Scientific Discussion (No Politics) regarding validity of climate change

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    To all the guilt mongers out there, I have 3 questions regarding climate change, with 3 answers I would like you to refute.

    Question #1:
    Did the earth’s Climate Change BEFORE mankind?  Answer = YES

    Question #2:
    If every single human being on earth died tomorrow, would the Climate still change?  Answer = YES

    Question #3:
    Do scientists continue to tell us that mankind is 100% responsible for climate change? Answer = YES

    Why is the answer to question #3 YES when we consider questions #1 and #2?

    Why does popular opinion want me to believe humans are entirely responsible for climate change? (With religious conviction as if  the earth is flat?)

    I’m interested in anyone who can show me that one of the answers to those above 3 questions is NO.

    Do speak your mind - this is an OPEN discussion, all opinons are welcome. :)


  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    @frimmel:

    @Gargantua:

    If science is content explaining the last 100 years of climate change as entirely humanities fault (Per your article last posted frimmel).

    What explains the trillions of years before that time?� Or is a trillion years of history a weak arguement?

    Okay, so going back on my word. What the climate was like trillions of years ago is largely irrelevant. Human civilization has developed in a very narrow band of climate variation. The amount of carbon humans are putting into the atmosphere is pushing the climate out of that very narrow band.

    Think of it this way. What if Texas or Louisiana started having the same climate as Alaska (leaving any climate change variation aside, just what you think of as the climate in Texas versus the climate in Alaska?) Would that not pose a problem? Houses and buildings there aren’t built for the extreme cold. As far as I know there aren’t any snakes in Alaska. Would anything slither in Texas (no politician jokes please) after a couple of Alaska style winters? How about cattle? How would that work out?

    What happens if you can’t grow corn in the Midwest? We could still be in cool for the planet on a all of history comparison but to hot to grow corn or wheat couldn’t we?

    So the issue is not whether the climate is being pushed to strange places for the planet but for human civilization.

    Frimmel, feel free to go back on your word again.

    Human civilization living in a narrow band, suffered CATASTROPHIC climate changes OUTSIDE of that narrow band, long before modernization, and our modern effect on climate change. Â

    And I’ll tell you what happend…

    Some people DIED.  
    Some people ADAPTED. Â

    That’s it.

    If you can’t grow corn in the mid west, you’ll grow corn in south america, or a greenhouse.  And people will probably starve and die in the meantime.  That’s nothing new.  Look at the civilizations that used to live along the nile. Or native american civilizations. It’s a MOVE or DIE planet.  That’s always been a fact.

    What I garned from your last comment, is a TRILLION years from now, our current climate history on the earth - if you believe in it to the nth degree that you do, is going to be just as irrelvant as a trillion years ago.

    Climate Change is Normal
    Human Beings are Normal

    Or do we disagree?

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    @frimmel:

    Addressed already.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

    Pre-emptive strike:

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

    Totally unadressed actually?

    My questions are very specific.

    Unless what you are saying is that Humans had a effect on climate change for a trillion years BEFORE they existed?

    Don’t quote me a link, explain it to me as a layman - so that I and anyone reading this can clearly understand. :)

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    Good overview frimmel, but that second link is pretty weak.

    For example…

    “It’s not us”  VS “Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change.”

    Fingerprints aren’t exactly a smoking gun.


  • @Gargantua:

    Question #3:
    Do scientists continue to tell us that mankind is 100% responsible for climate change? Answer = YES

    You seem to want to “discuss” a topic in a totally polarized fashion.  Most scientific research is not based on whether humanity is 100% responsible for climate changes (there is already a 99.9% consensus amongst scientists that the planetary climate fluctuates over time), but rather to examine to what degree our actions have on it.  It is also a rather flimsy stand point to fall back on “a trillion years” of historical climate variations that we can neither prove or quantify.  So examining the issue requires us to examine the only things we know with a high degree of certainty.  Most papers contain many qualifying statements that acknowledge there are elements of uncertainty.  However most scientific sources draw similar conclusions.

