“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[Proudhuff]

I'm always amazed that its only when someone disagrees with the speaker that they are told to 'think for themselves' 

[Hawkmumbler]

"Think for yourselves!"

'Shares an article filled with pseudo-scientific jargon, peddled by someone with a very blatant none-renewable fuel source driven agenda'

[M.I.K.]

"Think for yourself" is also one of the advertising slogans used by Scientology.

Anyone who needs to be told to think for themself is already in trouble.

[Professor Bear]

I stopped listening to my doctor once I realised he was getting paid.  I mean, if you think about, it's in his interest for me to be unwell.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I stopped listening to my doctor once I realised he was getting paid.  I mean, if you think about, it's in his interest for me to be unwell.

Sadly, I know people who believe that. People who should know better at that.

[Professor Bear]

I possibly should not throw stones as I stopped taking statins I was proscribed - not because I think I know better than the doctor or anything, but because they stopped me getting off to sleep properly.

Statins are probably a good paradigm for this discussion: they provably prevent catastrophic heart problems and thus pre-emptively take strain off the NHS, but they also negatively impact a profitable area of private medicine/palliative care, so the outlets of media barons with holdings in private health for some inexplicable reason keep running horror stories about statins and their nightmarish side-effects.  The Daily Mail is pretty much murdering its own readers at this stage, though obviously not fast enough for my liking.

[The Legendary Shark]

I would have more faith in the IPCC if it were the Independent Panel on Climate Change or the Interdisciplinary Panel on Climate Change and not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I'd also have more faith if policy recommendations were written after the bulk of evidence had been submitted, if its mandate wasn't wasn't to look virtually exclusively for anthroprogenic causes and to ignore other possibilities and if contrary evidence was investigated instead of being shouted down.

Is it possible that humans are the sole or major driver of climate change? Of course it's possible. Is it possible that other factors are the sole or major drivers? Of course. It's the idea that the science is settled that bothers me because that's not how science works. Somebody mentioned gravity and that's a good comparison - gravity definitely exists, just like climate change, and at the moment the understanding seems to be that gravity is caused by the geometry of spacetime but this is just a placeholder - another Einstein may come up with a better theory tomorrow. Scientists don't stop studying gravity just because the current theory seems to work quite well.

It's not a case, for me at least, of refusing to believe in this so-called consensus just because I don't want to. There are factors which give me pause, such as the existence of other evidence and, certainly not least of all, the track record governments and corporations have of skewing evidence for their own ends.

Even if anthroprogenic climate change is as big a problem as is claimed, which is of course a possibility, then the solutions need to be more far ranging than carbon taxes and such. First and foremost, I think, planned obsolescence must itself be made obsolete, or as near as possible. (For example, several years ago I learned of packaging made not from oil-based plastics, the bane of waste disposal, but of gelatin. Packaging designed to rot away naturally. Furthermore, this packaging had wildflower seeds embedded in it so that chucking it away at the side of the road would be, whilst still initially unsightly, actually good for the environment. How much landfill would this one simple idea save? Not all of it, sure, but even a small percentage would help. Yet still we are inundated with plastics.)

Lastly, I don't agree with the idea that a scientist's views be dismissed out of hand because they are paid by one "side" or the other. Climate change would seem to be too big a topic, with too important implications, to be decided by who's paying whom. All the evidence has to be considered and weighed on its own merits and I'd rather have it presented in a scientific rather than political or emotional way.

I am not yet convinced either way but I do, at present, lean towards anthroprogenic factors being less impactful than governments and corporations would have me believe.

[Jim_Campbell]

It's not a case, for me at least, of refusing to believe in this so-called consensus just because I don't want to.

"So-called"...? What would you accept as a consensus? 99% of climate scientists? 100%? Your tinfoil hat is showing.

Also, I didn't dismiss a scientist with an opposing viewpoint, I dismissed an article by a paid oil industry shill with a degree in philosophy.

