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Bob Loblaw at 23:30 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
In this discussion of "consensus", it is worth remembering that the studies looking at the level of consensus in climate science are not trying to make an argument that "climate science is correct because there is a consensus". Rather, they are a counter-argument to the "skeptic" false argument that there is widespread disagreement in climate science.That argument is currently #4 on SkS's list of climate myths.
The finding af a very high degree of consensus on the key points of anthropogenic climate change is direct emprical evidence that disproves that key "skeptic" zombie myth. That the "skeptics" then switch to an argument that "consensus doesn't prove the science is right" is an example of shifting the goalposts. It is largely an attempt to divert attention away from the fact that their "no consensus" argument has been disproven. Of course, once the "debate" on "the consensus can be wrong" quietens down, the "skeptics" will usually return to the "there is no consensus" argument, and the cycle continues. That is why it's a zombie myth.
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Mike Evershed at 22:23 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Re: Scadenp: I think it is fair to say that the nature of the scientific "consensus" on eugenics was different from that arising from the climate change literature. Perhaps "widely accepted" would be better? Anyway the reason for posting was that I looked up Haldane's views, which were rather interesting . Here is a brief exerpt from the introduction to his book "Heredity and Politics" from 1938, written when the whole idea was starting to become discredited (not leats by the Nazis): Haldane says:
"It may well be that an increase in our knowledge will fully justify the application to man of certain measures which have led to improvements in the quality of our domestic animals. As one who is endeavoring to increase this knowledge, I can even say that i hope it will do so. But I believe the facts on human heredity are far less simple than many people think them to be. And I hold that a premature application of our rather scanty knowledge will yield little result, and will merely serve to discredit the branch of science in which i am worikng"
Incidentally - for non biologists - I would say the Hardy-Weinberg equation is irrelevant here as it applies to populations not subject to selection pressure. The whole point of Eugenics was to apply such pressure.
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scaddenp at 20:34 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
By all means find an appropriate thread. However, I remain unconvinced by "There was a scientific consensus in favour". Science literature seems very lean, nor did "university courses" appear to be science courses. It did most certainly rest on finding from evolutionary theory, but science, unlike many social or political theories is bounded on empirical constraints and the rigor by which a theory/model can account for observations. Biologists (eg Haldane, Holmes, Muller), strongly questioned it's assumption and the long bow it was drawing from evolutionary biology. The Hardy-Weinberg equation was published in 1910 and more or less rips the floor from under it. That it could be promoted despite this discovery smacks mightily of racism and politics. Reconciling the desire for "pure stock" for humans while frantically breeding hybrid plants takes that special attribute of human irrationality so common in "pseudo-skeptics".
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Mike Evershed at 17:29 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Thanks to nigelj and scaddencap others for good contributions to the debate on consensus. I don't want to prolong this, but just to complete the eveidence trail, the source for the second part of my statement (on the adoption of eugenic laws across the USA) is "A Century of Eugenics in America" edited by Paul A Lombardo in which it is stated that:
"In 1907 Indiana passed the first involuntary sterilization law based on the theory of Eugenics. In time more than 30 states and a dozen foreign countries followed Indiana's lead".
This isn't the right thread to say where I think the anthropogenic warming hypothesis is most vulnerable to challenge (NB not wrong, but most vulnerable to challenge). But I'll try and find one.
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nigelj at 11:57 AM on 22 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Chriskoz, ok well given English is not your native language, you have a rather good defence. My excuse for bad spelling is laziness.
I tend to keep home laptops for ages as well, my last windows vista laptop was at least 7 years old, but became very slow, probably due to spyware, and the fan became ominously noisy. But it was basically perfectly fine for general home use.
I splashed out on a new core i5 laptop that was on sale. Like you say web pages are so loaded up with videos, general junk, and sneaky advertising you need power and decent broadband just to make them work. Its a peculiar thing like a treadmill we are on at times, where you need new electronics just to get certain basic services to work.
But on the other hand, some of the graphics are nice especially educational graphics.
Many of my other home appliances are quite old. I could buy all the latest and greatest for cash and hardly notice, but I cannot see the point. The washing machine does the job just fine.
I don't even own a dishwasher. I'm the dishwasher.
My television is a basic 32 inch flat screen. As someone bought up on picture tube televisions, I still marvel at the great quality of even a basic flat screen tv. I dont think the new super high resolution screens offer enough transformation to be tempting. It's becoming more and more money for diminishing returns.
I do however look at electricity efficiency. I bought a new fridge recently, as the old one was possibly becoming a fire risk, and had poor efficiency.
And I do have my little obsessions. I have a lot of books, and a very up market audio system, and a nice car because I hate unreliable cars. But it's not a big, gas guzzling car. That's about it. To some extent the article is also preaching to the converted with me.
