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Comments 2201 to 2250:
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Eclectic at 23:28 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Albert @921 & other posts ,
Evidently, you have not read the second part of the Cook 2013 paper, where it clearly shows your "1.6%" figure is so grossly wrong about the consensus. So grossly wrong, that it is difficult to believe you are being serious.
Likewise, you seem suspiciously uneducated about feedbacks/ runaways.
Just to throw you a bone : note that the global surface temperature has increased ~1.2 degreesC over about 170 years & an atmospheric CO2 rise of 50%. Try your math on that.
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Albert22804 at 21:27 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
But no one has challenged the fact that Arctic ice thickness or extent has not dropped since 2012 and if you look at the University of Bremen, JAXA and MASIE, they say that Arctic ice extent has not decreased since 2006.
Check it out.
Moderator Response:[BL] In the absence of an argument from you that short-term variations actually indicate a departure from long-term trends, there is nothing to challenge.
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Albert22804 at 21:24 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
"The NASA presentation of Arctic Sea Ice Extent from 1851 to 2017 does not show an 80 year cycle. It shows a fairly significant recent decline of extent of sea ice."
there is an abundance of evidence from newspapers and other sources that Arctic ice extent in the 1940s was low. If i did provide the evidence I suspect that you would just ignore it.
But I will if you request it.
Moderator Response:[BL] Don't bother. Newspapers are not a useful reference point, and this canard about ice in the 1940s has already been debunked on this thread:
https://skepticalscience.com/Arctic-sea-ice-loss-1940s.htm
You need to find some more reliable sources.
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Albert22804 at 21:17 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
You asked for an example of category one where the abstract doesnt endorse a >50% quantity.
this is from an article abstract allegedly in category 1 about halons.
"Substitute fluorocarbons may have direct environmental impact, for example as greenhouse gases, or indirect impacts through the products of their decomposition in the environment. The mechanisms of that atmospheric decomposition are reviewed here and shown to be well established now. The end products are halogen acids and trifluoroacetic acid, all of which pre-exist in the environment in quantities greater than are expected to arise from fluorocarbon use and emissions. Furthermore, the growth in use of fluorocarbon replacements has been shown to be far less than the fall in CFC and Halon production. Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) have replaced less than one third of CFCs and are, themselves, ozone depleting substances that will be phased out under the Montreal Protocol. The growth in hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) amounts to about 10% of the fall in CFCs. It is likely that the impact of new fluorocarbons on climate change will be a very small fraction of the total impact, which comes mainly from the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."
pmease tell me how this paper was considered to be category 1?
in fact, after reading all 64 abstracts i can only find about 45 actually endorsing a >50% anthropogenic effect.
Moderator Response:[BL] When providing material such as this, you should provide a link to the paper you are referring to. The paper in question is this one.
Which part of "comes mainly from the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" is hard for you to understand? It explicitly states that CO2 is the main factor - more than 50%.
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Albert22804 at 21:06 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
"Three endorse categories and 3 minimize categories."
and that is the statistical dishonesty of the study because Cook knew that most sceptics are in categories 2 and 3, not categories 6 and 7 so scientific papers expressing no or little belief in AGW would be minuscule.
Moderator Response:[BL] Accusations of dishonesty are specifically against the Comments Policy. This applies to accusations against people commenting here, or papers from the scientific literature.
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Albert22804 at 21:01 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
"Quite commonly I see statements saying that Cooks paper said the "97% of scientists believe that humans are largely (>50%) responsible for global warming" but Cooks paper category 1 clearly and unambiguously states that the figure is 1.6%."
please stop throwing in red herrings like "minimise" and tell me why my direct quote is wrong?
Moderator Response:[BL] Your quote is not a quote from the category descriptions, and "minimise" is a term used in five of the seven categories in the study, as included in the table I provided in comment 912 (which is directly from the supplemental data).
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Albert22804 at 20:54 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
"The direct effect from CO2 is, as you say, ~1.2°C but you can't just reject physics and say there wouldn't be feedbacks. The feedbacks are very well known"
Not true. Even a basic knowledge of the complexity of modelling feedback would tll that it is impossible to model or prove.
it cannot be replicated in the lab or models, and any so called proof can easily be shown to be nit true.
if you know the basics of feedback theory you would know that the output to any given input has to be known precisely otherwise you cannot determine anything.