[TordelBack]

But who said climate science was complete and finished, Shark?  As you say yourself, that's not how science works. All we can do is act on our current understanding, we don't stop and wait until all knowledge has been achieved: we have to live at a human scale.  If it turns out some unknown factor of Milankovic cycles is the sole or main driver of climate change,  then we will adapt our response to that (although I'm not sure how that would look any different - we'll still need to sequester carbon and reduce emissions)  But right now is when need to act based on the science we have available.

But yes,  reducing consumption is probably the key to everything. But corporations don't sell 'reduction' and governments can't tax it,  so for now we do the things that those in power will go along with.

[Leigh S]

This does seem to boil down to "I am suspicious of Gvts and all their works"

As for, "they have been told to focus on man made heating", well so what?  They could just conclude - "no evidence for man made heating" without discussing other causes if thats teh remit they have been given - no conspiracy there.

What are you basing your reluctance to follow the overwhelmingly agreed science - I mean, I am no scientist, but I know how the carbon cycle works and I know theres a lot more carbon in the air (due to our activity) and I can see temperature figures inching up in line with said increase - I frankly don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure theres maybe some connection. 

No offence, but I do wonder how your utopia based on the concept that of "people are generally reasonable" as opposed to "people look for things that confirm their bias and excuse their bad behavour/lack of positive action" stands up against your view on this subject, Sharky

Now I might sit there and look at the facts, but the facts lead me back to man made, so why teh reluctance, unless you are cherry picking to suit your own agenda?

[The Legendary Shark]

Jim, there is a consensus of scientists who accept that climate change is a real phenomenon but this does not mean there's a consensus on its cause. If the IPCC gathers evidence from scientists from a limited pool then their consensus is skewed.

Tordels, those "in power" present the science as settled - or at the very least as a binary choice between "believers" and "deniers." They have to in order to impose their "solutions." This is why people who question it are derided, hounded and marginalised - because questions lead to doubt and doubt undermines their power.

[The Legendary Shark]

Leigh, that's an entirely fair criticism and I have to accept that it's possible I can't see clearly because of my attitudes to government.

However, is it also possible that those who believe in government are similarly influenced?

Once upon a time the majority of people believed that the sun orbited the Earth simply because the Church told them so. This belief wasn't about cosmology but faith - and, of course, threats. Of course, anthroprogenic climate change and an Earth-centric cosmology are different animals - it doesn't really matter if the Earth goes around the sun or the sun goes around the Earth, practically speaking, because it doesn't affect the calendar or harvests, but climate change does have tangible and serious effects and so it matters very much. This being the case, I don't think I can take acc as read just because the powers that shouldn't be (who I admittedly don't trust) say so.

[Leigh S]

I suppose I would ask that you look at it this way Sharky

You come home to find your bathroom is flooding - you can see the water on the tiled floor, just a surface flood, but clearly not what you would like.

Your taps have been left running - the water isnt demonstrably pouring over the edge of the sink, so would you leave the taps running until the plumber gets here to  tell you exactly whats wrong? Would you ask a few more plumbers to come around over the week rather than just accepting what the first plumber told you?

[JayzusB.Christ]

Jim, there is a consensus of scientists who accept that climate change is a real phenomenon but this does not mean there's a consensus on its cause.

That's wrong. Plain and simple. The 97% consensus referred to is that climate change is man-made. 

EDIT: I'm not sure your analogy works, Leigh.  It would be more like if 100 plumbers came round to your house, and 97 agreed with each other what the problem was. And then you went with the 3 and watched your house get flooded.

[Leigh S]

Yeah, meant to make this point too - the scientists who don't think climate change is happening need to look up the definition of "scientist" in one of those big book things.  Those who accept it is happening, but donlt put man as a major contributor (if not the sole/biggest factor) are vanishingly small and probably funded by Big Oil.

Jim, there is a consensus of scientists who accept that climate change is a real phenomenon but this does not mean there's a consensus on its cause.

That's wrong. Plain and simple. The 97% consensus referred to is that climate change is man-made.