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One Planet Only Forever at 12:17 PM on 28 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
Minor revision of my comment @7,
"That is how free-markets are supposed to work. The responsible people decide if they want to act to reduce their costs of clean-up or pay a higher cost for the clean-up."
Back to my comment @1. The undeserving among the wealthy today would prefer to have future people pay for the clean up. They will also try to argue that the math makes sense as long as the costs others have to pay, as today's undeserving wealthy people figure it, is less than the lost opportunity for personal benefit the undeserving among the current wealthy would suffer, as they figure it, if they were forced to reduce their Private Interest creation of future costs.
It is undeniably unacceptable/unethical/immoral for any current day pursuit of Private Interest to create negative consequences for anyone else, no matter how the Private Interested people want to try to justify it. And people desiring to benefit from unsustainable and harmful Private Interests have proven they will try to get away with being as unethical as possible in pursuit of maximizing their 'competitive advantage' in their negative-sum pursuit of appearing to be a bigger winner.
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One Planet Only Forever at 11:58 AM on 28 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
nigelj@6,
I agree with your points in general. But would add that currently there is a competition to develop CO2 removal technology (See this link). And the people who got wealthier from the burning of fossil fuels owe the future generations the reduction of the excess CO2 using the best of these technologies (no profit for the action, just a charitable non-profit action paid for by all the appropriate wealthy people including those who don't want to have to pay for it).
And that CO2 removal cost would be reduced by those same wealthy people pushing for the rapid reduction of increased CO2 that they would have to pay to remove. That is how free-markets are supposed to work. The responsible people decide if they want to act to reduce their costs of clean-up or pay the full cost of clean-up.
Understanding the corrections required for the future of civilization has been a work in progress since before the 1972 Stockholm Conference. The currently developed best understanding of the required corrections is achieving all of the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. It is clear that achieving all of the goals is the only way to a better future for humanity. Not achieving any one of the goals means that none of the other goals will have been sustainably achieved.
For quite a while now, global political and business leaders, and all of the wealthiest around the world, have had no excuse for not being aware of the required corrections. Their actions, including actions in the past, that are contrary to achieving those goals, including attempts to delay the proper awareness and understanding in the general population, needs to become the ethical/legal basis for the international community of caring powerful people ensuring that the undeserving among the winners lose their ability to influence things until they prove they have meaningfully responsibly considerately changed their minds and decided to become helpful rather than harmful.
Albert Einstein understood that it was essential for sovereign freedoms to be given up if humanity is to have a future when he wrote: "This is the problem: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war? ... As one immune from nationalist bias, I personally see a simple way of dealing with the superficial (i.e., administrative) aspect of the problem: the setting up by international consent of a legislative and judicial body to settle every conflict arising between nations. ... Thus I am led to my first axiom: the quest of international security involves the unconditional surrender by every nation, in a certain measure, of its liberty of action, its sovereignty that is to say, and it is clear beyond all doubt that no other road can lead to such security." (to Dr. Freud (q.v.), July 30, 1932)
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nigelj at 09:38 AM on 28 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
Given the costs of vehicle and power station emissions on both the environment and human health, the reasons to reduce emissions are clearly overwhelming, but human stupidity and the brainwashing campaign of the denialists is getting in the way, along with politicisation of the issue into near hysterical attacks on governments proper role.
Humanity is "kicking the can down the road" onto future generations, not just with climate change, but with other environmental issues, and in the huge government and private debt that is building up globally. Its not fair on future generations and various other at risk groups.
I know we can't see all ends and some technical solutions may be found for some things, but to me the main point is to at least make an informed judgement on what future technological solutions are plausible, and which ones are low probability, and in that respect dreams like fusion power or sucking C02 out of the atmosphere are either low probability or likely to remain very expensive.
Right now humanity risks collapase of civilisation. We have numerous environmental, social, economic and debt problems and all these things are happening on a fast time scale in terms of human history and the large combination of dangerous factors looks unprecedented in our history.We cant quantify the things or predict them accurately, but imho humanity is loading the dice incressingly towards the collapse of civilisation in the name of very short term gains of profitability or short term pleasures and excesses.
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nigelj at 09:23 AM on 28 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
DCrickett @4, I agree particularly about the fight against racism, and I would add bigotry in general.
I can totally understand parents taking children to school in high risk places like Mexico or some American cities, but in New Zealand most of the reason for this habit appears to be "stranger danger" related to an exaggerated fear of paedophiles, orginating with various historic sex cases against these people in recent decades. Don't get me wrong, they should be locked up for a very long time, but most sexual assaults of this kind happen within families or institutions, not children being picked up or molested on the street.
All we are doing is creating a generation of spoilt and physically unfit obese children, more grid lock on the roads, and high CO2 emissions. In addition, a recent check of our cities and main roads showed levels of particulate emissions and nitrogen oxides well above acceptable levels for public health.
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Dcrickett at 08:43 AM on 28 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
Re #2… My wife & I lived in Mexico City thru most of the 1990's and saw streets around schools clogged with cars. Particularly while schools were letting out. From conversations with friends, neighbors, co-workers etc we knew that even when a family lived fairly close to a kid's school, a parent (or servant) would drive to pick up the scholar. Indeed, chauffering their scholars was a major reason for some people to have a car who otherwise will might not. And during a Level 3 smog alert, one thing one never heard on radio or TV was an admonition for the kids to walk. Why? Kidnapping. One then-prominent politician (Diego Fernández de Cevallos) stated that kidnapping was one of the few profitable businesses around. (He himself was later kidnapped!) Poor people walked their kids, of course.
Some friends of ours here in Chicago (they are blacks) also drive their teenage son to & from his high school every day. To protect him from gang recruiters (who do not take "no" for an answer). This is a major problem for Latins also.
Even a car provides only partial protection to scholars. Not too long after he got his driver's license, my "ethnically diverse" son was stopped by cops while driving to school with a classmate. They got off easy; they were only slapped around and insulted for a while and then, strangely, let go. (They were written up of tardiness, tho, once they got to school.)
Our fight to protect the environment must include our fight against racism, socioeconomic inequality, crime, etc. And our efforts must go far beyond the linear thinking that handicaps our "leaders" — our problems run deeper than we realize. (Viz. the essay on which we here comment!)
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:45 AM on 28 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
windrunner,
Having to redesign and rebuild already incorrectly developed urban zones is a major competitive disadvantage for every one of those incorrectly developed urban area. And the New World portion of the current Winners of socioeconomic competition are full of those 'incorrectly developed expensive and time consuming to correct' urban areas. That is part of the reason there is strong opposition to rapid transition to a lower energy consumption non-fossil fuel powered future. And those current incorrectly developed bigger winners also have abundant fossil fuel resources.
The reluctance to understand climate science becomes pretty obvious from that perspective. It puts many of the current Biggest Winners at a serious competitive disavantage. They do not deserve their developed perceptions of superiority and prosperity relative to others. And so much of today's world has developed to be damaging competition to appear to be superior to others, better off than others any way that can be gotten away with.
