# Facts won't change your mind about anything **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293 "2015-01-19T17:29:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/121 "2015-01-23T02:01:27Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > - Interesting thing about the past temperatures. They change! According to Nasa GISS in [1999 the average temperature](http://www.john-daly.com/usatemps.006) in 1880 was -.47 off the annual mean. According to Nasa GISS in [2013 the average temperature](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.txt) in 1880 was -0.5125 off the annual mean. So between 1999 and 2013 the year 1880 cooled by .0425 of a degree. Well, there are several possibilities. One possibility is that NASA is now in under the dark power of the Global Conspiracy of Climate Alarmists™ – or possibly space aliens – and are being forced to constantly falsify temperature records to try to show global warming when there isn’t any. Or, here’s another possibility: maybe temperature chronologies are routinely maintained for consistency with contemporary observational techniques and standards. There is some information here and links to further references: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/GHCNM-v3.2.0-FAQ.pdf ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/122 "2015-01-23T02:04:57Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Before we go any further, I have to ask: Do you know what a ‘fact’ is? Because the quote above indicates that you don’t. The value of radiative forcing is not a ‘fact’. Oh, fer Christ’s sake! So you don’t can’t respond to my actual post? Nice try at avoiding the actual issues, though! If I measure a piece of wood before cutting it to fit a doorway, is the resulting approximation a non-fact – a fantasy – because it has an inherent margin of error? Your desperate efforts to avoid the issues are really pretty amusing. The radiative transfer properties of CO2 are well established for any given concentration in the atmosphere and for the local temperature, altitude, and pressure, and have been known since the middle of the 19th century. It’s also a fact that the difference between the upward surface flux at the earth’s surface and the top of the atmosphere (about 150 W/m\*\*2) is the empirically determined long-wave absorption for all well-mixed GHGs, of which CO2 is overwhelmingly predominant. Citing the latest research, the IPCC AR5 (WG1) states: Based on concentration changes, the RF of all WMGHG in 2011 is 2.83 [2.54 to 3.12] W m–2 (very high confidence). This is an increase since AR4 of 0.20 [0.18 to 0.22] W m–2, with nearly all of the increase due to the increase in the abundance of CO2 since 2005. The industrial era RF for CO2 alone is 1.82 [1.63 to 2.01] W m–2. Over the last 15 years, CO2 has been the dominant contributor to the increase in RF from the WMGHGs, with RF of CO2 having an average growth rate slightly less than 0.3 W m–2 per decade. Which is not to say that even the most elementary climate modeling is simple, but I didn’t say it was. I said that radiative forcing was. I look forward to your considered response to the actual substance of what I said. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/123 "2015-01-23T02:11:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Well, about that . . .](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#Scientific_background) It’s actually a great example of how facts don’t matter to some people. Even when it’s found to be nonsense, people still repeat it as a fact. I’ve pointed out the simple fact that the NCDC and GISS actually state they “adjusted” the past temperatures, (the NCDC, but not GISS, even show you the differences), which does create the illusion of recent warming, and it doesn’t matter. The person who _wants_ rapid unusual warming to be happening _wants_ the new facts to be believed, and with out even checking the facts, rejects the very thought that anyone could make any errors at all, when it comes to cooling the past thermometer readings, and making recent ones even warmer. Of course if anyone did the reverse, used a computer program to adjust the temperature records to show very little, or no warming at all, the person who _wants_ warming would reject that as terrible science. Or even fraud. It’s a good example of how “facts” are fluid, changeable things, and how the facts can be altered, as long as they are altered in a way that meets the desire of the person changing them. One might question if a fact is really a fact if it can be changed over and over. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/124 "2015-01-23T02:17:12Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s actually a great example of how facts don’t matter to some people. Even when it’s found to be nonsense, people still repeat it as a fact. > > I’ve pointed out the simple fact that the NCDC and GISS actually state they “adjusted” the past temperatures, (the NCDC, but not GISS, even show you the differences), which does create the illusion of recent warming, and it doesn’t matter. The person who _wants_ rapid unusual warming to be happening _wants_ the new facts to be believed, and with out even checking the facts, rejects the very thought that anyone could make any errors at all, when it comes to cooling the past thermometer readings, and making recent ones even warmer. > > It’s a good example of how “facts” are fluid, changeable things, and how the facts can be altered, as long as they are altered in a way that meets the desire of the person changing them. And Muller already discredited what you claim here. Muller did not find the evidence that you so dearly wanted because it was not there. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/125 "2015-01-23T02:30:59Z")
Something I found when I started researching the actual data, instead of reading somebody telling me what it says, is that people lie. About the climate and temperature data they show you. A lot. Really big stupid lies, the kind that you can discover with little effort. But even more surprising, when you show them the actual data, and it shows how they are wrong, they don’t even blink an eye, they change gears, but most of all, they don’t change the lie at all. It’s quite amazing. I can demonstrate it right in this topic, even knowing it won’t make any difference at all. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/126 "2015-01-23T02:41:13Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Something I found when I started researching the actual data, instead of reading somebody telling me what it says, is that people lie. About the climate and temperature data they show you. > > A lot. > > Really big stupid lies, the kind that you can discover with little effort. > > But even more surprising, when you show them the actual data, and it shows how they are wrong, they don’t even blink an eye, they change gears, but most of all, they don’t change the lie at all. It’s quite amazing. I can demonstrate it right in this topic, even knowing it won’t make any difference at all. As Muller showed what you have there are just misconceptions, and you just showed all that your claims from the OP were just fig leafs. You are not able to realize how you are being played by professional mis-informers like Watts, Muller also implied that climate scientists were lying or altering the data. He got funding to find the evidence. He found it all right, but it came pointing the other way. He ended up confirmed what climate scientists were reporting and even with more temperature data to check the data that was claimed to be wrong he ended confirming what was found before. This BTW is in the territory of basic evidence and science, the fact that you are still believing in a conspiracy of the scientists changing the data is indeed only showing to all that it is you who is not being able to “move forward”. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/127 "2015-01-23T03:39:51Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Oh, fer Christ’s sake! So you don’t can’t respond to my actual post? Nice try at avoiding the actual issues, though! I have every intention of responding to your post. I just didn’t want to go to a lot of effort before we established the ground rules. For the record, a ‘fact’ is something that is indisputably true. Something that objectively exists, or which can be said to be true without any possibility of error. This is important in science, because it’s easy to forget that much of what we believe is NOT fact, but just the result of an elaborate system of models, hypotheses and evidence of varying quality. So saying that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is a fact. We can test it, we can prove that it acts in that fashion. Our estimate of the value of radiative forcing for the planet is NOT a fact. > [@](#): > > If I measure a piece of wood before cutting it to fit a doorway, is the resulting approximation a non-fact – a fantasy – because it has an inherent margin of error? Not at all, so long as you state the margin of error. If you measure the door and say, “It’s a fact that this door is 6.5 feet long”, then woe is me if I try to use that ‘fact’ and place the door in a space where it can be no more than 6.505 feet, if your measurement error is .02 feet. In that case, your ‘fact’ is at best incomplete, possibly misleading, and depending on who’s using the number and for what, completely wrong. So when you say “we know for a FACT what the value of radiative forcing is”, you are simply not being correct. If it truly was a FACT, we wouldn’t have to spend any more money researching it. And in any event, it’s not even CLOSE to being a fact. There are many possible sources of error for that number, as the IPCC itself points out. [IPCC WR4 chapter on uncertainties in radiative forcing](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-1.html) > [@IPCC](#): > > The TAR assessed uncertainties in global mean RF by attaching an error bar to each RF term that was ‘guided by the range of published values and physical understanding’. It also quoted a level of scientific understanding (LOSU) for each RF, which was a subjective judgment of the estimate’s reliability. So not only is there uncertainty about radiative forcing, the uncertainty itself is an estimate. Let’s get to some details: > [@](#): > > The concept of LOSU has been slightly modified based on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) uncertainty guidelines. Error bars now represent the 5 to 95% (90%) confidence range (see Box TS.1). Only ‘well-established’ RFs are quantified. ‘Well established’ implies that there is qualitatively both sufficient evidence and sufficient consensus from published results to estimate a central RF estimate and a range. ‘Evidence’ is assessed by an A to C grade, with an A grade implying strong evidence and C insufficient evidence. Strong evidence implies that observations have verified aspects of the RF mechanism and that there is a sound physical model to explain the RF. ‘Consensus’ is assessed by assigning a number between 1 and 3, where 1 implies a good deal of consensus and 3 insufficient consensus. So… let’s look at a few of these uncertainties. Lest you think I’m intentionally being incomplete, you can look at the entire table yourself at the link. But I don’t think it’s useful to show the stuff we’re more certain about (although even that is couched in terms of confidence intervals, and not as FACT). \*\*Cloud albedo effect (all aerosols) \*\* The IPCC rates this as a 'B" for quality of evidence (somewhere between ‘strong evidence’ and ‘insufficient evidence’), and the LOSU (lLevel of Scientific Understanding) as ‘low’. For ‘uncertainty’, they list “Lack of direct observational evidence of a global forcing” So much for your claim that we know radiative forcing is a fact because we have hard empirical evidence. The other contributors to radiative forcing that are rated as ‘low’ for level of scientific understanding are: Stratospheric water vapour from CH4 Surface albedo (BC aerosol on snow) Persistent linear Contrails Solar irradiance Volcanic aerosol Then we get to the really crappy understanding: Items rated as a "C’ for evidence (insufficient) and ‘very low’ for level of scientific understanding. Those include: Stratospheric water vapour from causes other than CH4 oxidation Tropospheric water vapour from irrigation Aviation-induced cirrus Cosmic rays Other surface effects Man, that’s a lot of uncertainty and ‘very low understanding’ for something you claimed was a FACT. Care to retract that now? And let’s not forget the ‘unknown unknowns’ - effects we have yet to quantify because we don’t even know they exist. We discover new climate participants all the time. In addition, this is a static picture of the contributors to forcing, but climate is a complex adaptive system. The contributors to radiative forcing may have very different values a decade from now. For example, at some temperature clathrate deposits could begin to break down and contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere. On the other hand, there is new evidence that rainforests sink far more CO2 than we thought they did, which could change the gas mix again. Also, we have very poor understanding of how temperature affects global cloud formation, so the value of earth’s albedo when it’s 2 degrees warmer is really unknown. > [@](#): > > Your desperate efforts to avoid the issues are really pretty amusing. Don’t be a dick. I’ve been answering, in detail, questions posed to