Thread for discussing climate change

[Atlanticmike]

AM only makes himself look more foolish and ill-informed with every post he makes.

But here you are, still talking about me, imagine that!

[Chap]

AM only makes himself look more foolish and ill-informed with every post he makes.

But here you are, still talking about me, imagine that!

Two guys are trying to have a serious conversation in a train. A drunk keeps interrupting them.

So they move to another carriage, and a few minutes later, there comes the drunk again, lurching and belching towards them. "Oh God, here comes that goddammed drunk again" says one guy to another.

And the drunk grins all over his face and says: "I'm such a great guy that those smart guys are talking about me! How about that??"

[Atlanticmike]

But here you are, still talking about me, imagine that!

Two guys are trying to have a serious conversation in a train. A drunk keeps interrupting them.

So they move to another carriage, and a few minutes later, there comes the drunk again, lurching and belching towards them. "Oh God, here comes that goddammed drunk again" says one guy to another.

And the drunk grins all over his face and says: "I'm such a great guy that those smart guys are talking about me! How about that??"

Look! Cultellus and I don't need to move to a different carriage to have a serious conversation. The "drunk" you're referring to (Doc Semen or Schmo) well, they're not as dumb as you are trying to make them out to be! Yes! I agree with you that they follow me around everywhere I go on this board. But I want you to know it doesn't bother me much as you think it does. I raised a handful of kids to maturity and I'm willing to put the same amount of time and effort into helping these two ding-a-lings as well.

[Chap]

As a reminder, this thread is for discussing climate change.

Back on topic, please.

[Res Ipsa]

Interesting piece in Scientific American about migration in the United States caused by climate change.https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... te-change/

[Some Schmo]

Interesting piece in Scientific American about migration in the United States caused by climate change.https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... te-change/

Really interesting.

I've actually been obsessed by this topic in the last few years, and we finally decided it was in our best interest to buy a house away from the coast and elevated. I'm happy to read that my concerns are shared, although there was plenty in that article I hadn't considered (mostly the infrastructure stuff).

Anyway, thanks for the link.

[Res Ipsa]

Interesting piece in Scientific American about migration in the United States caused by climate change.https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... te-change/

Really interesting.

I've actually been obsessed by this topic in the last few years, and we finally decided it was in our best interest to buy a house away from the coast and elevated. I'm happy to read that my concerns are shared, although there was plenty in that article I hadn't considered (mostly the infrastructure stuff).

Anyway, thanks for the link.

I'd been counting on my little corner of the Pacific Northwest as being a good place to be. We've got lots of water. The climate is temperate. We generate our electricity using hydro power. As of this month, I'm an easy bus ride from the light rail. The fire smoke and heat waves have been a little daunting lately, but I'll take them over living on the gulf coast.

[Gunnar]

Apparently many climate deniers have the idea that climate scientists who warn about the dangers are in it for the money, or that they actually hope that their alarming projections of impending, potential doom are true. Nothing could be further from truth. There is no credible financial incentive for them to find that global warming is real and problematic if it were not true.

On the other hand, the climate scientists (like Willie Soon and the already discussed Fred Singer), who worked on the behalf of institutions funded by the fossil fuel industry to debunk global warming, really raked in the dough!

Willie Soon and The Fraser Institute

Willie Soon has written for the Fraser Institute and was formerly listed on its website as an author. The Fraser Institute received at least $120,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets. According to archived data from the Conservative Transparency project, combined with original 990 research, the Fraser Institute has also received over $1.4 million from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, and at least $225,000 form the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

Willie Soon and the George C. Marshall Institute
Willie Soon is a former senior scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute, a now-defunct group that was a predecessor for the CO2 Coalition. The Marshall Institute has received at least $865,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. Since 1985, the institute has also received $4,290,000 from the Scaife Foundations and $620,000 from the Koch-related Foundations since 1985. [13]

Willie Soon and The Heartland Institute

Willie Soon is listed on the Heartland Institute’s website and is a regular contributor to their conferences. [14]

The Heartland Institute is one of the most notorious climate change denial organizations in the United States, known for its failed 2012 billboard campaign that featured an image of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and the text “I still believe in Global Warming. Do You?”

Soon was also a speaker at the International Conference on Climate Change in 2008 and 2009, a conference organized annually by the Heartland Institute. The sponsors of the conference are heavily funded by Exxon, Scaife, and Koch. [110]

Willie Soon and Tech Central Station

Willie Soon was an author for Tech Central Station (TCS), a web-based journalism station that promoted climate change denial. Soon’s bio on the website stated, “Dr. Willie Soon’s views expressed are not those of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.” According to the 2008 report “Smoke, Mirrors, and Hot Air,” ExxonMobil gave TCS $95,000 in 2003. And, until 2006, TCS‘s information was published by the public relations firm DCI Group, a registered lobbying firm for ExxonMobil. [15], [109]\

Willie Soon and the World Climate Report

Soon was listed as a past “contributor” to the World Climate Report (WCR). The blog is run by the prominent climate change skeptic Patrick Michaels and is published by his company, New Hope Environmental Services. New Hope has been described as a PR company, and although secretive about its funding sources, it did receive support from an electrical generating company. [16]

The Center for Science and Public Policy and the Science and Public Policy Institute

