Please forgive me for being so blunt but I'm confidant wrath, hellfire and brimstone have nothing to do with Human Caused Global Climate Change and such mythology is utterly Off Topic, having zero repeatable objective evidence. Even worse, the extreme pessimism of Inescapable End Time Philosophy is counter productive not only to any hope of mitigating disaster but of the survival essence of Human Spirit and actually, Life itself.

Please, business_kid, try to confine such discussion to the Faith and Religion Megathread. I don't want your comments here stricken and I most certainly will not report you or any such ideas from anyone to moderators even if you or they continue. I'm just appealing to your own sense of a reasonable nature. There can be no meaningful results from such interjection in this thread... only the possibility of tangential flame wars.

Have you read the research articles and newspaper report from 1912? They knew. They knew exactly where this was headed, just not exactly how fast. No one cared.

1912? I didn't know it was that early.

Al Gore started off his 'Inconvenient Truth' with his College professor sending up weather baloons to measure CO2, noting the increase, and drawing the inevitable conclusions. That was late 1950s/early 1960s.

To me, it's simple. In democracies, rule #1 of politics is "You've got to get elected before you can rip anyone off." So Democracies can't fix global warming with any of the drastic measures required now. Totalitarian states could make it happen, but they are self serving. Why should they, unless they are going to be the ones submerged?

@enorbet -- I find your artificial separation of Earth and Spirituality (non-religious, BTW, because spirituality has not much to do with religion) indicative of the mindset that causes such as species exctinction and allows such ecosystem catastrophies like the burning of the Amazon to where it has now become a producer of CO2 rather than its historically significant role as our largest C sink; such thinking is offensive and non-productive in this forum.

A paradigm shift is needed and such as your apparent mindset is its biggest hindrance.

Like the great Etta James once said, ". . . let the (Bible-carrying) man do his thing" and "respect yourself!" if not the Earth, "'cause nobody will give a good g#*damn," in the end.

Spent this summer dealing with climate change. Took me all summer to build my parking lot car port attached to the shop.



Before
https://ibb.co/fGt2t6V


after
https://ibb.co/y0YRR1d

Keeps the skin cancer at bay.
https://www.skincancer.org/skin-canc...-cancer-facts/

Svante Arrhenius and Thomas Chamberlin in 1896 calculated that human activity could warm the earth with carbon dioxide. No one for a very long time believed that humans could affect natural forces.

Nevertheless, I remain "healthily skeptical" that we actually know – or, probably, could ever know – nearly as much about "this magnificent planet" as some people now think we do.

"I am skeptical, and that is all." Don't ask me to offer an alternative explanation because I do not have one. But, "I suspect that you don't have one either."

To possess a "scientific opinion," and even to earnestly believe that you are "scientifically correct," is one thing. But to then strive to extend it to "public policy," especially in ways that promise to be extremely disruptive and maybe even destructive(!) to "daily human life as we know it," is entirely another.

"Science," even if you actually have it, is only one of the many human-social issues at play here. If you now propose to damage(!) "hundreds of millions of people," you'd better have an unimpeachable justification for doing so. And, as far as "skeptical me" is concerned, you very simply don't. You have, instead, "gone above your raisin'." And, now that you propose to destroy human society itself based on your "science," guess what?

"Human society" has something to say to you in return, and they really can say 'no.'

Sorry you feel that way. I just don't see how Religion beats out Science in what is primarily an Engineering problem. I don't hire an Astrologer for Brain Surgery.

Not certain but pretty sure that was The Staples Singers. Mavis is a favorite of mine and the lyric is "good cahoot na na na na".

Unfortunately that's a recipe for doing nothing about any problem ever! Vested interests will always say, "Give me unambiguous proof and then I'll act." But science doesn't provide unambiguous proof. If you want that, you need to switch to pure mathematics. What science provides is reasonable grounds for believing something. If people are not prepared to act reasonably, so much the worse for them.

I will accept skepticism to a point. It's like a tight rope walker saying "I won't fall." But as the tight rope walker has been overbalancing for some time, he needs to sharply shift his balance beam. He can perceive he is in the process of falling, and saying "I won't fall" isn't good enough any more.

Science has been wrong before. I've often made that point. But Look at recent history. How many have already died from pollution in cities, heatstroke in hot climates predicted by the science? How many coral reefs have died, robbing their dependent species of a habitat as predicted by the science? How much desert do you need to see created, and floods caused because of widely predictable changing rainfall patterns before you get the message? Do you think your attitude would be the same if your house, your crops and everything you owned had been recently washed away, as was the experience of some in this year's Indian floods? You might call it 'healthy skepticism.' Others might call it criminal negligence.

Two hundred years ago, stock certificates featured smokestacks belching coal smoke because that was seen as a sign of prosperity. Those smokestacks are gone now. Since the air pollution is now less, we should be able to go back through historical climate data and see a positive change. But the only thing that we actually see is – "change." Fairly random change, in fact.

