From a purely scientific view playing devils advocate is irrelevant because eventually our species will be extinct regardless of whether you play devil's advocate or not.
An argument that can be used to justify any position has no value, because it can be used to argue against itself.
Depends on how you define "species" and what constitutes the "human species".
And for the record (@thejeff), the Sun going nova will be the last thing that kills us. Ourselves seems the most likely option with Big Rock from Space™ being the runner up.
I restated my point in the second sentence, if it's unclear to you. Focus on that one.
All I know is that five days of 90+F at the end of September make a bird .
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Seriously, it's almost October and I'm tempted to turn on the AC in Minnesota.
From a purely scientific view playing devils advocate is irrelevant because eventually our species will be extinct regardless of whether you play devil's advocate or not.
An argument that can be used to justify any position has no value, because it can be used to argue against itself.
No not at all.... because what you're putting forward is an argument in pure pedantry which is something entirely different.
The core aspect of playing devils aspect in a case like this is the putting forward of an argument without an overly strong emotional component. In essence - objectivity. The capacity to do so is critical in a scientific discussion. It also relies on the understanding of the reader that the the view put forward does not necessarily represent the viewpoint of the author, merely one that is operating on a logical basis.
My argument is not about justifying 'any position'.... merely stating what is known, proven and reasonable. I am not putting forward MY persepctive (it may or may not be in alignment but that is not stated)
Earth history supports the argument conclusively and thus it is worthy of discussion.
Does the following sentence sum up your point?
Human efforts are futile because something will eventually cause our extinction at some point no matter what.
If it doesn't, please sum up in a single sentence so I know for sure what your thesis is.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Yes, but even with interstellar diaspora, on the human time scale, we and life as we know it dies long looong looooong before the universe shivers to death/devolves into Quarks/whatever."Heat death of the universe" is close enough. :)Well, regardless of how you define species, barring the space diaspora I mentioned, it still goes away with the planet. Even then, on a long enough scale, the universe ends.From a purely scientific view playing devils advocate is irrelevant because eventually our species will be extinct regardless of whether you play devil's advocate or not.Depends on how you define "species" and what constitutes the "human species".But I don't think saying the "universe ends" has substantive meaning.
Long before that, for all we can tell, things cool off and fly apart at such a rate that life as we know it will fail.
...so you're saying it doesn't depend on how you define "species"? Under any definition, we ultimately go extinct (long looong looooong before the heat death of the universe, even)?
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I was trying to give some substance to it by highlighting the fact that even so scientific a concept as "species" isn't terribly scientific in usage. It's a very fluid concept that keeps daffodils from being confused with wolves but when you start asking if a coyote is a wolf? Or is a fox a coyote? The answer starts becoming less clear. Then throw in the concept of evolution being continuous (when is a proto-human not human?) and you segue into pure philosophy.
You failed to bring any substance to the discussion. The definition or lack-thereof for 'species' was irrelevant to the point.
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Yep, Tesla is having trouble keeping up with orders, that has prompted large automakers to get in to the luxury EV game, and GM has announced that they will release at least 20 new all electric vehicles over the next five years in an effort to get to zero emissions.
The rapid transition to electric vehicles becomes ever more obvious.
Says you.I was trying to give some substance to it by highlighting the fact that even so scientific a concept as "species" isn't terribly scientific in usage. It's a very fluid concept that keeps daffodils from being confused with wolves but when you start asking if a coyote is a wolf? Or is a fox a coyote? The answer starts becoming less clear. Then throw in the concept of evolution being continuous (when is a proto-human not human?) and you segue into pure philosophy.You failed to bring any substance to the discussion. The definition or lack-thereof for 'species' was irrelevant to the point.
Using logic it is pretty easy to see that your attempt to shift the focus to your point is irrelevant to the point I was making. You've tried to make it about something else, which means that the thing you're saying is about... something else.
It doesn't matter if the thing you're saying is true or not. That isn't being debated. What is being pointed out is that it isn't relevant. I could post the pythagorean theorem, which would be true, but it would be irrelevant.