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chriskoz at 11:25 AM on 22 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
nigelj@3,
Thanks for your support, especially to my T-Man opinions that frequently attract moderators' scorn, so un-diplomatic and utterly negative they are. But I just cannot help it because if I said anything positive about such absurdly misplaced human character - the likes of which are commonly found in corrective centers (sic! - that's in US) rather than in any public office - I would be hypocritical. But I prefer to be honnest even if I risk infringing on the rules of my playing here (as Hillary infringed with her "basket of deplorabled").
About my spelling mistakes: I use an old (~7y) laptop at home and already dodgy keyboard deceives me. While I pay attention to people's names (with a notable exception of T-man) as not to offend anybody, I ignore my offences to the English language when I did not learn it 100% yet (BTW English is my fourth language and its Australian dialect the fifth) or when my finger slips on a dodgy keyboard.
And here we come back to the topic: I try to re-use and recycle the stuff as much as possible, that's why I keep my laptop for so long as it's perfectly fine for web surfing, though becoming slow due to extreme amount of junk some web pages are throwing at me now. Luckily SkS is not the worst in this regard. So, the OP video, in my case, preaches to the long-time converted. But it's invaluable if shown to those who create so much waste and call it the effect of progress. And physical objects are not the only examples of the "stuff". It's also electronic junk as I;m alluding to above. In the old www days (when I was still a schoolboy then uni student) I was as fascinated by it as today but in recent years I find its power not increasing at all, and graphical interface often delivering no better information at all but only forcing me to upgrade to more powerful computers. The "stuff" is also a wasteful use of electronic sources such as www bandwidth, which must be backed by stronger devices and more energy use.
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chriskoz at 10:27 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
I went after the very first sentence of (Nikolov Zeller 2016) refered by supak@6, so extraordinary this sentence is:
A recent study has revealed that the Earth’s natural atmospheric greenhouse effect is around 90 K or about 2.7 times stronger than assumed for the past 40 years
Said "recent study" is listed as the first citation therein, so I followed it wandering who on Earth could have inspired those two fellows with such revolutionary knowledge. That reference goes to (Volokin ReLlez 2014) which states that:Earth’s total ATE (Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement) is ~90 K, not 33 K, and that ATE = GE + TE , where GE is the thermal effect of greenhouse gases, while TE > 15 K is a thermodynamic enhancement independent of the atmospheric infrared back radiation.
They define the "Thermodynamic Enhancement" as "regolith heat storage and cosmic background radiation on nighttime temperatures".
So "regolith heat" being internal planetary energy source, the above claim would obey the energy conservation and Stephan Boltzman law only if their "cosmic background radiation" component was ~2 times stronger than GE component (i.e. 90K-33K = 57K), which is absurd given that we know cosmic vaccum is glowing at 3K. So, they invent the absurd "adiabatic pressure boosting" to develop fantasies of an alternative universe where temperature is something else than the measure of total kinetic energy in the system.
The interesting part is that Volokin and ReLlez are the fictional characters created by Nikolov and Zeller (but associated with the real company Tso Consulting Limited in UK) as explained by the authors in erratum to it : "to guarantee a double-blind peer review of our manuscript".
Funny, how two fabricators succeed delivering their delirium by inventing sock puppet authors they can then cite in support of their alternative reality.
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scaddenp at 09:36 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
A quick glance at papers at the time would suggest eugenics was largely a sociopolitical movement and the biological principles claimed in support were controversial, not consensus within the scientic literature. However, I cannot find any attempt to measure concensus on the subject, or even whether undesirable traits could be extinquished from breeding.
Nonetheless, I am with Nigel in saying that scientific consensus can be wrong. The food pyramid is example of an ever-shifting consensus as knowledge increases. However, it should be noted that a strongly held scientific consensus is very seldom wrong. Setting policy against the advice of a strong scientific consensus in favour of ideology is irrationale.
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nigelj at 06:59 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Just going back to this climate denialism and fear issue. I think most of us have some healthy scepticism about climate science, but we see that the denialiist myths are nonsense and we move on. We may own autobobiles, but are not ruled by fears of change.
We see more stubborn denialists, and they mostly seem to have political issues, or vested interests, and thats the big difference. You only have to read internet blogs etc. I would say genuine contrarian denialists would be in the minority.
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nigelj at 06:35 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
People are getting too defensive about the idea of consensus. It's accurate to say some scientific consensus positions have been wrong, or at least been partly wrong. The consensus positions on intake of saturated fats and salt have both been partly changed recently. I'm assuming everyone is aware of this, its been in the media enough.
