Save the environment! ... From what?

[guy07]

To sum it up, temperatures are rising globally

False. Temps have pretty much stable over the last decade.

damn this thread is ten years late.

[Corran]

The second half of the 60 minute documentary "The End of Oil" puts things better than I can:
http://tinyurl.com/yjabrqu (Url links to last 30min of show on Youtube. I highly recommend watching this.)

I believe that global warming is a natural cycle, but that humans are accelerating the cycle at an abnormal rate. Scientists posit that increased carbon in the atmosphere causes a green house effect which rises the global temperatures on Earth. This has the effect of melting the ice caps and glaciers, greater humidity, an increase in severe weather, and reduced oxygen content in the oceans. In the past, the global warming appeared to have been caused by substantial volcanic activity spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. Now, scientists say, humans are releasing long buried carbon back into the atmosphere and are accelerating the return to such conditions. According to the video I linked to, carbon dioxide levels just before the last cycle were four times greater than they were before the industrial revolution. The video suggests that we could reach levels twice that of the pre-industrial levels halfway through this century. The NOAA states that pre-industrial CO2 levels were about 280ppm while today they are 380ppm and increasing at about 1.9ppm per year.

I'm not certain that scientists are correct with their time frames. I do feel that we need to do something about this though.

Whether or not a carbon tax is the right answer is beyond me. On one hand, this would create an additional burden on doing business (at least until other forms of energy can implemented effectively and cheaply which may not be any time soon). On the other, if we don't do something to encourage alternative energy, what then? Do we let governments try to move us away from fossil fuels using regulations that can be altered down the road, or do we wait for the rapidly increasing global consumption of oil to overtake the production of a non-renewable, natural resource (that appears to be reaching its peak production) to force our hand? What if it is too late by then? Not just in terms of global warming, but in terms of an oil-based economy's feasibility and our ability to create and adapt to other energy sources fast enough?

Re: Trying to discredit Al Gore because he stands to benefit from global warming.
In a recent interview, Al Gore mentioned that all of the proceeds from his new book and his investments in new technologies that stand to benefit from global warming-related legislation go into a foundation that promotes global warming awareness and action. The specific point in the video can be found here. He also donated 100% of the money he received from his Nobel Peace prize to the same organization if I recall correctly.

[Knowname]

Our greatest enemy is ouselves, BUT the only one who can save us is ALSO ourselves. Whether we are being prohibitive to progress is the only question. And IMO we are not. In other words there is bad, but there are also necessities that... necessitate... it xD. Who cares if Narwhals go extinct if it means we put an outpost on the moon! In the big picture times are changing, it's useless to resist.

[Kionon]

He also donated 100% of the money he received from his Nobel Peace prize to the same organization if I recall correctly.

He did. I can provide a citation from Newsweek if necessary. He hasn't earned much at all from this, if anything. He is already famous, wealthy, and well-respected. All Gore is a philanthropist diligently using his resources to attack a problem he believe exists. Whether you are a fan (full disclosure, I am a fan) or not, and whether you believe him or not (I do), you should respect his commitment and conviction to his beliefs.

Knowname, whether you were serious or not, that does bring up a great philosophical question: do we have the right to assist in the extinction of a species, such as narwhals, for humanity's benefit? I'm not framing this as if I have one belief or the other, rather I am interested in how seriously you take the view you put forward.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Part of me wants to link to the teach the controversy heliocentric solar system shirt for how much *facepalm* i ascribe to these discussions.

There's a pretty staggering amount of misinformation that gets thrown around regarding anthropogenic climate change - mostly in that there is actual "debate" by creditable scientists around it. There isn't. Blame cable news stations that love to seem fair and balanced and independently minded by showing both sides of a story, even when there really is only one side and a bunch of people with vested interests and unrelated animosity sitting across from them. I exaggerate a little here, but it's like having a pro and con discussion on how good different types of foil hats are at stopping the satellites from reading your mind with a sane and an insane person as the two guests. There isn't much need to have a debate format, but we continue to persist with them because they get people going.

[godix]

Since you mention heliocentric theory....

Copernicus proposed the sun was the center of the universe. He was right. Was he right enough that we could send a craft to Jupiter using nothing more than what he published though? Hell no. Even though he was right, he wasn't specific enough to actually spend money on practical applications of his ideas.

Two hundred years later, Newton came up with quite a few laws. Was he right? Well, kinda sorta. He was right enough that newtonian physics can (and has) gotten spacecraft throughout the solar system. Relying on just his physics can cause problems in some areas though, Newton's laws do not correctly predict Mercury's movements for example.

Three hundred years after that, Einstein came along. With his theories we finally had science that would accurately predict the movements of pretty much anything in the solar system. We can send stuff to other planets with the confidence that they won't fail because the physics was wrong. They might have an accident, or been poorly designed, or have some idiot who doesn't know the difference between metric and imperial measurements, but they won't fail because the physics was wrong.

I feel that climatology is only slightly past the Copernicus stage. Climatologist say that man is changing the climate. Are they right? Probably, evidence certainly suggests it's possible, but there's enough unknowns that I don't discount they may be proven wrong either. Is the science specific enough that we can put the science to the practical application of stabilizing the climate? Hell no. Before we spend trillions on what climatologists claim, climatologist have to at least get up to the Newton level of accuracy.

