From highly respected fellow blogger, Mark Seal, here is a thought provoking post on why we greenies may need to sharpen our debating skills . . .
When I launched the TalkClimateChange forums last year, I was initially worried as to where I would find people who didn’t believe in global warming. I had planned to create a furious debate, but in my experience global warming was such a universally accepted issue that I expected to have to dredge the slums of the internet in order to find a couple of deniers who could keep the argument thriving.
The first few days were slow going, but following a brief write-up of my site by Junk Science I was swamped by climate skeptics who did a good job of frightening off the few brave Greens who slogged out the debate with. Whilst there was a lot of rubbish written, the truth was that they didn’t so much frighten the Greens away – they comprehensively demolished them with a more in depth understanding of the science, cleverly thought out arguments, and some very smart answers. If you want to learn about the physics of convection currents, gas chromatography, or any number of climate science topics then read some of the early debates on TalkClimateChange. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I had to admit that these guys were good.
In the following months the situation hardly changed. As the forum continued to grow, as the blog began to catch traffic, and as I continued to try and recruit green members I continued to be disappointed with the debate. In short, and I am sorry to say it, anti-greens (Reds, as we call them) appear to be more willing to comment, more structured, more able to quote peer reviewed research, more apparently rational and apparently wider read and better informed.
And it’s not just TalkClimateChange. Since we re-launched the forums on Green Options and promoted the “Live Debate“ on Nuclear Power, the pro-nuclear crowd have outclassed the few brave souls that have attempted to take them on (with the exception of our own Matt from TalkClimateChange). So how can this be? Where are all these bright Green champions, and why have I failed to recruit them into the debate? Either it’s down to poor online marketing skills, or there is something else missing. I’ve considered a range of theories as to the problem, none of which seem to fit – such as:
Greens are less educated? Nope.
Greens have less time? Nope.
Greens are a little reticent? Nope.
Greens are less intelligent? Definitely nope.
Greens are less passionate? Absolutely nope.]
Greens have less at stake? Clearly not.
The only feasible explanation that I can come up with so far is that perhaps Greens are less invested in the status quo, and therefore less motivated to protect it? The other possibility is that we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded – please tell me this isn’t so. So I am hoping that La Marguerite, with its insightful host and enlightened readership may be able to help shed some light on this peculiar phenomenon?
La Marguerite 
I would have tried to coordinate this with the guys at RealClimate beforehand. I think at least some in their community would be willing to debate.
“Whilst there was a lot of rubbish written, the truth was that they didn’t so much frighten the Greens away – they comprehensively demolished them with a more in depth understanding of the science, cleverly thought out arguments, and some very smart answers.”
Not really, Mark, no. You’re confusing persistence with competence.
“In short, and I am sorry to say it, anti-greens (Reds, as we call them) appear to be more willing to comment, “
Cranks are generally more talkative. They’re quite happy to keep pushing ideas demolished years ago by others, and just because someone knocks their ideas down in April 2003 it won’t stop them bringing them up again in April 2008.
It’s not my chosen career to debunk the same tired old nonsense again and again with the same people for years on end. At some point, you have to accept that the Earth is not flat, nor was it created 6,000 years ago out of whole cloth, evolution is real, the Holocaust did happen, HIV and AIDS are connected, we really did put men on the Moon, the US government does not regularly engage in conspiracies to blow up its own citizens, Dubya and the Queen are not secretly reptilians from a distant planet, and the Earth’s resources and ability to absorb pollution are finite.
There’ll always be a few loons who don’t accept this stuff, and a much larger number of people who just don’t know stuff; there are the ignorant, and the willfully ignorant. We can do something about ignorance, but not about wilfull ignorance. You can never convince everyone. At some point you just have to take the sane majority and work with them.
Perhaps rather than asking why greenish types aren’t very persuasive, a better question to ask is, why should they bother? Why do you imagine that we should spend some hours each week convincing the willfully ignorant? Just because you want “balance” on your site? What are we supposed to get out of that? If I as a greenish type am supposed to spend hours doing that, should I as a Jew go to websites talking about how the Holocaust was all made up, and try to convince them, too? Should doctors spend their time dealing with denial of the HIV-AIDS connection? Should NASA officials post on websites about The Moon Landing Hoax?
Why? What the fuck for?
The thing about a discussion forum is that its image is defined by its worst members. It’s the same as how your restaurant is only as good as its worst meal or sloppiest waiter. TalkClimateChange has cranks, and these cranks are encouraged by the owner of the site. So really it’s DenialClimateChange.
I agree with Kiashu. Most of the time I give up on forums isn’t because I get “beaten”, it’s just that I end up realising it’s not worth it. I get in a heated argument with some idiot who has nothing to lose, I’m not getting anywhere, and I realise I never will get anywhere. The problem lies with anonymity. You can say anything on the ‘net, and there’s no consequence, because the only people who know you in real life AND know you online are the people who you already agree with. Internet cliques, I’d call it.
I would agree that there are a lot (perhaps a majority) of greenies who aren’t up-to-date with the science. But I would disagree that this ISN’T true of the environmental-denialists as well.
I can really understand Kiashu’s position. If indeed, people very knowledgeable on climate change, debating with the people at TalkClimateChange would feel like debating with Holocaust deniers, I can understand that almost no expert would bother.
This made me think of one thing I’ve read some time ago on the use of Wikipedia in higher education. The point of the teacher was that you don’t want students to be lazy, and accept things on Wikipedia as facts without doubt, partly because Wikipedia can be edited freely, but also because almost every writing of this kind will contain inaccuracies. They found a very clever win-win solution: They gave students the assignment to study certain sections of Wikipedia, and correct as many inaccuracies as they could. The students had a very exciting learning opportunity (because of the ambiguity of the learning environment, it felt more like a game than a test) and Wikipedia got better because of it.
Likewise, I think that bright students of climate science might be a good form of debaters. For them, exploring the whole argument space would still feel exciting. They could use each argument put forth by “denialists” as a test of their own understanding of the subject matter.
From my point of view, my “greenness” grew in stages, initially from a feeling of “that can’t be right”. I had no facts to back up that feeling, but I became convinced of it. If someone had tried to debate with me, they would have eaten me alive as I expressed “feelings and beliefs” and they expressed “facts” (as they saw them).
The more facts and figures that I gathered, the less willing I was to debate. Why? Because I could see the deniers were, as Kiashu calls them, “cranks”. They were loud and obnoxious but ultimately not worth bothering about. It doesn’t matter what you say to them, they will hold to their views steadfastly.
The ones we should be debating with are the general public who are blindly carrying on as normal without giving the environment a second thought.
For me, I don’t think it does much good to argue about it. Whatever your stance on climate change, you can probably find evidence to support it. If you are so desparate to support your denial of global warming that you skim the news for every new report that supports your opinion, more power to you. I’m too busy trying to save the world. 😉
Thanks very much for all of your comments so far. In fact, I think my answers at this stage deserve a blog post all for themselves – I’ll post it later this week on TCC.
In the meantime, a couple of thoughts I would like to give you.
First, TCC focuses on several questions:
1. Is the planet warming: 90% of what you read on TCC fully agrees with this.
2. Is mankind responsible: 75% of what you read on TCC will support this – but bear in mind that the IPCC state that this is a 90% probability. I think a 10% chance of being wrong is worth some kind of discussion considering the costs and consequences.
3. What do we do next: 80% of what you read on TCC is about this very issue. The complexity of the solutions available, and the range of consequences (witness what BioFuels have done to world food costs) is the debate mankind needs to have. And this is what we spend most of our time considering on TCC.
Secondly, I’m certainly not “confusing persistence with competence”. Very often when questions are raised on TCC a climate skeptic will respond with peer reviewed scientific evidence. A green will respond with belief based statements. I’ve been disappointed by this.
Next, I think that classing everybody who has a different point of view as a crank is perhaps unfair. Every conversation has its cranks, but I have also read many worthy challenges which often force me to question my green position more closely, or moderate my position in some cases. In complex topics it is often inappropriate to take a black or white position.
Finally, consider that the world’s largest energy consumer has not ratified the Kyoto protocol. That’s because there are a significant number of people who do not believe in AGW. We need to engage with these people and provide them with a worthy debate if we are to influence.
One more comment:
“TalkClimateChange has cranks, and these cranks are encouraged by the owner of the site. So really it’s DenialClimateChange.”
If by encouraged you mean not-discouraged then you are correct in that I have always refused to censor anything except bad language and personal insult. Crank cases speak for themselves. Intelligent statements stand out, and there are many, but not always green. – For the record I was definitely green when I started TCC. I still am, but have learnt many things from the experience and am perhaps now more moderate in some areas – above all because I can fully appreciate the complexity of what we are trying to achieve and recognize areas where we need to tread carefully – I’ll post more on that on TCC this week.
As above, I’ll do a post “Why We Debate Climate Change” later this week also.
a few keywords to crystallize the issue of public reticence.
short attention span: keep it compressed.
busy schedules: keep it minimal
enviro-fatigue: keep away from tried and tired.
voice fatigue: change the tone.
predictability: twist the curve.
overwhelming: narrow the spectrum.
polarizing: never make it us vs. them.
as in politics, selling the positive, shelving the negative.
I will add my two cents . . .
I am all for democratic expression. This is why I allow all voices to comment on this blog. However, I will not engage with the naysayers as it would be a waste of my time. Like Cowrin, this is not something that interests me any longer. I am much too busy exploring solutions. We no longer have the luxury of doing much else, in my opinion, and there is now a majority that is convinced of the reality of global warming. That is good enough for me. Let’s see how we can engage those folks into action.
I want to add to what Marguerite is saying that’s it’s not even necessary to believe in GW or AGW to want to change people’s behavior for the better, for obvious reasons such as health, energy security (iraq, peak oil anyone?), general resource waste and fairness. Also, I really like happy people, so if I can get the whole world happy, it would be a big plus. I don’t believe these goals are in conflict with each other.
I think we won’t truly lose anything by reducing our collective energy consumption, at least when keeping above a minimum level which we are far away from. In the process of exploring the possibilities to achieve this, we might find lots to win. For a big part, findings of positive psychology are on our side.
I would not change my course if the A of AGW would turn out to be wrong. I never work with absolute facts in my head, always with probabilities. I always keep room for the opposite of a fact. To me, the most interesting thing is what I want to do regardless of any one fact.
So I’d welcome denialists here also, because a green life is a happy life. 🙂
To be more specific, the premise “If AGW is not real, we should do nothing.” is not proven, and I would say it’s downright false.
If one would say “our economy might get hurt.”… I’m sorry, but economies don’t get hurt. Economies are an abstraction. Just like corporations, they don’t have feelings. People might get hurt, but I’m not sure how people would get hurt if we’d consume less. If people can’t get food in the table because they don’t produce SUV’s, it says more about the current state of economic organization than of the benefits for action.
I wouldn’t doubt that the ‘reds’ were full-time employees of the myriad public relations firms hired by the oil and gas industry. It’s just a very common, common-sense tactic employed by pr firms for any number of public policy issues.
In the last two weeks, I’ve read chapters on atmospheric chemistry, met with a climate scientist at one of the leading universities, and attended (and just now got back from) a two-day conference in Tennessee on energy and ethics, where there were people from all over the place (the UK, Australia, Iceland, Serbia, California, New York, Colorado, Florida, Washington DC, and Tennessee of course, and etc. etc.). There were also representatives from a few select members of corporate America, including PepsiCo and Alcoa. And, one very big (but not very clean) energy provider: The Tennessee Valley Authority.
