"Climate change" is so nebulous an expression that it borders on useless. There's too much attributed to it, with too much confidence. I'll give you an example: twenty years ago, we in the US suddenly had a rash of hurricanes, and at the same we were told that there were hurricane cycles, alternating periods of busyness and dormancy. Sure enough, after those busy years there was nearly a decade with almost no serious activity at all -- but when we began having severe hurricanes again, everyone was screaming and attributing it to Climate Change. Where was climate change the ten years prior? What happened to the hurricane cycles? One aspect 'Climate' isn't a comprehensible thing: Earth's climate is one vast and bewilderingly complex mix of regional climates, dynamics, and cycles that interact in ways we're only beginning to fathom. I've no doubt that the climate changes (that's a constant) or that humans contribute to it enormously, but I don't trust their simplistic narratives nor their predictions. One underappreciated downside to science being pubically-funded is that it becomes politically driven, and politics always pines for more power.
Well, at least I agree on the first bit... Personally I'm still a fan of the old 'Global Warming' - because, you know, the globe is in fact warming & causing all kinds of issues because of it.
Climate (AKA the 30 year average) does indeed change - just not normally as *fast* as its changing right now, largely because of human activity. So, if we're changing things due to our 'enormous contribution' then maybe, just maybe, we should be contributing a bit less to try and either correct or at least stabilise things?
Our climate is indeed rather complex and we still don't understand a lot about it. But we've learnt a LOT over the last 50+ years and we're learning more every day. We may never fully understand it - although I think we will when we get good enough computers and algorithms to model it properly - but I think we understand it enough to see what the major problem is and what we can start doing about it.
So, you don't trust the predictions? The many that climate scientists get right or the hand-full that they get wrong? As far as I know quite a few of their predictions have been on the conservative side. Maybe they need to be more radical to improve their accuracy?
Are you saying that you'd trust the results of a privately funded - presumably by Rich People - study rather than a study funded publicly? Is that because the Rich have never used science and pet scientists to advance their own agenda against the interests of the general public for their own individual benefits? Or maybe climate scientists shouldn't be funded at all, by anyone, so that their results are completely unbiased... Pretty sure that wouldn't work though....
(1) Frankly, at this point I don't trust any big hypotheticals that involve a lot of variables. The longer I live the more I appreciate how little we know. I'm especially thinking of the "The ice caps will be melted in ten years!" kind of claims (which I've heard at least twice in the last twenty years) and the even more grandiose "We're going to become Venus!" type claims.
(2) What do we mean by doing less? DC certainly isn't serious about it, which makes me think it's not actually serious. Oh, they're serious enough to lecture the unwashed masses, serious enough to ban internal combusion cars and force everyone to buy EVs, but will DC scale back its monstrous globetrotting military machine that's an enviromental disaster? The universe will die of heat death first. The amusing fact of this is that I'm all for many policies that would be 'environmentally friendly' -- a United States where Americans did NOT have to get in the car every day. That will require sprawl repair, though, and no one is talking about that, just like no one talks about nuclear energy. (Vivek Ramaswamy did mention it during one of the GOP debates, though.) I approach them from a human-flourishing point of view, though: I want walkable cities they're humane and pleasant, not because I hate cars -- though I rather do dislike cars in the city. I'd like clean, renewable energy for air quality and energy security, not because I think carbon dioxide is a 'pollutant'. (Energy security is also why I prefer nuclear to solar and wind, which are highly variable.)
(3) That one is a bit of a strawman and you know it. ;) Corporate studies would be disposed to serve their paymasters. My point is that people should not assume pubically-funded studies are 'nonpartisan'. Playing with the strawman, though -- let's say a philanthropic billionaire died and used his will to establish foundations that funded surveys. Since the foundation has no economic interest, it could in fact produce more reliable data and analysis than the alternatives, though the people on the board and supporting committees could still, hypothetically, influence results.
@ Stephen: Are you saying that the climate is too complex to understand? Presently? At all? Or that we don't understand enough ATM to even think about trying to change things for the 'better'?
So, if 'DC' doesn't think something is serious - because of general inaction - then you trust their (assumed) judgement... But if they either say or demonstrate that something *is* important that leads you not to trust what they say and, therefore, dismiss it? I'm confused.....
There are LOTS of things we could be doing. Electric cars certainly aren't the golden bullet here - although their not a bad idea. We could increase house insulation, make as many things as possible more energy efficient, increase the number of walkable neighbourhoods..... We could also plant more trees, have more green space for people to enjoy, even painting roofs white would help things....
I think studies tend to be more trustworthy when they show results - no matter who paid for them. If a study makes accurate predictions its probably pointing in the right direction. That's what we should be looking at - decent levels of accurate prediction.
@ Sarah: Agreed. When somewhere gets a months worth of rain in an afternoon, and weather records are being broken so often that its no longer news.... it points to the fact that something is screwy and we might want to pay attention to it....
I totally agree with the statement. Who doesn't see that everything is getting worse. We have been warning for that since the seventies, people have been trying to alert everyone since the seventies, started programmes to prevent the worst, at least in many European countries. But the world just says that's a hoax and rather believe some self-explained big shots than scientists.
