http://o.canada.com/news/oddities/edmonton-city-of-shenanigans/
A number of signs around Edmonton got a changeover…
Scientific Discussion (No Politics) regarding validity of climate change
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I’m done.
Having a discussion with you makes about as much sense as putting an ashtray on a bicycle.
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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…
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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.
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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.
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I know trillions of years is hypothetical, but the universe has been around for maybe 14 billion years, the earth about 4.6 billion.
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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.
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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.
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a dirty commie liberal tree-hugging vegan hippie
What an apocalyptically awful combination of socio-political characteristics… :lol:
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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 = YESNo, 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.
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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.
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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.
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Garg, I Â 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 = YESNo, actually, I have never once heard anybody with a scientific background ever state this once. Â 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.
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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The science is settled. It is as settled as science gets. And those who don’t want to do what the science says is necessary either have to deny or obfuscate the science.
Even if individuals have doubts about the science and the motivations of those pushing it, they still have a right to disagree. My point was not about denial, but about what people, organizations and governments want to do about climate change/global warming.
From the article you linked to:
But at a time when a growing number of people agree with the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, many of whom argue that capitalism-as-usual is itself the cause of lost jobs and debt slavery, there is a unique opportunity to seize the economic terrain from the right. This would require making a persuasive case that the real solutions to the climate crisis are also our best hope of building a much more enlightened economic system�one that closes deep inequalities, strengthens and transforms the public sphere, generates plentiful, dignified work and radically reins in corporate power. It would also require a shift away from the notion that climate action is just one issue on a laundry list of worthy causes vying for progressive attention. Just as climate denialism has become a core identity issue on the right, utterly entwined with defending current systems of power and wealth, the scientific reality of climate change must, for progressives, occupy a central place in a coherent narrative about the perils of unrestrained greed and the need for real alternatives.
Based on the above, it is difficult to believe that, as you put it:
The science is separate from the politics. What to do about it is the politics.
It seems that it is all intertwined, which is the problem. The author makes a point to condescend the “trojan horse for socialism” underlying argument as exaggerated and conspiratorial, but his summation of the reasons for social and economic change point back to exactly what he was dismissing. In fact, his later assertion is that the title of his article is essentially true, because the entire movement is more about social, economic and fundamental change in human thought than it is about the environment or climate. The science simply is a means to and end, and a very convenient one at that.
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.
If you think that is the best (or necessary) course of action, then that is fine; you are entitled to believe that. I on the other hand do not believe that “quitting cold-turkey and re-making the entire economic system and its underlying paradigm” is (a) necessary, (b) socially or economically healthy and © beneficial for humanity. The reason such drastic actions on climate change have not occurred is that it is still a fringe movement. It cannot be done “essentially overnight” because the majority of people do not buy into it and would not sit still for it.
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Things take time.
Changing our diet from COWS which produce more greenhouse gases than cars would be a better start than pulling vehicles off of the road IMO.
But what do I know?
Cows must be man made!
Accepting the science of climate change does not make you a dirty commie liberal tree-hugging vegan hippie.
I can’t speak for the other words yet… but it sounds like VEGAN stays in. What else do I need to be -told-? :P
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Question #1:
Did the earth’s Climate Change BEFORE mankind?� Answer = YESQuestion #2:
If every single human being on earth died tomorrow, would the Climate still change?� Answer = YESQuestion #3:
Do scientists continue to tell us that mankind is 100% responsible for climate change? Answer = YESAs Malachicrunch wrote, 1 and 2 are correct, but 3 is only sort of correct. The climate is and always has been in constant change, but the ADDITIONAL change incremented by fossil fuel burning is 100% our fault. The real problem is the change is occurring quickly (i.e. over decades rather than millenia) and will negatively impact agriculture at precisely the same time as we start to run seriously short of those same fossil fuels. We need oil to support modern agriculture (equipment, transportation, fertilizer etc), and we will need it even more as we try to adapt to these changes. As the two occur at the same time (i.e. peak oil and peak food), we are unlikely to have enough capacity to adapt. When food and jobs are taken away the people will get angry and governments lose capacity to control them or to organize anything beyond clinging desperately to their own corrupt authority. We are already seeing nationalist movements gaining steam in places like Greece (e.g. Golden Dawn) and warmongering for distraction sake (e.g. China-Japan senkaku islands dispute). The final result will be a huge reduction in the human populations in the poor and overpopulated areas of the world through war, starvation and disease.
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Look guys this is simple:
You accept the science and think humanity should make the structural changes necessary to combat it as quickly and rapidly as possible or faster.
You deny the science or cherry pick the science to justify your preferred speed and types of change.
The science doesn’t have an ideology. It is. Your ideology and self-identity colors whether or not you accept the science and which science you want to accept or call more important and urgent and what you think should be done about it.
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Look guys this is simple:
You accept the science and think humanity should make the structural changes necessary to combat it as quickly and rapidly as possible or faster.
