[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
Sez you. Climatologists (you know, people who actually study the subject and went to college and stuff), however, seem to disagree with you on that point. I’m more inlined to trust them than I am you.
[/QUOTE]
That’s your privilege. But can you cite actual proof of AGW? You evidently believe it, but as there’s no proof, you can’t know it. Me? I want to know it. That’s what the OP is about
[QUOTE=Quartz]
That’s your privilege. But can you cite actual proof of AGW? You evidently believe it, but as there’s no proof, you can’t know it. Me? I want to know it. That’s what the OP is about
[/QUOTE]
There’s been plenty of evidence provided in the threads you referenced earlier. What exactly is your problem with this evidence? Do you not think the excess CO2 is responsible for the warming? If so, then why not?
LilShieste
[QUOTE=Quartz]
That’s your privilege. But can you cite actual proof of AGW? You evidently believe it, but as there’s no proof, you can’t know it. Me? I want to know it. That’s what the OP is about
[/QUOTE]
Saying there’s no “proof,” is desperate reaching based more on semantic nitpicking than on substance. There is certainly ample evidence that it’s anthropogenic and there is no better explanation. Arguing the point at all is a waste of of time since the evidence is more than strong enough to mandate a significant human effort to reduce carbon emissions. It doesn’t MATTER if other factors are in effect. The data and the evidence which already does ecist (and exists beyond any legitimate debate or dispute) already means that our continued rate of carbon emissins cannot be ethically justified.
I’m actually a bit mystified as to why conservatives have such a problem admitting AGW is real. Is it just that intolerable for scientists to be right about something? Do you guys really, sincerely believe that it’s all a huge liberal conspiracy? I don’t understand the irrational, fanatic resistance to hardcore, scientific reality. The AGW deniers are becoming just as ridiculous as Creationists.
[QUOTE=Quartz]
That’s your privilege. But can you cite actual proof of AGW? You evidently believe it, but as there’s no proof, you can’t know it. Me? I want to know it. That’s what the OP is about
[/QUOTE]
Please explain how you could possibly “know it”. While you’re at it, please explain how you can possibly “know” how gravity works. Please tell us exactly what it would take to change your mind on AGW- because I’m betting you’ve already made up your mind, and no amount of evidence or logic will sway you.
This is, by the way, about the silliest AGW dodge I’ve ever heard.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I’m actually a bit mystified as to why conservatives have such a problem admitting AGW is real. Is it just that intolerable for scientists to be right about something? Do you guys really, sincerely believe that it’s all a huge liberal conspiracy? I don’t understand the irrational, fanatic resistance to hardcore, scientific reality. The AGW deniers are becoming just as ridiculous as Creationists.
[/QUOTE]
I believe someone else offered this explanation previously, but it’s worth repeating…
I think the answer can be offered in one word: “watermelon.” Y’know, green on the outside, red on the inside? A lot seem believe that global warming is a smokescreen to introduce bigger government, more taxes, and corporate oppression.
Besides, if all the liberals are hollering about it, it MUST be wrong, right? They are all saying that Iraq is a quagmire and the surge is a failure, and they’re wrong about THAT, ergo…
ALSO, I see a lot of the logic used by 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Just as the 9/11 truthers think they know better than the experts because it’s so OBVIOUS (i.e. they know better than structural engineers how a building SHOULD collapse and what it looks like under various conditions, and they know better than Mark Bingham’s mother how he would introduce himself on the phone), many AGW deniers look at any little fact that SEEMS to contradict it (i.e. cold) and say that it’s CLEAR that it’s a crock.
'Course, only the first two points seems to cover those who think it exists, but do NOT think that it’s manmade. I’m not 100% sure about them - why to they trust science only to the point that they believe the climate is changing, but not further? Why draw that particular line?
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
What you point out is part of it, some other parts:
Man is hardwired to have a ‘God’ (IIRC there was a thread here about that)
Man will invent one if man does not find one
Man will bow down to that God and worship him/it
To the point that even things that are obviously not gods are used
Non/antireligious people will claim that religion is used to control the masses, this is what is exactly what is happening with AGW (purposly inventing a false God knowing that man will worship it). It’s like the AGW folks designed this as a religion for that very reason.
[/quote]
Tell me which of the following are/are not gods as you see them: freedom, liberty, democracy, money, technology, sexuality, patriotism, and sports teams.
This is possible, to a limited extent. It can and has happened on small scales. For example, recall the (IIRC) South Korean researcher who claimed startling advances with stem cells a couple years back. It was believed, for a time, until others attempted to replicate his results…then he was outed and shamed for being a fraud.
