Earlier quoted context omitted.
I watched the documentary about flat Earthers and I think they're just having harmless fun.
It's all fun and games until someone falls off the edge.
Til a cat knocks you off the edge.
Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
31–40 of 242 posts
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#32Can we have climate change without it being based on humans? I mean what model was predicting the rise of china and india and the vast amounts of trash they burn or dump in the oceans?
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#33People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.
What about the person who believes in anthropogenic climate change but doesn’t believe that humans will ever be able (or have ever been able) to cooperate to the extent that is necessary to prevent it, and questions whether required technological advances will ever be made? Asking for a friend...
That's definitely a step up from flat earther, more along the lines of "the moon landing was faked" levels of denialism.
We can do this right now. Sequestration of all human-driven carbon output at current costs and with current technology amounts to something like 1.5% of world GDP.
As for cooperation, that's a bad faith argument. Saying you won't do something because no one else will is just a sneaky way of saying you won't do it. Someone has to start. Someone has to be willing to start. If you aren't willing to start, you simply don't want to see the problem solved.
Just come out and give us the cynical argument if you really want to go there: the bulk of the human damage[1] from climate change will be felt in still developing equatorial nations and not in the temperate latitudes where you and your friends live (hell, Russia and Canada might well come out "ahead"!).
[1] The ecosystem damage and mass extinction event will be pervasive everywhere, but then I doubt you care about that either.
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#34Then why were they raising the alarm about a coming ice age in the 70s? This is a rewrite of history.
Is it really true that the scientific concensus was in favor of ice age in the 70s? I have heard people say this before but I have never seen the historical evidence.
Nah.
In 1974 and 1975, Time and Newsweek respectively ran articles proposing a global cooling trend. These articles were (loosely) based on a couple of papers that found that if fine-particulate atmospheric aerosols continued to increase the way they were, they could reflect away enough sunlight to cause surface cooling. (And in fact, exactly that was happening during the 70s.)
However, the Clean Air Act and other similar efforts around the world reduced the amount of particulate aerosols in the air. The amount of CO2 kept climbing though, so the warming model won.
The consensus among published climate science papers at the time was predicting an overall warming trend.
But then Dennis Miller said that scientists believed in an ice age in the 70s, and a bunch of suckers fell for it.
More reading at https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-in... and https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cl...
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really true that the scientific concensus was in favor of ice age in the 70s? I have heard people say this before but I have never seen the historical evidence.
No, it’s not. There were a small number of scientists that wrote about possibilities of global cooling, but vast majority of scientists were concerned with warming.
Citation needed. Beyond the OP
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#36Standard conservative responses:
--The globe is not getting warmer
--We don't know if the globe is getting warmer or not
--We do know the globe is getting warmer, but we don't know why
--We do know the globe is getting warmer, but it has a different cause than human activities
--We do know the globe is getting warmer, and it is in part due to human activities, but any action to counter this would be more harmful than letting it get warmer.
--We do know the globe is getting warmer and action needs to be taken, but it should all be voluntary actions by private enterprises, and no new governmental regulations.
And let us not forget: increased atmospheric co2 is beneficial because it increases agricultural production.
Have I missed any?
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#37People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.
What about the person who believes in anthropogenic climate change but doesn’t believe that humans will ever be able (or have ever been able) to cooperate to the extent that is necessary to prevent it, and questions whether required technological advances will ever be made? Asking for a friend...
I personally think the problem is not one of technological, but rather one of will.
There are many vested interested, motivation by greed who are working hard to fight any action, which is easy enough to understand.
What I fail to understand is the (voting majority of the) populous just don't seem to care.
Unfortunately, for these reasons I too find it hard to believe this is a problem that will be prevented.
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#38Then why were they raising the alarm about a coming ice age in the 70s? This is a rewrite of history.
It’s not the case. Newsweek has a cover story. None of the consensus of climate science said anything about an ice age. The anti-warming FUD spreaders use this debunked claim to press their lies.
It wasn't just a Newsweek cover story. There were still major news cycles on the coming ice age in the early 80's.
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#39People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.
Such hubris. Since you've clearly got it all figured out, Tell me, how are we going to address China's runaway coal plant development? Bangladesh's rampant deforestation? Are you so bold as to say that you know what's best for the people in those countries?
It’s one thing saying “climate change is real, but we can’t realistically do much about it”. It’s delusional at this point to claim it isn’t a thing, tho.
Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming
#40We didn't listen.
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