The consensus position is of course extremely important and generally proves to be correct. It is a majority position. It reflects years of research and a slow testing of ideas before arriving at a settled view.
But it is also going to vary in veracity. Theories on saturated fats and salt were based on a limited number of studies, and pretty old research done when techniques had limitations. Climate science is based on a huge number of up to date studies, debated and examined ad nauseum. This gives me more confidence.
If politicians want to question climate science, and its fair that they do, they better be prepared to listen and think calmly and put ideology aside. They better be open minded about the answers, because the answers are not guesswork. One hopes they have enough brains to see that there are obvious holes in the usual denialist myths.
Its also about the degree of consensus. 90 - 97% is pretty high and is a global consensus, so deserves more respect than a few scientists in America going on about eugenics.
But the bottom line is this. When it comes to decision making by politicians, you either go with a consensus, or the claims of some fringe group or individual. We have had many such fringe alternative views which have proven to be nonsense, like homeopathy.
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michael sweet at 06:11 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike Evershed,
If eugenics were "not fringe but widely held and taught in universities" that is not the same as consensus. 97% of researchers studying AGW agree with the IPCC reports. The fact that papers were published in scientific journals shows that scientists were discussing the merits of this idea. That does not mean that a consensus, or even a majority of scientists thought that Eugenics were a good idea. From your reference it appears to me that Eugenics was always a fringe scientific idea, not a consensus idea. Often politicians use fringe scientific ideas to justify what they want to do (look at the Republicans use of Climate Deniers).
According to your reference Eugenics was only debated slightly (there were only two primary proponents of Eugenics in the USA) in the Scienitfic literature for 20 or 30 years. By contrast, AGW has been reviewed for over 150 years with the last 50-70 years being intense study.
Eugenics is an interesting discussion, but Eugenics was never a scientific consensus. You need to find a situation where scientists were actually in consensus on a subject, not just debating the topic.
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nigelj at 06:04 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Supak @6, the research you quote appears to be claiming adiabatic air pressure, analogous to compression, causes recent global warming.
They are wrong. Heres a good explanation from Dr Roy Spencer (of all people). I only have a very general sort of knowledge and memory of gas laws, but can get what they are saying.
www.drroyspencer.com/2016/07/the-warm-earth-greenhouse-effect-or-atmospheric-pressure/
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:20 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike Evershed,
At the time of Eugenics and Nuclear Weapons development the global community did not have clearly presented and well justified governing objectives like the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and their earlier presentation in the results of the 1972 Stockholm Conference. It could be argued that humanity did not have any sense of its global future responsibility back then. Everyone was focused on being the Winner realtive to Others any way they could get away with - even through actions that could be understood to be globally net-negative actions (as long as the Winner could percieve that they were better off than those Others).
So, since at least 1972 what is understood to be acceptable has significantly changed regarding climate science. Leaders today have no excuse for still trying to get away with delivering Poor Excuses rather than delivering Good Reasoned Leadership based on the fullest awareness and best understanding currently developed to improve the future for all of humanity by acting to correct understandably unacceptable developed popular and profitable activities in the sub-set of humanity that they are leading.
In retrospect, politicians arguing against Eugenics were probably acting more responsibly based on the current best understanding of what leaders are supposed to do than people in positions of leadership who defended the activity with Poor self-interested Excuses.
Science is not the question or concern. The proper/helpful/ethical application of science is the issue.
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Mike Evershed at 01:26 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
For new readers this question concerns whether scientific consensus should be challenged by politicians. I cited the case of Eugenics. Steven A Farber from the Carnegie Institute wrote in 2008:
"It is important to appreciate that within the U.S. and European scientific communities these ideas were not fringe but widely held and taught in universities. The report of the Eugenics meeting was the lead story in the journal Science on October 7, 1921, and this opening address was published, in its entirety, beginning on the first page of the issue."
Source: "U.S. Scientists' Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907–1939): A Contemporary Biologist's Perspective"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757926/
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you for providing the source of the first half of the statement you made in Comment #67, i.e.,
There was a scientific consensus in favour, many university courses in the USA on the principles and practice, and laws passed in many states as State politicans followed the consensus.
What is the source for the second part of your statement?
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ubrew12 at 01:16 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
supak@6: Final observation: when moist air moves over you before the clouds, and you start heating up, what happens to the barometric pressure? It goes down, exactly in the wrong direction if this 'adiabatic compression' theory of greenhouse warming were correct.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:05 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Bjorn Lomborg, like many others, has a long history of trying to create the best possible 'Poor Excuses' for not needing to rapidly reduce the global burning of fossil fuels.