But applying this hypothesis to the entire global warming endeavor makes even less sense than the Apollo hoax. At least with Apollo you’re limiting yourself to just a couple hundred thousand people mostly based in the United States.
Sure, read up on the U.N. weapon inspectors both during the 90s and during the 2002-3 run up to war. Read up on Scott Ritter, in particular, he’s very eloquent and in command of the facts and I recommend his books and speeches. Read up on what Bush’s own underlings said in 2001. Read up on the Downing Street Memo. Read up on the U.S. government’s own intelligence briefings before they were manipulated and cherry picked up Cheney’s OSP into the laughable NIE. Just recall when the inspectors were in country in early 2003…if there was any doubt left then, they would’ve solved it. Which would’ve been quite the problem, politically. Good thing we made them leave before it was too late.
Definitely, especially if you read the traditional media. For every climate scientist who warns us about global warming, or pollution, or CFCs, or heavy metal contamination, or the dumping of chemicals into a river there’s another scientist to counter him, how it’s not really that big a deal. For every evolutionary biologist expounding on evolution during a court trial there’s a religious leader or a biologist from Regent University to clear the air – you know, so as to be fair and balanced.
[QUOTE=Leaper]
'Course, only the first two points seems to cover those who think it exists, but do NOT think that it’s manmade. I’m not 100% sure about them - why to they trust science only to the point that they believe the climate is changing, but not further? Why draw that particular line?
[/QUOTE]
That’s the line where it starts to cost you money - you actually have to change your behavior in response to AGW. Without the anthropogenesis, you can just shrug your shoulders and say “it’s in God’s hands.”
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
After all, AGW isn’t a totem that people are happy about or sacrifice to; it’s a bad thing.
[/QUOTE]
People have worshiped evil gods and tried to appease them by sacrificing virgins and SUV’s and the like so the evil god does not kill them all in a big ball of fire.
That I can understand, the commandment is that you shall not have any gods before Me, it does not say there are no others. People who have a/the real God and put Him above all can still believe AGW. It is the other end, people who don’t beleive there is a ‘god’ are very suseptable to worshiping any god that comes along, and better yet if that god doesn’t look like one, so they fool themselves and can still claim they are not believers in a god yet have filled the biological need to have one.
I do find that non/antibelievers take a certain amount of pride in not worshiping or believing in any god, and IMHO would find the suggestion that indeed they do worship a god. So I do expect resistance to this idea from non/antibelievers.
As you state, no I don’t think the whole study is highly suspect, and I think many people have honestly dedicated their lives to such work to unraveling this, but as you know a small change in data by even a single person can vastly change the results, especially in things that are just barely measurable above the noise level. And I don’t think anyone can deny there is very strong political motivation for AGW to be proved true (or by others be proved false).
[QUOTE=PatriotX]
And these superficial similarities are all that it takes to declare something a religion?
[/QUOTE]
It is filling the need of man for a god, is it exact no, is it close enough to fill that need IMHO unquestionably yes.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
People have worshiped evil gods and tried to appease them by sacrificing virgins and SUV’s and the like so the evil god does not kill them all in a big ball of fire.
[/quote]
Good point.
That’s Christianity, and more specifically, you. I would imagine that most Christians at least would say that God is the only god. And I stick by my suggestion that most AGW supporters are religious, and thus that this can’t be the total explanation; they already have their god- and religion-fix, and so have no need to believe in something solely in terms of biology.
But that doesn’t make sense. If the biological need is to believe in something religion-like, surely they would have to see it as being religion-like? I don’t think you can say that people would find it religion-like unconsciously but not religion-like consciously; certainly if it was just a case of “I must believe something” I could see it working, but not when it must have the specific attributes that you’re ascribing to both religion and AGW supporting.
That’s a good point. However, you would expect equal resistance if they actually didn’t see anything similar between religion and AGW supporting. I don’t believe that this, alone, is a reason to doubt veracity.
I’m afraid I don’t understand your point, then. You certainly seem to believe that AGW is false. Yet, you believe that there are problems with the scientific process at it’s heart; how can you reconcile these two things? If you believe there’s a problem with this research in a non-partisan way, then logically you should have no opinion either way and not believe anti-AGW scientists over pro-AGW scientists. Yet you do. So clearly you either don’t find this to be a big problem, or your arguments are unconnected from your beliefs.
[QUOTE=PatriotX]
Yes, exactly.
And, afaict, kanic has already disavowed the very definition of religion he’s using.
I think if you were to find the actual statistics you find that the ratio’s not 1:1.