To give just one example, increased evaporation causes clouds and precipitation and there Are many scientists who believe that the feedback can only be negative or else there would be an exerthermic runaway.
but if you believe that feedbacks are "well known" pleas provide an exampl that is not ambiguous.
Moderator Response:[BL] The entire foundation of science is based on models of one sort or another. Your claims of modelling feedbacks being impossible are simply bogus.
Models should be discussed on the "models are unreliable" myth page.
Increased evaporation is not a guarantee of increased cloud of precipitation. Your argument is overly simplistic. Cloud feedback should be discussed on this thread.
Your argument that positive feedback leads to a runaway effect is also bogus. Answered on this thread.
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MA Rodger at 17:47 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
The pertinent graphic in scaddenp's link @131 cannot be 'hot' linked directly from CarbonBrief but it is available elsewhere online.
It does show the 1940's being as melty as say 1990 but there is no significant 80-year cycle to be seen. The more usual talk of 'cycle' is seen in Arctic temperature records but the same is also seen outside the Arctic and all across the northern hemisphere. GISTEMP zonal data suggests that up in the Arctic the 1940's were as warm as 2000 but the record 1880-on is not long enough to show the presence of any 80-year cycle. However the Berkeley Earth data for Svalbard dates back to 1800 but shows no sign of such a cycle.
And the assertion that in 2023 we are about to see the Arctic plunge back into some cold icy condition for decades is not born out by any SIE or SIV record. The future of Arctic SIE in a warming world may be one of 'difficult-to-reach' ice hanging on or it could be one of it 'going with a rush'. Take your pick. It will likely be a bit of both. But a reversal of recent declines in ice is no more than wishful thinking.
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prove we are smart at 15:47 PM on 19 April 2023EGU2023 - Upcoming presentations in Vienna
We are putting 40,thousand,million tons of co2 into the tiny 10km space above our heads. As much as scientists explain and educate it's not changing this figure- oh yes, it's slowing down a little-apparantly!
The powerful elite-the billionairs,financiers,ceo's,politicians et all, love the staus quo.
As much as I trust peer reviewed science and this yearly conference will be enlightening for many- the fouty thousand,million tons of co2 is still increasing.
The thirty years of IPCC and its 6 yearly reports, aimed directly at govts worldwide has not been listened to-thousands of peer reviewed science FACTS are ignored.
This wonderful blog site educated me on climate science and was part of the catalyst to develop a big picture view on so much. My opinions can change but for a few years now they haven't. This British climate scientist seems to be saying the right things for me.
Is dangerous climate change not really dangerous for the 1% ?
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scaddenp at 15:38 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
A better link for extent from 1850 is:
www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-piecing-together-arctic-sea-ice-history-1850/ Same dataset -
One Planet Only Forever at 14:52 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert @126,
What is the evidence for an 80 year cycle of warm waters being brought to the Arctic?
The NASA presentation of Arctic Sea Ice Extent from 1851 to 2017 does not show an 80 year cycle. It shows a fairly significant recent decline of extent of sea ice.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:49 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert... Do you have any idea how many decades deniers have been claiming that this is all just about to flip over into a cooling phase?
Heck, I (and others) even won a bet against the climate deniers at NoTricksZone on this.
Of course, their response was, "Okay, we lost the best but now it's going to really start cooling."
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:44 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
And... "Quite commonly I see statements saying that Cooks paper said the "97% of scientists believe that humans are largely (>50%) responsible for global warming" but Cooks paper category 1 clearly and unambiguously states that the figure is 1.6%."
Here you muck up pretty much everything. The Cook paper is an analysis of research papers, not scientists' opinions.
Category 1 explicitly endorses the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming, and makes quantifications.
Category 2 explicitly endorses the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming without making quantifications.
Category 3 implicitly endorses the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming.
Category 5 implicitly minimizes the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming.
Category 6 explicitly minimizes the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming without making quantifications.
Category 7 explicitly minimizes the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming, and makes quantifications.
The level of consensus is the measure of the papers that endorse vs those that minimize.
It's that simple. A child can understand this.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:35 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
And... "Skeptics believe in the direct effect of CO2 causing an ECS of about 1.2C but reject the positive feedback theory pushing ECS to 3C and beyond."
Actually, that would be a denial position. You'd have to throw out an enormous body of research to come to such an absurd conclusion.
