And the goal posts move again. The question was specifically about whether this particular Pineapple Express and the shutdown of Paizo was related to climate change. You answered "Nope. It's one of several climatic events that would have happened no matter what humanity did with the environment." The claim you made is that this particular storm would have happened, with the same intensity, if there had been no human caused global warming. (Or for that matter, whatever else we had done to the environment.)
That is at best unknowable. Yes, there have been Pineapple Expresses before. Yes, they are linked to El Ninos, which have a very long history. So it's definitely possible that a similar storm could have happened without climate change. OTOH, there's evidence that warming has made El Ninos more frequent and stronger. Not proven, but certainly not ruled out. Which suggests that storms like this are more likely because of climate change.
More generally, climate is complex and chaotic. Once we started messing with it on a global scale, it's pretty much impossible to point at any discrete event and say with any certainty that this particular storm would have happened in the same way if we hadn't changed anything.
Which is also why we can't point to a specific weather event and say "This is because of climate change." Bad storms have always happened. They always will.
Switching to discussing large scale historical events before the majority of human impact on climate happened is irrelevant.
:/
This is the question that I responded to:
"Then the shut down of Paizo's website and business was just a natural occurance and mankind's actions had nothing to do with it?"
This is my response:
"Beyond humanity creating the technology that was affected? Nope. It's one of several climatic events that would have happened no matter what humanity did with the environment.
Humanity also isn't responsible for all of the planet's climatic changes; one of the most major ones, the desertification of Africa, actually has origins that predate the human discovery of writing (and was in fact the major reason why Egypt rose as a civilization).
End of the day? Climate change was going to happen anyway. Humanity just affected how it will come about and when it will happen."
I was speaking broadly and including events from before the majority of human impact from the very beginning.
To answer the specific question related to this specific event: Yes. NASA has linked the Pineapple Express events to atmospheric weather patterns and history has shown that a Pineapple Express will show up even when the El Nino effect is weak. Plus, the current ENSO pattern has lasted for at least 3000 years.
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Since this thread has become about climate change...I think the BIGGEST obstacle to many thinking climate change is real is the sensationalism and exaggeration which so called scientists (most of them non-scientists, fake scientists, scientists in fields having NOTHING to do with meterology or environmental science, or politicians with an agenda) have made.
Some of these claims were, all the way back in the 70s...the world was cooling so fast that in 30 years (2010s) we would be in another ice age.
That acid rain was terrible enough that there would be no plant life by the 2000s.
That the ice caps would all be melted and the entire North American coast would be underwater including many well known cities on that coast(by Al Gore of an Unconvenient truth fame...look at his predictions for 2014...and you'd wonder what drugs he was taking).
That we'd be out of oil by the turn of the millennium (2000) and scarcity would cause huge energy deficits.
That the weather extremes would be so severe by 2010 that crops would fail so horrendously that there would be a famine of such extremes that we'd all be starving to death.
When people see these claims, they look on them and what actually has happened, and to tell the truth, many people aren't that stupid.
The biggest problem is that there are scientist that lied...but even worse, there are non-scientist that believed them and exaggerated and promoted these exaggerations.
They THOUGHT they were promoting saving the world, when in effect, they did what could be the worst possible harm ever. In fact, these so called people promoting saving the earth, have done the exact opposite and almost destroyed the credibility of the entire environmental studies effort!
I despise Al Gore, and any who basically have discredited the entire REAL environmental effort.
I am NOT a scientist. I did work in the environmental agency, in many instances with the EPA and Hazmat, and what we fought and cleaned would horrify many.
If you work in the field, it is indisputable the harm that we do to the environment, but it isn't quick, it isn't fast, and it's FAR MORE NASTY than anything anyone has ever told you.
I worked in that job during my early college years long ago, and I'm certain what we had then is even worse now...and what we saw then is only starting to come to fruition now. I refused to drink any water untreated in the proper manner (and even then you have to be careful) for a VERY LONG time after that.
The water people drink now, much of it has stuff that won't kill you today, won't kill you tomorrow, but in 30-50 years causes cancers and other things that WILL KILL YOU. We knew of the spread and would warn people, but hardly anyone would ever pay heed, which was sad in way.
The air itself has a growing factor of pollution, but we really can't clean the air, only earth and water. The problem is a slow one though, and to tell the truth, there are many guesses, but NO ONE really knows what the final out come will be.