We think that we observe a correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and surface temperature. But, which is the cart and which is the horse? And, are we actually capable of producing that amount of carbon dioxide, particularly given that every green plant is constantly consuming the stuff and giving off oxygen?

As you know, I am by nature skeptical. I'll listen to these hypotheses and find them interesting, but not compelling. "You might be right. But, you might be wrong." I'm certainly not going to be in favor of sweeping public policy changes being based on any such hypotheses. I don't believe that this planet is ten years away from dying due to anything that we humans did or did not do.

Non sequitur, sir.

The prediction was made based on CO2 at the turn of the last century, as has been pointed out; and it was made by many others since. Look at the Hockey Stick Graph. That data goes right back from bubbles in Antarctic ice cores. The facts are there, and I think you know it.

Whereas I respect much of your logic and reasoning, at a certain point, skepticism stops being healthy. Instead it becomes a powerful impediment to progress or action, and always makes things worse than they had to be. The "skepticism" of many is motivated by selfish greed; the tobacco companies had a sales policy that "Doubt is our product." It served them for decades. It's no different today with the fossil fuel interests (sellers and users). Earth is likely to be left a ruin because of them. Is it any different with you?

How long would you be skeptical if

• Your house went on fire?
• The authorities told you to get out of the area due to coming floods, storms or fires?
• You were told to evacuate because an earthquake/eruption was likely, but not certain?
• Do you accept the science that says that smoking damages health?
• Do you accept the science that deaths, injuries & loss have markedly increased as outlined in my last post because of human caused climate change?
• How bad does it have to get before action becomes imperative in your view?

Is doubt your product, or are you trolling?

The paradigm of which I speak is, in reality, an ancient one. But like the lost discoverer, Christopher Columbus, who thought he had stumbled upon the "New World," some, in their arrogance, will view it like an epiphany and, thus, a new discovery. It is a paradigm that has been put forth, recently, in an article of the Washington Post dated November 24, 2020, by Jum Morrison.

It is entitled "An ancient people with a modern climate plan" (https:http://www.washingtonpost.com/climat...nge-swinomish/) --

. . .
Jamie Donatuto, the tribe’s environmental health officer, and Larry Campbell, a 71-year-old tribal elder, have created a tool, Indigenous Health Indicators, that goes beyond typical morbidity and mortality measures and considers ecosystem health, social and cultural beliefs, and values integral to a community. “It’s a very different way of thinking about health,” she said.
. . .
“It’s a different worldview,” said Donatuto, who has a doctorate in resource management and environmental sustainability from the University of British Columbia. “The salmon and the crabs and the clams are relatives. They’re living relatives. They’re not just resources. And so you treat them with a symbiotic respect. They feed you because you take care of them. It’s a very different way of thinking about why these (cultural resource) areas are important.”

I am proud to both trace my ancestry back to a great grandfather on my mother's paternal side, a Swinomish chief's son, named David.

I was also fortunate enough to have been instrumental in implementing for the Swinimish Indian Tribal Community and Skagit County a habitat restoration plan for control of the invasive cordgrass species of the genus Spartina1 (S. anglica and S. alterniflora and, to a lesser extent, S. patens). At least one of these species (the first) was introduced by immigrant Dutch dairy farmers in Snohomish and Skagit Counties, Washington, in an attempt to increase land acreage by means of tidal soil deposition from surrounding watershed runoff in estuaries.

An ingenious (some would argue) engineering solution resulting native species habitat degradation leading to ecosystem disruption resulting in fish and shellfish species losses. Understandable? Yes. Selfish? Yes! Irresponsible? Doubly, Yes! Such is the scientifically and culturally ignorant mindset of which I speak. It is the mindset of those adhering to the status quo. It is one that must and will change, in one way or another.

Read the referenced article of the Washington Post in its entirety with an open mind and maybe then one will be able to understand why Earth and spirituality (NOT religion) are inextricably intertwined. Be aware that we are all in this together. Become awre that when we humans respect Earth, we respect ourselves. Duh!

1 https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/weeds/common-cordgrass
https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-di...-alterniflora/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartina_patens

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Etta James, "Respect Yourself"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6sD...54&t=155&t=155

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+1 @michaelelk -- " . . . No one for a very long time believed that humans could affect natural forces."

And it's a pity that some still refuse to believe it. Ignorant is what I call such myopic individuals. They will believe what they will to their own peril. Truly a pity, in the largest sense of the word.

Just FTR in the US coal consumption has been on a steep and steady increase until ~2010. However the increase of CO2 has never stopped climbing for centuries. This seeming discrepancy is simply because coal isn't the only fossil fuel in use and that use continues to grow.

I won't bother everyone with links as both are well documented, as are the cumulative effects. TANSTAAFL

"'Healthy skepticism,' to me, is healthy." It tends to keep you well-protected from those who have an agenda.

Quite seriously: the "Court Jester" was often viewed as the King's closest and most-trusted advisor, simply because he could say anything that he wanted to the King without getting his head cut off. In a Court known to be filled with self-serving sycophants, the Jester could and did "speak his mind."