His 2007 book "Cool It" made economic assessments similar to other denier-delayers. They basically try to Excuse Less Acceptable Behaviour by making claims about the economics. But what they essentially do is try to justify why a portion of current day humanity should be able to prolong their ability to get personal benefit from:
- an activity that future humans cannot continue to benefit from (even the most fortunate ones) because it is the burning up of non-renewable resources, so it is undeniably unsustainable.
- an activity that is undeniably damaging in many ways, not just the challenges and extra costs created for others, particularly the future generations, by the generation of massive amounts of excess CO2.
They go further than that fundamentally undeniably unacceptable marketing action. They deliberately compare the 'costs to others as they figure it' to 'the costs and lost opportunity to the portion of the current generation who have to correct their ways to reduce the costs and challenges cretaed that others will face - as they figure it'. They then try to claim that if 'the costs to not make problems for others' are greater than 'the costs imposed on others' (all as they figure it), then the ones behaving less acceptably are justified. Of course they understate the future costs because they completely ignore anything they cannot quantify as an action required by the more fortunate (they count building high sea walls at "their cities" based on the low estimates of near term sea level rise - not the longer term sea level rise - and ignore flooding of land less fortunate people live on. They also overstate the 'costs' of correcting the behaviour of the ones who benefit from behaving less acceptably. And they completely ignore all the other costs of burning fossil fuels (they just look at the climate costs - as they figure them)
And the worst of that group actually discount the future costs at the highest rate they can get away with because that is a common business practice when comparing alternative project options that a busines could take. That discounting is only legitimate if the same person faces the current and future costs/benefits of the action.
In a proper evaluation there should be no 'costs or challenges or reduction of resources available to others' created by a pursuit of benefit by someone. Clearly, 'being proper' would not suit 'their interests'. Reduction of 'impacts on others' is what is required regardless of claims that the reduction of harm to others is 'small'.
So I consider Byorn to be clearly in the group of people to be read/aware of, but only in order to be on alert for the shifting types of thinking and misleading marketing being developed by those who want to deny the unsustainable/unacceptability of the ways that so much of the so called advanced nations' economic activity has developed. They could also be called Anti-Correct People because they fight against actually correcting things that clearly need to be corrected (including resisting correcting their thinking regarding climate science and the changes it points out need to happen for the benefit of the future of humanity).
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ubrew12 at 01:03 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
supak@6: I did look at the paper. I'm not qualified to peer-review it, but have a couple observations: " the atmosphere does not function as an insulator reducing the rate of planet’s infrared cooling to space as presently assumed [9,10], but instead adiabatically boosts the kinetic energy of the lower troposphere beyond the level of solar input through gas compression."
How do you adiabatically pressurize an atmosphere? The authors admit sunlight and IR energy are streaming throughout it, and convection is obvious: so what is adiabatic about that? Also, the term 'adiabiatic' is a thermal ideal: it doesn't exist anywhere, even in the most ideal of laboratory conditions. There's no way it could exist for something as plugged into the Universe as an atmosphere.
"the... absorption of thermal radiation by certain gases [in the lab]... does not imply an ability of such gases to trap heat in an open atmospheric environment." Yes, it implies exactly that.
"This is because, in gaseous systems, heat is primarily transferred... by convection... rather than radiative exchange." I've taken classes in combustion (long ago): if you do not include radiation in your modelling equations, you will absolutely reach the wrong conclusion. Just because convection is larger doesn't justify simply ignoring radiation.
"If gases of high LW absorptivity/emissivity such as CO2, methane and water vapor were indeed capable of trapping radiant heat, they could be used as
insulators." But Eunice Foote studied greenhouse gases in 1856 specifically because she observed how hot it got under the moist air that precedes a storm: "The high temperature of moist air has frequently been observed. Who has not experienced the burning heat of the sun that precedes a summer's shower?"Maybe your authors need to get out more.
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ubrew12 at 00:26 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
supak@6: I didn't look at the paper, just the journal its in. According to Desmog " 'Environment Pollution and Climate Change' is being led by a climate science denier who is advising... the Heartland Institute... Climate scientists have told DeSmog that anyone considering publishing in the “pseudo journal” should steer clear or risk damaging their reputation... After just two issues, the journal has published six papers claiming to refute the science linking human activity to dangerous climate change" That's the danger with many online journals: no peer-review, its just pay-to-play. Potholer54 has an instructive recent video (26.7') that focuses on this danger and how to spot sham journals like this one.
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Mike Evershed at 00:18 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Re moderator PS question about politicians resisting scientific consensus - once classic example is Eugenics and the compulsory sterilisation programmes. There was a scientific consensus in favour, many university courses in the USA on the principles and practice, and laws passed in many states as State politicans followed the consensus. Here in the UK there was some political resistance which was enough to prevent compulsory sterilisation becoming law - although to our shame it still happened in some institutions for "medical reasons". I am not trying to be provocative here - my point is still simply that consensus isn't enough. Science cannot put itself above criticism.
