Why do people not believe in climate change?

Arts & Sciences Science & Nature
41

This is a perfect example of what I mean by weighing (the importance), prioritizing the science. People need to learn ratiocination, how to put science in context.

Brian, that is just cherrypicking years. All that is saying is that we are at a plateau, a high point from 100 years ago, (and a few of those years happen to reach up to a high point). No one is denying that. But it is a rather lengthy plateau, it isn’t going up.

These kinds of rhetorical tricks have easily fooled the easily fooled into the appearance, thinking, oh no, definite proof of warming in the last 18 years. It is no such thing at all. What Brian said and what I said are both correct. Global warming is full of this kind of thing to fool the ill-educated. I’m glad Brian brought this perfect illustration to demonstrate science mixed with ignorance.

This is what I mean that people have lost their ability to think. It’s so easy to be led by the nose, and it all seems so scientific to boot, when you haven’t learned how to think.

42

Ha, non-sequiter

43

If pollution is bad (well, of course it is), but it doesn’t affect climate on a catastrophic scale due to natural feedbacks that will bring everything back in balance, then our focus should switch from studying man-caused global warming to natural climate change.

We currently have thousands of scientists who receive money to research the fact that climate change is caused mostly by mankind, which would lead to:“Sorry guys, imminent catastrophe and it’s caused by us, we need more taxes, thanks”. And all their models connecting man-made emissions to climate change have been wrong for 30 years.
I want ALL scientists to receive money, and if the only kind of real catastrophe that can occur is a natural ice age, then I want scientists researching it to find out when it could happen, allowing everyone to prepare accordingly.

Also, regarding the concept of “climate change DENIERS”. I find the use of the term “denier” very interesting. Usually this kind of degrinatory term is used in debates and arguments where it’s impossible to refute the other person’s statement and the only option becomes using ad hominem attacks in order to discredit them. Which is exactly what have been happening for decades to scientists who have been skeptict about the whole issue (along with the fact that they’ve not received much, if any, funding).

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44

Are you just being deliberately stupid?

How can you say it’s not going up when it’s going up!?!

Each one of those years was hotter than the last one and the hottest in our historical records!

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45

Don’t say that.
It’s not deliberately!

46

Besides, it was already predicted when I was a kid.
Now, it’s only confirmed.

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47

Actually it was predicted back in the 19th century by Arrhenius. Elemental physics really.

48

Most of them measure the average temperature to confirm a prediction, which is compared with the average co2 levels.

They even use the old equipments used a 100 years ago to make sure they really understand the average.

But why do we need scientists when we have alternative facts nowadays. We can ask IbisWtf!

49

You’re error is about the same as that class of men who just don’t get the difference between mean and median. Let me know if you need help understanding the logic. If there’s you and Hamlet, there’s bound to be more.

Though Brian doesn’t really get it and millions like him, scientists who put these shenanigans out do get it, which is what makes them so unscrupulous, like lawyers hiding the fine print or making ingenuous arguments or slick rhetoric in a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Itt’s a much more interesting phenomena to study how so many people could believe climate change.

50

I am a trained scientist ya big gobber :slight_smile:

On the other hand you seem to be a trained economist :whistle:

51

Ha, then I stand corrected; scientists don’t get it either.

52

NASA says you don’t get it. You know the guys that sent men to the moon and have all those satellites monitoring our weather and climate?

It’s all in the headline.
Stick your head in the sand all you want. You just make yourself look foolish.

53

Brian, I’m dealing with an 18 year time line. To single out a sole year, or worse yet, a month, as a data point in that time frame, you’re dealing with outliers. It is possible that outliers can be correlated with a general trend, but here they don’t at all, they are misleading, and unscrupulously so. And outliers should never be used as a substitute for general trends, even if correctly correlated. The fact that they have to rely on this instead of real substance to put out their best foot forward in convincing people indicates they are desperate and clutching at straws.

Look it, Brian, the only thing that your outliers tells us (coupled with complete information/picture) is that warming has occurred in the last 100 years. There is no debate about this. But pro-AGCer’s are using this trick disingenuously to successfully fool you into thinking there’s still momentum going upwards and hence global warming is still occuring today, when there isn’t, they are only outliers and that is all.

Let me explain it a different way. Take 1996 as a starting point of the plateau – it is just as insignificant statistically to say that year A, B, C, are the hottest on record as it is to say year D, E, F are the coldest on record even though those outliers might be equal, but they aren’t, the cold outliers are actually deeper than the hot ones except for 1997 El Nino. But for all intents and purposes, they are nearly equal.

