Anyone catch the VICE 'Climate Change' Episode?

[sissy kathy]

Here are some references:
Global warming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Global Warming | Union of Concerned Scientists
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[Sav'nBass]

Hmm my previous post has dissapeared.. fair enough.
I think part of the problem with this issue is we need to stop calling it Global Warming... It is more accurate to call it Global Climate Chqnge... as some places are getting warmer.. some places are getting colder. some are getting drier and some are getting wetter. Some are experiencing all 4.. but the science is in and ig is pretty conclusive that since the industrial revolution the climate of the Earth overall has gotten warmer, particularly over the past 100 years..

 

[Turock]

Hmm my previous post has dissapeared.. fair enough.
I think part of the problem with this issue is we need to stop calling it Global Warming... It is more accurate to call it Global Climate Chqnge... as some places are getting warmer.. some places are getting colder. some are getting drier and some are getting wetter. Some are experiencing all 4.. but the science is in and ig is pretty conclusive that since the industrial revolution the climate of the Earth overall has gotten warmer, particularly over the past 100 years..

...except for that time it was getting cooler.

 

[GregC]

That cover may be fake, (my understanding is that it was created to make a point); however, the fact remains that on June 24th 1974 Time magazine ran a story entitled Another Ice Age.
TIME Magazine Archive Article -- Another Ice Age? -- Jun. 24, 1974

Newsweek also ran several articles on global cooling, such as the April 1975 article called The Cooling World.

So while that cover may be fake, I'm old enough, and I remember those global cooling stories first hand.

A fake cover is, well, fake. Yep, I'm aware of those stories, and the Time link I posted discusses them.

But the scientific basis for those stories was extremely weak, which is why there weren't many of them. Comparing the amount and depth of research, and the consensus in the scientific community, on global cooling then vs. what we're looking at now is like the needle vs. the haystack.

 

[GregC]

...except for that time it was getting cooler.

Right, it's not a perfectly straight line upwards. I don't know why it's hard for some to understand this, maybe it's recency bias. The stock market took about 20 years to reach new highs between the mid-60s and the mid-80s, yet no one can deny it's gone up massively over the past century.

 

[Turock]

Right, it's not a perfectly straight line upwards. I don't know why it's hard for some to understand this, maybe it's recency bias. The stock market took about 20 years to reach new highs between the mid-60s and the mid-80s, yet no one can deny it's gone up massively over the past century.

Evidently, we have over compensated for the cooling.

 

[cfsporn]

Those were media sensationalist stories. A scientist proposed a global cooling hypothesis--without any research to back it up--and the media jumped on it. The greenhouse effect has been known for over a century. I'm old enough to remember the global cooling hypothesis--and it was definitely NOT accepted by mainstream scientists.

Besides, it isn't like technology and science have progressed since the 70s.

 

[sissy kathy]

Evidently, we have over compensated for the cooling.

Part of the problem is that the industrial revolution started just as the Little Ice Age ended. That has sown confusion determining just what is 'normal'.

 

[Turock]

Those were media sensationalist stories. A scientist proposed a global cooling hypothesis--without any research to back it up--and the media jumped on it. The greenhouse effect has been known for over a century. I'm old enough to remember the global cooling hypothesis--and it was definitely NOT accepted by mainstream scientists.

Even the CIA was in on it; publishing those "media sensationalist" global cooling reports, despite your assertation that "it was definitely NOT accepted by mainstream scientists".

 

[GIBrat51]

I'm not sensing apathy, but defeatism. Maybe you're wrong and there's something that can be done. I don't know. If there is, then it's very worth being emotionally invested in it. Until then, curiosity is enough, and of course it's ok to focus on other issues too.

Actually what your're sensing (at least in my case) is an awareness of reality. The reality that: 1) the planet is changing constantly, just as it has for about 5 billion years, now; 2) for most of those 5 billion years, you and I couldn't have survived in the conditions that existed then, anyway; and 3) there are billions of people running around, supposedly causing all the problems - and I'll admit that if they aren't causing them, they certainly ain't helping stop them, either- and they don't give a tinker's damn what you or I think about anything. So, what do you want me to do about it? No one ever seems willing to answer that question, other than the usual "recycle, don't drive when you can walk, etc. etc." mantra.. because no one will admit that the only real answer is: make about 5 billion people vanish overnight. We both know that won't happen, and who has the right to say it should? I certainly don't - do you? So, yes, it's right to be aware of the problem; and, yes, it's right to do what you can, personally, to minimize your own impact. But, running around like Chicken Little (and I'm not saying you - or anybody here - is) is really not much of a help. It reminds me of a girl I knew in high school who worried constantly- and I mean really worried- about the fact that, 5 billion years from now, Earth was going to be burned up when the sun became a red giant. Life is too short to mess it up by worrying about things you can't fix. This is one of them. Play your bass, minimize your carbon footprint, and be as happy as you can. That's what I'm going to do, in the little time I have left.. before the giant red sun burns us all up.