We can see some of the accelerated items in areas where air pollution hovors and stays...as the biggest component is how much we can disperse into the environment (air, sea) before it gets oversaturated...at which point, it's too late anyways.
But I'm not the scientist in that area, I was just the stooge that got to do the hands on stuff. It was decades ago. Even then, it was a hidden thing that was bad, it was really bad in many respects.
But it didn't go in parallel with what the so called environmentalists were really saying...and it didn't happen that short term, unless someone got direct exposure to chemicals.
Everything is VERY long term. I saw some of the effects, and I hope I'm dead if it ever gets bad enough and widespread enough to hit everyone...because then everyone's worst nightmare, is not going to be half as bad as it really will become. Global warming, maybe, I don't know. But pollution is a VERY real thing, and it's possible that we'll all be dead before the effects are so virulent as to overcome the saturation point. I've seen people die in most horrible ways. I've gone to warn people in our standard radius, and knowing that we can do everything but an evacuation order...and knowing if they don't listen, they are screwed...not now perhaps...but in the future. Sometimes far enough in the future that they won't even realize that the cause happened decades ago.
Sometimes it's quicker.
So, yes, I'm a believer in environmental damage, but not the environmental fantasy that happens overnight and is spoken of by alarmists. It may be what's causing the extremes of the environment, but if this is the extremes that people are thinking, I don't think they realize just what an extreme really is.
I think the poisons will get to people first, and in some nations right now, that poison is becoming a bigger and bigger reality...all in the name of industrialization and profit.
IN MY OPINION
(remember once again, I wasn't a scientist, I was just the environmental technician sent out to clean stuff up, and that was decades ago).
The "global cooling" had pretty much no scientific support and almost entirely based on media hype. This is not the case for Global warming, the catastrophic effects of which WILL happen unless steps are taken to ameliorate the worst effects, like: sea level rise wiping out a number of low lying island nations (many of whom are not meaningfully contributing to it nor have the economic ability to protect themselves), ocean warming and acidification are already have dramatic effects on aquatic animal populations, and altering the patterns of migratory animals which has large ripple effects throughout the entire ecology, and let's not forget the droughts of course.
These aren't the cries of hyper-ventilating panic junkies, these are the warnings of esteemed climatologists. Some of these are already happening, but people still label them as hyperbolic panic attacks.
The "global cooling" had pretty much no scientific support and almost entirely based on media hype. This is not the case for Global warming, the catastrophic effects of which WILL happen unless steps are taken to ameliorate the worst effects, like: sea level rise wiping out a number of low lying island nations (many of whom are not meaningfully contributing to it nor have the economic ability to protect themselves), ocean warming and acidification are already have dramatic effects on aquatic animal populations, and altering the patterns of migratory animals which has large ripple effects throughout the entire ecology, and let's not forget the droughts of course.
These aren't the cries of hyper-ventilating panic junkies, these are the warnings of esteemed climatologists. Some of these are already happening, but people still label them as hyperbolic panic attacks.
It's the "Cry Wolf" effect.
Pretty much, people have been hearing panics about the environment for a long time. Add in a lot of failed climate predictions and even the IPCC having an accuracy rating on their predictions that makes random guessing look prophetic, and you pretty much have a recipe for a lot of people just not believing it.
It probably doesn't help that there's been a media frenzy to blame everything on global warming... to the point that some people simply give up on trying to do anything at all because it appears that everything short of suicide is just going to make things worse. Add in stories like that of Google engineers recently saying that the entirety of alternative energy as it exists is a waste of time, money, and resources to end up with the same outcome as if we did nothing at all and you've got a pretty bleak scenario and a pretty big incentive for people to not believe it out of hopes that the science is just wrong.
Edit: Almost forgot... the time scales they're talking about? Major disasters 100+ years in the future. For the average person, that's either an amount of time they simply don't care about or it's typically something they give any real thought to when it's part of science fiction. So the very scale involved of when these disasters are about to hit simply is not real enough for most people to concern themselves with.
Edit 2: Forgot my point!
This is why what GreyWolfLord said is so important. It's not the actual scientists causing most of the problems, but people who half the time don't even know what the science is. After all, everything I said above is what you'd get if you paid attention to media only.
Pretty much, people have been hearing panics about the environment for a long time.
At least half a century, yes. So while newer generations may think it's the next big thing and of utter importance, it's really hard to take seriously when "Wolf" has been cried over and over for so very long.
