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nigelj at 08:52 AM on 26 April 2017March against madness - denial has pushed scientists out to the streets
Well said. The loss of belief in science is tragic, and astounding, and dismissing the views 97% of climate scientists that agree we are altering the climate, and going with a small minority of sceptics of 3%, is irrational, and ammounts to an insane sort of selfish gamble, and is dumping our stupidity on future generations. We have just one planet, and it needs to ne managed well or things will go very wrong. Most importantly, it's a completely senseless gamble, given renewable energy is now cost competitive, or close enough to be genuinely viable.
(Polls actually show a variance from 90% - 97% who think we are altering the climate, but I think its immaterial whether its 90% or 97%. It's a big majority, and no poll has ever found climate scientists with a radically different outcome. I suspect sceptics have conducted such polls, but they have not delivered the results they wanted, so never got published)
Yes some will argue that the majority are not always right, but given the sceptics are in a distinct minority, their work has to be carefully scrutinised, and the duty is on them to have a pretty convincing argument, including not just some big problem with mainstream climate science theory, but a viable alternative reason for global warming that explains not just the rate of warming, but also other associated atmospheric changes. They have consistently failed to do this imho.
Climate denialists and sceptics also seem to consistently come with a lot of ideological baggage, that to me undermines their credibility.
I remain open minded, but we have completely run out of time to theorise, because if we don't act now, serious climate change will be totally locked in for millenia.
I take some degree of issue with the claim that people have "suddenly lost the ability to judge what is right or not," in other words suddenly become irrational. I think many people have always stuggled to evaluate science, because we have failed to teach enough about the scientific method itself, along with skills of logical thinking, identifying shallow rhetorical tricks and so on. Given climate change is a big issue with big implications, it has exposed this lack of skill.
However some things have changed as well. In the past I think people have accepted science on trust, and have been respectful of elites, during the 1800's and authoritarian post WW2 period, up until the 1960s, and had no particluar reason to question things like quantum physics, that doesn't require them to change lifestyles. This subservience to authority was however oppressive in various facets of life, especially socially.
Things are now different as culture is more liberal and less authoritarian on the whole, so people question things more. This is basically very healthy, but has gone totally out of control with some people, with a total lack of respect for elites, for various reasons. People have simply lost faith in elites, possibly for partisan political reasons, frustration that things dont always work smoothly, etc. This has led to Trump gaining unfortunate traction.
But I think it's also exposed that many people lack the rational thinking skills to discern when the elite or politicians are genuinely wrong or genuinely right, or to spot flaws in denialist claims, which might be scientic flaws or simple logical absurdities.
Of course we cannot expect people to accept every pronouncement of the elite at face value. Alternative views are healthy. Scepticism has its place and can be healthy, if it's rationally based.
But alternative facts are a nonsense. Conspiracy thinking is insane. These things are dead ends.
Without basic, fundamental faith in mainstream institutions and mainstream science, and the scientific method, and rational evidence based thinking, we are lost and things will end badly. We loose unity of human purpose and belief. It will become a war zone on every level, with human groups divided, and it could literally come to civil war.
There's no viable alternative to mainstream science, rational thinking, evidence collated or collected by good public institutions, and private institutions that have integrity and reputation, and some form of authority that is tasked with collecting such evidence.
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Kiwiiano at 07:21 AM on 26 April 2017SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
NigelJ: point out to them that all the volcanoes on Earth provide only 1% of the CO2 we are emitting, sometimes less. Note that there are more vents, geysers, fumerols, mud pools and other geothermal outlets in Yellowstone Park than the rest of the world combined but there are more "fumerols" (exhaust pipes) on the LA Freeways alone, let alone the rest of the planet.True, big volcanic eruptions release a lot of gas, but they are all over in a few days or weeks, with decades/centuries until the next time. Exhaust pipes are 24/7/365.25.
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nigelj at 07:18 AM on 26 April 2017SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
Just related to snowball earth, I had to read up on wikipedia, I confess. It appears solar radiation was very significantly less when earth first formed, and has been gradually increasing over the millenia, at an incredibly slow pace according to well understood astronomical evidence.
Whats interesting is that prior to snowball earth there was a period of liquid water that coincided with a weak sun. It's called "the faint sun paradox" given solar output suggests everything should have been frozen. It's thought that greenhouse gas concentrations were extremely high, enough to keep the planet above freezing point. Some think alternatively that given oceans were larger in extent, this affected the heat balance.
It's thought the greenhouse gas balance eventually fell leading to snowball earth. Snowball earth was a period of low solar radiation, and quite high greenhouse gases, but not high enough to overcome the weak sun. Eventually the sun strengthened enough to warm things up.
Now the suns energy output is essentially falling very slightly, and we are adding greenhouse gases, so this is the dominant factor affecting climate.
This is my understanding. From snowball earth and related links on wikipedia.
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Daniel Livingston at 07:04 AM on 26 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
No worries regarding my name - I get David and Livingstone frequently.
Thanks for the informative responses. I guess we will probably see things differently regarding some philosophical questions, but I hope that doesn't prevent meaningful dialogue.
This is a site about the science of climate change, so behind my post was an implicit / veiled plea to keep the issues of evolution and vaccines separate. If we lump them all in together as science vs anti-science issues, I fear we will unnecessarily alienate people (such as many US evangelicals) whose minds are not already made up on the question of climate science, but are made up on, say, the question of origins.
The risk of lumping them all in together is that a Creationist may find it difficult to evaluate the evidence and arguments around climate change if he thinks that he is already labelled as being in the 'anti-science' crowd because of his beliefs about origins.
For the sake of having the best chance of mitigating climate change impacts, I think it may be better to keep the arguments separate.
I'm such an example. I'm a practising Christian who loves God; and I believe that climate change is real and that mitigation is important.
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nigelj at 06:40 AM on 26 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Daniel Livingston, apologies for the name mistake. I know a David Livingston, I mixed it all up.
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nigelj at 06:29 AM on 26 April 2017SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
William @3, yes very bad scenarios are certainly possible.
Also have a look at "The Revenge of Gaia" on wikipedia.
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nigelj at 06:19 AM on 26 April 2017SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
The blanket / body analogy is excellent, and will bring a wry smile to people, but I do think most people probably accept the greenhouse effect. The small number who don't might be the very stubborn types who will be hard to convert.