Me: if you crash a car into a planet at the speed of light, the car will no longer be drivable.
You: Well, really we have to arrive at a definition of car. Some of the cars could be trucks.
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The EIA has released its analysis of US total energy (i.e. electricity + other fuel consumption) use for the first half of 2017. Compared to the same period in 2015;
Solar: up 86%
Wind: up 45%
Hydro: up 30%
Petroleum: up 2%
Biomass: up 1%
Geothermal: no change
Nuclear: down 2%
Natural gas: down 7%
Coal: down 15%
So, again... coal is dying, natural gas has begun to decline, and petroleum is peaking. Electric vehicles will soon push petroleum use into decline and all of the fossil fuels will be on their way out.
Just a matter of how much longer these outdated technologies can be propped up by market manipulation. Most of the world has stopped trying and, while the US is one of the few exceptions... these numbers show that it clearly isn't working.
Just coming to the conversation, so I may have missed a few things in the intervening pages, but thought I'd give my two cents worth on the OP.
Climate change is a well researched and understood subject, and while many of the particulars are still being learned and debated the fact that it is happening and is influenced by human beings is pretty well established, the science is in, as it were.And yet a wide host of conspiracy theories surrounded it, the most common being that the whole thing is being faked by the scientific community for some unspecified purpose.
There are two problems in the scientific community, and another one in the non-scientific community's understanding of what is going on in the scientific community.
A) Scientists are often being funded by companies. Naturally, companies only want research results that are in their favor.
For example, Monsanto funds just about every institution that does research on agriculture, therefore, you find very little research into certain questions, such as the side effects of Roundup on the environment. The agriculture researchers basically can't research it without losing massive amounts of funding, and anyone else is hard pressed to get funding or get taken seriously when they present results because they aren't in the field of agriculture.
The same applies to many other areas of science. What can be researched, is affected not just by knowledge but also by what companies are willing to allow their funding to be used for. And companies only care about profits. Many of them don't care if the world dies so long as it happens after they are dead and gone, or they have this insane idea that any problems they create will be solved by future generations.
B) There are certainly oddities in climate research. For example, A while ago, I heard that certain readings of atmospheric CO2 measurements were being used, but of 11 stations taking such measurements, only the readings from 1 station was used for certain reports.
There might be a legitimate reason for this, but as there is no obvious reason, it seems very much like cherry-picking the desired results. So naturally, instances like this are taken as "proof" that the results are totally bogus.
C) There is also the consideration that what the scientific community learns and knows is far apart and different from what is publicized, that it isn't even funny.
You get reporters and articles writers who have only a vague understanding at best of what they are discussing, and furthermore only care about writing something that will sell, and nothing sells better than negativity, be it controversy or scandal.
Heck, I was interviewed for the game Mage Warfare. Even though I said good things about it, the reporter took everything I said and twisted it around to sound like I was bashing it. Sure , she used my words, but the presentation and what words were used when and in what context made the message be the one she wanted it to be, not the one I wanted to say.
This makes any non-scientific publication unreliable at best. Of course, for most people, non-scientific publications are the only available source of information. Sadly, it cost quite a bit of money to see many actual scientific journals and articles.
Why would scientists fake this?
Aside from the previously mentioned money issues. Business and governments are armies fighting a war of social and economic power. A massive amount of that power comes from manipulating what the public believes.
For example, the guy that made Deloreons was accused of murder. He was found innocent but that didn't matter. Not only was the trial results stuffed in the back of the newspaper where few read it, simply the accusation was enough to effectively remove him from the car company market.
Additionally, scientists have bills. They need their jobs, and that means making sure that who ever pays them, keeps paying them. In some cases, they get paid by someone who actually cares about truth, and I'd like to think that is most often, but you still have many that need to be careful about what results they report, lest they report themselves right out of a job or even into permanent unemployment if their backers are the really bad.
I'm starting something again? What page was it last time?
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Most climate scientists are not employed by private companies, but work at various government institutions and universities around the globe. And grant funding isn't generally doled out via some government bigwig, but is rather given as a result of submitted grant proposals which are evaluated by an independent and voluntary panel of scientists with relevant scientific background.