Moderator Response:[JH} You state:
There was a scientific consensus in favour, many university courses in the USA on the principles and practice, and laws passed in many states as State politicans followed the consensus.
Please document and link to the source(s) of your claims.
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michael sweet at 20:46 PM on 21 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
The Lomborg article is here. HIs argument is that since Claifornia only emits 1% of the world CO2 any actioon will have no effect and is a waste of time. He claims that since electricity rates go down when solar generates power that solar power is impractical (I wonder why lower costs to customers qualifies as a failure to compete). He suggests more research into new green energy (he does not suggest any technology that might be better than current technology) and doing nothing until those new technologies are developed.
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nigelj at 19:34 PM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Ok it was a cheap shot, but things are conspiring to make us buy stuff. While we can of course choose to resist some of this, other things don't give us so much choice. The whole system has to change.
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nigelj at 19:27 PM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Less stuff sounds good, but you are up against the still popular "greed is good" neoliberal economic agenda, and keeping up with the jonses, and massive science driven marketing campaigns.
Add massive built in obsolescence, and appliances that are cheaper to replace than repair, and often so cheap to buy resistance is useless.
Wheres the prozac?
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rkrolph at 18:32 PM on 21 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
There was an interesting article today in the Los Angeles Times by Bjorn Lomborg called "We're handling climate change all wrong". I am curious what anyone's take is on this. Sorry, I don't have a link to the article.
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Digby Scorgie at 12:43 PM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
adrian smits @65
When the reality is alarming, there is good reason to be alarmed. Pretending everything is fine will not save you.
Moderator Response:[PS] If you put adrian smits site:realclimate.org into Google, you get a feel for hsi take on reality. The very first entry into The Borehole.
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adrian smits at 11:26 AM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
I too will recuse myself because this site is unreliable and incapable of accepting anything but an alarmist point of view.
Moderator Response:[PS] Unsupported nonsense. This site sticks to published science. You need to go elsewhere for fantasies.
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nigelj at 11:19 AM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Chriskoz, while I agree with most of your views, particularly regarding T Man, I wish to direct your attention to your words "casual language, direted, yong?
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chriskoz at 10:39 AM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
"stuff a biggest culprit for overheating planets"
(should be the planet)
A typo/mispronouncement. We know only one Planet, on which "stuff" is made. If any such planet exists somewhere else in universe, it's so far away that we won't be able to locate it needless to say interact with it within the same timespace.
Casual language in this series (understandable as direted at yong people) should not be too casual so as to become incorrect.
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supak at 06:13 AM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Heh. Never mind. I remember now. They're just digging up old stuff and putting a new date on it.
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link. Please learn how to do this yourself with the link tool in the comments editor
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supak at 05:33 AM on 21 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Never heard of this paper, New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model, by Ned Nikolov* and Karl Zeller
Deniers crowing about this latest CO2 slayer. Anyone have any critique of what they're doing?
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/New-Insights-on-the-Physical-Nature-of-the-Atmospheric-Greenhouse-Effect-Deduced-from-an-Empirical-Planetary-Temperature-Model.pdf
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Tom Dayton at 01:32 AM on 21 July 2017Climate's changed before
Excellent article new at RealClimate: "The climate has always changed. What do you conclude?"
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thoughts at 00:41 AM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
To MA Rodger above, re your response below to thoughts @50.
You say "I am trying to point out that some people seem to deny evidence for good reasons. I have probably said that too many times already."
Too many times? Indeed so. And as your "trying" seemingly cannot be improved upon, I suggest it is time for you to stop.
I will stop now. This site seems convinced that anyone who questions the AGW agenda is stupid, fearful, or self-interested. My suggestion that maybe that is not the case will not be heard. Thank you for your time. Carry on among yourselves!
Moderator Response:[DB] This user has recused themselves from further participation here, finding the burden of compliance with this venue's Comments Policy too onerous.
Inflammatory and sloganeering snipped.
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Eclectic at 00:39 AM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Perhaps rather than fear, it is resentment which is a prominent motivation of climate-denialists. (And resentment is but one point on the calm-versus-anger spectrum.)
In a changing world, conservatives look backward to a halcyon time — and resent whatever/whoever is causing a different future. Denial, resentment, anger, come together in a rejection of "the new reality" which is coming down the tracks. Immigration and demographic change bringing more of the ethnically/culturally/racially "different", who produce change in society & customs; and "unconservative" pressures, leading to alterations in governmental styles & taxation systems : these things can be resisted & voted against, to some extent.
