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Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

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Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#71
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IPCC report—again, just like last year—put a major emphasis on implausible scenarios throughout the report over more likely, realistic scenarios. https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/1498317086157774866 Similar to last year, too, the media takes that emphasis, reports it as absolute reality, and then starts the campaign of fear ("red alert") on the public, arguably, to whittle down their critical thinking ski…

Orwellian theories are fun and all, but the media emphasizes the most extreme scenarios because those headlines and stories get the most clicks.

Great, but being the ones responsible for informing the public, that's not a justification for the behavior. If that continues (which it's likely to do), you end up with a highly-reactionary population that's going to do anything but solve the problem.

We're crossing the point of no return as the younger kids have no concept of a world where "doing it for the clicks" wasn't a thing. Once they become adults, all hell will break loose because they don't know how to think, only emote.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#72
post #7

One of my concerns as someone who is part of the tech community is the innovation delusion. Many of us are focused on "magic pill" technology solutions to get us out of this. Things like fusion, carbon capture, electric cars, etc... As someone with an engineering background, I've been guilty of this type of thinking too. Whenever I encounter a problem I think about how I could apply technology to solve it. However, I…

I've come to believe the opposite. Expecting the whole world to give stuff up is more of a "magic" solution than developing new technology it seems.

If people don't give things up, the tragedy comes to pass. It's not the fault of engineers and scientists to not cover for the general public's unsustainable lifestyle that they've become accustomed to.

If you are trapped in an area with limited oxygen, you should reduce your breathing and activity to a minimum to buy time for rescue. You should not complain about it impacting your lifestyle, blame lack of progress on the rescuers, and go along with life as normal.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#73

Scientists have had a pretty good record on this, compared to the general public, industry, and policymakers. I am happy to not throw them under the bus.

> The report also references for the first time “historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism” Unfortunately these are not scientists. This just one example, but they are ideologues and activists first who wear science as a skin and bully scientists into submission. We saw how disastrous this was for Covid response with how science was treated as religion ("Believe Science"). The first thing we mus…

Science, like religion, seems to generate martyrs, but religions treat their martyrs better. Everyone cheers Ignaz Semmelweis because his viewpoint about hygiene eventually won, but nobody wants to apply the lesson about trying out the experiments of kooks.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#74

Scientists have had a pretty good record on this, compared to the general public, industry, and policymakers. I am happy to not throw them under the bus.

You seem to treat scientists as an infallible group of people unable to be corrupted by biases (corporate funding, personal idealogy, etc).

Not in the slightest: the difference is that while individual scientists are just as human as the rest of us, the scientific process is built around public review and validation. In the case of climate change, you can look at things like the IPCC reports from the early 90s and see that they hold up quite well 30 years later whereas the various professional deniers have shifted from each spurious claim to another as the previous one becomes nonviable.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a falsifiable definition of "scientific consensus"?

That doesn't make sense linguistically. Can you provide a falsifiable definition of "turtles"?

"Turtles are all animals with shells" is falsifiable in the sense that you can say an animal without a shell is falsely called a turtle, and that an example of an animal with a shell that is not a turtle disproves the definition. Not clear which sense is being asked for here, but it does parse.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#77
post #28

This weekend I read about how our food supply chain is responsible for a lot of greenhouse gases. As much as automobiles. That changing it could have a massive impact. But, people don't like change that touches their food and leaders just won't even talk about it. How do we get people to be open to changes in stuff like this?

yes the government should tell people what they are and aren't allowed to eat i propose cockroaches and grasshoppers in lieu of chicken and beef. anyone else have suggestions?

There's a difference between telling people what to eat and incentivizing things that give off a lot of greenhouse gases.

With automobiles, the governments are trying to incentivize greener solutions. With food, things like subsidies incentivize processes that give off a lot of greenhouse gases. Should the government incentivize differently for food than for cars? By incentives I mean things like subsidies. Tax dollars.

What makes cars different from the food supply chain when tax dollars are being spent on subsidies?

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#78
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The description on that episode: >Steven E. Koonin is a theoretical physicist, professor, former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company, and former Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy under the Obama administration. He's also the author of "Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters." I'm not sure "former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company" i…

Why not let scientists challenge his arguments then?

Is Joe Rogan a scientist? I might listen if you link to a podcast episode in which Koonin debates other scientists. I'm not going to listen to this episode just to hear Koonin and his views go unchallenged by Joe Rogan.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#79

The Arctic is thawing very rapidly. Thawing permafrost is loaded with organic matter that is generating methane (several factors greater impact than CO2) and spewing it into the atmosphere. As more methane is released the temperature increases faster, spurring an exponential spiral that is greatly outrunning the previous "doomsday" models. These sea level rising and other global weather impacts are no longer predicti…

The clathrate gun hypothesis this is referencing has been largely discredited. I'm not familiar with the science, but I trust the researchers who say there are good thermodynamic reasons the clathrate deposits in the arctic will probably not suddenly destabilize. That being said, we should be absolutely be terrified of this because we're not certain clathrate destabilization is off the table. Plus, thawing permafrost is a nearer-term and more realistic methane monster barreling toward humanity.

Please consider laying off the Deep Adaptation doom reading and pick up a phone to bully your representatives and industry leaders into decarbonizing their operations. Even if there is a climate apocalypse the only way any of us survive is through collective and community effort.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#80
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The description on that episode: >Steven E. Koonin is a theoretical physicist, professor, former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company, and former Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy under the Obama administration. He's also the author of "Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters." I'm not sure "former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company" i…

>I'm not sure "former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company" is the person I would go to for "a balanced take" on climate change. The IPCC is funded and promoted by the UN because their conclusions align with the UN's agenda. It's very hard to distinguish the legitimate environmental concerns from political and ideological ulterior motivations.

Saying person A is biased does not imply that person B is not also biased. I was responding to a statement that said person A was balanced when they clearly have a bias.
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