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Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

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Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#181

Post by adrianN »

anthuman wrote: post #158
adrianN wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you literally don't believe the raw numbers coming from sensors all over the world there is no room for doubting that the climate is changing. There can, and has been, plenty of discussion as to the reasons, but for at least thirty years now the consensus has been that human activity is responsible for the vast majority of the effects we've seen.

The climate has always been changing. That's the problem. We have been in a "long trend" global warming period for at least 20,000 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum Much of the world was under ice 20K years ago. And the earth has generally warmed since then and melted much of the ice ( with occasional refreezes ). And the "consensus" that human activity is responsible is utter nonsense. Feel f…

At no point were more papers predicting cooling than warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#182

Post by esailija »

maxlybbert wrote: post #178
scotty79 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a physicists. Why would he have any idea about climate? He's just a person with an opinion not a dissenting scientist. And if his work suffered as a result of voicing such opinion then it was only to be expected. If you voice stupid opinion regarding domain you know almost nothing about and prop it up with your work reputation it's only fair if that reputation takes a hit.

The “97% consensus” number is based on surveys of scientists in general, not just climate scientists. Including scientists when they agree with a position, but not when they disagree (because they aren’t real climate experts) is a very strange debate tactic.

Well, everything you said is false:

"Among the most-cited is a 2013 study of nearly 12,000 abstracts of peer-reviewed papers on climate science published since 1990, of which just over 4,000 papers expressed an opinion on the cause of recent global warming. Of these, 97% agree, explicitly or implicitly, that global warming is happening and is human-caused."

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#183

Post by anthuman »

lm28469 wrote: post #165
anthuman wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The climate has always been changing. That's the problem. We have been in a "long trend" global warming period for at least 20,000 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum Much of the world was under ice 20K years ago. And the earth has generally warmed since then and melted much of the ice ( with occasional refreezes ). And the "consensus" that human activity is responsible is utter nonsense. Feel f…

No one denies that the climate changed before and that it's a natural thing. The problem is that in 100 years we went from slow changes to 10 times the amplitudes ever recorded. The questions isn't "Do these cycles exist ?" it's "Are we sure we want to trigger one early ?" Greenhouse effect is a very well studied effect. CO2 / other gases level are a very well studied field. CO2/other gases dramatically increased sin…

10 times the amplitudes ever recorded? Or are you just conveniently only looking at the past 150 years?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum#/media/Fi...

And my argument of taking water from the seas causing the rise and fall of tides is just as laughable as the "climatecentral.org" nonsense that is pushed everywhere. And linking to agenda driven "climatecentral.org" propagandists won't win anyone over either. Neither will linking to a 2000 year climate range when I purposely talked about 20000 year climate range.

The truth of the matter is that climate has change far more drastically in the past and will do so in the future. And the truth of the matter is that we don't know why climate changes drastically. Those who claim they know are simply liars and propagandists. Just like for much of human history, we had no idea that the moon was responsible for the rise and fall of tides. Maybe one day we will know - perhaps there are planetary reasons. Perhaps it is something internal to earth.

Yes, the greenhouse effect is very well studied and it's pretty much been proven that it doesn't apply to climate change. Ever wonder why the propagandists don't talk about it much any longer? We can actually calculate the temperature of a greenhouse ( there are actual formulas for this ). When we modeled that to the earth, it predicted much higher temperatures than we have. How embarrassing. So the model doesn't work, otherwise, the problem would be solved. It's almost like the earth isn't a greenhouse.

Whatever the forces causing climate change, I think we can safely say that natural forces are far more important than humans. Though that idea may bruise our egos a bit.

The industry of climate fearmongering has more to do with politics/geopolitics than climate or science.

We don't definitely know why we had a "little ice age" in the last millenia. We don't know why much of the ice in the northern hemisphere melted 10000+ years ago. We don't know why much of the northern hemisphere was covered in ice ( parts of which was covered in ice 2 miles high ). We don't know the definitive cause of any of the climate shifts just in the last 20000 years. But you and your "consensus" makers are sure about climate change today. Right? Even though every climate model today fails. We don't have a definitive climate model. We don't know why any of the climate change happened in the past. Yet, you are absolutely sure of man-made climate change.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#184

Post by specialist »

Mirioron wrote: post #116
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The clean air acts, the banning of freon and other CFCs, and other public health measures like treated water and ending leaded fuel required regulation not authoritarianism. All placed limitations on their people. Why would this be any different? We don't need to replace political choice, or freedoms with repression to bring in carbon taxes and start banning plastic, coal or gas.