The direct effect from CO2 is, as you say, ~1.2°C but you can't just reject physics and say there wouldn't be feedbacks. The feedbacks are very well known.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:31 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Albert @914... "Once again I ask, why have 3 categories lumped into the "97%" result when only one category saying 'explicit or implicit support that humans contribute to global warming'."
Think of it in terms of "endorse" vs "minimize" and think of the IPCC position being the subject being either endorsed or minimized.
Three endorse categories and 3 minimize categories.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:13 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Albert @915... "Also I have read many of the category 1 abstracts and find it puzzling how many of them could be considered endorsing category 1."
Please provide an example.
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Albert22804 at 13:51 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
i think the problem was that a new Page had started.
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Albert22804 at 13:43 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
I have just written two posts which seem to have disappeared
Moderator Response:[BL] Two posts from yesterday that contained "Arctic" and "Arctic ice" (and nothing else) were deleted yesterday. Nothing else of yours has been deleted.
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Albert22804 at 13:42 PM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Looking at the graph should indicate quite clearly that there is definitely no decline since 2012 and your tabulated data also clearly shows this.
Average Arctic ice extent has also plateaud since 2012 (SII) or 2006(MASIE).
If you look at yearly averages since 1979, Arctic ice has only reduced by about 15% and as I wrote above, all this was prior to 2012.
DMI, JAXA, Bremen uni, and others all say the same.
"i would be curious to learn what you believe explains the observed Arctic Sea Ice Mass changes since 2012."
My guess is the cyclic currents that bring warm waters to the Arctic have reached the top of their cycle and are changing to a cooler mode.
Evidence seems to suggest that the cycle is around 80 years and we know that Arctic ice extent was also low around 1940.
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Albert22804 at 13:18 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
From Rob
"If you had bothered to read the actual paper it's explained why the figures are organized as they are."
I have read it many times and find that the paler is riddled with statistical biases and that categories 5,6 and 7 are red herrings designed to give a false sense of balance.
there is no logical reason given why the 3 categories are required other than to give a reason to have categories 5,6 and 7.
Also I have read many of the category 1 abstracts and find it puzzling how many of them could be considered endorsing category 1.
Moderator Response:[BL] ...and yet you lump categories 5, 6, and 7 together - along with categories 2 and 3 - when you calculate your irrelevant 1.6% figure. The logic behind those categories is explained in the paper, and has been explained here - you just don't like it.
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Albert22804 at 13:09 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Once again I ask, why have 3 categories lumped into the "97%" result when only one category saying "explicit or implicit support that humans contribute to global warming".
Again, virtually every sceptic scientist, meteorologist, geologist, etc would agree with the above statement so they will not be publishing a paper saying there is little or no anthropogenic warming.
Skeptics believe in the direct effect of CO2 causing an ECS of about 1.2C but reject the positive feedback theory pushing ECS to 3C and beyond.
So categories 5,6 and 7 are really meaningless, because of the above.
Quite commonly I see statements saying that Cooks paper said the "97% of scientists believe that humans are largely (>50%) responsible for global warming" but Cooks paper category 1 clearly and unambiguously states that the figure is 1.6%.
Moderator Response:[BL} None of the categories in the paper use the description you "quote" in your first paragraph. Making up quotes will not be tolerated, and if you continue to do so, expect to see heavy moderation of your posts.
The categories in the paper look at recent warming. That is a different question from (warming due to CO2), and if you do not understand the difference then you need to learn about it.
You are repeating your 1.6% number ignoring the criticism that has show it to be the result of an unreasonable grouping of categories 2-7..
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Albert22804 at 12:55 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
"I have linked to the journal article above, and you can scroll down and find the "Supplementary data" link. In that data, one of the files provides every single paper/abstract included in the study, and it's ranking. It's pretty trivial to read that into a spreadsheet and get totals for each group."
So why is the "64" not explicitly stated somewhere in the original paper and instead you have to find an obscure file, put into a spread sheet into comma separated columns and include a conditional statement saying if this is category "1" then increment sum.
so nobody could determine that category "1" had only 64 entries unless they knew how to download the data into a spreadsheet and do a conditional sort.
So, once again why was there no table listing the categories and theirs numbers?
Moderator Response:[BL] Your pattern of blasting many comments into a thread is forcing me to go into moderator role.
To begin, please read the Comments Policy.
