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Departures from Reality

Cardinal said:
Every time I pop into the environment forum Sawyer is saying "the climate has always changed" (slightly switching up the wording) as if this fact is unknown or even denied. It's the only argument he has.
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Well, we like to pretend he's got a point. Like the slow cousin at the annual cousins picnic.

It's the nice thing to do.
 
BmanMcfly said:
It's too bad that some of us are unwilling or unable to discuss / refute data on its merits.

We would rather trust "scientists" pushing a failing hypothesis, rather than examining the data?
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There is no "failing hypothesis" every decade is warmer than the last, sea temperatures are rising too. Do you truly believe that the majority of scientists would not admit they were wrong if the Earth wasn't warming? There is no "agenda" only genuine concern among the scientific community. Why must YOU hang on to denialism it will only get more and more ludicrous as time goes on. Get out while your self-respect is still intact.
 
Threegoofs said:
I've camped in those places too. I've also talked to people who spend their lives analyzing those fossils. They have perspective.

You apparently don't, since you don't get that the concept is not the amount of change that is happening, but the amount of change over an infinitesimally short time period in a geologic sense.

Our civilization was designed for one climate. A slight change is disruptive, at the very least.
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If you really had camped in those places and wandered around in awe looking at dino tracks in rock that was once mud in a swamp and if you had seen the petrified trees in the desert you would know the gut feeling I am talking about. You get your info from warmer sites though and though you can grasp at an intellectual level how old the earth is and the incredible changes it has gone through you can't grasp it in a way that gets into your soul and makes you really understand this planet.
 
iguanaman said:
There is no "failing hypothesis" every decade is warmer than the last, sea temperatures are rising too. Do you truly believe that the majority of scientists would not admit they were wrong if the Earth wasn't warming? There is no "agenda" only genuine concern among the scientific community. Why must YOU hang on to denialism it will only get more and more ludicrous as time goes on. Get out while your self-respect is still intact.
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Yes yes and right is left up is down and cold is hot .Did you perhaps also watch the 9/11 attacks on TV then claim 'nothing to see here' I wonder ? This has become an article of religious faith for many and its thier club to beat up on those they envy nothing more. They wont give it up easily however broken it gets.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
If you really had camped in those places and wandered around in awe looking at dino tracks in rock that was once mud in a swamp and if you had seen the petrified trees in the desert you would know the gut feeling I am talking about.
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Again: What, exactly, is this supposed to prove?

Why would looking at fossils, at what are currently high elevations (due to plate tectonics), give me a "gut feeling" that human activity is not a causal factor in global warming?

What about the "gut feeling" that year after year of warm winters, hot summers, droughts, and storm surges suggest that "something is wrong?" "Gut feelings" are not valid scientific evidence, and not a valid criticism thereof.
 
Visbek said:
Again: What, exactly, is this supposed to prove?

Why would looking at fossils, at what are currently high elevations (due to plate tectonics), give me a "gut feeling" that human activity is not a causal factor in global warming?

What about the "gut feeling" that year after year of warm winters, hot summers, droughts, and storm surges suggest that "something is wrong?" "Gut feelings" are not valid scientific evidence, and not a valid criticism thereof.
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All I can suggest is you visit a place like I'm talking about and you might understand what I mean.
 
Last night CBS had a piece about the great lakes levels declinging for seven straight years. Twenty years from now we will hit a global crisis over water.
 
rhinefire said:
Last night CBS had a piece about the great lakes levels declinging for seven straight years. Twenty years from now we will hit a global crisis over water.
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Correct, a global water crisis is a much more likely and dangerous scenario.
I suspect CBS tried to tie declining lake levels to AGW, but that is what I expect.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
If you really had camped in those places and wandered around in awe looking at dino tracks in rock that was once mud in a swamp and if you had seen the petrified trees in the desert you would know the gut feeling I am talking about. You get your info from warmer sites though and though you can grasp at an intellectual level how old the earth is and the incredible changes it has gone through you can't grasp it in a way that gets into your soul and makes you really understand this planet.
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Yes. Gut feelings are always useful to go with vs. scientific evidence.

I understand your point of view much better now. Celebrate the irrational!
 
iguanaman said:
There is no "failing hypothesis" every decade is warmer than the last, sea temperatures are rising too.
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Thats great, does nothing to prove that this warming is caused by humans, or co2.

Do you truly believe that the majority of scientists would not admit they were wrong if the Earth wasn't warming?
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Well, aside from the part where the warming has all but stopped while co2 continues to increase...

I am not saying that anyone was lying about the temperature...

Though, there have been a number of scandals related to the methods of data collection. (thermometers unacceptably close to artificial heat sources, selectively using the areas of the world that are warming most while ignoring the regions that were cooling, etc) but even then the warming had been fairly undeniable.



There is no "agenda" only genuine concern among the scientific community.
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Securing scientific grants (now worth billions of dollars), doesn't work as good if you have a non-fear based approach.

That this issue detracts from issues of actual pollution causing measurable harm to the environment and ecosystem...

Why must YOU hang on to denialism it will only get more and more ludicrous as time goes on. Get out while your self-respect is still intact.
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The only 2 things that I deny are :
A) that co2 has NOT been shown to be a driver of climate, only correlated.
B) that warming climate = negative results. It's blending issues that are at most only superficially related. (ex : a drought can happen in a hot year just like a cold one)

Besides that, I could say the same for you...
 
rhinefire said:
Last night CBS had a piece about the great lakes levels declinging for seven straight years. Twenty years from now we will hit a global crisis over water.
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The great lakes disappearing is a different issue... The great lakes water are being drained and shipped to china in a wholesale fashion.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
If you really had camped in those places and wandered around in awe looking at dino tracks in rock that was once mud in a swamp and if you had seen the petrified trees in the desert you would know the gut feeling I am talking about. You get your info from warmer sites though and though you can grasp at an intellectual level how old the earth is and the incredible changes it has gone through you can't grasp it in a way that gets into your soul and makes you really understand this planet.
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Yes I know the story with fossils, God put them their to confuse us. Your gut is feeling small that's all. But humans have infested this planet a 7 billion strong and they are all looking for a piece of it. We would have a hard time not ruining the planet even if we didn't have 6 million years worth of fossilized carbon to burn.
 
iguanaman said:
Yes I know the story with fossils, God put them their to confuse us. Your gut is feeling small that's all. But humans have infested this planet a 7 billion strong and they are all looking for a piece of it. We would have a hard time not ruining the planet even if we didn't have 6 million years worth of fossilized carbon to burn.
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You should go there sometime. It really makes you grasp how old the earth is and how dramatically it has changed. You also realize how insignificant we are and how we have been here such a short time. When you see first hand how the earth has adapted to things like super volcanoes and meteor strikes it gives you a lot of respect for the planet and makes you realize that we are little ants that will likely be here a very short while and will someday be just a very thin fossil layer in the earths crust.
 
iguanaman said:
Yes I know the story with fossils, God put them their to confuse us. Your gut is feeling small that's all. But humans have infested this planet a 7 billion strong and they are all looking for a piece of it. We would have a hard time not ruining the planet even if we didn't have 6 million years worth of fossilized carbon to burn.
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Don't be besmirching the Fossilized carbon too much, without it there would only be about 1 billion people infesting
this planet. (We eat OIL)
 
sawyerloggingon said:
You should go there sometime. It really makes you grasp how old the earth is and how dramatically it has changed. You also realize how insignificant we are and how we have been here such a short time. When you see first hand how the earth has adapted to things like super volcanoes and meteor strikes it gives you a lot of respect for the planet and makes you realize that we are little ants that will likely be here a very short while and will someday be just a very thin fossil layer in the earths crust.
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My fear is that like Easter Island, in the distant future a alien race discovering our remains will lament our short-sighted stupidity for destroying our planet and extincting ourselves with it.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=did-easter-island-statues-walk
 
iguanaman said:
My fear is that like Easter Island, in the distant future a alien race discovering our remains will lament our short-sighted stupidity for destroying our planet and extincting ourselves with it.

How Did the Easter Island Settlers Destroy Themselves? [Video]: Scientific American
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I think there is a very real chance your fear is well founded but I don't think AGW is a likely cause of our demise. Far more likely that some catastrophic event like a super volcano or an asteroid hit will be the end of mankind.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
All I can suggest is you visit a place like I'm talking about and you might understand what I mean.
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I haven't been to that exact place, but I've been to very similar places. And I pretty much grew up around fossils. It hasn't had any bearing on my beliefs in this matter.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I think there is a very real chance your fear is well founded but I don't think AGW is a likely cause of our demise. Far more likely that some catastrophic event like a super volcano or an asteroid hit will be the end of mankind.
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That's not what happened to Easter Islands inhabitants though. They did it to themselves.
 
Threegoofs said:
Yes, but he's citing a blog written by a prestigious TV weatherman.

Surely that must count for something.
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He provided links to the EPA, NOAA, USGS, and Universities. Why do you insist on lying so obviously?
 
flogger said:
The nearest you ever got to a scientist was serving one behind the drugstore checkout where you work. I cant believe you've had the audacity to claim this three times now given the derision this gets each time you make it. Your approach to this issue and the methodologies you use to asses its merits are perhaps the least scientific I've ever seen from any on the advocate side :lamo
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The one constant in all debates is that Threegoofs doesn't understand either side.
 
jmotivator said:
The one constant in all debates is that Threegoofs doesn't understand either side.
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You've got to admit that he's always good for a bit of comic relief here though. This guy is a gift wrapped present for the skeptic position so dont hurt his feelings too much as we need his 'shining' example here :cool:
 
flogger said:
You've got to admit that he's always good for a bit of comic relief here though. This guy is a gift wrapped present for the skeptic position so dont hurt his feelings too much as we need his 'shining' example here :cool:
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That's actually more content and coherency than your usual posts.

And if my basic position, that the worlds scientists know more about climate than some bloggers, is a gift to skeptics, then I'm not sure what your worst nightmare is.
 
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