It probably doesn't help that there's been a media frenzy to blame everything on global warming... to the point that some people simply give up on trying to do anything at all because it appears that everything short of suicide is just going to make things worse.
Yep. Plus, since the story and 'direction' of it (colder, hotter, both, neither) changes over time, it's really kind of hard to take seriously. That's before even what some people RECOMMEND to try and do, and how much it will cost, and the effort involved, for so little in return.
Edit: Almost forgot... the time scales they're talking about? Major disasters 100+ years in the future.
Which is bookended on the short side by the decade or so of shift in the story and--on the long side--by the presence of life on Earth for hundreds of millions of years.
It's not the actual scientists causing most of the problems, but people who half the time don't even know what the science is.
It's the actual scientists too. Despite claims of a 'grand consensus' and 'the science being settled', it's really not. Not all agree that it exists, that humans do it, that it is caused by the same factors, that it has the same timetable, the same effects, that we can stop it or can't stop it, HOW to stop it, etc, etc.
And that's BEFORE you have the Snake-Oil salesmen waddling over to try and sell their wares, wanting heaps of cash for something that is not even guaranteed to have an effect, let alone stop any of it, and many of them set SUCH a great example by doing exactly what they tell you not to do. And this is while running the scam of 'you spend a lot of money and then when things DON'T happen you know it was worth it'. But they're clever, cause they mix a little science with a bit of showmanship, a thread of deception, and a dash of hysteria, and people go for it, at all levels.
And THEN you have the governments of the major nations, which even recently have taken to not penalizing the most polluting nation on the planet (and giving them this break for over a decade into the future) while PAYING them to do so, while simultaneously thinking it'd be a great idea to hobble their own economies and expect everyone ELSE to hobble themselves.
So, yeah, it's not just the scientists. And there's a big difference between a 'denier' and a 'disagree-r', even though the people who use the former word tend to lump them all together.
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So you're basically saying that the person who spent decades getting a degree, working on data stretching for decades, and applying scientific principles, whose work has been vetted by 99 percent of his peers, his opinion should count no more than Joe the Plumber?
No, he's saying that the scientist's opinions are his opinions, not data. He's also saying the scientists don't get to judge how non-scientists run their lives.
:/This is the question that I responded to:
"Then the shut down of Paizo's website and business was just a natural occurance and mankind's actions had nothing to do with it?"
This is my response:
"Beyond humanity creating the technology that was affected? Nope. It's one of several climatic events that would have happened no matter what humanity did with the environment.
Humanity also isn't responsible for all of the planet's climatic changes; one of the most major ones, the desertification of Africa, actually has origins that predate the human discovery of writing (and was in fact the major reason why Egypt rose as a civilization).
End of the day? Climate change was going to happen anyway. Humanity just affected how it will come about and when it will happen."
I was speaking broadly and including events from before the majority of human impact from the very beginning.
To answer the specific question related to this specific event: Yes. NASA has linked the Pineapple Express events to atmospheric weather patterns and history has shown that a Pineapple Express will show up even when the El Nino effect is weak. Plus, the current ENSO pattern has lasted for at least 3000 years.
Yes, and you could get hot summers even without global warming, but you'll get more and hotter ones with it.
You can get Pineapple Express events with weak El Nino effects, but they're more likely with strong ones and there is at least some evidence that, while the ENSO pattern has lasted for a long time, the increase in recent El Nino events is linked to global warming, which means this particular Pineapple Express may be linked to climate change.
You can't simply say, "there would still be Pineapple Expresses without global warming, therefore global warming has no effect." Something like this might have happened anyway, but it's more likely to happen because of what we've done to the climate.
Last time I checked, they admitted that the "more likely to happen" was mostly scientific speculation and that they didn't actually have a clue; even the recent uptick in activity does not exceed the normal range of natural events that are recorded, let alone the range of El Nino activity discovered with studies of coral.
In short, by all current evidence, climate change hasn't affected El Nino yet. We can't argue that climate change had any effect when all evidence on the issue suggests that El Nino is pretty resistant to somewhat-mild planetary climate shifts (such as the Little Ice Age) and the current event fits within the known variability of the event.
If they come back with some evidence that it has been? Fine, I was wrong.
