David Attenborough disappointed with and sick of the USA's head in the sand attitude to global warming

[alanschu]

Naturally. They make the money.

[Nonek]

Wouldn't even pretend to know anything about earths climate, well beyond my sphere of intellect, but does anybody in the know know what effect the magnetic fields currently fluctuating state has on the climate? I know that it's essential to preventing the suns rays from frying us like a scottish mars bar, hence the aurora's australis and borealis, but i'm unsure of the other implications on our little planet.

[ravenshrike]

Yeah, with the strength of the religious right in the US it's pretty much inevitable that scientists will be seen as 'leftist' because from their perspective reality itself is leftist. There's also the plethora of bought and paid for corporate pseudo science which is anything but leftist. It's a lot more balanced outside the US.

 

Really though it's all just labels people can hide behind so as not to actually address issues. "You raise an otherwise cogent point, sir, but I'm afraid you're a leftist/ rightist/ whatever and as such I win again"

If reality were leftist than scientific fraud wouldn't have been increasing exponentially since the mid-70's, which is when hard science academia started to take a hard left bent.

[Zoraptor]

I rather suspect that the proportion of scientific fraud hasn't changed much over history, it's just that we've got better at detecting it now since science is much more available. We even had two (no doubt left wing, given their target) schoolgirls prove that a theoretically blackcurrant juice based mass market drink made by a multinational ('Ribena') was flagrantly lying about having vitamin C in it, and they were 14 of something.

 

It's hardly like 'scientific fraud' is cut along any sort of ideological lines- plenty of 'rightist' scientists swore blind that there was no link between smoking and cancer for decades and would use every statistical trick in the book as evidence. Somehow, I suspect that is Different though.

[pmp10]

I rather suspect that the proportion of scientific fraud hasn't changed much over history, it's just that we've got better at detecting it now since science is much more available.

You'd be surprised what people even today will believe in given some wishful thinking and techno-optimism.

If anything the prevalence of science has lead many people to accept absurd promises with far less skepticism.

[Zoraptor]

I probably wouldn't be surprised at all, on a fundamental level people like stuff that affirms their beliefs and stuff that makes them feel comfortable. Telling people that they have to make hard decisions now is almost always going to lose out to someone saying that everything will be all right if you carry on as usual, because one is difficult and the other is easy.

 

The whole debt crisis is a pretty good example of this. Some people were very worried about the mounting debt and over reliance on certain economic sectors and ideas years ago while others thought they'd discovered the secret to permanent prosperity. We now know well who was right, and who was believed. I may not have liked Helen Clarke (the previous NZ prime minister) very much but she at least made sure we did both parts of the Keynes equation and paid down debt in the good years of the early to mid noughties rather than raise debt even more, for which she should be applauded far more than she has been.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Bertrand Russell said

“if no alternative remains except communist domination or the extinction of the human race, the former alternative is the lesser of two evils”

(better red than dead) while advocating for the unilateral disarmament of the West. The left always wants us to give up our way of life because of some theoretical threat they found (also see "nuclear winter"). Me, I'd rather take my chances.

[Gorgon]

The argument could be made that western industrialized countries have the most to gain by securing a global emmissions treaty with real numbers attatched, not just lofty intentions. We already have the lead in green tech, and if developing countries have to follow suit there is money to be made. A whole lot of it.

 

The idea being that it's basically a hoax orchestrated to create a new demand, you know like 'organic' food.

 

I'm not personally that jaded but it's an interesting thought.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Anyone who says they're certain about what's going on with the climate is lying

It is now well known that a succession of glaciation and deglaciation periods has not occurred all the time, but only in large periods defining an ‘icehouse climate’, such as the current (Pliocene-Quaternary) icehouse period that started about 2.5 million years ago, as well as the Ordovician and the Carboniferous icehouse periods, each of which lasted 50–100 million years (Crowell and Frakes 1970). In contrast, the ‘hothouse climates’ are characterized by warmer temperatures, abundance of carbon dioxide (concentrations up to 20–25 times higher than current) and complete disappearance of polar icecaps and continental glaciers.