And it is really easy to get away with harming future generations; future generations have no current day votes or any other current day ways to get even with people today who get away with causing problems future generations have to deal with.
A similar thing can be seen to happen with wealthy nations and corporations causing problems poorer nations suffer from without any ability to 'get even' or correct the immoral unethical behaviour of the Bigger Winners.
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windrunner at 23:26 PM on 27 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
"redesigning urban spaces to make it easier and safer to commute by foot, bicycle, and public transportation, and transitioning to a more circular and sustainable economy."
The concluding paragraphs of the article held the above gem. The first thought that sprang to my mind was the herd of large SUVs converging to disgorge and retrieve the young during the 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. migrations to and from our centers of youthful indoctrination. While the instructions of "Right Think " are drilled into them, they would never consider walking or riding thier bikes to school, or submitting to the stigma of riding the bus. Parents think that they are providing a safe secure conveyence to the schools, where the kids are sheltered from the travails of the world, while securely belted in to thier heated leather seats, lost in their cocoon of smart phone social contacts. These are the same citizens who will rail about pipelines and social justice, oblivious to the contribution they make to the perpetuation of the same.
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michael sweet at 21:16 PM on 27 April 2018CO2 effect is saturated
Arf,
My understanding is a little different from yours, just a little. To review your points:
1) I think the energy of photons is fixed so energy is not lost each time. I am not sure what you mean by lost energy. This point is not important.
2) Check.
3) Check.
4) This is the important step for the greenhouse effect. We agree that the escape altitude increases.
As you know the amount of energy radiated is related to the temperature. The temperature at the escape altitude must be high enough for all the energy that comes from the sun to escape to conserve energy. This fixes the temperature at the escape altitude. When more greenhouse gas is added the temperature at the new altitude increases so that energy is conserved.
The temperature in the troposphere (the lower atmosphere) increases as you decrease in altitude. The rate of increase is called the lapse rate. The lapse rate is about 6.5C per kilometer. The lapse rate is a physical property of the atmosphere and is fixed by basic physics and chemistry laws and properties.
The temperature at the altitude of escape is fixed by the law of conservation of energy and the temperature varies in the atmosphere according to the lapse rate. When the altitude of escape is increased that results in an increase in temperature at that altitude. This is then passed down to the surface according to the lapse rate.
It is interesting to note that an increase in the altitude of only 100 meters results in an increase in the surface temperature of 0.65C. 2C is only 300 meters increase in escape altitude.
On Venus the CO2 concentration is much higher so the altitude of energy escape is much higher. That results is the surface of Venus being about 462C. This temperature can be calculated using the equations that describe the greenhouse effect on Earth.
Your explaination seems OK to me but does not well describe the changes in the atmosphere.
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Eclectic at 20:53 PM on 27 April 2018CO2 effect is saturated
Arf @459 , the usual explanations follow the course of IR photons (of the bandwidth absorbed/emitted by CO2 molecules) as they are radiated out from the warm surface of the land/ocean. Layer after layer of atmosphere absorbs and re-emits IR photons in all directions (as you are already aware, of course).
Rising through air, as the layers become less dense, the individual photon "journeys" (between CO2 atoms) become longer — yet each same-depth layer is still emitting the same previous total of upwards and downwards amount of IR radiation (of course). Only in the most tenuous uppermost layers, does this "stacking" of upward/downward emissions begin to break down, as an increasing percentage of upward IR photons evade reabsorption and make a straightline escape to outer space. In effect, we can think of the upper atmosphere as producing only back-radiation (at this particular bandwidth we are interested in) as far as the Earth is concerned.
I am sure I am telling you nothing new, in all this. I will point out that at an individual level, each IR photon maintains its same energy level, as it is "reincarnated" — the individual CO2 molecule recipient of photonic energy "cools itself" by imparting kinetic energy to a neighbouring N2 or O2 . . . and at a later time regains energy kinetically from a neighbouring N2 molecule, and "reincarnates" & emits an IR photon of the same energy level as previously received but in a random direction. Of course, as intermolecular distances increase, and the kinetic temperature of N2 molecules reduces, then these "deaths & reincarnations" of IR photons (per second per cubic mm) must reduce. But the final total product is back-radiation towards the Earth's surface plus upwards "lost" radiation (and of course the totality of all "lost" radiation over the whole spectrum must equal what's originally entered the planetary system from the sun, at equilibrium — or at least extremely close to that total while the system is in transition to equilibrium).
Myself, I find it easier to mentally picture these events if you rotate the Earth surface 90 degrees. Instead of a horizontal surface emitting upwards, choose to picture the surface as the y-axis and the atmosphere layers stacked outwards along the x-axis. The cool outermost layers of air are losing radiation outwards to space, and are emitting "back-radiation" inwards. Through the bulk of the atmosphere, each layer is transmitting fractionally more energy inwards than outwards, and these fractional differences integrate to produce a gradient of temperature, highest at the surface and "sloping down" to the outermost air. Hence the surface is warmer than the outermost air.
When the atmospheric CO2 concentration becomes raised, the x-axis is extended further (so to speak) . . . and the same gradient produces a higher cumulative back-radiation at the planetary surface: in other words, the surface becomes warmer than under the previous conditions.
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arf at 16:26 PM on 27 April 2018CO2 effect is saturated
As a brief background to this comment, I had an encounter with a denialist last week who stated that Arrhenius' observations regarding CO2 as a greenhouse gas had been debunked. In hindsight, I should have asked precisely what he meant by that. Instead, I retorted that this was news to me, at which he remarked that my kind was unlikely to look up the facts (I have a masters degree in Physics, and found this an interesting example of projection rhetoric...). Anyway, here I am.
I'm trying to follow the argument here, so that I can express it in layman's terms. It seems the idea of greenhouse warming isn't as straightforward as I thought. I get Angstrom's counter-argument to Arrhenius about current CO2 levels absorbing all IR radiation long before it has a chance to escape the atmosphere and that, therefore, adding more CO2 won't alter things. I'm having a problem grasping the explanation in response the Angstrom being put forward here. If I may paraphrase what I understand of it:
1. IR photon from surface is repeatedly absorbed and re-emitted (by CO2) in random directions (losing a little energy each time). Check.
2. Photon is finally able to escape into space at a high enough altitude. Check.
3. Adding more CO2 increases the density, and hence the altitude this escape occurs. Check.
4. Being higher means lower temperature, and hence less energy is emitted. Errm... as a general consequence of a blackbody spectrum, sure. As a discrete energy photon emission, of what significance is the temperature?
I'm not saying the explanation's wrong, but it is very hard to follow, and is even counterintuitive (we're talking about rising temperatures, and then lowered temperatures? It's hard enough for me to follow, let alone someone without a scientific background)
My own quick explanation would be that increasing CO2 concentrations reduces the mean free path of IR photons, and that increases the number of scattering (heating) events before the photons can escape. It seems a lot more concise and intuitive than the explanation put here, but is it right? What am I missing?