As to your "question" - it took me less than an hour to accomplish the task of obtaining the data and determining the numbers in question.
You have completely ignored the comment I made about the bogosity of your "1.6%" calculation. You are trying to draw attention to a number that does not change the conclusions of the paper.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:12 AM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert @ 120 is doing an Arctic sea ice volume analysis using the standard "skeptic" analysis techniques that go into The Escalator:
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Bob Loblaw at 05:04 AM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Albert @909 starts off by questioning the groupings in the Cook et al 2013 study, saying that he searched and could not find totals for the individual categories.
I have linked to the journal article above, and you can scroll down and find the "Supplementary data" link. In that data, one of the files provides every single paper/abstract included in the study, and it's ranking. It's pretty trivial to read that into a spreadsheet and get totals for each group. Those totals are:
1 Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+% 64 2 Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise 922 3 Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it 2910 4 No Position 7970 5 Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW 54 6 Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify 15 7 Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50% 9 The paper points out that category 4 includes two groups, which need to be treated differently:
- No position (7930 papers)
- Uncertain (40 papers)
"No position" must be excluded entirely, as it is impossible to conclude a position that is not expressed in the paper's abstract. That makes a total of 4014 papers that express an opinion (explicitly or implicitly).
Given the groupings of 1-3 and 5-7, it is obvious that 1-3 share the trait of "not minimized". It is perfectly reasonable to treat "not minimized" as ">50%", when the paper does not quantify a value.
Likewise, grouping 5-7 together is the opposite: they all share the trait of "minimizes", whether they have quantified the minimization or not.
The point of the three categories is to distinguish between explicit quantification, explicit without quantification, and implicit without quantification - on both sides of the equation.
Now, what about that 1.6% number that Albert throws out? To get 1.6%, you have to pick category 1 (64 papers) and divide by 4014 (the total number that expressed an opinion, explicitly or implicitly).
So, while Albert is questioning the grouping of papers into 1-3 and 5-7, he sees no problem in grouping 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 together into one category and calling it "papers that disagree that humans caused most of the recent warming". That grouping is far less supportable than the grouping used in the paper. Categories 2 and 3 (totalling 3832 papers) clearly are not defined in such a way that you can interpret "not minimized" as "<50%".
In fact, if you only consider the papers that explicitly quantify the effect as >50% or <50%, there are only 73 papers in categories 1 and 7 - and 64 of them say >50% of recent warming is due to humans. That is 88% of the total. A far cry from Albert's 1.6%.
We can also compare categories 2 vs. 6. 98% are on the "endorses" side.
And we can compare categories 3 and 5. Again, 98% on the "endorses" side.
Either Albert has not really considered where the 1.6% value came from, or he is deliberately trying to bias the result in one direction.
As for his final claim about "skeptics" being included in the 97%, Skeptical Science has another blog post on that matter. Scroll down to the section titled "Confused Contrarians Think they are Included in the 97%".
Albert is just repeating frequently-debunked crap.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:16 AM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert @121, 122, 123,
I would be curious to learn what you believe explains the observed Arctic Sea Ice Mass changes since 2012.
In addition to MA Roger's clarification that Arctic Sea Ice volume is not 'trending up', the lack of statistically significant decline since 2012 needs to be considered along with other evidence like the continued significant decline of Antactic Ice Mass (NASA presentation here) and Greenland Ice Mass (ESSD Article here - see figure 4).
The lack of significant continued decline of Arctic Sea Ice Mass (volume) requires an explanation. But the explanation is unlikely to be that 'global warming impacts of human activity have not been significant since 2012'.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:04 AM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Also @909 you ask, "So what was the point in having 3 categories?"
Well, again if you read the paper, this is explained.
The fundamental question this research is asking is about quantifying the scientific concensus on climate change (as the title states). Categories 1, 2, and 3 all endorse the idea that human activities are the primary driving force for warming of the past 50 years (per the IPCC position).
Conversely, the point is to measure those endorsements of that position against papers that minimize the idea that human activities are the primary driving force for warming of the past 50 years.
This stuff is really very obvious if you read the paper.