 

Additional findings showed that the climate of the Holocene (the last 12,000 years), earlier regarded static, was characterized by many climatic events, such as ‘Little Ice Age’, ‘Medieval Warm Period’, ‘Holocene Optimum’, ‘8,200 Holocene Event’ and ‘Bond Events’, deviating from ‘normal’ conditions for hundreds or thousands of years (Bond et al. 2001). For example, during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (1,450–1,850), the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere was about 0.6 oC below 1961–1990 average (Moberg et al. 2005; Pollack and Smerdon 2004), while the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ (950–1,250) was a period of warm climate in Europe and North America and has been related to other climatic events at various regions around the world (Grove and Switsur 1994),

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/04/new-paper-from-markonis-and-koutsoyiannis-shows-orbital-forcings-signal-in-proxy-and-instrumental-records/#more-73752

[JFSOCC]

The problem with climate change is not that it never occurred and is new, nor that it is occurring now.

the problem is the speed with which it is occurring.

Such changes should happen over thousands of years, not a couple of decades. Animal species do not have time to adapt to the new reality, they cannot move to where the climate would be more favourable for them because they'd have to cross large areas that are not their natural habitat, (and their habitat itself isn't fast enough in adapting either)

and doing so requires crossing many obstacles, such as human settlements, roads, rivers, and seas. And while I'm sure some species can cope, vast numbers of them simply don't have the time to adapt.

[Pope]

JFSOCC gets it.

 

That should be pretty obvious if you understand evolution.

Of course, if you don't believe in evolution then this argument is pretty worthless. But then you're also a retard.

[Moose]

Reminds me of this clip Pope:

[Wrath of Dagon]

The problem with climate change is not that it never occurred and is new, nor that it is occurring now.

the problem is the speed with which it is occurring.

Such changes should happen over thousands of years, not a couple of decades. Animal species do not have time to adapt to the new reality, they cannot move to where the climate would be more favourable for them because they'd have to cross large areas that are not their natural habitat, (and their habitat itself isn't fast enough in adapting either)

and doing so requires crossing many obstacles, such as human settlements, roads, rivers, and seas. And while I'm sure some species can cope, vast numbers of them simply don't have the time to adapt.

So the global warming is mostly a threat to animals, is that it? As is noted in my quote above, the Little Ice Age lasted 400 years, the Medieval Warm Period 300 years, not thousands of years. And if you look at the tree ring article I posted earlier, temperature was peaking in a matter of years, not thousands. In fact there was a peak just in the 30's, remember the Dust Bowl? So basically you're just making stuff up at this point.

[Aram]

Yeah a second worldwide dustbowl would be no biggie.

[JFSOCC]

The problem with climate change is not that it never occurred and is new, nor that it is occurring now.

the problem is the speed with which it is occurring.

Such changes should happen over thousands of years, not a couple of decades. Animal species do not have time to adapt to the new reality, they cannot move to where the climate would be more favourable for them because they'd have to cross large areas that are not their natural habitat, (and their habitat itself isn't fast enough in adapting either)

and doing so requires crossing many obstacles, such as human settlements, roads, rivers, and seas. And while I'm sure some species can cope, vast numbers of them simply don't have the time to adapt.

So the global warming is mostly a threat to animals, is that it? As is noted in my quote above, the Little Ice Age lasted 400 years, the Medieval Warm Period 300 years, not thousands of years. And if you look at the tree ring article I posted earlier, temperature was peaking in a matter of years, not thousands. In fact there was a peak just in the 30's, remember the Dust Bowl? So basically you're just making stuff up at this point.

Look, you're asking some good questions, if you are actually interested in learning how it works. So for that Kudos.

But you're presenting them as arguments with the idea there are no answers to them and that because of this, climate science stumbles and fails. That's just not the case.

let's deal with them one by one.