The problem is people query whether the CO2 is coming from fossil fuels or the oceans or volcanoes, or whether natural causes for warming dominate, etc,etc, ad infinitum. I suppose all we can do is combat these fallacies, and this website is a good resource for this.
Combatting climate change is more of a political / psychological / economic /social /vested interests problem.
It's tempting to be pessimistic about the whole climate thing at times, with the slow progress, complacency, and astoundingly ignorant and self interested positions of people like Donald Trump, but things in life often reach tipping points, where the public and even most politicians suddenly change their positions, and progress starts to happen rapidly. It's like there is a silent gestation period, and then everyone reaches a silent consensus, and change their mind or want action almost in unison. You see it in politics sometimes.
People can be fixed and partisan, yet they "do" eventually change positions on at least some things. I think this may happen over climate, and full commitment to renewable energy. The question is whether it's soon enough to be of any use.
However it may take longer in America given the deep divisions, and powerful influence of lobby groups and various other factors.
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william5331 at 06:18 AM on 26 April 2017SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
The solution may be at hand. We are in a horse race to see whether sudden climate change or economic collapse will come first. If Economic collapse knocks us back into a dark ages or even into a stone age, our carbon output will crash and huge areas of the world will go back to forest. Imagine the legends that the remaining survivors will tell of this "Atlantis" and the deniers that will maintain that it could never have been. For that matter, sudden climate change will precipitate an economic collapse so pretty soon we will stop straining our poor old earth whichever wins the race.
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joe - at 05:57 AM on 26 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
A stream flows through the toe of Kaskawulsh Glacier in Kluane National Park in the Yukon. In 2016, this channel allowed the glacier’s meltwater to drain in a different direction than normal, resulting in the Slims River water being rerouted to a different river system. (Dan Shugar)
A team of scientists on Monday documented what they’re describing as the first case of large-scale river reorganization as a result of human-caused climate change.
A more accurate statement is that the river is reverting back to its natural drainage basin, which existed prior to the glacier blocking its natural flow. The retreat of the mendenhall glacier revealing tree stumps from the early mwp indicates a much warmer period in the region and that the north bound flow of the river has most likely only been a fairly recent occurance.
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Mal Adapted at 03:39 AM on 26 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
My apologies to Daniel Livingston, for calling him David after reading nigelj's reply to him.
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Evan at 02:40 AM on 26 April 2017SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
Macabre, but effective analogy. We need lots of variations on the same theme to reach the broadest audience, and your's works. Thanks. Perhaps we can publish this as Analogy 2B.
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ubrew12 at 02:17 AM on 26 April 2017SkS Analogy 2 - Ferrari Without Gas
In the 1930s my father-in-law escaped Depression-era Seattle for Alaska to pan for gold (his father had made quite a bit of money that way). He and his friends hooked up with an old prospector who was certain that up a particular river they would find El Dorado. After much trial and tribulation, they ended up-river with no gold, winter approaching, and then the prospector died. They quickly did an about-face, the river froze, it became perilous. Worst of all, my father-in-law had drawn the short straw, and had to sleep with the old man's body in his tent (the ground was too frozen to bury him properly). One night he woke up, and the old man was staring at him, and he swore at the old man that if he ever haunted him, he would find a worthy adversary as they fought their way down to hell.
This is a long-winded, more macabre way of saying that another way of making your analogy is to note that you can throw a blanket (of CO2) on a freezing human being, and they will warm up. But, if you throw a blanket on a freezing corpse, they just stay frozen.
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Mal Adapted at 01:33 AM on 26 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Evolution: most informed people are aware that there is abundant scientific evidence of natural selection that is essentially incontrovertible. What scientists have failed to ever once demonstrate, however, is that observable natural selection can be a means of producing new genetic information such that biodiversity or biogenesis can be explained in an observable, reproducible way.
Mr. Livingston has demonstrated is a fundamental confusion about what science is. He is thus like "most informed people."
His use of "biogenesis" is ambiguous, but if by "biodiversity" he means speciation, then the "failure" of evolutionary biologists to demonstrate it before Mr. Livingston's very eyes in no way undermines any refereed claims of the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Nor is "failure" to replicate every step in the process a substantive challenge to current models of abiogenesis, the origin of life from non-living chemical precursors.
Mr. Livingston goes on to assert that alternative hypotheses to evolution, that assume intelligent and/or supernatural causes, can't be ruled out. That's not correct either, I'm afraid.
Science, as a way of trying not to fool oneself, relies on the a priori assumption of invariant natural law; since no later than the mid-17th century, disciplined scientists have agreed that "then a miracle occurred" is wholly unsatisfactory as an explanation for anything (hence, according to an 1825 biography of Napoleon, Pierre-Simon LaPlace's reply when Napolean asked him "how the name of God, which appeared endlessly in the works of Lagrange, didn't occur even once in his?": "I had no need of that hypothesis"). The only "miracle" that can't be ruled out is the origin of the Universe itself, since our Universe's invariant laws themselves originated with the Big Bang.
For their part, as nigelj has already pointed out, proposed natural but super-intelligent causes all suffer the "what created them?" flaw. That is, they contravene the principle of parsimony, also called the least hypothesis rule or "Occam's Razor".
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Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
A couple of comments from the US:
Despite religious conservatives, most classrooms in the US do get taught evolution. Counterexamples are usually based on individual teachers who are violating the curriculum. Whether or not evolution or climate change are presenting in anything like a convincing fashion, however, is more variable.
There is an ongoing failure to teach methods vs. facts. One of my most useful Junior High classes was an English class where we learned Greek and Roman origins of suffixes and prefixes, experimenting with creating our own words using modifiers - and giving the tools to examine new vocabulary from scratch. And spending time for a degree in Philosophy, which provided considerable experience in identifying logical fallacies, in understanding poor argumentation.
How to think is perhaps the most important subject of all - and sadly, not always taught.
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nigelj at 19:01 PM on 25 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
David Livingston @24
You say "usually the question is whether or not to vaccinate my kids rather than whether vaccines have efficacy."
Clearly for you, but I have observed plenty people claim vaccines have nasty side effects and also that they don't work. I suggest they reject the science of whether vaccines work, in a sort of reaction to provide another reason not to use vaccines.
And their concerns about side effects seem rather irrational given the same people are often happy to use other medications, which also have equal side effects.
