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It's a bit warm/ wet/ cold outside

Started by The Enigmatic Dr X, 24 July, 2019, 09:35:09 AM

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shaolin_monkey

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 02:33:22 PM

Thanks, SM. Unfortunately, this old 'phone won't play YouTube videos. Can you point me to similar text versions?

Here's the first on consensus, taken from the online course.  I'll try and get the other one in a mo.


Imagine you're driving towards a bridge. Have you ever pulled over, taken out your
phone and started browsing blogs about bridge building, to decide whether the bridge was
safe to cross? Of course not. You trust in the engineers who built that bridge.

That's how we form our views on complicated issues. Rather than master a whole body of
knowledge, we use a mental shortcut. We rely on experts and trust them to do their jobs.
Or failing that, we trust that their colleagues would catch their mistakes before anything
goes wrong.

Now in a perfect world, everyone would be aware of all the lines of evidence for human-caused
global warming. We would know all the human fingerprints that are being observed across
our climate. But life is busy.

We have to pay the bills

Get the kids (or ourselves) off to school...

And keep track of all the characters on Game of Thrones. So most of us use the mental shortcut
of expert opinion.

In the case of climate change, the experts are climate scientists who are actively publishing
peer-reviewed climate research. Because the body of evidence is so strong, there's overwhelming
agreement among climate scientists that humans are causing global warming. How do we know
the level of agreement?

In 2009, climate scientist Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmermann at the University
of Illinois at Chicago surveyed Earth scientists.

The survey asked the scientists if humans are significantly changing global temperature.
When the survey results came back, they found that not every group shared the same opinion.
Different groups had different levels of agreement about climate change.

For example, the group of scientists with the lowest agreement that humans were causing
global warming were economic geologists, at 47%.

The next highest were meteorologists at 64%. However, what they found was that the higher
the level of expertise in climate science, the stronger the agreement about human-caused
global warming.

For the most qualified group, climate scientists actively publishing climate research, there
was 97.4% agreement that humans were significantly changing global temperature.
A year later in 2010, another study took a completely different approach to estimating
the level of consensus. William Anderegg at Princeton University and his colleagues collected
a number of public statements from scientists about human-caused global warming, including
as many dissenting statements as they could find.

Then they narrowed their focus to only the scientists who had published climate research
in scientific journals.

They found the same result as Doran did the previous year. Among publishing climate scientists,
there was 97 to 98% agreement that humans are causing global warming. And just like
Doran, Anderegg found that scientists convinced of human-caused global warming had published
substantially more climate research than what he termed "unconvinced scientists".
More recently in 2013, I led a team of researchers at Skeptical Science in conducting the most
comprehensive analysis of climate research to date. We looked at climate papers from
1991 to 2011.

This amounted to over 12,000 papers. We found that among papers stating a position on human-caused global warming...

97.1% affirmed the consensus. So three different studies, using three different methods, all
found overwhelming scientific agreement. But that's not the only evidence of a consensus.
Virtually every scientific organisation that has made a statement about climate change
has endorsed the consensus.

Note the social diversity in the organisations listed. They come from the fields of geophysics,
chemistry, meteorology, physics, oceanography, and geology.

The diversity of the consensus also applies to countries. The Academies of Science from
80 countries have endorsed human-caused global warming. Not a single Academy of Science in
the world has rejected the consensus.

Many lines of empirical evidence tell us that humans are causing global warming. Similarly,
a number of independent sources find overwhelming scientific agreement about human-caused global warming. We see it in surveys of scientists, in analyses of published research and in the
diversity of scientific organisations all over the world.

There is one myth about climate change which argues that there's no scientific consensus,
because 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting the consensus position. The petition
is a website called the Global Warming Petition Project.

However, the only requirement to be listed in this petition is an undergraduate degree
in any kind of science.

According to the US Department of Education, over 10 million people earned a science degree
between 1971 and 2008. So while 31,000 people signed this petition, that's actually only
0.3% of Americans with science degrees.