Because those limitations are minor compared to "eat less meat", "don't drive a car" and "food will be more expensive in general". These are going to be very tough sells among populations that are not rich. Look at the Yellow Vests in France.

Versus the "eat more meat", "drink more milk", "ingest more HFCS", "build more sprawl" campaigns?

Freedom Markets™ proponents always obsesses over taxes and ignore the incentives.

Consumption will follow the subsidies.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#185

Post by soulofmischief »

anthuman wrote: post #158
adrianN wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you literally don't believe the raw numbers coming from sensors all over the world there is no room for doubting that the climate is changing. There can, and has been, plenty of discussion as to the reasons, but for at least thirty years now the consensus has been that human activity is responsible for the vast majority of the effects we've seen.

The climate has always been changing. That's the problem. We have been in a "long trend" global warming period for at least 20,000 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum Much of the world was under ice 20K years ago. And the earth has generally warmed since then and melted much of the ice ( with occasional refreezes ). And the "consensus" that human activity is responsible is utter nonsense. Feel f…

I'm always changing. But you could point to a moment before and after I hit puberty, or, on a long enough scale, the period during which I morphed from teenager to adult.

This "the climate is always changing" was just classic anti-intellectual rhetoric spread in response to changing the name from "Global Warming" (Oh but the Earth isn't warming during winter!) to "Climate Change". Be careful. Don't let yourself be swayed by those who only wish to harm you.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#186

Post by specialist »

ThomPete wrote: post #149
ljcn wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A lot" maybe, but I suspect the majority would do the opposite and deny/understate the problem. Also the parent comment is more about risk management. The sensible thing to do in the absence of information is precisely to imagine the worst outcomes and act with them in mind. The precautionary principle is a statutory requirement in law in some jurisdictions to help avoid the worst outcomes.

Risk management has a cost. The question is what is the price? What are you willing to pay for being "safe". What are you willing to risk? Are future generations worth more than current? Should we militarily prohibit poor countries from using fossil fuels which they use to better their lives? You can say worst outcomes with other things too, meteor, nuclear war, pandemic, terrorism, etc. you always have to find a bal…

I'm willing to risk removing the subsidies for carbon. Then let the Freedom Markets™ decide which sources of energy are better. Economically.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#187

Post by esailija »

ThomPete wrote: post #147
Gupie wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely if you are not a climate scientist what is the rational for not going with the consensus of 97% of climate scientists?

Because that consensus is trivial. Probably 100% agree that the climate is changing which is the question people agreed on. Even so-called skeptics agree on that. It's all the other questions that have much more uncertainty and less consensus. The use of that number is the kind of outright political manipulation that's so prevalent in this debate. Keep in mind we aren't even talking about scientifically demonstrated…

The scientific consensus is that climate change is happening and that it is human caused. Being "skeptic" about this is like being a flat earther. Baseless skepticism is not any better than blind faith.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#188

Post by frankbreetz »

gedy wrote: post #28

Maybe no help from Exxon, but US per capita CO2 has been decreasing since 1978. But China and India have increased per capita, which is scary given their huge populations.

US per capita is still higher the China and India. It seems that the US thinks they are more entitled to output more per capita simply because they are decreasing.

the US is still an order of magnitude higher than India in per capita emissions

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#189

Post by soulofmischief »

I made a choice-based game a few months ago about dealing with the political realities of climate change, inspired by Sara Teasdale and Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains.

You can play it online here: https://tinyurl.com/43softrains-v1-1

I have been considering pursuing funding for making similar choice-based games like this one and integrating them with classroom curriculums.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#190

Post by ljcn »

ThomPete wrote: post #164
Gupie wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In 10 years the climate catastrophim we see today will be laughed at. Just wait and se. That is very unlikely.

Not really once you realize how much of the fearmongering is completely baseless. There is literally no scientifically demonstrated consequence of climate change that we don't know how to deal with today let alone in 10-40-100 years from now.

This is obviously not true. How would you stop runaway methane release from permafrost for example?
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