enorbet, if your paraphrasing of my supposed points is the sole impression I left you with, then I do not know what else to say except that we see things differently with this topic and I think your blinders are preventing you from seeing other angles/perspectives. Believe it or not, you are coming from the right/wrong paradigm, when often times the truth is outside the boundaries of right and wrong--truth and fiction and inhabits a space called whats so. Science used to seek this space, and referred to it as Eureka, Buddhists and before them Taoists called it enlightenment/satori etc...

Real science is inclusive not exclusive, it broadens the mind and possibility not narrowing the mind and removing possibility. I remember when Science was based on the premise that in order to find the truth, keep reducing and deducing until there is nothing left to remove, then the truth stands freely on its own accord. Simplicity is the key that unlocks that door. Perhaps, reread my posts from this thread and the prior thread, or not. Life is Good either way, and the Sun will rise and set as it has before.

Well ChuangTzu you could be right because I barely comprehend what you said or were trying to say in that last post . Of course I'm aware I have blinders just like everyone else or at least those who realize it so they can guard against over investing and becoming cast in stone. I don't see my position as "right vs/ wrong" but rather as "supported vs/ unsupported" but you are correct that I never imagine truth can be "outside the boundaries of right and wrong". The truth as I see it is usually a complex package deal that is what it is and it's only people that place moral judgments on it that create a perception of good and bad, right and wrong. One of my college psych professors quoted someone "To the worm the robin's song doesn't say 'Cheer Up!'". Morality may have subjective components, extremely few things are so simple as to be all good or all bad subjectively, but Truth, objective truth apart from singular opinion, either is or isn't supportable in my judgment.

While the aim of Science is to be inclusive, in practice it is very often exclusive since so few bother to learn the skills to explore all avenues of Natural Order. The language of Science leans almost exclusively on Mathematics and unfortunately the vast majority of the world population never studies beyond basic arithmetic. Here's an example specific to the US. In the 1980s A&W created the Third Pounder burger to compete with McDonald's Quarter Pounder. Taste tests revealed that by a considerable margin people preferred the taste of the 1/3 Pounder over the 1/4 pounder and as if that wasn't enough, it was also priced cheaper per pound. A&W was shocked that sales were so poor until focus groups determined that over 30% of customers thought it was more actually expensive since "4" is larger than "3". They didn't even understand the most basic concepts of fractions. I think you probably realize such people are excluded from even the most basic science.

When we add to that number the more than 70% of the population that never even had an introductory course of Algebra let alone the mainstay of modern Science, Calculus, it becomes obvious that the large percentage of the world population is indeed excluded and has as little real understanding of Science as illiterates have of actual History.

I agree that Life is Good and the Sun will likely "rise" tomorrow, at least life is good now under today's conditions, and while I'm not much concerned about billions of years down the road when the Sun consumes our planet but if anything resembling humans are still around I hope they can leave the vicinity or prevent the Sun from going Red Giant. While the earth's temperature raising 2 degrees Centigrade is certainly many orders of magnitude less apocalyptic than the surface of our Sun expanding out to the orbit of Earth, nevertheless 2 degrees C has distinctly deadly ramifications that will profoundly alter the future of our grandchildren and it seems unlikely we can keep it to just 2 degrees by 2050 and you are very likely a part of that problem since you apparently refuse to see the preponderance of evidence that warrants at the very least erring on the side of prudent caution.

enorbet, once again, I am not "against" the trend of the planet warming, I am against the politicization of that trend and turning that trend into an ideology to be exploited at the expense of the masses (current and future). This ideology is not new, it goes back about 120 years (give or take).

Where we can agree is that change is occurring, and yes Humans can play a role in that, and yes we can harness better energy options. Where I disagree and the evidence does not support, is that humans are the primary cause of, or that the planet would be better off without humans, or that a "modern world" is some type of climatic curse that needs to be curtailed, and in the meantime lets create a multitude of taxes to raise the money to combat this problem etc... As I stated before, the planet warms, it cools, poles flip, oceans warm, they cool, jet streams dip, then they rise higher, these changes have been recorded for approx. 10,000 years among the Chinese (who have the worlds oldest written scientific records), and they occur in predictable cycles, sometimes those cycles are slower and sometimes faster, but within a margin of error they are predictable. Yet, the modern world likes to pretend this is all new, and that its man made.

True science is philosophical and fact based (seeking truth no matter what the outcome) not ideologically based, otherwise Science is just another Religion that can be used to confuse and control the masses. The lab-coats can quickly become priests robes.

PS: I always enjoy reading your posts.

"jefro, jsbjsboo1, seem to think that accepting that humans have powerfully affected climate is tantamount to some kind of "blame game" and distrust science"

You may be taking my comments and skewing them.

Your claim of clean energy is false. There is no free ride, there is no such thing as clean energy. The only clean energy is energy that wasn't used. What is useful to one person may not be useful to another. Someone saying that I am to blame for global warming is just them not noticing the other 3 fingers pointing back at them. It's a lot easier to conserve energy than it is to create it.

I have never said that mankind and all plants and animals on earth have not had an effect. I have said that everyone has. What part of that is not science?

I have stated that science and medicine and every other so called expert has let me down over the decades. Pretty sure they will let me down next year too. You'd have walk a mile in my shoes to understand why I don't just blindly believe a current notion.

Not that I'm in charge of anything really. All I can do is use a power strip on my computer and try to use minimal energy. When I get vacation however, I'm towing a trailer to the coast and might go deep sea fishing. Might run the AC there too.

jefro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agg1ghcqpJo

Oh,, I get it now.

I do kind of talk like that guy.

Ha, that wasn't a dig at you...

ChuangTzu we are going to need to drop WAY back to get on the same page here. How is Climate Change politicized? anywhere but especially currently in the US who dropped out of the Paris Accord and has done next to nothing to curtail the increasing trend of burning fossil fuels. Reagan yanked solar panels off the White House when even at that primitive stage they were quite cost effective with multiple benefits. Not one president that I know of has been friendly to developing cleaner energy sources since Reagan yanked those panels.

What ideology goes back 120 years? I don't see avoiding a climate disaster is even about an ideology anymore than developing early warning systems for tornadoes or guarding against flood damage is an ideology.

I don't disagree with you on the above. I just don't understand the POV, connections and applications.

What I emphatically disagree with is this....

First of all the record of considerably more than 10,000 years is written in ice, fossils, and geology but far more importantly the rates of change recorded starting in the 20th century are way off the scale for natural trends for millions of years. Never, let that sink in... never before has there ever been the rapid change we see in such a short time since 1900. It was not predictable at all and even the Chinese now see it for what it so obviously is despite their need to drag the whole country into the 21st Century by any means possible. There is no pretense. It IS new and it IS largely man-made and this isn't a guess or even speculation. It is conclusively hard facts supported by studies from numerous angles and of various different scientific disciplines - Chemistry, Biology, Marine studies, Atmospheric studies, radar, infrared and optical photos from space, ground photos of receding ice and commensurate rise of sea level as well as temperature, and on and on.

I am quite certain that most scientists, just like me, have no dog in this race and would far rather this was not happening... and the most bewildering and egregious quote "better off without humans" !!! ????? WHAT??? from whose point of view? I frankly don't give a damn that the Earth or any animals or plants on it might possibly be better off without us exactly because we are talking about US! That's the only bias I have in this. That's MY ox being gored and any "solution" that requires human exodus let alone extinction is not even worthy of discussion to me. The only reason for discussing rapid climate change is because of it's impact on humans in my book.

Regarding science and ideology, especially to the degree of religious dogma, I don't mix those at all. Not only would I resist that if that tendency existed in me but it just doesn't. As a kid I read astronomy books that still posited that The Universe was just the Milky Way. I had no difficulty whatsoever in altering that view so immensely as per post Hubble. Pluto not a planet? No problem. No stone face on Mars? No problem. Quantum mechanics? No problem. String Theory? Yes. Lots of problems because so far there aren't even proposals for ways to test and observe and that's speculation not Science no matter how elegant the Math is. If evidence begins to amass then we can trend to "no problem" but until then it's just interesting Math. Human-caused raid climate change? Problematic in that it portends disasters but as a proven event, no problem. It's real.

Jefro we seem so far apart I barely know where to begin, but I'll try because I think the gulf seems larger than it actually is.

I have no time for blame. Humans went from burning wood to burning coal and oil because it was more plentiful and more efficient. Blame doesn't even enter into that picture. The only blame I am involved in is against Big Oil who knowingly spread FUD to try to discredit scientific evidence solely because they stand to lose money as if they aren't already more than rich enough. They now actively block any development of anything that could replace or even enhance fossil fuels. Given that the Koch brothers have given up hiding from the facts and now feel so comfortable they brag about having so much political clout that they can railroad anyone out of office that even speaks in a remotely positive manner about human caused climate change or cleaner energy, I'd go so far as to say too much wealth and power. I don't blame you for using what is currently your only options exactly as you said because I am in that same boat and our impact is miniscule compared to changing what options ARE available to us.

FWIW I absolutely agree that a penny's worth of conservation is more than a dollar's worth of production.

Also FWIW the medical profession is formally called "a practice". It is influenced by and benefits considerably from science but at it's core it is not Science. I honestly can't imagine what Science has ever let you down. In fact, I'd like to hear you expand on that and be specific.

Like you I have no trust in Free Rides and I suffer no illusions that energy is any exception BUT just as coal, gas, and oil were and are more efficient than wood, there are means to improve the conditions of those sources as well as develop newer ones that are cleaner and will become cheaper. One example of this is it is a falsehood to assume that photovoltaic cells have no carbon footprint BUT they do already have substantially less footprint than burning coal to produce electricity or batteries to store it. Battery and other storage methods are improving all the time even though they have never gotten the equivalent of an Oil Depletion Allowance let alone the many other incentives that made oil and gas viable in the early 20th Century. Imagine what could be accomplished if that was actively pursued rather than discouraged both philosophically and economically.

enorbet, let's try this path....What do you propose to alter this trend? What should mankind do? Who should be doing the "it" that "needs" to be done?

It's pretty likely that someone as intelligent and reasonably well-read as you is aware of the term "crisis management"... you know, the style where people only put out the fires tall enough to burn their asses, right? I imagine you've also heard that if we catch cancer soon enough it can be defeated. If so you already catch my drift. I have very little doubt that if we hold this poll again in say 2 years the percentage of deniers will be even smaller as the crisis events stack up closer to home, but IMHO that will be akin to fires tall enough to burn your ass so the first "it" on my list is to do the research to determine exactly what's going on and how major a threat it actually evolves into. Then I continue to spread that word in opposition to the short term self-serving lies of Big Oil and to write congressmen so that a President walking out of a climate summit becomes unconscionable sooner rather than later and to turn the trend around and start providing incentives for alternatives as well as increased awareness of the value of conservation through things like tax incentives.

In short, first, as always, is awareness so that support becomes strong for developing new and improving existing methods, processes and hardware options that reduce our dependency on Oil and other fossil fuels which BTW has a profound corollary beneficial effect on foreign policy and the likelihood of ummm "police action" and conflict, not to mention little things things like Acid Rain. If that can occur then people like you and me have viable options and a sense of a reasonably secure future for our children, grandchildren and so on.

It may be hard to see how simple but long term such changes are since most here grew up with gas stations rarely more than a mile or two apart, coal and heating oil delivered to our homes and millions of miles of roads to drive on but my grandfather, born in 1901, was in High School before he saw his first automobile on Main Street even though so-called "horseless carriages" had been on sale since 1896, 5 years before he was born and nearly 20 years before he saw one in person. The point is that it took time, decades, for all that infrastructure to "just be there" like it was for us and it also took considerable support including public, institutional and governmental and few were fighting against this change for any reason more serious than possibly scaring the horses. Horse breeders were never organized under a single "umbrella" like Oil was from very early on so resistance was minimal, almost non-existent, unlike the vast wealth and manpower being utilized to keep them in their lofty positions once attained.

One rather massive gorilla in the room that will likely earn me incredulous flames is that I think we need to pursue nuclear power as well as the more easily accepted wind, water and solar power. Yes there have been some nasty accidents. In fact odd and coincidental as this will sound. it is nevertheless true that I was returning on a school bus from a Science field trip to Three Mile Island and heard the news that JFK had been shot on the way home. That was quickly followed by panic and over reaction like the film "China Syndrome" but the fact remains that all major technologies and many lesser ones have resulted in many deaths and disastrous environments including home electricity, fertilizer, automobiles, dynamite, coal mining, and on and on, yet far more nuclear facilities have operated for decades without any accidents and produced massive amounts of electrical power. We just almost never hear about that fact since tragedy sells and success like this is considered boring.

We just blindly accept that the Status Quo of fossil fuels is somehow the pinnacle and nothing worthwhile lies beyond it, just like Big Oil wants us to believe. I am not afraid of change but Big Oil is and working hard to prevent it for as long as they can get away with it.

I don't get free ride comments.

As I draw in free air.
Drink free water.
Am loved freely.
Run AntiX.
Walk freely through the desert.
Gravity holds me in place.
All provided free of charge.


All which can be purchased. But can be had freely. Now if someone is trying a ponzi thing or carpet bagging. Then I see a point about distrusting free rides.

World wide communication has helped with the warming crisis. Nothing like a arsonist reading on the news about fires and going, " Now that is a good idea. Where is my Bic lighter? "

Saying humans don't effect/affect Terra Firma for the worse sometimes is just pounding sand up the Internets derriere.

Hope I am dead when Yellow Stone blows, Mt Rainier Blows, Cali goes surfing in the pacific.

Because. None knows what secret defense projects have effect on Earth and day to day living for human beings across the planet. Monsoon seasons have changed.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....9/1999GL900126

Funny how 2 country fied yokels see the world in a different light from each other.

Oh. I know you asked enorbet.

The one change I would suggest.

Anyone starting a war leaves their mortal coil right on the spot.

That would fix a lot of stuff.

Aw hell roky we could delay that long enough for the two factions leaders to enter a To The Death gladiatorial match and make money off it.