To suggest that scientists are all collaborating on vast conspiracy is just silly. Overturning of any dogma is enough to make a career, and scientists are a fractious lot that are prone to arguing over every little thing. If there is real debate in the scientific community, your going to get argumentation in the literature. We don't see that in the overall picture of climate change because studies have generally time and time again proven that anthropogenic climate change is real.
Remember that controversy is a great way of selling a research area. If climate change was actually controversial and scientists are only interested in paychecks, than you bet they would be playing up controversy, not consensus.
I was referring to how you can get conspiracy theories about such things. The problems I mentioned do exist, maybe not every scientist, or even most of them, but well more than enough for it to not only be a legitimate concern (I.E. my monsanto example) but also enough to fuel conspiracy theories.
Interestingly enough, the monsanto example is a good example of controversy not gaining financial support.
As for the climate issue itself, lots of what I've seen outside the scientists, is people seeming to think that without our influence the world wouldn't be getting warmer at all and/or arguing over whether global warming itself is real.
Though I admit to not getting deep into this particular issue so I've hardly seen a good sample of arguments..
Most climate scientists are not employed by private companies, but work at various government institutions and universities around the globe. And grant funding isn't generally doled out via some government bigwig, but is rather given as a result of submitted grant proposals which are evaluated by an independent and voluntary panel of scientists with relevant scientific background.
To suggest that scientists are all collaborating on vast conspiracy is just silly. Overturning of any dogma is enough to make a career, and scientists are a fractious lot that are prone to arguing over every little thing. If there is real debate in the scientific community, your going to get argumentation in the literature. We don't see that in the overall picture of climate change because studies have generally time and time again proven that anthropogenic climate change is real.
Remember that controversy is a great way of selling a research area. If climate change was actually controversial and scientists are only interested in paychecks, than you bet they would be playing up controversy, not consensus.
Well said. I've often had similar thoughts about creationism/intelligent design, i.e., don't you think if there were any reasonable doubt at all about the fact of evolution (not evolutionary theory, the explanatory and predictive framework, which is hotly debated--and one of creationists' tactics is to seize on disagreements about evolutionary processes as supposed evidence that the fact of evolution is controversial) scientists would be all over it? They're as competitive as people in any other field. There's been no debate over this in ages because the fact of evolution is supported by mountains and mountains of evidence.
TheAlicornSage,
Your "follow the money" argument is tired and played out. It ignores HUGE amounts of facts, makes amazingly bad assumptions, and doesn't even do what it proposes it does.
It's been debunked for YEARS. And I don't just mean in general, like somewhere else on the internet someone debunked it... I mean it's been debunked for more than a year IN THIS THREAD.
As I said, I was giving reasons why people might believe in conspiracy theories despite the scientific community results. I was not saying those had an actual impact on the reality of this issue, only that because such things exist in some places, uneducated or even semi-educated people seem to suspect that such exists even in places where it doesn't.
Just because it is tired and played out doesn't mean there aren't still people that have those reasons for believing in various conspiracies.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not making any arguments for or against global warming, nor humanity's impact on it. My argument was about people believing in the conspiracy.
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A) Scientists are often being funded by companies. Naturally, companies only want research results that are in their favor.
Yes, there have been many examples of companies like Exxon or Koch industries funding 'research' attempting to undermine public understanding of AGW. Ironically, several of these researchers (e.g. Muller, Spencer) eventually wound up validating AGW despite themselves. Only the most obviously corrupt (e.g. Willie Soon) still pretend that AGW isn't happening.
B) There are certainly oddities in climate research. For example, A while ago, I heard that certain readings of atmospheric CO2 measurements were being used, but of 11 stations taking such measurements, only the readings from 1 station was used for certain reports.
There might be a legitimate reason for this, but as there is no obvious reason, it seems very much like cherry-picking the desired results.
Do you believe everything you hear?
With the exception of various climate 'deniers', there is NO evidence of 'oddities' in climate research. Lots of false accusations have been made... none stand up to even glancing scrutiny.