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Rob Honeycutt at 00:58 AM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Albert @909... (yep, there have been almost 1000 comments made on this particular topic)
a) If you had bothered to read the actual paper it's explained why the figures are organized as they are.
b) Your 1.6% figure only relates to papers that explicitly quantify human contribution. With that you'd have to compare that to other papers that explicitly minimize human contribution. You can't count, for example, a paper that explicitly quantifies against a paper that implicitly endorses human contribution.
c) Your comment regarding "some warming" is also a misinterpretation of the paper you haven't read. If a scientist (or paper, in the case of this research... it's an evaluation of published research, not scientists' opinions) were to say they believed humans contributed "some warming" they would be "minimizing human contribution" and therefore included in categories 5, 6, or 7.
I hope that clarifies this topic for you.
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MA Rodger at 00:19 AM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert @121,
I don't think it is true to say "Arctic ice volume has been trending upwards since 2012," certainly not on the basis of PIOMAS data. The 12-month averages (Apr-to-Mar, so bang up-to-date) run like this:-
2011 - 2012 ... ... 13.83 M sq km
2012 - 2013 ... ... 13.44 M sq km
2013 - 2014 ... ... 14.57 M sq km
2014 - 2015 ... ... 15.62 M sq km
2015 - 2016 ... ... 15.00 M sq km
2016 - 2017 ... ... 13.07 M sq km
2017 - 2018 ... ... 13.22 M sq km
2018 - 2019 ... ... 14.11 M sq km
2019 - 2020 ... ... 13.47 M sq km
2020 - 2021 ... ... 13.40 M sq km
2021 - 2022 ... ... 13.98 M sq km
2022 - 2023 ... ... 14.24 M sq kmAnd a regression through that lot, even starting 2012-13**, gives a negative (thus decreasing) trend although lacking statistical significance. The PIOMAS anomaly graph you link-to @120 is using the same data. Mind, you could get an upward trend (still statistically insignificant) for a different 12-year period (again Apr-Mar); 1982-93 +0.050M/y +/- 0.125M/y.
(**2012 to 22 -0.064M/y +/- 0.156M/y)
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Albert22804 at 21:16 PM on 18 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php
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Albert22804 at 21:08 PM on 18 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Arctic ice volume has been trending upwards since 2012
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Albert22804 at 21:08 PM on 18 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
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Albert22804 at 20:41 PM on 18 April 2023There is no consensus
why does the original paper list the seven categories but not the seven individual totals. I searched but couldn't find any totals.
instead it lumps categories 1,2 and 3 into a single number. So what was the point in having 3 categories?
but we frequently hear that the paper showed that "97% of scientists believe that humans caused most of the recent warming" which is not true because only 1.6% of papers said that.
I don't know of any sceptic who doesn't think humans are causing some warming so they would all be in the 97% consensus.
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Ron at 06:54 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
I forgot to put a space after the link above.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/jainism/
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Ron at 06:48 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
But again, I'm not trying to rationalize the eating of meat. And I'm definately not trying to rationalize factory farming at all, or other mistreatment of animals (and there's a lot!). Just saying that maybe strict vegans should lighten up a bit on peoples not following all of their dictates to the letter. As I said before, people who are not flawless should not critisize other people's flawfulness (it's blatant hypocrisy), except in things where those decisions (like those of the fossil fuel companies) are impacting their lives and perhaps even the planet itself.
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Ron at 06:32 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Are we only against taking mammalian life because that is the form of life most like our own? Okay, but we should be willing to admit that that's a bit biased. Even breathing, how many living microbes are we ingesting? Should we wear masks all the time? To live we have to take life. A sad fact.
Moderator Response:[PS] Enough I think. This thread is about whether vegan eating would be a useful mitigation for climate change. Cruelty to animals, plants and rants about vegan self-righteousness and/or hypocrisy are pretty clearly offtopic.
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Ron at 06:25 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
OPOF, I agree with your first paragraph, obviously.
The second, I'm still not convinced. But maybe we can agree to disagree?
The third about trying not to cause harm is again, obvious. But we should be careful here not to become obsessed. Ultimately if we follow these precepts religiously we would become like the Jains of India. Do you carry a broom around with you all of the time? :)
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/jainism/Even gardening would not be allowed.
To get comparable nutrition from plants. Have you ever noticed that strict animal vegetarians eat plants pretty much constantly? Horses, cows, even pandas. Have to to get comparable nutrition.