[/QUOTE]
Well help me fight my ignorance; I don’t have any idea where to look. It seems there was just a thread about the Bush admn. trying to sell thier version of it. Is it just who gets the most press?
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
People have worshiped evil gods and tried to appease them by sacrificing virgins and SUV’s and the like so the evil god does not kill them all in a big ball of fire.
[/quote]
Cite on the virgins? :dubious:
I don’t sacrifice virgins to my car’s oil pan. The back seat maybe, but never the oil pan. Talk about kinky you kinky bugger you.
How is moving from co2 adding fossil fuels to prevent ecological disaster is any worse then having to change my oil regularly to prevent engine disaster?
Am I worshiping the god of my car’s lubrication system or something?
I could make a much more convincing argument that everyone practices Taoism without realizing it.
Are you ready to admit your practice of Taoism yet?
[QUOTE=Omegaman]
Well help me fight my ignorance; I don’t have any idea where to look. It seems there was just a thread about the Bush admn. trying to sell thier version of it. Is it just who gets the most press?
[/QUOTE]
Well, for credible scientific sources, try the IPCC website. If you have your tinfoil hat on because you don’t believe anything sponsored by the U.N. is believable, you could look at what the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, along with the analogous bodies in most of the major nations (Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, …) had to say in this joint statement. Or what the American Association for the Advancement of Science has to say about it.
Heck, you can even look at what BP and Shell have to say about it.
[QUOTE=brazil84]
Then why not just give an example?
I did a word search and I couldn’t find the word “test” or “experiment” in section 9.7.
I’m just asking you to cite and describe a couple of these “tests” you refer to.
[/QUOTE]
One example: Testing climate models against the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
Another example:
Testing the warming of the climate in the 20th century against the predictions from climate models with and without various forcings. (See also Figure SPM.4 in the summary for policymakers of the IPCC report.)
Another example: Testing the pattern of warming in the world’s oceans against what models predict with and without greenhouse gas forcings.
There are many, many more along those lines.
Of course, if you go back further, there are a lot more basic tests. When Arrhenius first did the calculation in the early 1900s of what might happen if CO2 levels increased due to burning fossil fuels, many scientists were skeptical because they thought that the oceans would uptake all the CO2 we produced. So, the measurements of CO2 starting in the late 1950s are a test of that aspect. Of course, there were lots of measurements to determine the spectrum of CO2 and plug it into radiation models to determine the net “radiative forcing” due to a given increase in CO2…Almost all scientists, even skeptics like Richard Lindzen, agree that a doubling of CO2 causes a radiative forcing of ~3.7 W/ m^2. So, we know how strong a perturbation we are putting on the system and we have evidence from the past (e.g., the transition from the ice age to the current warmer interglacial period) and from climate models that allow us to estimate the sensitivity of the climate to such a perturbation. In fact, at this point, if one is to claim that the recent warming is not due to greenhouse gases, one not only has to come up with another mechanism to explain the warming but would also have to explain why the known mechanism of greenhouse gases is not causing substantial warming…which would also inevitably lead back to having to come up with a new understanding of what caused the changes between the ice age and interglacial period.
[QUOTE=netsplit]
Am I worshiping the god of my car’s lubrication system or something?
[/QUOTE]
It depends, I don’t know what priority you place on your car’s lubercation system. Is it possible to worship it as a god, yes.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
That’s Christianity, and more specifically, you. I would imagine that most Christians at least would say that God is the only god
[/QUOTE]
I can understand that, and I do personally believe there is one God (and God is one but that’s off subject). At the same time there are false gods, which we have to deal with and put them in the proper place.
This I don’t know either way. Actually I would be more willing to accept AGW ‘witnessing’ from a Christ centered person then a non/anti-religious person, due to the ability of this issue to become a false god, someone who already has a God, one that I know and trust, has met that biological need for a God and IMHO can see the issue more objectively.
I do see worshiping at the alter of AGW as religion like, You talk to fellow believers about your practices, CF lightbulbs, hybrid cars, etc. When a new believer sees the light he trades in the SUV for a hybrid, he is then welcomed as a fellow believer and commended for what he has done. People change their lifestyle to accommodate this ‘god’ and talk about the upcoming famine caused by our ‘sin’ of CO2 release just like they are talking about the black (3rd) horse of the Apocalypse.
It seems to fit the ‘need’ one has for ‘religion’
(Re: anti/nonreligious people would automatically resist the claim that they do indeed worship a god. )
Also a good point and another valid explanation.
My own view of AGW is that it can’t be known, there is just too much corruption to trust such a claim that will dramatically change so many lives, IMHO lowering the global standard of living.
