Let me just say this clearly: I believe anthropogenic climate change is likely, but the theory that humans are not driving the majority of global warming and HIV does not cause AIDS are miles apart in terms of scientific plausibility, it's a bit of a red flag for an uninvestigated opinion that they would be grouped together. We do not ha…
Let me just say this clearly: I believe anthropogenic climate change is likely, but the theory that humans are not driving the majority of global warming and HIV does not cause AIDS are miles apart in terms of scientific plausibility, it's a bit of a red flag for an uninvestigated opinion that they would be grouped together. We do not have another Earth we can run experiments on where we raise the temp by adding carbon dioxide. We can infect cells in the lab with HIV. We are left with very complicated models, occasionally sus surface temp collection and longitudinal correlations to demonstrate anthropogenic CO2. You have to model CO2 effect on water vapor, determine upper atmosphere contributions, and it sure looks like CO2 fits into a warming effect--but there are so many cpmplicating factors like clouds, solar irradiation and planetary albedo that have to be considered--apart from factors like organic decomposition and global plant biomass. Rational, practical belief in anthropogenic global warming is based on the precautionary principal or it's faith in science few of us have the ability to grasp and ascertain for acccuracy
This is one of those “depends on which position you’re actually arguing” things, and everyone always strawmans.
Like, is the earth getting warmer? That seems pretty conclusive.
Does CO2 make earth warmer, all else being equal? Seems pretty conclusive.
Are humans putting enough CO2 into the atmosphere to have a measurable impact on climate? Yeah probably.
Do we know enough about the complex feedback in the atmosphere to accurately model exactly how much warming will happen how fast for a given amount of CO2? That seems to have a much less good track record (that is, seems like models have been pretty consistently overpredicting, and anyway the best models are not the ones showing catastrophic outcomes).
Can we confidently claim that “we have 5 years to change or climate change will cause human extinction”? Well now you’re totally off the rails.
I’m certainly no expert in anything, but I did take a class about 8 years ago in which the instructor, herself a scientist, laid out the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, and it looked pretty damn convincing to me.
My recollection goes something like this: we have about 800,000 years of good evidence, and a pretty clear cyclical climatic pattern is visible over that time. We should have been in a cooling cycle according to that pattern, and the only likely explanation as to why we’re not is greenhouse gas emissions.
I can’t remember all the details, but I remember the Milankovitch cycles were part of the curriculum.
In general, I tend to think complex systems like climate are much harder to understand for a lay person than they appear. It’s very easy to think you’ve made a well-informed observation after considerable effort that feels cautious, when you’re actually missing important information. My professor all those years back left me with the strong impression that the scientific basis for climate change is rock solid, that the relevant experts have put considerable effort and care into understanding this topic, and their remarkably uniform conclusions are well grounded in the evidence.
I’m a believer in skepticism, including of “official” narratives, which is why I love Jesse’s work so much; I feel he scrutinizes claims well and fairly no matter who is making them. I think in this case the mainstream claims are pretty solid, fwiw.
I really don't think the evidence is that good when you consider that there were much higher levels of CO2 millions of years ago without the corresponding temperature change. I also think that there are so many other factors that aren't being held constant, and many of these factors are really difficult to measure. i think Watts up With That website puts forth good arguments against the narrative, but until you have gone to the sophisticated skeptics, you really shouldn't be convinced. The uniformity of conclusions is not at all reassuring when you remember the ClimateGate scandal at East Anglia University where they were bullying the journals to not publish skeptical research. Look at the consensus against the lab leak among publishing virologists doing gain-of-function. Look at the consensus for pediatric youth transition among its practitioners. Consensus can be manufactured. It's extremely complicated, but the models are not showing us any certainty that we are destroying the planet in the near future, however, out of precaution, we might want to mitigate against that as best as we can.
1) the correlation disappears when you go back millions, 2) it is known that organic decomposition speeds up when temperatures increase, raising CO2. So, the data is not to be ignored, but isn't without caveats
Yeah but going back millions of years, you've got other factors like the output of the sun changing as it ages (it was 70% less bright when the earth formed) and I doubt it's as easy to get reliable data.
The organic decomposition argument doesn't make much sense because most ecosystems will be in a stable state where decaying matter is matched by new growth... when your data points are separated by decades, it doesn't matter if it takes a week or a month for a fallen tree branch to decompose, the total net output of carbon dioxide would be the same.
Ultimately it's basic physics that if you have more carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere absorbing and reradiating infrared, you're going to get less heat escaping back into space. We've added 50% more CO2 so that has to create a warming effect.
It is very true that previous climates may have had differences in the sun. Re decomposition: A lot of the organic matter in forests and rainforests is there for hundreds of years because much is trapped under surface soil-notice layers of dirt piling up over generations--hotter areas have less dirt buildup. Of course CO2, specifically in the high atmosphere traps infrared reflection. The question is the magnitude of the trapping. The previous models needed a water vapor multiplier to make the numbers work--water vapor traps a lot more infrared, and there was a hypothesized interaction between CO2 and water vapor. So, it is more complicated than a simple calculation. Again, it is probably real, but it is freakishly complicated compared to HIV causing AIDS.