Based on my own background (including chemical engineering) and everything I’ve heard, read, and absorbed from these and many other sources, I would say that we can (unfortunately) and should consider global warming to be a VERY real problem.
Unfortunately, since I just got back and my unpacking and laundry are also very real (though much smaller) problems, I can’t write more right now. But, the question you pose (in the original post) is an important one and I’ll try to toss in my “two cents” in the next day or so.
Cheers.
“Very often when questions are raised on TCC a climate skeptic will respond with peer reviewed scientific evidence. A green will respond with belief based statements.”
The thing is that your deniers are working from the denialism playbook:- conspiracy, selectivity (cherry-picking), fake experts, impossible expectations (also known as moving goalposts), and general fallacies of logic.
So their “peer-reviewed scientific evidence” is largely selectivity and fake experts. It’s just not worth the effort to refute each item piece by piece. They’ll always have more time on their hands to go into the discussion, whereas I have a life to live. That’s part of what makes them cranks – they never give up, they have the fanaticism that only loons can have.
Again, you haven’t answered why we should bother. What for? What are we supposed to get out of it? Should I head over to a creationist forum and take the time to deal with their “peer-reviewed scientific evidence” that the world is 6,000 years old? What for?
“Next, I think that classing everybody who has a different point of view as a crank is perhaps unfair. “
Now you’re playing from the denialist handbook, too. Things like whether we should have nuclear or renewable energy, focus on cars or mass transit, whether the nature of Christ (for those who believe in him) was human or divine, these are “points of view.” Human-made climate change is a fact. What’s in doubt are merely the details, whether this much CO2 will give us that many degrees of warming, and so on.
Someone who has a different point of view is not a crank. Someone who ignores facts in favour of some conspiracy theory or private physical theory is a crank.
“Finally, consider that the world’s largest energy consumer has not ratified the Kyoto protocol. That’s because there are a significant number of people who do not believe in AGW. We need to engage with these people and provide them with a worthy debate if we are to influence.”
You misunderstand the issue. The issue is not whether people believe that AGW is so, but what they believe is in their personal interests. Joe Sixpack does not sit down at his computer in the evening, order the complete IPCC 2007 report, read and analyse it on the basis of praise and critiques from others, and then use that to decide whether to keep driving his SUV or take the bus tomorrow.
Instead, he does whatever seems most convenient and comfortable for him, given factors like how crowded the roads are, how reliable the bus is, what his buddies will think of him if he rocks up to work in a huge car, and so on. That does not mean that Joe Sixpack is a moron; if he applied effort to it, he could certainly understand the basic scientific issues. What it does mean is that he does not base his life decisions on what are basically abstract and abstruse scientific issues.
So this isn’t about convincing the whole US of something. It’s about a few cranks at a few websites.
“If by encouraged you mean not-discouraged then you are correct in that I have always refused to censor anything except bad language and personal insult.”
And that encourages cranks; cranks are generally told to fuck off everywhere they go. To a crank, anything short of that is encouragement. But you go further than simply not disocuraging, you actively seek their opinions, even placing them into “Red” and “Green” “teams”. You’re saying, “here’s a place for you, the Red Team.” You hold their comments to be worthy of discussion.
It’s rather as if I set up a biology website, put in a “white” and “black” team, and said that any Creationists should go into the “black” team. I’d be encouraging them. And I assure you that normal biologists would not stick around at that site. What for? Why should they bother?
Meryn, I agree that even if burning coal gave us vitamin C, we should still move away from a fossil fuel economy, simply because they’re a finite resource.
Just as I believe in a fair share of the world’s resources for people today, so too for the next generation; and if we burn it all up, they don’t get to use it. When I was a child I was told when eating sweets to always share, and leave something for others; I was told it wasn’t fair that just because I took the trouble to hover over the sweets basket at parties, that I should get to eat them all. Leave something for others.
We should not live as though we’re the last generation on Earth.
And even without that to think about, there are other questions we should ask ourselves, such as whether we really want to have broad suburbs with huge houses and hours in traffic and no shops or workplaces for miles around, or whether we might prefer carfree cities, and so on.
So that the reasons for preferring less or no use of fossil fuels are not just about climate change, but also depleting resources, and social and psychological. We have three basic reasons for change. That means that I am not really interested in debating the details of climate change and humanity’s role in it, even if the people I’m speaking to aren’t cranks. There’s a course of action and way of life which I think is good – the one tonne CO2 lifestyle – which would be the same course even if you took out one or two of those three.
It’s rather as though I were obese from too many burgers and too much beer and trying to lose weight because I wanted to be more physically active with my family, wanted to live longer, and to have better self-confidence; even if it turned out that burgers and beer were good for my heart, I’d still cut back because of the other two reasons, and I wouldn’t be very interested in debating the role of animal fats and low-GI carbohydrates in heart disease. I mean, what for?
Peter, I don’t know about “full-time employees”, but I do know that there are places like netvocates.com (discussed here), which go and find people spouting off some particular nonsense already, and then pay them to wander around blogs (they assign them targets) and say whatever they’d normally say.
That’s the way it tends to work. They don’t pay people to say things they don’t believe, as in advertising, but rather find people who already believe this or that, and pay them to say it more often.
When I was a kid we were family friends with a family whose father was a doctor, specifically an oncologist. He’d written a PhD thesis saying that “Agent Orange is harmless, you can drink a gallon of it and you’ll just piss a lot” (his words). At one point some veterans of the Aussie and US war in Vietnam were suing the government for Agent Orange exposure, alleging it’d had all sorts of horrible effects. The government said, “we must commission an expert study into whether Agent Orange is harmful. Have we any experts who have already studied this?” And they found this guy, and paid him good money to write a new paper on it.
If you pay people to lie and say things they don’t believe, they might not do a very good job of it, and might later on betray you and reveal it was all a con. But if you pay people to say what they already believe, only more loudly than usual, then you’ll be safe. So that’s the approach to sowing doubt and confusion in this our internet age.
Is the 90% probability for the A in AGW as stated by the IPCC not meaningful? Do they mean 99.99999%?
As a layman the causal relationship between increased CO2 and higher temperatures seems quite logical to me, but I’m just repeating that number. That one is coming from experts.
It is hard to win a debate when your argument is based on fiction.
The problem is that the global warming cultists have created this food crisis with this lame-brained idea that we could divert farm lands from food production into making fuel for our cars and that this would be carbon-neutral on the theory that the plants absorb as much carbon as burning the fuel produces.
This is, of course, not true. The promises of carbon-neutrality fail to take into account the emissions created by the processing used to convert the plant material into ethanol. But then the purveyors of panic seldom really thing these things all the way through, and as this last winter’s temperatures showed, the claim that the Earth faces catastrophic global warming lacks real scientific foundation. Yes, it is true that the scientists rich on grants to study global warming for the most part see a problem, but grant-driven science has created some notorious scarecrows in recent decades, including the Y2K bug (it didn’t happen), Bird Flu Pandemic (also not happening), and the loss of the Ozone Layer (turns out that hole over Antarctica has been there all along).
These fashionable “scientific emergencies” are a great way for government to keep the public from looking at real issues, like how we got lied into a war, or whether our voting system is really honest. And for those in a position to exploit these pseudo-science public relations campaigns, a great deal of money can be made in a very short time. Right now there are warehouses filled with Bird Flu vaccine, purchased at taxpayer expense, which will most likely never be used (a good thing when you consider the problems with vaccines these days), and will sit there until they rot and get dumped into the landfills (and into the water supply). But the vaccine maker got their money, so who cares, right?
Human-caused Global Warming is not science. It is a hoax, perpetuated by government that wants to give people something to fret about that does not endanger the oligarchy. along the way, GW ™ is used to justify greater control over the private lives of people, not to mention yet more taxes. GW is also loved by corporations eager to sell more products, many of which, like ethanol, actually give you LESS value while costing more money.
And now the GW cult has brought about a disruption in the food supply. Not their problem, of course; they were only out to save the Earth, and those pesky useless eaters just get in the way with their cars and light bulbs and oth8ert icky human stuff! The globe is just much better off without them (or so says this “Aftermath” program on TV, which lauds how wonderful nature will come back after humans vanish).
And again, this illustrates how the Global Warming Cult (industry) really wasn’t thinking globally. The goal was to sell ethanol, so that businessmen who don’t actually own oil wells can get into the fuel industry. Lobbying resulted in a mandated ethanol fuel and literally out of nothing, a whole new business was created out of thin air for the politically connected to leap into. Yet these people who claim to care so much about the Earth were oblivious to the fact that Earth is finite. That includes farmlands. In order to grow corn for fuel they must STOP growing corn for food. That doesn’t seem very globally aware thinking to me. But then again, maybe they just don;t really care. Because after all, the end result is that they are selling us a less powerful fuel for far more money. and that seems to be the American way of doing business these days.
So, the ethanol gets sold, more emissions get poured into the air than before, and since ethanol contains less chemical energy than gas, you have to buy and burn MORE of it to go the same distance. And food shortages result, which drives up food prices, but hey, that’s someone ELSE’S problem; we’re just here to sell ethanol and get our chunk of the fuel economy pie!
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
“It is hard to win a debate when your argument is based on fiction.”
So true! Always amusing to have a visit from an employee of netvocate.
I think Mark has a warped view of things, talking mostly online and with Americans. The reality around the world is a bit different, see for example this report that
[Australian] people are not averse to higher energy bills if it means the energy is coming from cleaner sources.
“They want to see all new electricity come from clean energy,” he said.
“It’s around about three-quarters of Australians support that, for example. People are keen for greater energy efficiency in their homes and their cars.”
Disinter: I appreciate your concern for social justice and a well fed population. However, climate science doesn’t have anything to do with that.
Biofuels have been sold to greens as a sustainable fuel source, now it’s clear to almost anyone that one should specifically make a distinction to sustainable and unsustainable sources for biofuels. Among other things, the media jumped on this issue, and almost everyone in the community changed his opinion. Why? The facts were clear.
Personally, I see this turnaround in opinion as a prove that in the aggregate, leading green thinkers are very considerate of the facts.
You can see more of it here:
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/04/the_debate_gets_civil_romm_apo.shtml
I see lots of errors in your posting, so you might be able to learn something about our way of doing. This is not to say that you should belief in every fact, but to just be as careful when making arguments and weighing the facts.
Disinter – I can’t speak for the other greenies, but I do not support biofuels. At best they are a stop-gap measure until we can make the large scale changes in our way of life toward a more sustainable future.
I’m also not a fan of hydrogen fuel cell cars as they require natural gas in production.
I also don’t support clean coal because it too is a finite resource just like oil, and it requires mining which is devasting to the earth and pollutes our waters; that isn’t “clean” in my book.
I believe that the only way we can prevent the wholesale destruction of ourselves through environmental degradation is to change our way of life; to stop buying so much stuff that we don’t need and doesn’t make us happy or healthy. I believe that we should have more farm land under sustainable production by halting the spread of suburbia. We should cut down on our wasteful eating habits so that we not only become healthier and less obese as a nation, but so we can help feed the rest of the world who aren’t as blessed with our natural resources.
