Global Warming

[Professor Chaos]

Spherical Bastard wrote

Honestly, I don't give enough of a shit about this topic to really go into much detail. I have links, but if I provide them then I will just get more entrenched in this discussion. The video I linked earlier on has a lot of the same information I have so if you are really interested in it, you should be able to get quite a few sources from that.

Just as an aside, your analogy is also seriously flawed. CO2 is an important part of our atmosphere and fundamental aspect to the growth and development of life on earth. I don't know to what degree you would have to fuck with the CO2 to start causing damage, but everything I have read says that the couple parts per billion that we add doesn't do anything that the earth can't easily compensate for. Most of the arguments state that if we allow it to get worse then we might have a major problem on our hands.

What you're saying here has nothing to do with your original statement:

Spherical Bastard wrote

You have to understand, that of all of the gases that make up Earth's atmosphere, human CO2 production accounts for less than 1% of those gases.

My analogy is not flawed, because it's showing the absurdity of your original statement. The percentage of atmospheric gases represented by human CO2 production is irrelevant. The effect the CO2 has is relevant.

[Professor Chaos]

Spherical Bastard wrote

Arguing from scientific consensus, as you were doing, is an argument from authority. That is why i said that I don't argue from authority, but since you decided to, I could throw out an MIT professor. I argued from authority as a response to your argument from authority.

Until both you and I personally study this shit ourselves, what the fuck else are we supposed to do?

Spherical wrote

Alright I'll get you some links. I've got a class right now so it will be a couple hours.

Enjoy class.

Professor Chaos wrote

What the fuck have you read? Virtually every published work by virtually every relevant scientist says the exact opposite. Are you reading your science while waiting in the lobby during an oil change?

The problem might be that I typically try to avoid the lay person's popularized science texts. If you have ever taken a moment to read any peer reviewed articles on the matter, you would see that there are quite a large number of scientists that readily admit that the evidence is inconclusive, despite what their personal hunch happens to be on the subject.

[Professor Chaos]

Spherical Bastard wrote

The problem might be that I typically try to avoid the lay person's popularized science texts. If you have ever taken a moment to read any peer reviewed articles on the matter, you would see that there are quite a large number of scientists that readily admit that the evidence is inconclusive, despite what their personal hunch happens to be on the subject.

I have read peer reviewed articles on the matter, and I'm aware that there are a number of scientists that readily admit the evidence is inconclusive. So what you have is:

1.) An overwhelming majority of scientists that believe that the evidence is conclusive, and some sort of action needs to be taken.
2.) A minority of scientists that believe that the evidence is inconclusive (Read: Who the fuck knows what's going on?)
3.) Some BP-appointed scientists that think the whole thing is hogwash.

But you seemed to be asserting the negative viewpoint on human-influenced global warming earlier, rather than an inconclusive viewpoint. Did I misunderstand you? Sorry if I did.

[DrunkMonkey]

Spherical Bastard wrote

Well I would hardly consider an argument from authority to be a good one, but if we are going to be pulling from the brightest scientists to debate this, then you might be interested to know that the professor of meterology at mother fucking MIT happens to agree that human caused global warming is a load of dingo's kidneys.

Does it matter that one scientist disagrees with the evidence when the majority do believe that the evidence supports anthropomorphic global warming? Here is a gem about that "mother fucking MIT" professor:

He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette

[DrunkMonkey]

Spherical Bastard wrote

The problem might be that I typically try to avoid the lay person's popularized science texts. If you have ever taken a moment to read any peer reviewed articles on the matter, you would see that there are quite a large number of scientists that readily admit that the evidence is inconclusive, despite what their personal hunch happens to be on the subject.

o_rly.jpg


http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/306/5702/1686.pdf

[Professor Chaos]

Does that link work for everyone else or is it just my Adobe? It's just freezing my computer up.

[Rhinoqulous]

Link trys to dl a pdf. Didn't DL it, so don't know if it's a corrupted file.

Professor Chaos wrote

My analogy is not flawed, because it's showing the absurdity of your original statement. The percentage of atmospheric gases represented by human CO2 production is irrelevant. The effect the CO2 has is relevant.

It's flawed because you are asserting that a tiny change can fuck things up so severly. As I have mentioned previously, the earth's temperature and CO2 levels have been much higher in the past and life continues to flourish. What I would need, before I could agree to your analogy, is to know how much CO2 we would need to create before we would really screw with the earth.