me. If I missed one you think is important, fire away. > [@](#): > > The radiative transfer properties of CO2 are well established for any given concentration in the atmosphere and for the local temperature, altitude, and pressure, and have been known since the middle of the 19th century. The radiative transfer properties of CO2 do not equal “Radiative Forcing”, as I assume you know. Total forcing includes ALL the inputs and outputs in earth’s energy balance. > [@](#): > > It’s also a fact that the difference between the upward surface flux at the earth’s surface and the top of the atmosphere (about 150 W/m\*\*2) is the empirically determined long-wave absorption for all well-mixed GHGs, of which CO2 is overwhelmingly predominant. Citing the latest research, the IPCC AR5 (WG1) states: > Based on concentration changes, the RF of all WMGHG in 2011 is 2.83 [2.54 to 3.12] W m–2 (very high confidence). First, your ‘fact’ includes some pretty substantial error bars there. A range of 2.54 to 3.12 is not a small change. And that number (with error bars) is stated not as a FACT, but with very high confidence. > [@](#): > > This is an increase since AR4 of 0.20 [0.18 to 0.22] W m–2, with nearly all of the increase due to the increase in the abundance of CO2 since 2005. The industrial era RF for CO2 alone is 1.82 [1.63 to 2.01] W m–2. Over the last 15 years, CO2 has been the dominant contributor to the increase in RF from the WMGHGs, with RF of CO2 having an average growth rate slightly less than 0.3 W m–2 per decade. > > Which is not to say that even the most elementary climate modeling is simple, but I didn’t say it was. I said that radiative forcing was. I look forward to your considered response to the actual substance of what I said. So radiative forcing is ‘simple’, huh? Tell that to all those scientists who have ‘very low understanding’ of some of the processes. And much of the evidence for RF is not empirical, but based on model results or inference. You know, if you had said something like, ‘We have a decent understanding of radiative forcing, within an error range of X’, I would have had no problem with it. But when you say something is a FACT, you are stating that we know it with certainty, that it is a closed issue, and that there is no possibility that the number is wrong. It’s an attempt to shut down any further debate on that subject. “The Science is Settled”, right? None of that is true when it comes to radiative forcing, and I hope you’ll agree now that what we have a reasonable estimate with considerable uncertainty over some of the factors that go into it. It is not a ‘fact’. In case you think I am picking nits, some of the biggest failures I’ve seen in engineering and in science come from confusing something we think we know with a fact. That’s why in the philosophy of science it is stressed repeatedly that empirical values are meaningless unless presented with suitable estimates for error, and with a description of the range through which the conclusion is true. Newton’s laws looked like ‘facts’ until we found out they only worked in the regime where relativistic effects were insubstantial. The relationship of resistance to temperature in many materials was supposedly ‘fact’ - until we discovered superconductivity. And so it goes. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/128 "2015-01-23T03:59:27Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In case you think I am picking nits, some of the biggest failures I’ve seen in engineering and in science come from confusing something we think we know with a fact. The entire post was awesome, I just quoted part of it to make it obvious who I was responding to. If you haven’t seen the following already, you may find it very interesting. (if you have read it, I would be interested in your view of it) [The story](http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/new-study-shows-a-better-way-t/37212652) [Maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission](http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/12/124002/article) [The MIT paper discussed](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/global-warming-increased-solar-radiation-1110) If you have followed the data about cooling NH winters, you might already understand some of the implications of that. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/129 "2015-01-23T04:10:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You know, if you had said something like, ‘We have a decent understanding of radiative forcing, within an error range of X’, I would have had no problem with it. But when you say something is a FACT, you are stating that we know it with certainty, that it is a closed issue, and that there is no possibility that the number is wrong. It’s an attempt to shut down any further debate on that subject. “The Science is Settled”, right? No, but the uncertainty is not your friend once again. > **[RealClimate: Unsettled Science](https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/?wpmp_switcher=desktop#sthash.qOLpuEZf.dpuf)** > > RealClimate: Unusually, I'm in complete agreement with a recent headline on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page: "The Climate Science Isn't Settled" The article below is the same mix of innuendo and misrepresentation that its author normally writes,... > [@](#): > > The phrase “the science is settled” is associated almost 100% with contrarian comments on climate and is usually a paraphrase of what ‘some scientists’ are supposed to have said. The reality is that it depends very much on what you are talking about and I have never heard any scientist say this in any general context – at a recent meeting I was at, someone claimed that this had been said by the participants and he was roundly shouted down by the assembled experts. > > The reason why no scientist has said this is because they know full well that knowledge about science is not binary – science isn’t either settled or not settled. This is a false and misleading dichotomy. Instead, we know things with varying degrees of confidence – for instance, conservation of energy is pretty well accepted, as is the theory of gravity (despite continuing interest in what happens at very small scales or very high energies) , while the exact nature of dark matter is still unclear. The forced binary distinction implicit in the phrase is designed to misleadingly relegate anything about which there is still uncertainty to the category of completely unknown. i.e. that since we don’t know everything, we know nothing. > > In the climate field, there are a number of issues which are no longer subject to fundamental debate in the community. The existence of the greenhouse effect, the increase in CO2 (and other GHGs) over the last hundred