As for the climate issue itself, lots of what I've seen outside the scientists, is people seeming to think that without our influence the world wouldn't be getting warmer at all
Without our influence the world wouldn't be getting warmer at all (currently). That's why it is called "Anthropogenic" Global Warming. Indeed, without human influence the world would currently be cooling slowly.
Do you believe everything you hear?With the exception of various climate 'deniers', there is NO evidence of 'oddities' in climate research. Lots of false accusations have been made... none stand up to even glancing scrutiny.
What makes you think I believe it?
Without our influence the world wouldn't be getting warmer at all (currently). That's why it is called "Anthropogenic" Global Warming. Indeed, without human influence the world would currently be cooling slowly.
I'm not sure if I believe that. It was interviews with actual scientists that said that we are coming out of an ice age and even then the question wasn't whether we are affecting global warming, but rather how much we are affecting it (and afew related questions like if our influence will break the cycle between cold and warm periods, and if so, can the world recover on it's own if we stop our influence or if we need to take action to correct our influence in order to avoid becoming something like Venus).
Granted that was a few years ago, but I seriously doubt the scientific community is going to pull a 180 on something that major and fundamental to the issue. Seems kind of easy to figure out whether we are coming out of an ice age or not.
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What makes you think I believe it?
The fact that you were drawing conclusions based on it; "it seems very much like cherry-picking the desired results".
Do you often draw conclusions based on information you don't believe?
I'm not sure if I believe that. It was interviews with actual scientists that said that we are coming out of an ice age
Maybe, but it seems somewhat unlikely.
Most scientists in the field wouldn't use the term 'ice age' in that way. The scientific meaning of the term being, 'a geological age during which permanent ice caps are present'. Even WITH AGW we are nowhere near eliminating the Antarctic ice cap... let alone it being on the way out BEFORE AGW.
Rather, the term 'ice age' is also sometimes used by lay people to describe what is scientifically known as a glacial period... a time during an ice age when large glaciers cover much of the planet. We 'came out of a glaciation (or, non-scientifically, an 'ice age') about 12,000 years ago.
The specific phrase "coming out of an ice age" has also frequently been used by climate deniers to imply that modern warming is natural... glossing over the fact that the warming which led to the current interglacial period ended thousands of years ago. Thus, I suspect that whatever you were watching was a presentation by climate frauds rather than reputable scientists.
In any case, there is no conflict between whatever statements you heard about 'coming out of an ice age' (12,000 years ago), and my statement that the Earth would currently be cooling without human intervention. The trend of natural climate forcings on both millennial and decadal time scales has been cooling. This is why it is sometimes said that humans are responsible for "more than all" of the observed warming... because we have caused all of the measured warming AND offset the natural cooling which otherwise would have occurred.
and even then the question wasn't whether we are affecting global warming, but rather how much we are affecting it (and afew related questions like if our influence will break the cycle between cold and warm periods, and if so, can the world recover on it's own if we stop our influence or if we need to take action to correct our influence in order to avoid becoming something like Venus).
If we do not develop some way to remove large amounts of carbon from the climate cycle then we have already altered the atmosphere that the next glaciation cycle (i.e. continual cooling and glacial advance over the next ~90,000 years) will not take place. That said, the planet will certainly 'recover' and return to the previous glaciation cycle eventually... it will just take a long time. Finally, there is no plausible way that we could get to a Venus like atmosphere... we'd kill off most (or all) of the human race, and thus stop emitting so much greenhouse gas, long before that became an issue.
You're still arguing cars versus trucks, as if that were the most salient information to the outcome of the event.
Says the argument that fails even to justify itself.
An argument that can be used to justify any position has no value, because it can be used to argue against itself.
Wait... I made the point that an argument is bad... and your response is to say that the argument is... bad.
So, you agree with me then.
Why is everyone concerned about beef methane? Did people forget that North America used to have so many buffalo that you could stand on a train and see nothing but bison all the way to the horizon?
Methane from cattle isn't unnatural and while I'm not sure exactly how the volumes compare, I have a hard time believing that our meat industry is putting out so much more than nature as to be a concern at this point.