And if you’ll notice, the idea to stop buying products is directly counter to the consumerist agenda that you claim is at the basis of the green panic mongers.
I never supported the war. I think that the only reason we entered the war was because of oil. And I will in part be basing my vote on who I believe can stop it.
And I know that many of my views are shared by the green community.
American Chemical Society Statement, and Latest ExxonMobil Video
To help address some of the posts on this thread . . .
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is the world’s largest scientific society according to its website and president (who I saw speak recently). It has over 160,000 members worldwide. Earlier in my life, I was a chemical engineer (from Berkeley and working in the oil industry), and I can tell you that the ACS is a very credible organization with very real and able scientists.
The American Chemical Society’s Position Statement on Global Climate Change begins with the following (copied from their website):
“ACS Position
“Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosol particles (IPCC, 2007). There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.
“The reality of global warming, its current serious and potentially disastrous impacts on Earth system properties, and the key role emissions from human activities play in driving these phenomena have been recognized by earlier versions of this ACS policy statement (ACS, 2004), by other major scientific societies, including the American Geophysical Union (AGU, 2003), the American Meteorological Society (AMS, 2007) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 2007), and by the U. S. National Academies and ten other leading national academies of science (NA, 2005). This statement reviews key global climate change impacts and recommends actions required to mitigate or adapt to currently anticipated consequences.”
You can read the full statement here, on their site:
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=621&content_id=WPCP_007771&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1
I just returned from a conference on energy and ethics hosted by the University of Tennessee. The President of the ACS spoke at the conference, and he views global climate change as very real indeed. If my memory is correct, he had just returned from the ACS’s annual meeting, in New Orleans, earlier this month. The ACS President, Bruce Bursten, is the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and a distinguished professor of chemistry, at the University of Tennessee. His bachelor’s degree in chemistry is from the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. is from the University of Wisconsin, which is very strong in chemistry and chemical engineering. (It was certainly one of the very best schools in the field when I got my degree from Berkeley.)
One thing to note about the ACS: Many members of the ACS work in the oil industry, the coal industry (I would think), and the chemicals industries, of course. Other things equal, many members love the sorts of hydrocarbons that come from underground. The ACS is, I would expect, a society that would be hesitant to be strongly concerned about global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions unless it believed that the science was sound and state-of-the-art. Put another way, when the ACS becomes concerned about greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere, that’s a very good sign that the problem is real.
Also, right after Dr. Bursten made some brief introductory remarks, the next speaker was a very well-known philosopher-ethicist, currently at Oxford, who spoke about a key ethical dimension of the global warming problem. If one puts two-and-two together from these two talks, it’s fairly clear that one would be right to be very concerned with (as well as suitably angered by) ExxonMobil’s stance and near inaction regarding the problem.
Finally, the latest ExxonMobil video (from its site) is here:
http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/news_downloads_video_cera2008.aspx
It’s about oil on a global basis, searching for it, producing it, and what is (apparently) in ExxonMobil’s mind these days. It is informative but concerning. Basically, it’s an industry-friendly interview of an ExxonMobil Sr. V.P. at “CERAWeek 2008”, which apparently is a big industry conference hosted by CERA (“Cambridge Energy Research Associates”).
I hope these two things are helpful and interesting.
If you haven’t done so already, I’d suggest boycotting ExxonMobil (as the industry leader and its leading denialist-or-hesitator). In my view, if you boycott ExxonMobil at this point, you shouldn’t feel a bit of hesitation or guilt: Instead, you should consider it a very good day and a very warranted gesture.
Cheers.
Absolutely, most Greens don’t support biofuels. They are simply a politically saleable fix to more fundamental problems.
However, I brought them up as an example of the need to carefully question the way forward from here. Our climate and economy are complex systems – we need to be careful that the adjustments we make don’t make an already bad situation worse.
And there are many more examples. Are hybrid cars, with their increased production costs, batteries and associated recycling issues good or bad in the long term? That argument is ongoing, but the city of London still encourages hybrids through tax breaks.
What will wave power do to marine life? What will large solar installations do to the earth’s albedo? Should we spend money on sea defences for wealthy Britons, or invest in sub-Saharan irrigation? Does nuclear power involve a trade off of one evil for another – or is it the way forward? (we had a great debate on that one)
This is what we need to discuss and debate, and the uncertain answers to many of these questions represent the danger in a blind faith in environmentalism without reference to wider science and economics.
As I said, I have a plan for a great blog post based on some of your input, on which I also plan to seriously question the continuing relevance and focus of TalkClimateChange.
Thanks again for your inputs.
“I’m sorry, but economies don’t get hurt. Economies are an abstraction. Just like corporations, they don’t have feelings. People might get hurt, but I’m not sure how people would get hurt if we’d consume less. If people can’t get food in the table because they don’t produce SUV’s, it says more about the current state of economic organization than of the benefits for action.”
I’m not sure if this is the right place to take this up, but I’d like to make a comment.
I believe that economics is central to a happy outcome of the global warming problem. A strong economy will be better placed to make the investments required to mitigate against and prepare for global warming.
Economies are fragile systems, requiring careful management and when they crash many people suffer. Personal stories of economic depressions can be heart breaking.
It would be simply reckless to discount the importance of careful economic management during a transition to a low carbon economy.
The solution that will make everyone happy – change the conversation to something in which red/blue/green get what they want.
For Greenies: Life Cycle Assessment on all products, Third party audits, and a set matrix for comparison will make Investors happy. (SMaRT Sustainability Standards)
For Reds: Even if you don’t believe in Climate Change, you do believe in your financial portfolio and THOSE companies believe in Climate Change.
The latter being the market given, then learn how to work with that trend and you’ll be happier in your stock picks while the rest of us work on saving the planet. Everyone gets what they want and it all ties back to big business.
What I want to retain from our discussion here is the need to focus on solutions, and to submit every proposed solution to the critical lens of all the sciences that need to be involved.
Mark, if I had a suggestion for your blog, it would be to reposition it under that light. Drop the naysayers, and if you are going to have a debate, instead have it around serious solutions, with scientists from various disciplines. This is where the world is now. Times for debating the reality of GW have passed.
Yes, Mary. Great example of solution.
“I’m not sure if this is the right place to take this up,”
I think you should start a TalkEconomics site. 🙂
Anyway, I think we could better take this discussion private.
I was surprised to read that the deniers had offered ‘peer reviewed’ papers supporting their arguments… I find this very dubious and would like to have more information on this
Eric,
May I suggest you contact Mark directly?
Eric,
The IPCC assessment states that there is a 90% chance that human activities are causing climate change. (which is good enough for me to advocate action).
Why not 100%? Because there are some gaps in the current science which still need to be addressed. Few people have looked that far, but there are still some very interesting questions that need to be answered, and there is a volume of peer reviewed research in this area.
Again, 90% is good enough for me, but the 10% is still worthy of inspection if only to ensure that the mitigation steps we take are the right ones.
If you would like to visit TalkClimateChange a look a little deeper you can find many examples of this.
Mark.
Mark,
“The IPCC assessment states that there is a 90% chance that human activities are causing climate change. (which is good enough for me to advocate action).”
Saying that humans cause climate change is a statement of the obvious. The real questions are:
1) Is this change something to be worried about?
2) How significant a factor is CO2 in this change?
3) Even if CO2 is significant are drastic emission cuts the best way to address this change?
I think you will find many of the skeptic arguments are really addressing those three points. Jumping from the statement of the obvious (humans affect climate) and using that to justify deep cuts in CO2 is an intellectual trap that many greens fall into.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of unknowns which the science will never be able to resolve. I think it too many AGW advocates have undermined their own credibility by trying to pretend that these unknowns don’t exist.
In an ideal world I would like see a conversation that starts with:
AGW advocates acknowledging that climate models are no substitute for reality and that we simply do not know whether CO2 induced warming will be a problem or not.
AGW skeptics acknowledging that the science is certain enough to know that CO2 could be serious problem and that it does not make sense to simply ignore the issue.
Just as a side note, it is not correct to portray someone who does not believe that global warming is a catastrophic problem as “anti-green.” I would call myself both a climate skeptic and an environmentalist. In fact, I would go further to say that the focus on the false crisis of greenhouse gasses is sucking all the oxygen out of other, much more critical environmental issues. And, in certain cases, such as where the nutty push for biofuels has accelerated the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the focus on climate alarmism is actually setting back the environmental cause.
Kiashu,
I don’t think any denier, as you call them, could ever believe anything thing that you tell them after the first part where you call them cranks and make anologies comparing them to flat earth believers, and other conspiracy theory nut jobs. Please, you don’t come off sounding very inteligent even though you sound articulate. You are lumping in people who don’t believe the that the majority of global warming is caused by increased CO2 levels with total global warming deniers. Depending on your frame of time or reference, the globe can be cooling or warming. I have read and seen evidence from apparently credible sources saying either scenario is happening. Calling people who aren’t buying into the hype as willfully ignorant just shows your ignorance. I personally believe as you do that we should stop burning fossil fuels, because it is just stupid to waste that resource for energy production. But it isn’t gong to happen in our life time unless something un invented as of yet comes along that makes it easy to get off of it. Without a source of cheap efficient energy, the developing countries don’t have a chance of making it out of poverty. I have never been a fan of the big oil companies, they are power hungry extremely greedy companies. I believe we are having
more impact on earth climate by our use of the land, but is more local than global.
I you believe for one minute that the United Nations IPCC report as the truth, you have got troubles. I have been around for 50 odd years and from my history studies and experience, the UN is a pretty worthless group of pseudo politicians who have never proved they really know what they are talking about. Just the fact that they are telling us there are climate catastrophies in the making makes me very suspicious. And that they should be regulating it. Al Gore saying the same thing even makes me more suspicious. Especially with incorrect data given as fact. From what I have read, climate is extremely complicated and that we just don’t know that much even in this day and with our technology. Cutting back the amount of CO2 produced to the levels that the IPCC recommends is virtually impossible with out a lot of people dying.
Even if the CO2 was found to be the problem, at this point there is nothing we can do to realisticly slow it down for a long time, unless a lot of people die. Or you control China and India and many other fast developing countries. Good luck! I am for conserving and not wasting any resource. From what I can see, there isn’t a technology present that is going to get us off fossil fuel in the near future, believe me I wish that there was. I think it is really studid to jump off a cliff before you really have to. You all appear to be the deniers, not people like me, and I think there are many more like me than you think there are. No one will gives a rats ass about global warming or conservation if they don’t have a job and are hungry. And that you can take to the bank.
Chill Kiashu!!!
I would venture to say that people who lobby to curtail the increase of plant food (CO2) in the atmosphere are the true anti-greens.
It’s interesting to me that some of you recognize the economy as a cultural abstract.
Another basic cultural abstract is the concept of “climate”.
Climate is defined as the weather that one would expect on a certain date, whereas weather is actually what you get.
Since the study of climate is in actuality the study of human expectations, the thesis of this post is even more baffling.
After all, are not the more highly educated “greenies”, more likely to study and be proficient in the soft sciences of sociology?
When ya’ll can’t even hold service in a game that you invented, it’s time to hang it up.
Aaaand there’s the difference Mark was noticing.
Sorry about that, Mark, it’s always disappointing when the best way to salvage your cause is to turn on your allies.