But the physical alterations of the world with rising sea levels, melting ice, and altering climate/weather-patterns ..... those physical changes are resented so much, as to be better dealt with by steady denial. By ramming the head into the sand, so that an unpleasant reality need not be faced & addressed.
The tip of the denier pyramid is the wealthy group whose cynical selfishness impels them to propagandize & manipulate the lower orders of the pyramid — to postpone social change for as long as can be achieved.
Strictly speaking, all this climate-denialism is insane — insanity defined (in practical terms) as : "dealing with reality inappropriately".
Combine that insanity and anger — and we get that outspoken denialism which we see in the Anglophone world particularly. And we also see the on-line insanity & bizarre non-logic exhibited repeatedly by [for example] "CosmoWarrior" in his past (& current) iterations. And the on-line insanity & bizarre non-logic of WattsUpWithThat and similar websites.
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SingletonEngineer at 23:33 PM on 20 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
The red/blue format, whilst nowhere near reasonable presentation of science, might backfire in Scott Pruitt's face.
If it reaches an audience that is currently anti-science and convinces a measurable fraction to change their stance, the result might start a landslide.
Yes, I know... I'm an optimist. But whatever we have been doing in the 38 months since the Colbert U-Tube clip hasn't got the train to the end of the platform. let alone travel to the destination.
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MA Rodger at 21:37 PM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
thoughts @50.
You say "I am trying to point out that some people seem to deny evidence for good reasons. I have probably said that too many times already."
Too many times? Indeed so. And as your "trying" seemingly cannot be improved upon, I suggest it is time for you to stop.
Of course, the OP does rather support the idea that the reasons underlying denial can be "good" in that the OP concludes by stating that such reasons are not "bad".
"These factors don’t mean climate deniers are stupid, nor are Trump supporters. It doesn’t mean that they are bad people or immoral in any way. Rather, it tells me that their brain handles fear differently than mine and yours."
That said, the contrary idea that climate deniers are indeed stupid is given support by none-other-than than JS Mill who sees the stupidity infecting right-wing politics as undeniable:-
"I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it."
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DPiepgrass at 21:06 PM on 20 July 2017Humidity is falling
There is another, simpler and probably more common version of this myth, in which "humidity" means "relative humidity", even though "absolute humidity" or vapor pressure is what determines the greenhouse effect from water vapor.
A political operative on Forbes writes:
Relative humidity has substantially declined in recent decades, defying global warming computer models predicting higher amounts of atmospheric water vapor that will exacerbate global warming.
... Rather than keeping pace with modestly warming temperatures, relative humidity is declining. This decline has been ongoing, without interruption, for more than 60 years. After more than six decades of consistent data, we can say with strong confidence that absolute humidity is not rising rapidly enough for relative humidity to keep pace with warming temperatures.
The main trick here is to exploit your limited understanding of the relationship between temperature on the one hand, and the two different humidities on the other. However, the Forbes version of the myth goes further and links to a implausible graph made by the AGW denial organization "Friends of Science" - can anyone guess where this graph came from? It shows quite different information than the relative humidity graph posted by Tom Curtis.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:03 PM on 20 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
I wonder how the pushers of Red/Blue Teaming would respond to demands that:
- before each topic of 'debate' the fullest summary of facts that fit into a 10 minute showing get presented. And the IPCC process would apply to determining what gets presented (with the major American and International science organizations specialists in climate science peer reviewing/validating what is presented)
- A panel of specialist/information accessing people 'verify in real time every statement making a claim' before the discussion/presentation moves forward. After each stated claim there would be a delay until a 'green light confirmation citing/showing the sources of confirmation' or 'other light and correction with sources shown' occurred (this would be expedited if the points of claim are presented to the review group in advance of the 'debate')
Misleading marketing/debating/tweeting works because it is not instantly shown to be incorrect to everyone. There are likely to be some people who have made-up their minds so firmly with made-up thoughts that even that type of presentation would fail to change their minds. But it certainly would help those who genuinely want to better understand what is going on. And resistance to doing the presentation in such an open, honest and transparent fashion should also help people better understand what is going on.
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nigelj at 11:58 AM on 20 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
The people in the cartoon have rather long noses. Reminds me of the legend of pinocchio, whos nose grew longer every time he lied.
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nigelj at 11:28 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Thoughts.
I'm not going to comment further on the scientific specifics you have doubts about , like the nasa thing, as I have been told not to. Its sloganeering, and getting off topic, concern trolling etc,etc.
I wasn't sloganeering. Please note where I have made specific and controversial claims about specific scientists I have backed it up with some sources.
