Skeptical Science

> I see almost no evidence that we are going to deal with climate change in time to avoid a catastrophe. Admittedly it depends on what you mean by catastrophe, but if you mean the extreme interpretation, as often portrayed in the media, as in "the complete destruction of the human species and planet" i.e. The Day After Tomorrow or Mad Max, then you should look at the data on this because it will make you feel a whole lot better. [1] If on the other hand your definition of catastrophe is along the lines of : "by 2100, 8 foot rise in global water levels, coastal cities being flooded, large loss of biodiversity, and heat waves that make life on regions on the planet deathly hot for certain periods of the year", then although that's the worst case scenario, it's still a likely outcome in the sample space. 1. https://www.skepticalscience.com/ - This is a great site for the layman wanting to better understand the scope and current state of climate change.

> Dr. Koonin was undersecretary for science in the Energy Department during President Barack Obama's first term and is currently director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. His previous positions include professor of theoretical physics and provost at Caltech, as well as chief scientist of BP, BP.LN +0.42% where his work focused on renewable and low-carbon energy technologies. > We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy Complete and total horseshit. Even if you'd only assume that the scientists are 90% right any good actuaries will tell you that you should spend about 90% on measures that back up what they've put forward. Hacker News, I expected something better than this in the #2 spot. Here, read this: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/ Or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming Or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification Or this one is excellent: http://www.skepticalscience.com/ Edit: Alright, here we go with the downvotes for calling out bullshit regarding climate change on Hacker News. Well, it's not like I expected any better. Next I expect a replies either trying to argue random points about how there were forests in Greenland in the middle ages or some pretensions about being open-minded. While still barely having a grasp of a periphery of relevant facts. But that's OK, the warriors having upvoted this to the top immediately know best. Or at least as well as Murdoch, publisher…

Where "you guys" is apparently anyone who knows anything at all about the subject. When in Congress, Al Gore worked hard to turn the government owned and run network into something that the entire population can use. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology) I suggest that you take advantage of the incredible resource known as the Internet (and the WWW layered on top of it) to learn something about climate change and its underlying cause, anthropogenic global warming. See for instance https://skepticalscience.com/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change

> It is easier to measure in cities, and thus introduce bias based on whatever pavement is populate. That's a myth. * MODIS sat readings are available under the precessing polar orbit path and are indifferent to urbanisation or not. * National BoM networks have always included stations outside of cities and great care is taken to position stations and to normalise readings. * Urban Heat Island Bias is a myth of long standing; asked and answered three decades ago, two decades ago, a decade ago. Why is it _still_ being raised in 2025? See: https://skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect-intermediate.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pidRKmq2iGI

> Check the following graph from a 2019 Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco paper. The curve flattened a little in the 1980s and 1990s, and then basically flat-lined in the 2000s. I am instinctively distrustful of this graph, with its three completely independent trend-lines formed by semi-arbitrary time periods. It reminds me of Simpson's Paradox [0] or some climate-denial stuff where carefully-placed splits allowed someone to express an overall upward trend as 5-6 locally flat trendlines. [1] A quick search didn't yield anything useful for doing it myself, but I'd like to see the same plot except with atrend-path formed by a running average, without discontinuities. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox [1] https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

During the past years I found two answers to this question that seem plausible to me. First, there are many myths about climate change that are believe by many [1]. Second, George Marshall investigated why 'we' don't take measures and wrote a book about it [2]. He found the problem is hard wired in our brains and caused by "our evolutionary origins, our perceptions of threats, our cognitive blind spots, our love of storytelling, our fear of death, and our deepest instincts to defend our family and tribe". [1] https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php [2] George Marshall - Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change

The medieval warm period and following "little ice age" are not even visible on the xkcd graph, that's how small they are compared to massive recent changes. You're looking at micro trend with a magnifying glass and macro trend with a distorting lens if you think the medieval events are anywhere close to what's happening. No recorded climate change happened as fast as the current one, there have been wilder changes but they happened over centuries, not decades Saying climate always changed so it's ok is like saying you'll die eventually so it's ok if you die tomorrow > better understand that climate has always changed and will continue to change. I think virtually no one ever argued against that: https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=48