Perhaps the reason is because most of the skeptics have, by their very nature, actually done some research rather than simply believing what they’re told. There’s some interesting sophistry about why not to debate. But it comes down to the fact that the science does not stack up the way the IPCC claim. If it did, the debate could be held, and would be won. Since it doesn’t, people would prefer not to debate.
The IPCC is not a scientific body, it is a bureaucratic one. It’s reports may, in the first place, be written by scientists, but the final draft is edited by bureaucrats and they leave out “inconvenient truths” that don’t suit the message they want you to hear. It’s not in their interest to tell you there’s no problem. I don’t think this is a conspiracy, any more than a flock of swallows changing direction mid-flight is a conspiracy. It’s simply a group of individuals acting in their own self interest.
If the science is settled, and the debate over, then why is core evidence being repeatedly overturned – Mann’s hockey stick and the hottest year (1934) to name but two.
Don’t take what you’re told for granted (including this post). Go out and actually investigate for yourself.
Surely it’s worth a little more effort before we cripple the world’s economy, and by extension kill millions of the world’s poorest people, over a hobgoblin.
Mark, my compliments on a far more balanced and reasonable approach than one usually finds
The greens keep losing the arguments because their positions not only ignore the facts, but are inherently irrational.
The “green” idea that there is some natural balance; or trees are more valuable than, say, tree beetles, or whales more harmonious than man, ior that natural vitamin E is better than artificial vitamin E, is essentially an aesthetic position.
Yes, even I find rolling landscapes or mountain vistas or dolphins playing beautiful. But I know this is an aesthetic choice.
A also find the works of man beautifu and natural.
#20
[Australian] people are not averse to higher energy bills if it means the energy is coming from cleaner sources.
“They want to see all new electricity come from clean energy,” he said.
“It’s around about three-quarters of Australians support that, for example. People are keen for greater energy efficiency in their homes and their cars.”
Classic spin and as usual, a few inconvienient truths are omitted.
1. In a nation of just over 20m, last year 1m new cars were
purchased. The best selling category? Large 6cyl sedans.
2. In a recent survey, over 90% of Australians polled said they
would NOT support an increase in fuel prices to combat
AGW.
There’s a difference in feel good sentiment and concrete
action.
Especially where the hip pocket is concerned.
Deniers? Cranks?
Go ask the Chinese what measures they are taking.
Even the IPCC recognises that the heating capacity of CO2 is limited by saturative processes as a product of Wien’s Displacement Law and Beer’s Law; however, IPCC’s postulation that CO2 forces further and increased heating by H2O is problematic because, as Spencer’s work with clouds indicates, it is likely that H2O in the form of clouds is a negative feedback on surface temperature.
With the basic premise of AGW compromised, IPCC advocates have sought to question suggestions that climate variation is a factor of solar flux; hence the work of Svensgard, Friis-Christensen, Scafetta and West and others has been subject to intense criticism. Apart from the ongoing controversy about temperature data, how it is collected and managed via base periods and anomaly configuration, the issue of solar forcing is going to be at the heart of the ‘debate’; with cycles 24 and 25 expected to be weak, and with TSI declining, the climate indicators over the next year should be very interesting; assuming we can get some reliable ones.
“They didn’t so much frighten the Greens away – they comprehensively demolished them with a more in depth understanding of the science, cleverly thought out arguments, and some very smart answers. If you want to learn about the physics of convection currents, gas chromatography, or any number of climate science topics then read some of the early debates on TalkClimateChange. I didn’t believe a word of it”
Quote of the year.
“In short, and I am sorry to say it, anti-greens (Reds, as we call them) appear to be more willing to comment, more structured, more able to quote peer reviewed research, more apparently rational and apparently wider read and better informed”.
But what did you expect from a bunch of cranks?
The sceptics are winning the argument because they have science on their side. The AGW proponents only proof are computer models which cannot be validated in our lifetime and do not include simple things like cloud cover, Ocean PDO’s ENSO etc.
Written requests using the freedom of information requests reveal that the IPCC summary was written by only 7 people over the objections of many.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=23
The Oceans are cooling and the Earth has not warmed in ten years as grudgingly admitted by the “right wing” BBC
There is one possibility you have not canvassed.
That the ‘greenies’ are flat out wrong, exactly as they were with the overpopulation scare, the global cooling scare, the acid rain scare, the GM foods scare and a dozen others.
You close your mind to even the suggestion that mankind’s impact on planetary climate is quite minor compared to changes in solar irradiance – the solar inertial motion theories of Fairbridge, Huang, North et al.
I am also amused by the cognitive dissonance in your post. ‘They demolished the ‘greens’ with facts and rational debate, none of which I believed’. So much for the Enlightenment, then!
You describe yourself as possessing the closed mind of the religious zealot, defending his dogma.
MarkL
canberra
“The other possibility is that we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded”
BINGO!
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” – Oliver Cromwell
The simplest explanation is that most greens don’t come to their positions honestly or on their own. Like the sheep in animal farm they have been taught a slogan and repeat it. There is no examination or introspection and the few who do argue do so to defend their initial position.
The skeptics on the other hand come to their position by asking questions. Hence they have the resources to argue their position.
You don’t suppose this inability to marshall the facts, as opposed to the “truth”, is why Comrade Gore-bachov doesn’t allow journalists into his presentations, or why he refuses to debate?
By the way, what was the size of the fund Gore closed recently? Oh yeah, $500 million. What type of management fees do you think he takes out on that? And he doesn’t have a vested interest in the AGW hysteria he has helped to create?
Is the inability to find facts, as opposed to “truthiness”why you greenies keep insisting the debate is over and the “science” is settled?
You act like little kids putting their hands over their ears and saying “I can’t hear you; I can’t hear you”.
It’s the kumbayah hippy shit aspect to GWism that is irritating, as well as the completely counter-productive & crappy efforts like Earth Hour that fail spectacularly & expose greens to ridicule. If greens want to reach people where they live, they need to get rid of the dreadlocks & face painting & street puppets & ensure their public consciousness-raising is not quite so risibly amateurish & dismal.
[…] Green Advocates Failing in Climate Debate – Some questions that have been occupying me for some time, with some surprising answers. This was picked up on a number of blogs and I have a follow-up post planned for next week. […]
The greens make a huge mistake in the debate. Their ‘premise’ is that only immediate, drastic (and, conseqeuntly, economically devastating) action can stave off global warming. Then, when arguing in support of the premise, state “Look at this evil denier who is against saving (energy, fuel, green space, whatever). Who can be against sustainability?” Because the greens aren’t even arguing their premise, there can be no debate.
The central problem seems to be this:
Greens label skeptics “deniers” because they deny that a) the earth is warming, b) the greenhouse effect is real and/or c) mankind is contributing to the greenhouse warming. These are considered “settled science” and anyone doubting these “facts” is a “crank”.
They are largely correct that those denying these facts would make one a denier and a crank.
However, the problem is that almost all skeptics AGREE with the above. The disagreement is about the magnitude of the forecasted warming. This is generally based on climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is far from “settled science”.
One thing that makes us “cranks” suspicious is that many (as in these posts) believe that their preferred lifestyle should be pursued independent of whether global warming exists or not. The trick is that only GW has the potential to force others to follow the same lifestyle. It may be a coincidence, but I have my doubts. I’m not suggesting that the Greens are “making up” AGW, but that the issue came up independently and the Greens rallied to the cause for reasons other than the scientific validity of AGW. Maybe that’s why they have trouble arguing the science, they may never have questioned it.
“At some point, you have to accept that the Earth is not flat, nor was it created 6,000 years ago out of whole cloth, evolution is real, the Holocaust did happen, HIV and AIDS are connected, we really did put men on the Moon, the US government does not regularly engage in conspiracies to blow up its own citizens, Dubya and the Queen are not secretly reptilians from a distant planet, and the Earth’s resources and ability to absorb pollution are finite.”
With you all the way until the “and the Earth’s resources are finite”.
Sure, it’s true that here are only so many atoms of copper, or of carbon, on the planet. But that’s not “finite” in the way that an economist means it. Markets, prices, technological advance and substitution effects mean that isn’t so. Just as a minor example, we couldn’t run the internet if it were all based upon copper cables: we use glass instead, made from sand. We get what we want, the output of communication, without exhausting our reserves of copper.
Mark, you proved your point again . . . The deniers are holding on and coming out in forces. I will leave it at that. Got to spend my time on exploring solutions with the majority who are willing.
For the AGW evangelists still reading this blog, I now describe myself as an AGW denier.
I became aware of this debate about ten years ago. At that time I did not realise it was a “green” issue. Rather I thought the evidence and science proffered by bodies like the IPCC intriguing, certainly worthy of further investigation.
Over the following few years my own reading disturbed me. My academic background, what there is of it, is mathematics (I am not a scientist). The trouble was there was little empirical evidence to support the AGW hypothesis. Plenty of ink, a lot of wind (Gore) but nothing concrete. Frankly no objective person can really cite anything but the ubiquitous computer models. These could be useful if they could be verified, not by back projection but by testing actual projections against outcomes. Yet here we are ten years later and they still cannot do that. So the only argument in support of calamitous action is unverifiable.
Then it became a “green” issue. As a political conservative the issue was now in a context that required urgent attention. There is no political movement in history, but for perhaps communism, that has been so comprehensively wrong, and harmful to the well being of humans, on almost every issue it ever tried to address.
But as a conservative we are used to dismissal by left zealots. We also realise the most productive means of stopping them is by engaging in debate. I do not think any argument worth a pinch of sh*t cannot be made and understood by Joe Six-pack.
Frankly the dismissal of the opinions and ability of the average person to understand a political argument is typical of the sanctimony of the green movement. It is why they will fail. I fear the damage they will do to mankind in the meantime. It took 80 years and nearly 100 million dead bodies before communism was discredited.
The debate about global warming is not over, as someone above state, and as Al Gore also states.
When people say things like that, they themselves move the debate over the edge from empirical towards an attempt to trumpet evidence which validates your argument while simultaneously drowning out and ignoring all the contradictory evidence out there. It simply is not even near over, and there is an abundance of scientific evidence and a growing crowd of prominent scientists which dispute the popular perception of global warming as a “climate crisis” demanding immediate action.
To state that the conversation, the argument, the debate is over is to signal to the world that your ears are not open to being swayed by even the most solidly conducted research, nor to the opinions of experts in the fields of climatology and other natural sciences.
Not only is the debate about global warming not over, it is actually a waste of the world’s time and energy to even be arguing about it, since a productive discussion would revolve around moving forward sensibly, not manufacturing consensus, predicting disaster, and punishing industry in a ham-fisted attempt at saving the world.
Regardless of the legitimacy of the global warming argument (that it is anthropogenic and that we are at a crisis point requiring immediate and far-reaching efforts to forestall disaster), the fact remains that pollution is a problem. All the people of the world should agree that burning coal is not good for anyone’s future, nor is drilling for oil and remaining dependent on foreign energy sources. While carbon’s guilt is questionable, it certainly can’t hurt to shift to using technologies that have minimal impact on air quality and the environment.
We have no agreement whatsoever on the bits & pieces of the climate argument (is carbon the problem? is it warming at all?), yet we have people proposing and championing new laws and intergovernmental bodies to regulate carbon emmissions via a seemingly transnational legal apparatus with little clear precedent.