This would be great material to teach junior high or high school thinking skills along with statistics as an example how not to get conned.

Not only that, there is another point that NASA doesn’t explain for you, which is that 2016 was the end of a rather strong El-Nino event 2014-2016. Like I said they conveniently ignore these points, because they understand it takes the thunder out of their already faulty outlier shenanigan. So let me fill you in.

El-Nino is a natural event, powered by the sun. So that little warming blip on the 18-year plateau doesn’t even count as originating in AGC.

But I wouldn’t expect you to understand much about El Nino, but the outlier shenanigan, if you’re easily and so effortlessly fooled by that…it is symptomatic of our education system, and that explains sufficiently why you and so many others can be duped into believing the dupers.

https://tw.forumosa.com/uploads/short-url/2oNFcLwJVvGJDb53VwWQgCWejb9.jpg

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I was under the impression that he had trained himself in economics, not that there’s anything wrong with that. You could go to school for it and still end up an Austrian, or you could not go to school for it and still not end up an Austrian. :idunno:

I disagree with Mr. Pirate Hunter about many things, but he has a very good point here: the issue is like a court case, and it’s worse than that. The two main parties cannot agree on jurisdiction or rules of evidence, and even if they did, the scientist-judges could still be wrong, like they have been about so many things in the past.

This is my problem: saying it’s a left-right issue feeds the tendency to polarize the policies that relate to it. If being a “climate believer” or “climate skeptic” is a full package, then from where I’m standing both packages are lousy.

One package proposes a major reduction of air pollution, which would seem to benefit everyone* (though it would not affect all economies equally). Yet this package also draws attention away from other issues.

If we blame anthropocentric carbon emisions for everything from the great die-off of ocean life to the sinking of the Maldives to the war in Syria, even if there is a causative relationship (I’m not saying there isn’t), we risk reducing action on other causative factors, such as the political roots of the Syrian mess, unprecedented industrial scale sand dredging, unprecedented water pollution (industrial waste, large plastic items, microbeads, etc.) and so on.

If anthropocentric carbon emissions are reduced to basically zero, but dredging continues, coastlines will still erode. If various political problems persist, so will wars. If products with microbeads etc. are not banned but simply dumped in “emerging markets” (i.e. poorer countries), plastic will continue to accumulate in the food chain, which is a new phenomenon that we don’t even understand yet. And so on.

Unfortunately, the other package seems to propose little more than business as usual, which frankly is crap.

Meanwhile, mob mentality means people who don’t fit neatly into either camp may be afraid to offer their :2cents:.

This is not a parody. The people responsible for it (you may remember them from The Age of Stupid) removed it from their website and put up a notice saying they acknowledged it was a tactical mistake, but not actually apologizing or renouncing violence.

*And one more thing: everyone suffers from air pollution, but the rich suffer less. It used to be that the rich would just take more spa vacations far away from industrial centers than the poor could afford. Now with enough money you can enjoy clean air indoors and even outdoors with giant clean air tents, even in the dirtiest cities. It’s kind of like having air conditioned beaches in Dubai, but on another level. (Cue a certain Englishman explaining how the poor actually want to choke to death in the smog… :rolling_eyes:)

55

Yeah even worse a self trained economist :slight_smile:.
Why should I trust Jotham who has yet to post any link to actual peer reviewed scientific publications over hundreds of professional scientists and research institutions which have a consensus that global warming is real and mostly man made.

It’s not a left rght issue. It’s a believe in science or you don’t issue!! If people want to believe we were created by God in one or two days even though you show them the the preponderance of evolutionary evidence …what can you do. They are ignorant and superstitious.

'Extreme and unusual' climate trends continue after record 2016 - BBC News

The WMO’s statement on the 2016 climate leaves no room for doubt. The much-hyped warming hiatus is over - and the ‘missing’ heat energy didn’t go missing at all. Instead, that heat went into the ocean, and we got much of it back again last year," said Dr Phil Williamson, from the University of East Anglia

The ocean has been acting as a heat sink, that will only buy us a little time.

The El Niño effect contributes 0.1-0.2C extra global heat when in full flow. It’s a natural weather phenomena that is related to global warming obviously. Their frequency is expected to increase.
The El Niño effect only helps break temp records because the underlying temperature is already steadily increasing.
It’s the bad icing on the cake

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n2/full/nclimate2100.html

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[quote=“Brianjones, post:55, topic:158975, full:true”]
Yeah even worse a self trained economist :slight_smile:.
Why should I trust Jotham who has yet to post any link to actual peer reviewed scientific publications over hundreds of professional scientists and research institutions which have a consensus that global warming is real and mostly man made.[/quote]
I don’t need to refer “peer reviewed scientific publications of over hundreds of professional scientists and research institutions” just to point out your error in logic on that outlier exercise. All you need is a brain, and if people would learn to use it more, it makes for a might fine compass.

