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What's Really Warming the World?

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Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#91

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.

Not the most credible looking site, but the graphic seems well cited: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-...

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#92
post #59

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann's_agreement_theorem I think after sufficient debate, reasons behind one of the party's disagreement can be boiled down to things like: - stubbornness - conflict of interest - lack of comprhension The problem is if the party, that is logically correct, is in the minority, or if the other party has significant social strength, then a lot of social psychology (bandwagon, group think,…

Yes, understandably, these are things that prevent agreement. But my question was more along the lines of: what can make someone agree with me despite those factors?

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#93

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…

FWIW, my parents were rabid climate deniers, after they got cable and foolishly started watching Fox, porn for the ancient (but I digress..). Then Super Storm Sandy. Now when it is being discussed they sit silently. Personally, it doesn't seem to me that one storm is all that persuasive, from a statistical standpoint. But we are not talking about reason here.

This reminds me of Dick Cheney's stance on homosexuality.

People will deny for myriad reasons, and are able to disassociate harm caused when that harm is borne by others. But the second it effects them? The tune changes quickly.

We have deniers in our families. The reasons seem to be "I want to be salty" more than anything real.

Edit: that said, I imagine most people behind Fox News and other right-wing news sources don't actually believe the vitriol they spit on anyone who says climate change is man-made... But it's bad for business, so whip up a bunch of people into a fury and make science a political issue, because $.

Edit 2: Wow. The down-votes came fast. Is it because I said Fox News was using people?

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#94
Well correlation is not causation.

is it y=f(x) or y=x(f)? aka is is warmer because of the higher greenhouse gases or is there more greenhouse gases because of the warmer climate (that could have been caused by things like leaving an ice age and approaching a warm period in Earth's life)

Just to clarify, i support green technology and I think this is definitely the way to go but I don't like the unjustified crusade using proofs that can be ripped apart in minutes.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#95

Please don't take this as a denial of climate change, it is an honest question. How do scientists learn the levels of ozone, aerosols, green house gases, and the other data points going so far back at a global scale? Is the data from before the latter half of the 20th century spotty? If so, why is it considered good enough to use in a context of scientific research where quality and correctness of data is paramount?

The fact that you have to have a disclaimer up front makes me sad.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed.

Not the most credible looking site, but the graphic seems well cited: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-...

Spencer is pretty out there. He's gone on record to say that warming proponents are advancing an argument that will lead to more deaths than the NSDAP's policies did, and is a signatory to the Evangelical Declaration on Climate Change, which suggests that this is largely a matter of faith for him...

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#98

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…

People of all stripes have the tendency to weight the believability of the evidence based on how well it matches their beliefs instead of weighing their beliefs based on how well they match the evidence.

So, here was something that bothered me this year. This peer-reviewed article was published:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/06/05/science.a...

Which claims that the 'global warming' hiatus doesn't exist and is a surface measurement artefact. Adjusting a subset of the surface measurement data removes 'this artefact' and shows that global warming has still been on the rise. Sorry, it's paywalled, if you want a review of it perhaps try:

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/04/411998275/scientists-cast-doub...

But when I heard this NPR article, I thought to myself, "Hold on. Aren't there non-surface measurements that have agreed with the existence of the last 10 year 'global warming hiatus'?" Indeed, the various satellite measurements (which do not suffer from as many methodological concerns) agree that the last 10 years have been relatively stagnant in terms of global warming.

Adjusting data in this fashion is extremely dangerous, and climate scientists are certainly not immune from the "tendency to weight the believability of the evidence".

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#99

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…

It can't.

The process is sufficiently slow that an individual, especially an older individual of the sort who make up legislatures and other influential institutions, can reasonably expect to die before it does him significant personal harm. Therefore it is fairly easy for such an individual, if given the proper incentives, to dismiss or deny it. As long as there are fossil fuels in the ground that can be extracted profitably, the proper incentives exist. Whether the dismissal represents a genuine belief or simple rapaciousness is irrelevant (and it's doubtful even the deniers themselves know which).

It is quite likely that this phenomenon will continue even when the baseline conditions (those that existed during someone's youth) have degenerated dramatically relative to modern-historical norms. It's the incremental harm over the remainder of an individual's lifetime that matters, against the profits he stands to make from maintenance of the status quo. As long as that's a net win, you will have deniers (the alternative explanations or reasons offered for doing nothing may change, of course, but those aren't important anyway). They'll go away only when the rate of warming is so rapid as to make denial both utterly laughable and obviously unprofitable, at which point human extinction will probably be no more than a few centuries away.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#100

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…

People of all stripes have the tendency to weight the believability of the evidence based on how well it matches their beliefs instead of weighing their beliefs based on how well they match the evidence.

Yes, but my question was, how do we get people to change their beliefs? As you stated, evidence is clearly not the answer.
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