Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change • Hacker News Board

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#161

Post by vlehto » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:16 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #100

OniBait wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the 97% of climate scientists claim (based on Cook et al) was shown to be a really flawed study. In any event, Consensus does not equal science. I think given the broad definition of "human activity is causing global warming", you'd be hard pressed to find disagreement. If you refine it to "human activity is causing a majority of global warming and that warming is bad" there is a lot less agreement.

> I thought the 97% of climate scientists claim (based on Cook et al) was shown to be a really flawed study. Only according to really flawed and biased sources. > In any event, Consensus does not equal science. Actually science is very much the consensus among practicing scientists. Short of reproducing millions of man-hours of international research to verify or refute it personally, what exactly would be the altern…

Science is about finding truth. Truth doesn't give shit what anybody thinks. (Except in psychology, but lets not get there.)

Scientific consensus is just educational and political tool. Get everybody on the same page. But it's pretty detached from the actual process of science itself.

Questioning established consensus has been scientifically very valuable in the history.

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#162

Post by adventured » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:17 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #25

nmridul wrote: post #12

The global warming brigade hijacked the pollution issue. There always will be a debate on global warming. So keeping global warming as the prime focus of fossil fuel usage kept people divided. If pollution was the prime focus from day one, then more push would have been given to renewable. Maybe, Arnold is able to bring more people to think in this direction.

There always will be a debate on global warming. I doubt this is true without the caveat: ...so long as the energy industry keeps funding an opposition.

Putin's Russia, and Xi's China, are extremely skeptical of global warming. Russia outright considers it a fraud and conspiracy, Putin has stated exactly that. Plenty in the developing world are on board with that skepticism.

Which is why China is going to keep their emission levels completely uncapped for the next 15 years at least, allowing for dramatic growth in said emissions. The best they've agreed to, is that maybe emissions will fall after 2030 (emphasis on the fact that it's an entirely empty pledge).

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#163

Post by mikeash » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:17 AM UTC

Sailfish wrote: post #158

mikeash wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope this is a Poe. The idea that a person sincerely believes trillions of tax dollars are going to "warmists" is too much to bear.

Warmists and the frauds who are perpetuating it. For the ring leaders, the goal is to get billions of tax payer dollars (via carbon tax) to be funneled to the UN for their uses. This is the biggest pyramid scam since Social Security. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2011/08/23/the-alarmin...

Ah yes, good ol' World Government theories.

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#164

Post by EdSharkey » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:17 AM UTC

nmridul wrote: post #12

The global warming brigade hijacked the pollution issue. There always will be a debate on global warming. So keeping global warming as the prime focus of fossil fuel usage kept people divided. If pollution was the prime focus from day one, then more push would have been given to renewable. Maybe, Arnold is able to bring more people to think in this direction.

So is the conversation something like, "air/water/ground pollution" X "planet is becoming uninhabitable"? Where X differs depending on who is talking?

For Schwarzenegger, X seems to be "therefore". For me, X is more like, "but not". I treat the two arguments as separate.

Shocking warnings have always come with pollution. For me, those warnings have mostly born out as true. I have chronic asthma, probably from air pollution. And, I have eyes so I can observe the haze and smog over the city in the morning. I've been to China and seen and felt what happens when there are no pollution controls at all. Rivers catching fire/all the life being killed off in them by dumped waste is a real thing that happens.

Acid rain, though? That one jumped the shark for me; I think acid rain was all hype. Fantastic claims need really fantastic evidence is all I'm saying.

I do like pollution controls though and I am amazed at how improved the air quality is in the states over what it was in the 1970's. I have kids, and I want to continue our regime of pollution controls. Renewable energy sources are the way to go.

Global warming appears to me to be bad science, however. All the computer models predicted a spiraling warming effect, but instead we're cooling off, and we're potentially heading for another mini-ice age. The sun, being the primary energy input for the system, is never causally linked to warming or cooling trends on our planet. Why is that, especially when we can measure the sun's energy output is not a constant? Money and power is my guess. I don't see any proof - at our current rate of energy consumption and pollution - of how we are making a dent in this absolutely massive system. The scientific claims seem to predict destabilization, and I just don't see any proof of that happening.

Honestly, if global warming theorists want to bolster their claims, they should keep links between pollution and warming very abstract. Trying to use health effects of pollution as a proof of atmospheric destruction weakens the argument because they're two separate effects. Arnold does a disservice to his cause here.

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#165

Post by narcissus » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:18 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #121

gnaritas wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no longer a matter of belief, the evidence is in, the overwhelmingly vast majority of climatologists say you're wrong; end of debate. Now it's time to do something about it.

I think that's a terrible idea. For hundreds of years, people thought stress and food caused ulcers. It was scientific fact and if you doubted it, you'd likely be labelled a crackpot. Until a scientist in Australia proved ulcers were caused by bacteria. So consensus was wrong. Very wrong. I'd prefer it if people kept questioning everything. How else do we push forward our knowledge?

The thing that I hate about this argument of 'consensus has been wrong before' when it comes to climate change is that essentially, the argument seems to be 'everyone always said we were pumping too much CO2 into the air and that would cause global warming and now there's people saying that consensus is wrong'.

Unless I'm seriously wrong with my scientific history (and it's extremely possible!) I didn't think this was the case. Decades ago there were people talking about it but the consensus was that it was crackpottery.

