Why Climate Change Won't Matter in 20 Years

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Exile:
Yes. I've decided to hedge my bets and move my boat to Newfoundland.

Hey! I just popped in here after a few days on the road and caught this. Me too!

We plan to launch this spring and head out the St. Lawrence, making our way to Lewisporte. Maybe we can all meet up and continue this discussion in the proper venue:
In a pub over too many beers

[Exile]

Originally Posted by fryewe

This thread is going dormant, so I thought I would pass the following on to L-E and see if the quote reminds him of someone he knows.

“There’s a great deal of psychological research indicating that
communicating the 97% consensus
is one of the most effective ways of communicating the realities of climate change
because people use expert opinion as a heuristic or mental shortcut to guide their opinion about complicated scientific issues (plus it’s very simple and easy to communicate).”
- John Cook
Climate Communication Research Fellow
Global Change Institute
The University of Queensland

This should remind L-E of someone he knows intimately! I was going to say that you found an honest quote from Mr. Cook, except that the 97% consensus hardly reflects the "realities of climate change." But it is obviously "very simple and easy to communicate," especially for adherents to mainstream media who are unwilling or unable to look further. For the rest of us who remain skeptical, it unfortunately demonstrates a lack of credibility that reflects poorly on well-intended scientists on the other side.

But the quote shows rather clearly why Mr. Cook abandoned physics as a career and opted instead for "climate communications."

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Hey! I just popped in here after a few days on the road and caught this. Me too!

We plan to launch this spring and head out the St. Lawrence, making our way to Lewisporte. Maybe we can all meet up and continue this discussion in the proper venue:
In a pub over too many beers

I'm envious of your upcoming grand adventure! Long time in coming as I gathered from some of your posts in other threads? Will hardly matter once you're underway and making way. Not all that familiar with parts that far north so looked up Lewisporte, NF on Google Earth. That, Nicholson31's pic of his marina, and everything I've ever read & heard definitely has that area on my wish list. All the best with your preparations, Mike.

Am I assuming correctly that your spars will have to come down to navigate the St. Lawrence Seaway? I have a brother who lives near Detroit and he's been lobbying me for years to bring my boat to Lake Michigan. I've researched transiting the Erie Canal route, but the St. Lawrence seaway seems like it would make for a more interesting (albeit much longer) trip.

Btw, I sorta doubt there would be much talk of CC in the pub, especially as a few beers morphed into more than a few too many. Probably just the usual sailor talk about our boats (namely what needs fixing) and the weather. Not climate mind you, just weather.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Exile

This should remind L-E of someone he knows intimately! I was going to say that you found an honest quote from Mr. Cook, except that the 97% consensus hardly reflects the "realities of climate change." But it is obviously "very simple and easy to communicate," especially for adherents to mainstream media who are unwilling or unable to look further. For the rest of us who remain skeptical, it unfortunately demonstrates a lack of credibility that reflects poorly on well-intended scientists on the other side.

The preponderance of scientists and scientific institutions who feel that AGW is a problem that needs to be addressed... it's not mine to defend, it's the task of skeptics & deniers to disprove.

Mathematics has recently poked a hole in the probability of unlikely conspiracies (such as the "climate-change hoax"), so not much solace for the anti-AGW crowd there, I'm afraid.

Also, the psychology of climate change denial is much more intriguing than that of someone who simply puts faith in the subject matter experts.

[nicholson31]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Hey! I just popped in here after a few days on the road and caught this. Me too!

We plan to launch this spring and head out the St. Lawrence, making our way to Lewisporte. Maybe we can all meet up and continue this discussion in the proper venue:
In a pub over too many beers

Hey Mike, let me know if you need any info.on NFLD, Lewisporte is my home port.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Exile

I'm envious of your upcoming grand adventure! Long time in coming as I gathered from some of your posts in other threads? Will hardly matter once you're underway and making way. Not all that familiar with parts that far north so looked up Lewisporte, NF on Google Earth. That, Nicholson31's pic of his marina, and everything I've ever read & heard definitely has that area on my wish list. All the best with your preparations, Mike.

Thanks Exile. It has been a long time in coming, although we've sailed and cruised the last decade or so on the upper Great Lakes, mostly Lake Superior. I guess I'm drawn to less-populated, more rugged areas, which is why NFLD looks so attractive.