And most importantly, only 0.1% of those 31,000 are climate scientists.
So the claim that the Global Warming Petition Project disproves the scientific consensus
is a myth that uses the technique of magnified minority. This involves making the petition
seem like a large number, when in reality it represents a tiny percent of the scientific
community.

This myth also uses fake experts. This involves conveying an impression of expertise - 31,000
scientists - when 99.9% of the signatories aren't climate scientists.

Now it's crucial to reiterate that science is decided by evidence, not by popular opinion.
However, it's also important to recognise how the general public think about complex
issues. They rely on the opinions of experts. So we need to be aware when fake experts are
being used to confuse people about the level of agreement among real experts.

shaolin_monkey

Here's the transcript of the other one Sharkey, entitled 'Moving past barriers to change':


Cook: How do you respond to people who don't accept the science of climate change?

Attenborough : *long sigh*  [Sharkey, I wish you could see Attenborough's face at this point.]

Lewandowsky: One crucial question that society is confronting is how to deal with the expressions
of denial that are so common on the internet and on blogs, and the answer to that, I think,
is that it is absolutely essential to be driven by data, by research, by empirical findings
and to look at what the data in cognitive science and psychology, what they tell us
about the problem. One of the reasons why it's very difficult to change the mind of
people who are committed already to rejecting the science—one of the reasons that's
very difficult is because you're challenging their world-views if you are trying to change
their belief about climate change.

Hamilton: In my experience, it's really hard to convert real believers on anything, that
you will just type yourself as an unreliable source if you contradict the things they really cherish.
Lewandowsky: people reject the science in the first place because it is incompatible
with their deeply held world-views. Most people who reject climate science do so because they
fear not for the planet but for the interference with the economy, with the free market.

Kerr: some people are not interested in either evidence or reason, it's just ideology. So
there's an ideological or personal psychological barrier there.
Sherwood: There's also a lot of people that have already made up their mind as almost
part of their identity, that they're not going to accept it, and those people you kind
of can't do anything with.

Attenborough: It's very difficult if they won't take notice, if they won't believe the
figures, what can you say? It seems to me an extraordinarily offensive thing to do,
to say to a scientist "your figures are wrong."

Alexander: There are some people who, I think, the more you give them facts the more they
will hold onto the beliefs that they already had. So, in those cases, I'm not really sure
what benefit there is in having a conversation, because it's not actually a conversation.

Lewandowsky: Now if you then, as a researcher or communicator, present them with more evidence
that climate science is real, then chances are that the recipients of the message are
digging themselves deeper into their existing position and actually believe even more strongly
that that is not the case. We have the experimental data to show that in a lot of different circumstances.

It doesn't just have to be climate science. It's whenever people's world-views are
at stake, then presenting them with corrective information can have a so-called "backfire
effect" of making them believe the mistaken information even more strongly.

Ecker: And if you have a belief that is really central to your identity, so if you have a
really strong belief, then you will defend it. You're defending your identity, who you
are. If someone comes along and challenges it, what happens is that you're not going
to be convinced by what they say because they're challenging your world-view. You're actually
more likely to become even more extreme in your belief.

Lewandowsky: So that is another reason why engagement with people who deny climate science
is inadvisable because you're just strengthening and reaffirming their belief if you're not
careful with your message.

Ecker: And also you need to accept the fact that there's people out there who will not
change their mind whatever evidence you give them, but also, consider the fact that that's
just a very small minority. Most people, you can talk to them and they might change their
mind if you present your case.

Lewandowsky: In order to do the one thing that matters, which is to mitigate climate
change—in order to do that, you don't have to change the minds or opinions of five
percent of the population. It's absolutely unnecessary, politically unnecessary. It is
a waste of resources to try and communicate or convince people who reject scientific evidence
because the reason they reject the scientific evidence is not because they've evaluated
the evidence rationally. It is because they are motivated to reject it by other variables

England: Max Planck came out and said look, you know you can't convince your opponents
of an idea, that it's true. Unfortunately you just need to teach the next generation
as they come through the system, how this physics works.

And they'll grow up understanding it, and that's cool.

