I assume (perhaps wrongly) that at some point in the future there will not be a debate about Global Warming. One side will have won. What will it take for that to happen?
Either an Ice Age or a Great Flood.
The debate was won already in the scientific and academic communities, the problem for the outfits that claim this was not so is to continue to convince most of the population that this has not taken place.
The discussion now should be on what to do, how much we are willing to waste on not doing anything (as the costs of adapting will be higher if little is done now) how to get industry to do more on new technologies and deployment of them even in developing nations. And how to prepare for the mass movements of people that the change will most likely bring. In essence the world will not end, but I think human nature will ensure a lot of suffering for not being prepared thanks to many of those groups that continue to say that we should do nothing.
You need to check one recent documentary from Frontline exposing the current efforts from fossil fuel companies and others to prevent a change that even most of the population agrees that it should be happening.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2295533310/
A transcript is here:
What we should be aware is that even with all their propaganda the polls still show that people are more in favor of change to deal with this issue, but in my experience many on the conservative side that accept the science are not aware of the levels of denial their elected officials have and are currently acting on that denial in congress.
It won’t be. The arguments will just morph into different variations. In fact, that has already started.
The earlier arguments were whether or not global warming is really happening at all. Most people believe that it has now just because of personal experience even if they don’t trust the scientists.
However, there is still plenty of argument left even if you do accept that it is occurring. The next step is arguing about what is really causing it at a detailed level. That one still isn’t completely nailed down so it will last for a while.
Even if you do convince the vast majority of people that global warming is occurring and it is mainly caused by human actions, you can still argue over what can meaningfully be done about it. That is the toughest one of all because even many scientists advocate the idea of a ‘tipping point’ where the change is largely irreversible and accelerates as Arctic regions thaw and release immense amounts of trapped gases into the atmosphere causing a feedback loop. It is possible that the real answer is that we can’t really do much about it even now.
Now lets not be contradictory here.
It is contradictory to claim that it is not occurring and then at the same time report that scientists mention tipping points that will make our efforts useless.
As for the arguing on what is causing the current warming, you are still not looking at what the scientists continue to report:
Regarding on the now also repeated “we can’t really do much about it” (yes that is not even original, it was debunked or a misrepresentation of what the scientists actually say) that misses that what the experts report is that even if there are changes that will come as we already have emitted lots of CO2, the changes will be more and worst if we do not start controlling emissions.
You are misunderstanding me. I do accept global warming and that we are a primary cause of it. I am more skeptical about what can be meaningfully done about it because it is a problem that involves the whole world and climate changes that may be largely irreversible in any reasonable amount of time.
My post wasn’t about my views. It is a response to how long the arguments would last. I say indefinitely because there are multiple levels to argue. It isn’t contradictory to bring up the fact that some people say that global warming isn’t occurring and to also bring up tipping points. I am talking about the arguments different groups of people will make or the same person will make over time as they adjust their stance to concede lost ground but not the overall battle.
Oh well, sorry, then I remove you from my reply, it is in any case directed to those making those arguments.
The only nit is that it remains a contradiction because it comes usually with affirmation that most scientists report it is not happening (not true) and at the same time we see also them reporting that scientists say that “it is too late” (barely true, there is a level of change already committed, but even worse effects are expected if we do not control the emissions) The first item claims that it is not happening, and at the same time we get an argument that it is. Of course the point here is to show all that indeed one side is using pseudo science to oppose change.
And again, the main point I make is that there comes a time when we **will **have to ignore the proponents of doing nothing, just like in San Francisco they stopped listening to the ones still proposing to continue using ferries to cross the Golden Gate and finally make the bridge.
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
The debate was won already in the scientific and academic communities, the problem for the outfits that claim this was not so is to continue to convince most of the population that this has not taken place.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with you, but it’s like with the cigarettes causing cancer thing…the debate isn’t really over until the side attempting to muddy the waters has been so thoroughly discredited that the general public doesn’t even seriously consider their position anymore. Today, it would take a particularly brain dead individual to believe that cigarettes don’t increase the probability of things like lung cancer because the other side of that debate have been so discredited that it’s not seriously considered anymore. I know that you (and I for that matter) think that the there is no global warming/even if there is it’s natural causes side has clearly jumped the shark, but the public is still not convinced to the degree that there is no debate anymore. I think that steady gains have been made, especially considering the freakish weather we’ve been having the last couple of years (yeah, I know…no way to directly link it to GW or just freak weather, but it’s the public PERCEPTION that’s important on this one, as Cecil pointed out in a recent thread on hurricanes)…but the fat lady still hasn’t sung yet wrt an overwhelming majority of the public.
To answer the OP, that’s the point where the debate will be resolved…when there isn’t any serious debate anymore. Look at Evolution, or cigarettes, or even something more esoteric and little understood as Einsteinian physics…today, there is little (public) debate about any of those things, or what debate there is comes more from the fringe and isn’t generally even engaged or even on the radar of most of the public. Fairly soon I think that’s where global climate change will be…it will be basically accepted by the public as fact, there won’t really be any more debate as far as they are concerned, and that will be it…the fat lady will have sung.
Cigarettes and Einstein, maybe. But what do you make of this recent Gallup poll, where the most popular reply was that God created human beings in pretty much their present form within the last ten thousand years?
That scored a solid 46%, well ahead of 32% saying evolution was a process guided by God and only 15% opting for Option C; by contrast, a whopping 49% of Americans say global warming has been scientifically proven to be the result of man-made emissions; only 25% deny that global warming exists at all, while 24% say the climate is changing but not because of man-made emissions. So if the goal is to be like unto the debate over evolution, isn’t this issue already there and then some?
The debate will be won as the weather increasingly goes crazy: hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires. Extreme weather events are becoming relatively common–unlike in the past when they were once in a blue moon. This is what people notice and affects their beliefs–not academic papers.
More people believe in AGW than evolution? Sheeeyyyitttt!!! Now there’s a surefire bar bet.
The Five Steps of Climate Change Denial, quoth me:
[ol]
[li]It’s not happening.[/li][li]It’s happening, but it’s natural.[/li][li]Iit’s happening, and it’s not natural, but it’s beneficial.[/li][li]We’re causing it, it’s not a good thing, but it would cost too much to do anything about it.[/li][li]It’s not a good thing, but now it’s too late to stop it.[/li][li]Go back to Step 1.[/li][/ol]
Well, perhaps I’ve overstated how things are wrt Evolution. Perhaps it’s just the circles I run in and the shows I watch on TV, but ISTM that the public debate on the question has mostly died down…from my perspective. Going on the History Channel, Discovery, TLC, Science, you hardly ever see any shows for public consumption about creationism, either YEC or OEC. Nor do you see a lot of public debate on the subject. I suppose if a solid 44% of people still believe that God created humans exactly as we are 10,000 years ago then that 44% have been pretty quiet about debating the point (I count those who are saying that God guided evolution as pretty much accepting Evolution, at least nominally).
Global Warming/Global Climate change, however, IS still very much on the front burner of debate, at least, again, in the circles I run in and the shows and media I watch and read. Could simply be my own biased perception and willingness to dismiss the creationist crowd as completely deluded, while still being a bit wary of the anti-global warming folks since they are still so vocal.
And we are just in the middle of the longest winter in living memory. We just had a frigging snowstorm in late March. Where’s the goddamn global warming they’ve been promising us for years?
And item 5 is shared by many Climate Change Believers – re. the other thread about us being among the last humans to walk the earth.
I’d also add that number 4, if you inserted ‘realistically’ and ‘in the short term’ plus had a more nuanced definition of ‘cost’ is pretty much reality, not climate change denial.
Not as many in my experience and they are wrong too as climate change scientists report.
It’s already resolved. It’s a debate in the same sense that whether the Earth is round is debated.
[QUOTE=Yes Prime Minister]
Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley: What’s that?
Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we can do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
[/QUOTE]
It isn’t resolved like the Silver Standard debate is resolved or what we should do about slavery.
The creationism/evolution argument is still hot, and it’s a lot easier to get clarity there than for GW. Years ago I knew some intelligent people who felt that evolution had been more or less disproved. I was astonished but as I encountered that view more and more (and not by stupid or uneducated people) I decided to research the question for myself. I started with Darwin and moved on to modern books and now have a nice sub-shelf of books on both sides of the question.
The question was pretty easily answered, trying my best to be unbiased. (I wasn’t unbiased, as when I did read a probabilistic argument I found really compelling against natural origins – not the same question but related – I was really stunned. It was a bit of a blow to my whole world view. After further consideration, I found that the argument was unsound. Whew.)
It was pretty easy to see that the anti-evolution “camp” did not have any cohesive theory. Claims and explanations from different camps were contradictory. There was no “one big tent”. The biggest tent was the ID movement, yet most of the funding for this came from one source, and most of the proponents were clearly not arguing in good faith, because when they’d be called to do something like substantiate a claim, they’d fail to, and yet they’d repeat the claim in the next presentation. A scientist who does that doesn’t last in academia.
While the details of evolution are terribly complicated (and evolving all the time), the big picture of descent with modification remains the same and the evidence for it stays consistent. It’s something that a scientifically minded layman can evaluate.
That’s where it differs from climate science, which is quite a bit more complicated – not just to understand the theory, but to understand how the data is collected and how to interpret it correctly. The historical record of temperatures is quite a bit less clear than the order of fossils in the geological record (not that the latter is a walk in the park).
I tried to do a similar study of climate science and frankly, couldn’t follow the rhetoric very well due to the complexity of the science. However, as with evolution:
- the skeptics are a small minority
- they don’t have a cohesive countertheory
- their arguments contradict each other
Furthermore, the apologists at the IPCC site do an incredibly good job at stating counterclaims and dispassionately explaining them. (In their shoes, I’d really have to fight the urge to be lot snarkier!)
My favorite question for deniers is “what evidence would convince you that you’re wrong?” In the evolution camp, the answers are myriad and simple, like “finding a rabbit in the devonian”. I’ve yet to hear a good answer from the creationism or ID crowd.
I’d be interested to hear answers to this question (from either side) on climate science. Maybe I shold start an IMHO thread.
In any case, I suspect that the climate issue will be solved the same way as the phlogiston theory issue: the proponents eventually died, but young scientists entering the field saw the greater usefulness of Lavoisier’s model. Of course, there were nails in the coffin such as the periodic table, but the final burial had to wait over a century, for Rutherford’s work.
Unfortunately, climate science and evolution are largely historical sciences of chaotic phenomena. I know quite a number of intelligent people who cling to literal interpretataions of Popper’s definitions, for which chaotic phenomena must be outside the realm of scientific inquiry (insert sarcastic eyeroll here). Those folks are going to cling to their preconceptions and pass them on to future generations.
So, good luck for a final nail.
The funny thing is, the most likely cause of significant change in public perception will likely be one that doesn’t really substantiate the point (e.g., that storm in the US East Coast last fall).
I agree with most of the post, but there is a nit:
Yes, and no. I have noticed that most of the media, and once again specially the right wing media, do a good job on reporting that scientists report that the storm like the recent one was not caused by global warming.
Where they go haywire is in omitting the rest of the history, that all that increase of energy, water vapor, ocean rise, etc. caused by global warming is still there in the background and affecting the intensity of those storms. Thanks to incomplete media reports like those ones, deniers continue to omit what is going on in the background and that is what matters now.