"My take is we need to allow unlimited emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen (reduction in other stuff though actually toxic). It increases food growth (plants love carbon) and arable land and decreases poverty." Your take is so misinformed that we all have to wonder how you could have twisted yourself into such a position CO2 is the primary driver of climate change and will do far more harm to these plants/crops that 'love' excess CO2 than you seem to understand. https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm

I love to dig out this old article on why "baseload" is a bullshit argument against reneawbles and surprisingly, "baseload" comes up only when it's nuclear astroturf time again. Weird eh? https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=374

On a quick glance I see numbers 1 ,43,44,48,90,96, of the climate change deniers list (1), and that's just from a 30 second skim. You are doing the classical playbook of "just asking questions" which either can't be settled (but what really is climate change?) or have been settled and you are willfully ignoring them (the IPCC has a clear definition of climate change, anthropogenic climate change etc.), in order to make it appear that the debate is ongoing and there is substantial doubt. There isn't. Like a sister comment pointed out, there is more consensus on climate change than on evolution. I expect you to wine about being downvoted and "silenced" as the next move of this playbook 1. https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

You are some steps behind the climate change deniers list of refutations (in more or less general chronical order): - there are no climate change - climate change is not because of humane activities - climate change isn't that bad - climate change might be good overall - climate change is business as usual: improvise, adapt, survive You can find more claims and counter claims https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather.htm here. I picked up that one following your question about cold winter.

> Agriculture (even without fossil fuels) has a far greater impact on the environment than all fossil fuel use combined Can I get a source for that claim? A quick Google gives me the following: > Globally, fossil fuel-based energy is responsible for about 60% of human greenhouse gas emissions, with deforestation at about 18%, and animal agriculture between 14% and 18% (estimates from the World Resources Institute, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and Pitesky et al. 2009 https://www.skepticalscience.com/how-much-meat-contribute-to-gw.html

Why is this linked? This guy is the science equivalent of a Holocaust denier. https://skepticalscience.com/Anthony_Watts_blog.htm It's a favorite source of alt-right morons who can't be bothered to read a wikipedia blurb, much less a scientific paper.

Europe is actually better in this regard because of grid connections between the countries. So lack of wind could be compensated by imports from Spain or Germany, for example. Germany and Norway also currently work on a project for a direct connection between their respective grids, called NordLink. Base load in a renewable-only world is an essentially solved problem, see for example the following link: https://skepticalscience.com/detailed-look-at-renewable-baseload-energ…

> I do, because trying to manipulate people's emotions is the lowest form of argumentation. You claim this, but the rest of your post is primarily about emotions. You want people to admit they were wrong, as if that makes any difference to the science. > Start off by admitting that scientists aren't always correct I can't imagine you could find a single scientist who wouldn't admit this, but ironically the example you give, "the ice age predictions of the 70s", is a common myth propagated by global heating deniers. See [0]. > ("the science is settled" is one of the dumbest phrases ever uttered) The science is settled. Why do you think it's dumb? [0] https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

You're right. We don't need more evidence, we need more action. Get involved with the strikes on the 20th. You can even put your website on strike https://digital.globalclimatestrike.net/ (got some big names signed up already). Here are some good resources to combat science deniers but it's probably better to focus on people in the middle who know it's happening but have yet to take action. https://skepticalscience.com/ https://xkcd.com/1732/

If you aren’t a denier then why are you repeating a classic, thoroughly debunked denier talking point? https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm

Not impressed by their logic. This is a multi-factored problem with numerous areas which can be addressed to lower greenhouse gas emissions. And they proceed boil this complex problem down into an anti-meat soundbite. I think they could just as easily have titled it "Why having no children is the best thing you can do for the planet in 2019" but I guess that didn't fit the anti-meat agenda. Breakdown of sources of greenhouse gas emissions: How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming? https://www.skepticalscience.com/how-much-meat-contribute-to-gw.html

There are far greater costs to not cutting emissions now. 15-40% of CO2 remains in the atmosphere for upwards of 1000 years: https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time.htm

But it is a reason to disbelieve any of his claims and any data that he has generated. The logic can be trusted if one can go back to other data generators. At that point, what purpose does he serve as a scientist? Are you going to go check all his citations and make sure that he's not misapplying them? There is also great reason to doubt his science: https://www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natural.htm As those are pretty basic errors to be making. Basically he's a total mess.