Hamilton: In any survey or any election campaign, you know there's a huge group in the middle
that is not committed and that can be swayed in the—these are the independent voters,
the uncommitted voters that you hear so much about in the run-up to an election.

Donner: There's kind of like a climate change swing-voter, right? There's people in the
middle that, depending on the conditions, and those conditions might be a change in
temperature, but they might be other current events as well. Whatever else is going on
in the news. They may say 'oh, you know what, I am concerned' or 'I am worried about climate
change now' whereas the next year they may not be. We call them "climate change swing-voters"
but as far as I understand there are other papers that have done analyses like this and
have found that people that are sort of in the independent part of the political spectrum,
so neither Left nor Right, those are the ones whose opinions are most likely to change with
temperature.

Ecker: So focus your attempts to convey your message on the majority of people who are
willing to engage in conversation.

Trenberth: When I try to deal with the public in general, I'm really trying to reach, I
suppose what you might call the large uniformed masses. Maybe that's a derogatory term, but
you know, many people are just not very well informed about climate change. The small percentage
of the deniers, I'm not going to convince them.

Lewandowsky: It is important to talk to the other 90 percent of people who are not denying
that the climate is changing, and it is important for them to know, first of all, that they're
in the vast majority themselves. They also have to know that there is a vast consensus among
scientists because it turns out that telling people about the consensus makes them more
aware of the science and it makes them more accepting of the science.


The Legendary Shark

Thanks for taking the time, SM, I appreciate it.

I haven't read the second post yet but here are my initial thoughts on the first.

Whilst it touches on the dangers of logical fallacies, this piece is itself built around a logical fallacy - appeal to authority. It's basically telling me to shut up and accept the word of experts. To show how important experts are, the example of bridge building is given.

I have no problem with bridges and expert bridge builders. I reckon bridges must be in the Top Ten of the Most Important Human Technologies of All Time. Humans have been building bridges forever, from a log over a ditch to a stone arch over a stream to a steel suspension bridge over a river. We have lots of data on bridges, lots of experience, and very few (if any) unknowns. Even when the bridge builders get it wrong and one of their constructions twists itself to bits in a stiff breeze or collapses under the oscillations set up by too many people walking in-step, the reasons for these failures is soon calculated and added to the body of knowledge expert bridge builders have access to.

So yes, we assume our bridges have been designed and built by experts and won't fall away beneath us. That and watching other people cross. It's important to listen to an expert bridge builder if one intends to build a bridge - no question about that. But if I come upon a bridge that's twisting in the wind or has big lumps hanging off it, I don't need an expert to tell me I should probably find another route. And I wouldn't necessarily trust the best bridge builder in the world's opinion on climatology.

So now we are introduced to the other kind of expert, the climatologist. As the article uses bridge building to demonstrate the strengths of one form of specialisation, I'm going to use the idea of computer simulations to highlight the weaknesses of another. I'd guess that computer simulations are in the Top Ten Most Important Climatology Tools, so here goes.

The main drawback with any predictive simulation is uncertainty. I'm not talking about quantum physics' version of uncertainty, cats in boxes, probability wave functions, and the Measurement Problem - I'm talking about good, old fashioned classical uncertainty of the type described by Lorenz. The butterfly effect. The unpredictable nature of Hyperion's motions around Saturn.

In effect, the climate is a limited chaotic system - which means the further into the future predictions are made, the less reliable they become. I recently listened to a full series of university lectures on the mysteries of physics and was struck by an amazing fact about Hyperion's motion which I vowed to remember but have forgotten the details of. It is currently impossible to accurately predict the motion of Hyperion beyond (I think) two years. In order to increase that accuracy by one year, the accuracy of our measurements of the moon must improve by (something like) twenty times. Twenty one times would yield only an additional day. And that's for a little lump of irregularly shaped rock orbiting a planet. (The actual figures aren't that important here, this is just an illustration of the difficulties dealing with limited chaotic systems.)