    So how is a blanket “denial” attitude a proactive approach?

    Are you the primary shareholder in a Multinational oil production firm who might be facing huge issues with increased operating costs?  Because you argue against even the idea that our actions might have environmental implications like it could devalue your stock value.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    Point of fact - I haven’t and am not denying anything.

    I’ve just questioned what I’m being told? Everyone just jumps around and says 97% of all scientists agree.  Agreed to what? Point of fact again is I’ve heard that claim disputed.

    And I question all the animosity I recieve - I mean, this is pretty simple

    (there is already a 99.9% consensus amongst scientists that the planetary climate fluctuates over time)

    So we can all agree that it happens, and that it’s normal?  Or are we disputing 99.9% of all scientists now?

    Asking questions is not denial.  I’m ashamed of anyone who would think so! Or who expects me to believe something just because they told me.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    Lets jump to the conclusion that climate change is 100% humanities fault, and that the worst of the worst models are accurate.

    What happens in 100 years? What do things look like?


  • I’m done.

    Having a discussion with you makes about as much sense as putting an ashtray on a bicycle.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    @Hepps01:

    I’m done.

    Having a discussion with you makes about as much sense as putting an ashtray on a bicycle.

    AKA the “Believe everything I say or I’ll be mad at you” position.

    Hepps I agree with your disposition that -in modern times- climate change is a bit of everything, but I’m dissappointed that you are offended by an open and challenging discussion?

    Let’s avoid that whole conversation though.

    Everyone can agree that POLLUTION is bad. Even I wouldn’t deny that.

    But climate change is normal. We have to accept it as is, and adapt. As oppossed to using it as an excuse to exert control over peoples lives -under the guise- of trying to prevent earthquakes and hurricanes.

    Think for a moment, where all this climate craze fad is going… and if it were possible to meet all it’s ends tomorrow. Peopl will en-mass have supported the rather UN-NATURAL event that ONLY man-kind could possibly be responsible for. A sudden LACK or PREVENTION of climate change entirely.

    So lets ask the question, why don’t these evil enviromentalists just leave the enviroment ALONE? Instead of trying to control it! Like they want to control the masses!

    What a manufactured disaster that would be…


  • I’m neither mad or offended.  I just don’t see any methodology to your reasoning other than to create a conversation where your stand point is “I don’t believe it just because its written”.  I also have no patience for taking quotes from peoples posts and then using it out of context to drive your position further away from logic.  The only point to the conversation from your side seems to be it happens.  Of course it happens, but the study of what are the causal factors and what degree of change is a natural rate of the phenomenon (and potentially whether those factors are even controllable) and how significant our activities are on it is really the under lying issue.  And since you have stated that the information the scientific community has gathered is not valid to you, even though it has caused the leaders of the world to react to the data collected to date, then really there is no point for me to continue to participate in the discussion.

    If you absolutely refuse to see the validity of what some of the worlds leading scientists are investigating, then what is the point of the conversation?  I now fully comprehend your point of view and I am satisfied that nothing I or anyone else here provides you with will convince you otherwise.  So I am finished with the topic.


  • Change is normal. What is unprecedented is the rate of change in the last 250 years. Humans are making the equivalent change to the atmosphere on geological time scales as the giant meteor strike theorized as the cause of the demise of the dinosaurs. We are creating our own extinction event.

    Sure polar bears will adapt and evolve into some other kind of bear, when the arctic ice cap melts. If of course we don’t kill 'em all first because they decided humans taste like seals. If they can find some sort of habitat to live in to give them time to adapt.  But they’ll have to come south as the humans go north and there aren’t a lot of scenarios where that works out well are there?

    Now we’re probably not going to entirely remove ourselves and all forms of life from the planet but we’re going to remove a whole lot of us, and radically remake the biosphere and we’re going to destroy civilization as we know it and likely unleash anarchy or pick your version of sci-fi dystopia. If you don’t like big government how much government are you going to get as there becomes not enough food and water and arable land? Either a friggin supertanker load or not a lot because anarchy (with some sort of local warlords sort of thing) has been let loose or well a fascist boot heel heretofore unknown.