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nigelj at 07:33 AM on 27 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Recent research on anti vaccers is relevant and depicts a certain sort of world view: They embrace multiple conspiracy theories about the world, dont like needles, and more likely to feel offended by perceived attempts to limit their freedom, ( an attitude known as reactance).
I see the same conspiracy thinking and reactance with climate denialists.
Of course vested interests is a huge factor as well. Perhaps the fossil fuel companies are modern day 'luddites'.
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nigelj at 07:24 AM on 27 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: Tactics of Denial
OPOF @30, I think theres much to admire about Singapore. I think western countries could have tougher fines for smoking in the wrong places, littering etc. In fact sometimes the fines are there in western countries, but they just aren't enforced, and thats half the problem. People play the system and think its soft.
While I'm not a believer in locking every criminal up for life - that sort of mentality- you do need some consistency of enforcement of rules and maximums do need to be handed out regularly, for the law to be respected.
However I think Singapores drug policy is excessive.
It's the tough challenge of having sufficient strong laws and enforcing them, without becoming an over regulated, authoritarian police state that starts to intrude on peoples social lives etc. Its a balancing act. However it's quite possible to get laws right if they are based on science and evidence of real and significant harm, as opposed to emotion and more arbitrary judgements like apartheid laws, anti homosexuality, or trivial laws.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:23 AM on 27 April 2018The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels
The real inappropriate math is thinking it is OK to balance costs in the future with lost opportunity for benefit today.
Any delay of action today to reduce the magnitude of accumulated impact adds to the harm and costs that will be faced by Others in the future. That type of thinking is undeniably disgusting, yet it is 'the way many want to think'. It certainly allows undeserving Winners today to prolong their undeserved perceptions of prosperity and superiority. But it is an undeniably unacceptable and unethical and immoral way for people to think about things.
Rapidly reducing the burning of fossil fuels today should be required of every already more fortunate person, with the strictest requirement for rapid reduction applied to all of the wealthiest on the planet (no exceptions allowed for those who would prefer not to have to care to lead humanity to better behaviour).
Also, at the time that Kyoto was being proposed I remember reading and understanding that an associated benefit of CO2 emissions reduction was the linked reduction in other pollution (like particulates, NOx and SOx). And that understanding was the basis for considering CO2 capture and storage to be a less desirable action than reduced burning of fossil fuels. There is also a reduction of environmental impact and risk of harm to people in the extraction, processing, transportation and burning of the fossil fuels.
There are many Good Reasons to rapidly terminate the burning of fossil fuels. There are only Poor Excuses to delay that required correction of what has so incorrectly developed so far.
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Tadaaa at 22:39 PM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
I agree wholeaheartedly with the article pretty much all the comments, here is a great clip of Matt Ridley in the House of Lords - not speaking on AGW, but on Brexit (here in the UK, Brexit and Climate denial where twinned at birth)
https://twitter.com/Jim_Cornelius/status/986742292085133312
the fascinating thing is Ridley was making a point about Tariffs and the EU's dasterdly application of them to Africa
when another Lord simply points out that the EU exempts Africa from tariffs - does this new fact dissuade Lord Ridley, not a bit of it, he simply carries on restating what has been faltly contradicted only a moment before, they have no shame. It is the verbal equivelant of spaying crap on a wall, they know some of it will stick.
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nigelj at 17:43 PM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Dpeipgrass @15
"@nijelj and @Leslie, on the question of "what to do about climate change" my opinion is that lifestyle change is not the answer politically - because yes, it's good to live a less wasteful lifestyle, but people don't like being told what to do and it's not a complete solution. Rather what we need is to build out clean energy, fast. Mainly solar, wind, and nuclear reactors."
I agree lifestyle changes are not the complete solution. It's got to be a combination of lifestyle changes together with renewable energy.
However you miss my point so I will rephrase it. It's not simply lifestyle changes in terms of less materialism or waste, its lower carbon footprints and use of electric cars etc.
And as I suggested, Government are clearly not taking climate change seriously enough, and I submit governments are unlikely to do much to promote renewable energy and carbon taxes and so on until they see people making lifestyle changes, and showing they take climate change seriously. So if people are concerned about climate change, they need to walk the walk - at least to some extent. I do realise its partly a question of what comes first the chicken or the egg!
The Democrats also need to take a stronger line on climate change and this will force the hand of the Republicans.
People probably do need to be told what to do, or at least they need advice. Its probably a case of throwing ideas around rather than being bossy.
Renewable energy has only gained traction with government support schemes such as subsidies, and theres the question of effective carbon taxes and / or ets schemes.
I'm a bit agnostic on nuclear energy. You have a good point Liberals are somewhat excessively paranoid about the risks. I grew up with the three mile island scare and chernobyl, and this imprinted on my mind and made me sceptical of nuclear power for a while in my youth, and I suspect I'm not alone. However I have walked myself back from this, because in terms of deaths per capita per year nuclear is actually one of the safer options. But that is not the public perception, and the industry has to turn that around somehow if they want support.
Nuclear is also slow to build and more expensive than on shore wind power. I feel its in the hands of the nuclear industry to provide cost effective power built within stated time frames. I have no objection to governments subsidising research into nuclear power, or perhaps construction, but not to a greater extent than wind or solar power receive.
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scaddenp at 17:15 PM on 26 April 2018There is no consensus
"Facts are not arrived at by consensus"
This is a very tiresome strawman argument. We agree. However, the important facts are: a/ the consensus does exist and b/ scientific consensus (especially when strong), is the best guide to policy. A true scientific consensus is very seldom wrong and you would be an idiot to bet the planet on it being wrong.
Citing pre-scientific examples of societial consensus (a very different thing) is pointless.
"One of Micheal E. Manns (the hockey stick guy) claims in the defamation lawsuit against Mark Styen,et al., was that it is (or should be) a crime to defame a Nobel Prize winner." Citation please. What were his actual words?
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DPiepgrass at 15:50 PM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Leslie @4, my guess is that you're lucky in talking to someone who transparently told you the root cause of their beliefs. None of the ones I talked to mentioned God, and of course many people who believe in God also believe in evolution and climate change. But arguably, distrusting mainstream scientists (and anyone who believes them) is a more durable way to maintain your faith.
@nijelj and @Leslie, on the question of "what to do about climate change" my opinion is that lifestyle change is not the answer politically - because yes, it's good to live a less wasteful lifestyle, but people don't like being told what to do and it's not a complete solution. Rather what we need is to build out clean energy, fast. Mainly solar, wind, and nuclear reactors.
Solar and wind will take care of themselves because there is so much public support for them and prices keep dropping. In southern climates, I'm fairly convinced solar will demolish coal. In the U.S., Trump will be voted out.