The scientific process, what I see as the study of God’s creation, is fine in and of itself. It is the corruption of this process that I see problems with.
With such a dramatic life changing issue that this could mean I see great potential for abuse.
Removing our dependence from fossil fuels also has another important point.
The oil’s gonna run out!
You don’t honestly believe there’s an infinite supply of it do you?
Now we can either ween ourselves of it now, or really suffer when it runs out.
[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
For the record, I’m probably more involved in the anti-AGW cabal than you are, despite your brother’s career- I get a monthly check from an oil company for the natural gas wells on my land.
[/QUOTE]
Although to be fair, you would be hard pressed to find even an oil or gas company that is still overtly denying AGW. Exxon has traditionally been the worst of the bunch and even they have been slowly changing their tune in the last few years. (Although see here for another take on what Exxon is doing behind the scenes.)
There are probably still a few coal companies, like Western Fuels Association, that are strongly in the denial camp since coal is the most carbon-intensive fuel.
[QUOTE=jshore]
Well, for credible scientific sources, try the IPCC website. If you have your tinfoil hat on because you don’t believe anything sponsored by the U.N. is believable, you could look at what the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, along with the analogous bodies in most of the major nations (Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, China, …) had to say in this joint statement. Or what the American Association for the Advancement of Science has to say about it.
Heck, you can even look at what BP and Shell have to say about it.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the cites. The IPCC has a massive amount of information and although it may take me some time to process it, it looks like what I’m looking for. I don’t doubt AGW is happening at all. Having lived in Vegas for 40 years the past few have seen weather patterns I have never seen before. It’s nice to see some kind of proof other than my memory and 40 years is only a drop in the bucket time wise. Thanks again.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
I can understand that, and I do personally believe there is one God (and God is one but that’s off subject). At the same time there are false gods, which we have to deal with and put them in the proper place.
[/quote]
Not only is there no evidence for gods, false or not, but there’s no reason to consider one god any falser than any other.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Actually I would be more willing to accept AGW ‘witnessing’ from a Christ centered person then a non/anti-religious person, due to the ability of this issue to become a false god, someone who already has a God, one that I know and trust, has met that biological need for a God and IMHO can see the issue more objectively.
[/quote]
Wrong; he’s more likely to lie or be deluded about it. Besides the basic mental handicap of being religious, Christianity has a strong strain of anti-environmentalism, anti-futurism, and apocalyptism.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
I do see worshiping at the alter of AGW as religion like, You talk to fellow believers about your practices, CF lightbulbs, hybrid cars, etc. When a new believer sees the light he trades in the SUV for a hybrid, he is then welcomed as a fellow believer and commended for what he has done. People change their lifestyle to accommodate this ‘god’ and talk about the upcoming famine caused by our ‘sin’ of CO2 release just like they are talking about the black (3rd) horse of the Apocalypse.
It seems to fit the ‘need’ one has for ‘religion’
[/quote]
:rolleyes: Talking about a near-certainty and modifying your lifestyle to accomodate it is not even close to religion.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
My own view of AGW is that it can’t be known, there is just too much corruption to trust such a claim that will dramatically change so many lives, IMHO lowering the global standard of living.
[/quote]
As opposed to letting global warming go unhindered ? What do you think THAT will do to the “global standard of living” ? And the main people arguing against it have never demonstrated any concern for anyone’s standard of living other than their own, if that.
I find it interesting that there seems to be a certain segment of religious people that just can’t accept that there are people that don’t need religion. In their minds, and kanicbird seems to be one of them, something, like “AGW” has to fill that same role. The idea that we just simply don’t have the need for any kind of religious-like thinking doesn’t seem to enter the discussion for them.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
[QUOTE=tdn]
kanicbird, what, pray tell, is the motivation behind this great AGW conspiracy? What do the evil scientists stand to gain?
[/QUOTE]
This is getting off topic, but suppression of the middle class to lower classes, lowering the standard of living so only the rich can live a comfortable live, in short it’s about concentrating control to the few who can afford it.
[/quote]
This ridiculous claim assumes that the Evil Scientists are in the upper classes. Do you have any idea of what a climatologist gets paid versus, say, an oil company PR flak? How often they get invited to the White House?
And, even if that was their goal - for which, to use your words, you have produced not one shred of actual proof - why would they do it? How does having the middle and lower classes live a less energy-intensive lifestyle help the rich live a comfortable lifestyle? Why does the latter require energy profligacy?
What forum did these nasty folks use to meet and plan this nefarious plot? When did it occur? How is it maintained in such a well-organised way without its proceedings coming to light?