The climate has orders of magnitude more data points than little Hyperion, and to be any use at all in a predictive simulation those data points must be numerous and very precise. The size of the computer is of less importance than the quality of data. Even so, the further into the future we extrapolate, the more uncertain those predictions become.

Let's take one small aspect of the whole field: car parks. As the last century progressed, let's imagine that more and more little weather stations found themselves sited on concrete instead of grass. The gradual modernisation of outposts, research stations, schools and so on. Concrete reflects more heat than grass so the weather station records a slightly higher temperature than previously, say 0.2 degrees on average. Then say that 0.2 degree discrepancy is replicated across 0.2% of all weather station readings and it's all fed meticulously into the simulator, along with countless other data points from Solar output to orbital dynamics to CO2 levels, that error is your proverbial butterfly, the tiny flapping of it giving unpredictable results - adding to the already inherent uncertainty. I might trust the simulations for one, maybe two years into the future but, after that, not so much.

This is not the fault of scientists, it's a feature of the universe. Predictions are hard. That's not to say that the experts shouldn't keep at it - who knows what they might find lurking in the data?

So yes, I absolutely agree that experts provide a vital resource. But that does not make them infallible.

I'll skip over the discussion on consensus (hurrah!), because I should really find the sources and read them for myself.

I will finish with the observation that this piece casts light upon the relative ease with which "the public" can be hoodwinked. The inference is that experts are above hoodwinking, or at least more resistant to it. I don't think this is necessarily true - experts are humans too, they're subject to all the psychological pitfalls as the rest of us. They have to put food on the table and go where the grant money or salary is.

To me, this piece smacks of indoctrination rather than education, presenting experts almost as a priest class, untouchable and not to be questioned. My understanding of science, though, is that it's all about questions. What, where, why, who, when, how? For a branch of science, especially one so presumably vital to the future of humanity, to deter questions seems... unscientific.

There is, however, one line in there that I wholeheartedly agree with - "Now it's crucial to reiterate that science is decided by evidence, not by popular opinion." I hope that sentiment applies to the experts as well.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




TordelBack

#213
I'm afraid you're misusing the 'argument from authority' fallacy there - science is a system that, in aggregate, constantly guards against that fallacy through rigorous peer challenge of assumptions, method, data, analysis and conclusion. Appeal to authority isn't generally permitted. Which to a large extent insulates lay reference to published and established scientific fact from the authority fallacy: it really IS a better authority than any independent argument from a layperson could be. Experts really are the experts.

I fully accept that shit happens, science operates in the same ragged compromised and institutional worlds as the rest of us, but the sheer scale of consensus on this issue argues convincingly against it being the case here.

IndigoPrime

If there was a 95% chance you'd get hit by a bus the next time you walked into town, would you make changes, or would you say "you know, it's probably a conspiracy, so I'm going to side with the five per cent"? Those are not good odds. And we're talking about the survival of entire ecosystems and, effectively, humanity itself in any recognisable form.

Professor Bear

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
Whilst it touches on the dangers of logical fallacies, this piece is itself built around a logical fallacy - appeal to authority. It's basically telling me to shut up and accept the word of experts.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Are "authority" and "expertise earned through study and experience" really the same thing?  You don't ask the local homeopath to do your gall bladder surgery - at least, I wouldn't, I'm not sure about anyone else.  Maybe after Johnson has sold the NHS to big pharma and we have an equally hellish system as the ghoulish blood feast the Americans call a healthcare system none of us will be quite so picky, but for the moment I'll cede to the made-up "authority" of doctors.


Definitely Not Mister Pops

I was going to ignore this, but I find myself somewhat vexed.

So I'm going to do one of those really annoying internet argument things where you breakdown a post

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
Thanks for taking the time, SM, Pops, I appreciate it.

Hey, don't mention it.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
Whilst it touches on the dangers of logical fallacies, this piece is itself built around a logical fallacy - appeal to authority.


There is also, of course, the Fallacy Fallacy - pointing out a fallacy doesn't disprove anything.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
It's basically telling me to shut up and accept the word of experts.