The key challenge is baseload and/or energy storage. Fundamentally, wind power production is temporally mismatched with demand, so you need either lots of energy storage and a continental-scale grid - expensive - or you need nuclear plants. So although denial is driven by conservatives, IMO a big barrier to solving climate change is liberals who wildly overestimate the risks of nuclear plants and think 1970s plants like Fukushima are the same kinds of plant we would build today. Even the well-known fact that nuclear plants are expensive and take a long time to build is, apparently, caused as much by the politics of nuclear fear as it is caused by limitations of traditional reactor technology.
I'm hoping that the answer is Molten Salt Reactors (including thorium) which are superior to traditional reactors in just about every way. But whether we get MSRs will depend a lot on public support.
We should also agressively support diverse research into non-traditional fusion energy such as Dense Plasma Focus, the Polywell, and whatever that thing is that Tri-Alpha Energy is doing. Governments have really dropped the ball in both fusion and fission research - they fund expensive long-term fusion research at ITER, but won't fund comparatively very cheap projects like DPF, so instead we see scientists (who would have preferred to do open research at universities) forming companies like this one to pursue private investors. Granted, it's not guaranteed DPF and Polywell will actually work at scale - that's why we need the basic science research - but if it does work, it could make coal, oil and traditional nuclear plants obsolete very quickly.
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Eclectic at 15:00 PM on 26 April 2018There is no consensus
Windrunner @770 , welcome (back) to SkepticalScience !
If you have come to defend Dr Judith Curry's reputation as a scientist, then alas you come too late. That ship has sailed.
If you have come to argue that the climate scientist consensus on AGW is anything less than 99%, then alas you come 30 years too late. The consensus has been steadily rising for many years now, and has reached 100% (or more precisely: 100% minus a few crackpots, who are entirely unable to provide any valid contrarian scientific reasoning or supportive facts).
In addition, your "Churchillian" quote is wrongly ascribed. There have been many versions of it -— the Twenty-First Century version is: "If you are not a liberal in your twenties you have no heart, and if you are not a conservative in your forties you have no brain, and if you are not an environmentalist by your sixties then you have no conscience."
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windrunner at 13:42 PM on 26 April 2018There is no consensus
As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!
Found this forum on a link posted on a POW(Protect our Winters) EM article I recieved. I consider myself an open minded person and willing to listen to many points of view and draw my own conclusions from the facts presented, regardless of my personal opinions. My views have changed on several things over the years. Winston Churchhill, hardly a scientist but certianly one of the biggest influencers on the course of 20th century history, once said that "if you are not a liberal in your twenties you have no heart, and if you are not a conservetive in your forties you have no brain."
The heart creates passion, and passion emotionalizes arguements, obscuring the validity of points of contention. One of the obscured points is the method that one of the cited studies was conducted, the Doran study, conducted by Margeret R.K. Zimmerman, as a grad student under Doran's direction. Points that make you go huh?... 10,257 surveys were sent out. 3,146 bothered to respond. Does that mean 7,111 questionaires were not delivered? Or that the intended recipients had no opinions, yea or nay? Only 30%, give or take, bothered to respond. Only 79 respondents answers were eventually used to come up with the 97%- the other responses supposedly did not come from "climate scientists" so they were not used. Why were they even sent? There are other questions that arise from the conclusions that were drawn from this study but I think the point is made. When any survey requires closed answers the results must be considered with a skeptical eye.
Facts are not arrived at by consensus. If this were true, the earth would still be flat, and Giordano Bruno's burning by the Vatican Inquisition in defense of geocentrism would be justifiable. Aristotle's expansion on spontaneous generation were accepted as fact for over 2,000 years! Neaderthals are not ancestral to modern man! Micheal Bradley's assertation of Neanderthalic genitics in "The Iceman Inheritance" was laughed at and later decried as racist. Indeed, the scientific community's persecution of any one who questions the dogma of the alarmists who have made substantial financial gains espousing the global warming/end of the world would be entirely defensible. One of Micheal E. Manns (the hockey stick guy) claims in the defamation lawsuit against Mark Styen,et al., was that it is (or should be) a crime to defame a Nobel Prize winner. Of course he is not, and it is not. This claim was dismissed from the suit. The financial gains to be garnered by silencing any thought contrary to the prevailing AGW theocratic dogma is too great to be allowed a voice. This site has poo-poo'ed Judith Curry and some of her claims, but I have found more open minded and even handed writings on her site, on both sides of the issue. Humankind thinks that they are of gret consequence but the truth is we are like all other afflictions this globe has suffered, and when she tires of us she will shake us off like raindrops and without a second thought.
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nigelj at 11:37 AM on 26 April 2018America's best scientists stood up to the Trump administration
Related research : "Does Engagement in Advocacy Hurt the Credibility of Scientists? Results from a Randomized National Survey Experiment. "
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2016.1275736
The short answer is it doesn't, unless they start promoting specific types of renewable energy (as opposed to the idea in principle).
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John Hartz at 11:34 AM on 26 April 2018America's best scientists stood up to the Trump administration
Recommended supplemental reading:
Here's How Scientists Can Become More Politically Engaged, Opinion by William T Adler, Observations, Scientific American, Apr 25, 2018
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Wol at 10:48 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
>>They’ll say you’re in a “cult” or “religion” for believing humans cause warming<<
I think we're almost all guilty of using the words "believe" and "believing" when attempting to argue the point - as in my quote from the piece.
Deniers will pounce on anything one says - look at the email "fraud" - and using such words does play into their hands: they throw them back at you as if you have a religious or belief system driving you. (Because mostly they themselves are driven by that sort of thinking, perhaps.)
I prefer to conciously use the word "accept", as in "They’ll say you’re in a “cult” or “religion” for accepting humans cause warming."
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Nick Palmer at 09:33 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
"So your key audience is not the guy you’re responding to, but fence-sitters who may be listening in. There are more silent doubters than vocal deniers; always remember that"
I've always though this in my online denialism rebuttals. I tend not to bother much with the dumbest remarks, which tend to be just a couple of short sentences but I've come to find that the most dangerous, and trickiest to counter, tend to be those who are in the least denial of climate science - the lukewarmers, who believe that climate sensitivity is much less than the vast majority of climate scientists say. To them, the global temperatures won't reach the heights expected by the IPCC position and we may still stay in the Goldilocks zone, where we may still get more benefits from a low rise than disbenefits.
It is my opinion, although I can't prove it, that many of the 'dumb' arguments one sees endlessly used by apparently intelligent educated people in public positions, such as Senators addressing Congress, are, to them, justified political deception. I suspect that their core beliefs are in the 'lukewarmer' views of Lindzen, Spencer etc yet they realise that if they tried to used those arguments to sway the minds of the public, it would backfire. Admitting that greenhouse gases warm the climate, that the planet is warming, that we are having an effect but that a small minority of scientists say it won't come to much, while the majority say it's very risky, is a very weak argument - the ordinary person is well able to make a personal risk assessment. That is why those movers and shakers, who are personally convinced by the lukewarmers, use the couple of hundred simplistic memes as listed and debunked on Skepticalscience.com, to influence the voting public. Ever wonder why Senators and the institutes keep using these memes, that they know for sure have been debunked a thousand times? Remember, these people are really not stupid! it's because the memes work very well at shaking the confidence of the public in mainstream climate science. These short pieces of disinformation are very convincing to the general public, not that they definitvely 'prove' anything but they certainly succeed at creating doubt and uncertainty and those who want to avoid those political moves that mainstream climate science mandates benefit by using the memes to try to prevent those moves happening.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:20 AM on 26 April 2018America's best scientists stood up to the Trump administration
I have seen posters and tee-shirts saying "Science not Silence".
