6 reasons that climate-change skeptics are correct in their thinking

"entire nations could be wiped..." @1. History reveals many alarming environmental predictions that have not panned out. Happily . No interest in compiling them. Perhaps some interest in discussing why such message framing has been seen as effective against big money, while gentle (realistic) concerns go unheard.

But there it is. If even now, environmental concerns can be waved away by talking about alarmism, then I say we have screwed up. Made it too easy for big money to dismiss.

It need not continue that way. We can all calm down, and place a wide range of inter related issues on table for discussion. Examine evidence, and where there is concordance, that should matter. Examine costs, benefits and risks. Implement responses, but make them subject to periodic reexamination. As more evidence accumulates, some concordances will shift.

But if you are still stuck at environmental alarmism bad, please remember how 'the boy who cried wolf' ends.

 

One of the reasons I'm interested in polar ice is the models predict the greatest temperature changes at the poles. In effect, 'the canary' that lets us know year by year how our planet is warming. We have good and improving ice metrics.

Bob Wilson

 

NPR: 'An Inconvenient Sequel' Is An Effective, Cautiously Optimistic, 'I Told You So

"The single most criticized scene in that movie," he says as a map of lower Manhattan shows streets flooding with water, "was an animated scene showing that the combination of sea-level rise and storm surge would put the ocean water into the 9/11 memorial site which was then under construction. And people said, 'That's ridiculous. What a terrible exaggeration.' "

Then you see news footage from October 2012 of Hurricane Sandy slamming into New York as a newscaster talks of flooding at the World Trade Center site. And that's followed by a somber New York governor Andrew Cuomo reacting to billions of dollars in damage that he calls "a wake-up call" about climate change and our vulnerability to it. Lessons learned, steps taken.

https://youtu.be/2unzHvFPtY0?t=34

 

i have all the time in the world.

 

You and Ray Charles, huh.

 

whaddaya want, two likes???

 

's funny! When I posted, two came up simultaneously and with same post number #25, so I immediately reported my 2nd as a duplicate. Never happened like that before!

 

It wouldn't be an unexpected database error if you expected it...

 

First post was familiar messages from Heartland. They have been around for a while and have been nothing if not consistent. A known quantity as it were. Interesting that they may play a role in Red/Blue climate discussions:

Seek climate advice through established routes : Nature News & Comment

That is, if National Academy of Sciences is somehow perceived as not up to the task.

 

perception is reality.

 

Perception is Reality: I cannot imagine a different way, as brains do what they do. And yet, concordance of evidence is a force multiplier beyond what has 'cropped up'* before. Heartland (not only) favors fossil burn. Well, yeah, that has been mostly great. By trivial artifice they elevate that thing above all others that have been learned, and benefited from. Only in minds of readers/thinkers does this play out. Yes, perception is the thing.

But, look you at all these different perceptions on offer. They contradict. They all have aspects of appealing to fear and/or greed. How could they not? By ignoring how mammalian brains got wired up? If there is anything faintly pointing us towards towards success for (an oddly large number of) humans, I suggest it would come from concordance of evidence. I expect this to be less thrilling than other perceptions for another decade or few.

Later, well, maybe the kids can get their heads straight.

P is R: Find optimism in how fast perceptions 'changed reality' in recent human past. We went from 'people can't fly' to lunar footprints in <70 years. Dang.

*punning with y'all. Agriculture was the original human force multiplier. Metallurgy, 'the big burn', machinery, science (as such) and medicine each have had vast impacts. But they are hard to disentangle. Agriculture has prior, standalone cred.

 

I can't imagine a large human growth future path based on renewable energy without prior large fossil-C burning. Have really tried to, but no.

Thus, I don't see it as shameful. We ought to make human enterprise a success, with 500 (600?) ppm CO2 because nobody really offered a perception with less.

Not for lack of speaking loudly. Not for lack of contrary squirrels. This is our path. Heartland has carved out for themselves a very small role. IPCC also looks narrow (to me); only sad as they might have done more.

How should the human enterprise be circa 2050? How might 'getting there' decisions constrain (or open up) the following 50 years? I appealed above to USNAS, but they have not yet addressed future energy/water/food/climate in a holistic sense.

Nor will they, for at least another political/presidential cycle. Does not mean we are all screwed; rather that clear thinking has got pushed off to later times.