Global Warming Revisited

[the iron horse]

What is it that skeptics of global warming are so quickly labeled to be against the environment?

I agree we should do all we can to insure in clean water and air.

I agree we should seek alternative fuels and power sources.

I agree in protecting and conserving natural resources.

My family recycles our trash. We try to avoid plastics and prefer buying selected products in glass containers. We grow many of the vegetables we eat. We turn our waste from the kitchen into compost for the garden.


What I refuse to do is jump on a propaganda wagon that, although extremely popular to jump on and ride wave the green flags, is based on some very questionable science.



One concern is how this issue has effected children. Most of my students in middle school put global warming at the top of their list of fears and concern.

BrainPop is a tool that is used in my school district.

This is what they found:

NEW YORK, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- While recent polls show that
American adults are most concerned about the war in Iraq, terrorism, and
healthcare, a survey of more than 1,000 middle school students across the
country found that kids fear global warming more than any of these issues.
The survey was conducted by BrainPOP, a New York based educational
provider.

Some of the most intriguing findings from the BrainPOP global warming
survey include:

-- Nearly 60 percent of children said they feared global warming and
environmental disasters-such as hurricanes, tornados and flooding-more
than terrorism, car crashes, and even cancer (22.3 percent feared
terrorism most; 14.6 percent cancer; 5.9 percent car crashes).

-- Nearly one-third of children reported thinking about global warming a
lot and worrying about how the effects of global warming will change
the planet and directly impact their lives. Another 41.2 percent think
about it sometimes and say that they are somewhat worried.

-- Roughly 60 percent of children surveyed believe that more needs to be
done in their community to help the planet and stop global warming.

-- When asked what effect of global warming worries them the most, the
majority of kids surveyed are most afraid of the toll it will take on
the lives of people.

[BVS]

You don't believe your sources to be part of a propaganda wagon? Honestly?


Your stance seems to be one purely of defiance, not one that has looked at facts and made their decision. That's an extremely dangerous position to hold.

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[Salome]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

One concern is how this issue has effected children. Most of my students in middle school put global warming at the top of their list of fears and concern.

You want them to worry more about terrorists and Iraq?

I think it makes perfect sense for children to worry more about the potential affects of global warming.


(I'm not even taking into consideration how framing the BrainPop survey differently would have ended in different results.)

[Izzy.nyc]

Why motivate through a fear of something we haven't fully defined yet? Why not teach environmental responsibility?


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[anitram]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

What I refuse to do is jump on a propaganda wagon that, although extremely popular to jump on and ride wave the green flags, is based on some very questionable science.

Have you EVER read a peer-reviewed scientific journal?

[Irvine511]

The only people who "question" the science are those with interests in furthering the bottom line of the fossile fuel industy.

But that's how it works, and how "doubt" and "question" and "controversy" are created when there actually isn't much of any if that in reality.


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[Izzy.nyc]

Not always, unless you're talking on a public scale, irv.


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[BVS]

Originally Posted by Izzy.nyc

Why motivate through a fear of something we haven't fully defined yet? Why not teach environmental responsibility?


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Should we wait and fully define terrorists threats before doing anything about them?

Just take an hour today and listen to Fox News, they will tell you that ISIS attack on NY, Canadian border, and the Mexican border are imminent, but say let's wait until we know EVERYTHING about climate change before doing anything.

Fear motivates, not saying it's right or wrong but everyone does it.




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[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Izzy.nyc

Not always, unless you're talking on a public scale, irv.


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on this issue, yes, always.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by BVS

Just take an hour today and listen to Fox News, they will tell you that ISIS attack on NY, Canadian border, and the Mexican border are imminent,

it really is amazing how Fox manages to be anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim, anti-Obama, and pro-war all in the space of a single talking point. my favorite is when they speculate that Obama seems to hate America so much that he actually wants a terrorist attack to occur on our soil to punish us for all the bad things we've done in the world, but then someone brings up the fact that a terrorist attack might be bad for his approval ratings, so maybe he doesn't actually *want* a terrorist attack, though they're certain he'd make America apologize to the terrorists if one were to happen. and amnesty.

[bono_212]

Originally Posted by Izzy.nyc

Why motivate through a fear of something we haven't fully defined yet? Why not teach environmental responsibility?


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I think this is a good point, though. The way it's been explained to me, global warming and cooling are things that happen to this planet over and over again, throughout time. What we're doing is speeding up the effects, but, in the end, it's an inevitability, isn't that right? Motivating through fear isn't the best way to motivate, IMO. Explaining it on a level ground, would be nice, is all I'm trying to say. It's not to say we shouldn't do anything, I just wish that people would explain things to people, without trying to scare them into action.


I hate this post, it doesn't sound like what I want to convey at all, but I just can't find the right way to say it.