Speaking out is essential.
Albert Einstein's Memorial in front of the National Academy of Science in Washington, DC includes the following "The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true."
And one of the statements on the walls of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial is “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”
Americans (and other humans), particularly the supposed Winners, really need to be reminded of the thoughtful helpful thoughts of those who have come before us, encouraging us to be open to increased awareness and better understanding and the required corrections that may be contrary to developed Private Interests.
Freedom has to have responsible limits. Those who will not responsibly self-limit their behaviour need to be repeatedly disappointed, until they learn to change their minds.
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scaddenp at 09:19 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
leslie, if someones position is not based on data, then arguing with data is pointless. It's very like arguing with a young-earth creationist - their viewpoint is not derived from science, so no amount of science will change their mind. It's really about the biblical authority and exegesis on Genesis and that is where the argument should take place.
sailingfree makes some good points. Others are that bible promotes living within limits (eg Genesis 2:15-17,Exodus 23:10-11), and note the implied threat in Leviticus 26 :3-5. Plenty of examples of enviromental disaster following disobedience. So how is modern western society doing in keeping the 10th commandent? The prophets and gospel are mostly about justice. Is it justice that those most vunerable to climate change are mostly those that contribute least to it?
Once you can establish a theological framework, then someone might be more open to looking at the science. Pretty easy to expose downright lies being told by climate deniers. How does that person take to to liars? Christian right is hung up on morality in the bedroom - the bible has more to say about morality in the boardroom.
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nigelj at 08:13 AM on 26 April 2018America's best scientists stood up to the Trump administration
I always enjoy listening to scientists explain issues in the media. I think the public need to connect with scientists in this way and get a lot out of it. Stick to the science if you are not comfortable advocating solutions.
The people who say don't do this are probably often climate denialists posing as concerned citizens.
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leslie dean brown at 08:08 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
I don't have time to argue with this one. I'm travelling.
Moderator Response:[DB] Shortened link
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nigelj at 06:54 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Article related to social dominance , group theory and race:
Also National Geographic Special Edition April 2018 is entirely devoted to these issues.
Moderator Response:[DB] Shortened link
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nigelj at 06:47 AM on 26 April 2018America's best scientists stood up to the Trump administration
Agreed. It's important to respect people with different views, but state the truth plainly.
However theres another important issue going on behind this, and the key to the whole thing. This is relevant from Vox.
"Similarly, popular conceptions of the GOP — that it is driven primarily by conservative economic principles like small government, low taxes, and deregulation — are also wrong. It turns out those things were the preoccupations of a thin and unrepresentative conservative elite, primarily in DC. The Tea Party uprising and its culmination in Trump were driven by white resentment and white backlash. (Here’s another new study supporting that thesis.) The ethnonationalist populism Trump represents is the dominant strain of conservatism in America today."
The point here is America is being divided on race and cultural issues, and the anti climate science rhetoric , and the anti science and deregulation agenda is being deliberately sneaked in the back door while people are all worked up about exaggerated problems about immigrants an so on.
Moderator Response:[DB] Shortened link
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ubrew12 at 05:13 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
"Those who... [focus on] social dominance... see the world as an ongoing competition between social groups" Fear drives us into our respective 'safe spaces'. The media thrives on fear so as we become more media-driven we are more fearful. Witness what a 'harvest' Vladimir Putin has made of this fear, and expect more. In a fear-driven environment, it may be more helpful to 'lead by example'. Europe and now Asia are beginning to lead on this issue, which will hopefully propel America into the 21st century in the long run.
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John Hartz at 02:35 AM on 26 April 2018America's best scientists stood up to the Trump administration
Recommended supplemental reading:
Should Scientists Advocate on the Issue of Climate Change? by Ingfei Chen, UnDark, Apr 24, 2018
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sailingfree at 02:03 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Leslie @4,
You might make some theological arguments to your religious friend.
One would be that God gave man the power to affect the climate, and is simply watching what we do with it.
“… let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,….” (Genesis 1.26)
Another is that that God will not necessarily keep the Earth always comfortable for mankind. After all, as he banished Adam and Eve from the paradise of Eden He said:
“… cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shall thy eat out of it … in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,…” (Genesis 3.17,19)
Another time God was not happy with man, and so flooded the earth, originally with the intent of eliminating all of mankind:
“And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6.5) “… and so the Lord said I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; …” (Genesis 6.7)He also caused some heating of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And so perhaps now He has seen what man did in the twentieth century, WWI, WWII, and the holocaust, and in mid-century became angry. Perhaps now He is allowing the Globe to heat up enough for more drought, famine, and war (but no world-wide flood, of course, just rainbows).
This warming would be consistent with Relevation, where in 8.7 says ‘… fire, which fell on the earth; and a third of the earth was burnt up, and a third of the trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.”
Your friend should be asked to give Biblical arguments for his religious belief that God will keep the Planet comfortable for mankind. -
One Planet Only Forever at 01:57 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: Tactics of Denial
nigelj,
A major incorrect development of the developed socioeconomic-political systems is the way people in the systems/environments are tempted to develop to be less caring and behave less ethically regarding the development of a sustainable better future for all of humanity (Tribalism or any sub-set Us-Firstism; as presented in the NY Times item I referred to). The systems tempt people to care more about their Private Interest in obtaining personal benefit in their lifetime (even the socialist and communist ones can do that).
The most significant development related to that incorrect development of attitudes and actions is misleading marketing.
Susan Cain's “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking” highlights cultural historian Warren Susman's identification of the shift from a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality that began in the 1800s. The terms that were impressive for Character were: Citizenship, Duty, Work, Golden deeds, Honour, Reputation, Morals, Manners, Integrity. The terms that were impressive for Personality are: Magnetic,Fascinating,Stunning, Attractive, Glowing, Dominant, Forceful, Energetic.
The advancement of emotion/desire related advertising results in a decline of effectiveness of reason based advertising. Well prepared misleading claims will be more successful than efforts to more fully inform and educate the population in a socioeconomic-political environment where people are encouraged to consider their self-interest to be more important that helping to advance all of humanity to a sustainable better future.
That combination of:
- encouraging people to desire to compete to appear to be superior relative to others, rather than competing to substantively be more helpful than others
- with more freedom of the winners of competition to behave less ethically
- and the ability to get away with efforts against raising awareness and better understanding of the corrections required to develop sustainable advancements for all of humanity
is a serious threat to the future of humanity, and not just regarding climate science.