If we want to save the planet, we need to change society, our social customs and how we as a group operate.
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Why is everyone concerned about beef methane?
Vegetarian activists see it as a new way to advance their cause. 'Do not eat meat, it causes global warming'.
Global warming deniers see it as a way to undercut the science on carbon dioxide emissions. 'See, it isn't fossil fuels causing global warming... it is hamburgers!'
Meanwhile, you are mostly correct... the biomass of human livestock and agriculture has largely replaced natural biomass. The biggest impact of that in terms of global warming has been converting forest land to farm land and other uses (i.e. trees sequester a lot more carbon than corn does).
Atmospheric methane levels HAVE increased, and the 'cow farts' theory is largely based on arguing that all of this increase must be due to agriculture. In reality, most of it is probably from industrial processes, natural gas leakage (e.g. from fracking sites), and increased natural emissions as a warming world releases long sequestered methane (e.g. from permafrost).
In any case, atmospheric methane does not last long. It chemically reacts with ozone to break down in to carbon dioxide and water. While that does mean more atmospheric CO2 in the long term, the amounts are negligible compared to fossil fuel emissions. This short residence time means that methane can't accumulate in the atmosphere the way CO2 does. That is, if you cut methane emissions in half then atmospheric levels would decrease by half within a few years... as opposed to atmospheric CO2 levels , which would remain largely unchanged for tens of thousands of years if emissions were cut in half.
Basically, methane will likely* only ever be a short term problem. If it ever DOES get so bad that it is causing significant warming we could reverse the problem in a decade by cutting emissions.
* ...and in the unlikely case that we warm the planet enough to cause a large oceanic methane release, the resulting mass extinction will also 'solve' our emissions problems.
An argument that can be used to justify any position has no value, because it can be used to argue against itself.Says the argument that fails even to justify itself.Wait... I made the point that an argument is bad... and your response is to say that the argument is... bad.
So, you agree with me then.
Close! So very close.
I assert that your complaint about the bad argument is pointless*.
You haven't actually asserted anything about my main point. You've gone off on a tangent on an irrelevant detail.
Prove me wrong. Tell me how arriving at a different definition of "species" will mean that humans survive the heat death of the universe. Remember, your definition should be complete, scientifically valid, AND you've got to show conclusive proof that something survives the heat death of the universe. I'm not sure how you're going to do it. It seems like a strange hill to make your stand on, but you've claimed it.
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Italy has joined Canada, France, Netherlands, and the UK in setting a zero coal electricity benchmark. All plan to end coal use between 2022 (France) and 2030 (the Netherlands).
Combined with efforts various countries have announced to ban gasoline powered vehicles, these moves are edging us ever closer to having an actual plan in place for zero emissions rather than just wishful thinking.
I'd say emissions is less a problem than the planet's ability to handle what us emitted. Clearcutting rainforest is a massive problem that must be fixed, or reducing emissions will be nothing but stalling. Problem is, when it comes to global issues, letting a country do what it wants means a single country can literally doom everyone else.
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Clear cutting rainforests is a massive problem for a host of reasons unrelated to climate change.
As climate change goes it is a middling level issue. Replacing all the carbon 'locked up' in those trees with smaller amounts held in agriculture and other 'developed' land uses would increase atmospheric greenhouse gas levels... but the amount is paltry compared to fossil fuel burning. If fossil fuel emissions are reduced to near zero then we will end global warming... whether the rainforests survive or not.
So no, human industrial emissions of greenhouse gases are not 'less a problem'. In terms of global warming, they are the only problem that really matters. Every other factor contributing to global warming is far smaller and more manageable. Industrial emissions is the "problem that must be fixed"... without that, covering the entire planet with forest land would be "nothing but stalling".
Think of it as single step vs cumulative. Fossil fuel emissions are cumulative... the longer they go on the more greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. Converting to/from forest land is a one time change... it shifts the size of the 'carbon reservoir' on that land, but once that reservoir fills up there is no ongoing cumulative impact. You're adding an extra bucket (i.e. more forest land) below a leaky pipe rather than turning the water off (i.e. emissions).