I haven't engaged in any ad hominems. This is attacking the person, rather than their views. I have not insulted anyone and have no wish to. I haven't criticised anyones political / religious / employment leanings and associated fears, simply noted that those leanings may influence their perception of climate, and that there is evidence of this, which I'm not going to repeat yet again. It's important to clarify theres a big distinction.
Moderator Response:[DB] Thank you!
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Digby Scorgie at 10:58 AM on 20 July 2017Is energy 'dominance' the right goal for US policy?
ajki @5
I'm being sarcastic, not witty. And when I talk about "we", I mean all of humanity — rich and poor alike.
Yes, the rich should be driving the transition away from fossil fuels, but if you think fossil fuels are essential for the poor to thrive, you are flatly wrong. There is no reason why the poor cannot benefit from the transition.
I recall an article — unfortunately I cannot remember which one — in which the point was made that the above transition in the global economy would require full employment for about thirty years. To me that sounds like a good thing for the poor.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:55 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
While I'm at it, this is the thread that made me think of the carton I posted over on the newer thread:
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Bob Loblaw at 10:53 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
As to the reason why so many of the "skeptical" viewpoints are not particularly convincing, it's because as a group they are mutally contradictory and often defy standard physics. As they say, you want to be open-mineded, but no so open-minded that your brain falls out.
On the contradictions side, SkS has a page devoted to the subject:
https://skepticalscience.com/contradictions.php
On the incoherent side, Benestad et al wrote a paper on it:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00704-015-1597-5
and it has been discussed over at RealClimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/02/anti-scientists/
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Bob Loblaw at 10:35 AM on 20 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
I first thought of this old cartoon on one of the other threads, but it also fits here.
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chriskoz at 09:31 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Bob Loblaw@9
Thanks for briging in the evidence that we're dealing with authoritarian system that US democracy is just morphing into. John himself stops short of using that term although his article argues this case without a doubt.
We know many examples of more or less authoritatian states, past and present. US in its current form is not yet as strong authoritatian state as the ultimate example of Nazi Germany (and likely will cannot be because their constitution would not easily allow it) but what is unique is the absudly low level of their leader (T-man) who can only be described as an abomination of a human being. Calling those who elected such an abomination to the WH, a "basket of deplorables" is politically incorrect but a very accurate characterization. T-man ridiculed himself so many times, called that he could kill someone and still be voted in for president, lost all presidential debates in the opinion of all experts, yet still absurdly got elected. Simply the ultimate denial in the minds of authoritarians (both leaders and followers): the denial of reality. So strong are the phychological mechanisms leading to the formation of authoritatian states, that they defy any reason.
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thoughts at 09:25 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Moderator: You did not see the sloganeering, inflammatory, and ad-hominem in the post above it, to which I was responding? It would seem fair to call both sides on this. This is not a site for discussions. My mistake.
Moderator Response:[PS] Moderation complaints are always offtopic. This is site where science can be discussed but only in conformance with comments policy. For you that means backing your assertions.
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thoughts at 09:20 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Moderator: You did not see Nigelj, to whom I was responding, as sloganeering and inflammatory? Here is a snip from there of what i was responding to:
"Of course the sceptics look at wattsup for opinions that the science is allegedly wrong, as it gives them an excuse. They exercise a total lack of critical analysis of what they read. Five minutes checking the usual denialist myths shows they are genuinely absurd. But perhaps they dont "want" to exercise any critical analysis? Because the whole climate issue threatens various beliefs they have and political views."
I think that this site is meant only to discredit anyone who questions its position, mostly with name calling and insults, this is not for real discussions. My mistake.
Moderator Response:[PS] "I read that it is has been practically impossible to get any research paper published unless it supports the AGW view, that a scientist can lose funding / job if not on board with the AGW view."
That is sloganeering. You have making statement without supporting evidence.
This site exists to debunk those who lie, misinform and otherwise create myths. These myths are debunked by quoting published science, unlike the sites you seem to look at.
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Jim Eager at 09:18 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
So-called "thoughts" is engaging in nothing more than concern trolling as cover for spreading run of the mill science denial claptrap.
Cut off his oxigen by not responding to them.
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nigelj at 08:55 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Scaddnp @51, I suppose you are right. In fact you make some good points.
I don't claim to be super exceptionally intelligent, but I defended myself in a couple of civil courts cases, and was very inventive and focussed at the exercise, and I won both cases. This seems to be consistent with your theory.
I agree its hard for us to do be objective about politics, as its so tempting to let instincts take control. However I have worked at it and become rather good. I do now accept parties I despise sometimes get specific things very correct. Its also made me a political / economic moderate because the extreme positions just dont convince when carefully examined.
I totally suck at many other things in life, but I would claim to be a reasonable critical thinker.