BTW, no need to drop the mast to transit the St. Lawrence. This is the waterway travelled by the Big Boys; the large lakers and international "salty" freighters. We'll be a sailboat the whole way (although no doubt having to motor a lot as well).

Listen to your brother. The Great Lakes offers some of the best sailing and cruising in the world. You'll love it.

Originally Posted by Exile

Btw, I sorta doubt there would be much talk of CC in the pub, especially as a few beers morphed into more than a few too many. Probably just the usual sailor talk about our boats (namely what needs fixing) and the weather. Not climate mind you, just weather.

You're probably true, although I love a good religious debate ... especially when I've had too much to drink. As long as no one takes it too seriously, we're all good .

Originally Posted by nicholson31

Hey Mike, pm me if you need any info. I sail out of Lewisporte.

Thanks Nicholson. Count on it!

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

The preponderance of scientists and scientific institutions who feel that AGW is a problem that needs to be addressed... it's not mine to defend, it's the task of skeptics & deniers to disprove.

Mathematics has recently poked a hole in the probability of unlikely conspiracies (such as the "climate-change hoax"), so not much solace for the anti-AGW crowd there, I'm afraid.

Also, the psychology of climate change denial is much more intriguing than that of someone who simply puts faith in the subject matter experts.

"Preponderance??!" That's a switch. Are you sure you don't mean "overwhelming," "enormous," "immense," inordinate," "overpowering," "irrepressible," or "compelling?" Not even "significant" or "substantial?" "Preponderance" can be as low as 51%, after all. That would barely get you your money back in a dispute in small claims court. I thought you were keeping a head count so we could decide this issue based on polling alone?

The problem with Dr. Grimes' recently published mathematical probability analysis is that it equates the conspiracy about faking the moon landing, as an example, with climate change skepticism. But the CC movement isn't a conspiracy at all, but rather a scientific theory which lacks a convincing scientific consensus, except from the armchair scientists/social activists who, in their zeal, have failed to do their homework. But this isn't the first time Dr. Grimes has conveniently omitted the scientific data which supports the skepticism. https://www.theguardian.com/science/...ated-reasoning. So when it comes to the satellite-based data used to measure the Earth's temperature for the past 37 years, how come Grimes doesn't point to the CC adherents who repeatedly ignore this data? Instead, he claims it's only the

"[c]limate sceptics, by contrast, [who] persist in ignoring empirical evidence that renders their position untenable. This isn't scepticism, it's unadulterated denialism, the very antithesis of critical thought."

Then again, Grimes singles out conservative white males in the U.S. as particularly blameworthy for climate skepticism, so it's a little hard to take his "mathematical probabilities" of a conspiracy being uncovered all that seriously. And despite the findings of the "official inquiry," there are many who believe that the e-mails uncovered during "Climategate" uncovered just that.

As for the "psychology of climate change denial," it's good to see you digging so deep. But it's not like the sorts of hysterical doomsday predictions we've heard over the years about CC haven't been with us for awhile, usually cloaked in some sort of religious-based apocalypse. While I cannot and would not deny the existence of a body of scientific evidence which supports the theory of harmful MMGW, for many others the dire but bogus predictions accompanying CC over many years seem to be just a different type of "religion."

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Thanks Exile. It has been a long time in coming, although we've sailed and cruised the last decade or so on the upper Great Lakes, mostly Lake Superior. I guess I'm drawn to less-populated, more rugged areas, which is why NFLD looks so attractive.

BTW, no need to drop the mast to transit the St. Lawrence. This is the waterway travelled by the Big Boys; the large lakers and international "salty" freighters. We'll be a sailboat the whole way (although no doubt having to motor a lot as well).

Should have known about the waterway. I hope you'll have the time & inclination to post about the trip, either here or on SN. For me, it would be great fun to spend a summer exploring NS & NF, and then heading over on the seaway to the Great Lakes.

Listen to your brother. The Great Lakes offers some of the best sailing and cruising in the world. You'll love it.

My brother is 8 years younger, so it would naturally be the first thing he's been right about. I hear wonderful things about Great Lakes sailing, and my few casual glances at some charts only confirms. Given the shorter sailing season, I'd be inclined to leave the boat out there for a couple of seasons, at the very least.