Again, I think you're "brushing" (pun intended) aside my thoughts about plants. Even the Jains if you take it to it's ultimate conclusions. They say to eat only above ground plants and leave the root because it won't necessarily kill the plant. But, as a gardener, I can say that that's not necessarily the case all the time. I've noticed, for example, that evergreen trees take to pruning much more difficultly the deciduous. So I think you might be rationalizing away the pain caused to plants in the interests of keeping the human alive.
Point is, we have to kill something that wants to be alive if we want to live too. What is our choice, and would our victims agree with that?
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:48 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron,
Regarding the issue of climate change impacts:
A fundamental understanding is that limiting the harmful impacts of human activities is important. And a related understanding is that limiting human activity to ‘necessary actions for healthy living’ is probably the most significant reduction of harm that developed human societies have miserably failed to act on.
Regarding the ‘need to eat meat’:
There are many examples of vegans who have succeeded through many generations, and not just in India (admittedy, entirely vegan cutures are hard to find because just one person within the cuture not maintaining the vegan diet would disqualify that entire culture). That, combined with the BBC Reel anecdotal scientific test I linked to, indicates that the concern that humans 'must eat meat to be healthy' are misunderstandings.
Regarding ‘plants have feelings’:
The fundamental ethical understanding would be that, since any activity may be harmful, humans should:
- govern or limit their activity to necessary actions for a decent healthy life
- pursue increased awareness and constantly improved understanding of what is harmful and strive to limit the harmfulness of those ‘necessary actions’.
Applying that ethical understanding to the issue of ‘eat meat or plants’ raises the following considerations:
- Animals eat plants. So if the animal eaten has consumed more plants than the human needs to get comparable nutrition from plants then the animal definitely should not be eaten.
- If more artificial energy is needed to produce the meat to eat than the equivalent plant material then the meat should not be eaten.
- If more artificially delivered water is consumed to produce the meat to eat than the equivalent amount of plant material then the meat should not be eaten.
p.s. I have read many books on ethics, including many of Peter Singer’s books, including “Animal Liberation Now”.
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EddieEvans at 00:26 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Vegan lifestyles showcase ethical and moral thoughts about human health, animal rights, and ecological integrity. For example, only one in ten US residents with kidney disease (CKD) knows they have CKD. They might choose a vegan lifestyle if they knew because meat contains damaging phosphate levels for diseased kidneys, unlike plant-based diets.
I don't need to point out the terrible anxiety and suffering that sentient beings go through as we process them for consumption. Of course, the ecological damage caused by factory farming is well-known to readers of Skeptical Science. I'm not vegan, but I am vegetarian and pretty new at it.
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Ron at 14:05 PM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
I'm not an expert, so I don't know for sure. I do know that our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, are part-time carnivores too. I just wonder if it's not just a liking for eating meat, but through millions of years of evolution, has actually become a necessity of sorts as well?
They say we need protein for our larger brains. Are there other adaptations? I don't know. But the fact that we need to supplement with not readily available vegetarian foodstuffs (except with modern day markets), seems to indicate that it might be kind of necessity. Perhaps a generation or two can eat a vegan diet, but I wonder what the evolutionary implications will be to long term veganism?
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to not eat meat, but just vegetables tastes not great, especially if you're not a cook. But , then again, I think it's dishonest to only be concerned with mammalian life. If were doing it for ethical reasons, plants also want to be here. So it's a choice. But gotta eat to live.
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/plants-have-feelings-too
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BaerbelW at 05:39 AM on 17 April 2023Skeptical Science News: The Rebuttal Update Project
The blog post was updated on Apr 16 with the link to the latest rebuttal getting the "at a glance treatment": Are we heading into a new ice age?
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:23 AM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron,
The point of the third paragraph is that in spite of having canine teeth and having developed a liking for eating meat it is possible for anybody to live a healthy life by changing to a vegan diet. The key is to do the transition gradually. Attempting to cold-turkey the transition will not be successful. Watch the video. It is quite the experiment.
Another consideration is that there may be health benefits of changing to less meat eating. And the rate that a person pursues the health benefits of the transition can be influenced by how urgently they need to shift away from the harm they are subjected to by their meat eating.
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Ron at 03:51 AM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
OPOF, Thanks for the comment. I agree with your first two paragraphs, though on the second I think it depends on the kind of meat you're eating (i.e. beef vs poultry).
The third paragraph, I'm not exactly sure what you're saying...