Personally the perceived connection between the climate fear-mongers and the proponents of trans-nationalism and regulation is a real concern which makes my acceptance of the global warming argument even less likely. To accept one is to open your arms to the other.
Without getting into it and personally arguing against global warming (others can argue the points better than I can), I would love to talk about getting the environmental message heard and accepted. I am a very environmentally-conscious person and I have a real interest in living in a healthy world, and passing on the beauty of nature unmolested to my children and their children.
Detach the environmental movement from all the other movements out there and broaden the debate from global warming to environmentalism in general, especially as a philosophy. The philosophy is the thing most widely shared, and it has the power to connect us all. Talk about deforestation and the quality of our water, talk about the technological challenges we face producing and recycling all our Ipods and computers and new car batteries without destroying our land in the process. Don’t bring up global warming in all those conversations, because then you are polarizing people.
Lastly, be open and willing in regards to how to move forward intelligently and take steps to use our human intellect to master our problems rather than relying on solutions involving limits and talking about doom-and-gloom.
It’s a better idea to talk about positive change and to focus people on positive things rather than relying on scaring people and proposing limits and regulations. Environmentalism shouldn’t be scaring people, it should be empowering people to make positive changes in how they live so that we can all help take care of our unique niche in the solar system.
[…] at his environmental blog, is discussing the environmental debate and has some very interesting insight: When I launched the […]
Hmmmm.
1. How are Earth’s resources “finite”? In practical terms the Earth is a closed system. Excepting the resources we shoot off into space, the resources we use are often re-used.
Additionally we as a species live our lives on an extremely narrow band, the surface. The mineral resources available within the planet itself far outstrips our race’s ability to use it over the coming generations.
2. Fossil fuels – There is absolutely no evidence that oil or coal comes from fossils. They are complex hydrocarbons created under conditions of high pressure and heat. Frankly there are many theories that posit that oil and coal are created constantly by the tectonic forces within subduction zones. Especially those involving sea floors where much of the oceanic carbon ends up.
3. Frankly the reason why Greens are getting ass-whipped by “Reds” is that Greenies often live in a fantasy world where they can feel superior without any effort. This is primarily because they do nothing but associate with other Greens, who often hold the precise same opinions.
We “Reds” on the other hand like coming on over to your blogs, giving you the old slappity-slappity and taking your proverbial lunch money. lol.
…
*shrug* I could go on but you won’t read this anyways. An open mind isn’t a normal character trait of a Green.
Wasn’t going to comment further, but this one deserved a brief note.
@memomachine
I’ve alluded to some of the very impressive arguments that Reds often put forwards. Arguments that have often lead me to moderate my views in some cases.
Yours isn’t one of them.
No comment on my suggestion to frame the issue in a more positive manner, to rely less on fear-mongering, and to disassociate with all other movements that aren’t strictly interested in environmentalism as a philosophy rather than as a vehicle to effect political change?
#54, yours is a stereotypical response of a “Green”. You go ahead and go off and try to “Fix” the situation. Come back and show me the “scientific” calculation that your efforts result in a non-zero change in the Earth’s temperature.
Hmmmmm.
“Wasn’t going to comment further, but this one deserved a brief note.”
Thank you.
“I’ve alluded to some of the very impressive arguments that Reds often put forwards. Arguments that have often lead me to moderate my views in some cases.”
Moderate? So these “very impressive” arguments affect your views, to some indeterminate extent, but don’t change them?
“Yours isn’t one of them.”
*shrug* it wasn’t intended to do so. If I have to offer “very impressive arguments” in order to “moderate” your views then the last argument of mine is proved once and for all.
“An open mind isn’t a normal character trait of a Green.”
Like it, don’t like it. Love it, don’t love it. Really doesn’t matter. Fact is that we’re very likely entering into a long-term cooling phase. Perhaps even a Dalton Minimum. If this is the case then every single Green who was screaming about GW or AGW will look like a complete and utter imbecile.
Which is probably why so many people are trying to push “Climate Change” instead of straight GW. The ass-covering has begun.
A good argument doesn’t necessarily have to be valid.
You might want to actually read TalkClimateChange.
La Marguerite, please check your email.
“The other possibility is that we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded – please tell me this isn’t so”
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I would call it a duck.
The “reds” win the debates because they base their arguments on facts, reason, and logic. The “greens” lose the debate because their arguments are based on deeply felt beliefs, emotion, and false moral equivalency. Reds need to be convinced by facts; greens need to have their prejudices confimed.
Greens believe that man is inherently bad, and that only bad comes from his acitivities. So when someone explains that DDT is ruining the environment, with absolutely no supporting evidence, the greens believe it. Hence, without a proven need, political overreaction results in severe limitiations and, in some places, bans on the use of a very effective pesiticide offering the needless deaths of millions of innocents at the altar of environmentalism.
So when someone develops a seemingly credible theory (the geenhouse gas effect) that can be applied to explain how man might be having negative impacts on the earth, it is widely accepted by the greens without critical questioning. Greens want immediately — at all cost — to combat this apparent problem. Reds await the data to prove the theory, and are more able to accept the implication of new data — e.g., debunking of the hockey stick; correcting of Hansen’s temperature trends; better ice core records showing that temperature changes lag CO2 changes, not the opposite; no climate models have been able to predict known conditions given known input — before taking drastic action that would destroy the world’s economy, a la DDT the reaction to the DDT myth. Greens ignore the new data that contradict their already made-up minds (e.g., most new reports continue to claim that the 1990’s was the warmest decade of the 20th century, despite NASA’s acceptance of McIntyre’s correction to their data).
Reds recognize the difference between hypothesis, theory, and provable facts. Greens confuse facts (round earth, the holocaust, etc.) with beliefs held so deeply (man is causing global warming) that those beliefs, falsely, come to be seen by them as facts.
Reds prefer civilized debates with facts, and use published data and numbers to support their positions. Greens almost always revert to incivility (“What the fuck for?”) and name calling (” … discussion forum is that its image is defined by … cranks”) to dismiss their opponents.
#54, you should also know if you didn;t already, that The only real public debate between the experts
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/03/intelligence-squared-climate-debate.html
was lost by the alarmists! Leading your team was the great Gavin Schmidt of NASA and Realclimate. Leading the sceptics was Richard Linzden of MIT.
Before the debate the crowd was surveyed and most belived in harmful global warming. After the debate it was clear the sKeptics won!
So after that the alarmists refuse to debate.
No wonder why this blog can’t win debates—because they are on the wrong side of Science, and most people with common sense don’t guy the AGW arguments
A recent duck caller : http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2008/04/aquabirds-aquab.html
“These statements haven’t changed my opinion that global warming is probably a true phenomena, but they do cause me to take pause in my thinking and I thought that I should share these comments with you.”
As a former member (long time ago) of Greenpeace and The Sierra Club, the main reason why I broke from those groups was their groupthink, dogmatic orthodoxy and shameless amounts of smugness, as best exemplified by this statement:
“Got to spend my time on exploring solutions with the majority who are willing.”
This is the penultimate example of the worst guest you could ever have the misfortune to encounter at a cocktail party.
Bob B; another reference for that debate is
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/03/21a-winning-tactic/
This link is interesting because of what Raypierre Humbert, the avuncular thug from Real Climate, has to say at the end, after an audience poll concludes Lindzen’s team has put forward the better arguments. Apparently such sour grapes were also evident at a recent debate beteen Friss-Christenen and Pearman, where Pearman was sarcastic to questions from the floor.
Lamarguerite’s reaction above is very typical and convinces me, again, that this debate is not about the science; it is ideological and about the virtues, or not, of lifestyle, and particularly, economic and political structure; some green commentators are at least honest about this, such as Clive Hamilton, but most aren’t.
The IPCC has adjusted their expectations for warming downward about 20% each time they release a report. My suggestion is that we should encourage them to release atleast 3 more reports and that would eliminate global warming.
I would reference the IPCC reports themselves to prove my point, But then I might be confused with those people who try to convince people using
We wouldn’t want those scientists at the IPCC to come off as “fake experts”.
Mark Seal
I have reconsidered my words at #44 and the final two paragraphs can be construed to contain an insult. That was not my intention and if it has been construed as such you have my public apology.
Another commentator elsewhere on your post here has noted that:
“An argument can be clever. An argument can be well thought out. An argument can be clever and well thought out. But when Seal writes ‘cleverly thought out’ he shows a poor grasp of logic and the thought process.
A well thought out argument is one where the thinker has considered his principles and can defend them. He has followed a disciplined process of fact-finding to build further layers of logic and reach a conclusion.
Cleverness is a function of a mind that is quick but not necessarily deep. It’s one step better than glibness. A clever argument relies on linguistics, syntax, and maneuver. But cleverness is worthless or counterproductive to developing a well thought out argument.
Seal half-admits that our arguments are better grounded and better reasoned. But like most leftists who lose an argument badly, he’d prefer to think he was outdone by trickery rather than logic.”
This is, I think, a bit ungenerous. It galls a man to actually apply Keynes comment that ‘when the facts change, I change my mind’.
It especially galls a man when he is surrounded by those suffering any form of groupthink. Leftists, greenies and one-eyed religious zealots are classic groupthinkers and you’ll be ejected from their circle if you do not slavishly agree with them (yes, I am an ex-socialist and have been where you are), so I know how big a deal this may be for you.
You have my admiration on that basis as you are displaying some intellectual honesty.
Should you care about a word from someone who has been in a position similar to yours:
Use your own intellect to make up your own mind based not on emotion but on verifiable facts YOU can check.
Take no-one’s word for anything.
Never trust a word from anyone who is making money or obtaining influence from something like the present misuse of scientific method inherent in the distorted climate debate. And go back to the scientific papers BEFORE the debate started to obtain less biased views.
Good luck.
MarkL
Canberra
It wouldn’t have worked even of you had recruited RealClimate since RC is kept ideologically pure by pre-moderation (aka censorship) of views that RC can’t answer and won’t answer. Many times, scientists have tried to challenge RC’s wilfully misleading claims and have had those challenges deleted without comment or slashed to pieces and called “trolls”.
For that reason alone, many scientists prefer to go elsewhere, to blogs like Climate Audit which does not do the pre-censorship.
The plain fact is that AGW appears to be sustained primarily by censorship and calls for more censorship, by tasteless and disgraceful comparisons to Holocaust Denial, by baseless claims of skeptics being bought by fossil-fuel money, by claims of “consensus” which cannot be verified or justified as scientifically meaningful.
The worst thing is that RealClimate is not even representative of climate science as a whole, but while it continues to have attention mainly from the already convinced, and more importantly while it is still bankrolled by the shadowy and wealthy Environmental Defense Fund, then AGW proponents will continue to be crushed in open debate when they cannot control that debate by censorship, as Gavin Schmidt found out when he took part in a debate on “Global Warming is not a crisis” and the audience opinion went against him.
The key point is that the debate is not over, nor should it ever be if the argument is truly scientific. Science knows nothing of debate being over on any subject, but political demagogues are continually calling for the debate to be over especially when that debate goes strongly against them.
Hmmm.
@ Mark @ TalkClimateChange
“A good argument doesn’t necessarily have to be valid.”
Sorry? Ummmm. No.
The essence, if not the necessity, of a good argument is that it is based entirely on actual facts and is, in fact, factual.
An argument that isn’t based on facts and isn’t true is called, by your preference, either a **lie** or **bullshit**.