You're probably true, although I love a good religious debate ... especially when I've had too much to drink. As long as no one takes it too seriously, we're all good .

You can count on me for that! The only problem I foresee is we may agree too much on the (non)religious stuff for there to be much of a debate. But then there's always politics, something's bound to need fixing on the boat, or the weather will change. If all else fails, there's always more beer.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Exile

... Grimes singles out conservative white males in the U.S. as particularly blameworthy for climate skepticism, so it's a little hard to take his "mathematical probabilities" of a conspiracy being uncovered all that seriously.

The second article:

Yet, throughout the Anglophone world there is a dangerous political polarisation around climate change. In one particularly disturbing US poll, attitudes to climate change were a better predictor of respondents’ political orientation than any other issue- including gun control, abortion and capital punishment. Denial of climate change is not just an opinion, it has become a dominant mark of people’s political identity.

It's at least refreshing to see that your stance has been accompanied by a keen desire to seek out more information, even if it's only that which supports your position.

[fryewe]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Yet, throughout the Anglophone world there is a dangerous political polarisation around climate change.

Gee...I wonder why?

From your "second article":

Unfortunately one of the dominant values in the climate movement is a disregard, if not outright contempt, for the right-leaning mainstream and their concerns. Activists often talk with disgust of the selfishness, greed and stupidity of conservatives...

But as I watched the banners and placards pass by, I imagined how this would seem to mainstream America. The dominant messages were about banning, stopping, protecting, boycotting things. Among them were hard left-wing messages about overthrowing capitalism and destroying Wall Street. A woman with a placard reading Never, Never, Never, Ever Vote Republican was clapped and whistled.

Last week I led a communications workshop for one of the largest international environmental networks: one I respect and have worked with for many years. I asked them “do you think that the climate change movement has a problem with its diversity?” Absolutely, they replied, it’s too dominated by middle aged men, too white, too middle-class, not enough involvement from minorities or indigenous peoples, not many disabled people. Nobody mentioned the absence of conservatives, and certainly no one in the room was admitting to being one [emphasis mine].

And, despite protestations that there couldn't possibly be a coordinated effort to indoctrinate the masses that climate change (now becoming sustainability) is a greater moral good...The Campus Sustainability Movement: A Threat to the Marketplace of Ideas | The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy...details efforts at NCSU, the most recent in a line of similar campus movements that date back to least 2011 at Oregon.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by fryewe

Gee...I wonder why?

From your "second article":

Unfortunately one of the dominant values in the climate movement is a disregard, if not outright contempt, for the right-leaning mainstream and their concerns. Activists often talk with disgust of the selfishness, greed and stupidity of conservatives...

I cannot disagree that the green/AGW/sustainability "hill" has had a liberal/leftist flag planted on it, which turns off right-wing and many centrist voters. As the author notes... this is very much a problem. It's one of the reasons I chose that article.

In NO WAY does it diminish what science is telling us, though. Maybe the right-wing could face the problem head-on, push the lefties away from it, and tell us how they would approach the issue, instead of fanning it away?

You don't get to deny reality just 'cos some lefties hurt your feelings.

And, despite protestations that there couldn't possibly be a coordinated effort to indoctrinate the masses that climate change (now becoming sustainability) is a greater moral good...

-cough-cc conspiracy-cough-
Lemme stop you there. The scientific finding of AGW, and the advocacy around the issue, are separable. You can hate the advocacy, while still working with the scientific advice.

btw... sustainability IS a greater moral good. How could it be otherwise, when you have increasing demands being placed on a finite resource? If you stocked your boat with food to last a week, do you eat it all in the first two days?

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

btw... sustainability IS a greater moral good. How could it be otherwise, when you have increasing demands being placed on a finite resource? If you stocked your boat with food to last a week, do you eat it all in the first two days?

And there we have the biggest problem of all. Throughout history some well meaning (and not so well meaning) people have "assumed" that the resources available are somehow finite and drastic measures are needed immediately. Did none of us ever take history and science classes in school? Energy is neither created nor destroyed. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. Only the form and location of energy/matter is changed through various chemical processes. And entropy is always increasing just to keep you equation balancers happy. Yet history is full of examples of people who professed an urgent desire to get ride of lots of those pesky opposable thumb possessing bipeds consuming all the "finite" resources.