years and its human cause, and the fact the planet warmed significantly over the 20th Century are not much in doubt. IPCC described these factors as ‘virtually certain’ or ‘unequivocal’. The attribution of the warming over the last 50 years to human activity is also pretty well established – that is ‘highly likely’ and the anticipation that further warming will continue as CO2 levels continue to rise is a well supported conclusion. To the extent that anyone has said that the scientific debate is over, this is what they are referring to. In answer to colloquial questions like “Is anthropogenic warming real?”, the answer is yes with high confidence. > > But no scientists would be scientists if they thought there was nothing left to find out. Think of the science as a large building, with foundations reaching back to the 19th Century and a whole edifice of knowledge built upon them. The community spends most of its time trying to add a brick here or a brick there and slowly adding to the construction. The idea that the ‘science is settled’ is equivalent to stating that the building is complete and that nothing further can be added. Obviously that is false – new bricks (and windows and decoration and interior designs) are being added and argued about all the time. However, while the science may not be settled, we can still tell what kind of building we have and what the overall picture looks like. Arguments over whether a single brick should be blue or yellow don’t change the building from a skyscraper to a mud hut. > [@](#): > > Dealing with the future always involves dealing with uncertainty – and this is as true with climate as it is with the economy. Science has led to a great deal of well-supported concern that increasing emissions of CO2 (in particular) are posing a substantial risk to human society. Playing rhetorical games in the face of this, while momentarily satisfying for blog commenters, is no answer at all to the real issues we face. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/130 "2015-01-23T04:24:25Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > The entire post was awesome, I just quoted part of it to make it obvious who I was responding to. > > If you haven’t seen the following already, you may find it very interesting. (if you have read it, I would be interested in your view of it) > > [The story](http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/new-study-shows-a-better-way-t/37212652) > [@](#): > > "Our results do not change our overall expectation that the planet will continue to warm due to the burning of fossil fuels, > [@FXMastermind](#): > > [Maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission](http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/12/124002/article) > [The MIT paper discussed](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/global-warming-increased-solar-radiation-1110) > > If you have followed the data about cooling NH winters, you might already understand some of the implications of that. Oh yeah, about that, lets see if the scientist whose research you have abused so many times before is not tossed under the bus by you too: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26cohen.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26cohen.html?_r=0) > [@](#): > > Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming > By JUDAH COHEN > > **THE earth continues to get warmer** , yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside. Over the past few weeks, subzero temperatures in Poland claimed 66 lives; snow arrived in Seattle well before the winter solstice, and fell heavily enough in Minneapolis to make the roof of the Metrodome collapse; and last week blizzards closed Europe’s busiest airports in London and Frankfurt for days, stranding holiday travelers. The snow and record cold have invaded the Eastern United States, with more bad weather predicted. > > \*\*All of this cold was met with perfect comic timing by the release of a World Meteorological Organization report showing that 2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record. \*\* > > … > > But one phenomenon that may be significant is the way in which seasonal snow cover has continued to increase\*\* even as other frozen areas are shrinking\*\*. In the past two decades, snow cover has expanded across the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Siberia, just north of a series of exceptionally high mountain ranges, including the Himalayas, the Tien Shan and the Altai. > > The high topography of Asia influences the atmosphere in profound ways. The jet stream, a river of fast-flowing air five to seven miles above sea level, bends around Asia’s mountains in a wavelike pattern, much as water in a stream flows around a rock or boulder. The energy from these atmospheric waves, like the energy from a sound wave, propagates both horizontally and vertically. > > As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased. > > The sun’s energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools. When snow cover is more abundant in Siberia, it creates an unusually large dome of cold air next to the mountains, and this amplifies the standing waves in the atmosphere, just as a bigger rock in a stream increases the size of the waves of water flowing by. > > The increased wave energy in the air spreads both horizontally, around the Northern Hemisphere, and vertically, up into the stratosphere and down toward the earth’s surface. In response, the jet stream, instead of flowing predominantly west to east as usual, meanders more north and south. In winter, this change in flow sends warm air north from the subtropical oceans into Alaska and Greenland, but it also pushes cold air south from the Arctic on the east side of the Rockies. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, cold air from Siberia spills south into East Asia and even southwestward into Europe. > > That is why the Eastern United States, Northern Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinarily snowy and cold winters since the turn of this century. Most forecasts have failed to predict these colder winters, however, because the primary drivers in their models are the oceans,\*\* which have been warming even as winters have grown chillier. \*\*They have ignored the snow in Siberia. > > Last week, the British government asked its chief science adviser for an explanation. My advice to him is to look to the east. > \*\* > It’s all a snow job by nature. The reality is, we’re freezing not in spite of climate change but because of it.\*\* > > Judah Cohen is the director of seasonal forecasting at an atmospheric and environmental research firm. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/131 "2015-01-23T05:43:00Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > And we know the anthropogenic origins of the post-industrial spike through multiple lines of evidence. Look, I know this isn’t a scientific paper so I don’t want to pick nits over the use of terms like “We know” as a substitute for “we have a good estimate”. But you’re the one who is arguing the certainty of our knowledge, so I have to point out that the correct way to talk about this stuff is as a range of estimates, confidence intervals, etc. You know - like the IPCC does. > [@](#): > > Not the least of which is that we know we’re emitting it and we know how much Let me help you - in 2010, the IPCC WR5 estimates with ‘high confidence’ (not very high, mind you) that anthropogenic CO2 emissions were 49 (±4.5) GtCO2-eq/yr. I believe ‘high confidence’ represents a 90% confidence level, and that only applies when we apply error bars of roughly 10% of the value. By the way, the IPCC agrees with me. On the same page they say this: > [@](#): > > Where appropriate, findings are also formulated as statements of fact without using uncertainty qualifiers. Got it? For the IPCC to consider something a ‘fact’, there can be no uncertainty. Therefore, our understanding of human CO2 emission is not a ‘fact’, but a very good estimate. I have to stop here and reiterate that I’m not doing this to attack the theory of global warming. I think the WR5 report is actually pretty good and states the scientific case very well. My beef has been with people like you and GigoBuster who take this nuanced data and attempt to pass it off as stone-cold fact and then label anyone who questions any aspect of it a ‘denier’. When you do that, you lose the scientific high ground and become the ones not acting scientifically. > [@](#): > > we understand quite well how the carbon cycle works Yeah, here’s an example of that excellent understanding. From 2014: [Climate change: Rainforest absorption of CO2 becoming erratic](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-rainforest-absorption-of-co2-becoming-erratic-9086304.html) The subheading of that article is: _For each 1C rise in temperature, tropical regions now release about 2 billion extra tonnes of carbon-containing gases_ > [@](#): > > “What we are seeing is that the tropical forests in particular are becoming more vulnerable to warming and we expect this to continue because we expect to see more warming in the future,” said Professor Peter Cox of Exeter University, a co-author of the study published in the journal Nature. > > “We know that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the air have a fertilising effect on vegetation and forests, but the temperature effect caused by increasing CO2 concentrations is probably becoming stronger. We are pretty certain that climate change will lead to the overall release of carbon from tropical regions,” Professor Cox said. So in 2014 were were ‘pretty certain’ that climate change will lead to the overall release of carbon from tropic regions - a positive feedback. Fast forward just a few months to January 2015: [NASA—How Tropical Rainforests May Help End the Climate Change Issue](http://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/2458/20150107/nasa-how-tropical-rainforests-may-help-end-the-climate-change-issue.htm) > [@](#): > > …with new research from the US space agency NASA, researchers are now saying that we may have some added help on our side-tropical rainforests. > … > researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to combine three different divisions of science to reveal that tropical rainforests may be absorbing far more CO2 than many researchers previously thought, in response to rising atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas. > > While some CO2 is absorbed by “boreal forest” regions in Canada, Siberia and other northern regions densely covered in snow, the new study published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences estimates that tropical forests absorb approximately 1.4 billion metric tons of the total global absorption of 2.5 billion metric tons per year. > > “This is good news, because uptake in boreal forests is already slowing, while tropical forests may continue to take up carbon for many years,” lead author of the study and researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, David Schimel says. > … > “It has big implications for our understanding of whether global terrestrial ecosystems might continue to offset our carbon dioxide emissions or might begin to exacerbate climate change” co-author of the study and researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Britton Stephens says. So one study says the rainforests don’t take up much CO2, and will probably start to be net CO2 providers to the atmosphere as temperature goes up, while another study says that we just discovered that rainforests soak up about 11% of our CO2 emissions and they now expect that uptake rate to accelerate as the earth warms, acting as a pretty strong negative feedback. The other implication of this is that boreal forests do not absorb as much CO2 as we thought, which is a very good thing because boreal forests would be in trouble as the planet warms, while rainforests would likely thrive. But of course, there’s uncertainty there, too. Yep, we’re totally certain we understand where all the Co2 is going… > [@](#): > > and how much is being absorbed into the oceans, we know the detailed chronology of atmospheric CO2 going back almost a million years (and in less precision hundreds of milliions of years further) and we know that [spikes like this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png) don’t happen by magic, we know its remarkable stability over the past several millennia until industrialization, and moreover we can identify anthropogenic CO2 from its isotopic fingerprint, because CO2 emitted from burning fossil fuels has a lower [sup]13[/sup]C/[sup]12[/sup]C ratio than the ambient atmospheric CO2. Just exactly what is it that you think there is reasonable doubt about? It depends on the purpose of the ‘reasonable doubt’, doesn’t it? The IPCC itself says there is more than reasonable doubt about many things. So much so that let’s cut to the chase and look at their actual estimates for global warming. > [@IPCC WR5 SPM](#): > > The increase of global mean surface temperature by the end of the 21st century (2081-2100) relative to 1986-2005\* is likely to be\*: > > 0.3°C–1.7°C under RCP2.6, > 1.1°C–2.6°C under RCP4.5, > 1.4°C–3.1°C under RCP6.0, > and 2.6°C–4.8°C under RCP8.59 (formatted for better readablility). Boy, that’s quite a range they are committing themselves to. To be fair, the lower ranges assume various strategies to limit carbon. As the IPCC says, “Scenarios without additional efforts to constrain emissions (“baseline scenarios”) lead to pathways ranging between RCP6.0 and RCP8.5” So, let’s just focus on those. The IPCC therefore will only commit itself to a possible range for global warming by 2100 of 1.4C to 4.8C. 1.4 degrees is not much higher than what you’d expect for normal warming in the intra-glacial period. Also, they’ll only state these ranges as ‘likely’. In IPCC speak, likely = 66–100% chance. That’s a pretty big confidence interval for a value that itself is expressed in terms of a huge confidence interval. And it should be noted that the median value of those estimates never goes higher than 2.25 degrees C - a value that would not result in catastrophic anything. I have a BIG problem with those estimates though, because they aren’t just estimates of the climate system. Because they have to include how much CO2 we emit as well as how much is absorbed, they also depend on an accurate prediction for what our energy mix will look like in 80 years, what our economy will look like, what our technology will look like, how much energy we’ll need to consume, etc. These are not questions we can answer with even reasonable degrees of confidence, which is one of the reasons why the values for warming are all over the map. Hell, our 2007 predictions for greenhouse gas emissions and economic activity were completely upended - in 2008. I’m not even sure we’ll be using fossil fuels at all in 2100, let alone increasing their use along the way as the more extreme models assume. We don’t know how we will transport goods, we don’t know where people will be living, we don’t know what role computing will play over such a long timeframe, etc. The estimates for the economy of 2100 are likely to be as wildly wrong as estimates for the economy of 2000 were before WWI. Again, remember what we’re arguing here - not whether global warming is happening, or whether man is causing it, or whether it’s something to be worried about. We’re arguing about your side’s constant attempt to assign certainty to things that are far from certain. “The Science is Settled”, right? One of the most anti-scientific statements there is. > [@](#): > > Please don’t lecture me about how the IPCC works. Given your numerous misrepresentations of certitude, it appears you could use a little lecturing. > [@](#): > > The use of carefully calibrated language tied to quantifed confidence levels began with the AR4 and it was mostly in response to criticisms from denialist attackers making just the kinds of claims that you are now, that the assertions made in IPCC reports aren’t 100% certain. Correct. Nothing is. Then why did you state these things as FACT? And I see you managed to work ‘denialist attackers’ into this, and blame them for the IPCC having to use 'carefully calibrated language. Nicely done. The boys at ThinkProgress would be proud of you. You know, because no other scientific papers would ever bother to use ‘carefully calibrated language’. Not unless one of the roving hordes of denialist attackers set upon them, I guess. > [@](#): > > I might say that it is “almost certain” that the sun will rise tomorrow, “very likely” that it will be trending warmer three months from now, and “more likely than not” that it will be warmer at this time in April, but that doesn’t mean I’m mired in clueless uncertainty about the nature of days and nights and winter and spring. Not at all. But if you said, “It’s a FACT that April 15 will be warmer than March 15”, we’d have to have the same discussion. Because, you know, science. > [@](#): > > The question is whether there is sufficient certainty about the fundamental risks of AGW to be actionable. Well, that’s ONE question. Other questions include: - What is the ‘social cost’ of carbon? - Do we know what action to take? - Can we get the world to go along? - Is the action we want politically feasible? - If we take action, how much will it reduce global warming? - How much will action reduce our GDP, and what effects will that have? - How can we enforce cooperation without war? After all, the Kyoto treaty had a terrible compliance rate, and its costs were trivial compared to the kind of reduction the AGW side wants. - Can we wait until oil gets too expensive and/or alternate energy becomes less expensive so that the switchover takes place as part of normal market forces? - Are there alternatives, such as mitigation or geo-engineering? - Is the cost of action more than the cost of doing nothing? - What discount rate should we use for money we spend today to avoid damages 80 years from now? - Is the opportunity cost of action greater than the value of other things we could be doing with our money and energy? > [@](#): > > The [overwhelming consensus from all of the world’s major science bodies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change) – and not just from the IPCC – is that the certainty is more than sufficient to justify urgent action. So again I ask, just exactly what is it that you think there is reasonable doubt about? Mostly around the above questions. Particularly, you need to show me your action plan, and explain IN DETAIL how it’s going to solve the problem. "We need a carbon tax’ is not a plan. For example, tell me what you think will happen if the U.S. unilaterally raises the price of its own carbon consumption while China, India, and Russia do not. Tell me why that won’t result in industry simply relocating to countries where the energy cost is lower and the carbon footprint per GDP is higher? > [@](#): > > I flatly deny it because it isn’t true. I can only assume that you’re getting your IPCC report information filtered through your oil company newsletter. Ah, there is it. I guess you held back on the big guns - accusing me of being in bed with the Koch Brothers. For your information, I don’t work for an oil company. I DO work for a company that makes windmills, though. And yeah, I’m in Alberta - a province that really hates low oil prices. If you could wave a wand tomorrow and double the price of oil, our Premier would kiss you. Triple it, and he’ll slip you some tongue. > [@](#): > > What the IPCC has been saying for a long time, and re-emphasized in the recent AR5, is that warming temperatures may, at best, have a temporary beneficial impact in very limited specific regions in northerly latitudes. Tell me how the opening of the Northwest Passage is a ‘temporary’ benefit, please. Or the reclamation of huge swaths of permafrost into arable land. Or the energy savings from warmer winter evenings. In IPCC WR4, they say that the range of estimates for the social cost of carbon is (-$3 to $95/tCO2). That’s a range so large as to be meaningless for policy purposes. So let’s tighten that up too, shall we? In WR5 they removed the section on benefits of global warming - probably