Seriously. What 50 kinds of nonsense are you thinking of to consider an argument based on lies could possibly be considered to be “good”?
“You might want to actually read TalkClimateChange.”
Why? So you can offer up non-factual “good arguments”?
“I was swamped by climate skeptics who did a good job of frightening off the few brave Greens who slogged out the debate with. Whilst there was a lot of rubbish written, the truth was that they didn’t so much frighten the Greens away – they comprehensively demolished them with a more in depth understanding of the science, cleverly thought out arguments, and some very smart answers.”
The opening post was an accurate prophecy of the comment thread that followed.
— Hey MarkL, I don’t know about it’s use in Australia, but in America the word “clever” has a wide range of connotations, both positive and negative, depending upon the situation and use. It’s a synonym for “inventive” in many instances, in an entirely positive sense. An engineering problem, for instance, that might have stumped lots of people for an extended period of time might be resolved by a clever new manufacturing process (which, of course, would be entirely based on real scientific principles, perhaps applied in an entirely new way). There might be a cultural difference among some readers in the understanding of the word “clever”.
— To Mark Seal I’d say be prepared to be scorned, even for your relatively mild attempts at a thoughtful level of balance. It will not be greatly appreciated by many in the “green” community and I’m guessing you’re learning (and perhaps surprised) by that already. To lots of them, the whole thing is a game of Texas Hold ’em poker, and if you’re not “all in” then you’re nothing. By simply using the words “climate skeptics” instead of “climate denialists,” for instance, you’re at risk of putting yourself beyond the pale, even though your terminology is much more accurate.
— And to the genius who said this, “Human-made climate change is a fact.” I can only shake my head. Human-made climate change is a conclusion, not a fact, and that’s where the disagreements and the uncertainty come in. The percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is a fact (assuming it’s measured properly, which is a whole different kettle of fish). The temperature of the globe is a fact (again, assuming it’s measured properly, which is an even bigger kettle of fish subject to many uncertainties.)
The meaning and significance of those facts is subject to interpretation and dispute. The idea that those facts prove there is human caused global warming is a conclusion. It’s an interpretation of existing facts based on a number of different and complex hypotheses. It’s not a fact in itself. You might agree with that conclusion, but don’t pretend it’s something it’s not.
[…] one alarmist expresses his surprise at the debate on a green website he started. He thought he’d have to cast the net wide to […]
In 1908 the scientific consensus was that the Universe was composed of one galaxy and was totally deterministic. A few minor discrepancies in these models turned out to have huge implications. The discoveries of an expanding universe and quantum mechanics turned consensus on its head.
In the 1970s it was stated with great certainty many natural resources, including all minerals, fossil fuels, and crops would be almost entirely depleted by 2000 and would certainly not support 6 billion people. Instead, living standards have steadily risen for everyone in anything like a liberal capitalist democracy.
CO2 levels are rising, and temperatures have gone up a bit. How much of this is causative, whether it will continue, and what the consequences will be are all very debatable. It’s not even clear how whether temps are higher now than in the recent past; Arctic sea ice was vanishing in reports from 1922 and we know Vikings grew crops in Greenland.
Delicious…
From Warren Meyer an absolutely delicious admission. This is tantamount to the ‘scientist’ tries to prove Bible false; is converted baloney that gets trotted out by unsophisticated religious people. The difference, of course, is that climate, at leas…
#30, Eric, here are hundreds of peer reviewed papers which don;t support AGW:
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2008/04/peer-reviewed-articles-skeptical-of-man.html
La Marguerite,
“I’ve considered a range of theories as to the problem, none of which seem to fit – such as:
Greens are less educated? Nope.
Greens have less time? Nope.
Greens are a little reticent? Nope.
Greens are less intelligent? Definitely nope.
Greens are less passionate? Absolutely nope.]
Greens have less at stake? Clearly not.”
It is interesting that in you don’t list the most obvious reason why the the ‘Greens’ have a problem. Try this one:
Greens arguments are supported by science? Nope.
What I find most amazing is that these so called educated, intelligent Greens constantly argue for science that has an insignificant effect on climate, has been shown time and time again to be wrong, continually being corrected yet they insist that they know that they are right.
(See: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2955#comments – the latest of a string of data errors)
With such inaccurate science it is no wonder then that Greens have to solely rely on the politically correct fear driven belief systems often attributed to religion. Hence why they are not winning the debate.
If you had the facts on your side, why are you to tired to marshall them? After all, the world is at stake, yet you are “too tired” to argue. Yeah, that’s it, “you have a collective headache.”
The problem is your lack of a deeper understanding of the philosophy of logic. Seriously. “Because they said so” is not a logical construct, for one.
One other thing you might consider is that the source of your facts may be the media, a collection of govts dominated by undemocratic dictatorships(that would be the UN), and wikipedia, not the scientists themselves.
Read this if you are not “too tired”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/12/wikipedia-s-zealots-solomon.aspx
Here’s a suggestion from my view.
Greens know that the environment is the greatest challenge facing humanity, on many levels. And personally as a skeptic of AGW, I agree with this, and indeed would champion this very point. The environment is the greatest problem.
Greens care, they feel for the environment. This is a necessary antidote to the “bottom line” coldhearted and ruthless business practices that we have seen time and again, all in the name of economic growth and “progress”.
Given that cold hearted rationality didn’t care about the environment, it couldn’t feel for it, Greens naturally sway more toward feeling. We want everyone to care for the environment. But you can’t go from thinking to just feeling and expect to make things better.
The greens can be highly compassionate but if you Greens have a poorly thought out idea, then the results will be just as evil. Sorry guys and gals, that’s just how it is. Nature cannot be fooled.
What is needed desperately is a full bodied integration of thinking, feeling and intuition. That means evidence, logic, rationality, real proof, real care, genuine motivation, honest compassion, enlightened intuition and understanding of our role in Nature, and humble appreciation that our efforts to fix things are just as prone to cock-ups as are our other actions based on greed.
We need to distinguish between caring for the environment as a deep purpose in life, and specific technical issues like CO2, nuclear energy, pollution, etc. Because CO2 may not in fact turn out to be a problem. This should not surprise anyone.
Remember that humanity’s ignorance and greed is what’s been causing so much environmental damage, but I’m not about to believe that we’ve suddenly become ultra smart and are now very good at understanding the environment. You don’t go from reckless ignorance to wonderful understanding in one easy step, no matter how much you may care.
We understand precious little about complexity. We feel for the environment, but that doesn’t mean we understand it. It doesn’t mean that we can suddenly fix it by altering some gasses here and there. That is ridiculously simple minded. Nature can’t be fooled. We are just babies exploring our world, our ecosystem, Nature, life, Gaia, and making small discoveries; we certainly don’t know much about it, we certainly are in no position to control it. We have an impact, but we don’t understand our impact. Our efforts to help will, through ignorance, are just as likely to lead to worse disasters.
Until we can demonstrate rationally that we really do understand the systems, there is little we can do but humbly continue to study.
And remember you also have to understand humanity and human development, and not just the ecosystem. Because if your way to protect nature is to change the way that humanity develops, then you have to understand how to change human aspirations and motivations, you have to know psychology and even spirituality (the world’s religions are still gaining new converts in the 3rd world). And who among you can say that you know how to do that??
[First post. Sorry this is more topical then general, so a bit off topic, but it makes the point of exactly how me, now a true AGW “denier” works, mentally.]
Why are the greens losing debating points over time? Because of the Net. It allows Ph.D. chemists like me to QUICKLY check the FACTS on a given debating point. Polar Bears are dying out? BOOM, ten minutes later I have graphs of polar bear populations…INCREASING *and* graphs of their habitats COOLING at the surface, linearly, for a CENTURY (!). Formerly, I’d have to chug away up the street to the library of Columbia University where I got my Ph.D. and still live blocks from, and trudge through huge volumes of reference books and possibly take a subway up to the Medical School, then spend a dime a page to copy articles. Few people even have access to such libraries. Now? I can find free abstracts and usually entire PDFs of papers within SECONDS!
Today was an example. My romantic life just died, so I slept late and read one of my multiple competent albeit biased science magazines. Boom, there they were again. Unsupported “global warming” bombs. So, actually out of curiosity, since I make a pretty reluctant skeptic, I like to check the facts of every claim of doom I hear of.
I am in favor of regulating output of particulates into the air, for instance. I find sadly amusing that the Obesity Epidemic began exactly in the 70s with the government’s PREMATURE and sadly false theory that fat intake caused obesity which resulted in the old and now new “avoid fat and eat refined starch” Food Pyramid. Via the Atkin’s Diet, with slight variation, people I have influence on have started getting rid of their middle age guts (we’re just passing 40): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/02/21/MNJMV5STE.DTL&o=0
This *sort* of thing, the very IDEA that scientists of softer sciences were often not at all as vigorous as those of us in the hard sciences (chemistry, physics, nano-fabrication) came to me as a shock. I took global warming and nutrition (medical) science for granted.
But now, to call me, an admitted AGW skeptic a “DENIER” requires one thing that is almost NEVER provided me: SOMETHING, NAMELY A GRAPH THAT SHOWS CAUSE AND EFFECT…to DENY. How can I deny anything when I am never given anything TO deny except bad statistics and reports that take five minutes of background checking to debunk?
One thing I do not deny is that the South Pole has been COOLING, linearly, for a century: http://www.john-daly.com/stations/amundsen.gif
So how can there be “global warming”? There CANNOT.
Then the heat island effect on surface temperatures took me weeks to come to terms with, meaning that I couldn’t believe science had become so corrupt. The clincher for me is that the temperature station five blocks from me, in Central Park was showing an upward trend (along with the CO2 fertilized trees in the Park growing much faster than the same species in New Jersey due to the literal HIGHWAY of taxicabs that run through it), whereas the RURAL station a mere few miles up the Hudson river from me, which I have SEEN WITH MY OWN EYES as being RURAL, is going DOWN:
* * *
Today’s find, which has become something of a refined hobby now is proving ‘New Scientist’ magazine of 12 April 2008 to be guilty of LYING about AGW:
A casual, unreferenced bomb-drop in the middle of a full page review of a helicopter-over-the-arctic picture book (p45):
“As a result of climate change, their [caribou] numbers have declined by 3.5% per year since 1989.”
WHOAH. I *want* to believe, I really do. I don’t want to be a “denier” since then I have to censor myself during dates or girls look at me like I’m the devil. So I had to look this up. It took longer to write a summary of than it did to debunk the LIE:
Wikipedia and links from it give actual facts that show this claim to be, to put it politely, unsupported:
Far from being endangered, they tend to experience classic population swings in which they OVERPOPULATE and thus starve. They are the same species as the reindeer of Siberia and adjacent countries which: “in absence of other great predators [wolves, bears, lynx, wolverines, and for newborns even golden eagles] in significant populations, hunting is today a necessary means to control stocks to prevent overgrazing and eventually mass death from starvation.”
They are also herded and have been semi-domesticated to provide milk or pull sleighs (the Santa Clause myth has another twist, namely that psychedelic red/white mushrooms grow on reindeer droppings, ha ha), but are not “farm animals”, though reindeers are a more domesticated breed than caribou. Caribou meat is more healthy than farmed beef, and is quite tasty.
They can easily swim across rivers (besides being able to run 50MPH = 80KPH!), meaning they do not rely on frozen ice to migrate.