If you want to argue possibilities that current don't have evidence? Okay, then I'll accept your stance, but you'll have to deal with my argument that they're putting too much weight on CO2 as the primary culprit and underestimating everything else humanity does that affects climate.
No, he's saying that the scientist's opinions are his opinions, not data.
So? An expert's opinion is an opinion -- it's also specifically an expert opinion. It is, for example, admissible in evidence in a courtroom for the truth of the matter expressed, despite the fact that it's not a fact. That's not true of a lay opinion.
That is to say, legally speaking, that (under fairly broad conditions) the opinion of an expert about a matter within his expertise that he's not observed at all is presumed to be as true as a photograph of the event or an eyewitness telling about what he saw.
If you way that you saw a polar bear walking through a field and show a photograph of the bear and a plaster cast of a footprint it left, while I as an expert in mammalian biology say it wasn't a polar bear, my "opinion" is likely to trump your visual report without my even leaving my armchair.
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That the ice caps would all be melted and the entire North American coast would be underwater including many well known cities on that coast(by Al Gore of an Unconvenient truth fame...look at his predictions for 2014...and you'd wonder what drugs he was taking).Link to this please. Particularly the "entire North American coast would be underwater" part.
He did mention a study that said the summer polar ice could be gone by 2104, though that was at the extreme end. The ice volume is nose-diving, which is a far better measure than cover. Much of the area is covered now with thin rotten ice floes, not the thick multi-year ice that's been there for centuries. To a satellite it looks the same, but it's really not.
In the movie, that you referred to was the polar ice caps were melted, and due to that he also stated the coastlines would be under water...
By 20 feet, now while he didn't give the time for the coastline flooding, HE DID give the timeline for the causes of that 20 foot rise in sea level which would flood the coastline...which was basically 2014.
However, we haven't seen the 3 foot rise much less the 20 foot rise.
Also, I believe he stated very similarly (but with a one year reduction to the year 2013, of which he was mocked about in science circles...since he didn't know what the hell he was talking about) in a Nobel Peace prize acceptance (I haven't heard or seen the speech, only the mockery towards him).
Sea levels indeed COULD rise, and I think the belief is to peak around 2100, with anywhere from one to two meters (that's 3 to six feet for Americans) rather than the 20 that Al Gore claims. In more conservative estimates, that sea level is actually much less being closer to a few inches, rather than meters. WE can only sumise that Gore heard 6 feet as a worst case scenario and mistook that for 6 meters or some type of nonsense.
That's the possibility, but not a definite. HOWEVER...that's STILL NO LAUGHING MATTER AND THE RAMIFICATIONS COULD BE MORE SERIOUS THAN WHAT AL GORE PREDICTED. That said, the things are more long term...and much of it is expected to be unreversable if not enough is done within the next 20 years or less.
However, it doesn't end there, because he specified Polar ice rather than other items. The ice caps traditionally melt during warmer seasons, and in fact much of the additional water they would add has already occurred, or had been occurring. In that light, it would be less, but without giving the real reasons of rising sea levels, we are left with Gore's inconvenience of what has been happening or happened already. The decline of artic ice actually has been rather rapid, (many will point to the high point of five years recently in ice freezes, but that's after an even longer time of decline...for example if we take the made up levels each year of 25 feet, 20 feet, 15 feet, 10 feet, 7 feet, 6 feet, 6 feet, 5 feet, 5 feet, 8 feet...it would appear the last one is rising and has set a record, but in comparison to the levels it should have been had there been no decline...it's hardly showing anything to that effect).
Inconvenient truth doesn't have much truth to it in my opinion, and is more sensationalisation than anything else. Because of the inaccurate way Gore portrayed the warming and what was happening, and due to the trackable time tables he utilized, it has caused people to point to it as an prime example of why Global environmental change is a hoax.
In my opinion, he gathered some information, but skimmed the topic, and instead of helping, did harm in the long run.
It's not that it's a complete lie, in fact he has several true item in there, but when mixed with items which appear bogus combined with other statements...it makes it all appear like a hoax rather than anything that is useful.
He was trying to alarm people, and perhaps he did for a few years...until people could start pointing out his timelines and showing they weren't correlating to what he stated.
His correlation to rising water levels, how far they would rise, and other items is simply a prime example. Could they rise...absolutely. In fact many expect they could rise quite a bit, and when they rise, the affect they will have on everything from land use, to temperature and precipitation could be tremendous. However, giving a timeline to try to alarm people, but which isn't really reliably predicatable, as well as making a major point of it over something that has been occurring for some time and may not be ever completely occurred...only hurts anything anyone says about it in the long run.
