How to argue with a global warming "skeptic"

Oi reckons you jes need a damn good thraaashin.

:laughing:

Ah… someone wants to play philosophical games, does he? Are you sure that you want to go down this trail? :pray:

As it happens, I do take issue with the word ‘proven’. But it’s funny anyway.

Now, don’t give me away. Let it be fun first and then it can be funny, yes?

Was listening to this today.

Boy, all that negativity in the comments…

Yeah I’ll take your word for it. It’s always the same hornets’ nest of parroted talking points and conspiracy theories. Exactly like comments sections under internet articles about vaccinations or GMOs. Gives me a headache.

Excellent point. In 35 years and hundreds of billions of dollars spent with trillions in economic costs, what has been achieved in preventing global warming (SORRY!!! CLIMATE CHANGE!!!). Obviously, those hornets and parrots are very happy with the endless slop going into their troughs but… pity about achieving any of their stated aims… true pity…

cleantechnica.com/2014/07/08/inv … -failures/

the comments section is interesting as it relates to these scams being held up by deniers as ammunition to do nothing and “research” the issue more. guys like Lomborg.

Excellent point. In 35 years and hundreds of billions of dollars spent with trillions in economic costs, what has been achieved in preventing global warming (SORRY!!! CLIMATE CHANGE!!!). Obviously, those hornets and parrots are very happy with the endless slop going into their troughs but… pity about achieving any of their stated aims… true pity…[/quote]

Speaking of parroted talking points and conspiracy theories…

While I agree that science doesn’t “prove” things in the deepest philosophical sense, when you have at least so many independent, converging lines of evidence showing that the Earth’s climate is warming…

…and at least as many as this that humans are the cause:

…the impossibility of absolute “proof” becomes a pretty academic point. Just as it is with so many other mainstream, long-standing scientific theories. Now, as for the projected consequences, well, some will hold out that the “proof” for those isn’t yet in. Which of course it can’t be… until it’s far too late to do anything about them.

NICE! Not sure why you are submitting an article (paid advertising? or you advertise with us and we will write an article about your company?) that is almost Lorraine Hahn (Talk Asia) in its fellating: Now, a bit of a tough question for you Mr. Prime Minister. Many people that I have talked to say that you are amazing? How did you get to be so amazing? Is this something that you work on daily or are you just naturally amazing?

Who said “do nothing.” Perhaps, it is more honest to say, after 35 years of no success, why should I give you any more money? :whistle:

Vay:

Love the graphs. Why they make it so easy that even a child could understand the points that you are trying to make!!! And who says the global warming (SORRY!!! CLIMATE CHANGE!!!) brigade would lose interest once the dying polar bears were no longer involved? I say it loud and clear, hear me when I say this and let me be perfectly clear about this: You have proved them wrong! Oh yes, you have! I think that penguins, however, with dancing seals and barking walruses are the new polar bear. Just looking at their cute, helpless faces… why I just need to do something!!! In fact, we all need to DO something (or someone?) NOW!!! LET’S ACT URGENTLY BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!

You did.

I find it kinda strange, though: the Global Climate Coalition began its rather costly and effective battle to prevent serious concerted action on climate change back in '89 (right about the time the IPGW was changing its name to IPCC). In the US, the intention of this group has been carried on religiously by conservative think-tanks in conjunction with PR firms and of course the Republican Party itself. The latest being:

GOP to attack climate pact at home and abroad

One would think from your statement that you guys have been dutifully ponying up to address the problem, and are only just now giving up on it. Far from it. Moreover, it’s you guys who keep insisting you are “skeptical”, that you need more and more evidence (in spite of the mountain that currently exists) that 1) the problem is real 2) we are the cause. Yet strangely, obtaining this ever-insufficient evidence costs MONEY. Which you are now saying you don’t want to spend? Though you are the ones demanding the object of that expense?