There are three main herds of caribou: (1) Northwest Alaska, (2) Northern Quebec, and (3) Siberia. EACH has a population of over 500,000. Due to lack of funding and natural fluctuations in populations, it is not known which is largest.
Given that this is a purposefully hunted species which suffers from devastating population explosions, I doubt the claim that “climate change” variable could be teased out from any data set, ESPECIALLY given that the land temperature of (1) Northwest Alaska, (2) Northern Quebec, and (3) Siberia has been slightly FALLING for a century!!!:
(1) http://www.john-daly.com/stations/barrow.gif
(2) http://www.john-daly.com/stations/goose.gif (Newfoundland *is* Northern Quebec)
(3) http://www.john-daly.com/stations/salehard.gif (back to 1883!)
Why am I a “denier” of AGW. Because a serious, no-nonsense magazine like ‘New Scientist’ has for year been sprinkling articles with unsupported statements like: “As a result of climate change, their [caribou] numbers have declined by 3.5% per year since 1989.”
Why am I really a denier? Because, having gone into science as a nerd wanting to AVOID opinion-based political activism and the weirdness of post-modern (nonsensical prose) liberal arts, suddenly, in my adult life, I am exposed to a real world gone utterly mad, and given my background in hard science, feel it is my simple humane responsibility to use the comments section of blogs and news sites to debunk lies. Having finally read a pile of books on psychology, I also have realized that frightenly anti-human and power-grubbing ULTERIOR MOTIVES drive much of junk science.
A final point is very much in order. Psychologically, UNLIKE “greens”, I do not consider myself to be a member of any movement, period. Such an idea doesn’t even cross my mind. I’m just a guy on the Internet, who due to lazy self-employment, have some time to waste. I must admit though, it’s fun to get groupie types’ panties in a bind. That sense of being kind of a jerk, I do not deny. There, I said it: it’s something of a guilty-pleasure to take the hot air out of the followers of junk science WHO GET MEDIA ATTENTION. It’s no fun debunking UFOs or flat earth wackos. I even have some respect for UFO enthusiasts since they’ve often experienced hallucinations, and do no harm. But GREENS utterly *do* cause harm, and not only already have much blood on their hands, but currently want to swim in it. Environmentalism has become genocidal. That’s a force worth fighting.
answer = The other possibility is that we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded – please tell me this is so. LOL please don’t take too seriously but last 5 year temp data is starting to show this. Also I used to be believer in AGW (me scientist PhD), but after seeing the temp and ice data (SH) am no more (but only human induced C02 as cause BTW). Definitely other human activities land use ect could affect, and Ii think you will find most skeptics would not have an issue with this. Also very annoying to first promote biofules, then change mind because not studied properly just assumed it was “good” only to find out now that it is “bad” and now food production in mayham because of this assumption. Some sobering data from a firm belever in AGW lucia
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/what-weather-would-falsify-the-current-consensus-on-climate-change/
Greens tend to be moral absolutists with a highly misanthropic outlook. As a result they will automatically accept just about any envirodoom “theory”. as long the theory is pretty grim and lurid. Most skeptics are people who have actually had a look at the evidence and arguments for AGW – naturally they are better informed.
As absolutists, Greens often cannot/will not see any fine logical distinction. The upper range of a 100yr prediction by an unproven computer model is not the same as “fact” or “evidence”. Believe it or not, many Greens think it is.
Most skeptics, (including me), think CO2 must have caused part of the recent warming. The question is how much, and what is a reasonable forecast for the future. To the moral absolutist that makes you a “crank” or a “denialist”. Not too surprising that people like that tend to come second in most debates.
(Yes, Yes I am generalising shamelessly, but you have to generalise)
To: Mark @ TalkClimateChange
I am glad you created that forum.You try to keep it civil and reasonable.Your comments here shows that some of your “green” views have moderated.You are willing to consider reasonable comments from people who are not convinced that CO2 is that big a warm forcer.I think it is a small warm forcer.
I am an early member of your forum who is dormant at this time.I think I had chosen the BLUE position.This despite that I have some Green in me too.But I do not think the common Greenie postions on energy sources are reasonable and even sometimes nonsense.Why ban Nuclear Power.That produces no CO2 emissions? Why look the other way and let coal ash just pile up in the outdoors?They are radioactive too.
What is never discussed are housing designs that are available NOW to almost eliminate power needs for heating and cooling.I have been in such houses over the years.But Greenie seem more interested in cutting CO2 emissions of the future.Than to live in truly “green” designed houses that are often cheaper than conventional home designs.To widely publicise them.
Why is passive solar heating and home berming not being utilized nationally?
I have been on many forums making postings on the general discussion about the climate.I even now help run a “skeptic” forum on some of the same issues that are found at your forum.
However when I go to any forum or blogs that have a large AGW following.I get a lot namecalling.Such as warming denier and crank.Frankly I hate it and what is more most of the namecalling is going one way.From the AGW believers.
Because of that behavior.I rarely post in them.There are so few AGW believers who try to be civil and also try replying with “skeptics” for a while.I think that is because they have become political and think the time to discuss is over and get on with the solutions.
In a forum I will not name.I posted,The Aquittal of Carbon Dioxide.The replies were just a bunch of namecalling and slurs against the author of the paper.I tried to get them to post an actual comment on what they think of the article.Just more name calling.
I think it was late in page 2 that finally someone actually made an actual comment on the contents of the article.By then I lost interest and cared less.That was early last year.
Then I posted an article last fall that was written by the Viscount Monkton at that same forum.Again the namecalling and slurs came along with Exxon funding slurs.This from AGW believers.Late in page 1 and again in page two of the thread.Only ONE person made comments on the article.He never addressed the central point that the Viscount was making.
This time they picked on me too.LOL
I made a thread of it at my forum to expose the nasty and plain illogical replies of AGW believers.
Now I avoid most bastions of AGW groupies/forums.Because of their debate killing postings.With their typical namecalling and exxon funding slurs nonsense.Even attacking me for posting what they call garbage.Actually what I post are good because they should have caused educational discussions.
Science research is always an ongoing process.Debate should be too.
The question is why the AWG believers keep believing when all the science goes against them. (The geological evidence that global temperature, including 20th century warming, has been driven by solar magnetic activity, is overwhelming, while CO2 has left no measurable anywhere in the geological record.)
The answer, I think, is that AWG believers are convinced that their policy answer to AWG (reducing human burning of fossil fuels) is right in any case. That is, you all don’t actually care whether AWG is true. You only care about your preferred policy prescription, which is why you cling to a manifestly false theory for which there is ZERO evidence.
(IPCC models do not constitute evidence. They are products of the ASSUMPTION that global temperature is driven by CO2. The alternative hypothesis, that temperature is driven by solar magnetic activity, is COMPLETELY OMITTED. The models do not distinguish between these hypotheses. They simply leave the competing theory out.)
Not surprisingly, this disinterest in truth by AWG believers also leads to wrong ideas about policy. It is absolutely clear that we should be burning MORE fossil fuels, and trying to add MORE greenhouse gases because:
a. Even quite a bit more warming would be overwhelmingly beneficial, while cooling is very very dangerous.
b. In our current warm environment, where the atmosphere is full of water vapor, additional GHG’s have miniscule warming effect. The heat that they would trap is already being trapped by water vapor. Thus even if warming was dangerous, additional GHG’s are not going to cause it.
c. In contrast to the impotent warming effect of increased GHGs, they can actually be quite important for limiting cooling. As the earth cools, the atmosphere holds less water vapor, leaving more and more untrapped heat for additional GHG’s to capture. A thinker blanket of GHGs can raise the floor on global cooling, which is extremely important, given that the next ice age is due to start any century now.
There’s also the effect that if skeptics are wrong, they really might delay actions that prevent a runaway tipping point, and thus become morally responsible for a hot hell on Earth. But what if alarmists are wrong? They can excuse themselves, falsely claiming that “science” itself was to blame. The weight of the world is on your shoulders, not yours. Fact checking thus becomes us.
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> Cranks are generally more talkative. They’re quite happy to keep pushing ideas demolished years ago by others, and just because someone knocks their ideas down in April 2003 it won’t stop them bringing them up again in April 2008.
Trust me, this goes both ways, sir…. Both ways.
If you think you can hold your own with the skeptics, then by all means — put your mouth where your claims are, and go over there and duke it out.
I’m not a regular there, but if I see a valid debate from the pro-GW crowd starting, it’ll be the first one.
In my own experience, the responses are limited to handwaves like your own, and I’ve been listening to them since before 2000… If there were rational arguments posted, it was mostly before that time.
.
> There’s also the effect that if skeptics are wrong, they really might delay actions that prevent a runaway tipping point
There’s ample evidence that we’re on the verge of another ice age — not even vaguely conclusive, but distinct signs of it from what we know and DO understand. There is a clear connection between sunspots and major climate shifts — we are currently at one of the extremes of recorded measurements of sunspots, which in fact suggests a long-term cold period.
Your “tipping point” may well be going the other way, then — suppose, instead of GW, we are actually holding off an Ice Age? Then where will your exceedingly expensive measures go?
The following is from a work of SF, but I’ll lay you odds the facts stated are fully accurate — Niven and Pournelle are both known for getting their facts straight (EMPHASIS mine):
…Now, it is important to realize that the sun has always burned hotter or cooler during different eras of our planet’s history. Greenhouse or Icehouse…The Dinosaurs lived during a greenhouse era…and the Great
Mammals, too. In fact, prior to the Pleistocene the world was quite warm. Hippopotomi wallowed in the Thames… then, in the blink of a geological eye, they were replaced by polar bears… Human history is so short that,
living between the hippopotomi and the polar bears, we [think of these] conditions as ‘normal’. After the sun went out, the interglacial ended and the world grew colder and drier. The Sahara rivers dried up, one by one,
until only the Nile was left. By 1500 B.C., the Scandinavian tree line had dropped to 6000 ft., and broad-leafed trees had disappeared from the Arctic.
The weather changed. The North African coast was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. It began to dry up. Great migrations began, Huns, Arabs, Navajos, Mongols. There were Viking colonies on Greenland, but the Greenland glacier began to move south, until it covered them all.
Archeological evidence indicates that in the last Ice Age, Britain went from a climate a bit warmer than it enjoys now to being under sheet glaciers IN CONSIDERABLY LESS THAN A CENTURY.
– Niven/Pournelle/Flynn, ‘Fallen Angels’ –
In other words, if we are holding off an Ice Age, your grandkids, and certainly your great-grandkids, may curse your name for being too quick to counteract a short-term variance that allows such an Ice Age to begin.
Global Warming may or may not be a serious catastrophe (despite claims to the contrary, most claims view the downside in a vacuum, paying no attention to the upside it often presents — a warmer climate is a wetter climate, not a drier one, so areas currently desert may well bloom again).
Glaciers marching south? You can damned well BET that would be a global catastrophe.
Before we tinker with things directly, we damned well better understand the mechanisms we’re fiddling with — or we’re in the position of a too-cool caveman sticking a finger into the fan to make it stop cooling us, in danger of losing a finger… or worse.
> Again the namecalling and slurs came along with Exxon funding slurs.