I have read the article closely and I didn't see the part where it told me to shut up.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
I'm going to use the idea of computer simulations to highlight the weaknesses of another   ...   In effect, the climate is a limited chaotic system   ...  the further into the future we extrapolate, the more uncertain those predictions become...

This is not the fault of scientists, it's a feature of the universe. Predictions are hard. That's not to say that the experts shouldn't keep at it ...

I agree completely. In fact I think the experts should definitely keep at. I would go even further to say that perhaps they should constantly be re-evaluating their results, comparing them with what's actually happening in reality and then refining their models and theories to improve accuracy. If only there was a term for this sort of endeavour, from which we could derive a word for the people who persue it.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
To me, this piece smacks of indoctrination

That's IT! And we'll call it INDOCTRINATION, so the people who persue it DOCTORS.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
They have to put food on the table and go where the grant money or salary is.

Do they? The rapscallions!

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PMMy understanding of science, though, is that it's all about questions. What, where, why, who, when, how? For a branch of science, especially one so presumably vital to the future of humanity, to deter questions seems...

...like a bit of a disingenious point to make. I don't think they're detering questions, just weary of fielding the same ones over and over and over and over and over and over and over again just because some people don't like the (best) answers they get (based on research* and evidence).

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 20 November, 2019, 09:13:01 PM
There is, however, one line in there that I wholeheartedly agree with - "Now it's crucial to reiterate that science is decided by evidence, not by popular opinion." I hope that sentiment applies to the experts as well.

Even if the experts** are just expressing opinions, they are by no means popular.


*Not a synonym for googling
**You should really call them "so called experts" to really drive home how silly they are
You may quote me on that.

shaolin_monkey

*sigh*

It's happening again.

I've been in the environmental business in one way or another since I was a teenager. I've had thirty years of this. The only difference now is I'm earning qualifications left right and centre on the subject. But I can assure you, I KNOW MY STUFF.


I already understand how CO2 molecules work in the atmosphere. It's physics 101. It is chemistry 101. Shortwave radiation comes in from the sun and long wave radiation leaves the Earth, heading outwards into space.

However, CO2 traps the long wave radiation. If there were no CO2 in the atmosphere, we'd be a ball of ice. If there were mostly CO2 in the atmosphere we'd be a hellhole like Venus.

This isn't new science. The heat trapping properties of CO2 have been known since around the 1890s, and confirmed in a gazillion experiments since.


We've been at around 280PPM CO2 for several thousands of years, which gave us humans the opportunity to have a civilisation thanks to a largely stable climate, apart from the odd peak or trough due to solar or volcanic activity, or the variance of the Earths orbit.

Now, however, in a geological nanosecond, not in hundreds of thousands of years like previously, we have increased it to 415PPM. That is HIGHER than the atmospheric CO2 PPM during the last CO2 related extinction event several million years ago, and it has occurred over 100 years instead of 100 thousand years. Please read this paragraph again, and wrap your head around it, because it is crucial to our understanding, and therefore our survival.

We know the CO2 increase is coming from burning fossil fuels, because CO2 from that source has a lighter isotope than your bog standard atmospheric CO2. It's a very simple calculation to therefore work out how much we've pumped into the atmosphere, oh, and also to figure out how much has been absorbed by the sea, which by the way is becoming less alkali as a result, affecting marine life significantly (Let's not mention the actual HEAT the sea has been absorbing also, and is about to spit back out, as I don't want to totally freak everyone out tonight).

So I've been having these arguments and discussions with people for YEARS AND YEARS. Except THIS time everything the scientists have warned us of, everything I have been passing on for the last thirty years, IS NOW HAPPENING IN REAL TIME IN FRONT OF OUR EYES.

Yet STILL there's arguments and discussions and obfuscations and a whole load of absolute bollocks flying around, while the world is literally BURNING IN FRONT OF US.

But we have to keep trying, don't we? Because to be nihilistic about it, or doomist as some people call it, is to be in the same league as a climate change denier.

We still have a chance, just barely, to limit the damage. But it's going to be rough on all species on this planet regardless, because 1.5C is locked in.

