Dischorran
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...but every one of those points is directly from the FUD denial textbook. A solid paper refuting a major dogma is a Big Deal and would get published (note that the research has to be sound, which is typically untrue of people coming in with an agenda). A solid disproof would be if temperatures start going down for a few decades - this is long-range science here. For public policy purposes, it doesn't actually matter why it's getting warmer, oceans rise regardless and we risk losing cities. And then everything flips when considering the counterargument, and apparently the proposal of some unspecified buffering mechanism in the earth's climate is perfectly okay without any evidence, finished off with a request to be given the last word. As for models: think thermodynamics here. Any given molecule in a mole of gas is essentially untrackable, but in aggregate the gas' behavior is completely predictable at an introductory p-chem level.

So yeah, you're kinda being treated as a denier because you are one. I mean, I hope you're right and all since I like the oceans where they are, but there isn't some massive conspiracy of scientists out there "advocating" global warming so we can be at the top of a New World Order and enslave the masses for genetic experimentation.

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west.logan
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Schik:
The terms "deniers", "disinformers", "fossil-fuel-funded disinformation campaign", in the title and first paragraph, which aren't exactly neutral terms. Same for some of the links they link to.

My main contention is that there's an awful lot of assumptions, modeling, and interpretations that have to go into it so it's not as quite a black and white as people like to pretend.

Edit: post collision

As I said, I'm not wanting to debate, just couldn't let this pass completely unchallenged. I'm not claiming there is some conspiracy, but like it or not, climatologists have a bias and are influenced by peers. I have a bias too, I'll freely admit that. I'm unconvinced that this data and modeling is any less prone to interpretation than economics is, and economics is far from an exact science.

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[Last edited by west.logan at 06-24-2013 07:19 PM]

Schik
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Well, I'd agree that *page* is biased, but I don't think it's pretending not to be. The arguments it contains, however, seem to be things you could say to any reasonable person without offending them. I'm talking about the one-line and paragraph responses, not every page that they link to for scientific proof, as I didn't visit every one.

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west.logan
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Sure, and I've not visited every link to SkepticalScience either. I have enjoyed some of those articles though.

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Someone Else
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I think the issue is more that the article implies that those who deny climate change (or that climate change is due to human influences) are not adequately informed on the topic - or are spreading disinformation. While the people who disagree may be in the minority, the correct stance to take should not be one of dismissal of their position, but a thoughtful rebuttal of their main points.

One liners do not meet this requirement. They simply cause repeating of rhetoric and no meaningful discussion takes place. I think that's why the article is poor, more than its bias.

asmussen
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Someone Else wrote:
One liners do not meet this requirement. They simply cause repeating of rhetoric and no meaningful discussion takes place. I think that's why the article is poor, more than its bias.

Did you happen to notice that each and every one of those one liners is a link to a page discussing that particular topic in more detail?

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Someone Else
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Yeah, but that's not the focus of the article. It's like "Here's some rhetoric." And then "Oh, by the way, it's backed up by something else over there." Not saying it doesn't have interesting information, it's just not a setup conducive to informed debate. And that the accuracy of the information isn't required because more people who aren't seriously interested won't go and read the linked information, especially later in the list.

west.logan
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As stated before, I don't see myself as a denier, but a skeptic: I just don't find the models convincing enough or without bias.

Coincidentally, I recently listened to a podcast with Freeman Dyson, who is quite a respected physicist. He is also skeptical that climate change is caused by humans and calls himself a "heretic". He argues that heretics are needed to question the general consensus. Heretics are important, even if they turn out to be wrong, because sometimes, even if only rarely, they were right.

I think the thing we need to realize is that this is a highly political subject as well as scientific one, and that means political for BOTH SIDES, not just the "oil-mongers". There is no objectivity here, as much as we'd like to pretend.