Before anyone tries claiming they're already there, let me point out that over the last eight years or so global temps have been fairly stable. That's a long enough time period we're talking climatology rather than meteorology. I've heard several explanations of why this happened and how it doesn't disprove global warming, mostly based on the oceans acting as bigger heat traps than anyone thought. Fine, it's entirely possible that is true and global warming will kick our asses in a few years. My point is though, no one predicted this. If you look at the IPCC reports from the 90's, even their best case said temps would raise over the last decade when reality is they haven't. Incidently, their best case was based on if we pretty much stopped pumping any CO2 in the atmosphere immediately. In reality, we've been pumping out CO2 on level of the IPCC's worst case scenario, so their predictions are even more off than it first sounds like. Obviously climatologist had a huge lack of understanding about some rather important things when they made those predictions. That doesn't mean AGW is wrong, but it does mean if I bet money on what they predicted then I would have lost. There are other examples, astronomers are launching satellites to study the sun because they don't understand enough specifics of it, yet at the same time global warming proponents are saying there is no possible way the sun caused recent warming. Isn't it odd how climatologist claim they understand the sun so much better than astronomers do? Some predicted that the antarctic ice would melt and raise sea levels, yet measurements show that in 90% of the antarctic the ice is actually getting thicker (which, by the way, may be attributed to global warming).

Now keep in mind I'm not saying this is 'proof' global warming is wrong. What I'm describing here is how science should work. Make a theory, test it with real observations and facts, refine the theory based on those tests. There's nothing wrong with this. It's not like I agree with deniers when they go 'Ah ha! We found one mistake therefore the entire field of science must be wrong!' I just believe we should let the test/refine theory process go on for awhile until climatology hits a point it can make accurate predictions. Acting on what climatologists have now would be just as stupid as plotting a course to Jupiter with nothing more than Copernicus saying maybe the earth isn't the center of the universe as a guide.

[guy07]

Actually, to have a valid scientific THEORY on anything, don't you have to be able to make a prediction about what will happen and be fairly accurate in your prediction before it is even considered a real/possible theory?
So what we're being feed as "facts" aren't even a valid THEORY. Wut?
I suggest we all become scientists and set things right. Well, everyone but me. I don't even trust myself to drive alone, let alone solve the worlds problems.

[Kionon]

Actually, to have a valid scientific THEORY on anything, don't you have to be able to make a prediction about what will happen and be fairly accurate in your prediction before it is even considered a real/possible theory?
So what we're being feed as "facts" aren't even a valid THEORY. Wut?
I suggest we all become scientists and set things right. Well, everyone but me. I don't even trust myself to drive alone, let alone solve the worlds problems.

I'm a philosopher, not a scientist. I specifically like asking questions we normally tell children not to ask. I am currently enamored with the question of what would happen if 1 and 2 decided they didn't want to play together anymore and stopped being 3. Is that possible? Would the world collapse? I don't know, but the idea of 1 and 2 just saying, "fuck you guys, we're going on holiday, SEPARATELY" is highly amusing.

However, a theory is created when you test, and get the same results over and over. Prior to that, it's merely a hypothesis. There is enough evidence for global climate change being man made that we have at least the beginnings of a theory. I'd say we're much closer to the Newton stage than godix does, but I like his analogy. There is still a lot we do not understand about climate over time. We simply don't have the records.

[Knowname]

Knowname, whether you were serious or not, that does bring up a great philosophical question: do we have the right to assist in the extinction of a species, such as narwhals, for humanity's benefit? I'm not framing this as if I have one belief or the other, rather I am interested in how seriously you take the view you put forward.

I am serious. I'm not totally of the 'FUCK the police' chain of thought, but, yeah. I'm not gonna do it, but if somebody thinks they have the right to, and a majority agrees, than who am I to stand in their way? Like I said times are changing, I am sick of panicking on every little thing. I'm sure drilling through the earth (thus sacrificing a few deep sea species or maybe even terestrial species indirectly affecting human kind) would net us new discoveries, maybe new species in itself! I don't say this without hesitation killing off the shrimp leads to death of whales leads to death of sharks leads to overpopulation leads to... what not... so like guy07 said, I basically don't know what the fuck I'm saying I'm just saying we hadn't blown up the world yet and won't in the near future o.0

[godix]

Actually, to have a valid scientific THEORY on anything, don't you have to be able to make a prediction about what will happen and be fairly accurate in your prediction before it is even considered a real/possible theory?
So what we're being feed as "facts" aren't even a valid THEORY. Wut?
I suggest we all become scientists and set things right. Well, everyone but me. I don't even trust myself to drive alone, let alone solve the worlds problems.

You're misunderstanding the basic idea of scientific theories. Here's how science is supposed to work in general:

1) Observe whatever it is you're studying
2) Come up with an idea to explain what you're observing
3) Test your explanation
4) Refine your idea based on the test results.

Notice the idea came before the tests. Now your theory may be proven wrong in step 3, but that's later. Also note that not all tests involve predictions. Many do, and that's one of the best ways to test the idea, but prediction isn't absolutely required. Some things just aren't all that predictable, it's rather hard to come up with a conclusive prediction with a theory that says there are limits to what you can predict, as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle does. Also some predictions take a long time to determine. Relativity didn't correctly predict anything until years later since we had to wait for a convenient solar eclipse to check. Scientists don't just twiddle their thumbs while waiting decades to see how a prediction works out, although general laymen and policy makers should.

There's also the fact that an accurate prediction usually doesn't prove much. An inaccurate one shows you were clearly wrong, but an accurate one might mean you just had a lucky guess. Or that your theory happened to work for that prediction despite the theory being wrong. Or that there were twenty wrong predictions and one right one and everyone jumps on the right one while ignoring the wrong. Or that the prediction was modified after the fact to force it to fit test results. Or any of hundreds of other possible explanations.

I suppose it's worth noting that I'm using the word theory rather loosely, half the times I really mean hypothesis. There is a difference between the two, but I think it's a rather nitpicky difference that takes a language nazi to care about. I'll leave that to Kionon, when he's not busy anthropomorphizing numbers.