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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

#241

Post by graeme »

rjf72 wrote: post #228
crispinb wrote: post #5

Not news of course, but worth restating. Credulous 'scepticism' about the fundamentals of the climate collapse threat has been largely driven by corporate propaganda campaigns. Those campaigns were themselves constructed by people who weren't 'sceptics' -- they believed AGM was happening -- but considered their short-term profitability more important. Climate collapse 'sceptics' were nearly all gulls.

This is not a well supported position. There are numerous well established scientists who have expressed concern and criticism on the current 'consensus' in regards to climate change. These include for instances Richard Lindzen [1], a member of the National Academies of Science, an MIT atmospheric physicist, and also a lead author on one of the scientific sections of IPCC climate report. Appeals to authority are fool…

Lindzen doesn't dispute that CO2 warms the atmosphere! The vast majority of "skeptics" seem to think it's all a fraud, and that CO2 does nothing.

There is zero support for that position.

If you would like to debate the merits of Lindzen's views, feel free to do so: he thinks there will be less warming than existing models predict. He doesn't deny warming!

Meanwhile he retired in 2013, and as far as I can tell has produced no active research in this field since 2011. And his 2011 paper was widely panned including by reviewers he selected. He had to correct numerous errors in the paper. According to wikipedia, he eventually argued that at least 75% of predicted warming was happening.

So, a 25% margin off a catastrophic level of warming. And that's the very best name you can produce. And this info is all in the link you sent. And that's apart from the question of whether he was right in his argument in 2011, which is a factual answer we can measure with temperature sensors. (IIRC, warming has progressed faster than expected instead)

Contrary to your point, there is tremendous economic incentive to prove that fossil fuels are safe, cause us no trouble, and can continue to be used. Anyone who decisively proved that would be a hero, as fossil fuels are very useful indeed. The absence of such a person suggests that this view is mistaken.

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

#242

Post by ThomPete »

Frondo wrote: post #220
ThomPete wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that's not the scientific consensus but thanks for proving my point by arguing in blind faith. The scientific consensus which EVERYONE agrees about even the so-called skeptics is that the climate is changing. There is no consensus that it's human-caused, there are some indications that humans have an effect but you won't find any actual scientific proof of how much. So the real question here is why you blindly be…

Actually, yeah, something like 99% of working scientists in climate-related fields agree it's human-caused. There've been a number of meta-studies about this. If you want to know more, you can google this. It's a discussion that, if not for the fossil fuel money being pumped into stirring up controversy (also well demonstrated, also google-able), would have been settled long ago. As a depressing parallel, there are a…

No they don't but thanks for proving my point.

And I don't need to google it I actually spent years looking at the material and methods. You on the other hand cause if you had you wouldn't claim things like 99% and you wouldn't actually believe consensus was science.

Not a single concrete piece of evidence for your position just claims.

Where is the scientifically demonstrated number that shows how much humans affect the climate?

"Google it".

Couldn't find it? Of course you can't cause we don't know what that number is because we haven't actually demonstrated it. Instead we are speculating that because we can't find other reasons and CO2 emissions correlate with the temperature increase then it must be that.

Yet how do you explain the 0.5 degree increase from late 1800- mid 1900 were we didn't do any significant CO2 emissions and how do you explain that the temperature haven't gotten up much more than the same 0.5 from the mid 1900?

Yes humans probably have some effect but we don't know how much.

If 100% agreed that it was humans caused that doesn't change anything unless they can scientifically demonstrate it which they can't.

All you have is namecalling. No science, no data just an attempt at bullying without anything to back you up.

I can back my beliefs up scientifically, you can't. Yet you call me the denier.

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

#243

Post by dfilppi »

Gupie wrote: post #152
civility wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there isn't any reason for me to jump to a conclusion. For other reasons, I already have a carbon footprint and voting record almost anyone in that consensus would approve of. Is it really important that I "believe" all the things people are afraid of? I'm pretty content to leave some topics unresolved until I get more information.

I am not a fan of "believe" or dogma of any kind myself. I tend to go on likelihood. I ask myself is it more likely that the 97% are correct or the 3%?

Fortunately Galileo didn't follow that strategy

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

#244

Post by ajhaupt7 »

eppsilon wrote: post #52
ajhaupt7 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I'm the author + developer -- hope there isn't a problem with posting your own content. I think there's value in it!

Could you add an RSS feed of your posts?

Yeah definitely, I'll let you know when it's up there

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

#245

Post by trophycase »

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 urinate 5-6 times a day, but yesterday I went 60 times. But hey, it fluctuates by the day. Nothing to see here.