Here is an essay by Dr. Dyson that I found somewhat entertaining:
Heretical Thoughts about Science

And here is the podcast with text highlights, though that's probably less relevant and interesting to listen to:
Dyson on Heresy, Climate Change, and Science

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[Last edited by west.logan at 06-26-2013 01:47 PM]

Banjooie
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Sure, climate change could be complete hogwash, but most of the steps suggested to reduce climate change are probably good ideas whether or not it's happening, whereas the current situation is untenable in the long-term either way.

Blondbeard
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west.logan wrote:
Heretics are important, even if they turn out to be wrong, because sometimes, even if only rarely, they were right.

That's the thing, though. They are rarely right, and in this case the pricetag of being a sceptic who got it wrong might be very steep indeed, whereas the pricetag for believing in the scientific consensus (and in the basic sciense itself, since I've studied quite a lot of physics) is to do some changes that pretty much would be necessary to do anyway. So just like Banjooie says: most steps sugested to reduce the climate is probably good ideas anyway. And it's not obvious that it would be less painfull to take these steps at a later time.

What anoys me is this: Are you so sure that you are right that you are willing to stake the future of 95% of our spieces on it? Because that's kind of the worst case scenario here. Of course very few argues that that is a likely outcome, but it's among the possibilities. I think any true sceptic has a duty to acknowledge the fact that he/she might be wrong, and point out that we ought to take firm action, regardless of his/her conclusions. Because we are all human. We may all be wrong. I might be wrong about human driven climatechange (I hope I am), but even if I believed it was all a hoax I scincerelyh hope that I would have the maturety to still promote action, and to try and persuade others to take action as well.

As it is now sceptics sometimes throw out their thoughts quite agressivly, and seems to be firmely against taking any action, and that, to me, is just wrong! It's believing a bit too much in ones own intellect (or somebody elses intellect, since most of them are probably just pretty much trusting in a number of knowledgeble authoroty figures).

By the way: You say quite a lot considering you are not trying to start a debate

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[Last edited by Blondbeard at 06-28-2013 06:27 PM]

mrimer
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Uh, oh. Someone kicked the hornet's nest...

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Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Nuntar
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west.logan wrote: I think the thing we need to realize is that this is a highly political subject as well as scientific one, and that means political for BOTH SIDES, not just the "oil-mongers". There is no objectivity here, as much as we'd like to pretend.

That's fallacious. It's a subject about which both political and scientific claims can be made -- but that doesn't mean the scientific claims themselves are political (or vice versa). It just means we have to be a bit careful in looking at the claims and sorting out what's objective and what's not.

"How shall a man judge what to do in such times?"
"As he ever has judged," said Aragorn. "Good and Ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house."

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west.logan
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Yes, that's me, stirring hornets nests. Oh dear.

Nuntar, even scientists get paid by someone. We strive to be objective but we always have influences. I myself do a good bit of research and always strive for truthfulness and objectivity but I also want to look good for my manager. My employer ultimately is the US government. That colors how I think about issues because my job is influenced and my pay is influenced. Science is all about collecting facts, but then those facts must always be interpreted and that's done by humans. We can get close to objective, but "science" is not necessarily objective, let alone something like economics or climatology which relies heavily on models and philosophical reasoning. Objectivity is perhaps, impossible, no matter how much we would like it to be otherwise. Unless you're researching math

Banjooie, complete agree with you there. As I stated earlier, I'm supposedly in the 95th percentile of "green" people in the US. I believe strongly in good stewardship of the resources we have. However, I also believe that things become resources. Oil was a nuisance for years and no one wanted land with oil on it. We found a way to use it and it became valuable. I do believe that when driven to it due to economic cost, we will find alternative energy sources. We will never really use up all the oil, for example, it will just become increasingly costly to extract it and we'll innovate and find solar power more economical.