Also, you never answered my previous post, which was in response to your Forbes editorial “evidence” that government expenditures on global warming have cost a fortune and achieved nothing:

[quote]Go back to my question to Buzzkill back on page 24: scientists discover a huge meteorite is on its way - though we can’t be sure when precisely it’s gonna hit. Wouldn’t we spend a ridiculous amount of money trying to learn everything we could about it? And even if the money being spent were not showing immediate, short-term benefits, would we then consider that money wasted? Along those lines, why do we spend money on near-Earth asteroid detection now? Why do we study earthquakes? Has the money thus spent allowed us to divert any asteroids or prevent any earthquakes, and if not, should we then consider that money wasted? How about money that goes to studying super-outbreaks that so far haven’t materialized?

On top of that, speaking in terms of jobs: there are horrendous costs already being incurred because of climate change. I’ve mentioned the dying shrimp industry in the Northeast, or the ski industry… but these are trivial examples compared to the economic costs of say the drought in the Southwest or the ultimate cost of sea level rise. And if the response will be, ‘Yes but spending money hasn’t stopped those impacts!’, well, true. But who here thinks that because so far investments aimed at understanding and hopefully preventing far worse consequences than these decades down the road is automatically money wasted because it hasn’t yet born fruit? Should we therefore just put our faith in God or The Invisible Hand or Stochasticity to solve the problem?

And of course, none of that considers the question of whether it’s really a bad thing that jobs are lost in banning the horrific practice of mountain-top removal; let alone the lives that can be saved as we phase out the burning of coal. Last I remember, 50,000-100,000 American lives are lost per year because of particulate-induced lung cancer. What’s the economic cost of that? Nor does the Forbes argument really consider the jobs that are created as entrenched industries are displaced. Isn’t capitalism at least partly about creative destruction? [/quote]

[quote]fred smith wrote:
Who said “do nothing.” Perhaps, it is more honest to say, after 35 years of no success, why should I give you any more money? :whistle:

You did.

Fred Smith wrote:
Why the solution is to do absolutely nothing…[/quote]

No, Vay, you are wrong. I didn’t say “do nothing;” I said the solution is to do absolutely nothing. Clearly, that is a BIG difference. And, you are WRONG!!! (Oh wait, those kinds of infractions were what Cooperative was guilty of making). Sorry! Yes, I did say “nothing.”

I showed item by item figures totalling in the hundreds of billions in the US ALONE and trillions in cited lost economic development due to the regulations and other economic growth inhibiting factors from this effort. I also showed that, in the evidence supplied by the global warming (SORRY!!! CLIMATE CHANGE!!!) alarmist bridgade that NONE of its goals had been met. We have not lowered CO2 emissions but apparently the world has stopped warming but NOT TO THEM!!! So, I ask again, what exactly is it that they have accomplished for all this spend/waste?

Lung cancer? So CO2 emissions are now causing lung cancer? Surely, the Himalayan glacier melt by 2030 was a big enough fiasco and the dying polar bears and whatever else have been laughed/shrugged off. Are you NOW seriously suggesting that CO2 is causing lung cancer? Increible!

It’s not the CO2 part that does the killing, but yes, those emissions are deadly:

Air Pollution Linked to Deaths From Lung Cancer

This study is where the 50,000-100,000 figure comes from.

And way to dance around my question and other points. The one admission was a big step for you, though… well done on that!

It is nice that at least one of us is capable of making personal and professional achievements, yes? :smiley:

Good to see the great debate…the rumble in the jungle, the brawl in the fried chicken stall, the wrangle in the tangle, the squabble in the rubble, the clash in the trash, the dong in the 'wan, the fray in Taipei…still going strong

That reminds me of a joke…

Yeah, I agree, and I suspect the cartoonists knew that but just needed a single word that fit into a speech bubble. That’s why the joke was funny regardless, but fred was all up for disappearing down the same old rabbit hole …

:whistle:

Well, I for one am glad that we now all agree that the ludicrous millennarist panic needs to stop. Nothing to see with regard to “global warming,” go back to your regular scheduling… hahaha