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

#247

Post by NeedMoreTea »

Mirioron wrote: post #177
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goods were more expensive in general when a sales tax or VAT was brought in. Without riots or oppressive regime. If taxes and regulation penalise meat, people will buy less meat - just as taxes and regulation have changed the town landscape from cigarette butts everywhere, to remarkably infrequent. When I was at school pretty much everyone smoked. Now it's really uncommon to see a smoker. Again, there were no riots o…

None of those things are even remotely comparable to eating meat. Meat is the easiest way to have a balanced diet in terms of nutrition. When you increase the price then people will simply pay more. Besides, VAT and other such taxes are only around 20%. You need far more than that. Look at the Yellow Vests if you want to see what happens when prices go too high. We even have instances of political parties being voted…

Any nutritional argument is moot unless you are thinking of outright blanket ban, which is a completely different proposition.

We were not generally malnourished in the West during the fifties, sixties, and seventies, despite consuming far less meat. Though we were far less obese and there was far less type 2 diabetes. A chicken was more a tasty, luxury treat than the tasteless, textureless rubbish readily available everywhere today. Most ate meat, but far less in each meal.

Doesn't seem enough to bring down governments by itself. Defining party by single issue is downright dangerous. Particularly when the popular mood seems to increasingly be "fix the damn climate". The Tories - now polling 9% - probably wish they'd never even thought of mentioning the Brexit they are incapable of delivering.

p.s. The Yellow vests seem to be about the inequality of action rather than prices. French fuel prices are amongst the lower in the EU.

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

#248

Post by mythrwy »

Gravityloss wrote: post #160
js8 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort It's interesting though that they will oblige them to wars. This is generally not a true statement. Government is not entirely segregated from the citizenry. It is, in some form, representation of society (even in a dictatorship).

If half of the media tells it's a hoax, why would the population want to endure inconvenience for it. Denialism has a real effect.

Was this a hoax?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm

It isn't necessarily denialism nor shilling to question the validity of predictions. It's a good thing.

Unfortunately the whole topic has become breathless "99% of scientists!" and tied in with social economic programs to the point I'm not convinced any more. To say nothing of failed predictions.

Ya, I believe C02 _should_ warm the earth based on the science. But this whole world is ending thing I'm waiting to actually see something.

For the record, I've been hearing this for over 30 years as an adult and so far not much. Perhaps one day it will all catch up, but I'm skeptical at this point.

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

#249

Post by mythrwy »

solarkraft wrote: post #120
chewz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power. Here is the catch - efforts to reduce overconsumption mean slowing economy and lower tax base. No goverment can afford that. > Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2. I believe…

> I believe we are on a verge of Millenial movement of some sort that will make a matter of enviroment a quasi religion of sorts. That would change the attitudes. It's happening. And I'm really happy about it.

I'm not happy about it.

Replacing one faith based authoritarian system with another isn't really a leap forward.

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

#250

Post by kaybe »

rjf72 wrote: post #228
crispinb wrote: post #5

Not news of course, but worth restating. Credulous 'scepticism' about the fundamentals of the climate collapse threat has been largely driven by corporate propaganda campaigns. Those campaigns were themselves constructed by people who weren't 'sceptics' -- they believed AGM was happening -- but considered their short-term profitability more important. Climate collapse 'sceptics' were nearly all gulls.

This is not a well supported position. There are numerous well established scientists who have expressed concern and criticism on the current 'consensus' in regards to climate change. These include for instances Richard Lindzen [1], a member of the National Academies of Science, an MIT atmospheric physicist, and also a lead author on one of the scientific sections of IPCC climate report. Appeals to authority are fool…

> Contrary to the IPCC's assessment, Lindzen said that climate models are inadequate.

> According to an April 30, 2012 New York Times article,[67] "Dr. Lindzen accepts the elementary tenets of climate science. He agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, calling people who dispute that point "nutty." He agrees that the level of it is rising because of human activity and that this should warm the climate." He also believes that decreasing tropical cirrus clouds in a warmer world will allow more longwave radiation to escape the atmosphere, counteracting the warming.[67] Lindzen first published this "iris" theory in 2001,[9] and offered more support in a 2009 paper.[51]

Hm.. So he has a diverging view on the consequences of warming on the tropical cirrus cloud coverage, and thinks the models are not good enough to reproduce the real climate. That's disagreement about the projections, not the basics, with most of the community, and that's ok, we can research more and figure out the truth. The problem is, we don't have that time (unless he's right).

Only reality will really tell. Let's hope he's right (not that probable), but act as if he wasn't, and see what else we can learn about the system to improve our understanding.

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