Blondbeard, One question, if it is true, would then be to ask how much of our time and resources should be spent fighting global warming? Is it worth it to forget about roads, welfare, and economic well-being? Should that be government's role? As I said, it is a big political question as well. I'd recommend perusing the essay I listed above where the author states that the planet is probably warming, but that the claims are grossly exaggerated and perhaps we should focus more on other things. I agree, that's all I'm saying.

How much global warming are we talking about to knock out 95% of the species on the planet? If the ice history at Antarctica is reliable over the last 400,000 years (I'll assume for the sake of argument), then polar temperature fluctuates plus or minus 4 or 5 degrees Celsius depending on the elliptical positioning and axial tilt of the planet's orbit. And as I understand it, the global average temperature is claimed to be rising, but that doesn't necessarily mean warm places are getting warmer, but cold places (like Antarctica) are getting warmer. We can argue that we're causing this warming prematurely or prolonging it, but not necessarily that species won't survive if they have over both warmer and colder periods. Unless it's really bad, and I'm not sure there is evidence for that. Perhaps there is, but simply to argue that we better be safe than sorry and spend all our resources on fighting global warming is not a practicable solution. Without people producing and building economic wealth, we won't have resources to spend on fighting it anyway.

So my position is, I think it's exaggerated and we have more important things right now. That's actually more of a moderate position. One extreme would either say nothing is happening or I don't care, and the other extreme would say we have to do everything NOW before it's all too late and the world turns into a desert gasball with no life. If you do believe global warming is reasonably certain then the question is how much should we devote to this and what measures are most economical? Can we paint asphalt white to reflect some energy? Can we build up the biosphere in the soil to absorb more carbon? Much cheaper solutions than the politicized attack on corporations and cars. There's lots that could be said on this subject but I think I've probably said too much already, especially when I'm not debating

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mrimer
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I think these are good points to think about.

...here come the hornets!

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Dischorran
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It's beyond me how we got from "I don't think global warming is real" to "let's not spend every cent we have on saving a few species", but at least we can start at a point of agreement now? Thing is, we don't need a Venus-style apocalypse to create massive hardship - a rise in sea levels and northward shift in agriculture will do that just fine, and the science is quite solid on that risk. If we can limit that, well, I fail to see the downside in spreading out our range of energy infrastructure. The Job Creators can take care of themselves enough to handle some appropriate regulations.

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west.logan
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Dischorran wrote:
It's beyond me how we got from "I don't think global warming is real" to "let's not spend every cent we have on saving a few species"

I was conceding Blondbeard's point for the sake of argument (drat! I was debating wasn't I?). Note the "if is true" remark prefacing that section. Anyway, I think I've probably done enough damage here. Back to links?

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Someone Else
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west.logan wrote: Objectivity is perhaps, impossible, no matter how much we would like it to be otherwise. Unless you're researching math

Well, nope. Who really believes in the axiom of choice, anyway?

Blondbeard
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Well... Just like Dischorran says: the likely consequenses are serious enough. Even the consequenses we can already see are seroious enough. In the likely scenario we can atribute some of the major storms, droughts and floods to global warming (which kind of makes sense. If you input energy into a system, that system has the potential to do more stuff, and a chaotic system will have the potential to do more violent stuff). And I think it's very likely that upcoming droughts and floods and storms in the likely scenario will cost a lot of money. I also think it's likely that they will be responsible for a lot of deaths. Please note that I'm not sayng that every wildfire, storm, drought or flood should be attributed to global warming. Just that global warming is a factor when it comes to weather patterns that are harmfull in the scenario that is most likely acording to a majority of scientists.

It is very likely that severe droughts and creation of new desserts will force people to move (that is already happening, as far as I know). It is somewhat likely that these movements will lead to war over desireble teretories, and over the right to exploit rivers, that dry up as you go downstream.

But in conclusion I would be surprised if global warming won't produce a death toll that is three orders of magnitude greater than the death toll from terrorism (or at least two orders of magnitude greater). A death toll greater than that from wars as well.