This is one of the more common loads of crap I’ve encountered in pro-GW forums…
1) As though the people on the pro-GW weren’t competing for funding? Are perfect angels with nothing to gain from supporting a position? Al Gore’s political career was in the friggin’ toilet. He was a joke who no one took seriously, in 2001. He hops onto the GW bandwagon, starts to really push it, hard, and all of a sudden, he’s a media darling once again — “Al Gore, 2.0” and “Would you consider running for PotUS again, Mr. Gore?” and “Here, have a prize or two”. No, Mr. Gore has gained nothing from being a shill for the pro-GW crowd. He would certainly tell us immediately if he had any evidence that GW was a load of utter crap. Yes, indeed. Say, pass me that spliff, will you? That must be some really good shit.
2) Rarely does anyone dissect the research, concepts, ideas, or arguments presented (in internet terms “Fisk” them) — no, it’s almost always ad hominem attacks against the producer of the data and research… because clearly anyone who has ever gotten any of their bills paid by a corporation can never be honest, forthright, or dedicated to Truth. That behavior is only to be found in the pro-GW people. EVER.
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Quoted from post #90:
“There’s also the effect that if skeptics are wrong, they really might delay actions that prevent a runaway tipping point, and thus become morally responsible for a hot hell on Earth.”
This idea of “tipping point” is a pernicious nonsense that needs to be dispelled.There never has been a run away warming in earths history.Even despite CO2 levels above 5000 ppm in the past.
We are at this time right at the bottom CO2 in the atmosphere level.ALL of the past ice ages occurred with initial higher CO2 levels than now.
The very last ice age had levels of CO2 around 180-200 ppm.During the coldest times of the cold period.Then it warmed up over 10 degrees to reach the Holocene optimism.The CO2 levels rose only a tiny amount.
The rise of CO2 we have seen in the last 120 years fails to produce a fraction of the holocene warm up.Despite being over 100 ppm increase in just over a 120 years.While the Holocence had a similar increase of CO2 in a much longer time frame of several THOUSAND years.
Surely by now you guys must wonder why no such large warming has happened?
Since it was according to the AGW believers.That CO2 levels was around 280 ppm in the late 1800’s.Right near the botton of the chart of historical CO2 levels in the atmosphere.It begs the question,
Why are we not in a deep freeze?
[…] that, in some cases, it is not the number of skeptics that quieten the voices of alarm, it is the quality of their argument, from which the ‘greens’ […]
[…] time a climate skeptic gives you a hard time, show him – or her – the facts . . […]
All I have to say is take a look at sunspots and solar cycles and how those cycles corrolate with climate changes. It’s worth a look.
A poll, Why are the Greens failing in debates, is here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-are-green-advocates-failing-in.html
A lot of skepics are like me. I started out believing it on the simple grounds that it was accepted scientific theory. Then I figured I would have some fun arguing with “deniers”; the same kind of fun I often had arguing with creationists. Well, it soon became clear that I coud marshall no counter arguments to many of the points that “deniers” made, and that, like Mr Seal, I came to see that the deniers had the better argument. This requires “questioning authority” which is nothing but a sixties term for using critical thinking, but after a while, it became apparent that the whole climate disaster thing is somewhere between a collective hunch and a cynical propaganda ploy to raise taxes and gain control over other people’s lifesyles.
Hello there, good post.
Im a complete, full-fledged denialist. I think I can answer why greenies are not as fierce debaters as you wish they were, and its not any of the reasons you listed in your post.
Being a denier is very difficult indeed – the MSM and government propaganda have all jumped on the AGW bandwagon, and like you stated yourself at the beginning of your post, you figured it would be hard to find deniers. So, deniers cant rely on the old consensus, or simply charge that our opponents are in the pay of oil companies and have the intellectual capacity of flat-earthers or creationists. We have to come up with actual arguments if we are to stand a chance.
Conversely, AGWers dont need to because they get all their preconceived notions confirmed by the establishment on a daily basis.
I would also add that deniers are by nature skeptical of claims of impending doom, in particular when such claims are accompanied by requests for research grants, and added bureaucratic controls. We’re a resourceful bunch, and we decide to examine the claims, and found them lacking. So we have actual good arguments on our side, and we are correct in our conclusions – that always helps.
Anyways, glad to see “global warming” has been delayed 10 years…
Just curious, but how many people here have changed their views on a major topic in the last ten years or so?
I’ve gone from being mildly anti-American to fairly pro-American, I’ve gone to being fairly anti-nuke to fairly pro-nuke.
I never did believe in AGW since one of the first things I learned about it was the IPCC report had been changed ‘to more accurately reflect the summary’.
That seemed wrong then and it seems wrong now as a way of doing science.
It doesn’t matter who you are, if you claim to be intelligent you have to be ready to change your opinions based on new evidence.
With due respect to those who are either tired of debating naysayers or dismissive of even listening to their arguments, you wouldn’t have made very good scientists yourselves.
Properly conducted science is all about critique, rigorous investigation and questioning of theories put forward. Like it or not, there is real science out there that has survived that process that takes exception to the supposed “consensus” view in support of the theory of AGW.
Cranky arguments should be quickly dismissed. Peer reviewed science should never be without a good long think. Galileo, whom the powers of his day threatened for taking exception to the “consensus” view that the earth was flat, would agree with me.
Bob C, Galileo was perscuted for saying that Copernicus was right: that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around. Other than that, you are correct about the proper conduct of science.
In science it is extremely rare for a debate to be “settled”. In those very few cases the results are a scientific Law. In those cases, there is never any contradictory evidence. Anthropogenic Global Warming has one heck of a long way to go before reaching that un-debate-able stage. Heck, even the Theory of Relativity hasn’t reached that stage yet, or it would be the Law of Relativity.
The succinct explanation is that the Greens have their hearts in it, whereas the skeptics have their minds in it.
Mark, your post asks a key question:
“The only feasible explanation that I can come up with so far is that perhaps Greens are less invested in the status quo, and therefore less motivated to protect it? The other possibility is that we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded – please tell me this isn’t so.”
Motivation is not the question. It has been manifestly obvious for decades that the Green movement has attracted and sustained a devotion mystical in nature (James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis for example) and attracting support based on strong belief. Thus the first supposition is not correct. The failure of the Greens is not lack of motivation.
The failure of the Greens is an excess of motivation because of the second part; you are not completely wrong, just mostly wrong, and particularly so on those things the Green movement holds most strongly, notably its anti-nuclearism.
The most glaring indications that something may be fundamentally wrong with a set of theological beliefs is when they create overt contradictions among themselves. It is one thing to claim that AGW constitutes a significant threat. It is another thing to claim that nuclear cannot be part of the solution. This contradiction in practice gets reconciled by outright fabrications to cover the gap.
When the leading scientists and thinkers in the Green movement, Hugh Montefiore, James Lovelock, Stewart Brand and Patrick Moore, all agree that “you cannot be serious about climate change if you’re not serious about nuclear power”, the Green movement has a serious internal problem. Until you have some internal consistency in your theology, ie. stop contradicting yourselves with other things you believe to be true, much of what the Greens have to say will be nonsensical simply by inspection.
From the study of AGW that I have done it appears to be bogus and based mostly on emotion and hysteria.
That, however, does not mean I want all the birds to die.
One can be concerned about the environment and pollution and be a AGW skeptic.
If one is truly concerned about the environment and not just using AGW as a stick to beat one’s political adversaries with, doesn’t it make sense to be skeptical to be sure one gets it right?
If we are serious about protecting the environment, then let’s get serious about it and quit playing political games.
Part of that seriousness is being open to the idea that one might be wrong, or partly wrong.
Or have we arrived at the absolute truth regarding AGW?
Being that the IPCC is constantly rejigging it’s predictions and that errors keep being found in the models and the data, then it seems we have not arrived at an absolute truth on AGW.
Bjorn Lomberg’s Cool It shows that the solutions put forward for AGW are absolutely idiotic in any cost/benefit analysis.
Wow. If one were to take the hyperbole and common sense being spewed forth on this page, and put them on a scale, it’s clear that hyperbole and hysteria would heavily outweight the common sense.
I am a GW sceptic, but that does not belive that we should do nothing. We need to better stewards of our environment, and everyone doing their part can and will make a difference. We need to reduce the stress on our landfills. We need to reduce the stress on our electrical power grids. We need to burn less fuel and find more efficient ways to get around.
However, lest ye think I am speaking of greenhouse gas emmissions, allow me to clarify: I care about pollution. A gas that we all exhale and plants consume is NOT a pollutant. Toxic waste is a pollutant. So is particulate sulfur that gets belched into the air. PCBs and other carcinogenic materials being poured into our air, land and water are FAR more detrimental to the long term health of ecosystems and humans, than is CO2. Birth defects and high infant mortality is not caused by CO2. Deformed fish and acid rain are not caused by CO2.
There is no doubt that humans can and do have a immense amount of influence over the condition of their immediate environments. One need look no further than the former Eastern Bloc countries to see what heavy industry has done to the land in many areas, and how it has impacted the land, the water, the air and the humans and animals who live there. However, even taking a disaster like Chernobyl into consideration, on a global scale, these instances are local in nature; their impact on the nature and rate of global climate change is simply not that great.
The fact is that our climate is changing; it has been doing so since the dawn of time and will continue to do so with our without our contributions. The assertion that man is 90% responsible for this change smacks of hubris in the extreme.
Stan says it well. The IPCC has not been able to stand by its numbers. The data and the predicitons keep changing. The scientific community is not of one mind on the subject of human induced global warming, and so long as there are alternate theories being put forth and the subject is further researched, then I cannot in good consicience accept that the debate is dead. Such an assertion is doing a deep disservice to the spirit of science.
Here is one of the primary reasons that the warmers are loosing the debate – no warming for the last ten years. And this is happening while CO2 is rising rapidly.
http://tinyurl.com/4de3v7
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I am a convinced AGW skeptic.
Meaning I do not accept the absurd manipulative doomsday scaremongering claptrap.That a small yearly increase of CO2 emissions will cause a never before happened catastrophic warming trend.
It is not happening.It never happened in the past and it certaintly will not happen in a 100 years into the future.
So what?
I am still waiting for the greens to drop this gia crap and get back to earth and help educate the people that there are far better housing designs.Such as using the sun for passive heating and yes even cooling.Bermed houses.Where the natural insulating power of 5 feet of soil almost does away temperature swings internally.
Just that alone would help the people see what they are missing in terms of self sufficiency.The amazing reduction in reducing energy cost of heating and cooling.The increased value of their house because of its low cost of maintenance.
The greatly reduced need to build more new power plants because of the power consumption drops drastically because of true green style housing designs.
The ones that creates most of its OWN heating and cooling needs.
Then we have street lighting waste.The sheer insanity of turning night into day.The massive light pollution that seems to bother only a few people.I consider very worriesome.
The lighted business signs on all night long while they are closed all night long.Why are they still keeping them on when there is no one around.Are they advertizing their businesses to june bugs,ants and mosquitos?
The obvious loss of connectivity to the ecosystem.Why else is it being tolerated?
The human race in the developed countries are very wasteful with their power consumption.The sheer waste of their money amazes me to no end.
I have been visiting Marks green forum and still fail find where they leave behind the usual useless regulation and taxing mentality.I have come to see what a typical green is.
When are you greenies ever going to get to the root of the problem and stop trying to fight the CO2 bogeyman?
CO2 emissions are not the problem.
Energy misuse and waste are.
Thank you for this wonderfull post!
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