Climate Change. It's Real.

[Undertoad]

The problem for everyone is how nuanced an argument all this becomes. So everyone sticks to the shorthand, which is unscientific on both sides.

[Lamplighter]

...this is a natural cycle....

What does "natural cycle" really mean ?
It's "natural" so therefore...
= acceptable ?
= unimportant ?
= uncontrollable ?
= not to be feared ?
= not of concern ?
= not fixable by society ?

Isn't "natural cycle" just a slippery way of staying climate warming
is not significant enough to waste time, resources, our traditional ways, profits, etc.

Being in my 80's, I know, intellectually, that climate warming will not actually affect me much, if at all.
... maybe not it will not even affect my adult children or youngest grandchildren.

But I am of the belief that climate warming is something that society should make an effort to alleviate.
Even if it is not completely attributable to the effects of modern man,
it very likely will be a serious problem for all of our descendents,
and something effective can be done sooner than later.

After all, what else have we got to do today that's really important ?

Then too, I may be of the "Ant Clan", not the "Grasshopper".

,

[Undertoad]

LL this is how the more nuanced scientific discussion is not productive to the political discussion.

Mankind has accelerated the natural trend, and it is an important matter to understand how much and why, and all this should be studied and addressed.

[xoxoxoBruce]

What does "natural cycle" really mean ?
It's "natural" so therefore...
= acceptable ?
= unimportant ?
= uncontrollable ?
= not to be feared ?
= not of concern ?
= not fixable by society ?

Yes to all of the above for the "natural cycle"
No to all of the above, for the man made acceleration of that cycle.

Like UT said, it's important to know the difference.

[Happy Monkey]

Not a lie; a good way, in print, to answer the meat of an argument, without sacrificing the detail.

It's a common tactic of various science deniers to make a statement that is technically true, but misleading or irrelevant. If debating an honest scientist, that scientist then has to say "yes, but..." which rhetorically reads as ceding the point, even in the unlikely event that they do get the time to fill out the "but". In text, you can say no, with an asterisk.

By your reading of his statement, it was baloney because he knew she wasn't asking whether climate changes at all. Answering something that is technically true based on a strict reading of the question may be par for the course for politicians, but that doesn't mean it's not baloney.

And based on Phil Plait's reading of the statement (and he's reading it as shorthand for arguments made by ), it's baloney because of the bad science implied by it.

It's baloney on one or both of those levels. The only way it can be read as honest is if you think Huckabee had no idea what she was asking about.

It's like if a politician in a chemical plant's pocket is asked about the death rate downstream from the plant, and he answers "people die all the time". Technically true, but nonresponsive.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Not a lie; a good way, in print, to answer the meat of an argument, without sacrificing the detail.

It is an easy falsehood to prove in an argument full of information, however true, difficult to validate. The author plays into the hands of the other team. The author is having a Limbaugh moment, predigesting information for, as UT puts it, his team.

[Undertoad]

But Plait rolls out the "97% of climate scientists" not only sans asterisk, but doubles down on it with an opinion piece.

I hate Huckabee, but he's a politician. Plait is a science denier. He has only a passing interest in the science. He wants to play in the political. There is no reason to engage a politician if we are doing science.

If the science agrees with him he will use it. If it roughly agrees he will massage it until it seems to. This is what politicians do!!!

Real scientists don't have a side in this game because there is no SIDE in science!!! other than truth, and politics and truth are bitter enemies!!!

[Happy Monkey]

But Plait rolls out the "97% of climate scientists" not only sans asterisk, but doubles down on it with an opinion piece.

A link to an entire article detailing his views on the study is like a super-asterisk, not sans-asterisk.

There is no reason to engage a politician if we are doing science.

There is reason to engage politicians if the politics are attacking the science.

Most scientists don't have the temperament or inclination to do it, which is why there appears to be a "debate".

The self-contained "pox on both their houses" attitude is what the "merchants of doubt" are going for. Just like with smoking and lung cancer, all they need is to make it seem like the jury's still out as long as possible, so let's keep the status quo. You may feel outside the "orange-purple" debate by pointing out exaggerations on both sides, but that just leaves you supporting "team purple's" policies, whatever you say about their rhetoric.

Real scientists don't have a side in this game because there is no SIDE in science!!! other than truth,

All that leaves you with is defining anyone who you can actually hear from as not worth listening to. If a scientist decides to spend their time countering scientific misconceptions in the media, suddenly they're not a scientist, and they have no more credibility than Huckabee.