Stands to reason then that we should spend at least a hundred times more on trying to prevent global warming than what we spend on trying to prevent terrorism. And if war isn't the greatest threat anymore it stands to reason that we should probably spend a bit less figuring out how to defend ourself against each other, and i little more on how to stop the destruction of our planet (moderate though it might be). Acording to wikipedia (and I'm not going to dig any deeper, since it's not all that relevant) the cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is at least $3.2-4 trillion. That's a huge investment, and acording to some the wars have done more harm than good. I would be thrilled if we can find the money that one country spends on wars, with doubtful benefits, on trying to save the planet.

I know there are a lot of other problems in the world as well, but if you take a look over millenia (provided our pieces survives that long) the total death toll from global warming, and other environment problems will be truely enormous.

Don't have time to write anything else, or read the essey you link to (which might be interesting). I'm going to be married today, so I'm kind of on the run

I will say this however:

Eating less meat (especially beef) have a large positive effect when it comes to the release of greenhouse gasses. It's easy, it's cheap and it would be a good idea anyway (since we will get more food per area unit).

Making major cities run with metro systems and busses would be a good idea, regardless of global warming. It's simply not all tyhat healthy with a lot of gasoline cars crammed togeather.

If we agree that nuclear power (inluding chernobyl-like accidents every decade) would be less dangerous than global warming caused by power plants run with fosile fuels it would be quite possible to start using a lot more nuclear power. There is quite a lot of uranium in the sea that could potentially be used.

A lot can probably be done politically as well, by pricing things for their true cost (like realising that there is a lot of value tied to the rain forests, for example, and pricing products that are responsible for the destruction of the rain forest acordingly). It's not obvious that regulations have to be bad for the economy in the long run. Maybe it will lead to creativity if you cannot always use the cheapest solution.

Of course one trillon dollar spent on the right research might go a long way when it comes to coming up with better solutions. Like how to store energy cheaply, which would give solar and wind power a better chance of becoming major players.

My point is this: terrorism to me seems like a tiny threat for humanity, and wars seems like a threat that gets way to many resourses thrown at them. A lot of that money could be spent on combating a threat that is way larger: global climate change.

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[Last edited by Blondbeard at 06-29-2013 07:05 AM]

Someone Else
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Blondbeard wrote:
I'm going to be married today, so I'm kind of on the run

High five! Me too!

Blondbeard
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Someone Else wrote:

Blondbeard wrote:
I'm going to be married today, so I'm kind of on the run

High five! Me too!

High five! Congratulations!

skell
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Low five, I just got back from my brother's wedding this evening, maybe an hour and half ago.

And to get back to the main idea of the thread: Patrick Stewart being cool .

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mrimer
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Patrick Stewart is awesome!

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Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

west.logan
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Look! Links!


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Tim
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A story about an indie developer who got 30K of Steam keys stolen.

When a free game promotion went all wrong, Wadjet had to pull the plug

The interesting bit here is that he is also using BMT as their sales provider. The same one Caravel is using.

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mrimer
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That's too bad. BMT Micro has only been a good thing for Caravel so far over the past 18 months.

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Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Tim
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I'd agree that BMT is a pretty good company regarding the payment processing.

It's just that it's a good thing to make sure that there are absolutely no communication errors when (key) servers needs to be shut down.

And I'm pretty sure it won't happen to us, but it's probably more convenient to know and learn from other people's experiences than to make them ourselves.

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The best way to lose customers is to let little kids running loose on a forum with too many mod points.

mrimer
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Absolutely. I'll keep this in mind.

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Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Vike91
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Have some apple pie.



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Garwarth
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I notice the lack of links in this forum.

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Slow and steady

Rat Man
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Awesome site for digging up oldschool/obscure games. They have articles on everything from 90s JRPGs, to Amiga and C64 games, to modern indies buried under the radar... well, everything except DROD, that is. Hopefully, we'll get an article from this site one of these days.

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