However I do understand people do worry about what they are giving their children, and it sometimes worries me, but overall I think vaccines are advisable. The risks are no more than other medications, and serious risks are at very low level. Remember people can have a fatal allergic reaction to almost anything, but it's rare enough.
That's not to say we should accept everything pharmaceutical companies claim at face value, but let's keep the "scepticism" sensible with some real foundation, not some of the crazy conspiracy claims people make.
You say "What scientists have failed to ever once demonstrate, however, is that observable natural selection can be a means of producing new genetic information such that biodiversity"
So you appear to claim people accept some evidence for evolution, but science has never demonstrated formation of a new species. I'm not up with the latest on this, but the problem is it's virtually impossible to create in a laboratory the geographical conditions that lead to new species in the real world. This doesn't mean it didn't happen.
You say "but there is no evidence that would require the abandonment of alternative hypotheses for the origin of species (such as alien seeding, intelligent design, the multiverse, a creator, etc)."
Well theres quite a lot of evidence that suggests it's all rather unlikely. Also, if human or animal evolution was due to alien impregnation, where did aliens come from if not evolution? This is the same sort of problem as "who created the creator". It's all a bit of an intellectual dead end really.
You make the claim "In climate science, however, it’s harder to imagine ways to reject the mainstream understanding without reasonably attracting the label ‘anti-science’."
Yes, however I would suggest 95% of those who reject the science of climate change because they have vested interests in fossil fuels, or are worried about carbon taxes, etc,etc rather than as an academic exercise. Just imagine if we could solve global warming by fitting an inexpensive device to the exhaust pipe of our cars, and ask yourself how much scepticism would be left? Not all much I would suggest.
So vested interests, and various fears, and entrenched beliefs, might be causes of rejection of science. (You could add in genetic crop engineering). However I doubt these are the only things, recently, if you look at the comments various people make. There's an emergent distrust of elites, and rational evidence based thinking, that seems to go beyond just vested interests or fears about the effects of new technologies. This distrust has ideological roots, and is sometimes very unjustified.
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Daniel Livingston at 16:22 PM on 25 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
On the whole I agree with the video and the comments here. However, evolution, vaccines and climate change are all very different things when it comes to the intersection of knowledge, beliefs and values and being able to neatly categorise extant positions as pro or anti-science.
Vaccines: usually the question is whether or not to vaccinate my kids rather than whether vaccines have efficacy. The latter question (efficacy at conferring immunity) is a question that can be answered scientifically. But the question of whether or not to vaccinate is not a scientific question, but a risk question based on individual values and the rights for informed choice when it comes to medical intervention. Of course, scientific evidence ideally should be the basis for informed decision-making. But unless it can be reliably demonstrated that pharmaceutical companies (and their regulators) never have or will allow any vaccines that could possibly have a net disbenefit to any group or individual, according to any set of values or criteria, then it is nonsensical to identify everyone who questions vaccine schedules as science deniers. For example, the government of Japan removed the MMR (combined) vaccine from its schedule due to concerns about the level of risk. Does that make Japan anti-science?
Evolution: most informed people are aware that there is abundant scientific evidence of natural selection that is essentially incontrovertible. What scientists have failed to ever once demonstrate, however, is that observable natural selection can be a means of producing new genetic information such that biodiversity or biogenesis can be explained in an observable, reproducible way. There is much scientific hypothesis for the explanation of the origin of species, but there is no evidence that would require the abandonment of alternative hypotheses for the origin of species (such as alien seeding, intelligent design, the multiverse, a creator, etc). There is also much scientific evidence for long geologic timescales, although there is still room for alternative explanations. Again, the broad question of origins (sometimes characterized as ‘creation vs evolution’) has possible answers that are considerably more nuanced than can be easily classified as pro or anti-science. I think we could hardly call John Lennox, for example, anti-science.
Climate change: I would argue that climate change, however, is a bit less nuanced than these other two topics in terms of being able to characterize participant behaviour as pro or anti-science. While the policy options, of course, are many, varied and thus inherently nuanced, the debate in this field is usually over whether anthropogenic global warming is actually happening. The evidence for this is overwhelmingly straightforward that it is. This is a field where anti-science is a real problem in terms of its impact on public discourse and policy.
Conclusion: I would argue that in the other areas (evolution and vaccines), while there are many anti-science perspectives out there, rejection of mainstream views is not always anti-science. In climate science, however, it’s harder to imagine ways to reject the mainstream understanding without reasonably attracting the label ‘anti-science’.
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chriskoz at 14:45 PM on 25 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #16
I think the Realestate industry is going to be a canary for SLR. Check this article:
The nightmare scenario for Florida’s coastal homeowners
“Anybody in these floody areas, if they disclose to a buyer, the buyer probably won’t buy that property,” said Slap, whose company is doing work for the city of Miami Beach. “That’s going to drive the value down to zero, well before water is up to their front door.”
In Bangladesh, they are already facing this stage but no one cares about them as their monetary values are low (unjustly) but S Florida property market crash that we're going to witness very soon (I predict in a decade or two) will be covered in news spectacularly.
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Ncrdbl1 at 09:52 AM on 25 April 2017Mars is warming
So you start off by saying there is no way to prove that Mars is warming. Then you go forth trying to explain why teh ice caps are shrinking.
Very simple reason, the temperature has moved above the freezing point. There is no other reason you can give to explaiin what us happening.
In layman's term it is WARMING.
You just do nto want to accept it because it will mean anotehr factor in play with our own planets which cause temperatures to change.
Most likely reason that could effect both planets ice caps???? SOLAR ACTIVITY.
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nigelj at 09:00 AM on 25 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Tom Curtis @ 20
I think you are right that just because some christians believe in creationism, or some specific version of it, doesn't mean they all do. I have found a huge gradation of views in christians I know. Even as an athiest I respect certain religious ethical views. There can be common ground.
It's obviously also wrong to say that because one athiest has unusual astronomical beliefs that all do, or are all irrational.
I didn't realise creationsim and anti evolutionary thinking has been quite so powerful in the American education system, or at least in some states and historical periods. I think you are right it's certainly possible that children taught creationism, or some combinaton of this and evolution, will be confused, and it could also hard wire their brains towards irrational thinking, making it hard to decipher the climate issue for example. Or if not hardwire their brains, certainly become an embedded mode of operation.