Wilie Soon is connected to the Center for Science and Public Policy, an affiliate of Frontiers of Freedom. Although Willie Soon is not listed on the center’s website, in the Wall Street Journal article “Eat More Fish,” which he co-authored with Robert Ferguson, Soon is listed as the center’s “Chief Science Researcher.” [108]

“Smoke, Mirrors, and Hot Air” reports that ExxonMobil has provided Frontiers of Freedom with $857,000 in funding since 1998. And in 2003, ExxonMobil gave Frontiers of Freedom a grant worth $232,000 to launch a new branch of the organization called the Center for Science and Public Policy. The mission of this new branch deals exclusively with the issue of climate change. The Scaife Family Foundations have donated $135,000 to Frontiers of Freedom, and the Koch Family Foundations have donated $50,000. [109]

I'm sure the vast majority of climate scientists feel much the same way about global warming that Michael Ranney and Richard Alley do.

If I'm wrong I'll kiss you - Michael Ranney's Golden Nugget

What drives scientists? - Richard Alley's Golden Nugget

[Chap]

If 'those scientists' are all in it for the money, and they are all getting a decent slice, someone is pouring cash into this thing:

‘Case closed’: 99.9% of scientists agree climate emergency caused by humans
Trawl of 90,000 studies finds consensus, leading to call for Facebook and Twitter to curb disinformation

The scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate has passed 99.9%, according to research that strengthens the case for global action at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.

The degree of scientific certainty about the impact of greenhouse gases is now similar to the level of agreement on evolution and plate tectonics, the authors say, based on a survey of nearly 90,000 climate-related studies. This means there is practically no doubt among experts that burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, coal, peat and trees, is heating the planet and causing more extreme weather.

A previous survey in 2013 showed 97% of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering Earth’s climate.

This has been updated and expanded by the study by Cornell University that shows the tiny minority of sceptical voices has diminished to almost nothing as evidence mounts of the link between fossil-fuel burning and climate disruption.

The latest survey of peer-reviewed literature published from 2012 to November 2020 was conducted in two stages. First, the researchers examined a random sample of 3,000 studies, in which they found only found four papers that were sceptical that the climate crisis was caused by humans. Second, they searched the full database of 88,125 studies for keywords linked to climate scepticism such as “natural cycles” and “cosmic rays”, which yielded 28 papers, all published in minor journals.

The authors said their study, published on Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, showed scepticism among experts is now vanishingly small.

“It is really case closed. There is nobody of significance in the scientific community who doubts human-caused climate change,” said the lead author, Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University.

This echoed the view expressed in August by the world’s leading scientific body, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”

The general public does not yet understand how certain experts are, nor is it reflected in political debate. This is especially true in the US, where fossil fuel companies have funded a disinformation campaign that falsely suggests the science is not yet settled, similar to the campaign by tobacco industries to cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer.

The paper cites a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center that found only 27% of US adults believed that “almost all” scientists agreed the climate emergency was caused by human activity.

Many senior Republicans continue to cast doubt on the link between human activity and the climate crisis as market researchers have advised them to do since at least the presidency of George with Bush. According to the Center for American Progress, 30 US senators and 109 representatives “refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change”. Several big media organisations and social networks also promote climate-sceptical views that have little or no basis in science.

Lynas said the study should encourage them to review their policies. “This puts the likes of Facebook and Twitter in a quandary. It is pretty similar to vaccine misinformation; they both lack a basis in science and they both have a destructive impact on society. Social networks that allow climate misinformation to spread need to look at their algorithms and policies or to be forced to do so by regulators.”

Some commentators have challenged the significance of a scientific consensus, saying it is a distraction from more pressing concerns. However, they say it is important for media organisations to avoid giving a false sense of balance by giving equal weight and coverage to for-and-against arguments. Most important, a consensus is seen as vital for a concerted international response to the climate crisis.

The abstract of the original article says:

Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature
Mark Lynas4,1, Benjamin Z Houlton2 and Simon Perry3
Published 19 October 2021 • © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 16, Number 11

Abstract
While controls over the Earth's climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change by searching the recent literature for papers sceptical of anthropogenic-caused global warming. From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

This is an Open Access article - follow the link and you can download the pdf, read the whole article, and form your view on that. That's how science works ...

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I saw this on Reddit, and thought it might be useful as a way to explain climate change to the entrenched:

You don't need the sub [they’re talking about r/collapse] or any of its extreme or fringe aspects to very clearly see that we are headed for destruction. When you read the IPCC report, and repeat what it says, and then people say you're being doomy and circle-jerky -- it's like, "How can I be accused of confirmation bias when I'm just saying the facts as we know them? I'm not trying to be doomy -- it's just sitting right there in black-and-white."

The whole sub could be wrong -- craps still going down. If that knowledge harms mental health, it probably should -- because it's a natural reaction to the situation we are in.

It's like if someone says, "I have terrible anxiety." "Why?" "Because I'm buried in debt and I have no money." "But have you objectively considered the evidence that you aren't buried in debt and have no money?" "But that's the just the situation I'm in." "But why are you only considering the evidence that supports that view?" "It's just right here. It's obvious." "I think you're anxiety is coming from only considering the most extreme interpretations of your situation." "The basic facts are extreme!"

- Doc