    If you’re okay with that because that’s just what happens over trillions of years, well you’re okay with that.


  • I know trillions of years is hypothetical, but the universe has been around for maybe 14 billion years, the earth about 4.6 billion.


  • Probably within the next few hundred or a thousand years, we would have the tech to gather resources from other worlds/moons and or to synthesize usable materials from the atomic level.  You would also have to take in account colonization of other worlds (potentially). In the long run, climate change won’t mean a damn thing.  We have hundreds of other potential threats we would need to worry about.


  • @ghr2:

    We have hundreds of other potential threats we would need to worry about.

    What besides someone with a gun in your face right now or maybe just getting back from the doctor with a cancer diagnosis is more threatening and needs more immediate attention than not being able to grow enough food because we’ve turned the agricultral regions of California, the southwest and midwest into a frelling desert? We can’t divide our attention between the war on terror and making sure we don’t change the environment so much we can’t grow enough food?

    Accepting the science of climate change does not make you a dirty commie liberal tree-hugging vegan hippie. But I assure you not enough water and grain to raise cattle will damn well make you a clean capitalist conservative money-hugging vegan.

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @frimmel:

    a dirty commie liberal tree-hugging vegan hippie

    What an apocalyptically awful combination of socio-political characteristics…  :lol:

  • '12

    Garg, I  like you and for the most part I find myself usually in agreement with you.

    My observation for what it’s worth:

    I think you have created a straw-man to lay a beating on, if I may, your premise #3 is inaccurate.

    Question #3:
    Do scientists continue to tell us that mankind is 100% responsible for climate change? Answer = YES

    No, actually, I have never once heard anybody with a scientific background ever state this once.  I would ask you to provide citations for this observation.

    A ‘logical argument’ in order to be true must rely on the premises all being correct, since your premise #3 is incorrect your argument if there is one….is invalid.

    Humans certainly do affect climate change but to what degree is the question.  In fact, there are lines of reason and thought that show that if not for humans burning stuff starting a few maybe 10s of thousands of years ago that we would be in an ice age.  Human climate change saved the world but sooner or later it might be too much.  I certainly can see evidence of climate change, it was only a few 10s of thousands of years ago when there were miles of ice right where I live now.  We can see the scrape marks left in bedrock from the miles of ice pushing down on boulders locked in in ice that were dragged across the bedrock as the glaciers advanced.  Well technically the glacier can be ‘in retreat’ and yet still have the ice move forward.

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    If the science can be separated from politics, I am at least more willing to consider implications and empirical evidence. But unfortunately, climate change has become a predominantly political (and increasingly social) tool. It is one thing to be clean and responsible, both of which I agree with, but when we as humans voluntarily dismantle our productive sources of energy, without having viable substitutes, we have severely misplaced our priorities.


  • @LHoffman:

    If the science can be separated from politics, I am at least more willing to consider implications and empirical evidence. But unfortunately, climate change has become a predominantly political (and increasingly social) tool. It is one thing to be clean and responsible, both of which I agree with, but when we as humans voluntarily dismantle our productive sources of energy, without having viable substitutes, we have severely misplaced our priorities.

    The science is settled. It is as settled as science gets. The only thing in doubt is how bad and how fast. The argument is over what to do about the science. And those who don’t want to do what the science says is necessary either have to deny or obfuscate the science. If the science isn’t ‘true’ then Exxon can keep selling you oil and all of their assets are not suddenly made essentially worthless. This is the politics. Accepting the science leads down only one road – http://www.alternet.org/story/153230/to_conservatives%2C_climate_change_is_trojan_horse_to_abolish_capitalism

    The money quote I whole-heartedly agree with:

    The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to their free market belief system. As British blogger and Heartland regular James Delingpole has pointed out, Modern environmentalism successfully advances many of the causes dear to the left: redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, greater government intervention, regulation. Heartland’s Bast puts it even more bluntly: For the left, Climate change is the perfect thing. It’s the reason why we should do everything [the left] wanted to do anyway.

