I don't think so. Again, that's focused very much on semantics. If you dive in and really ask questions, outcomes are seen as the same, even if inputs are seen as different. Pollution is a problem, in their views, even if it isn't causing global warming.
The individuals (who I would note are actually very much in the minority) who steadfastly believe global warming isn't real, still identify that changes in species and/or weather patterns are happening.
It's not a stretch from there to mitigation. While they may not believe global warming exists, they do still understand that we need to make changes to our consumption, travel, and lifestyle patterns in order to ensure their children and grandchildren can have a planet worth living on.
I keep stressing global warming, because, in my experience, these individuals do not talk about climate change. They talk about global warming and how it's not a thing, even thought they identify that the weather is wetter and hotter sooner, then drier for longer periods of the year.
Can you explain your lack of belief when 97% of climate scientists (there's conflicting data on this; some reports show as high as 99%) agree that human activity is causing global warming?
EDIT: That's not rhetorical. I'll entertain any logical reasoning you have as to why your reasoning is superior to those educated and practicing the subject daily.
The mainstream assertion is that the scientific community is in 98% comprehensive (!) agreement on the matter of climate change, and the time for discussion is over.
Fascinating: 71% say they trust climate scientists regarding climate change, yet only 49% say they think "most scientists think global warming is happening". This would imply it is not necessary to convince people anthropogenic climate change is real, only that most climate scientists think it is real. Very different message.
I looked into the source of the 99% claims before, and in general, they don't say what you claim they say. They may find that most scientists agree that humans have an impact on climate, but that doesn't mean they agree on the doomsday scenarios.
Three out of four scientists in this article agreed with the Google memo. Something like 95% of scientists accept the prevailing theory that climate change is exacerbated by human activities. That's obviously the same thing, right?
I am saying that the climate debate isn't primarily scientific but poltical as most people (including many of the "climate scientists") are not actually engaging in a scientific debate but in a political one.
This is a very important distinction because most people debate it as if they are debating science.
The 97% is not agreeing that the world is going under in 20 years if we don't do anything. In those 97% there are plenty of so called "climate deniers" who are agreeing that the climate is changing, heating and humans have some effect.
However how much and how catastrophic it's going to be isn't even close to being a consensus or for that matter scientific. The actual science is a small part. The larger part is speculated not demonstrated.
In that case, all those fancy scientists have agreed on a term that no-one else uses anymore because it does not accurately describe what is really happening, which we call "climate change". So much for Nobel Prizes eh?
It is exactly as I say: outside their specialist field, every scientist is just a layperson like you or I. Perhaps you ought to check out what a real expert, Dr John Theon, has to say: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/28/nasa_climate_theon/
You have to hold an extended conversation(s) with me to see where we stand.
(somewhat moot because you consider me part of the idiotic masses, but i will reply for the benefit of others who may read this)
I fully understand that my post may portray me as someone totally rigid, but there is only so much I can write without making it into a huge essay. Remember there are nuances for every issue out there. What I'm generally interested is people who can understand nuances if needed. Not people who think they have understood it. To quote an example that you just mentioned, people take a hard line stand when it comes to climate change. As far as I'm concerned the answer is that I do not know if climate change is occurring, because I'm fully aware that the scientific community is also prone to bias and climate model are extremely complex to the point that one cannot assess the impact of each variable. I do know for sure, that pollution is real. I do know for sure that for many people climate change is their religion ( replacing traditional religion), meaning they have made the least attempts to understand the nuances. In short I do not consider myself judgemental _if_ a person can get into the nuances of an issue.
You listen to only one side of the expert argument, that’s an issue. Let’s switch the topic to climate change, would anyone on HN give weight to the 1% of ‘experts’ that deny climate change? No of course not because the consensus of reasonable experts is that climate change is here. Consensus of scientific thought is how we filter for what is true to the best of our knowledge.
Can't be both? It is both. It lasts forever and the pieces break down into smaller pieces.
re: climate scientists - if 99% of scientists believe something to be true then we should believe them unless we have an alternative hypothesis that can't be trivially discounted. The "tone" that scientists take when talking to people has absolutely no relevance at all to the correctness of the science.
The fallacy to which you alluded is actually the fallacy of the false appeal to authority. It is not an argumentative fallacy to appeal to the knowledge of experts in their area of expertise. A large majority of everything you believe to be true has not been independently verified by yourself. You have and continue to rely on the knowledge of others.