Children go through well recognised phases of cognitive development, observed in the work of Piaget. This is hardly surprising as the brain is not fully biliogically developed early on so its really a question of understanding these stages, which is still somewhat of a work in progress.
It's believed these organic / developmental phases are in turn also influenced by feedback from the environnment, so religious teaching early on in life could well have a permanent effect that may be hard to undo later in life, and its possible one effect could be irrational thinking. Given children are getting such confliciting messages about rational processes in the real world, and a hidden supernatural god, some of their brains may develop with a weakened ability to rationally analyse things.
Also, according to Piaget humans operate by comparining ideas to results in the real world,as a way of evaluating reality, so children, adolescents and adults understand cause and effect to varying degrees. This understanding of cause and effect besomes more sophisticated with age and Piagets developmental periods. Unfortunately this probably explains why belief in an intelligent designer persists, as humans see that things are designed and work well, so assume humans are also designed by some hidden entity. So this is a sort of unfortunate side effect, or irony. However clearly most humans are smart enough to work out that such an assumption as this does not rise to the level of proof, and evolution provides an evidence and logic based explanation of how things came to be.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Well said, Nigelj & Tom!
Science isn't just about preserving and presenting knowledge, but a way of thinking that helps us acquire new knowledge and telling objective facts from wishful thinking. It is of course impossible for most laypeople to acquire an extensive scientific knowledge, but it would be highly beneficial for the society if they at least understood some basic facts and the scientific method a little better. That would be an efficient vaccine against irrational BS from those whose opinion is driven almost exclusively by religion, ideology or feelings.
Fortunately the irrational, anti-scientific madness that seems to be spreading in the English-speaking part of the world isn't quite as common here in Norway yet, although we have our share of AGW deniers. Most parties in the parliament also accept AGW even though the major parties haven't done much about it other than talking, and the greenest parties are pretty small.
The only party with a large share of AGW deniers is the right wing progress party (Fremskrittspartiet), which unfortunately is in coalition with the conservative party (Høyre) right now. Even though many of its members aren't quite as bad as Trump & Co, the previous party leader (Carl I. Hagen) is an all-out AGW denier. It's worth noting that the labour party (Arbeiderpartiet) hasn't done a noticeable better job than the present government when they had the chance. Their last prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg (now the secretary general of NATO), is considered an "oil man" by the environmental movement here. If I should rank the Norwegian parties from worst to best when it comes to environmental views it would be something like this:The Progress party The Centre party (about equally bad)
The Conservatives The Labour (about equally inadequate)
The Christian democrats
The Socialistic Left The Liberal Left (about equally good)
The Green Party (best)The Centre party is a special case as it in some ways is better than the Conservatives & Labour, but as a special interest party for farmers it is by far the worst party when it comes to conservation and habitat protection. If it was up to them alone, the last minor populations of Norwegian wolves, brown bears, lynxes and wolverines would surely be exterminated, and possibly the golden eagles, too.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:39 AM on 25 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
This post and the comments got me thinking, and revisiting things, a lot more than I initially thought I would.
One of the most comprehensive and significant Emergent Truths is that the future of humanity requires leadership towards achieving the internationally developed and agreed Sustainable Development Goals (which includes aggressive action to limit climate change impacts form human activity). And it is indeed many Political people (including politically motivated Business-minded people), not Science people, who are failing to do what Ethical Leaders need to do for the future of Humanity.
John Adams (2nd President of the USA) said “The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.”
What is now undeniable is that many current developments have been pushed very far in understandably inappropriate directions. Those understandably unacceptable pursuits Won, and continue to Win, because of the lack of awareness and lack of responsible evaluation of the appropriateness of an activity. Evaluation should be determining that an activity is a development that sustainably improves the future for all of humanity. Popularity and profitability clearly do not produce that evaluation. As a result, there is damaging over-development and powerful support for it. Those who have Won, or want to Win more, through inappropriately directed over-development refuse to admit that their perceptions of prosperity or opportunity are unjustified. They demand 'proof to their satisfaction' of the unacceptability of their desires and beliefs.
The lack of winning by people with Good Ethical Objective/Purpose is the real problem.
But the comments lead me to more thoughts.
My understanding is that Star Trek presented the value of a robust diversity of people working collectively to better understand how to make things better. The United Federation of Planets was a diverse mix. And the Prime Directive in their exploration for New Life and New Civilizations was not to Conquer, Exploit, or Melt Them into Oneness. It was to avoid interfering in the development of alien civilizations (exceptions were made when there was evidence that one group was doing harm to Others or when help could reduce suffering). The Nemesis of the Federation, the Romulans and the Klingons, were presented as Empire Pursuing Mono-Cultures, lacking broad diversity.
The fundamentals of Start Trek can be understood to be similar to simple key points regarding “what life is all about” that have been developed and presented repeatedly throughout the history of humanity. It is a lesson constantly re-learned as the unethical reality of Winners re-emerge after too many people fail to honour this Good Purpose/Best Objective in all of their thoughts and actions.
Einstein also said “Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.” and “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
And Sagan said “Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
Lord Acton made a related point “Everything secret degenerates, nothing is safe that does not bear discussion and publicity.”
Human history is full of quotes that reflect those understandings of Good Purpose or Objectives and the importance of honest pursuit of understanding guided by a Good Objective or Purpose. The internationally established Sustainable Development Goals are an integrated set of objectives that have been developed through the pursuit of better understanding that is consistent with those fundamental Good Objectives/Purposes. Yet we see a powerful nation like the USA having its leadership being Won by people whose actions can be seen to be contrary to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (including attempts to discredit or disrespect climate science and reverse actions that would have helped).
It becomes essential to understand what keeps humanity from developing and sustaining a stronger consensus of better understanding regarding how to improve the future for all of humanity.
- Unethical Creators of Perceptions have been winning competitions for popularity and profitability.
- They can get a competitive advantage from not caring about Others (Winning by appealing to the tendency of people to be Selfish, Tribal, Nationalistic, Xenophobic).
- They have a competitive advantage of not caring about the future (Winning by appealing to the tendency of people to be Greedy).
To cynically quote the Marquise de Sade “It is infinitely better to take the side of the wicked who prosper than of the righteous who fail”. A related more ancient quote of Anacharsis (c. 600 BC) is “The market-place is a place set aside where men may deceive and overreach each other.” (these are not new realizations).