 

[Bocete]

Actually what your're sensing (at least in my case) is an awareness of reality. The reality that: 1) the planet is changing constantly, just as it has for about 5 billion years, now; 2) for most of those 5 billion years, you and I couldn't have survived in the conditions that existed then, anyway; and 3) there are billions of people running around, supposedly causing all the problems - and I'll admit that if they aren't causing them, they certainly ain't helping stop them, either- and they don't give a tinker's damn what you or I think about anything. So, what do you want me to do about it? No one ever seems willing to answer that question, other than the usual "recycle, don't drive when you can walk, etc. etc." mantra.. because no one will admit that the only real answer is: make about 5 billion people vanish overnight. We both know that won't happen, and who has the right to say it should? I certainly don't - do you? So, yes, it's right to be aware of the problem; and, yes, it's right to do what you can, personally, to minimize your own impact. But, running around like Chicken Little (and I'm not saying you - or anybody here - is) is really not much of a help. It reminds me of a girl I knew in high school who worried constantly- and I mean really worried- about the fact that, 5 billion years from now, Earth was going to be burned up when the sun became a red giant. Life is too short to mess it up by worrying about things you can't fix. This is one of them. Play your bass, minimize your carbon footprint, and be as happy as you can. That's what I'm going to do, in the little time I have left.. before the giant red sun burns us all up.

You're reading more from what I said than what I actually said. I am saying that you don't know that we can't do anything. And the fact that no-one else knows doesn't mean that we can't do anything. We should let scientists do their stuff, reach their conclusions, hopefully find a way to help us, and then we can take action. But, we should stay out of their way until then. We should try to educate those who believe that the global warming isn't happening and are actively working to make it worse just to spite the so-called tree huggers. We should call people out for misrepresenting science, just as much as calling out poor science where it shows up. That is all.

 

[Turock]

You're reading more from what I said than what I actually said. I am saying that you don't know that we can't do anything. And the fact that no-one else knows doesn't mean that we can't do anything. We should let scientists do their stuff, reach their conclusions, hopefully find a way to help us, and then we can take action. But, we should stay out of their way until then. We should try to educate those who believe that the global warming isn't happening and are actively working to make it worse just to spite the so-called tree huggers. We should call people out for misrepresenting science, just as much as calling out poor science where it shows up. That is all.

First you would have to figure out just who is misrepresenting science, and whose science is poor.

 

[Bocete]

First you would have to figure out just who is misrepresenting science, and whose science is poor.

That's easier than the media makes it seem. You just check the sources and whether they actually point to what is being claimed. More often than not, there won't be any sources to begin with, and the sources denialists do cite are themselves poor by the same criterion. Yeah, there exists bias in the scientific process, but it's not merely opinion of people with PhDs. Science is self-correcting that way.

 

[T2k5]

Here's a good (and long) primer on the topic by actual scientists instead of the more common "I'm not a scientist, but" -types

 

[GregC]

First you would have to figure out just who is misrepresenting science, and whose science is poor.

If you believe a few articles and a CIA report somehow mean that global cooling was all the rage among climate scientists back in the 1970s, you're probably not interested in accurately representing science.

 

[Turock]

If you believe a few articles and a CIA report somehow mean that global cooling was all the rage among climate scientists back in the 1970s, you're probably not interested in accurately representing science.

It was all the rage. Perhaps without all the hysteria, possibly because there was no internet.
The scientists themselves disagree about warming and cooling.
I'm out.

 

[T2k5]

The scientists themselves disagree about warming and cooling.

Evidence disagrees with your claims of disagreement.
Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet: Consensus

 

[48thStreetCustom]

At the risk of starting a firestorm, has anyone read Bjørn Lomborg's book the Skeptical Environmentalist?

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Jk, yeah it seems hopeless especially with China and the developing countries on the cash train.

China is also developing a lot of solar, wind, hydro and nuclear, even alongside the coal, and was on track for coal to peak in 2030, so it's not all hopeless on that front.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Newsweek also ran several articles on global cooling, such as the April 1975 article called The Cooling World.

Ice core data meant that the 1970s saw the Milankovitch theory of glaciation confirmed and we would expect to be in a cooling phase for an imminent ice age. Where imminent is imminent geologically, that is a few thousand years.