[Irvine511]

Brian Cox: scientists giving false sense of debate on climate change

Scientists are doing the public a disservice in their attempts to communicate certainty in climate change science, often giving a “false sense of debate” by being overly precise, says broadcaster and physicist Professor Brian Cox.

Climate scientists are 95% certain that humans are the main cause of the current global warming the world is experiencing. But Cox said this level of accuracy had been manipulated by “nonsensical”, politically-motivated climate sceptics.

“I think we do a disservice to the public. If you look down the [camera] lens and see your head of department or your PhD supervisor, whoever it might be, then you’ll start being scientifically precise and you’ll mislead the public. Because you’ll give them a false sense of debate,” he told an audience at a fundraiser for the Society of Biology.

He said scientists could say with total confidence that climate science was uncontroversial and the current predictions for warming were the best advice available.

“The scientific view at the time is the best, there’s nothing you can do that’s better than that. So there’s an absolutism. It’s absolutely the best advice,” he said.

Cox, a physicist who works on the Large Hadron Collider where the Higgs boson was discovered, said that 95% certainty in science is effectively total.

“We had it with the Large Hadron Collider and people were saying: “Is it going to destroy the world?” Well of course it bloody isn’t. But [in scientific terms] we’re putting a confidence level on that statement … at the 95% confidence level, but you don’t want to go there,” he said.

“What I think about climate change actually is it’s obviously true and clearly true to all of us who look at the debate that goes on.”

Cox told the Guardian that climate sceptics had exploited the misconception that there was doubt about climate change in order to push a political agenda. “It can be a way in for people who have an agenda that’s not scientific.

“You’re allowed to say, well I think we should do nothing. That’s a policy choice. But what you’re not allowed to do is to claim there’s a better estimate of the way that the climate will change, other than the one that comes out of the computer models. It’s nonsensical to say ‘we know better’, you can’t know better.”

He said the strategy of challenging the science of climate change was dangerous because it promoted the idea that science was political and up for debate. This weakens the position of science as a reliable basis for deciding how to respond to the world, he said.

“I always regret it when knowledge becomes controversial. It’s clearly a bad thing, for knowledge to be controversial. We can trace back through history the times when knowledge was considered to be controversial. And that’s what we are actually saying when we talk about climate change. We’re saying that there’s something inherently problematic with knowledge.

“Don’t undermine the science just because you don’t like the economics. That’s a dangerous slope, because the problem of course is you’re not undermining just that, you’re undermining the basis of rational decision-making in society.”

indeed.

[bono_212]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

indeed.

Can totally get behind that.

[Izzy.nyc]

Originally Posted by BVS

Should we wait and fully define terrorists threats before doing anything about them?

Just take an hour today and listen to Fox News, they will tell you that ISIS attack on NY, Canadian border, and the Mexican border are imminent, but say let's wait until we know EVERYTHING about climate change before doing anything.

Fear motivates, not saying it's right or wrong but everyone does it.




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That's not my point. It's moreso the fear tactic used when a proactive approach focusing on responsibility would work better, IMHO. And you can't compare the threat of possible terrorist attack to a gradual change.


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[BVS]

Originally Posted by Izzy.nyc

That's not my point. It's moreso the fear tactic used when a proactive approach focusing on responsibility would work better, IMHO. And you can't compare the threat of possible terrorist attack to a gradual change.


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Sure you can. You say it's gradual, but compared to what?

Maybe a year of ignoring a gradual rise in terrorism is like ignoring a decade of gradual change in climate?

I'm not saying fear is a useful tactic either way, but it works and all sides use it.

The problem is you and I could have all the evidence in the world and some would still deny it based on some hellbent defiance, a defiance based on nothing but fear and ignorance, because then they would have to start respecting science.


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[Izzy.nyc]

I'm not so sure all the resistance against global warming is in defiance on science (that's a potential lyric). Some of the data supporting climate change as primarily of human cause bypassed the scientific method and wasn't an impartial analysis of all the data. And I'm sure the same could be said of the opposite position. If there was good data on either side it would give the discussion more clarity.

As for now, I just hope I won't end up paying even more taxes, and i will enjoy the 50mpg on my environmentally responsible clean diesel while I recycle and compost.


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[the iron horse]

"Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began."

Entire article (I know, from the comic section some will say)

http://online.wsj.com/articles/matt-...ing-1409872855

[anitram]

Originally Posted by Izzy.nyc

If there was good data on either side it would give the discussion more clarity.

Except that there IS good data on "one side".

[BVS]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

"Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began."



Entire article (I know, from the comic section some will say)



http://online.wsj.com/articles/matt-...ing-1409872855

Have to be a member.

Isn't the whole website a comic site?


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[Izzy.nyc]

Originally Posted by anitram

Except that there IS good data on "one side".

That supposed good data had nasa emails that mentioned circumventing the scientific method in order to achieve said results. Not saying the opposite is true but it does make you wonder.




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