Mortimer Adler presented what is required of Leaders from his understanding of Aristotle. “In Aristotelian terms, the good leader must have ethos, pathos, and logos. The ethos is his moral character, the source of his ability to persuade. The pathos is his ability to touch feelings, to move people emotionally. The logos is his ability to give solid reasons for an action, to move people intellectually.”
Clearly, many smart people have learned how to abuse the power of pathos to influence people who are content to have a lesser degree of logos if it suits their desire to benefit from an understandably unacceptable ethos.
Unethical smart people continue to be able to Win competitions for popularity and profitability, to the detriment of others, particularly to the detriment of the future of humanity. As one of the many developed better understandings of what is going on, the 1987 UN Report “Our Common Future”, bluntly points out:
“25. Many present efforts to guard and maintain human progress, to meet human needs, and to realize human ambitions are simply unsustainable - in both the rich and poor nations. They draw too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn environmental resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting those accounts. They may show profit on the balance sheets of our generation, but our children will inherit the losses. We borrow environmental capital from future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. They may damn us for our spendthrift ways, but they can never collect on our debt to them. We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions.”Donald Trump has stated he is a fan of “Getting even, Getting revenge”. He has little to fear from his actions that undeniably delay or diminish efforts towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, creating larger negative consequences for future generations, because the future generations Cannot Get Even.
Leaders must clearly be measured by how responsibly they lead to the improvement of understanding and the required changes to develop a better life for all in the near and distant future (which undeniably requires improving the future for a robust diversity of all life on this amazing planet, pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals, not fighting against them).
The need for scientists to step up and try to overcome the misleading marketing efforts of Winning unethical leaders, in the most influential nation and many other supposedly “more advanced” nations on this amazing planet, who Fail to provide responsible Good Leadership (preferring to be modern day likes of the thinking of the Marquis de Sade), is tragic proof of the continuation of the long human history of failing to sustainably develop better understanding from previous tragedies of historic proportions.
Constantly improving the future for a robust diversity of life on this amazing planet has to matter more than many competitors for popularity and profitability would care to have it matter. Developing and sustaining that awareness and understanding is undeniably essential to most rapidly protect and improve the future for humanity. Climate Scientists have a major role in that effort. However, what is missing, a missing link, is overwhelming well-informed support for Winning by Ethical Leaders (and as in Sports: for the Good of the Game, assessing penalties for unethical pursuers of Winning).
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Tom Curtis at 07:03 AM on 25 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
DCricket @18, Mal Adapted @19, neither can the attempts by various creationists to prohibit the teaching of evolution, and/or force the teaching of (the self contradicting) "creation science" or its santitized verion (and empirically false) "intelligent design" be generalized to all Christians, or indeed, holders of any other religious belief.
It remains the fact that in the US there have been repeated, and more or less extensive efforts to prohibit the teaching of evolution, and/or mandate the teaching of creationism. The first such efforts date from the early 1920s, when three states banned the teaching of evolution at least in part, a situation that continued till 1967 when such bans were declared unconstitutional. The history of attempts to circumvent such bans have since been written in the courts. Unlike the case of Dcrickett's lone, scientifically illiterate atheist, the campaigns by creationists have been extensive and well funded. Despite legal losses, individual teachers have frequently allowed their religion to trump their duties and the law; and religious schools (and of course, the home schooled) have not even had that legal protection. I find it very unlikely that this concerted progaganda program has not had an effect on the ability to reason among the US public.
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Mal Adapted at 05:53 AM on 25 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Dcrickett, to the extent your story is true, it is horrifying. You report a bad experience with a teacher, who was a shallow atheist and a DK-afflicted wannabe astronomer to boot. I'm certainly glad I never had a teacher like that.
Whether or not your experience is wholly factual, however, it can't be generalized to either atheists or astronomers.
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jeffronicus at 01:03 AM on 25 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #16
@RickG Concur; 280ppm is the pre-industrial level.
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Dcrickett at 12:13 PM on 24 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
I was in a one-room country schoolhouse in the 1940's; we started in kindergarten and went thru 9th grade; anything beyond that, our families had to get us to other schools. Our teacher "believed" that Mars had an orbit between Venus and Earth. Not because of the Bible; she was an atheist who ridiculed us Christians and Jews. I got a whupping for bringing in a book from the public library in a nearby city which gave the proper planetary sequence, the same as the ancient World Book Encyclopedia in the back of the room; they were both full of lies by evil Capitalists who wanted to keep us ignorant.
We have made little progress, it sometimes seems. At least back then, during recess and lunch hour we could go into the woods on the hill behind the school and swing on the vines; it was great to be little Tarzans and Janes.
I complained to my parents, to no avail. Dad was on the school board; teachers were hard to find, and ours was a very poor district. At least we learned our Three R's, so we could learn from libraries and... those perverted high schools (and univertities, for some of us).
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RickG at 11:54 AM on 24 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #16
In the 'reaching 410 ppm CO2 article', it states: " carbon dioxide has set a record high each year since measurements began. It stood at 280 ppm when record keeping began at Mauna Loa in 1958". Is the 280 ppm not a misprint, or am I misunderstanding the context?
At the Scripps site "The History of the Keeling Curve", it states: "in March 1958 and on the first day of operation recorded an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 313 ppm." (Source: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2013/04/03/the-history-of-the-keeling-curve/)
Moderator Response:[BW] Thanks for the heads-up. We checked with Brian Kahn from Climate Central and he updated this in his article to 315 ppm. So we've followed suit.
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Mal Adapted at 10:24 AM on 24 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Chriskoz:
I would not call the poor voters simply the others who express their "opinion", I would rather call them victims of a lie or of a clever deceit.
Except that popular sovereignity under a democratic form of government can't be stable even in theory, if the voters don't discern truth from falsehood; otherwise it's not necessary to fool all the people all the time, only a plurality. I pay attention to the man behind the curtain, shouldn't I expect my fellow citizens to do the same? There's nothing special about me, after all!
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nigelj at 07:51 AM on 24 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Tom Curtis @15, I guess it varies country to country. In my country of NZ we didn't get any creationism in schools, just genetics and darwinian evolution (although not in much depth I have to say, which shows an attempt to skirt around it at least a little). I can see America is different from what you say, with a strong anti evoultion bias in schools, and this has wide implications.
