The ldsfaqs / Climate Change MEGATHREAD

[_mikwut]

Alright guys. Nice to cyber see you guys again. My interest is satisfying dialogue. I don't even have a demand that I'm right. I just seek satisfying dialogue that is interesting and satisfying. A need to just demean your opposition should really be a sign to yourselves of other internal things going on with you. But it isn't interesting satisfying or stimulating for me. Sincerely enjoy your evenings. Goodbye.

[_honorentheos]

The feeling was mutual on this subject, mikwut. "Who's Metallica?" indeed.

[_mikwut]

Honor,

I did not post anything to just demean you or any other poster.
Mik

[_canpakes]

... of course we can utilize alternatives that is what the market does and is doing as we speak. Nothing is holding it back, fossil fuels are what is being attacked and held back around the globe.

Fossil fuel use is hardly being attacked anywhere across the globe, and consumption has increased nearly every year within the past century:

https://ourworldindata.org/exports/glob ... 50x600.svg

Alternatives right now as we speak have government incentives and tax breaks and every break going for them. The market is favorable for them, the public is favorable for them so you bet, bring it.

Fossil fuels still enjoy an inordinately healthy level of incentivization and tax consideration, especially considering their developmental age and well-established infrastructure within the portfolio of energy options. For reference, see this report:

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44852.pdf

As Alex Epstein points out in his argument for fossil fuels over the last 100 years deaths of humans related to climate has fallen 98 percent. In fact, climate related deaths are almost non-existent to in industrialized countries.

I note the irony of quoting Epstein, who works for a 'for profit' think tank. : )

mikwut, at the risk of sounding dismissive, this is a pretty silly argument to make. There's no more connection established here between increased fossil fuel use and decreasing 'climate related deaths' than to claim that increased worldwide consumption of bacon and soda also produces the same result.

Has it occurred to you that other factors are likely responsible for this trend, such as better infrastructure, and vastly improved weather forecasting - especially within 'industrialized nations'?

As well, if the implication is supposing to comment on deaths that occur from climate change (within a disingenuous sort of alternate framing) then folks in the argument should be honest enough to acknowledge that mortality effects are cumulative and increase slowly over time, and can occur outside of the oddly-stated category of 'climate related deaths'. As example, if increased water temperatures in some ocean regions hit a point that causes a collapse of certain fish populations - which then causes an increased level of starvation-related deaths within a poor nation dependent upon that food source - does this fact make it on to Epstein's list of 'climate related deaths'?

[Guest]

I couldn't help but notice that mikwut completely ignored the questions posed by canpakes in this post:

Hey, I have a question for faqs (mikwut, please also feel free to give your opinion) ...

Clearly, the Administration is not friendly to the topic of climate change, to the point that they will do their best to underfund/defund research, toss scientist advocates to the curb and suppress reports or opinion regarding the otherwise prevailing view amongst the scientific community.

So, what is the supposed advantage of any researcher or scientist in holding the idea that anthropogenic climate effects exist? Surely it isn’t because there’s any guarantee of work or fame for holding that opinion.

If the scientific community was so motivated by a conspiratorial drive to merely ‘make money’, as denialists claim, why wouldn’t they be streaming out of the doors of the institutions that they work for to instead seek better, more reliable work and pay with the fossil fuels industry or that industry’s advocates in Washington?

Why indeed would the vast majority of atmospheric scientists and climatologists continue warning us about anthropogenic warming if it were not a real thing, and shilling for the fossil fuel industry would likely be much more remunerative and less likely to incur intense political opposition and even death threats?

Are you an attorney for Exxon-Mobil or something? Fossil fuel interests still enjoy extensive support in US government policy. Look up the effective tax rate on coal production. We spend billions on direct and indirect subsidies of fossil fuels. We don't have extensive (and obscenely expensive) military entanglements to help ensure the competitive pricing of wind.

Whether or not mikwut is actually an attorney for some fossil fuel company, it cannot be denied that his line of argument and attempts to sell doubt about the reality of anthropogenic warming and the necessity of fighting it are precisely what would be expected from him if he were.

[_Gunnar]

Alright guys. Nice to cyber see you guys again. My interest is satisfying dialogue. I don't even have a demand that I'm right. I just seek satisfying dialogue that is interesting and satisfying. A need to just demean your opposition should really be a sign to yourselves of other internal things going on with you. But it isn't interesting satisfying or stimulating for me. Sincerely enjoy your evenings. Goodbye.

Translation: "I know I'm losing the argument, so I'm going to bow out."

