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Also I'm curious -- you seem to accept the planet is warming. Are you denying that CO2 from fossil fuels is the principal cause, or you accept that but just think it's pointless to do anything about it?
Or are you denying warming and/or the increase in atmospheric CO2 entirely?
I accept that climate has been changing since day one 4 billion years ago. It undoubtedly happens today, happened yesterday, will happen tomorrow.
> Are you denying that CO2 from fossil fuels is the principal cause,
This seems irrelevant to me. I would indulge in the speculation if we lived in a world where that already hadn't been politicized. Now I can't help but worry that doing so would be used to propagandize to destroy the economy.
> but just think it's pointless to do anything about it?
It does seem to me that it's pointless for the people most worried about it. I have children, I want and will have grandchildren someday, and they in turn will have their own too. So, the future's more important for me than it is for many.
The "let's adopt a baby from Africa because it's selfish to have your own biological children" crowd, they seem a little weird for caring if you ask me.
> Or are you denying warming and/or the increase in atmospheric CO2 entirely?
The first doesn't seem implausible. The latter can be objectively measured with devices that are cheap enough and available enough that I could confirm it myself if I had any suspicions.
I am clearly less alarmed by those measurements than most.
And it really seems to bother you that other people do care.
Thank you for the honesty!
If I may ask -- does it bother you that other people care, because you think any solution is necessarily and obviously impossible to begin with, and therefore it's a wasted effort, and wasted efforts bother you? Or because you think there's a rational cost/benefit analysis to be had, but you're already sure that the costs outweight the benefits, and costs outweighing benefits bothers you? Or does it bother you for another reason?
It's statements like this one that I find the most bizarre. You claim this is about science... well, that's not how science works. First you prove to me that this is real. Make some predictions (non wishy-washy ones), wait however long for those to be observed, and then we know global warming's real.
Making predictions you can't be bothered to wait to observe is a a palm reader's scam.
> If I may ask -- does it bother you that other people care,
You are part of a dying civilization that has convinced itself not to reproduce. The social norms of such a civilization are completely irrelevant, including and maybe especially to themselves.
> , and therefore it's a wasted effort, and wasted efforts bother you?
I just saw 10%+ inflation the last year or so because a cold virus made people work from home and this disrupted toilet paper manufacturing supply chains.
You say that we have to stop emitting carbon dioxide (something I've been doing since I was born), all of it, to save a planet that you won't bother to have babies to live in it 100 years from now... and that's supposed to be painless economic proposition? If what you wanted only cost a few tens of trillions, why the hell not? Burn the money (not literally, carbon dioxide), and make a future generation pay for it.
All I see are world-ending economic catastrophes. No thanks.
The future world isn't yours to worry about anymore.
This will seem totally off-topic to you, of course. Incomprehensible, even. But my daughter still tells me at age 14 that she wants 5 or 6 kids of her own. Me and mine will be above replacement, I think. It'll be our problem, and they're up to the challenge.
There have been plenty of nonsense predictions from *non-scientists*. Where have the climate scientists gotten it wrong, though? The only question is one of speed/size.
And denying that change is harmful is another aspect of the problem. Sure, we have survived it. We "survived" the late Permian extinction event (believed to be about 8C)--but the majority of species did not and most of the Earth was basically uninhabited. In the other direction we don't have enough data to figure out what percent of species was lost in the snowball. Note that the worst-case estimates I have seen for warming are 14C. (6C from CO2 plus 8C from methane hydrates.) The methane hydrate numbers are uncertain enough they aren't even included in the IPCC estimates at all.
As for having skin in the game--they're humans even if they aren't our direct descendants.
The pathological belief is the denial of what's happening.
I know my comment won't likely change your mind, but given your "start listening to the skeptics" stance, perhaps this is a tiny impulse.
Genuinely hope you get better.
> I know my comment won't likely change your mind
You make no real argument. You didn't dispute any of my points. You didn't even attempt to show how good your character or judgement were, so that I might respect you as a person and maybe defer to your own judgement. You might have preached over-caution, which isn't fundamentally flawed as a concept, often just too expensive to consider.
No, you dug into the comment history, quoted something without even giving a hint what it was about.
Of course you won't change my mind. Minds should only be changed carefully, after new information is presented, or a new way of thinking about difficult problems is illustrated.
> your "start listening to the skeptics" stance, perhaps this is a tiny impulse.
In what sort of delirious fever dream do you imagine yourself on the side of the skeptics?