So it's why I come here and have conversations about it.

It's why I've tried my best with you Sharkey, because you seem like a nice chap, and intelligent too.

You're a bit of an odd fish though Sharkey. It seems you're happy to accept some scientists, but not others.

Who is telling us about deforestation? Scientists.

Who is telling us about the crisis of plastic in the sea, and even in our drinking water? Scientists.

Who is telling us we are stripping the worlds resources at an unsustainable rate? Scientists.

Who is telling us about the latest breakthroughs in cancer treatment? Scientists.

Who created the internet? Scientists.

Who created computers? Scientists.

Who created cellular networks? Scientists.

Who put satellites into space? Scientists.

Who calculated the best way to get an object the size of a washing machine to land on a comet? Scientists.

Who is warning us of climate ch... oh, hang on - it's not is it? Is it scientists? The bastards! They've been lying to us this whole time to get grant money! (PS - no-one mention the $5 trillion in subsidies the fossil fuel industry got in 2017 as per the IMF report)


At the end of the day, when my tooth aches I believe my dentist has the most up-to-date way of dealing with the problem, so that's where I'm going. It sounds to me like the dentist is just one of many options for you when you need a filling Sharkey. Good luck with that.

Anyway, TL:DR? I'll keep posting the latest findings from scientists here, and also some thoughts on the REAL debate, which is how we're going to save ourselves.

Good luck everyone.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 21 November, 2019, 12:51:54 AM
*sigh*

I know mate, I know...

Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 21 November, 2019, 12:51:54 AM
Who is telling us about deforestation? Scientists.

Who is telling us about the crisis of plastic in the sea, and even in our drinking water? Scientists.

Who is telling us we are stripping the worlds resources at an unsustainable rate? Scientists.

Who is telling us about the latest breakthroughs in cancer treatment? Scientists.

Who created the internet? Scientists.

Who created computers? Scientists.

Who created cellular networks? Scientists.

Who put satellites into space? Scientists.

Who calculated the best way to get an object the size of a washing machine to land on a comet? Scientists.

But what about the experts?
You may quote me on that.

shaolin_monkey


Funt Solo

++ A-Z ++  coma ++

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Professor Bear on 20 November, 2019, 10:45:03 PMYou don't ask the local homeopath to do your gall bladder surgery
This is what gets me. Sure, there are controversial elements in science, although scientists are usually the first to point that out. For example, when you have experimental medical ideas, which may or may not work, you are alerted to that fact. Experts are broadly unified on climate change. There are only outliers arguing otherwise. And yet people hand-wave it away for whatever reason. It strikes me as no different from those who bafflingly argue immunisation is a big hoax (yeah, tell that to my father in law who missed the polio vaccine by a year, and will next month have his foot and angle permanently fused, to try and stave off being in a wheelchair for a few more years), or who say the Earth is flat and we never landed on the moon.

Quote from: Mister Pops on 20 November, 2019, 10:50:13 PMI don't think they're detering questions, just weary of fielding the same ones over and over and over and over and over and over and over again just because some people don't like the (best) answers they get (based on research* and evidence).
Quite. It's almost like the opposite of politics, in that the people who push back against the science are the equivalent of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove ignoring anything that doesn't meet their own particular worldview. But there's the thing: the world doesn't give the slightest shit whether or not you believe the climate is heading for meltdown. And when the vast majority of science says that we are the primary reason for this, that we have already possibly hit some tipping points, and that we have to get our act in gear to stop disaster, is it really a good idea to say "but what if 95% of these guys are wrong and being paid by, er, big climate, and the 5% are really the good guys, alongside the oil companies"?

shaolin_monkey: thank you for your efforts on the forum. As for "I don't want to totally freak everyone out tonight", I read a piece on that a few months back that more or less locked that in. In short, it basically said we're already some degrees of fucked, and if you've got kids, you should probably treat them well if you have the means, while those means still exist, because life is going to be fucking hard for them when they're your age. I don't mind admitting that shook me to the core.