The development of socioeconomic-political environments/systems like that, with their self-perpetuating promotion/advertising leading to increasing incorrect development and resistance to correction, must be called what it is, not be defended because of created appearances of progress or prosperity that are not truly sustainable.
The solutions/corrections can be understood to require the understanding of the importance of limits on freedoms of belief and actions to get Substantive Ethical Character to be what is admired, to return to the track of Enlightenment that Personality driven socioeconomic-political systems have departed so drastically from.
Singapore's success included some rather authoritarian rule by a rather benevolent dictator restricting freedoms forcefully. I recall how smoking in theatres was ended. The fine imposed was huge, and the smoking stopped immediately. A similar solution was imposed to end the mess of chewing gum on sidewalks, no chewing gum allowed.
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Eclectic at 00:32 AM on 26 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Leslie @4 , your report of the communication from the "blatant denialist" is interesting yet not so very uncommon.
Quite apart from his being [to quote his own phrasing] "arrogant and foolish" in his unscientific nonsense . . . he is also being arrogant and foolish enough to believe he himself knows the mind of God. He seems unaware of the irony of his stated position.
We see this overweening self-confidence likewise, in Dr Spencer and Dr Lindzen — though Lindzen's self-confidence derives from his ideas of Yahweh rather than Spencer's more modern Christian God. The fundamentalist concept of a rapidly approaching End of Days, does make it a little strange that someone [such as Leslie's correspondent] would bother to spend time communicating with the [probably] inevitably-damned Leslie. (And it doesn't sound like he is seriously attempting to "convert" Leslie.) Also, why bother disputing with Leslie, when (allegedly) nothing much is going on (other than a few relatively minor hurricanes etc) and nothing much could go on, until the obvious-to-all and utterly calamitous events of the Final Days ?
Maybe the guy is suffering from an anxiety that he might not be right after all? Maybe he is worried that he will be left with egg on his face, when the world continues to go gradually pear-shaped (exactly as the real scientists are indicating) and he will finally have to say: "Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Yes, an interesting case there, Leslie. Wash your hands of him.
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nigelj at 16:57 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Leslie Dean Brown @4, I've also noticed a lot of internet climate denialists are engineers working in transport or fossil fuels etc, for example we had dan the engineering man on this website, and my google search discovered he has an interest in performance cars. Another is Brian Leyland from NZ. As I mentioned polls show denialism is strong in these industries.
But I dont think all denialists are in this engineer category. These engineer guys are smart enough to be articulate denialists, so are more visible on the net. Some may be fronting lobby groups, so professional deniers.
Never undersestimate the power of vested interests in climate denial. However I have always maintained denialism is a mixture of attributes and personalities related to vested interests, politics, and psychology in the main, and the later two aspects closely relate anyway. Politics derives from peoples psychology ultimately.
Someone wondered about scepticism about vaccines. Read the comments anti vaccers make and its mostly women so maternal concerns, and very poorly educated people who just dont understand the issues.You can probably throw in conspiracy theory ideation against big pharma amplifying the scepticism. I think conspiracy theory thinking would be more dominant among poorly educated people.
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Doug_C at 15:30 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
I've been encountering them online for over a decade and have had many pointless debates over the issue. Deniers are incredibly slippery when it comes to any discussion, always able to find some hole out of any intellectual corner they have placed themselves in.
In the end the conviction I've come up is that many of the deniers I've encountered online have displayed psychopathic tendencies. They lie as second nature, they are willing to take incredible risks with all our lives and they show no remorse at all for their actions. They are often very arrogant and are masters at manipulating people and discussions in their favour and can come across as being charismatic although it usually ends up being a very superficial charm.
5 Traits of Actual Psychopaths
"4. They take big risks.
Psychopaths have little regard for safety, especially other people's. They often lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. This behavior can be especially toxic. While not all psychopaths engage in illegal activity, those who do plan their crimes well in advance. Their misconduct is usually well-organized, and they leave few clues behind. Psychopaths tend to be very intelligent, which makes them great con artists."
Given at what's at stake and what has already been lost - like 50% of coral reef systems globally already - I've come to look at climate change denial in the interests of the coal, oil and gas sector as the greatest crime ever carried out.
Which make deniers some of the worst criminals ever.
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leslie dean brown at 14:51 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
Oh I signed up just so I could provide comments here.
I've noticed that pretty much without exception, the denialists I have come across fall into one of several work categories. They are usually either civil or mechanical engineers; work in the mining or fossil fuel industries; in transportation; manufacturing; or else the military. You can see it on LinkedIn. It's very easy to check people's background over there. There is a distinct pattern emerging.
IN OTHER WORDS, the very same industries that produce a shite-load of CO2. Steel, cement and concrete are some of the biggest culprits out there! Not to mention other materials.
Very few denialists have any formal science training. But even they crop up from time to time. I was very disappointed when I came across a fellow materials scientist who was also a blatant denialist. And this is what he had to say:
_________________________________________________________________________
"Hi Leslie, You seem to be very intelligent, but you seem to also be very misinformed (or maybe limitedly informed is more accurate). You need to look beyond the last 20 years of rhetoric and the last 100 years of recorded surface temperatures (which have only become increasingly more accurate and extensive in the last 50 years). Vostok Ice Core Data clearly show that the temperature of the earth is cyclical going back more than 450,000. The earth will go into an Ice Age again with or without the assistance of humans.
My beliefs about the Farce of Global Warming are not based on Scientific Data, they are based upon my belief in the omnipotence of GOD. I am a Christian, but GOD's omnipotence is not just a Christian belief, it is embraced by virtually every non-pagan religion since the beginning of recorded history. The earth is GOD's creation! HE controls ALL of HIS creations! It is arrogant and foolish to believe otherwise.
The "Natural Disasters" that we experience are not "Natural" at all, they are "Super Natural".
I firmly believe that this winter and springs' extremely cold temperatures as well as the rash of recent earthly disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, fires and earth quakes) are GOD's display of HIS control of HIS creations and HIS disgust and disappointment that most of mankind believes that they somehow control HIS creation.
Whether you believe in GOD (or not), many clearheaded scientists that are not influenced by politics, finance or popular media entertainment believe that Global Warming (as influenced by mankind) is a farce."
_________________________________________________________________________
I mean how does one respond to that? Obviously, this person is not truly scientific, whereupon their logic has flown out the window. They're not open-minded. They're closed-minded. They just admitted "My beliefs about the Farce of Global Warming are not based on Scientific Data, they are based upon my belief in the omnipotence of GOD."
I used to be super logical and think that data alone could inform and pursuade peoples' opinions. Wrong! Completely wrong! That was a big assumption on my part.
I personally think it's time scientists got a bit more emotional in their approach. No one listens to you when you sound like Spock. But when you get passionate about something, people take your more seriously.
