skeptic now says global warming real

[whatdidyousay!]

It is going to be 70 degrees on Monday in my state, Massachusetts ! This is not normal for Nov! The warn weather has screwed up things , the trees still have their leaves and we never had a real fall. The leaves did not turn color and this has hurt businesses as not a lot of tourists came here this year. I bet the animals are getting confused too as cold one and the next we're in the 70's! Something is going with the weather, I think it stink that is going to be 70 on Monday as I just getting use to cold weather.

 

[darkdog]

Sorry to be slow to reply. I've been a bit busy.

I agree that some of our greatest scientists and greatest scientific discoveries have come from people who were ostracized by their peers ( Lets add Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler to your list), but science has come a long way since those days. The "scientific process" itself was still in an infant stage, and there were a lot more phonies in the field. Science is a much more self-correcting/self-regulating field these days, not beholden to the influence of church and politics, except with select topics, of which global warming is probably the main one.

Note I specifically picked examples that don't involve influence from church or state. Even back then, the self-correcting mechanisms of science were in place since these scientists' quirky views eventually gained acceptance. It just took some time. Perhaps with internet and greater connectivity, the process moves faster now. There's no way to really know. However, human nature hasn't changed. There's still internal politics, group think, and confirmation bias involved. It gets even worse when world views are at stake. To quote Discover Magazine: "Science, like any other human endeavor, is susceptible to trends and pendulous swings of groupthink." This was written in 2007 about new research indicating that perhaps aging brains aren't as rigid as scientists have long thought- not even a controversial notion.

Basically, I wouldn't be surprised if over the next few years, the mainstream position changed to "Man's CO2 contributions are not nearly as harmful as previously thought".

I agree, but I don't think all scientists are that impractical or political, except perhaps the loudest ones. After reading about this Muller, he seems to be able to separate the political BS from the straight science stuff. I can see how this would not make him all that popular with some of his peers.

I agree- they probably range anywhere from James "People who deny global warming should be imprisoned" Hansen to your anonymous little-known scientist who's content to churn out numbers in the corner of a lab somewhere. However, the political ones have really done their field no favors by being so shrill and impractical about it.

Oh, I'm quite sure they would like nothing better than to "prove" that GB isn't real so that they can continue with their environmentally-ruinous ways. I am very wary of libertarians, because while I like that they are fairly tolerant in the social issues and fiscally sensible, they are often the worst when it comes to environmental policy. To a libertarian, the environment is always second to humanity. If it means destroying an ecosystem in order to provide jobs and profit, then so be it! What they fail to realize is that if we want to continue living on this planet any enjoy it's currently inhabitable and (mostly) beautiful state, we don't have a choice; we've got to put the environment first.

I think, and probably most libertarians would agree with me, that any environmental policy should pass a cost/benefit analysis, and that includes any policy intended to deal with global warming. Yes, we need environmental protections in place, but there needs to be a balance. Regulations do cost productivity and jobs, but they keep the environment clean. It doesn't make sense to allow an entire town's water and air to get dangerously polluted just to avoid regulation that would only save a few jobs and a few thousand dollars. On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to divert water from fertile farmland, turning it into a dust bowl and impoverishing the farmers, just to protect some tiny little fish (that's actually happening: Agribusiness is the victim in California's water wars - Los Angeles Times). With regulations, there's a point of diminishing returns where ever more costly regulations yield ever so smaller environmental benefits. I believe we're at that point. If you go too far, it actually becomes counterproductive because a wealthy society is a clean society. It's the poor countries who pollute the earth the most because they can't afford the technologies needed to keep the environment clean. If we accept that, then it doesn't make sense to impoverish ourselves for the sake of the environment.

 

[Beowulf]

Sorry to be slow to reply. I've been a bit busy.

Note I specifically picked examples that don't involve influence from church or state. Even back then, the self-correcting mechanisms of science were in place since these scientists' quirky views eventually gained acceptance. It just took some time. Perhaps with internet and greater connectivity, the process moves faster now. There's no way to really know. However, human nature hasn't changed. There's still internal politics, group think, and confirmation bias involved. It gets even worse when world views are at stake. To quote Discover Magazine: "Science, like any other human endeavor, is susceptible to trends and pendulous swings of groupthink." This was written in 2007 about new research indicating that perhaps aging brains aren't as rigid as scientists have long thought- not even a controversial notion.

Basically, I wouldn't be surprised if over the next few years, the mainstream position changed to "Man's CO2 contributions are not nearly as harmful as previously thought".


I agree- they probably range anywhere from James "People who deny global warming should be imprisoned" Hansen to your anonymous little-known scientist who's content to churn out numbers in the corner of a lab somewhere. However, the political ones have really done their field no favors by being so shrill and impractical about it.


I think, and probably most libertarians would agree with me, that any environmental policy should pass a cost/benefit analysis, and that includes any policy intended to deal with global warming. Yes, we need environmental protections in place, but there needs to be a balance. Regulations do cost productivity and jobs, but they keep the environment clean. It doesn't make sense to allow an entire town's water and air to get dangerously polluted just to avoid regulation that would only save a few jobs and a few thousand dollars. On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to divert water from fertile farmland, turning it into a dust bowl and impoverishing the farmers, just to protect some tiny little fish (that's actually happening: Agribusiness is the victim in California's water wars - Los Angeles Times). With regulations, there's a point of diminishing returns where ever more costly regulations yield ever so smaller environmental benefits. I believe we're at that point. If you go too far, it actually becomes counterproductive because a wealthy society is a clean society. It's the poor countries who pollute the earth the most because they can't afford the technologies needed to keep the environment clean. If we accept that, then it doesn't make sense to impoverish ourselves for the sake of the environment.

It's pretty sad though: if it is NECESSARY we change our entire infrastructure to prevent extinction, we won't do it.

 

[darkdog]

It's pretty sad though: if it is NECESSARY we change our entire infrastructure to prevent extinction, we won't do it.

If mankind did face a problem where the only possible way to prevent extinction was to dismantle everything they had built up over centuries, then yeah, I'd have to agree with you that we probably wouldn't do that. Fortunately, we're not faced with such a choice and we probably never will be.