Gore isn't in it for the environment (the way he travels and pollutes in itself should be an indicator of his true intentions)...but what he's in it for, I'm not certain. Money? Influence? I have no idea.
Of course, remember, I'm NOT a SCIENTIST...nor have I claimed to be one in this thread. I was just a guy that worked in the field.
Ironically, I do recall at one point Gore I think was a Senator for Tennessee, which at that point had one of the biggest and most expensive superfund sites. It was something he really didn't address for someone that was or would be so interested in environmental problems. It was brought up by a buddy of mine later when I was discussing how things were going, and they were concerned about that area.
However, before you think I have a totally bad opinion of Gore...I do not. The guy has to be respected for serving in the military. Instead of running away and avoiding it (which he probably could have done) he enlisted. He didn't agree with the reasons of the war, or other items, but he did it out of loyalty and duty from what I can tell. In that, you DO have to respect the guy. I think he made the movie with good intentions, but did a slipshod research without real in depth analysis of what the long term ramifications could be. The same could be said of his speeches in that time period. It could also be that he is still wanting to help, but is so ignorant of how things work, that he ignorantly pollutes like crazy without realizing he's looking like a hypocrite.
I am NOT anti-Gore (I voted for him...so that should be telling), I just think he's a great example of people that spout things about how soon things will occur with global warming, but when tracked and looked at, they don't present a true or good picture of what is actually happening, and hence can cause skepticism and doubt due to their predictions not occurring.
AKA...people who think they are helping, but in truth cause more damage in convincing others of the dangers than anything else.
My views are drawn from experience in the field though, not as a scientist...I am NOT a climatologist, a meteorologist, or anything of the like. As I said, I was the stooge sent by the higher up guys to help clean up the messes of environmental disasters. It was also a while ago, and as I said, anyone who says this is DEFINATELY going to happen in that field...you should ignore. NO ONE knows what's going to truly happen as of yet, just a LOT OF GUESSES and HYPOTHESIS (some on some really good research and evidence though...so they SHOULD be trusted to have some idea of what is currently happening and what could happen in the near future, as well as what we might try to do to stop it).
Most of the effects are LONG term. The problem is people don't think long term. If you tell someone, your grandkids are all going to be the last generation to live out their full lives on earth because the next generations will all die due to what we've done today...No one is really going to do anything. The sensationlists want to inspire people to do things...the problem is when they give short dates on definite things...and then those dates show up and it hasn't happened...then people not only see the problem as a far off problem not to be concerned about, they think it's a fake problem that doesn't even exist!
And then it becomes a bigger difficulty to deal with. In my training, we did have definitive things off chemicals being spilled that would effect the world and land in less than 30 years. They ARE things that we are seeing now, but they aren't as dramatic as...you'll all starve to death, or you'll all drown.
They are equally as disturbing when thought about, but most don't think that deeply, and hence, aren't something many are going to get alarmed about. Things such as rising rates of certain afflictions, which from what we were taught, WERE expected (as opposed to some who think the causes are unknown). In theory, mutations on the body in ailments and disabilities are rising...and should have been if our tables in our books were right in any way (we had tables on chemicals telling the effects and length of time to expect them) as well as certain types of cancer.
However, this is still early in the game, and just at the tip of the iceberg.
Nothing to do with global warming.
The reason for the weather is here
No, he's saying that the scientist's opinions are his opinions, not data.So? An expert's opinion is an opinion -- it's also specifically an expert opinion. It is, for example, admissible in evidence in a courtroom for the truth of the matter expressed, despite the fact that it's not a fact. That's not true of a lay opinion.
That is to say, legally speaking, that (under fairly broad conditions) the opinion of an expert about a matter within his expertise that he's not observed at all is presumed to be as true as a photograph of the event or an eyewitness telling about what he saw.
If you way that you saw a polar bear walking through a field and show a photograph of the bear and a plaster cast of a footprint it left, while I as an expert in mammalian biology say it wasn't a polar bear, my "opinion" is likely to trump your visual report without my even leaving my armchair.
NOW THIS is more of my field that I was in more recently, rather than a job I had in my late high school and early college years several decades ago!
You're right, BUT, since polar bears are pretty distinctive to the rest of us, and appear to be Polar Bears, if that's what the picture indeed shows, you'd have to give a reasonable opinion of what it was instead of a polar bear.
If it's in front of the jury, who all probably have an idea of what a polar bear looks like...and your opinion is that it isn't one...I'd probably want to have it defined what type of creature it is, and how you can tell it from a Polar bear...etc...etc...etc.
It's the jury they'd be wanting you to convince...and believe it or not, there are times an expert witness actually doesn't trump visual photos and other items of evidence.
(Now I've never had to convince someone of a polar bear to tell the truth. Normally I look for overwhelming evidence of other types...and EXPERT OPINION IS VITAL for what I did. Seriously. But what annoys me is that I have to get it phrased in a specific manner and in a specific way at times to get it utilized "properly." You think that's annoying...you'd be absolutely right!)
A few issues:
The IPCC has pitifully bad fact checking. The point of the "glaciers gone in 35 years" wasn't just that they were wrong, but that this one got into their most important publications. If they are that desperate for stuff to put into their papers, don't they have real stuff that's bad enough? What else that they put in their papers is of similarly poor quality? How far can we trust their data? When you check who is on the final gate before publication, it's a who's who of Greenpeace, WWF and such organizations, all of whom have a very much vested interest in widespread panic on the issue.
The environmental fanatics certainly don't rein in their predictions. It wasn't too long ago that they screamed about "70 meters of sea level rise within 20 years" or whatever. Beyond being completely sodding impossible, it didn't do them any favours for credibility. Further, there are two tendencies that make it worse. First, they keep pushing back the DOOMSDAY DATE, from 2050 in 2007 when it all started, then in 2010, they updated it to 2060. In six years, it will be 2070, in all likelihood. See, if you scream your head off about "the atmosphere will be torn away from the Earth", 70 meters of sea level rise, and similar stupidity to get attention, you kind of need a 50 year span of years so people won't come questioning you later. Second, they keep updating the predictions. The most obvious one is how they are now talking about climate change, not global warming, once their data became too difficult to fit to what had actually happened. Not exactly a phenomenon that inspires confidence.
Finally, and probably the worst part of it, they keep playing a sorry game about who gets to say what. These last seven years, it's been very clear that if you're not One Of Them, you have no right to say anything about the issue at all. Questioning the slightest issue means you're a heretic, sorry, denier, and they spare no expense in splashing liberal amounts of dirt to smear people who don't share their opinions. They "redefine the peer review process" by outmaneuvering people and journals they don't like. They refer to their "consensus" as if it's ever been a part of scientific theory, or counting how many scientists agree with them. It is ugly, and it again does nothing for their credibility.
Feel free to call me a Denier and Heretic if you will. They may be right, I just wish these people could handle themselves better - so far I am completely unimpressed.
NOW THIS is more of my field that I was in more recently, rather than a job I had in my late high school and early college years several decades ago!
You're right, BUT, since polar bears are pretty distinctive to the rest of us, and appear to be Polar Bears, if that's what the picture indeed shows, you'd have to give a reasonable opinion of what it was instead of a polar bear.
If it's in front of the jury, who all probably have an idea of what a polar bear looks like...and your opinion is that it isn't one...I'd probably want to have it defined what type of creature it is, and how you can tell it from a Polar bear...etc...etc...etc.
The footprint isn't large enough to be a polar bear.
If you don't know enough to be able to articulate the differences between black and polar bears, you shouldn't challenge the expert's judgment on this matter. Your opinion that it's a polar bear isn't equivalent to the expert's opinion that it isn't; the likelihood that you're wrong is much higher than the likelihood that the expert is.
In fact, if the attorneys are on the ball, you're likely to be destroyed when you testify, because you'll be objected to as soon as you use the phrase "polar bear." ("Objection! Incompetent! The species of the animal is not known to the witness.")
And, yes, the jury may come to the wrong decision, but that's because many jurors are fools, .... and because attorneys are experts at duping people.
How do anti manmade climate change skeptics explain that the vast majority of Earth's scientists agree that humans are causing global warming? Are they all being controlled by liberals who want us to stop driving cars?
How do anti manmade climate change skeptics explain that the vast majority of Earth's scientists agree that humans are causing global warming? Are they all being controlled by liberals who want us to stop driving cars?
Mostly? The same way that climate change supporters explain the majority of skeptics: Money is on the line and people are willing to sacrifice principles to get paid. The skeptics also use incompetence, as in most scientists just parroting the party line because of the human tendency to fall in line when part of a group, and a conspiracy theory that says scientists permanently silence and remove the jobs of those who disagree with manmade climate change. For fun, compare that to the climate change supporter tactic of saying most skeptics are doing it out of ignorance or religion, or the climate change supporter conspiracy theory that most skeptics are oil company sock puppets.
If you want some fun, trace the money and involvement of oil companies on both sides; it won't lead you to any answers as to who's being manipulated by who, but you'll find some surprises at just how involved in supporting climate change the oil companies are. For example, if you check the IPCC authors and review editors list for the Fifth Assessment and use the Find function to search for ExxonMobil, you'll get a hit. If you check every assessment report prior to that one, you'll see ExxonMobil has been present since the beginning.
I've noticed that most people really don't want to talk about the involvement of ExxonMobil in climate when things like the above start cropping up.
Well, see, that's a statement that is going to require some backing up, thejeff. Why is it obvious that they are "staying involved to try to influence the reports in the other direction", and do you actually have any evidence to back it up?
The only evidence is that they have been paying the IPCC's way through it since the beginning. No evidence speaks of why, which is where it's reasonable to leave it, right?
Which obviously proves that ExxonMobil is conspiring to create the climate change lie, rather than staying involved to try to influence the reports in the other direction.How do anti manmade climate change skeptics explain that the vast majority of Earth's scientists agree that humans are causing global warming? Are they all being controlled by liberals who want us to stop driving cars?Mostly? The same way that climate change supporters explain the majority of skeptics: Money is on the line and people are willing to sacrifice principles to get paid. The skeptics also use incompetence, as in most scientists just parroting the party line because of the human tendency to fall in line when part of a group, and a conspiracy theory that says scientists permanently silence and remove the jobs of those who disagree with manmade climate change. For fun, compare that to the climate change supporter tactic of saying most skeptics are doing it out of ignorance or religion, or the climate change supporter conspiracy theory that most skeptics are oil company sock puppets.
If you want some fun, trace the money and involvement of oil companies on both sides; it won't lead you to any answers as to who's being manipulated by who, but you'll find some surprises at just how involved in supporting climate change the oil companies are. For example, if you check the IPCC authors and review editors list for the Fifth Assessment and use the Find function to search for ExxonMobil, you'll get a hit. If you check every assessment report prior to that one, you'll see ExxonMobil has been present since the beginning.
I've noticed that most people really don't want to talk about the involvement of ExxonMobil in climate when things like the above start cropping up.
Or you could look at the actual part of ExxonMobil involved, note what the ExxonMobil Corporate Strategic Research actually is, and wonder if there's not another agenda entirely. For even more fun, you can look the guy up and see something even stranger. I even found out it is the Third Assessment Report he was a lead author for, which can be seen on this page.
It could be the conspiracy theory. It could be Exxon trying to alter the reports (considering some of the IPCC's accuracy issues, this wouldn't be surprising). It could also be the IPCC needed an oil expert for their reports and had to accept Exxon's help. Could be all of those, any combination of them, or none.
Edit 2: Corrected.
Not with the strong implication in the original post that ExxonMobil is supporting climate change. I'm suggesting an alternate reason to be involved.
Also, the single scientist listed in MJ's link as linked to ExxonMobil, Haroon Kheshgi at least as of a few years ago was a skeptic
The suggestion wasn't intended, but it is a reasonable conclusion from the wording of my post.
In any case, he definitely is a skeptic. My previous post also shows that, while being a skeptic, he was one of the IPCC's lead authors. And if you don't like my previous link, you can find him both as a contributor and lead here. Took me way, way too much effort to find that link.
And, for even more fun, apparently he's a lead author again and the first link I thought was erroneous wasn't. Do a search for Kheshgi's name in this part of Assessment Report 5 and you'll find that not only is his scientific work cited, but he's also one of the IPCC's lead authors again. Which puts ExxonMobil in the position of having helped write the latest report.
Not with the strong implication in the original post that ExxonMobil is supporting climate change. I'm suggesting an alternate reason to be involved.
Also, the single scientist listed in MJ's link as linked to ExxonMobil, Haroon Kheshgi at least as of a few years ago was a skeptic
The suggestion wasn't intended, but it is a reasonable conclusion from the wording of my post.