The WMO’s statement on the 2016 climate leaves no room for doubt. The much-hyped warming hiatus is over - and the ‘missing’ heat energy didn’t go missing at all. Instead, that heat went into the ocean, and we got much of it back again last year," said Dr Phil Williamson, from the University of East Anglia

Oh, I love this, we can’t find warming anywhere where we can measure it, so let’s put it in the ocean where we haven’t fully developed a system yet to measure it and be criticized. Then once we can measure the deep ocean and every crook and cranny of the earth is covered, they’ll claim its in the center of the earth, who knows. I’ll take this as an tacit admission that warming has eluded them.

57

your grasp of statistics is wrong, Jotham, but you cant admit it. your conservative politics rebukes and rebuts all criticism; that’s what conservatism is all about.

you are not being deliberately stupid, as Brian calls you for earlier, you just cannot think in a way that accepts the truth for what it is. it’s not your fault.

58

Jotham thanks for being Exhibit A in why people deny manmade climate change. :notworthy:

59

@yyy: Well, they do, with some complications.

Ask a Filipino why the streets are clogged with smoke-belching rustbuckets, and he’ll say one of four things: (a) it’s an example of how clever we are to make our own transport from rebar and scrap engines, because we don’t need to rely on imports from imperialist countries like, um, Korea (b) we’re poor, we have no choice (c) “you foreigners always coming here telling us what to do, if you don’t like it, go back to your own country”, or (d) if he has some self-awareness, he’ll point out that the rich make a shitload of money from the gasoline monopoly, and the last thing they want is for the poor to have efficient transport.

You’ll get quite similar responses in India, Nigeria, or (to a lesser extent) China.

However, whatever his answer, the question remains: “why do you allow this state of affairs to continue?”. Why do you sell your vote for $5 to whoever promises you goodies that you know he can’t deliver? Why do you work for companies (foreign or domestic) that hurt your country, like the local timber overlord who cuts down all the trees? Why do you not protest about rules that keep clean technology (ie., choices that the poor can afford) out of the hands of the masses? I’ll tell you why, but you won’t like it:

  1. They believe in trickle-down corruption. This is similar to the western idea that wealth trickles down from the rich to the poor. They vote the scumbags into office again and again because they genuinely think that the scumbags only steal money in order to “help the poor”. They co-operate with rich scofflaws for the same reason (and, also, because they’re likely to end up floating face-down in the river if they don’t).

  2. They really do think foreigners - the people who promote efficient, cheap motorcycles or solar panels or modern farming methods - are out to get them. This idea obviously contains a small grain of truth, and it gets hyped up into some huge international conspiracy by those who stand to benefit from xenophobia (broadly speaking, those who sell expensive, inferior equivalents of foreign products).

  3. They do actually like pollution. Smoke- and noise-filled cities symbolize civilization and wealth.

Moral choices are never easy. But when it comes down to it, you can choose the wrong (easy) thing or the right (difficult) thing. The poor choose the wrong things. So they stay poor. If they were choosing the right things, then pretty much by definition they wouldn’t be poor anymore.

Apart from that, I more-or-less agree with your post.

@jotham: urudacus is right. Unless you know the nature of the underlying process, you can’t make simplistic judgements about a trend. Just because you can overlay a linear or polynomial curve-fit doesn’t mean that curve-fit has any physical meaning; the process itself must be known to be linear (or whatever), otherwise you’ve just joined the dots like a kid with a colouring-book.

The climate scientists know that climate processes are non-linear and time-variant, which means any prediction about the future can only be in vague terms. This is the only plausible way of presenting their results: those who accuse them of being “inaccurate” or “dishonest” don’t understand what either of those words mean in the context of process modelling.

You are as bound by that limitation as they are. Just as they can’t possibly say, see, there’s a nice smooth exponential here and therefore there’s going to be a nice smooth exponential for all time (Al Gore style), you can’t possibly say, look at this flat bit here, it’s obviously bottomed out.

60

Actually by “the poor” I meant most of us, the proverbial 99%.

You’re basically 歸責ing to the sociopolitical systems of less developed countries but still saying it’s because poor people are stupid.

(and, also, because they’re likely to end up floating face-down in the river if they don’t).

I suppose you would say they want to be murdered too. :whistle: