Festive Dingbats 2024 C/D 6Th Jan
Quizzes & Puzzles7 mins ago
Climate Change
65 Answers
Please don't all rush at once - form an orderly queue.
Booking is now open for our event with Greta Thunberg, organised in partnership with the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It's not too late to change the world welcomes the climate campaigner to the Edinburgh Playhouse on Sunday 13 August to discuss The Climate Book. You'll have the opportunity to purchase a signed copy when buying your ticket, subject to availability.
This event is expected to be a sell-out and there is a four ticket limit per booker. Tickets start at £21.
Oh dear, I'm washing my hair that day!
Booking is now open for our event with Greta Thunberg, organised in partnership with the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It's not too late to change the world welcomes the climate campaigner to the Edinburgh Playhouse on Sunday 13 August to discuss The Climate Book. You'll have the opportunity to purchase a signed copy when buying your ticket, subject to availability.
This event is expected to be a sell-out and there is a four ticket limit per booker. Tickets start at £21.
Oh dear, I'm washing my hair that day!
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I'm sure they have and then discounted it so they can continue to get their financing.
It's all projections based computer models and we saw how useless they were in covid. You can make a computer model give you any answer you want.
Now if they went with pollution that is tangible and measurable maybe I would be more on board.
It's all projections based computer models and we saw how useless they were in covid. You can make a computer model give you any answer you want.
Now if they went with pollution that is tangible and measurable maybe I would be more on board.
// It's all projections based computer models and we saw how useless they were in covid.//
This "criticism" just feels so empty. Basically everything in science is a model, backed up by data. As for how "useless" the models were during Covid, that is in the first place hardly comparing like with like (Covid itself was new, and while epidemiology as a field is not, it can be tricky to adapt its models properly to a novel virus without knowing all the relevant details of the disease and pathogen); and secondly misses that often the models served as calls to action. We never did get to test what would have happened in the UK, for example, without radical interventions, because we took the warnings seriously.*
Climate Change and the related science has a history going back well over a century -- indeed, it's older and more well-established than General Relativity. The objections to it are political, from people who don't want to take it seriously or who benefit financially by ignoring and undermining its credibility.
*This is not to say that early Covid modelling was perfect; but what *is* clearly true is that you can't properly evaluate the counterfactual of what would have happened without taking action. A reasonable assumption is that deaths would have been higher, although how higher, and how close to the worst predictions, is hard to say. A clear criticism of the early modelling is that it didn't take into account the public's natural tendency to respond to a rapidly-spreading disease by spontaneously taking their own contingency measures without the need for government regulation; but this is a technical flaw specific to early Covid-19, rather than applying to modelling in general.
This "criticism" just feels so empty. Basically everything in science is a model, backed up by data. As for how "useless" the models were during Covid, that is in the first place hardly comparing like with like (Covid itself was new, and while epidemiology as a field is not, it can be tricky to adapt its models properly to a novel virus without knowing all the relevant details of the disease and pathogen); and secondly misses that often the models served as calls to action. We never did get to test what would have happened in the UK, for example, without radical interventions, because we took the warnings seriously.*
Climate Change and the related science has a history going back well over a century -- indeed, it's older and more well-established than General Relativity. The objections to it are political, from people who don't want to take it seriously or who benefit financially by ignoring and undermining its credibility.
*This is not to say that early Covid modelling was perfect; but what *is* clearly true is that you can't properly evaluate the counterfactual of what would have happened without taking action. A reasonable assumption is that deaths would have been higher, although how higher, and how close to the worst predictions, is hard to say. A clear criticism of the early modelling is that it didn't take into account the public's natural tendency to respond to a rapidly-spreading disease by spontaneously taking their own contingency measures without the need for government regulation; but this is a technical flaw specific to early Covid-19, rather than applying to modelling in general.
// Do you really believe that this is the first time the world has had a temperature rise in its 4.5 billion (not million) years existence? //
Of course the world will survive, adapt and reset. But humans will all be dead. We have seen mass extinction's in our short time of existence, But we should not hasten our demise, if it is within our power to slow it or extend our time.
Of course the world will survive, adapt and reset. But humans will all be dead. We have seen mass extinction's in our short time of existence, But we should not hasten our demise, if it is within our power to slow it or extend our time.
//The objections to it are political, from people who don't want to take it seriously or who benefit financially by ignoring and undermining its credibility.
//
What absolute cobblers.
Just because you come on here and write lengthy diatribes (that most wont read as too long) doesnt mean you are correct.
You seem very over opinionated by yourself, were you a teacher by any chance?
//
What absolute cobblers.
Just because you come on here and write lengthy diatribes (that most wont read as too long) doesnt mean you are correct.
You seem very over opinionated by yourself, were you a teacher by any chance?
// I'm sure they have and then discounted [the suggestion that the world has had another temperature rise in its 4.5 billion (not million) years existence]... //
Even this is completely wrong. The early history of Climate Change science was precisely about understanding why the Earth's Climate had varied in the past, not how it might vary in future. But, by around the end of the 19th Century, a link had been made by multiple scientists between varying levels of CO2 ("carbonic acid gas", as it was known then) and previous Ice Ages.
For example, this, from the 1850s by Eunice Newton Foote:
// ...the highest [warming] effect of the sun's rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas. ... An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature; and if, as some suppose, at one period of its history, the air had mixed with it a larger proportion than at present, an increased temperature from its action...must have necessarily resulted. //
Or, as Svante Arrhenius in the 1890s noted, that a halving of the then-atmospheric levels of CO2 would result, or have resulted in, an Ice Age, and similarly that a doubling (again, compared to 1890 levels) could give a total warming of around 5 degrees C. (These calculations have doubtless been revised, but the point is that the link between CO2 and global temperature was already made well over 100 years ago.)
Then there's this, in 1912: https:/
Now, it's true that at the time these theories were not universally accepted, but then it's also true that other ideas were advanced, including but not limited to solar activity and variations in the Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles, as they are now known). But an important point about this is that the role of Solar Activity as a source of short-term climate change was firmly debunked as a result of the early 20th-century research, while the Milankovitch Cycles remain well-established but are relevant only on ten-thousand-year+ scales. And at the same time "greenhouse theory" was generally regarded with scepticism, for example because of the belief that oceans would absorb CO2 too quickly for human emissions to have an effect.
The overall point, then, is that the scientific consensus today, that greenhouse gases (GHGs) are primarily responsible for the present epoch of Climate Change, and that human activity is primarily responsible for the increase in GHGs, has arisen out of a lengthy period of extreme scepticism, where it has found an answer to all attacks and has survived all attempts at serious scrutiny. It's *not* because other ideas have been crushed underfoot by financial interests.
Even this is completely wrong. The early history of Climate Change science was precisely about understanding why the Earth's Climate had varied in the past, not how it might vary in future. But, by around the end of the 19th Century, a link had been made by multiple scientists between varying levels of CO2 ("carbonic acid gas", as it was known then) and previous Ice Ages.
For example, this, from the 1850s by Eunice Newton Foote:
// ...the highest [warming] effect of the sun's rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas. ... An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature; and if, as some suppose, at one period of its history, the air had mixed with it a larger proportion than at present, an increased temperature from its action...must have necessarily resulted. //
Or, as Svante Arrhenius in the 1890s noted, that a halving of the then-atmospheric levels of CO2 would result, or have resulted in, an Ice Age, and similarly that a doubling (again, compared to 1890 levels) could give a total warming of around 5 degrees C. (These calculations have doubtless been revised, but the point is that the link between CO2 and global temperature was already made well over 100 years ago.)
Then there's this, in 1912: https:/
Now, it's true that at the time these theories were not universally accepted, but then it's also true that other ideas were advanced, including but not limited to solar activity and variations in the Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles, as they are now known). But an important point about this is that the role of Solar Activity as a source of short-term climate change was firmly debunked as a result of the early 20th-century research, while the Milankovitch Cycles remain well-established but are relevant only on ten-thousand-year+ scales. And at the same time "greenhouse theory" was generally regarded with scepticism, for example because of the belief that oceans would absorb CO2 too quickly for human emissions to have an effect.
The overall point, then, is that the scientific consensus today, that greenhouse gases (GHGs) are primarily responsible for the present epoch of Climate Change, and that human activity is primarily responsible for the increase in GHGs, has arisen out of a lengthy period of extreme scepticism, where it has found an answer to all attacks and has survived all attempts at serious scrutiny. It's *not* because other ideas have been crushed underfoot by financial interests.
// //The objections to it are political, from people who don't want to take it seriously or who benefit financially by ignoring and undermining its credibility.
//
What absolute cobblers.//
Evidently not, as you can see if you track the complete history of the field. A few more bullet points:
1. The link between GHG emissions and climate change is well-established, based on more than a century of research;
2. Other ideas turned out not to work, despite often being more popular, but they failed to explain newly-available evidence;
3. People who keep advancing ideas that have already been tried and failed either are ignorant of the history, or are hoping that others are in order to promote their own interests.
4. This very much *does* include financial interests. Here, for example, is a Shell report from 1988: https:/
It's pointless to keep having this debate, really. Humanity is primarily responsible for the current increase in greenhouse gases, and greenhouse gases drive climate change. We know this. We've known it for decades. We've known it from multiple sources, including from within multiple companies whose business model relies on burning fossil fuels.
//
What absolute cobblers.//
Evidently not, as you can see if you track the complete history of the field. A few more bullet points:
1. The link between GHG emissions and climate change is well-established, based on more than a century of research;
2. Other ideas turned out not to work, despite often being more popular, but they failed to explain newly-available evidence;
3. People who keep advancing ideas that have already been tried and failed either are ignorant of the history, or are hoping that others are in order to promote their own interests.
4. This very much *does* include financial interests. Here, for example, is a Shell report from 1988: https:/
It's pointless to keep having this debate, really. Humanity is primarily responsible for the current increase in greenhouse gases, and greenhouse gases drive climate change. We know this. We've known it for decades. We've known it from multiple sources, including from within multiple companies whose business model relies on burning fossil fuels.
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