What's Really Warming the World? • Hacker News Board

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#61

Post by mcv » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:03 PM UTC

crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

This article only serves to stroke the ego of people who already believe that CO2 emissions cause global warming. It does nothing for people who already deny it. Evidence, no matter how strong doesn't serve to change the nature of a man. People would rather bend the logic and the evidence to fit their convenient perception of reality. Which brings me to the question: "What can change a nature of a man?" Imminent dang…

> "What can change a nature of a man?"

Wasn't that Regret?

I really hope we can act before it comes to that.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#62

Post by mikeash » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #45

mikeash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so you think humans can't possibly affect the climate because the all-powerful creator of the universe said it couldn't happen? Why are you even trying to put a factual basis on your doubt, then? Why talk about natural cycles and all that, if your actual source for doubt is divine?

My doubt is based on divine scriptures, and there are experiments (as per the article i mentioned) that agree with it. What's wrong with that? You can still experiment and prove divine wisdom, it doesn't have to be forced knowledge.

The main thing that bugs me is that it seems extremely dishonest to converse in this way, where you bring up vague references to articles to support your position, when the real reason you believe in it is because of your religion.

You say you can still experiment and prove divine wisdom. Can you experiment and disprove divine wisdom? In your eyes, is it possible even in theory that it could somehow be proven that human activity is in fact affecting the climate? Because if you've already decided on the outcome and are just casting around for support, what you're doing is not experiment, it's just an exercise in cognitive bias.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#63

Post by athenot » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #27

mikeash wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no known natural cycle in which the rate of change in global temperature matches what's been happening in the past few decades. Current and even projected temperatures are well within the range of what happens naturally, but it's happening much faster than it ever has before. This has worrying implications for the ability of ecosystems to adapt, and more importantly for us humans, for the ability of civiliza…

I'm a non-secular person that's why. I certainly don't have the numbers, i read them here and there. But i base it on knowledge coming from scriptures. Scientists are hardworking people, but i don't take their numbers as faith.

I'm intrigued as to how you arrive to this conclusion.

Faith explains the "why", science explains the "how". And there certainly is support in Scripture to take good care of the Earth, following a more generic pattern of being good stewards of what God has entrusted us with.

This is why Laudato Si is nudging the faithful into action.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#64

Post by croddin » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #3

Cool visualization. It's worth keeping in mind that the modeled data lines up with reality because it's supposed to. That's how you calibrate your model, by making sure it fits reality. The real trick is to see how well your model extrapolates from the data you have out into the future. As in, if you feed it data up to, say, 1990, will it correctly spit out 2015 temperatures that fit the reality of 2015, or will it s…

Exactly. When modeling most data, you would hold back a validation set, but that doesn't really work as well in this situation. The only thing holding back the validation set is time.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#65

Post by batou » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:05 PM UTC

yequalsx wrote: post #31

batou wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Didn't Feynman say that the real measure of science is experiment? Show me the experiments otherwise we have merely observations and conjecture. They might be right, but at the moment we've established hypothesis and nothing more.

We humans are right now conducting the experiment. Despite empirical evidence, data, modeling, and application of our knowledge the effects of green house gases we continue to pump them into the atmosphere on a massive scale. In another 30 - 40 years the experiment will yield conclusive results. Then I suppose global warming deniers like Rush Limbaugh will shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, we now have our experim…

I look forward to the results however I'm not sure they stand as an unbiased controlled experiment and are as factually devoid as the methodology.

Many things are observable but the difference between correlation and causation are somewhat more subtle.

Please note, I'm no denier and think that we should reduce our emissions as they have secondary benefits, fully acknowledge that there is a slight raise in global temperature but to assign a cause is a little premature.

Add to that the incidental political involvement, funding and the 'facts' (of incidentally we have none, nor many viable theories) leads to a logical conclusion that "mu" (neither yes or no) is a better stance to take.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#66

Post by matthewmacleod » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:05 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #45

mikeash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so you think humans can't possibly affect the climate because the all-powerful creator of the universe said it couldn't happen? Why are you even trying to put a factual basis on your doubt, then? Why talk about natural cycles and all that, if your actual source for doubt is divine?

My doubt is based on divine scriptures, and there are experiments (as per the article i mentioned) that agree with it. What's wrong with that? You can still experiment and prove divine wisdom, it doesn't have to be forced knowledge.

There is little to no evidence that current climate change is a natural event.

as per the article i mentioned

You didn't link to this article, so it's content is not useful, and it's likely it didn't say what you imply.

You can still experiment and prove divine wisdom

No you can't.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#67

Post by fexl » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #48

_petronius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the context of convincing people that we urgently need to address the current climate problem (for economic, ecological, and security reasons), that might be distracting. Assuming there are probably other interglacial periods in Earth's long history that were a lot warmer than the current one[0], or maybe had lots more greenhouse gasses from some non-human source (if such a thing is geologically possible),…

"...the Earth has had worse ecological disasters than the human species..." True, but they were a long time ago and the human species wasn't around to experience them. The rate of change of present warming, and its likely effects, are going to cause very severe difficulties for our (and many other) species.

Likely yes, but please be careful that the remedies do not cause more severe difficulties than the problem itself.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#68

Post by cholantesh » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

ThisIBereave wrote: post #46

natermer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the models have performed very well. You probably won't find a scorecard because it's embarrassing.

Citation needed.

Probably a long list of ExxonMobil shill sites.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#69

Post by jasonkester » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

ThisIBereave wrote: post #46

natermer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the models have performed very well. You probably won't find a scorecard because it's embarrassing.

Citation needed.

Here's a good one:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-...

44 Climate Models all fighting to out-panic one another, not a single one guessing low enough to predict the actual values for 2012 (when it seems the dataset in question ended)

... and a seemingly more reputable one showing roughly the same thing:

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-peer-reviewed-pocket-calculator...

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#70

Post by mullen » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 3:07 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #35

flavor8 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i really doubt we humans can affect climate changes in any way On what basis, exactly? Would you be convinced if climate scientists critiqued your unit testing approach?

as i answered before, merely on a non-secular basis. Not all knowledge comes from science and experiments. There is so much knowledge in religious scriptures.

> There is so much knowledge in religious scriptures.

No, there is not. Some guy writing a book 800 years ago, who was not a scientist and who was not even writing on any scientific subject be more accurate that a modern scientist writing on the subject they have spent years studying. It just boggles the mind that an adult in modern times would believe any of that scripture nonsense.