Off Topic Climate change/ pollution

Out of devilment, I have been known to post bits from the IPPC reports or even better, the studies that informed them, just to see if people would argue against when they thought the source was elsewhere.

They were almost all argued against, effectively 'dismissing' their own experts. Some people think they understand more than they actually do, because they suffer confirmation bias by seeking sources they feel supports their preconceptions and dismissing comments from people they have categorised as denialists or frauds, rather than considering what they are saying.

 

The problem for me is not do much the argument of whether you’re a climate change denier or not. My issue is the way the debate has been closed down by the media and the way carbon zero has been turned an into a new religion. As far as I’m aware, according archaeologists/Geologists Britain was warmer 900 years when the Romans were here. We’ve had to mini ages in the mid 13th century and mid to late 19th century (strangely enough when temperature records began. God knows what mediaeval or Georgian Greta Thunberg would have made of that. Climatologists in the 70’s were telling us we were heading into an another ice age. According to NASA the whole universe is warming up because of gravity, but strangely enough, they claim that’s not why the earth is heating up. On top of that this 97% of scientists agree the problem is man made is another fabrication. Currently the earths atmosphere comprises 0.041 percent co2 (which can rise to 4 percent with vapour) of which approximately 60 percentage is produced naturally mainly by the oceans. The U.K. is the worlds 12th largest polluter producing a ‘massive’ 1.1 percent of global co2. Oh, and electric cars aren’t saving anything.

 

I said as much in the comment about the ex Greenpeace fella, the science is never “settled”, it just “rests” until something else replaces it. People are free to challenge it with their findings, but it’s not going to be accepted as “true” if it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and if there’s one thing scientists are is very thorough.

I always find it interesting that nobody ever tried to debunk Stephen Hawking’s theory on Black Holes radiating particles or Leonard Susskind’s work on String Theory.

The latter is interesting because he challenged somebody else (Lee Smolin) on their paper that made the suggestion that anthropic principle cannot be classed as science because it does not create any conclusions that can be wrong (in other words, it’s completely correct), which would cause stagnation within the community. Susskind said it was a daft claim because cosmological selection was evident in that we exist and the universe around us is formed in a way that allows us to do so. Smolin argued that black holes do not allow for the transportation of information across a singularity, a position that at the time Stephen Hawking also took. Susskind and another scientist named Hoof’t said that information from a universe can never be lost or destroyed. Hawking then later reversed his position, which caused a media stir. That disagreement about Anthropic principle was never settled, both agreed to write one final letter each on the condition that they then did not make any changes.

There was, to the best of my knowledge, nobody stepping in and suggesting Black Holes are made from chocolate and it’s all a hoax because big astronomy is a front for a secret cabal of baby eating technocrats. But take something like climate change, or Covid, where the principle seems less complex, you get a much stronger Dunning-Kruger effect and therefore a chance for opportunists to take advantage.
I chose physics as a path because I enjoy both the theoretical side and the way it underpins everything in existence. I abhor misinformation because it’s a weapon used against unwilling people who are genuinely looking for answers in order to subvert them into agreeing with something they wouldn’t bother to check, usually for financial gain on the part of the conman. It’s morally reprehensible, it stifles genuine debate and it encourages lines of thinking that are neither critical or inherently useful. It elicits an emotional response in me because I care deeply about science and how it carries us forward as a species, we can’t afford for people to subvert that with a load of badly disguised nonsense.

More needs to be done to stand up to grifters and conmen who hide behind the pretence of freedom of speech in order to spread their cack and discredit what they’re saying. Unfortunately, there’s a concerted effort to do exactly that towards legitimate academics and experts under the guise of “question everything.” Absolutely question it, look it up, but don’t do it with a preconception of what one thinks they know to be true, because all that happens is people ignore the verified evidence and simply scroll past until they find something they agree with and cite that as evidence instead.

I make no apology for calling out bullshit and I never will. I am happy for people to challenge me and I will always explain myself and cite sources that I use. Alarmism isn’t helpful and I will admit that I have used some very strong terms in the past that fall within that category, but within the community it is a sign of exasperation at the lack of action and refusal to change on an issue that impacts us all to a great degree.