However now that consensus has decided "yeah, we were wrong" people point at that consensus and say "hey, consensus has been wrong before!". I look at that and just think... yeah, we know. It was wrong and we've spent a heap of time finding that out.

I mean, it's not the case that 100% of people knew it as a 'scientific fact' that CO2 lead to climate change and now we're starting to question that consensus. The questioning has already happened.

Or I completely wrong in this?

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#166

Post by gutnor » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:21 AM UTC

nmridul wrote: post #12

The global warming brigade hijacked the pollution issue. There always will be a debate on global warming. So keeping global warming as the prime focus of fossil fuel usage kept people divided. If pollution was the prime focus from day one, then more push would have been given to renewable. Maybe, Arnold is able to bring more people to think in this direction.

> There always will be a debate on global warming.

That seems mostly a US problem. In the rest of the first world, even in BRIC countries, there does not seem to be any debate on Global warming but on the economic repercussions and the fairness of the measures considering First World countries polluted as much as they wanted.

Actually, considering the complete lack of controversy in the scientific community, the US position is rather strange. I guess it is just easier internally to sell wacky conspiracy theories than some hard truth like "it is not our economic interest and we are the world leader, so sorry guys".

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#167

Post by ddebernardy » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:23 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #100

OniBait wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the 97% of climate scientists claim (based on Cook et al) was shown to be a really flawed study. In any event, Consensus does not equal science. I think given the broad definition of "human activity is causing global warming", you'd be hard pressed to find disagreement. If you refine it to "human activity is causing a majority of global warming and that warming is bad" there is a lot less agreement.

> I thought the 97% of climate scientists claim (based on Cook et al) was shown to be a really flawed study. Only according to really flawed and biased sources. > In any event, Consensus does not equal science. Actually science is very much the consensus among practicing scientists. Short of reproducing millions of man-hours of international research to verify or refute it personally, what exactly would be the altern…

> Actually science is very much the consensus among practicing scientists.

Unfortunately, philosophers of science might add. They'd observe that a good determinant for a new theory to prevail over an old one is, well, when the old guard retires.

Not discounting the value of scientific literature mind you. Or the fact that we've indeed been seeing what looks like warming of late. Merely pointing out that a consensus does not a Truth make, that the consensus has remained unchanged since the 1970s [1], that the bloody mess is rather chaotic in nature, and that we're still learning new things about it every year.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie...

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#168

Post by vlehto » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:25 AM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #115

metamet wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they forgot a keyword? It certainly isn't the sole cause of global warming/climate change, but it is real. CO2 in the atmosphere--what's historically known as the greenhouse effect--leads to earth's warming. CO2 emissions are also undeniably connected to the the greenhouse effect, which we clearly have a role to play in. That's science that no one disputes. But somehow people come out of the woodwork as climate…

There are serious skeptics. Like you say nobody really disagrees with 1) humans release more c02 and 2) more c02 = warming via greenhouse. But that isn't the entire global warming theory. There are many feedback effects that occur. Like warming -> melting ice -> water vapor from condensation -> water vapor is a greenhouse gas -> more heat But there are negative feedback effects too. Like warming -> melting ice -> les…

Actually "warming -> melting ice -> less reflection of sun -> less heat" would go other way around. If you have light surface it's likely that lot's of visible light is radiated to space. If you have blue sea instead it's likely it radiates only infra red. Which would be bad with elevated CO2 levels.

The most believable negative feedback I have seen is about increased cloud coverage. Clouds should then reflect visible light back to space. At the same time water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. We really don't know how it's going to turn out.

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#169

Post by vlehto » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:34 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #143

vlehto wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite normal to deny something the entire scientific community is saying. In everywhere except math it's business as usual. Most of our current scientific knowledge was originally someone disagreeing with the majority. It's weird you are attacking someone who agrees with you in policy. Just because he does not think "correctly". Given that your argument is out of authority, it's bit alarming. https://en.wikipedi…

In this case that you seem to support the skepticism is based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Argume... "If P were true then I would know it; in fact I do not know it; therefore P cannot be true." For example, it's not that Einstein in 1905 made Newton's formulas from around 1700 unusable, quite the opposite, for a lot of purposes they are still used: it's just that for the very high speeds t…

I didn't say anything about climate change on the above comment. I only said the argument was not solid.

I'm not "climate skeptic", I'm true believer. I just try to combat these authority heretics.

Re: Schwarzenegger: I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change

#170

Post by adventured » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 12:36 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #39

merpnderp wrote: post #18

I like that he makes it more about the economics of saving lives, which should be the primary argument. But that is a tricky problem since we have 4 million a year dying from indoor cooking smoke, and millions more from other various aspects of extreme poverty. Most of which would be a greater ameliorated by cheap coal plants. Cheap coals plants are horrible polluters, but they are cheap, aren't as bad as indoor poll…

With too much reliance on cheap coal for economic growth, you end up here: http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/7/9861174/beijing-pollution-... China's use of coal has probably peaked. Any developing country would do well to follow China's lead and build renewables rather than coal, whatever its short-term advantages.

China added 39 gigawatts of new coal power capacity in 2014. They issued permits for at least 150 new coal plants in 2015. They're building a new coal power plant every week, and issuing a new permit every two days. Just the new permits issued for 2015 alone would be equal to 40%+ of all US coal power plant output. While we're at it, let's remember to throw in the recent 14% revision upward in their coal use.

Their coal use clearly hasn't even remotely peaked. All the plans on their table right now call for building a lot more coal power plants.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/asia/china-coal-p...