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Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

sciencemag.org

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Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#81

Post by nabla9 »

bitlax wrote: post #53
woodandsteel wrote: post #36

Standard 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…

How do we convince China and India to lessen their CO2 production in any meaningful way?

India and China are not against fighting climate change together. What they need is fairness. CO2-equivivalents per capita is the fair measure stick (maybe adjusted to imported and exported co2eq)

Government level climate skepticism is mainly problem in Anglo-Saxon countries.

China and India are enemies and competitors but they work together in energy sector. They are trying to push renewables and nuclear. It's just that their energy needs exceed the progress in these fields. They build Nuclear as fast as they can, It's just hard to build them in schedule with conventional reactors.

Bill Gates had experimental nuclear power plant planned and ready to go in China. It had green light from both governments. Then came Trump and it was forbidden. 5-year setback when there is no time to waste. Any sane government would have granted exception for the project.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#82

Post by beatpanda »

"Well of course the models were right", you say to yourself. Who is still arguing about this? The evidence has piled up to the extent that being "skeptical of the science" is unacceptable in educated, elite spaces (such as Hacker News and the tech industry generally).

But now, as you can already see proliferating in the comments to this piece, the new acceptable contrarian take on climate change is that of course its happening, but since life thrived on the planet during other climactic conditions there's nothing to worry about.

The message is the same as it's always been: trying to do anything in response is foolish, and we should all continue to just focus on making as much money as possible.

But the real issue with climate change is and has always been that it will socially and politically de-stabilize the planet, because quite a few people live in places that will become less livable in the near future, and those people will want to go somewhere else.

Those people will have a quite strong claim on land and resources in wealthy countries that emitted most of the pollution and have lots of mostly empty and more habitable land. This will cause global conflict on a scale beyond any that exists in living memory.

Yes, "life" will survive. Our societies in their current configurations will not, and decisions we make now will determine how messy or violent (or not) that transition will be.

Pedantic retorts about geological time should embarrass you in the face of the leaders of the tech industry evidently using their immense wealth to prepare for social collapse[1].

And although these people are clearly willing to spend money to prep for climate change, I still can't get a single one of the recruiters who cold-call or email me about HOT NEW SILICON VALLEY OPPORTUNITIES to find me a single credible company working on anything climate or energy adjacent. I can just hear their jaws slackening every time I bring it up.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val...

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#83

Post by ccsnags »

nickysielicki wrote: post #10
minikites wrote: post #2

People 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...

It’s not the cooperation that’s the issue. Every country can come together for the Olympics. It’s the cost. Green energy and co2 emissions reduction needs to have a cheaper price point to be globally adopted. If being green meant being more efficient and cost reduction it would be a no brainer. This is the challenge of green tech. We have to create the alternative. No one is willing to jump in a lifeboat made out of good intentions.

Also, I understand your frustration with this topic. The method of guilting people into changing makes me sick. I can’t think of a more counterproductive method of evangelism. We need to make real products that do the things that will give humanity a prosperous future. Politics isn’t how we will get out of this, imho. Science and engineering is the key.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#84

Post by [deleted] »

ekianjo wrote: post #48

Where is the story hère though? So they looked retroactively and found some models in the past that fitted with current observations even though they had no clue that China would become such a powerful force in terms of CO2 emissions? If you run random models and wait long enough you will always be able to find at least one model that predicted the current observations. That does NOT mean the models were right, it me…

[deleted]

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#85

Post by droithomme »

ekianjo wrote: post #48

Where is the story hère though? So they looked retroactively and found some models in the past that fitted with current observations even though they had no clue that China would become such a powerful force in terms of CO2 emissions? If you run random models and wait long enough you will always be able to find at least one model that predicted the current observations. That does NOT mean the models were right, it me…

Yeah, this is like the stories about the guy who correctly predicted the winner of the Presidential election decades in advance (Bloom County said Trump would win back in the 1980s was it), or did well on some stock investments that did well based on events they didn't actually predict.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#86

Post by liability »

jussij wrote: post #19
bagacrap wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched the documentary about flat Earthers and I think they're just having harmless fun.

I've watched quite a few of the flat earther videos found on youtube and at least to me, they seem to come across as genuine and sincere, yet very much misguided. I would say this is also a good description for todays climate change deniers.

On the other hand, I have pretended to be a flat earther many times for fun and I've noticed there are some people who seem convinced you're genuine no matter how silly you make your arguments. That's kind of a sport in itself; seeing how ridiculous you can get before other people realize you're having them on.

> "The earth used to be round but over a timescale of billions of years it slowly flattened out like a ball of silly putty left sitting on the table."

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#87

Post by huffmsa »

lukifer wrote: post #75
huffmsa wrote: post #45

Its almost like they're predicting that we're a few thousand years into the process of coming out of an ice age. More at 11.

I don't think there's any disputing the overall trendline, which far predates the Industrial Revolution. Yet that doesn't mean that human activity isn't also meaningfully impactful. Though it's hardly scientific, from a layperson's perspective, I find xkcd's climate history megacomic instructive: https://xkcd.com/1732/ . That rapid-ish spike after 1900 is by no means a smoking gun, but it's a hint that there may be m…

I'm mostly concerned about the scale were looking at. A 50-100 year uptick is nothing on the timescales that the planet operates on.

Even 20k years is miniscule.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#88

Post by bitlax »

pstuart wrote: post #64
bitlax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we convince China and India to lessen their CO2 production in any meaningful way?

Lead by example and institute policies that strongly support taking aggressive action. This won't happen while Trump is in office, unfortunately.

Well I'll take that bet. Climate activists have advocated that precisely the opposite should happen: that they should maintain or even increase their growth since they are developing economies.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#89

Post by jeltz »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #20
rshnotsecure wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I came to say. There were very definite beliefs and they were pretty reasonable (although the evidence did not bear out) about global freezing in the early 1970s. Interestingly, we might compare this with the popular idea of Nuclear Winter at the time. Essentially, a nuclear war was supposed to ignite a global conflagration that would incinerate the skies and burn so much smoke to block out the earth. Bu…

They were not definite beliefs, they were fringe studies that were not widely accepted at the time or now.

Kinda. These studies made big news and even ended up in some school textbooks. Yes, they were a minority belief but let's not exaggerate how fringe they were.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#90

Post by huffmsa »

nabla9 wrote: post #81
bitlax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we convince China and India to lessen their CO2 production in any meaningful way?

India and China are not against fighting climate change together. What they need is fairness. CO2-equivivalents per capita is the fair measure stick (maybe adjusted to imported and exported co2eq) Government level climate skepticism is mainly problem in Anglo-Saxon countries. China and India are enemies and competitors but they work together in energy sector. They are trying to push renewables and nuclear. It's just…

Skepticism of the government is part of the culture.

Don't trust bureaucrats further than the rope you need to hang them

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