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

#231

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 4:22 AM UTC

vlehto wrote: post #228

gd1 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. F=ma, Newton's second law, can be replicated easily. It's a fact. 2. If I kick this soccer ball right here, applying a force, it will accelerate away from me. It's a fact. 3. Look, it has accelerated away from me, it's a measurable fact! ...a short time later... 4. Oh, I was standing at the bottom of a hill, so the ball just rolled back to my feet. Do you understand? We are discussing an insanely complex system, w…

We actually do need to talk about those feedback loops. Really. In science that is extremely important, we probably don't disagree. This is obvious. For laymen who vote about this shit and need to be informed? Again important. If we just wave around this "99% of scientist" shit, the intelligent, but uninformed part of populace is not going to buy it. They feel like being called idiots. There is nothing like that to m…

If a laymen disagrees with the vast majority of scientists, he is not intelligent no matter what he likes to think of himself as. Intelligent people are aware of the complexity of the world and their own ignorance of a subject are aren't so hung up in their own egos that they think they're smarter than an entire field of specialists. So if you think the skeptic laymen is more believable just because he's a skeptic, well, you're not really taking the intelligent position because you're ignoring the context that he's in opposition to nearly all of the experts.

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

#232

Post by kafkaesq » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #74

kafkaesq wrote: post #70

There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast. I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a…

The point here is it's easier to control emissions at large-scale power generation plants than it is on millions of individual vehicles. How many cars would fail an inspection if exposed to one? The same cannot be said about power plants. There's also the renewable angle. Surplus wind power, as experienced in Spain, would basically provide free power for recharging vehicles overnight. You cannot do this with gasoline…

Like I said, I understand the tradeoffs, and agree that it looks like they'll tilt favorably to electric cars, in the longer run.

My point is that the rhetoric Arnold is using is a classic form of what psychologists call "extremifying," i.e. presenting a danger or tradeoff as much more dangerous or binary than it really is -- in order to, you know, get people to "do the right thing". (Or perhaps because he can't really tell the difference).

And in a world beset with ignorance, chronic attention deficit and a lack of critical thinking skills all around, this is not a good thing.

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

#233

Post by rudolf0 » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

MaysonL wrote: post #221

rudolf0 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're dismissing their claims without actually stating them or refuting them, as do many people. I believe their claims are false, but I don't dismiss them. Trying to wave away statements by alleging ulterior motives or lack of knowledge only empowers the opposition. Debate them rationally, and you'll start to change more views.

Permafrost melting Annual Arctic ice cap melt increasing. Bird migration ranges moving poleward, migration times moving winterward. Animal and plant range moving poleward and upward. Do you have an explanation for these facts other than climate change aka global warming? If not STFU. If you do, I'd love to hear it.

Did you read what I wrote?

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

#234

Post by MaysonL » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 11:43 PM UTC

rudolf0 wrote: post #233

MaysonL wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Permafrost melting Annual Arctic ice cap melt increasing. Bird migration ranges moving poleward, migration times moving winterward. Animal and plant range moving poleward and upward. Do you have an explanation for these facts other than climate change aka global warming? If not STFU. If you do, I'd love to hear it.

Did you read what I wrote?

I was giving you facts on the ground, rather than complaints about ulterior motives or lack of knowledge, although both complaints are often valid.

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

#235

Post by i2amsam » Fri, Dec 11, 2015, 1:21 AM UTC

EdSharkey wrote: post #223

unprepare wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely see what you're getting at, that there could be yet-unknown/unmeasured variability in the sun's output that could be affecting the average global temperature. I fail to see, however, how this fact in any way discredits the research done by other scientists. You have a hypothesis that is untested, that is not necessarily mutually exclusive from the already tested hypothesis. Until that hypothesis is teste…

I appreciate your honesty, thanks. Yes, you have framed my personal hypothesis: the sun has varying radiation even throughout its predictable cycles and has changing magnetic field strengths that interacts with earth's. That variability and the water cycle on the earth accounts for the variability of our climate. I haven't discredited anyone, that's just my opinion. I'd like to think I've read enough that I can chat…

This strikes me much like a personal hypothesis that smoking is not harmful. It's a fine theory to have in your own home, but when you apply to your theory next to a daycare folks will be more upset.

There's the skeptical professor from the BerkleyEarth project who was doubtful about many aspects to the science, but when we looked at it in detail became concerned enough to devote all his time to the problem. http://berkeleyearth.org/. His opinion, after studying it for years along with research assistants, is that it is happening, man made, and probably a very bad thing for many, many people on Earth.

I think what frustrates a lot of folks is that there seem to be many people hanging around daycares smoking saying that they don't believe it is hurting anyone, while the US Pediatrician Organization, WHO, etc, etc all say that second hand smoke is bad, causes asthma, etc, and the only way to convince anyone seems to be waiting 5, 10, 20 years until all the consequences are apparent (and irreversible).

I'm sure that you can still find a doctor who says smoking is good for you and those around you, but the consensus is that is has a lot of negative externalities that other people bear.

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

#236

Post by kafkaesq » Fri, Dec 11, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #85

astrodust wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point here is it's easier to control emissions at large-scale power generation plants than it is on millions of individual vehicles. How many cars would fail an inspection if exposed to one? The same cannot be said about power plants. There's also the renewable angle. Surplus wind power, as experienced in Spain, would basically provide free power for recharging vehicles overnight. You cannot do this with gasoline…

I don't dispute the electric cars are, overall, clean . Just that the image that Arnold is promoting with his "Gedankenexperiment", per my quote above (that electric cars are somehow 100% clean and environmentally harmless) is simply false, anti-intellectual, and unscientific.

Edit: clean above should have been cleaner.

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

#237

Post by EdSharkey » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:24 AM UTC

i2amsam wrote: post #235

EdSharkey wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your honesty, thanks. Yes, you have framed my personal hypothesis: the sun has varying radiation even throughout its predictable cycles and has changing magnetic field strengths that interacts with earth's. That variability and the water cycle on the earth accounts for the variability of our climate. I haven't discredited anyone, that's just my opinion. I'd like to think I've read enough that I can chat…

This strikes me much like a personal hypothesis that smoking is not harmful. It's a fine theory to have in your own home, but when you apply to your theory next to a daycare folks will be more upset. There's the skeptical professor from the BerkleyEarth project who was doubtful about many aspects to the science, but when we looked at it in detail became concerned enough to devote all his time to the problem. http://b…

Thanks for replying so many days after this thread started, seems like you care enough to say something. It's gratifying.

I can't tell if you are equating "pollution is bad" with "earth will become uninhabitable". Are you?

I agree 100% that pollution is terrible, and we should curtail it where we can without slowing down our technological advancement as a species too much. That's simply the responsible thing to do, and anyone that disagrees should visit China's big cities and take a deep breath or go swimming in some algae plume ocean water.

But, the mental leap to "imminent planet death" caused by us at our current technology level is too far a leap for me to take. The world and its systems are just too huge and humanity is too insignificant and primitive.

I contend the system is complex and we don't have adequate models to simulate it. And, the system is robust and can adjust to and absorb much larger disruptions than mankind can currently create.