 

I'm not sure where you get the idea nobody challenged Hawkins or Susskind's as there was a lot of debate on the topics. Part of the reason the wider public didn't get involved is that it didn't impact on their life and finances.

Some of the stuff you claim to have debunked, you haven't but I doubt you'll realise or accept that. People just shrugged and moved on as it made little difference as a fair amount is as pointless as arguing about who fired the arrow rather than addressing the wound, especially when there are other hazards around.

Too often these things seem to end up being people trying to show they know things, but end up actually showing they don't, and the important bits get missed. It's all rather pompous, as none of us on here are schoolchildren, so that sort of approach is unlikely to work. Plus some of the more interesting views can often come from people that haven't got themselves siloed into a particular set of beliefs, which tend to result in a very narrow view.

There is also a habit of dismissing sources rather than topics, which just looks like fearful people trying to close down discussions.

 

The topic is climate change, the source was a man standing in front of a room of people saying things that are patently untrue, shared on social media by a man with a long history of posting utter tripe. The discussion doesn't need to go much further than that, for me. If what he is saying is wrong, either deliberately or otherwise, then that needs saying and it comes to an end. That doesn't mean he doesn't make other valid points, but what Patrick Moore said there is in direct contradiction to what the leading scientists of the world think and he must know that.

I don't need to debunk what Patrick Moore said, the people at the top of the climate change community did that, I agree with them because their science is in line with the evidence we have. If there was to be a new finding by somebody else we hadn't heard of, the consensus within the community would shift quicker than I could read up on it. I don't control the narrative, but that doesn't make me incapable of sorting fact from fiction.

As an example, I'll sit and watch something posted by, say, Laurence Fox. I couldn't be more of a polar opposite to him, but I'll sit and listen to whatever he says and then look up to see if what he said was true. 9 times out of 10, it's bollocks. But he would do a Lebowski and say "yeah but that's just like, your opinion man", as if having an opinion on something somehow makes you infallible. I'm not criticising him, I'm listening to the words he is saying, then looking at what the reality is. He might be the world's foremost expert on coffee, but if he is spouting off about lockdowns or transgender issues and fluffing it, then what he says will be scrutinised heavily. It shouldn't be any other way. Discussion is healthy and encourages learning, but claims and statements are a different matter because those are inherently objective and there's an understanding that if somebody is making a claim, then the evidence they provide will prove them correct. In that speech, Patrick Moore made a lot of claims without citing anybody or any kind of data. It came across like he was using "white coat syndrome", which is basically the scientific form of "trust me, bro" in that because he worked for Greenpeace, he therefore knows a lot about climate change and that demands an inherent trust in his rhetoric. Doesn't work like that.

I didn't say nobody challenged Hawking or Susskind, I said that nobody tried to debunk it, as in, nobody came in with a wild accusation, said they were lying or being misleading. Challenging is expected within the scientific community, it's the bedrock of progress, but it doesn't happen without a scientific basis. In a theoretical field this is even more important because if you don't have your ducks in a row beforehand, you're going to be pilloried from the get go because you're working with models as opposed to hard evidence. Plenty challenged both sides, but it was done from the basis of a common scientific understanding using shared principles that everybody already agreed on, it wasn't as though what Smolin came out of left field with something brand new, the divergence within the field was relatively minor and led to a healthy debate which stands to this day. That's what you hope for with all of science, but like you said, when people who aren't scientists start jumping in with their own wild claims and make it sound like they know more than they do, that's where it gets dangerous.

People pick and choose what to grift on, they tend to choose subjects that lay people don't understand at an intricate level and smarter people than them could pick apart easily, knowing that if they get enough agreement from lay people, they'll outnumber the actual scientists and turn it into a "who shouts loudest" competition. Scarily effective, actually.

 

I was with you until "from the get go" ...

 

Steven Toast obviously has a lot of time on his hands now it is the Summer Holidays

 

The danger of promoting yourself as some justice warrior out to challenge arguments you disagree with, is that you firstly need to be right with your own arguments, when several you have posted certainly are not. I tend not to pick you up on those because for one, they tend to be points that are meaningless, or they are selective in the elements chosen to challenge so miss context, and also, I simply can't be arsed.

Secondly, you then risk accepting by omission all other points that you fail to challenge.