The other thing I'd like to add is that if fashion and design have the power to pursuade people to do things on very short timescales, perhaps scientists should be looking to designers for some more clout? As I'm one of the few who speak the dual languages of science and design, I'd like to help scientists with that. Feel free to get in touch with me...
I'd also like to share readers with my blog, where I try to fuse my passion for writing and design with environmentalism among other things (like my mental anguish).
http://www.vidaenigmatica.org/
There was one other thing I wanted to say here. A few months ago I had an argument with a security guard of all people about climate change. He was clearly out of his depth and I let him have it. Anyway, he was in a classic denial the whole time, and then eventually he finally said: “what do you want me to do about it?” (with an attitude)
Is this the real underlying problem? That they literally don't know what else they can do to mitigate climate change?
Maybe that's an idea for a post? WHAT CAN PEOPLE DO ABOUT IT?
For example: plant more trees, buy second hand, reuse, repair, recycle, buy services not products, slow down and enjoy life, etc, etc. -
Digby Scorgie at 14:46 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
I've always felt that some deniers are suckers — they've been caught for suckers by the propaganda campaign waged by the psychopaths who prefer wealth and power now to a habitable planet later. These deniers are probably open to persuasion.
But the remaining deniers are fanatics, and one is never supposed to debate with fanatics. It's an utterly pointless exercise. I've also seen estimates that put the percentage of such deniers at about 10%.
So I wonder if there's any point in expending energy on the fanatical deniers. My experience of human affairs leads me to think that we would still be arguing about climate action even if there were no deniers at all.
I simply can't bring myself to believe that humanity will take the necessary steps to avert dangerous climate change. The implication, from all the assessments I've seen, is that in about two decades much of the world will be reeling from the effects. That's when humanity will realize that serious action should have been taken — but it'll be too late.
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nigelj at 14:30 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: Tactics of Denial
This article from Vox is good on Trumps supporters and whats happening with the Republican Party.
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nigelj at 14:21 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: Tactics of Denial
OPOF @27, Singapore is a successful economy, and I'm interested to hear they have good business ethics. They are a very strict rule bound society, maybe a little too authoritarian in leadership for me. I think it's probably a need to unify diverse cultures on a tiny island with limited resources.
Scandinavia is a successful market economy, or mixed model economy that achieves reasonably fair outcomes and has decent business ethics on the whole within a more democratic framework. They are not perfect societies, but are a good socio economic model to emulate, and outcomes tend to be good in those societies.
I read the New York Times article just the other day. It's very compelling, but Trumps blue collar supporters won't get any help from Trumps policies. They have been used as pawns in his self glorifying plans.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:37 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: Tactics of Denial
The link to the NY Times article I referred to in the 4th last para of my comment @26.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:28 PM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: Tactics of Denial
nigelj@24,
“Economic theory encourages people acting in their "enlightened self interest" on the basis that profitability "will benefit all" in a happy kind of effect and this appears to create wealth over history, at least in the provision of certain types of goods such as consumer goods.”
is not as accurate a presentation as:
“Economic theories of the beneficial developments that will be achieved through things like a free-market and free-society rely on, or require, all participants (or at least the vast majority of the significant participants), to honestly and diligently pursue maximum awareness and understanding of what is really going on and act to sustainably improve things for the future of all humanity. It also requires any member of humanity who has developed Private Interests contrary to that type of sustainable collective improvement to be quickly identified and corrected, something that is more important to apply to those who have become wealthier or more influential.”
As an engineer with an MBA I try to focus on the actual results that are being achieved, which can be very different from the perceptions developed by participants in the system. And I am very aware that addressing harmful undesirable results requires a good understanding of why the results occurred before attempting to correct things.
This is an ethical or moral matter requiring the best explanation for what is observed (abductive reasoning).
For any system to be sustainably successful all actions need to be guided by a good ethical or moral objective.
The vast majority of the developed socioeconomic-political systems can be seen to have failed to encourage ethical and moral development that would sustainably improve the future for all of humanity (developing, encouraging and defending things that prompt ethical people to be concerned about what has developed); failing to discourage unsustainable or harmful activity (even communist systems can be seen to have failed that way).
I have been paying attention that way through many decades based in a region of the planet that 'developed a powerful collective desire to benefit from the global burning of fossil fuels' (Alberta, Canada). And I have tried to be as aware as I can be of what happened around the world regarding the burning of fossil fuels. I have been particularly interested in the people/system responses to the emergent truth of the unacceptable consequences of that activity. Thanks to SkS, I understand that began at the time of Arrhenius in the 1800's. By the 1980's the unacceptability of already fortunate people trying to become even more fortunate as a result of expanded or extended global burning of fossil fuels was undeniable (since then the further strengthening of understanding was delayed by the developed popularity and profitability of that activity and by the deliberate efforts of wealthy powerful people who did not want that understanding to be better understood).
The required system corrections to get ethical/moral system responses to the developed climate science understanding includes admitting the importance of restricting freedoms. Changing the socioeconomic-political systems to effectively correct incorrect beliefs (not allowing people to believe whatever they wish), and restrict freedoms of actions (not allowing people to pursue whatever their developed Personal Interests are regardless of regional popularity or profitability) are essential system corrections (for more issues than climate science).
So my current developed understanding (always a work in progress) is that “an ethical/moral development of a sustainable better future for all of humanity” requires rigorous monitoring and aggressive correction applied to all of the wealthiest and most influential, all of the Biggest Winners. There needs to be higher expectations of Good Behaviour from the richer and more powerful, best achieved by peer pressures. At the other end of the spectrum, the poorest can be excused for understandably unethical behaviour because they have more pressing survival motivations and should not be expected to know better, but should be helped to live better and learn to be ethical.
A system that does not include that correction of the Winners and assistance for the less fortunate will struggle to achieve the desired outcome, no matter what level of understanding is developed among the general population. The clear difference between the leadership actions in places like the USA and the understanding among the general population is proof of the failure of the system to have the Winners actually leading in the proper ethical/moral direction, including failing to meaningfully sustainably assist the less fortunate to better living. And a significantly lower and significantly delayed public acceptance of the developed scientific emergent truth can easily be seen to be the result of the undeserving among the Winners not being effectively 'corrected' in the related socioeconomic political system.
People driven by concerns about 'their perceptions of privilege as fossil fuel burners or being able to profit from that activity' are a significant part of the climate science awareness and understanding challenge. There is a similar finding regarding Trump supporters recently reported in the NY Times. The awareness of the unacceptability of what has developed and the required corrections that are being exposed by climate science mean that a loss of stature relative to others is a serious consideration. And the resistance of people to 'being corrected' is a major factor in the reluctance of the general population to accept the constantly improving awareness and understanding of climate science, a lot of people can sense that they have a lot to lose. They can understand that they deserve to lose, but they did not develop thinking that way.