I still think Kirk was a nice balance of logic (or rationality) and instincts. I agree perfect is probably too much to claim, but can you think of a better role model in American pop culture? Spock was presented as the very logical guy, Dr McCoy as the very emotional character.
I'm suspicious of instincts and gut reactions, as they can lead to the worst sort of things, like racism and bigotry, but I did read an article some time ago as below showing instincts have more value than thought, in some ways on some issues.
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Tom Curtis at 07:21 AM on 24 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
nigelj @14, unfortunately for the US, and for people of your age (and probably younger), many peoples science education would have been distorted by either, the teaching of creationism rather than evolution with or without education board approval (I have heard there are many cases of teachers refusing to teach evolution, or insisting on teaching creationism based on their personal religious beliefs and contrary to the syllabus), or the refusal to teach evolution because "it was wrong because it is contradicted by the Bible", or being taught evolution but also being taught at home or from the pulpit that evolution is false, the devil's doctrine, and that scientists only teach evolution because of their atheistic bias and/or because of a conspiracy by Satan.
If they have encountered any of these situations, they would have "learnt" that whole disciplines of science can be massively wrong due to initial biases by/ and or conspiracies involving the relevant scientists.
Indeed, given the timing of their deaths, it is quite likely that the Asimov and the Sagan quotes were addressing the inimical effects of creationism on public attitudes, and the likely conesquences when policy must increasingly be guided by science.
On another issue, while Spock is presented as a paragon of logic without emotion, and Kirk as an emotional and intuitive leader, neither were in fact the case as scripted and acted. I would certainly not claim Kirk as scripted and acted was a role model of "the perfect balance of rationality, instincts and emotion".
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Tom Curtis at 07:04 AM on 24 April 2017Humidity is falling
curiousd, for Modtran using the default tropical setting, at 0 Km altitude in the second section on "atmospheric profile" it shows RH, which I take to be relative humidity. In the third section under H2O it gives a value of 1.90E+01, unit not specified. The value for 0 Km under H2O changes to 5.89E+00 for the US Standard Atmosphere, and to 6.24E+00 in the US Standard Atmosphere with a temperature offset of +1 C provided you have the model set to Hold Fixed "relative humidity" rather than "water vapor pressure". I have not gone through all of the standard settings with and without constant relative humidity, but it would not take a great effort to do so.
Clearly with this function, if you offset the surface temperature by the difference between 1976 and today, holding fixed relative humidity in the UChicago version of Modtran, you would automatically adjust for the change in water vapour pressure as well.
This does create a slight problem if you are trying to calculate radiative forcings, which are the difference in upwelling IR radiation at the tropopause after the stratosphere has reached radiative equilibrium, but before the troposphere has had any feedbacks. The latter clause means without andy adjustment in H2O vapour presssure. Technically that means if you are calculating the radiative forcing between 280 ppmv and 400 ppmv the model would need to be set for the relative humidity at an equilibrium temperature for 280 ppmv, and retain a constant water vapour pressure when calculating the the radiative forcing outgoing IR radiation at 400 ppmv. That in turn would require knowing the offset in temperature from 1976 to the temperature equilibrium. In practise, and in the absense of historical data (which we probably lack on a global scale for when the when the CO2 level was 280 ppmv), it means assuming a climate sensitivity factor (ie, a temperature change at equilibrium for a given change in radiative forcing) and making successive approximations on the temperature offset. It also means that the radiative forcing for an increase in CO2 from 280 ppmv to 400 ppmv would be slightly different to that from a decrease from 400 ppmv to 280 ppmv due to the different base H2O vapour pressure. For small changes in CO2 the difference should be small enough in practise that it can be ignored.
I should note that there exists a technique for adjusting for stratospheric equilibrium in calculating the strict radiative forcing, which I have seen explained by David Archer. Unfortunately, I remember neither the explanation, nor the page on which it was located, so I cannot help you with that. I mention it, however, incase you want to follow it up.
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nigelj at 06:34 AM on 24 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
HK @13, the Isaac Asimov quote is very good. Very relevant to these times.
Regarding Carl Sagan, I do think we teach quite a lot of science in schools. Although of course we should try to do better.
However the problem for my generation, and I'm late middle aged, is we weren't taught specifically about rational, logical thinking, and analysis, and about logical fallacies etc. (I taught myself from books, plus I had a good intuitive grasp). Obviously science partly teaches these skills, but not all specific elements of them.
This rational and evidence based analysis helps people evaluate science, especially competing ideas on things like climate change, evolution v creationism, and vaccines etc. It also helps them evaluate political and social issues.This is what is missing for older generations, and I don't think young people get enough of this either. A bit more philosophy needs to be taught in schools as well.
This is the issue with Trump. He is not rational, although he must be at least reasonably intelligent( although at times I do wonder) and probably studied science at school. The Republican congress is not rational and evidence based. We have to call it out for what it is, because there are big implications for climate among other things. Hilary Clinton had her faults, but her policy approach was essentially rational, in the main.
Trumps irrationality is on full show with all his environmental policies. I mean it's mind boggling.
It's particularly concerning because Trumps supporters aren't too rational either, and seem intent in going against their own best "enlightened" self interest. But in the main, they have been tricked into thinking Trump's policies are good for them.
I agree part of this irrationality is an old anti intellectual streak in western countries. I think there are other contributing factors. Americans are a very "belief" orientated culture with things like conservatism, the constitution, and American values. This has both a good side obviously, and a downside if it becomes irrationally based or too emotive.
The Iraq weapons of mass destruction controversy has possibly lead to a huge fall in public trust of politicians, intelligence agencies, and the elite in general, and science has become tangled up in this.
Things like free trade seem good to me, but have some negative side effects that have not been well mitigated. All this erodes confidence in the elite, and logical argument, and leads people back twards irrational gut reaction thinking.
People have given up on rationality totally, and gone with entrenched beliefs or gut instincts. This is most unfortunate.
Of course humans are not coldly logical, and instincts do have value. Remember Star Trek? Captain Kirk was a good role model for the perfect balance of rationality and instincts, and emotion. Unfortunately it hasn't caught on with everyone.