Let me just say this clearly: I believe anthropogenic climate change is likely, but the theory that humans are not driving the majority of global warming and HIV does not cause AIDS are miles apart in terms of scientific plausibility, it's a bit of a red flag for an uninvestigated opinion that they would be grouped together. We do not have another Earth we can run experiments on where we raise the temp by adding carbon dioxide. We can infect cells in the lab with HIV. We are left with very complicated models, occasionally sus surface temp collection and longitudinal correlations to demonstrate anthropogenic CO2. You have to model CO2 effect on water vapor, determine upper atmosphere contributions, and it sure looks like CO2 fits into a warming effect--but there are so many cpmplicating factors like clouds, solar irradiation and planetary albedo that have to be considered--apart from factors like organic decomposition and global plant biomass. Rational, practical belief in anthropogenic global warming is based on the precautionary principal or it's faith in science few of us have the ability to grasp and ascertain for acccuracy
This is one of those “depends on which position you’re actually arguing” things, and everyone always strawmans.
Like, is the earth getting warmer? That seems pretty conclusive.
Does CO2 make earth warmer, all else being equal? Seems pretty conclusive.
Are humans putting enough CO2 into the atmosphere to have a measurable impact on climate? Yeah probably.
Do we know enough about the complex feedback in the atmosphere to accurately model exactly how much warming will happen how fast for a given amount of CO2? That seems to have a much less good track record (that is, seems like models have been pretty consistently overpredicting, and anyway the best models are not the ones showing catastrophic outcomes).
Can we confidently claim that “we have 5 years to change or climate change will cause human extinction”? Well now you’re totally off the rails.
I’m certainly no expert in anything, but I did take a class about 8 years ago in which the instructor, herself a scientist, laid out the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, and it looked pretty damn convincing to me.
My recollection goes something like this: we have about 800,000 years of good evidence, and a pretty clear cyclical climatic pattern is visible over that time. We should have been in a cooling cycle according to that pattern, and the only likely explanation as to why we’re not is greenhouse gas emissions.
I can’t remember all the details, but I remember the Milankovitch cycles were part of the curriculum.
In general, I tend to think complex systems like climate are much harder to understand for a lay person than they appear. It’s very easy to think you’ve made a well-informed observation after considerable effort that feels cautious, when you’re actually missing important information. My professor all those years back left me with the strong impression that the scientific basis for climate change is rock solid, that the relevant experts have put considerable effort and care into understanding this topic, and their remarkably uniform conclusions are well grounded in the evidence.
I’m a believer in skepticism, including of “official” narratives, which is why I love Jesse’s work so much; I feel he scrutinizes claims well and fairly no matter who is making them. I think in this case the mainstream claims are pretty solid, fwiw.
I really don't think the evidence is that good when you consider that there were much higher levels of CO2 millions of years ago without the corresponding temperature change. I also think that there are so many other factors that aren't being held constant, and many of these factors are really difficult to measure. i think Watts up With That website puts forth good arguments against the narrative, but until you have gone to the sophisticated skeptics, you really shouldn't be convinced. The uniformity of conclusions is not at all reassuring when you remember the ClimateGate scandal at East Anglia University where they were bullying the journals to not publish skeptical research. Look at the consensus against the lab leak among publishing virologists doing gain-of-function. Look at the consensus for pediatric youth transition among its practitioners. Consensus can be manufactured. It's extremely complicated, but the models are not showing us any certainty that we are destroying the planet in the near future, however, out of precaution, we might want to mitigate against that as best as we can.
In fact when you look at temp and CO2 over hundreds of thousands of years using ice cores, it's clearly tightly correlated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#/media/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg
1) the correlation disappears when you go back millions, 2) it is known that organic decomposition speeds up when temperatures increase, raising CO2. So, the data is not to be ignored, but isn't without caveats
Yeah but going back millions of years, you've got other factors like the output of the sun changing as it ages (it was 70% less bright when the earth formed) and I doubt it's as easy to get reliable data.
The organic decomposition argument doesn't make much sense because most ecosystems will be in a stable state where decaying matter is matched by new growth... when your data points are separated by decades, it doesn't matter if it takes a week or a month for a fallen tree branch to decompose, the total net output of carbon dioxide would be the same.
Ultimately it's basic physics that if you have more carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere absorbing and reradiating infrared, you're going to get less heat escaping back into space. We've added 50% more CO2 so that has to create a warming effect.
It is very true that previous climates may have had differences in the sun. Re decomposition: A lot of the organic matter in forests and rainforests is there for hundreds of years because much is trapped under surface soil-notice layers of dirt piling up over generations--hotter areas have less dirt buildup. Of course CO2, specifically in the high atmosphere traps infrared reflection. The question is the magnitude of the trapping. The previous models needed a water vapor multiplier to make the numbers work--water vapor traps a lot more infrared, and there was a hypothesized interaction between CO2 and water vapor. So, it is more complicated than a simple calculation. Again, it is probably real, but it is freakishly complicated compared to HIV causing AIDS.