Sean Carroll's “The Big Picture” apolitically presents the currently developed robust understanding of what is going on. And it reinforces that my current developed understanding is aligned with the collective best explanations of reality. People start with hereditary or genetic characteristics and develop their character based on the environment and experiences they grow up in. People can change their minds, but they can be powerfully motivated by the environment or 'socioeconomic-political system' they are in.
Beliefs about how people should behave (considerately helpful to the future of humanity) in a free-market or free-society are not the reality of what develops if people are freer to believe whatever they want and do as they please. The reality is that people do not develop those ways of thinking and acting in the current developed systems (almost all of them - Singapore and The Cook Islands appear to be rare examples of outliers in that regard). It can be seen that the systems of competition generally encourage the opposite attitudes and actions to develop. They develop zero-sum game attitudes in pursuit of perceptions of being superior to others that actually produce negative-sum results, rather than developing the Positive-sum potential of collaborative healthy competition to most effectively develop sustainable improvements for all of humanity.
Any perceptions of wealth developed those zero-sum (actually negative-sum) ways are usually unethically obtained, and are not actually sustainable.
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nigelj at 08:34 AM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
One other thing, regarding social dominance orientation and associated lack of empathy. This sounds like the sociopathic or psychopathic personality that is unusually egocentric, also lacks a strong conscience and integrity, and dislikes rules, restrictions and laws. Cheating is seen as ok with this form of personality.
Some level of sociopathy / psychopathy is recognised as often a feature of chief executives of corporations, who are ruthless and rewarded for this, and probably feel they should be allowed to go on aquiring personal power and wealth regardless of environmental problems or environmental rules. Such people are obviously influential in the climate debates.
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nigelj at 07:24 AM on 25 April 2018Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality
A thorough and compelling review of the denialist personality. I see this exact personality all the time all over the place, sadly to say.
Climate denialists do routinely ignore what you say, or change the subject - often going a step further into red herring arguments.
I can only think of one thing you perhaps missed - deliberate ignorance. I see many intelligent people promoting things they must know are absurd, presumably because of political motives and related factors.
Although some intelligent educated people struggle with science, remember its a challenging subject.
Coming back to your observations. We know from polls that conservatives tend to be more sceptical because they don't like the implications of the science and other reasons. But I also recall reading a study of oil company employees which showed about 90% scepticism about the science, not surprisingly. It didn't state reasons but would most likely be fear of losing jobs, and perhaps people following the lead taken by management. Peer pressure is probably a big factor in denialism.
What does it all mean? We have a lot of different reasons for climate scepticism so its shades of grey. Scepticism clearly exists on a spectrum from normal questioning to hardline irrational denialism.
But if people are mainly just afraid of losing jobs, rather than driven by ideology, they can be shown new jobs are being created in renewable energy. Some are probably going to respond to this.
The denialist personality is clearly towards the extreme end of the spectrum, and is best defined as someone very entrenched in their views, and unwilling to learn for a whole range of reasons combining in that person. If I had to bet money on it, I would say political ideology is the dominant reason at this extreme end of the denialist spectrum.
Polls show acceptance of the science has improved in America, although slowly. This shows there are sceptics that can be convinced otherwise. It cannot be random chance, and must reflect better understanding and awareness of the issues.
You will be left with a group of hard core climate denialists maybe 10%, because we see this with many scientific issues, but in a democracy this doesn't matter so much. It does matter a bit with vaccines, because they undermine the way vaccines work.
I agree a lot of this is more about convincing people of the merits of renewable energy, not just in terms of the climate, but in other respects. In fact it's really all about a lifestyle change towards taking more care of the environment and less materialism, and unfortunately this gets back to anti environmentalism and raises political ideology again. But 'sustainability' is ultimately about hard environmental facts, and sensible choices and long term policies, and I personally believe this will eventually cut through politics, because reality and facts eventually win out with 90% of people.
The more people make real lifestyle changes the more visible it becomes and the more politicians will have to take climate change and other environmental issues seriously. A sort of virtuous circle.
Or taking the cynical view, will humanity choose to truly take risks and trash the planet into oblivion?
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michael sweet at 22:09 PM on 24 April 2018Climate's changed before
Tom Curtis,
It is very good to hear from you. I am sorry to hear about your health issues, my daughter has cronic health issues so I know they are a trial. I lived in Acacia Ridge for three years and I smile whenever I hear of Brisbane.
Good luck with everything. I try to include a citation in all my posts but cannot detail things like you did. I wonder how you kept your patience with those who refuse to even read the data they are given.
moderator: I accidently posted a duplicate of this on the wrong OP, sorry.
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Tom Dayton at 13:29 PM on 24 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #16
From the author of The Tao of Willie: an explanation of greenhouse gasses
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nigelj at 09:59 AM on 24 April 2018Pruitt promised polluters EPA will value their profits over American lives
Doug_C @3, yes all true, although taking a devils advocate position, you could argue theres nothing actually wrong with an activist agenda anyway in certain situations. Activism has it's place, especially with something as fundamental to our long term survival as the environment, and given the enormous influence of corporate lobby groups opposing environmental improvements. Activism balances this up nicely.
There's nothing wrong with the EPA actively protecting the environment, and passionate about their cause, and this means things done.The head of the organisation should have some form of environmental qualification, or at least a science degree, so that he understands the issues and relates to staff. Pruit is a lawyer. No wonder morale is so low in the organisation.
People need to keep things in perspective. Labelling something activist is an attempt to discredit something, without actually prviding real evidence of a problem. Its a nasty, small minded slur.
There are plenty of other branches of government to scrutinise EPA decisions, and make sure they don't get carried away and over regulate. Obama managed this, and managed a good balance of environmentalism and economics, proven by the fact the economy and company profitability all did very well on the whole once things recovered from the financial crash. There was therefore just no problem there with the EPA and specific environmental rules that needed fixing, although more should be done about climate change. If anything, the EPA need more regulatory powers, not less.
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Eclectic at 09:42 AM on 24 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #16
Tom, I'm pleased to hear your Mark Twain-like reply. Your posting history is gold-medal impressive. And I dips me lid to you.
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Doug_C at 07:38 AM on 24 April 2018Pruitt promised polluters EPA will value their profits over American lives
nigelj @2
"leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda"
This seems like more very dishonest branding on the part of some working for polluters and not for public safety.
The EPA was created by Republican President Richard Nixon and had nothing to do with any sort of political activism. It was a response to some very serious pollution issues at the time.
Now it has been agreed on a global scale not just by almost all the researchers involved in valid study of the climate but by almost every government in the world that climate change is a very serious issue that must be addresses as soon as possible to pervent very serious impacts.
The US Supreme Court agreed with this as well in 2007 which means that all this time the EPA should have been strictly regulating carbon dioxide emissions in a way that is consistent with the evidence.
Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency
Not only has the EPA not had an "activist agenda" as Pruitt claims as a justification for damaging it as much as he can in the interests of polluters, for the last decade the EPA has been in violation of US law in regards to not regulating CO2 emissions.
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nigelj at 07:20 AM on 24 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
Other studies of MWP hockey sticks here.
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