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curiousd at 00:38 AM on 24 April 2017Humidity is falling
Technical Question about Water Vapor Data:
SpectralCalc has in their Atmospheric Browser section, data on the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere versus altitude in terms of volume molecular ratio. SpectralCalc uses the 1976 U.S. Standard Atmosphere for this APP. These data can also be plotted graphically and the resulting graph is quite like the corresponding graph in Modtran Infrared Light in the Atmosphere (MILA). Since SpectralCalc states their input is from the 1976 U.S. Standard Atmosphere I suspect the same is true for MILA.
For CO2 the present day concentration is 400 ppm whereas in 1976 it was 330 PPM and therefore, to do a SpectralCalc calculation involving present day CO2 one uses a CO2 scale factor of 1.212 instead of one.
What scale factor relative to the 1976 value should one use, then, for water vapor?
But water vapor is not a well mixed gas as is CO2 and the measurement would be more complex. Nevertheless:
Why don't they - whoever "they" are - "just" go ahead repeat all the 1976 measurements in the present day...(Did they use mostly weather ballons in 1976 ?) ...to compare, by the same methods in the same locations, the1976 average water vapor volume molecular ratios to present day volume molecular ratios?
That would seem like a good way to quantify the changes between water vapor concentration in 1976 versus now.
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curiousd at 00:11 AM on 24 April 2017Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Technical Question about Water Vapor
1. SPECTRALCALC has an "atmospheric browser" which will give the user the volume molecular ratio of water vapor in the atmosphere as afunction of altitude for the U.S. Standard Atmosphere. If one plots that output versus altitude it matches closely the corresponding curve on Modtran Infrared Light in the Atmosphere (MILA).
2. The SpectralCalc data, (and I suspect also the MILA data) are based on the1976 U.S.Standard Atmosphere.
3. I would think it would be informative if "they" would "just" do whatever they did around 1976 once more in the present day to update the U.S. Standard atmosphere. (Lot of weather ballons, maybe?) Then you would have a direct measurement of the water vapor concentration now compared directly to 1976 obtained by the same procedures as 1976.
4. Another way of putting this: We now know that CO2 is world wide at a 400 ppm level, whereas in 1976 CO2 was at 330 ppm; therefore for a current SpectralCalc calculation involving a present day atmosphere, the scale factor is 1.212 instead of 1 for CO2. What should be the present day scale factor for water vapor?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Two quotes from two great minds that I think are very relevant for this thread. Poor Isaac and Carl, they must be rotating in their graves right now!
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Isaac Asimov
We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster.
Carl Sagan
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Tom Curtis at 21:42 PM on 23 April 2017It's too hard
MA Rodger, I calculated for the size of a circular hole, but clearly have also made a major error in the calculation. Thankyou for the correction.
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MA Rodger at 20:49 PM on 23 April 2017It's too hard
andrewrussell @54,
I would fully concur with the conclusions of Tom Curtis @55 although I'm not in agreement with him on the size of your giant hole.
I have before been in SkS discussions about how to sequester sea water to reduce Sea Level Rise (SLR), filling up the Caspian Basin, adding dams there and elsewhere to increase storeage, even pumping sea water up onto Antarctica to store it as ice. While I haven't discussed digging a big hole before, the conclusion is ever the same - such schemes would become far to expensive well before they usefully reduce SLR.
I make your hole 70 x 70 x 10 miles = 200,000 cu km which is the volume of 550mm of SLR. This would be a useful achievement but as you have to consider SLR beyond 2100AD, you are not providing a 50% reduction in peak SLR, rather reducing it by 20%, 25%. While the massive costs of a 50% scheme could be argued against the cost of sea defences/damage from the extra 50%SLR it prevents, that becomes difficult to argue when a scheme tackles less of the problem and the need for major sea defences/damage will continue, abet a couple of foot lower.
And the best way of tackling SLR is by cutting our emissions. Once that is achieved, the second-best way would be to sequestrate the troublesome atmospheric CO2. This pushes sequestering sea water as a way to reduce harmful sea level pretty-much off the back of the queue.
One impractical aspect of a hole of this size is its depth. A 10 mile deep hole would be 10x deeper than the deepest open pit and as mentioned @55, 4x deeper than the deepest mineshaft. It would also be 33% deeper than the deepest borehole. Note the temperatures encountered at 7½ miles down were 180ºC which isn't compatable with having a lake on top. However, depth is not essential other than in reducing the geographical footprint of the scheme, which doesn't have to be all in one spot.
To give some idea of how massive the digging effort would be, it would require 55,000 copies of the largest excavation machine in the world working for a century to dig such a hole. Happily, this particular machine is an electric vehicle (although sadly being used to dig coal) yet it would take a massive amount of electricity to dig the hole if this technology was used. One of the 55,000 machines uses 65.5MW. If it was fossil-fuelled electricity, at current levels of carbon footprint for electricity (100g/kwh) and assuming the giant digger will be working 24/7 to excavate 100,000cu m/day, for all 55,000 diggers we would be talking 80Gt(C) of CO2 emissions, or 8 years of today's global emissions, which at 550ppm/doublingCO2, 2.3m(SLR)/ºC AGW and ECS=3ºC yields 660mm resulting SLR (at equilibrium). Using renewable electricity is thus an essential requirement for such a scheme.
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Tom Curtis at 18:27 PM on 23 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Wol @10, rationality is not limited to science. Indeed, it could not be. Were we not capable of rationality outside of science, we would not be able to recognize the rationality of science. And while it is the case that we can accept a variety of political aims while being rational, it is also the case that we can recognize the irrational pursuit of those aims, even when we do not share them. I would go further, and say that some aims can also be recognized as irrational in themselves. The election of Donald Trump was irrational on both grounds - it demonstrated a commitment to irrational aims, and it showed an irrational pursuit of those aims (except for voters whose sole aim was political disruption at any cost).
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chriskoz at 16:51 PM on 23 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Wol@10,
You're trying to explain the irrationality of US voters in Nov 2016 as mere "opinion". Please keep in mind that the premises of such irrationale are pathological lies and/or extremely clever populous mass manipulation. I would not call the poor voters simply the others who express their "opinion", I would rather call them victims of a lie or of a clever deceit.
Even in our First Amendment sanctioned subjective realities that are becoming fake realities, we have to mainrain a basic ethical standard. If something as bad is happening as the election of a moronic phychopath and clever manipulator to the most important world leader, we must call it what it really is: a bad thing.
Watch for example Sam Harris interview for a good explanation why e.g. the election of current POTUS cannot be called other than "irrational".