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nigelj at 08:32 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Thoughtful @50,
Thanks, but here are a few thoughts in response:
You said "I read that it is has been practically impossible to get any research paper published unless it supports the AGW view, that a scientist can lose funding / job if not on board with the AGW view."
You don't say where you read this, and certainly provide no proof or credible information. Anyone can make outrageous claims like this so, surely you dont take them at face value?.
Willie Soon and Nicolas Scafetta are climate sceptics, and have published papers, just do a simple google search. They have not complained that anyone is stopping them publishing to my knowedge. The trouble is their ideas have not stood up to scrutiny and are in a minority.
It just seems that in general terms you take sceptical material on wattsup and places like this at face value, without checking any of it.
"I read that NASA has been falsifying data to support the AGW agenda,"
Where and on what basis? Wheres the evidence? You provide nothing of any substance.
Again anyone can make any ridiculous claim? Do you always believe such simplstic claims without checking them? Even if you just checked a few things on denialist websites the holes would become apparent to you.
We are also not reliant just on nasa. For example there are numerous sets of temperature gathered in different ways by different organisations. Even the raw, unadjusted data shows strong warming.
"I have no way of knowing which scientists and which organizations on which sides are really not motivated by personal agendas "
Yes you do. Just do some research and I have already given you specific examples on specific scientists.
Polls discussed on this website show conservatives are more sceptical of climate change than liberals. Clearly political agendas / ideologies have at least some influence. I'm not claiming they are the only thing.
There is also a big diffrence depending on funding. I think its rather unlikely that governments would want scientists with public funding to come up with some global warming nightmare. No government wants this! Scientists have simply discovered a problem by doing what they do: namely research. In comparison scientists funded by the fossil fuel lobby will be expected to find a certain result, if they want more work. Ultimately just apply some commonsense, as well as critical thinking.
Moderator Response:[DB] Please do not respond to the rote denier sloganeering and obvious baiting. If the user to which you are responding cannot abide by this venue's Comments Policy, they will very soon be recused from further participation here.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:31 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
thoughts,
Please explain why you consider the sources of information you refer to to be more reliable providers of good information/understanding than the sources you imply are more misleading.
There is undeniably a group of people who focus on any single 'error' by a media source as all the evidence they need that the source is unreliable Fake News, while at the same time having only rare cases when their preferred sources are actually correct about something.
A rational person would seek the "more reliable" source, understanding that even the most reliable source will have occassional cases of error. An example is the case of the typo on one page of the entire IPCC report where some missed zeros presented a point of information that was clearly incorrect. It was reported by media such as WUWT as evidence that the entire IPCC report process was fraudulant.
However, having personally reviewed WUWT in detail many years ago, I concluded it was a highly unreliable provider of information. A case in point was the nonsense article about a US submarine in the Arctic many decades ago claimed to be proof that the Arctic was ice free many decades ago. It took me less than 10 minutes to find correct reports about that incident including the actual ship's log. The submarine had pushed up through ice that was thin enough to be broken through and was not at the area of the thickest ice at the time. WUWT had failed to even spend that small amount of time, 10 minutes, to verify that story before re-spawning it. And my review at the time found many similar easily debunked or misleading or just plain wrong reports on WUWT. I occassionally return to the site and can always quickly find one easily debunked report. WUWT is a very unreliable source of good understanding.
So in the interest of better understanding what the thoughts are of a person who trusts a clearly unreliable source such as WUWT more than the far more reliable MSM, it would be helpful if you could reflect on your thoughts and share why it is you developed the preferences for media you considered to be more reliable, even though it is fairly easy to determine that they are actually less reliable/less correct.
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scaddenp at 08:25 AM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Nigel. "But would very high intelligence people really have poor critical thinking skills?"
I think "black hat" thinking about our own positions comes as naturally as breathing water. What highly intelligent people are good at is defending their positions. Furthermore, intelligence often leads to discovering/adopting right answers anyway so you can get away with minimal critical thinking skills. This leads to very good scientists "going Emeritus" all the time.
The best critical thinkers I know among my colleagues are ones who found themselves in a wrong position early in career and were then forced to examine how they made that decision and practise the skills to not have it happen again.The pat answer to critical thinking is "what data/result/observation would make you change your mind". Sounds easy. Now think of a popular (not fringe) political party you dont like and then a policy of theirs that you abhor. What data/result would make think they were right? Chances are you would answer "none" and the reason for that is that it offends your political values. Working hard on a problem, it is all too easy to love a potential solution with the same strength as a value.
In fact, as humans we suck at this. The best examination of a position is by getting others to look at this. Peer review - especially submit your paper suggesting the person who will hate your conclusions most as a reviewer. Science is filled will flawed humans, but the long process of review and examination makes the discipline of science our best invention for modelling reality.
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