Is Catastrophic Global Warming a big mistake?

[KimberleyChris]

Agreed. there is always room for doubt. I take that as my default position.

Like religion: I don't believe, but I don't go telling others that they are wrong to believe, because I do not KNOW.

I always thought that Scientists used 'we don't know but we are trying to find out' as their default. How come so many scientists and (especially) politicians instantly know, and only select the evidence that suits them?

[EternalOptimist]

Agreed. there is always room for doubt. I take that as my default position.

Like religion: I don't believe, but I don't go telling others that they are wrong to believe, because I do not KNOW.

I always thought that Scientists used 'we don't know but we are trying to find out' as their default. How come so many scientists and (especially) politicians instantly know, and only select the evidence that suits them?

Well, it's obvious.

most people, including scientists, know the answers, they are just looking for confirmation.
The few who admit they dont have any answers go around looking for confirmation about how 'receptive' they are, like you are.
The really useful people are those who have done both jobs and who are not paid to pull a particular party line
so we are probbly looking for someone who has worked in a job promoting the main line, but who now works in a role that emphasises the sun.

or something

[pjclarke]

Wow, a wiki page edited by who-knows-who, with a huge "this page isn't very good" warning plastered at the top. I'm sure convinced.

Yeah. Who knows? Maybe the true number is twice that. Perhaps you could Google up a few climate scientists who disagree, or some published studies that contradict the concensus. Good luck with that.

[hyperD]

Consensus? OK, you beat my full house. I'm convinced.

Convinced, just like the consensus from the medical fraternity that for years directly attributed stress to the cause of stomach ulcers and yet now after proof, stress does not play a significant role in either the formation of peptic ulcer disease nor in the healing, simply the bacterium Helicobacter pylori.

One scientist.

Against consensus.

It's not that I find your zealous point of view offensive at all. It is the fact that I find such abhorrence in your devout and snarky means of defending it at all costs.

The history of human behaviour shows you have much to learn, my padawan.

[d000hg]

When you look out of a plane window at 38000 feet, it looks like a very big atmosphere, a very bright sun, and a very tiny mankind somewhere far below. Even huge power station chimneys look like matchsticks. It just doesn't add up.

Big things can be very fragile. Just look at SY01.

[KimberleyChris]

"When you look out of a plane window at 38000 feet...blah blah .."

Apart from very 'dense' places like Holland, nearly all of the land is a patchwork of grass with the occasional smudge, which is a town.

And then you spend four hours staring at nothing. Just some clouds and an endless empty ocean.

If you look up, you realise that the atmosphere continues for another hundred miles or more above you.

It just doesn't add up. Mankind couldn't have any effect on all that in a million years, even if he tried.

[BlasterBates]

Let us not forget some of the predictions:

[EternalOptimist]

only ten years of contracting left in the city. fill yer boots now and buy some flippers



London 2023

[KimberleyChris]

That's a really scary picture.

The Palace of Westminster is still there

[d000hg]

"When you look out of a plane window at 38000 feet...blah blah .."

Apart from very 'dense' places like Holland, nearly all of the land is a patchwork of grass with the occasional smudge, which is a town.

And then you spend four hours staring at nothing. Just some clouds and an endless empty ocean.

If you look up, you realise that the atmosphere continues for another hundred miles or more above you.

It just doesn't add up. Mankind couldn't have any effect on all that in a million years, even if he tried.

Really? I seem to remember one large building sprung a leak and the effects are still measurable - using pretty crude tools - across substantial parts of the world.