details regarding the 97% consensus paper from Peter Cook.

[ZARDOZ]

This
Climate change sceptic is fine with all other science

[SpontaneousOrder]

This
Climate change sceptic is fine with all other science

I don't think there are really many global warming ('climate change' is dumb) sceptics out there.
There are, however, a lot of catastrophic AGW sceptics. And 'catastrophic' has to be weighed up against the catastrophe that will be the hundreds of millions (of mostly brown people) that need to suffer & die if we're to have any chance of hitting IPCC CO2 targets. Plus the reduction in standard of living for the rest of us.

That's why these misleading or even outright lying 'studies' are a big problem. We're literally talking about life & death for hundreds of millions. With a burden of proof so high this kind of sophistry is dangerous.

[pjclarke]

There are, however, a lot of catastrophic AGW sceptics. And 'catastrophic' has to be weighed up against the catastrophe that will be the hundreds of millions (of mostly brown people) that need to suffer & die if we're to have any chance of hitting IPCC CO2 targets. Plus the reduction in standard of living for the rest of us.

The term "Catastrophic AGW" was largely created by pseudosceptics, William Connelly summed up the situation rather well

One of the more stupid debating tricks of the “skeptics” is to oscillate between Ha ha, you believe in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming which is obviously not happening so you’re very silly, and when told that CAGW is a strawman that they’ve invented they switch to if it isn’t catastrophic we’ve got nothing to worry about, have we?

To which the answer is always some variant of if you can’t imagine anything between “catastrophic” and “nothing to worry about” then you’re not thinking.

The COP21 (aka Paris) agreement includes a $100 bn /year capital flow to the poorer countries most affected.

And 'Green Taxes' (not all related to emissions reduction) add around 112 quid to the average dual fuel bill, but the measures will reduce bills by 166 / year over the next few years.

That's why these misleading or even outright lying 'studies' are a big problem. We're literally talking about life & death for hundreds of millions. With a burden of proof so high this kind of sophistry is dangerous.

Cook et al is not an outlier - the conclusions land square in the middle of the results from equivalent papers, before and after. The study set out to quantify the strength of consensus amongst scientists that the global warming trend is manmade, addressing the public perception, encouraged by the 'doubt is our product' merchants, of a large degree of dissenting opinion. It actually found only 9 abstracts that explicitly reject the position that most of the warming is manmade, a vanishingly small number. And that is the point; amongst the scientific community, the debate long ago moved on from 'is it happening' to 'how bad will it get?'. Nothing misleading about that.

[pjclarke]

The only sound and practical way to judge the extent of a scientific consensus is to search for articles that reject the prevailing theory. For 2013 and 2014, I found that only 5 of 24,210 articles and 4 of 69,406 authors rejected anthropogenic global warming, showing that the consensus on AGW is above 99.9% and likely verges on unanimity.*

From Home | James Lawrence Powell

[seanraaron]

Also note that this thread has nothing to do with scepticism.

So you accept the premise that we're going through a period of human-caused climate change?

[DimPrawn]

So you accept the premise that we're going through a period of human-caused climate change?

If I take a piss in the sea, I accept that's human caused pollution, doesn't mean we all act like shrieking friggin school girls, we assess, and react accordingly. We don't propose shutting down civilisation and divert 100's billions $$$ on pointless shizz.

[seanraaron]

If I take a piss in the sea, I accept that's human caused pollution, doesn't mean we all act like shrieking friggin school girls, we assess, and react accordingly. We don't propose shutting down civilisation and divert 100's billions $$$ on pointless shizz.

I hardly think electric cars qualifies as shutting down civilisation. And if the consequence of doing nothing now is collapse of civilisation in a couple generations then I'm not willing to gamble with that when the short term cost is that low.

[NigelJK]

So lets see then.

IF climate change = true (probably always true if that counts for anything) THEN
IF cause = contribution by humans THEN
WTF are you going to do about it anyway?

As the science is so thoroughly settled then why do the lobby firms keep asking for more cash?

Yale stops funding climate change research

[WTFH]

So lets see then.

IF climate change = true (probably always true if that counts for anything) THEN
IF cause = contribution by humans THEN
WTF are you going to do about it anyway?

For me:
1. Consume less. Doesn't cost money, in fact saves it.
2. Shop local. Buy British keeps jobs in the UK and cuts down on the amount of transportation required to get it to me. This also helps with the local economy.
3. Shop ethical. How many orang-utans need to be killed to provide palm oil so that soap foams in a way that marketers have convinced people is required?
4. Eat unprocessed foods. Less processing = less added chemicals.
5. Eat seasonal. Strawberries in December? Nope. They are in season in June/July. That's when to eat them. Eating seasonal helps with a balanced diet too.


BTW, I don't live by these as hard and fast rules, I am hypocritical at times, but I make an effort to do the above.


I'm not paying any research company, big corporation or government to do them, but I am doing them, not relying on someone else or governments to do it.

[NigelJK]

Odd but I did all of those things (and more) before the so called 'controversy' as it's also the cheapest way to live.