The Donald vs Big Tech

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

You didn't know about what, precisely?

[Caomhaoin]

Harris is making a fair auld tit of herself on an almost daily basis now. What was that attempt to drink a scoop with yer man Colbert about 😂

I've been stopped by traffic guards with more charisma.

Maybe the other lad isn't out of the running after all.

[astfgyl]

You didn't know about what, precisely?

The fossil fuel industry and their shenanigans. They had well been at it for a long time before I heard about it. This one, however I can see while it's happening. And the fossil fuel crowd being terrible doesn't make the renewable crowd good by default

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

And what is "this one" that you can see while it's happening? I'd already mentioned the fossil fuel companies' decades long cover up of the results of the studies they commissioned themselves. And I'm not discussing "the renewable crowd" with you: I'm discussing the science. It would be helpful if one of these days you made the effort to distinguish between them.

[astfgyl]

The unproven science, you mean. Don't skirt around the fact it's all not even proved by experiment yet no matter how much you believe in it. 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

There is more experimental proof for it than against it, the example I showed you was only one among many. And what you're skirting around once again is that the fossil fuel companies believe it too, which is precisely why they selfishly, and ultimately foolishly, cover it up and sow doubt about it. Because they know they don't have a genuine scientific leg to stand on to affirm the contrary. And have known this for decades. But keep convincing yourself that you're being smart by echoing their exact confusionist talking points.

[astfgyl]

There is more experimental proof for it than against it, the example I showed you was only one among many. And what you're skirting around once again is that the fossil fuel companies believe it too, which is precisely why they selfishly, and ultimately foolishly, cover it up and sow doubt about it. Because they know they don't have a genuine scientific leg to stand on to affirm the contrary. And have known this for decades. But keep convincing yourself that you're being smart by echoing their exact confusionist talking points.

Spoken like a true lad who thinks he is so smart because of the science. You've admitted it's experimental, haven't you?

Right, so should I have an opt out of the experiment or not?

Are you saying that the fossil fuel companies actually have the good science now?

[Bürggermeister]

Better science than the youtubing covid experts, I'll wager 😉

[The Butcher]

If CO2 goes below 150 ppm then plants begin to starve, then stop growing then die. Plants struggle even at 180. Ideally higher co2 levels to me are akin to a safe buffer to prevent say a snowball Earth type scenario (ice ages/ prolonged cold periods) colder water can absorb more co2 so oceans could dramatically reduce co2 levels. Seems to me that reforestation efforts are very worthwhile and should be prioritised over say, taxing the hilt out of fuels that will only prove to kill the elderly and the poor during winter periods. It's the priorities that piss me off the most.

We must also remember that higher co2 levels results in higher crop yields. Increasing crop yields is crucial to improve food security and the knock on effect (living standards for poorer countries etc). It would also contribute to the greening of the Sahara which I think everyone can agree is a good thing. This fixation on co2 levels EVIL coupled with messed up priorities of the Greens + corrupt companies taking advantage is wearing quite thin on me.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Current levels are ~420 ppm and it's estimated that pre-industrial levels were ~280 ppm. Is talking about what happens at 150 ppm not a bit like one frog in slowly boiling water pointing out to another that if the water was at 0° they'd both be dead..?

[The Butcher]

My point about 150 ppm wasn't about impending doom of an ice age (nice to highlight for dramatic effect  ) but to illustrate that CO2 is essential for plant life/food security and that lower levels of CO2 would be catastrophic for crop yields/ecosystems and agriculture. The hysteria around CO2 sometimes ignores the benefits, crop yields/potentially mitigating desertification (like in the Sahara).

I think the priority should be a balanced approach and other environmental concerns that people would actually get on board with (microplastics, pollution etc) I think people are fine with promoting sustainability, reforestation, and energy policies that don't disproportionately harm the vulnerable, like taxing fuel to the extent that it worsens poverty or leaves people unable to heat their homes in winter. That was my point, if that's the first thing you took from my post then....

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

It's just the same thing of making an effort to strike a sensible balance between the science and what's being done with the science: climate scientists, along with anyone with the equivalent of junior cert biology, know that plants require a certain level of CO2 (cliff notes: CO2 + H2O + light = photosynthesis => plant food [glucose] + O2). All of these basics are accounted for. Just like the counter-intuitive effect of concomitant aerosol reduction is accounted for also. One prong of the confusionism approach is precisely to keep the science and the policies mixed up as much as possible so that folk end up denying the science on the basis of BS like taxing fuel in a way that impacts the vulnerable more than anyone else. Given what the fossil fuel and motor industry companies, etc., have kept covered up for so long, it's really them who should have every last red cent stripped away from them to finance transition.

[son of the Morrigan]

Everything The Butcher said above is spot fucking on.
It should be noted however re. ice age that we are actually still in an ice age currently, we are in an inter glacial warm period. There has been 17 recorded warming and cooling events in this current ice age as proven by data extracted from ice core samples. These climate change events happen quiet rapidly and appear to be driven mostly by earths angle and proximity to the sun, which affects many things, including atmospheric co2 levels.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

we are actually still in an ice age currently, we are in an inter glacial warm period. There has been 17 recorded warming and cooling events in this current ice age as proven by data extracted from ice core samples.

Another thing that is well-known and accounted for in climate models. I'd be curious to know why you accept the inductive conclusions (not "proofs" per se) of the scientists who analyze ice core samples yet seem to reject the conclusions arrived at by identical processes of inductive reasoning by other (and in some cases even the same) climate scientists regarding the role of anthropogenic CO2 in accelerating life-threatening climate change..?

[Ducky]

That's how science works - it's discussed and acted on to the best of our (well, climate scientists) understanding. It's not gospel, it's open to revisions. Heck, it's open to be blown wide open. But until such time that the climate-change deniers can back their shite-talk conspiracy theories up, I think going with the people who have M.Sc. and Ph.Ds in the topic is the safer bet.

Genuine question - would you question the validity of the claims of say an aeronautical engineer when they say "this is how planes stay in the sky"? Or when say a construction engineer or architect says "this is why that 100 storey building doesn't collapse under its own weight"?

Those are actual concrete examples that can be proven by experiment whereas the climate change science is the experiment right now because nobody knows how it will turn out. It's theoretical stuff. Those examples are something different

Aeronautics are the same. It's not like they said "hey, let's build a plane that's 10 fuckin' storeys tall, call it the A380 and hope that it stays in the sky". They sat down, used a shitload of complex mathematics to experiment on paper/computer before they actually built it. Then when they verified that "shit does in fact work/stay in the sky", they built it. That's why the Burj Kalifa is standing too (and also why they didn't make it 1km tall like originally proposed, because the mathematics said that the bedrock couldn't support it). At the same time, it's not like aeronautical or construction/material sciences are finished. People in those fields work with the best available information to them at the time. It's exactly how the "experimental" climate sciences work right now too.

I've a lowly (in comparison) B.Sc. in environmental science and my cursory ( again in comparison) knowledge says "yeah we are fucked", so you bet that when the boys and girls who have PhDs and years upon years of peer-reviewed research on the topic also say "yeah we're fucked" I tend to side with them over Gary The Mad Conspiracy Lad on Youtube, you know? Call it "confirmation bias" or whatever, but it's a bit of a of a co-inkey-dink that all these highly educated and rigorously scrutinised people are all effectively saying the same thing, no?

At the same time, I'm gonna go out on a limb and hazard a guess that all the educated up the chuffin' wazoo  climatologists aren't nihilists and would rather their kiddos not inherit a literal scorched earth and are merely calling it as they see it.