because it was being used by ‘denialist attackers’. > [@](#): > > In fact it’s even worse than that, because in _ **all** _ scenarios the poorer lower latitudes are disproportionately affected. Yes, they are. Even under scenarios of mild warming the equatorial regions can expect additional damages. But if the populous northern regions get more in benefits than the equator suffers in damage, one solution is a simple wealth transfer to offset it. > [@](#): > > And worse still, quoting directly from the AR5 WG2 SPM, "**All aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change, including food access, utilization, and price stability (high confidence)**. " Here they are moving away from climate change and into economics., and I seriously question that conclusion. Their models are simplistic, and their comments about the increase in food prices in the last decade do not take into account one of the prime reasons - the diversion of large amounts of prime farmland from food crops to bio-fuels. A policy that has made global warming worse, but which was put into place in an attempt to help mitigate it. That’s what happens when you assume more certainty about how the economy behaves than is warranted. > [@](#): > > That’s about all I have the time and patience for right now. But let me also ask you another question, since you’re the one who brought up motivated reasoning. All else being equal, who do you think is more susceptible to motivated reasoning on this subject – someone who lives in a region strongly dominated by an oil economy and works for an oil company, or somebody who has no dog in this race? No dog in this race? Is that supposed to be you? If so, you’re sure fighting hard over this bone. You are totally invested in this issue, and your sense of group identity demands that you defend it. We all have our own reasons. I’m willing to admit my bias, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with where I live or who I work for. My bias comes from extreme skepticism of grand social engineering plans, of ‘global calls to action’ that entail giving huge amount of power to organizations not responsive to voters, to my belief in the venality of politicians and their general incompetence in matters like this, and my belief that countries do not do things that are not in their own interest, and therefore getting the major developing economies to restrict their energy production is extremely iffy. My other bias is that I’m an engineer and I understand how much complexity lurks under ‘big visions’, how difficult complex systems are to understand, let alone predict, and how easy it is to fool yourself when you really want to believe something. I work hard to fight against my biases and look at material objectively, but I’m willing to admit I probably don’t - and neither does anyone else. That’s why we need debate with people on both sides of the issue - to keep each other honest. That’s also why I fight back so hard when one side resorts to guilt-by-association, ad-hominem attacks, claims that the ‘science is settled’ and our knowledge is certain, and other attempts to shut down debate. > [@](#): > > I believe you’ve been forthright enough to acknowledge that you’re in the former category. I don’t work for anyone, and I’m not invested either in fossil fuels or in green technology. I do however have a professional background in science and I think I have a balanced interest in both a sustainable economy and a healthy environment for my descendants and relations. Your “motivated reasoning” spiel is doing you no favors here. I see. So YOUR biases are good and wholesome and pure, while I’m just a money-grubber doing the bidding of big oil, huh? No motivated reasoning to be seen there. And once again, I do not work for an oil company. I work for a company that is a big supporter of ‘doing something’ about climate change - probably because it will help us sell more windmills and more upgrades to factories. It appears that there is big money on both sides, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/132 "2015-01-23T05:53:47Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > No, but the uncertainty is not your friend once again. > > [RealClimate: Unsettled Science](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/?wpmp_switcher=desktop#sthash.qOLpuEZf.dpuf) What do you think that quote proves, other than that I was right? I agree with everything in it, and basically said the same thing to Wolfpup in the message you were responding to. Do you not actually read what I’m writing? I didn’t think it was that hard to follow… And I never said that scientists claim “The Science is Settled”. Typically, I hear that coming from your side in political debates. Likewise, I wouldn’t expect a working scientist to make an egregious claim like saying the number we have for radiative forcing is a fact. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/133 "2015-01-23T05:55:32Z")
What an interesting thread this has become. Thanks Sam Stone. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/134 "2015-01-23T05:56:18Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > The entire post was awesome, I just quoted part of it to make it obvious who I was responding to. > > If you haven’t seen the following already, you may find it very interesting. (if you have read it, I would be interested in your view of it) > > [The story](http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/new-study-shows-a-better-way-t/37212652) > > [Maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission](http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/12/124002/article) > [The MIT paper discussed](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/global-warming-increased-solar-radiation-1110) > > If you have followed the data about cooling NH winters, you might already understand some of the implications of that. Thanks for the nice comment. No, I haven’t been following the debate about cool NH winters - sorry. I’ll check out your links, though. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/135 "2015-01-23T06:37:31Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > What do you think that quote proves, other than that I was right? I agree with everything in it, and basically said the same thing to Wolfpup in the message you were responding to. Do you not actually read what I’m writing? I didn’t think it was that hard to follow… You are the one that is not getting it, as I see it FXMastermind does show that he understands alright, your method is tailor made to sound wonderful to deniers. And the point from Realclimate stands: “Dealing with the future always involves dealing with uncertainty – and this is as true with climate as it is with the economy. Science has led to a great deal of well-supported concern that increasing emissions of CO2 (in particular) are posing a substantial risk to human society. Playing rhetorical games in the face of this, while momentarily satisfying for blog commenters, is no answer at all to the real issues we face.” > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And I never said that scientists claim “The Science is Settled”. Typically, I hear that coming from your side in political debates. Likewise, I wouldn’t expect a working scientist to make an egregious claim like saying the number we have for radiative forcing is a fact. But it is good to continue to trow those bones to the ones that do obfuscate. And somehow they continue to think that you are on their side, check the links **wolfpup** had about FX, that is the quality of a poster that you used to report that he was pushing hot air in the past, nowadays you are happy to help them. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/136 "2015-01-23T06:40:27Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > No, I haven’t been following the debate about cool NH winters - sorry. I’ll check out your links, though. The MIT one I find the most interesting by far. That they are saying their advanced models show global warming will happen due to increased short wave energy, not continued long wave from CO2/the enhanced greenhouse effect, is nothing short of revolutionary, in regards to the CO2 theory of global warming. In essence they find the models predicting the initial warming from CO2 (increase in LW) then leads to an increase in absorption of SW, which is what will cause the continued global warming. It’s related to the unexpected cooling trend for NH winters, in that we are observing a possible extreme negative feedback due to the very large increase in snowfall extent, which is also thought to be due to warming from CO2. If the MIT theory is correct, and Cohen’s (and others) theory about the winter cooling trend is correct, then the entire theoretical framework of current consensus global warming theory, due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, from increasing CO2, might be completely wrong. While facts quite often don’t matter, what actually happens in the real world does matter. It’s all that matters in the end. It’s a most interesting discussion, but far from this current debate over facts. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/137 "2015-01-23T06:51:43Z")
BTW Sam, you are already being caught several times with wild whoppers, so cut it with your self righteousness. And if forests are as important as you claim you are not looking at the increase of CO2 that is observed: [http://alanbetts.com/image/1/1200/0/uploads/co2data2-1278681362.jpg](http://alanbetts.com/image/1/1200/0/uploads/co2data2-1278681362.jpg) Point being that if you were correct in your assumption about the forests we already would had seen a significant reduction of the CO2 in the atmosphere, what the data shows is that a very iffy increase in sequestration from the forests is not as important as controlling our emissions. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/138 "2015-01-23T07:06:42Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s related to the unexpected cooling trend for NH winters, in that we are observing a possible extreme negative feedback due to the very large increase in snowfall extent, which is also thought to be due to warming from CO2. If the MIT theory is correct, and Cohen’s (and others) theory about the winter cooling trend is correct, then the entire theoretical framework of current consensus global warming theory, due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, from increasing CO2, might be completely wrong. And here is where you show how you are not even wrong. [QUOTE] It's true that Earth's a massive jigsaw puzzle, with lots of pieces intricately fitting together. But, Richard Alley argues, we already know enough to see the Big Picture. The missing pieces of scientific understanding - exactly how clouds work, how extreme weather will change with global warming - are important, but we can already see how Earth works. [/QUOTE] You are still confused about how that piece of the puzzle, about extreme weather events, will land on the table. It is just a part of the big puzzle that you are trying to pass as the whole thing when there are many other pieces already well positioned in the table. I do remember you or another contrarian also claiming on the SDMB that warming was not going to produce more extreme weather events as the warming was going to be increase everywhere, so not much of a difference in extreme events as the change could be constant and uniform. But the big picture remains: the earth’s climate is warming as Cohen also reports and if he is correct about the cooling of some regions in winter that points to **more** unstable weather not less as the other seasons are getting warmer and the cool season is getting shorter, it points to more snow storms in some regions followed by bigger floods as the warm seasons come sooner and to other extreme weather events. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/139 "2015-01-23T13:29:48Z")
I’ll take **Sam Stone’s** non-responsive avoidance as his answer to me. So, in a thread in which he is decrying motivated reading, he literally skips over one-half of a sentence to point to the second half of that sentence. In a thread celebrating facts, he looks at a sentence with two facts, and completely disregards the one inconsistent with his agenda. Hilarious! ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/140 "2015-01-23T15:40:21Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > BTW Sam, you are already being caught several times with wild whoppers, so cut it with your self righteousness. I don’t think I was the one being self-righteous here… > [@](#): > > And if forests are as important as you claim you are not looking at the increase of CO2 that is observed: > > [http://alanbetts.com/image/1/1200/0/uploads/co2data2-1278681362.jpg](http://alanbetts.com/image/1/1200/0/uploads/co2data2-1278681362.jpg) > > Point being that if you were correct in your assumption about the forests we already would had seen a significant reduction of the CO2 in the atmosphere, what the data shows is that a very iffy increase in sequestration from the forests is not as important as controlling our emissions. It’s not ‘my assumption’. I simply posted two conflicting studies as evidence that the science is far from settled on these matters. If you don’t like the results of the last one I posted, you might want to take it up with the National Academy of Sciences, since that paper was published in PNAS - not some petrochemical journal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293.md?page=8)