Humans are not the primary source in the tricky sense that someone looking to deny the evidence couldn't deny. But they are the primary source of the net emissions or, in other words, the increase of CO2 levels. It's a bit like if your neighbor produces just enough grain for a year's worth of food for his family of 10 and you steal just enough for yourself. Technically, you aren't the primary source of the decrease in food, but you are the primary (and only) source of the fact that your neighbor's food supply are lower than needed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXoRSIxyIU http://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/carbon-dioxide-emissions https://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissi… https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/carbon-storage-f…

This is a great site that has links to outside resources. https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ has a similar model, although by the nature of the content it may not be that easy to read if you don't have a certain level of scientific education.

If you're genuinely looking for good citations, I would look at the http://skepticalscience.com site.

> Unfortunately there is no magic fingerprint to distinguish between tectonic, volcanic and antropogenic carbon. Wrong again. Fossil fuels come from plants and animals, and they all ultimately come from photosynthesis, which prefers C12 over slightly heavier C13 atoms.[1] As a result, CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels have a lower concentration of C13. "Plants have a lower C13/C12 ratio than in the atmosphere. If rising atmospheric CO2 comes fossil fuels, the C13/C12 should be falling. Indeed this is what is occuring (Ghosh 2003) and the trend correlates with the trend in global emissions."[2] As for "humanity is smaller", I'll refer to the excellent xkcd[3]. I believe no further elaboration is necessary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopic_signature#Carbon_isotopes [2] http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=109 [3] http://xkcd.com/1338/

Have you happened across this[1] (which ars sums up here[3]) in your comprehensive research on the topic? It's almost entirely about exactly what seems to be your big sticking point, that we're bad at measuring temperature, and the results aren't worthwhile as a result. This is something that absolutely consumes the scientists and technicians involved in taking these measurements, because they know it's going to catch heat no matter what. Here's a fairly comprehensive post[2] with numerous links to publications and explanations. Satellite vs. surface is mentioned explicitly near the bottom. [1]http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469 [2] http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advan… [3] http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/06/updated-noaa-temperature-record…

> How is it Religion to have a theory that you're trying to prove? [..] Einstein had the theory that time had to be relative, and then set out to proof it. Science is all about coming up with a range of different models that attempt to explain the universe, and then tying our damnedest to disprove as many of them as we can. That way we can be left with the best possible explanations for the phenomena that we observe based on our current level of understanding. We have tried our hardest to bring down the theory of anthropogenic climate change, probably so more than any other theory in the history of science. But every time we try we have failed[0]. We cannot be certain about anything, but if we keep pushing beyond reasonable doubt then we go beyond skepticism and into denial. [0]: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

What is it about global warming links that bring a deluge of totally stupid fallacious postings on Hacker News every time? There's almost not a single good comment here that would show even rudimentary understanding of the subject. I thought this was better than Slashdot. - "Climate has always changed." check. - "I live in a cold place, I welcome warming." check. - "We can just adjust." check. Maybe check if your insightful argument has actually already been debunked here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Here, go and have a read of this article: http://skepticalscience.com/how-do-climate-models-work.html - they talk in great detail about how the models work, starting with one equation. Also look at this image further down the page: http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/sea_ice_prediction.jpg The glacier model is wrong, but wrong in the wrong direction (Actually I think that's combined results from multiple models, but anyway...). How do they know? Because there are climatologists out on the ice, or in satellites taking measurements-1. Testing the model - you know, all that stuff that is supposedly impossible to do. 1- there are even high resolution GPS modules in Greenland which can estimate ice loss by how far up the crust lifts (as well as detecting plate tectonics).

I would recommend comparing this to http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm In particular, they give figures of 75 W/m2 for water vapor and 32 W/m2 for CO2. The link to the original paper where those figures came from is broken but here's a fixed one: http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf… Look at Figure 3, they also go into some depth about the assumptions and observations behind those figures.