 

Mostly animals? well, no. It affects where our crops can be grown, whether we need to invest extra resources into maintaining farmland. (like irrigation during drought) and some food producing crops won't yield as much in poor conditions. further more, many of them are dependent on animals. For instance bees are responsible for most pollination of our fruit-crops, and they are currently dying out. (different reason, suffering from an unknown epidemic disease) so we've been needing to import bees, and needing to "breed" bees and them set them free on our fields. Imagine that this would be necessary for all our fruit from now on. Also heavy winds will every year destroy part of the harvest. Forest and brush fires will spread to farmland, soil-bacteria can die out in places and kill the fertility of farmland, that's the type of thing we'd be looking at.

 

Second

The little ice age lasted shortly, true, wasn't man-made, true and didn't kill all life on earth, true. That's not to say it wasn't terribly damaging (with starvation well recorded). And the medieval warm period is unproven but likely true, it was most likely a very localised change in climate, since there have been no signs of it other than in Europe. (And even there only coastal North-western Europe) One possible explanation for this is a possible shift in the Mexican Gulf Current.

 

But you're comparing a fire to flames. What we're dealing with now if just of a completely different order.

[Gfted1]

U.S. to Be World’s Top Oil Producer in 5 Years, Report Says

 

Suck it, environment.

[Hiro Protagonist]

U.S. to Be World’s Top Oil Producer in 5 Years, Report Says

 

Suck it, environment.

 

Also from the article:

 

the use of coal, now the dirtiest fuel, continues to rise elsewhere. eg. China http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/business/energy-environment/china-leads-the-way-as-demand-for-coal-surges-worldwide.html

 

'China is expected to add 240 gigawatts, the equivalent of adding about 160 new coal-fired plants to the 620 operating now, within four years.'

 

That averages out to an equivalent of 40 new coal-fired plants a year. Nearly one new power plant a week.

[Meshugger]

Just harness the power of the sun already. Stop being such incompetent bozos.

[JFSOCC]

[Wrath of Dagon]

Here's an example of how science becomes politicized, even when you'd think that branch of science has nothing to do with politics: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/napoleon-chagnon-americas-most-controversial-anthropologist.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&smid=pl-share&

[Gfted1]

US shale oil supply shock rocks global power balance.

 

Booyah.

[Meshugger]

US shale oil supply shock rocks global power balance.

 

Booyah.

 

Good. Now get out of the middle east and let them solve their own problems.

[Gfted1]

Amen brother.

[Walsingham]

Even  if somehow the US stopped being reliant on the Mideast for energy, they'd still be supplying China and Japan.

 

You rely on both China and Japan for production and capital flows. Just like Europe, Africa, and the rest of Austral/Asia do. So by extension you'll still have to watch the Mideast like a hawk.

 

I mean this in a kind way, but you chaps really have to stop pretending the rest of the World is going to go away.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Walsingham

[AGX-17]

US shale oil supply shock rocks global power balance.

 

Booyah.

I agree, small-minded nationalism is super relevant to the topic. "Now we can ignore a problem which the scientific community has reached a near-complete consensus on for another 50+ years!"

 

 

Even  if somehow the US stopped being reliant on the Mideast for energy, they'd still be supplying China and Japan.

 

You rely on both China and Japan for production and capital flows. Just like Europe, Africa, and the rest of Austral/Asia do. So by extension you'll still have to watch the Mideast like a hawk.

 

I mean this in a kind way, but you chaps really have to stop pretending the rest of the World is going to go away.

Not to mention the fact that the US' primary trade relationship is with China, a country powered overwhelmingly by coal, a country whose rampant, if unequal, economic growth is leading to an emulation of capitalist materialism, further exacerbating the situation.

 

The petty nationalism expressed by certain individuals is irrelevant to the issue of the thread. Maybe a red herring, maybe some kind of ill-thought "argument" that "If we have more oil, then it logically follows that climate change is a conspiracy by Big Science to [insert right-wing conspiracy theory here]! Also stop begging us to play world police, arabs! The US has never interfered with the internal politics and sovereignty of any foreign country, especially in the middle east, to further its own political goals and the economic goals of its most powerful individuals and corporations!"