[_EAllusion]

As well, if the implication is supposing to comment on deaths that occur from climate change (within a disingenuous sort of alternate framing) then folks in the argument should be honest enough to acknowledge that mortality effects are cumulative and increase slowly over time, and can occur outside of the oddly-stated category of 'climate related deaths'. As example, if increased water temperatures in some ocean regions hit a point that causes a collapse of certain fish populations - which then causes an increased level of starvation-related deaths within a poor nation dependent upon that food source - does this fact make it on to Epstein's list of 'climate related deaths'?

I addressed this briefly upthread. The weird thing about Mikwut's comment to me is that there is a whole body of well-publicized research that does attempt to estimate current and future mortality due to climate change. This refers to mortality related to increasing global average temperature rather than climate related deaths in general. And those numbers are in the thousands even on the conservative side before accounting for more obscure ripple effects, not "almost no one."

So either Mikwut is operating off a source that is just making that claim up or is defining climate related mortality in a way that differs from a large established body of research on the subject or both.

[_EAllusion]

Whether or not mikwut is actually an attorney for some fossil fuel company, it cannot be denied that his line of argument and attempts to sell doubt about the reality of anthropogenic warming and the necessity of fighting it are precisely what would be expected from him if he were.

That comment was a joke from me, but fossil fuel interests contrary to what Mikwut said actually receive extensive government support. They receive billions directly in subsidies and billions more indirectly.

It's difficult to wrap your head around the foreign policy cost of strategic actions meant at least in part to benefit fossil-fuel based energy policy, but "billions" might be an order of magnitude too low on that front.

[_Gunnar]

That comment was a joke from me, but fossil fuel interests contrary to what Mikwut said actually receive extensive government support. They receive billions directly in subsidies and billions more indirectly.

It's difficult to wrap your head around the foreign policy cost of strategic actions meant at least in part to benefit fossil-fuel based energy policy, but "billions" might be an order of magnitude too low on that front.

Understood!

[_mikwut]

Hi canpakes,

I note the irony of quoting Epstein, who works for a 'for profit' think tank. : )

What?!? Since when was argument, logic and evidence waived aside as our vehicles to debate, dialogue and assess truth claims for whether someone earns a living doing something? Epstein holds a value that I share of human life as primary because he works for profit think tank? That's to laugh. Epstein poses empirical data that shows the benefits to society worldwide of the burning of fossil fuels because he makes money at a think tank. C'mon man, its the arguments to assess not the personalities and cheap shots.

mikwut, at the risk of sounding dismissive, this is a pretty silly argument to make. There's no more connection established here between increased fossil fuel use and decreasing 'climate related deaths' than to claim that increased worldwide consumption of bacon and soda also produces the same result.

Ridiculous. There is a direct connection.

Has it occurred to you that other factors are likely responsible for this trend, such as better infrastructure, and vastly improved weather forecasting - especially within 'industrialized nations'?

Where do you think the energy for the better infrastructure came from? It was fossil fuels that provided that. Do claim it was all human muscles? How do you think the ability for us to use our minds to such a degree today for things like better weather forecasting comes from? It comes from the fantastic energy of fossil fuels that lights and heats our homes and office buildings, makes our products, fuels our transportation and practically all of our productivity. Can you provide me with any example of a nation that has better infrastructure and weather forecasting without fossil fuels to do so?

As well, if the implication is supposing to comment on deaths that occur from climate change (within a disingenuous sort of alternate framing) then folks in the argument should be honest enough to acknowledge that mortality effects are cumulative and increase slowly over time, and can occur outside of the oddly-stated category of 'climate related deaths'. As example, if increased water temperatures in some ocean regions hit a point that causes a collapse of certain fish populations - which then causes an increased level of starvation-related deaths within a poor nation dependent upon that food source - does this fact make it on to Epstein's list of 'climate related deaths'?

It isn't Epsteins:

Indur M. Goklany, “Weather and Safety: The Amazing Decline in Deaths from Extreme Weather in an Era of Global Warming, 1900–2010,” Reason Foundation, Policy Study 393, Sept. 2011, http://reason .org/files/deaths_from_extreme_weather_1900_2010.pdf.

And the study is quite specific about climate related deaths and defining what they are. There is no disingenuous framing. The issue is one of scale. But the issue depends on the understanding that nature was not in some pristine edenic condition and then fossil fuels came along and put nature into a horrible tailspin. Nature is brutal with or without carbon emissions. We have created a resource of fossil fuels that shelters us from that brutality. Fossil fuels have saved millions upon millions of lives and extended our lives in both duration and quality. I am more than happy to match empirical data with you on the scale of lives extended, saved and quality added of fossil fuels compared to deaths caused and quality of life reduced due to their use, more than happy. I am actually surprised that wouldn't just be conceded.

mikwut