shapenaji wrote:topazg wrote:This is the kind of statistic that always grates somewhat.
I mean I agree that quantity of opinion does not necessarily reflect quality of opinion, but there's a certain rebellious streak in the deniers which seems to equate paucity of opinion with brilliance.
Also, who are these people denying climate change? And how do they manage to maintain a faculty position with a publishing rate of only slightly over 1 paper a year?
There is way more consensus on global warming than man-made global warming. The former is quite easier to measure, and harder to dispute. You just take many temperatures and you can only go wrong on the compilation of them or calculation. Its basis is observation.
But Climate change or global warming itself is not a reason to do anything. Before the 70´s there was global cooling, and it wasnt such a major deal.(The video I posted contains a short footage by a metheorologist or the sort, that says that increasing C02 emissions might reverse the cooling process. That is, as a solution.)
The debate heats up because it points to C02 and some of the biggest companies in the world (car, oil industries). Blaming C02 is a model, not a verifiable truth. You cant really make a mirror-earth with non-polluting fuels and see that it doesnt have global warming.
And you cant also easily falsify it, without interpretation of data. In the awful truth, Al Gore makes a chart that roughly matches C02 levels in the atmosphere with registered temperatures showing correlation. In the Global Warming swindle, they say those charts exist as Gore showed them, but that they are separated by a large span of time (like 100 years or more, cant recall).
I guess that is the kind of statement a lay man could check out, as those charts should be accesible. But the Nobel prize has been already awarded, and the Global Warming Swindle was shunned, regardless of that fact.
So the cause is surely debatible.
Then you have the consequences , which are incredibly difficult to measure or predict. Even if the top meteorologist or climate scientist in the world told me to my face that 1 degree would cause x and y and z, I wouldnt put my hand in the fire for the statement. Weather is the origin of the Chaos Theory. It is too unpredictable.
I can believe that things will change. Thats easy to believe. And for the better ? hardly, because even if there are more fields and more spaces to farm, as a society we are quite adverse to change and that is costly.
In the Global Warming Swindle they do mention that centuries ago , England use to have vineyards that are impossible to today´s weather.
A case for it being better can be made, because it is just as fickle and speculative as a case to make it worse.
As it stands to me i see:
There is a climate change.
There is a predominant agendable model to explain that change.
The consequences of the climate change are unknown.
The debate has created a moral rule or ethical conduct, that the middle class as I see it looks badly upon people not "caring for the environment".
Another thing i dont like about this whole climate ordeal is that suddenly, a huge monetary and political decision is driven(alledgedly) by the scientific community.
As a society we make almsot no choices listening to our scientists, and why is this one all the sudden so important?
I resent the process of decision as well. If we are going to do what the scientific community suggests, we would have to change everything. From eliminating sugar-sodas that have proven to cause obsesity, to restrict cattle to grow more grain, to a million different things.
Hey, im all up to devise a society that makes decisions closer to science than to democracy, making decisions on what we know rather what we guess collectively. But we are not on that system or decided to make it that way for this subject as a community. So i dont like to be told "we have to do this this way, the scientist told us so, and the scientist speak truth"
More power to you! 