Unfortunately I'm convinced that we 'need' three clear climate related disasters of a pretty large magnitude before things become clear to most people. At least 100K dead at each event. THEN we'll start to act like its urgent..... [shakes head]
8 comments:
"Climate change" is so nebulous an expression that it borders on useless. There's too much attributed to it, with too much confidence. I'll give you an example: twenty years ago, we in the US suddenly had a rash of hurricanes, and at the same we were told that there were hurricane cycles, alternating periods of busyness and dormancy. Sure enough, after those busy years there was nearly a decade with almost no serious activity at all -- but when we began having severe hurricanes again, everyone was screaming and attributing it to Climate Change. Where was climate change the ten years prior? What happened to the hurricane cycles? One aspect 'Climate' isn't a comprehensible thing: Earth's climate is one vast and bewilderingly complex mix of regional climates, dynamics, and cycles that interact in ways we're only beginning to fathom. I've no doubt that the climate changes (that's a constant) or that humans contribute to it enormously, but I don't trust their simplistic narratives nor their predictions. One underappreciated downside to science being pubically-funded is that it becomes politically driven, and politics always pines for more power.
Well, at least I agree on the first bit... Personally I'm still a fan of the old 'Global Warming' - because, you know, the globe is in fact warming & causing all kinds of issues because of it.
Climate (AKA the 30 year average) does indeed change - just not normally as *fast* as its changing right now, largely because of human activity. So, if we're changing things due to our 'enormous contribution' then maybe, just maybe, we should be contributing a bit less to try and either correct or at least stabilise things?
Our climate is indeed rather complex and we still don't understand a lot about it. But we've learnt a LOT over the last 50+ years and we're learning more every day. We may never fully understand it - although I think we will when we get good enough computers and algorithms to model it properly - but I think we understand it enough to see what the major problem is and what we can start doing about it.
So, you don't trust the predictions? The many that climate scientists get right or the hand-full that they get wrong? As far as I know quite a few of their predictions have been on the conservative side. Maybe they need to be more radical to improve their accuracy?
Are you saying that you'd trust the results of a privately funded - presumably by Rich People - study rather than a study funded publicly? Is that because the Rich have never used science and pet scientists to advance their own agenda against the interests of the general public for their own individual benefits? Or maybe climate scientists shouldn't be funded at all, by anyone, so that their results are completely unbiased... Pretty sure that wouldn't work though....
(1) Frankly, at this point I don't trust any big hypotheticals that involve a lot of variables. The longer I live the more I appreciate how little we know. I'm especially thinking of the "The ice caps will be melted in ten years!" kind of claims (which I've heard at least twice in the last twenty years) and the even more grandiose "We're going to become Venus!" type claims.
(2) What do we mean by doing less? DC certainly isn't serious about it, which makes me think it's not actually serious. Oh, they're serious enough to lecture the unwashed masses, serious enough to ban internal combusion cars and force everyone to buy EVs, but will DC scale back its monstrous globetrotting military machine that's an enviromental disaster? The universe will die of heat death first. The amusing fact of this is that I'm all for many policies that would be 'environmentally friendly' -- a United States where Americans did NOT have to get in the car every day. That will require sprawl repair, though, and no one is talking about that, just like no one talks about nuclear energy. (Vivek Ramaswamy did mention it during one of the GOP debates, though.) I approach them from a human-flourishing point of view, though: I want walkable cities they're humane and pleasant, not because I hate cars -- though I rather do dislike cars in the city. I'd like clean, renewable energy for air quality and energy security, not because I think carbon dioxide is a 'pollutant'. (Energy security is also why I prefer nuclear to solar and wind, which are highly variable.)
(3) That one is a bit of a strawman and you know it. ;) Corporate studies would be disposed to serve their paymasters. My point is that people should not assume pubically-funded studies are 'nonpartisan'. Playing with the strawman, though -- let's say a philanthropic billionaire died and used his will to establish foundations that funded surveys. Since the foundation has no economic interest, it could in fact produce more reliable data and analysis than the alternatives, though the people on the board and supporting committees could still, hypothetically, influence results.
Baffling, isn't it? Like, the evidence is right there, and yet here we are.
@ Stephen: Are you saying that the climate is too complex to understand? Presently? At all? Or that we don't understand enough ATM to even think about trying to change things for the 'better'?
So, if 'DC' doesn't think something is serious - because of general inaction - then you trust their (assumed) judgement... But if they either say or demonstrate that something *is* important that leads you not to trust what they say and, therefore, dismiss it? I'm confused.....
There are LOTS of things we could be doing. Electric cars certainly aren't the golden bullet here - although their not a bad idea. We could increase house insulation, make as many things as possible more energy efficient, increase the number of walkable neighbourhoods..... We could also plant more trees, have more green space for people to enjoy, even painting roofs white would help things....
I think studies tend to be more trustworthy when they show results - no matter who paid for them. If a study makes accurate predictions its probably pointing in the right direction. That's what we should be looking at - decent levels of accurate prediction.
@ Sarah: Agreed. When somewhere gets a months worth of rain in an afternoon, and weather records are being broken so often that its no longer news.... it points to the fact that something is screwy and we might want to pay attention to it....
I totally agree with the statement. Who doesn't see that everything is getting worse. We have been warning for that since the seventies, people have been trying to alert everyone since the seventies, started programmes to prevent the worst, at least in many European countries. But the world just says that's a hoax and rather believe some self-explained big shots than scientists.
Unfortunately I'm convinced that we 'need' three clear climate related disasters of a pretty large magnitude before things become clear to most people. At least 100K dead at each event. THEN we'll start to act like its urgent..... [shakes head]
I'm afraid you are right.
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