Third, you have absolutely no idea of the knowledge or experience of others on here, yet as you've stated it your own is not really a hands on lived experience of atmospheric chemistry and associated topics. You learned to a level that you could pass on prescribed information to children with minimal prior knowledge. That's not meant as a put down, simply a demonstration of one of the weaknesses in your claims of superiority that you apply to dismiss others.

The fact you are not aware of the other conversations around black holes doesn't mean they don't exist, it only means they occurred outside of your narrow circle.

All of that is by the by, and partly why I generally try to ignore these topics, and yourself, as it's all meaningless piffle, mainly aimed at sounding informed and superior despite some of the questionable claims, but having pretty much sod all to do with the topic or the balance between net zero measures and how changes in the climate could affect people, which I reckon people would find more interesting than attempts at self aggrandisement.

 

True but certainly doesn't only apply to one side of the any argument

 

They've done similar with bullshit panic claims in the mainstream media, and people tend to find them credible. Occasionally they are forced to post an apology, but generally it just gets glossed over. I suspect that's part of why Jim Skea made the comments he did about alarmism.

Did they comment on how many of the false stories were shared by people making a big noise about some nobody had heard of posting rubbish, that then gave it a wider audience?

I reckon that percentage would be higher than that with football articles in social as well as the mainstream media.

 

True. It's part of the reason I think the most productive way forward is to focus on areas of commonality, such as the climate will change in the future, and we need to use resources wisely.

 

None of us really know what is likely to happen, as Newland says there is a narrative being pushed from both side of the argument. I find this WEF frightening though, it seems they have the ear of a lot of wealthy influential people and are pushing this climate change the world's of fire narrative as well as a WOKE agenda generally.

I saw a speech by the daughter of this Klaus Schwab, who said that the COVID lockdown was effectively a trial run to see if us plebs would follow what we were told to do with the lockdown, and they did, which is good news as for the future we know we can control the situation. I find this frightening.

 

A full response to that would involve politics, but it is certainly the case that there are people using the situations to their own advantages, and the right people are not always in the right positions in quite a few groups and organisations (including research/science), which is driving several measures in ways that are not the optimal for humans, the climate of the economy.

 

A) here’s a good article in the NY times.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html
Seems to suggest that the science on global warming is actually settled, it is happening and is being caused by human related carbon emissions.
B) I’m sorry, but your proposed solutions are just too vague. You seem to me to be suggesting we continue investigating how to address the issues until we have a perfect solution. There is never a perfect solution, just better ones. Let’s just get on with putting in place the known solutions that will reduce energy costs long term and our reliance on other countries, these are wind, solar etc.
C) the air we breathe is cleaner now than what it was 50 years ago, but it’s still poor and causes breathing difficulties for many. Moving towards renewable energy use seems to be the best way of improving air quality.

but moving away from the detail, I’m just really puzzled by the general debate. The argument that humans are causing climate change and it needs to stop, isn’t a crazy conspiracy theory, it’s mainstream accepted science. The huge proportion of scientists that say it’s happening haven’t all got a common secret agenda, they are just doing their job. The fact that so many agree is quite startling, seeing as the message is so inconvenient for those in power.
The argument of moving to renewables is beneficial for us all. It arguably slows global warming, it will (in time) reduce bills, it will reduce reliance on other countries, it will clean our air. I just don’t get what is not positive about any of this.

 

You seem to be creating a view you claim I hold and then arguing against it.

I'll leave you to argue with yourself rather than try to untangle that post.

 

if climate change is caused by human related carbon emissions shouldnt we be making sure that China cuts their CO2 (presently 27%) rather than the UK (presently less than 1%)
I dont see the logic in saying China shouldnt cut their CO2 because the West buys their goods

 

"You seem to me to be suggesting we continue investigating how to address the issues until we have a perfect solution."
I read that and I didnt remember you suggesting that

 

At no point in this entire subject, has anyone written that China shouldn't cut their CO2 output. So you're not seeing logic in a statement that you've created.

 

I accept that but I wonder what the reason is for saying that the West buys China's goods whenever people say that China should reduce their CO2
Why doesnt Extinction Rebellion protest in China if what they are wanting is to reduce emissions worldwide?
If the UK reduced their CO2 to zero it would make very little difference if China still has massive CO2