You deny the science or cherry pick the science to justify your preferred speed and types of change.
The science doesn’t have an ideology. It is. Your ideology and self-identity colors whether or not you accept the science and which science you want to accept or call more important and urgent and what you think should be done about it.
Oh, I agree it is simple. And we are not going to convince each other to switch their opinions, so we might as well stop now and save our computers from using the electricity generated from a coal plant which is contributing to our imminent demise. :lol:
Joking aside, do you believe that accepting the science must lead to a single conclusion (how to address it)? Meaning if you claim to accept the science you must therefore see the need for all the change you have laid out? Just curious.
Science does not have an ideology, but have you examined the possibility of an ideology shaping science? I personally don’t dispute climate change or global warming, simple temperature readings can prove that. I do not believe that humans are driving the change. Even if I did believe that, I would not advocate mandates and statism as a means for redress. And I would really appreciate not being demeaned for my beliefs (not saying you are) and sent to a re-education center to change my mind. Because that is where things would end up if the world followed your path. - Before you dispute that and call it conspiratorial: how can it not follow such a path? If the centralized governments (or government, singular) of the world are restructured based on ostensibly saving the planet from destruction at human hands, will not those in the minority opinion or those in opposition be vilified, looked down on and “educated”? It already happens and is a hallmark of marxist governments throughout history. Why should it change now, especially when we are not talking about further enlightenment of thought but the just reparation of wrongs?
We fundamentally disagree on a lot more than climate change it seems, which is cool with me. If a solution to this problem needs to be found, it will be found, or created, I have no doubt about that. I am for such a thing happening naturally. Your model is an artificial construct on humanity; a forcible re-tooling of thought and life which no one is prepared for. Humanity will evolve and innovate as we have in the past, I have faith in that.
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Joking aside, do you believe that accepting the science must lead to a single conclusion (how to address it)? Meaning if you claim to accept the science you must therefore see the need for all the change you have laid out? Just curious.
Humans are putting too much carbon into the atmosphere and oceans. This must change. Human civilization is based on the endless extraction and combustion of fossil fuels which is the leading source of the too much carbon humans are putting into the atmosphere and oceans. The whole underlying paradigm of our society must change or it will have catastrophic consequences for billions of people. Should we just carry on as we have been and hope for the best?
Science does not have an ideology, but have you examined the possibility of an ideology shaping science? I personally don’t dispute climate change or global warming, simple temperature readings can prove that. I do not believe that humans are driving the change. Even if I did believe that, I would not advocate mandates and statism as a means for redress. And I would really appreciate not being demeaned for my beliefs (not saying you are) and sent to a re-education center to change my mind. Because that is where things would end up if the world followed your path. - Before you dispute that and call it conspiratorial: how can it not? If the centralized governments (or government, singular) of the world are restructured based on ostensibly saving the planet from destruction at human hands, will not those in the minority opinion or those in opposition be vilified, looked down on and “educated”? It already happens and is a hallmark of marxist governments throughout history. Why should it change now, especially when we are not talking about further enlightenment of thought but the just reparation of wrongs?
We fundamentally disagree on a lot more than climate change it seems, which is cool with me. If a solution to this problem needs to be found, it will be found, or created, I have no doubt about that. I am for such a thing happening naturally. Your model is an artificial construct on humanity; a forcible re-tooling of thought and life which no one is prepared for. Humanity will evolve and innovate as we have in the past, I have faith in that.
I hear you saying, there isn’t a problem and the solution is worse so let’s just ignore it and hope for the best. I hear you saying, you’re just saying there is a problem to push your ideology, your politics, your version of society. I hear you saying, you’re making dren up to make me think ways I don’t want to think.
We’ll innovate? Because there isn’t a problem that needs dealt with by new innovations? We’ll just naturally quit depending on fossil fuels? We’ll just naturally figure out a way to feed the bulk of humanity without enough arable land and water? We’ll just be able to feed all the people who depend on fish something else when the oceans are too acidic for plankton to survive?
You don’t seem to understand that science is not about what you believe or don’t believe. You are denying fact because it contradicts your beliefs. You are accusing me/climate scientists of making up facts in order to support my beliefs.
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Been reading this whole thread.
I’m not a scientific, and i haven’t particularly studied that question, but just common sense makes me say that thinking seven billion rapacious, industrialized bipeds have no impact at all on the climate of this planet seems a bit ridiculous… -
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 = YESQuestion #2:
If every single human being on earth died tomorrow, would the Climate still change? Answer = YESQuestion #3:
Do scientists continue to tell us that mankind is 100% responsible for climate change? Answer = YESWhy 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. :)
Nice strawman. #3 is completely in your mind.
The concern is how drastic an effect humans have had on climate in such a short period (pretty much since the industrial revolution).
Didn’t read any of the thread so I don’t know if it has been addressed already.
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