If nothing else, I think this all showcases how humans are en masse terrible at anything beyond short-termism. It feels like we're simply not programmed to consider the future. We look around at our current circumstances and make assumptions things were always like this. Terrible events sometimes shape said circumstances, and can lead to mass change, but when they fade, people revert to some very curious thinking. Hence why as the generation prior to mass vaccination dies off, people start thinking it's fine to not vaccinate their kids – just as we'd almost in many countries eradicated killer diseases. Hence why idiots start banging war drums now the echoes of WW2 are finally fading forever. Hence why Brexit is going to happen, because British people cannot fathom how their circumstances can wildly change on the basis of coming out of a tight-knit political, economic and social network built up over decades. And hence why we're staring down the barrel of climate disaster, because, well, surely things can't really be that bad and change that much, right?

ming

Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 21 November, 2019, 12:51:54 AMGood luck everyone.

Here's where I stand up from the back row and start applauding, shaolin_monkey.  I struggle to get involved in discussions like this because I start fuming and then it's hard to focus my arguments but it's a joy to read your thoughtful posts and the follow-up material.  Bravo!

Mikey

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 21 November, 2019, 09:52:42 AM
It feels like we're simply not programmed to consider the future.

I was just thinking about this this morning, mainly in relation to our ancestors. It's something that struck me years ago that one of the things that gets archaeologists excited is spoil heaps – all the waste, crap and detritus that ancient people just tipped at their arse, including if you're lucky some dropped, worked artifacts. There's a strand of thought that sees our ancestors as being all essentially hippies, living in harmony with and worshipping nature and keeping a balance on the resources they used. Spoil heaps kind of put paid to that notion at times and the fact that we're here now is an even bigger clue they weren't all about treading lightly. It seems clear there was a reverence and greater understanding of nature in many cases and not the total separation from it some have now, but if there was any balance it was because there weren't enough people to truly knock everything entirely out of whack and we were limited by the vagaries of the natural world. And other humans.

My point is we as a species were always good at exploiting what was around us until it was either done through our own use or environmental conditions changed to move or take it away from us. We've just reached a broad point where we can understand, as in quantify, the processes that have shaped and continue to shape the Earth system. A crucial part of that is understanding the recent (and ancient) geological past and pertinently how global climate has changed through the course of our evolution, with little to no input from us for much of that time. The climate has been remarkably stable since the last ice melted but it's clear and verifiable that it's going through a rapid change in state – the evidence for which indicates human civilisation as a primary cause. Yes, the world is more than likely moving into full warm, interglacial conditions as background, but the rapid pace of warming is significant. People who deny that are either genuinely uninformed, being wilfully obtuse or being reckless with knowledge.

All we can do is try to slow it down which might give us a chance to work out how we deal with a very different world. If there's some hitherto unknown variable or rapid feedback that will put the brakes on, particularly one we can make active use of, I'll be delighted. For now it looks like there isn't: the main feedbacks operate beyond human timescales. But the way we live is within our timescale, so we can act. We can do environmentally positive things as individuals and communities, and we can demand our governments do the same.

In this context, being a denier is being a defeatist.

Quote from: ming on 21 November, 2019, 11:09:39 AM
I struggle to get involved in discussions like this because I start fuming and then it's hard to focus my arguments...

Yeah, I know what you mean. I allow myself to give in on social media sometimes and just take the piss out of and troll climate wonks, hoping I'll at least ruin their day.


M.
To tell the truth, you can all get screwed.

shaolin_monkey

Thanks all.  I'll keep posting, but I'm going to try and post the more positive constructive things from here on, as we're probably all aware of the trouble we're in already.

I was chatting to Michael E Mann on Twitter the other day.  He's been battling with fossil fuel-led thinktanks and right wing ideologues determined to boot him into touch for decades, trying to keep the facts front and centre, which we were discussing.

I said "Thanks for fighting the good fight." His response was simply a GIF of a battered and bloody Captain America with the caption "I can do this all day." 

I honestly don't know how he maintains his energy and positivity in the face of it all, 'cos to be fair it's draining the fuck out of me.