Couldn't find anything with that title. Care to give me a link or ISBN or something?
> the side of the skeptics
is there a "mainstream" side and a "skeptics" side? is there only one skeptic side? is it possible to be a skeptic of a non-mainstream opinion? is it possible to be skeptic of what you write, even though you are skeptic of the mainstream opinion?
> delirious fever dream
I actually just took my temperature, it's 36.3 - make of that what you will. Or don't.
You do realize that if a scientist could put up a reputable set of studies that disprove the central climate change theories that they would be set for life under a cavalcade of fossil fuel sponsorships. Not to mention that they would be a hero to most of the planet. They would be singlehandedly responsible for major policy shifts on the part of entire countries. There's a massive incentive for someone to convincingly disprove the negative effects of climate change.
If there is such a complete and totalizing suppression of actual inquiry in climate science, then why are there climate skeptics with positions in major universities? Why are major journalistic publications skeptical? It seems to me that there is quite a bit of a forum for debate on climate science, because everyone, including, probably, many climate scientists, would love for it to be wrong.
Your argument is based on your being completely convinced that a very large swath of people, many if not most of whom are parents like yourself, are acting in utter bad faith. Certainly any academic field, like any human endeavor, is subject to group think, but if you look at the very real scientific progress that's happened in the last several hundred years, you can see that the scientific approach, empirically, does lead to success, or at least disproves the notion that groupthink is likely to wholly capture a scientific field.
The politicization of the whole thing ("liberal morality") is also intriguing. I'm an unabashed liberal. If you put a convincing argument about how the climate would be fine in front of me, I would thank you a thousand times over.
As it stands, I've read so many arguments from climate skeptics, and they roughly follow the following templates:
* a wholesale belief that climate science is operating under a special kind of bad faith
* misunderstandings of things like the second law of thermodynamics (e.g. ignoring the atmosphere itself acting as a heat sink)
* belief that Professor Q is somehow right and all the other professors are wrong (probably because of the bad faith part), ignoring that Professor Q might also be subject to such things
* belief in government or corporate control over the discussion, ignoring the truly massive financial incentive to ignore climate science
* citations, usually exaggerations, of how many "climate predictions" have gone wrong, ignoring that science journalism and activists will often simplify and/or incorrectly cite studies in any field, because the public doesn't, in the end, understand the language of probability
You don't understand scientists then. They don't want to be "set for life". They want status within their own bizarre little community.
While no doubt Exxon would be more than happy to bankroll them at any level, the left made sure to poison that... anyone even hinted at to be accepting their money is a "fossil fuel shill". So no, they're not interested in taking that money.
If there are any such people out there now, they do the easy thing... they go find something else to research where they can be honest without it ruining their career, they publish, and we can't even know how many of them are. If they self-identify, careers are over.
> If there is such a complete and totalizing suppression of actual inquiry in climate science,
Why would it have to be "complete and total"? You still think I'm talking about some conspiracy. I'm talking about fools and halfwits doing this accidentally, by instinct, and so when they pipe up "but we're not suppressing!", in their own way they're even honest about it. They genuinely believe they aren't.
> Your argument is based on your being completely convinced that a very large swath of people, many if not most of whom are parents like yourself, are acting in utter bad faith.
I don't posit any bad faith in any of this. Stupidity and incompetence, and a complete lack of immunity for groupthinking tendencies suffice. Right now, you believe you're very righteous in even typing out your comment.
> but if you look at the very real scientific progress that's happened in the last several hundred years,
You don't get to appeal to the scientific progress, without taking credit for all of the regress that happens too. It's slow, accidental, and there's no way for you to know, one way or the other whether you're a plate tectonicist or continental fixist in all of this.
> or at least disproves the notion that groupthink is likely to wholly capture a scientific field.
The history of science is replete with examples of entire fields being captured by groupthink. Sure, so far, it seems that eventually it fades away. But without a better understanding of the sociology of groupthink, we don't know that's a universal feature. And besides, even if it does... seems the only sure fix is to wait for the old guard to die out. Meaning I'd have to wait another 40 or 50 years minimum.
> belief that Professor Q is somehow right and all the other professors are wrong (probably because of the bad faith part),
And not because it's a recurring theme in science? Not because, you don't need consensus if you're actually correct?
> belief in government or corporate control over the discussion,
In what part of my comment did I even hint that I believed this? Or are you just talking about the other skeptics because they're easier to attack than I am?