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What's Really Warming the World?

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Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#131

Post by RyanZAG »

yongjik wrote: post #115
RyanZAG wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true, there is another issue here. If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. They'd literally have to start over their entire professional career from scratch with almost zero chance of getting any kind of funding. This includes everyone who peer reviews the papers too. Meanwhile if Agile is…

> If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. 1. That's a bit like saying if powered aviation goes away tomorrow (as in, it is to be completely proven to be impossible), every single engineer at Boeing would be out of a job. 2. The incentive structure doesn't work that way. If you could show that global war…

> 1. That's a bit like saying if powered aviation goes away tomorrow (as in, it is to be completely proven to be impossible), every single engineer at Boeing would be out of a job.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. If you were doing a study on whether powered aviation is going away tomorrow, 99% (well probably 100%) of Boeing engineers would tell you that it isn't. Obviously. But you cannot use that as a proof that powered aviation is not going away. Even if it was going away, that's just not how you prove it. See? If every single powered aviation engineer in the world peer reviewed a paper on powered aviation not going away, it's still not any better or any more proof of it. There is too much financial incentive. It's not a good argument.

Now how much more so in the case of climate science where you can't clearly see airplanes flying above your head?

> 2. The incentive structure doesn't work that way. If you could show that global warming isn't real, yes, all the other climate scientists will lose their job, but you will be rich beyond your dreams. Every billion-dollar petro-business will shower you with praise and contracts. You will be hailed as a savior of mankind, saving a million jobs and preventing policy mistakes that would have cost many billion dollars. The stake has never been higher.

There's a few scientists trying to show this. They even have some papers that have convinced many non-climate scientists, although all have massive flaws if you look closely. Regardless, no matter how good those papers were, do you really believe all climate scientists would just sit down and say 'oh well, it was a nice life while it lasted' ? If a paper was released that truly did refute all climate science, nearly every climate scientist would declare it false, probably without even reading it. They'd look for spelling mistakes in the paper and declare it false if they found one. They'd tear it apart and convince themselves it was false, because their lives would literally depend on it.

> So who's brainwashing all those French, Japanese, Chinese climate researchers to conspire with NASA against their own interest?

Do you think researchers work in silos devoted to their own country without using the work of others...? That's not really how it works imo. Besides, climate change is massively good news for China -- they're making a fortune off 'green' solutions. I just checked and France and Japan are also, although to a much lesser extent. So I don't think this works as proof either.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#132

Post by RyanZAG »

conistonwater wrote: post #129
RyanZAG wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before? A huge percentage of them didn't actually. Most of the current researchers into climate change have always worked as researchers in this field. You have to remember the field has been around since the 60s, but has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent ye…

> has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent years I think you are very likely wrong about the causal link there: the way science organizations allocate money is that they decide what is important to study , so it should make sense that important fields are the ones that attract money and people. And there's a general scientific sense in whi…

There's lots of evidence to show that climate science deserves a lot of funding -- our world kind of depends on it. Believe me, I'm not in disagreement with you there.

However, I think there is a massive causal link there. If you're looking to do your PHD and your advisor tells you to research climate change because of all the grant money, that seems like a massive link to me. Then once you have your PHD on climate change, the obvious next step for funding is to do more research on climate change.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#133

Post by conistonwater »

RyanZAG wrote: post #113
conistonwater wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a second: with that kind of logic, how would you distinguish "economic reasons" from "scientific reasons"? What, to your mind, distinguishes genuine scientific discoveries from "stuff people believe because they want a job"? Every successful scientific discovery ever got/kept someone a job, and sometimes even a Nobel prize. I can't help but notice that your logic works on every single scientific field, without e…

I don't that's true. For an example that would apply to computer science: "99% of computer scientists agree that computers are the future of mankind". I don't think you even need to do a study here, it's obvious that around 99% of computer scientists would believe that, because it's what their lives are built around. Climate change scientists' lives are built around the existence of climate change, and so obviously t…

Why do you insist that the economic incentive is the only, the primary, and most relevant incentive there? Surely you must understand that a lot of people want to do a good job, which in this case means doing good science (which is an abstract concept, unrelated to people's personal motivations). Wanting to do a good job that stands up to scrutiny of one's peers is as much of an incentive as anything. Haven't you experienced that in your own work? Indeed, historically, science has got a lot of things right. I think you might be unreasonably cynical about all this.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#134

Post by christkv »

Here is something I've always wondered about. Coal, oil and gas is originally organic matter. By the creation of coal, oil and over millions of years the overall level of free carbon was reduced and probably lower temperatures. However by starting to burn oil, coal and gas we are increasing the freed carbon again back to some earlier historic level.

I seems we would just be setting us up to a return to a even lusher greener planet like during the Jurassic period. Of course it would be a disaster for our current civilization but it does not seem world-ending.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#136

Post by euyyn »

mememachine wrote: post #122
euyyn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the data, and it'd be a cool trivia to know. I don't think corradio said "incredibly unlucky" because he just flipped a coin. Rather because if the probability weren't so, global warming, as an unprecedented thing, wouldn't be discussed outside of scientific circles yet.

>Rather because if the probability weren't so, global warming, as an unprecedented thing, wouldn't be discussed outside of scientific circles yet. Heres where we disagree.

And that's fine, given that I nor that commenter have the data. But if you believe your critique against the science of the matter is something the whole set of climate scientists happen to have overlooked for decades, the burden is on you to read the actual papers and find out if you're right or not.

If you're right and all of them have overlooked it, you'll have material for a hell of a paper yourself: There's nothing more juicy than a paper that mathematically proves that a pile of accepted scientific literature is flawed.

Imagining possible flaws of a paper before reading it is so easy that it's hard to really strike gold (it is equally easy for the authors and reviewers). But it is also an enjoyable way to learn how those flaws have been taken care of.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#137

Post by conistonwater »

RyanZAG wrote: post #132
conistonwater wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent years I think you are very likely wrong about the causal link there: the way science organizations allocate money is that they decide what is important to study , so it should make sense that important fields are the ones that attract money and people. And there's a general scientific sense in whi…

There's lots of evidence to show that climate science deserves a lot of funding -- our world kind of depends on it. Believe me, I'm not in disagreement with you there. However, I think there is a massive causal link there. If you're looking to do your PHD and your advisor tells you to research climate change because of all the grant money, that seems like a massive link to me. Then once you have your PHD on climate c…

Then in what way does any of that condemn climate science? The PhD student in your example decides to study climate science because a committee of scientists somewhere decided climate science is objectively important enough to get people to study it. Seems okay to me.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#139

Post by graeme »

christkv wrote: post #134

Here is something I've always wondered about. Coal, oil and gas is originally organic matter. By the creation of coal, oil and over millions of years the overall level of free carbon was reduced and probably lower temperatures. However by starting to burn oil, coal and gas we are increasing the freed carbon again back to some earlier historic level. I seems we would just be setting us up to a return to a even lusher…

>Of course it would be a disaster for our current civilization but it does not seem world-ending.

That's the point. We probably can't destroy all life on earth. But we can destroy the conditions that created our civilization and sustained it.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#140

Post by rodgerd »

RyanZAG wrote: post #99
euyyn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about a pile of papers that have been accepted at Nature and Science over a span of decades, not a paper about how Agile is the best programming methodology.

While that's true, there is another issue here. If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. They'd literally have to start over their entire professional career from scratch with almost zero chance of getting any kind of funding. This includes everyone who peer reviews the papers too. Meanwhile if Agile is…

> That, to me, proves that people have a lot more to hide than they let on.

Or it proves you're making stupid arguments people can't be bothered engaging with.

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