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:21 AM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron,
Regarding the ability of humans to dramatically reduce their meat consumption:
When I was doing moderately high-performance training I learned that a human body will not benefit from eating more that 4 ounces (100 gms) of meat in a meal (a diversity of research reporting about that). So, most meat eaters can significantly reduce their meat consumption without any issues. Eat the same number of meat meals, but with smaller meat servings.
However, there is increasing evidence of the health benefits of eating fewer servings of meat. Simple internet searching finds lots of that learning.
Also, the following ‘anecdotal, but scientific’ case of very high-performance training indicates that people can transition their diet to be meat free, even though they have canine teeth with a liking for meat. The key is to do it in stages, more rapidly if the heath concerns of not changing the diet are significant (like the ‘now urgent’ need to change to limit and repair the harm done by developed fossil fuel use):
BBC Reel: “Is a vegan diet healthier than eating meat and dairy?”
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:40 AM on 17 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Regarding criticisms that comments to help understand and correct misunderstandings regarding climate science are ‘politically biased’:
Undeniably, an evaluation of the history of this issue leads to a consensus understanding that Conservative Movement populists divisively politicized the issue. They promoted pseudoscience and science denial to ‘successfully and harmfully’ appeal for support in their efforts to delay the limitation and correction of harm done by fossil fuel use.
SkS can be understood to be one of the many developments created in response to that 'successful' harmful populist divisive misleading political marketing.
See the SkS re-posting of the Thinking is Power item “Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial”, particularly the Standford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy “Science and Pseudo-Science” webpage that EddieEvans linked in their comment @5 and my response @6.
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BaerbelW at 20:19 PM on 16 April 2023We're heading into an ice age
Please note: the basic version of this rebuttal has been updated on April 16, 2023 and now includes an "at a glance“ section at the top. To learn more about these updates and how you can help with evaluating their effectiveness, please check out the accompanying blog post @ https://sks.to/at-a-glance
Thanks - the Skeptical Science Team.
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Mal Adapted at 10:10 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Dang, left an 'o' out of "copious"
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Mal Adapted at 10:09 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Peppers, Adfontes Media's Media Bias Chart places both NPR and Reuters near the pinnacle of un-biased, factual reporting. The chart's methodology is copiusly documented. Argue with its programmers, not with us.
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Ron at 04:08 AM on 15 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
By the way, to the vegans that prefer to eat soy, it's growing is also contributing to deforestation, especially in Brazil's Amazon and Argentina. It's true that most soy is grown feed livestock, but a lot of it to feed people as well. "Impossible Burger" needs to get their protein from another source, and care for the planet, not just their bottom line.
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Ron at 03:32 AM on 15 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Yeah, if one divorces Vegan's hypocritical self-righteousness, misanthopism, inflicted guilt and politics from the issue, I can understand their arguments about meat eating. These animals want to live as well. But then, any animal that's ever been eaten, even by another animal, wants to live too.
But I wonder about evolved human physiology as well. Could those of us that have bodies adapted to getting some of our nutrition from meat, probably most or all of us, and have since the beginning of our evolution, cope? Why did we evolve canine teeth? To eat plants? Why do strict vegans need to supplement with extra B12? What if that weren't available? IOW, is it natural for us to only eat vegetables?
Environmentally, I like the idea of eating meat-like vegetables, vegetables meant to taste like meat, like the "Impossible Burger". It's a great idea, cause I believe that the cattle industry is contributing to not just climate change, but the extinction of numerous other species as well to make room for one. But "Impossible Burger's" protein source is Monsanto's genetically engineered soy (cause they can't find non-GE soy that isn't contaminated with GE transgenes anymore thanks to the rather notorious Monsanto (omg!), and they don't want to use pea protein or something else). Also companies that sell their products, like Trader Joe's, quietly fill their shelves with IB, not caring that people shop there because they mistakenly believe that TJ's doesn't sell GMOs. It's all about the $$$ for them.
So a conumdrum. What to eat? Natural meat and vegetables? GMOs? Or only plants? Maybe if I could cook, and wanted to spend countless hours hunting down all the esoteric ingredients recipe books say that you need...
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:03 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Additionally, "whom are as biased as one can get" is utterly false. Both NPR and Reuters are widely recognized as straight journalism in its best sense. Compare that to FoxNews, who has now been proven in court documents to be "as biased as one can get" and could face potential bankruptcy as a result.
