, regardless of how that affects their nation, and that unless our elected representatives, we have no ability to vote on what those business owners do. We require the government to control them now and then.

You have also failed to realize that to me, YOU sound like the evil person. you have a fanatical, highly-skewed view of the other "side" (whatever that is). You've dehumanized them, rather than depicting them as people with rational motivations. Your fantasies are nothing but straw-man arguments. YOU are more of a concern to me than a greedy, corrupt government official. Greedy, corrupt government officials are predictable. They will be reasonable "good" in some ways to avoid being punished by society. You, on the other hand, appear to be irrational and therefore unpredictable.

I want to see you describe your foes in a way that makes sense, that shows that you understand how your fellow humans think. There are no demons. There are merely people with different perspectives. Some of them are greedy. Some of them are crazy. Our government tends to filter out most of the crazy ones though.


#5. And your last paragraph is pure crap. I am an unemotional robot of a human being. That's why I like big government in some instances...because I want my species to survive. We will not survive in some anarcho-capitalism playbaby realm. We need a centralized power to protect us from disease, and environmental issues, and any other large, surprising issues we come across.

The narrative is almost flawless....
However you need to remove all those swamp appointed authorities that use their powers to introduce regulations and controls that in turn give rise to unfettered monopolies. They do so by way of licensing, controls etc and the promotion of bogus ghosts of competition that in truth do not exist.

Total freedom is tantamount to an honest society and an honest society would maintain freedom. Nothing less.
The utopian ideal, the one that the settlers of your land set out to accomplish never quite eventuated, though sadly its the best we have been able to accomplish to date.
Keep an eye on Asia and India, as their history may be better equipped to handle the future.

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I don't agree. The radical left don't see the future as "dystopian" but rather as "utopian". They fail to realize the level of malevolence of inherent in someone willing to pay them to act like children. They fail to believe "trust me" politics could be a smoke screen for "rob you blind" leadership.

You are the fanatic here. You have this completely fictional view of the "radical" left. No one is dreaming of some utopia. They're dreaming of survival, at times, and at other times they're dreaming of ways to make practical use of their society's income through wealth redistribution....but you're nuts if you think the "radical" left is dreaming of some utopia. That's entirely your imagination and you'll never find anyone who exists like that in reality.

I am concerned about global warming because I want my species to survive. I want my government to become stronger in some ways to protect us from the inevitable future pandemics that stand a better chance of driving humanity into extinction than anything else in existence. I don't think much about economics...but if I did want universal healthcare it would be because it has worked successfully in many other nations, and if I wanted increased minimum wage it would be because the gap between rich and poor has been steadily increasing and I'd like to close that gap some more-bring it back to what it was several decades ago.

You are the one engaging in "trust me" politics. You're just trusting different people than them, undoubtedly. Otherwise...you would not be making such straw-man arguments, I think.

@MrShittles

Plato’s Republic
Libellus…de optimo reipublicae statu, deque nova insula Utopia (1516 - Sir Thomas More)
La città del sole (1602 - Tommaso Campanella.
New Atlantis (1627) - Francis Bacon
Antangil (1616 - “I.D.M.)
Christianopolis (1619 - Johann Valentin Andreae)
Novae Solymae libri sex (1648 - by Samuel Gott)
The Law of Freedom… (1652 - Gerrard Winstanley)
The Common-Wealth of Oceana (1656 - James Harrington)
Terre australe connue (1676 - Gabriel de Foigny)
Télémaque (1699 - François Fénelon’s )

And that's just the the 17th 'century

Maybe you should read something other than comic books and tweets.

@cRaZyTMG Why would I not, instead of spending all the time I'd spend reading through all those people who know nothing about modern culture, spend that time researching modern issues instead? In my experience almost everyone who lived over a century ago isn't worth reading about. This usually includes philosophers. They just didn't know as much as we do. They don't have access to our wealth of knowledge either. They're all pretty much useless, so far as I've seen. Give me some experts who live in modern times to look into. I have reason to suspect THOSE people can teach me wisdom. They'll better understand the life I live too. Those ancient peoples lived in an alien world.

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May your chains rest lightly upon you . Willful ignorance is an incurable disease . The best you can ever be is a useful idiot .

That's a stupid comment...because it says nothing. That's one of the few types of comments that can be stupid. Say something next time, or don't talk.

1

Get off the grass!
The first comment that leaps to my mind is..... have you ever listened to an argument from to days left wing that was sane, let alone rational... Much like our current pretense, one whereby a situation would rapidly develop that all that could possibly transpire would be a throne swapping charade. Such as is musical chairs.

And whist valuing economic lucidity on a wider national basis, one should also consider that the China of today does not practice communism but fanatically run their Nation via a system of State run Capitalism.
Not being intimidated by French, European or English policies, where there is the inbuilt culture of cronyism and corruption, the Chinese can practice the philosophies of Capitalism with distinction rather then with vulgar immorality.

Most arguments I hear from today's left are sane and rational. Please describe to me a single one that isn't.

I can describe to you a lot of arguments from the right that aren't though. My state wanted to ban abortion at 8 weeks. We nearly elected Todd Akin who wanted to ban the morning after pill. My country elected Trump. Regardless of whether or not like you Trump...you've got to admit he's got a few flaws. Also, according to a survey I looked at awhile back...a Pew research survey done in 2013, most Republicans in my nation did not believe in human evolution. Here's the survey: [pewresearch.org]

Note that, between 2009 and 2013, that percentage was actually decreasing.

You're turn. Give me one example of a crackpot liberal or leftist...or even a Democrat. I bet I may not agree with them...but their opinion probably has some kind of reasonableness to it on some level.

Also...your post in general doesn't make sense to me. It's very ranty. I don't understand what you mean about the musical chairs stuff or what China has to do with anything.

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