In any case, he definitely is a skeptic. My previous post also shows that, while being a skeptic, he was one of the IPCC's lead authors. And if you don't like my previous link, you can find him both as a contributor and lead here. Took me way, way too much effort to find that link.
And, for even more fun, apparently he's a lead author again and the first link I thought was erroneous wasn't. Do a search for Kheshgi's name in this part of Assessment Report 5 and you'll find that not only is his scientific work cited, but he's also one of the IPCC's lead authors again. Which puts ExxonMobil in the position of having helped write the latest report.
True. But as I said that just argues in favor of the IPCC not being biased and gives at least some support to ExxonMobil's wanted to influence the IPCC against climate change,
Given ExxonMobil's responses to the various reports, it's pretty obvious that even with some influence they're not happy with the results.
Or it could be that ExxonMobil is trolling the IPCC and green movement just for the fun of it. IIRC, they've pretty much outright admitted that manmade climate change is happening several times, then gone ahead and voted not to believe it anyway not long after.
I really wouldn't put it past that company to actually believe in manmade climate change, support efforts to combat it, but be a pain in everyone's sides both to make certain they dominate the energy market in the future and to tick off groups they don't like just to enjoy ticking those groups off. After all, this is the same company that once responded to Greenpeace manipulating their logo as part of a protest by suing Greenpeace for copyright infringement and then using astroturfing to get the IRS to audit Greenpeace.
There is also a more sinister strategy I've heard suggested: ExxonMobil knows it's treated as a bad guy by a lot of environmentalists, and even more knows that there's a certain viewpoint within the green movement that collaboration with or taking money from an oil company completely delegitimatizes anything from those guilty of it. So by working with the IPCC and contributing lead authors while at the same time playing up their anti-environmentalist image and trolling environmentalists, they're moving towards potentially delegitimatizes climate science in the eyes of the green movement.
AS I already stated, anyone that gives DEFINATE things of the future, you should ignore in the environmental business. NO ONE knows what's going to happen to tell the truth. Is it global warming, or something else? WE can provide what's current, but no one really can predict the future with absolutes.
It's sort of like predicting the weather (and people have gotten dang good at it recently to tell the truth, but don't expect it will be absolutely precise on everything), but much further in the future.
I actually did stuff which involved energy companies (but I really can't say who and what or why simply for legal reasons on my part), and a lot of the problems isn't so much what they do, but the side effects of accidents, disasters, and unplanned results. They are like any other company, they are there for profit, but they aren't there to kill off their customer base (on purpose).
I have a hard time believe any of them would troll anyone on purpose.
I don't know about their propaganda machine, but I know we were never told to lie about them...we WERE told in many instances we couldn't discuss things with others for legal repercussions. It was normally left to others in the government or the companies to explain things (did I mention I was basically a pee-on, one of those who got kitted out in the full enviro suits and worked on environmental arenas).
However, I have seen people that had direct exposures to things that died tragically, much of it because we were not allowed to advise or tell them anything that may have saved their lives in certain circumstances.
I DO know some of the people that work the field though that ARE scientists. I also know a lot of the influences. There is a LOT of politics involved as well. AS for the real scientists I know, I don't know a single one that actually has a political agenda in regards to this, most of the time they are involved with real day to day stuff. This involves university professors, some who are really smart.
The ones that really are bad are those who are in fields that have no connection to the environmental arena, some politicians looking to capitalize on this all (and it's NOT simply from any particular party, they come from all corners of the political spectrum), and the ones that are armchair generals (aka, they've never really ever even seen an environmental site and have NO idea what goes on, and no real involvement in the industry, but will say whatever they want to try to help their cause. Unfortunately if we listened to them, you'd start seeing a lot of people die because these guys have no idea about even the immediate term effects of things).
However, for those in the industry, and even energy companies with the individuals I've met, there are no Boogey men, or those with absolute agendas. Sure, my perspective is from the bottom, but I've never seen anything that indicates anyone who studies the stuff, or on the other side, who are with the energy companies...are doing inherently evil agendas. In fact, there are times these guys actually work together from what I saw. They weren't necessarily polar opposites at all.
I was NOT a big wig, I can only offer what I saw, and I wasn't privy to the top bosses and such...but I didn't see anything that pointed to anyone being inherently evil with any of them in regards to climate change or environmental controls.