The 97% I alluded to is not what you claim it to mean.
These are good talking points when you want to debate climate change; it is necessary to gather scientific evidence to back each of these points. Everyone knows that 97% of scientists believe in climate change, 84% in an anthropogenic version; that's not news, but I didn't know what to research earlier.
The problem is you are picking different instances where experts are wrong in different fields and saying "See, all experts everywhere are wrong about everything! So let's do nothing!".
The message and understanding on climate change and global warming is roughly 30 years old. Do you think there hasn't been ample opportunity for a different theory or evidence to produced to explain it? Do you think nobody is testing it? Do you think there's some grand conspiracy to prop it up?
Climate change isn't a nutritional or sociological situation where a lot of different impossible to control variables are coming into play. It's dead simple. We measure the amount of greenhouse gases, we measure global temperatures, we compare.
It's even trivially provable, even by an elementary student. Take 2 glass jars, fill one with CO2 and another with O2. Place in the sun. Observe as the jar filled with CO2 becomes hotter while to O2 jar matches outside temperatures.
> You cannot base your life on expert opinions.
My life, your life, our lives are based on expert opinions.
How on earth do you think electronics and computers work? By amateurs banging clay together? Computers and electronics were built on exactly the same scientific principles of "experts" that climate change was founded on. Experts are why we have GPS, cell phones, automobiles, doctors, cancer treatments, antibiotics, vaccinations, pain killers, fertilizers, etc... The list goes on. Our entire modern society is built on experts.
Expert research, (and this is what climate change is, research, not just opinion) is what brought about the modern world.
You might as well point to Doctor Oz and say "See, he's full of garbage so all modern medicine is bunk!".
Note the response - yes they may be nuclear physicists or hydrologists but they can't possibly comment on climate, they're the wrong sort of scientists. Also they even say they have a good understanding of science and then define science as "what 99% of experts believe" which is just hilariously medieval.
These are just examples. I can't be bothered trying to draw up huge lists. Other people have done that, it doesn't matter, the crisis true believers just use a circular definition of expert in which if you disagree the world is doomed you can't be an expert, therefore, are not worth listening to.
Wait for the response to your statement from a seemingly naive person. It will be something about how a majority of scientists once believed in [insert disproven theory here]. It will be made in seeming naivete, but will 100% be from a bad actor.
Across all websites, across all platforms, whenever someone says "well almost every climate scientist agrees with this", somebody crawls out to make that statement.
My observation is that the scientific community is making assertions of what is more or less the current understanding of the state of global warming to the best of their knowledge. Advocates and opportunists are taking this and converting it to something like "98% percent of scientists agree that global warming is 100% caused by man and we are absolutely doomed if we do not do something right now." (obviously I am being somewhat hyperbolic.)
So the scientists are observing this and thinking to themselves "What these people are saying is not technically true, but it seems like most likely an effective approach to invoke action amongst the general public, so we'll just keep our mouths shut." It may very well turn out that this is in fact the most pragmatic approach.
What I am saying is, it may turn out that this isn't the most pragmatic approach. Addressing climate change costs money, and lots of it. People generally don't like spending money unless there is a very obvious and more or less immediate benefit. Now imagine a convincing leader comes along who validates this distrust, and can point to legitimate cracks in these assertions (actually, I don't think Trump even had to do this, but don't underestimate the power of YouTube propaganda videos)....you might just find yourself with a president that you never would have imagined could have been elected.
It's interesting in a thread where we're generally talking about the nature of public conversation, where I am actually mostly on the side of believing that man-made climate change is a real thing, but my sense is that most people think (or speak as if at least) I am completely incorrect in the things I say, that there is no disagreement in the scientific community on some of the specifics. It's really quite an extraordinary claim. (iirc, this is one of the big reasons Joel Spolsky quit blogging, he found that he had to qualify every single sentence with multiple sentences of disclaimers, as too many people refused to discuss in an intellectually honest way, always nitpicking individual statements while completely ignoring the spirit of the discussion. Likely putting words in his mouth somewhat, but you get the idea.)
Are you saying these concepts are equivalent to the aforementioned 99% of scientists and experts?
I'm really not trying to act dense, just figure out what it is people even believe about this topic.
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