DrunkMonkey wrote

Does it matter that one scientist disagrees with the evidence when the majority do believe that the evidence supports anthropomorphic global warming? Here is a gem about that "mother fucking MIT" professor:

You will have to remind what the logical fallacy is called, when you ignore someones arguments based on a previous and unrelated argument.

[Kate]

[Professor Chaos]

Spherical Bastard wrote

It's flawed because you are asserting that a tiny change can fuck things up so severly. As I have mentioned previously, the earth's temperature and CO2 levels have been much higher in the past and life continues to flourish. What I would need, before I could agree to your analogy, is to know how much CO2 we would need to create before we would really screw with the earth.

My analogy stands, because I assert nothing. You assert that the amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere by man does not affect climate change because "of all of the gases that make up Earth's atmosphere, human CO2 production accounts for less than 1% of those gases."

So you can't have your cake and eat it too, by then saying, "I would need...to know how much CO2 we would need to create before we would really screw with the earth." If you don't know, don't make that previous assertion.

[DrunkMonkey]

Professor Chaos wrote

Does that link work for everyone else or is it just my Adobe? It's just freezing my computer up.

It might be one of those things where you need some sort of subscription to download it.

It basically says that when you look at published papers there is a consensus that humans are causing global warming (and it cites several papers).

[DrunkMonkey]

Spherical Bastard wrote

You will have to remind what the logical fallacy is called, when you ignore someones arguments based on a previous and unrelated argument.

I am not ignoring his arguments based on what he said about cigarettes- I just used that to point out that this guy seems to be a loon.

I ignore his arguments because they have been deemed to be without merit by the vast majority of scientists who base their own arguments on evidence.

Did you even read these links?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-temp-and-co2/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...ities-updated/

I am positive that you can find answers to any objections you have with plenty of evidence to back them up.

You seem to be employing the strategy of a creationist- implying that there is a serious scientific debate over whether something is true by pointing to a few scientists who agree with you.

(See http://www.icr.org/research/index/research_biosci/ )

Professor Chaos wrote

Until both you and I personally study this shit ourselves, what the fuck else are we supposed to do?






Enjoy class.

Here is a link to the "Mother Fucking" MIT professor: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/.../reg15n2g.html

Also, I will go ahead and clarify my position on this argument.

As far as I can tell, the evidence for human induced global warming is inconclusive. I occasionally make arguments that make it sound as if I am claiming that human caused global warming is bull shit, but that is only to show you that there is a very real objection to what is being said and I have yet to see any real strong basis for it. Because this is the case, I am forced to the scientific default. However, if evidence comes up which definitively shows that human CO2 emissions is raising global temperatures, then I will accept that in a second.

I agree entirely that it is of the utmost importance that we do our own research on this topic. Appeals to authority are never appropriate, whether it be one scientist or a large group of scientists.

Part of the problem I have with the pro-global warming groups is that I feel that what they are doing is largely a debasement of science and would be more accurately described as a political and social movement than it would a scientific conclusion. I have seen "An Inconvenient Truth" as well as many other programs and read many books in which the majority of the time is spent make appeals to emotion. Hell, last night I saw a television special which was discussing global warming and a marine biologist was on there blubbering about how sad it would to know that her children would never get to see a polar bear. We don't yet have a firm understanding of the interaction between CO2 and Temperature. Some scientists think CO2 causes temperature increase, some scientists think that CO2 increases happen as a byproduct of temperature increases. We are unsure precisely how much CO2 humans influence and all evidence indicates it's a very small amount. We are unsure to what degree we would need to influence the atmosphere in order to have serious consequences. To ignore this and to then try and make policy decisions based on it is, in my sexy opinion, a bad move.

It seems to me, what is happening, is an 'ends justifies the means' argument. I would fully agree that we need an alternate source of energy, that we in general could stand to use less energy than we do and that if we could find methods of energy production that pollute less, then we would probably be better off. However, people by and large will not do any of this unless they think something important, like our very existence, is at stake. So people push problematic data in to the political and social sphere where they try and make changes with it. Doing this is a perversion of science and I oppose that more than anything else. At the end of the day, if human induced global warming is occurring and I am wrong, I will be completely ok with that. The more important thing to me is that premature conclusions based on specious evidence isn't being called science and flaunted around like a $10 whore.