[xoxoxoBruce]

There is no reason to engage a politician if we are doing science.

Except the politicians control much of the funding.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

...
The self-contained "pox on both their houses" attitude is what the "merchants of doubt" are going for.
Just like with smoking and lung cancer, all they need is to make it seem like
the jury's still out as long as possible, so let's keep the status quo.

You may feel outside the "orange-purple" debate by pointing out exaggerations on both sides,
but that just leaves you supporting "team purple's" policies, whatever you say about their rhetoric.

All that leaves you with is defining anyone who you can actually hear from as not worth listening to.
If a scientist decides to spend their time countering scientific misconceptions in the media,
suddenly they're not a scientist, and they have no more credibility than Huckabee.

Amen.

[Happy Monkey]

Not only is there a reason, there's a need.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Congress has gone so far as block NASA from publishing what they see and can prove.

[Undertoad]

Most scientists don't have the temperament or inclination to do it, which is why there appears to be a "debate".

There appears to be a "debate" because political people have framed the subject in a way that they enjoy having a debate over. The debate in science, as you know, happens constantly and permanently. No one side is considered "right", there is only an increasing collection of theories and evidence of various qualities to back those theories up.

The self-contained "pox on both their houses" attitude is what the "merchants of doubt" are going for. Just like with smoking and lung cancer, all they need is to make it seem like the jury's still out as long as possible, so let's keep the status quo.

The narrative is different every time.

(ctd next message so as not to have a novel here)

[Undertoad]

I am sorry about the novel, I truly am. This just ignited a bunch of things I've been thinking about recently.

You may feel outside the "orange-purple" debate by pointing out exaggerations on both sides, but that just leaves you supporting "team purple's" policies, whatever you say about their rhetoric.

Team Orange had a hard-on for policies years before there was any scientific consensus of any nature. At one point the science was just a twinkle in Mr. Gore's professor's eye. A consensus of a handful. Team Orange policies beat consensus by a decade.

When the science agreed it was like a perfect storm. We have gotten it right, they cheered, and said it meant they were smarter than their dumb enemies who picked the wrong side.

Meanwhile the science continues on. New information bombards us. It's fascinating.

The elephant in the room is the pause. For the last 18 years there has been, statistically speaking, no global warming; despite an ever-increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Science tells us that now a majority of the CO2 mankind has added to the atmosphere has happened since this pause began. The relationship between carbon and temperature is not so simple. (It also tells us the Team Purple theory that increased CO2 levels are due to ocean outgassing is wrong.)

Science has reacted to this with an increasing number of theories. Many of these theories have already been proven wrong, and new theories advanced. There's little consensus on the reason. (The recent paper suggesting that it doesn't exist has met with skepticism.)

Does this mean that CO2 doesn't increase warming? Does it deny all the science that has happened already? NO! - but it will eventually result in a new scientific consensus.

For example, the new consensus might be that there is a limit to the amount that CO2 can actually increase global temperature, and perhaps we've hit that limit.

We'll probably know a lot more by this time next year. El Nino should create new temp records, and after that, the temperature will fall, as it has with historical El Ninos. Will it fall to "pause" levels? Or not fall so much, because the ocean has coughed up a lot of missing heat? That will be great information for science.

Shouldn't any policy wait for this new data and the new consensuses that result? That would be really amazingly pro-science.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The elephant in the room is the pause. For the last 18 years there has been, statistically speaking, no global warming; despite an ever-increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Science tells us that now a majority of the CO2 mankind has added to the atmosphere has happened since this pause began.

The pause has not been that long. However the reasons for the pause are both scary and appreciated by math such as Fourier transforms. If this research confirms what the math suggests, this slightly less warming will be followed by a sudden increase.

Whereas some years the temperature increases will be less. And other years, more. But we know this. The trend is clearly for increasing temperatures due to what man dumps in the atmosphere. Global temperatures have only decreased where extremist pervert, misrepresent, or intentionally distort facts.


We know a direct relationship exists betweem CO2 levels and global warming. The only 'debate' is in the numbers (once we dispose of comments by wacko extremists and only listen to moderates).

We know oceans have seen a major and disturbing increase in acidity due to CO2 emissions. Again, the only debate is in which numbers (bigger or smaller) define this relationship. That also may explain why current CO2 numbers are lower than they should be.