For those that truly appreciate it, nature is a wonderful thing. Yet the people that claim to have the greatest admiration for it routinely ignore its power and resilience or worse, doubt it knows what it's doing. If you had asked anyone alive in 1800 what would happen if there were 6 billion people alive (6 times the population then) in the year 2000 they would have thought you were crazy. They would have been certain that 6 billion people could not possibly be alive at one time. They would have been 100% sure there would be not enough food, wood for heating, water for drinking, life sustaining salt and any number of other essentials for life as they knew it at the time.

This thread started on the premise that we have only begun to understand the enormous ability of this planet to sustain its population (both plant, animal and man). And after 2,000+ posts we have the same narrow vision we would have heard 200 years ago. Think about the innovation of the 20th century and then try to convince me that somehow this will stop and reverse itself because sea levels are certain to rise 1, 2, 5 or 20 feet. It is a historically ludicrous argument.

Simple logic would say that the more innovation, wealth and leisure people have the more time they have to solve ever more complex problems. But we have 1/2 the political spectrum arguing that none of what got us here can save us. Only by drastic cuts in world population and reduced consumption by the lucky (but unwashed) survivors can these self proclaimed "saviors" help us extend our reign on Earth. It seems like many of us are living in 1816 instead of 2016.

Humans are natural. What they do is natural by definition. Humans are not parasites sucking the life out of this planet. Killing off half of them in the name of sustainability would be a crime against nature. Stop and think about what it means to say we need "more sustainable" methods and "less consumption" else we will run out of precious "finite resources". That is a code for a premise that demands a solution that is ominous and absolutely wrong in my opinion. We have not even begun to tap even the smallest fraction of the resources of this planet and it's life giving star. That is the proposition in the OP. If you think that proposition is wrong then you are on the wrong side of human history.

[Kenomac]

to the prior post. Definitely agree 100%.

Some of the posters seem to be stuck in an early 1800s mindset as they type endlessly on their computer keyboard.

The resources and wealth are not finite, but good luck trying to explain that concept to a socialist.

[Kenomac]

to the prior post. Definitely agree 100%.

The resources and wealth are not finite, but good luck trying to explain that concept to a socialist.

But here, I'll try.

Story:

A socialist goes down to the grocery store to buy some raspberries, upon arriving in the produce section... Sees that there are no more raspberries for sale. The socialist opines that there are too many people in the world and not enough raspberries to go around... If only there were fewer people, then he would be able to enjoy his raspberries.

True story:

The bad evil capitalism Pammymac goes down to the grocery store to buy some raspberries, upon arriving at the produce section, she sees that there are no more raspberries for sale. So she gets into her car and heads down to the raspberry farm and purchases 100 starter raspberry plants. She returns home and takes about an hour to plant the new shoots in a corner of the back yard.

The following summer, the socialist is still lamenting the human caused shortage of his beloved raspberries... If only there were fewer humans.

Meanwhile, the evil capitalist Pammymac is up to her eyeballs in fresh raspberries all summer long due to creative problem solving the summer before. The damn things are growing all over the place... She can't eat them fast enough.... So she takes up making jam and freezing her raspberries.

Here's what socialists think should be done to solve this great injustice and unfair distribution of resources in order to create sustainability for future raspberry enjoyment.

The socialist sees the evil capitalist Pammymac doing this... Decides it's not fair, all raspberries should be equally distributed to all those who wish to have them, so... He proposes a strict rationing of all raspberries along with a steep tax on those people possessing more than one bowl.

You see... It never occurred to the socialist... To get up off his own fat ass, and to get out and grow some raspberries on his own. His answer is fewer people, higher taxes on raspberries and rationing of what he thinks is a finite resource.

There.... How did I do at explaining? :

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

And there we have the biggest problem of all. Throughout history some well meaning (and not so well meaning) people have "assumed" that the resources available are somehow finite and drastic measures are needed immediately...

Ah, Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource” - human beings and mankind’s vision, determination, and ability to rethink and tackle problems with intelligence, enterprise, and creativity; all resources which are not finite.

He, and other optimists, may be mostly correct.

But, for theis"ultimate resource" to be successfully marshaled, we have to recognize that we face a problem, and direct our energy and intelligence to creatively solve it.