    The science is separate from the politics. What to do about it is the politics. And what to do about is nothing that one side of the politics would prefer to do and the other side seems to think it can still make some kind of go along to get something done concessions. And we’ve dithered about making the changes for 30 plus years and are facing a need to quit fossil fuels cold-turkey and re-making the entire economic system and it’s underlying paradigm essentially overnight in political and social inertia terms.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    @MrMalachiCrunch:

    Garg, I  like you and for the most part I find myself usually in agreement with you.

    My observation for what it’s worth:

    I think you have created a straw-man to lay a beating on, if I may, your premise #3 is inaccurate.

    Question #3:
    Do scientists continue to tell us that mankind is 100% responsible for climate change? Answer = YES

    No, actually, I have never once heard anybody with a scientific background ever state this once.  I would ask you to provide citations for this observation.

    A ‘logical argument’ in order to be true must rely on the premises all being correct, since your premise #3 is incorrect your argument if there is one….is invalid.

    Humans certainly do affect climate change but to what degree is the question.  In fact, there are lines of reason and thought that show that if not for humans burning stuff starting a few maybe 10s of thousands of years ago that we would be in an ice age.  Human climate change saved the world but sooner or later it might be too much.  I certainly can see evidence of climate change, it was only a few 10s of thousands of years ago when there were miles of ice right where I live now.  We can see the scrape marks left in bedrock from the miles of ice pushing down on boulders locked in in ice that were dragged across the bedrock as the glaciers advanced.  Well technically the glacier can be ‘in retreat’ and yet still have the ice move forward.

    This stems from all the articles I read on the subject… even the ones Frimmel has posted like this one.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

    Go to www.google.ca and type in “Humans are 100% res” and before you have finished typing “responsible” the top 4 items that come up are  Global Warming, climate change, Pollution, Animal extinction.

    The sheer and ridiculous amount of media volume out there saying -exactly that- is what my point is based on.  That’s what the people and scientists are saying, I believe even Al Gore tells us we are 100% responsible in his film.

    I mean, how ludicrous? Animal extinction? Really?  a few BILLION years of Animal Extinctions, including the dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, the sasquatch and the sabre tooth tiger, and you want to tell me that man-kind is the most responsible? A bit much…

    The first point I want to prove is that there are NO credible sources which can cleary distinguish between whats natural and whats man-made.  And what’s worth, anyone with a different idea, or a contradicting point of view, gets ex-communicated faster than a heretic in a 1400’s catholic church.

    The second point worth proving is that our perception of time and events is so pathetically skewed. We think that 10 years is a HUGE span. It’s not, especially when you put things into context of billions, or even just millions of years.  Whether we talk about man made emissions, or C02 levels in the jurassic age being way higher than they are today, green house gas contents change… and as society progresses, even if everything some climate scientists are saying is true at it’s worst it’s totally inconsequential when overlayed in a time context.  Hell Frimmel says a trillion years of climate history is irrelvant and he’s right.

    100 years ago, people were still pushing through life with a horse and cart. With the green tech already out there today etc, and new sources of energy people are discovering, how much different do you think our worlds going to be in another 100 years?  and another 100 after that?  300 years is F-all over the historical context, and alot of the -change- blame can be placed solely on the natural course of the planet itself. (Which no one gets published for saying).

    Hell in 300 years we’ll probably be off this rock, living on a terraformed Mars and beyond.  That’s what a bulk of -climate- dollars and science energy should be spent on IMO.

    The planet is going to survive just fine - with or without us.  Of course it’s reasonable to explore all possibilities and make efforts to insure our own survival, but we’re going to make it one way or the other.

    The next most likely -extinction- event is a plauge engineered by climate scientists IMO.  They want us all dead!

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