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Wol at 15:41 PM on 23 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Tom Curtis @2:
>>...this wallowing in irrationality is not unique to the US. Brexit showed it to be alive and well in the UK. The popularity of Marine Le Pen shows it to be strong in France. The election of Clive Palmer four years ago, and Pauline Hanson in 2016 shows it has afflicted a substantial portion of the Australian population. <<
Without going off-topic this shows a politicisation more in line with deniers' "arguments".
At this point in time the science of climate change is to all intents and purposes settled. The way people vote may not be the way that you do, it may be irrational to some but it's not science - it's democracy.
Don't confuse verifiable science with opinion.
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chriskoz at 08:57 AM on 23 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
Jim Eager@7,
'nanuk' also illustrates mind numbing policy violation (all cap ordinary words), despite that policy being reminded to him/er in the past.
nanuk@6 is arguably the worst on-topic post on this site, only marginally better than irrational/bot generated spams that are automatically deleted. I don't know the criteria mods are using for comments deleting and user rescinding but user 'nanuk' herein, certainly IMO qualifies for both.
As the current POTUS is a blatant failure among world leaders, which crated a political situation in science and the obvious comment by Neil deGrasse Tyson in OP, user 'nanuk' is a blatant failure among SkS commenters.
Moderator Response:[DB] Nanuk has recused himself from further participation in this venue, finding the burden of comporting his comments with the Comments Policy too onerous.
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BBHY at 08:50 AM on 23 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
It really weirds me out when I hear people say that scientists don't know what they are talking about,. Without science we would not have automobiles, airplanes, radios, TV, telephones, cameras, air conditioners, electric service, computers, internet, atomic bombs, etc. All that stuff actually works, right? So, scientists seem to have a lot of stuff pretty well figured out. The scientific method works very well at establishing how things work.
When people say they doubt scientists, they really mean, "I don't really like what the scientists are saying" which is something else entirely, and they need to be called out on that.
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william5331 at 05:49 AM on 23 April 2017Heartland Institute's misinformation campaign into schools
The activity of these charlitans for the benefit of their financial masters is nothing less that child abuse. We should make sure to publicize where their funds come from and emphasize the motivations of their funders.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:58 AM on 23 April 2017Humans on the verge of causing Earth’s fastest climate change in 50m years
RR... The issue of global climate change isn't that we're going to push the system outside of all historical bounds, it's that we're pushing the system faster than at any point in historical bounds. The rate of change very much is the issue and always has been.
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Humans on the verge of causing Earth’s fastest climate change in 50m years
I confess that I cannot say if Dana's article is good or bad.
My main observation is that the first chart puts together very different kind of data, which are related to different time scales. So when Dana proposes a comparison between the information of the last panel (h) with information from the previous ones, I am afraid he is pushing his hand in the wrong direction.
In a way, instead of highlighting the uniqueness of changes that are happening right now, the article promotes the sense that anthropogenic climate change can be fitted into the natural history of the planet.
Would do you guys think? -
Jim Eager at 03:19 AM on 23 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
And along comes 'nanuk' to illustrate the mind-numbing, brain dead, fact-free wilfull ignorance tha we are up agaainst.
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nanuk at 01:34 AM on 23 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
The problem is "Scientists" have been lying to increase their funding! This is so obvious it is a wonder anyone accepts their word at face value! The moment even ONE gets caught lying on data to create a specific narrative, EVERYTHING they then put out is suspect! The true "Deniers" are the CAGW Alarmists who are now ignoring science to further their funding!
Moderator Response:[JH] Blatant sloganeering stricken.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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Mal Adapted at 00:40 AM on 23 April 2017It's too hard
I'm calling poe on andrewrussell @54, but Tom Curtis's reply was a good one anyway.
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Mal Adapted at 22:54 PM on 22 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
So, the March for Science is happening today, and I'ma march. I don't know what will help to prepare the ground for public recognition of science, but if facts and logic don't, maybe marching will. I'm ambivalent about the March, for some of the reasons offered here, and some of my own. Then there's the near-certain futility of it.
Near-certainty is a big enough loophole for me, though. Let it be an atheist's act of faith.
Moderator Response:[JH] The Weekly News Roundup that I just posted includes a number of articles about the March for Science — be sure to check them out.
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Tom Curtis at 18:00 PM on 22 April 2017It's too hard
andrewrussell @54, unfortunately your 70 mile wide hole, 10 miles deep only has enough volume to remove 87 mm of sea level rise, or 27 years of current sea level rise and 1/6 to 1/12th of the expected sea level rise by the end of the century. To do that we would only need to dig an open cut 4 times deeper than the deepest mine ever built, and with an area 65 times that of the world's most extensive open cut. That is probably not even technically possible with current mining technology, and is almost certainly an uneconomic partial solution to the problem.
If we were to try a solution in that area, it would be far cheaper to pump water into the Aral sea to raise it to its former volume. The lost volume of the Aral sea being about 1/3rd of that of your open cut. Potentially raising the Dead Sea to sea level (and hence flooding the Jordon Valley), and similarly raising the level of Lake Eyre in Australia would be cheap methods with regards to engineering (though probably prohibitive with regard to economic cost for the former, and environmental cost for the later) to reduce the rate and level of sea level rise. All such measures woudl be stop gaps, however, as the final volume of sea level rise will overwhelm anything we could do of this nature.
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bjchip at 17:51 PM on 22 April 2017Neil deGrasse Tyson on science vs. denial
With climate, science collides directly into the power base of the wealthy elite that have been in control of the nation and now science is telling them they can't have all the money and all the power, they have to do something to keep the planet whole. So they hired the "Merchants of Doubt". This particular "tragedy" ends as badly as any imaginable, and deletes the "United" part of the national identity. Jefferson said it would happen. The experiment is over. It has failed. There is no return from where we are because the next steps do not lead to peaceful resolutions but to blood in the streets. We reached the abyss and proudly took a giant step forward. :-)
No... I do not have any optimism but I have to say that I could not wish for a better communicator or a better message. It simply will not be seen by the people who need to see it.
It won't feature on Breitbart, and it won't make waves at Heartland... but even worse than that, even if they did see it, it is unlikely that they can change their minds. They would rather die than admit such error. They would rather die than admit that they have sold a bill of goods by the Merchants of Doubt.
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