Quote: Original post by Kaze
Either way my point is that its easy enough to accuse anyone you disagree with of being dogmatic and conformist and paint yourself as a underdog hero regardless of what side your on.

No doubt, however, I'm sure we can both agree that has nothing to do with the truth of the matter. An unkind interpretation of what you've written would find you stating no aspect of AGW is dogmatic belief, while I assure you most everyone in this thread, including myself isn't qualified to make a first hand judgement call on the matter.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by Kaze
Either way my point is that its easy enough to accuse anyone you disagree with of being dogmatic and conformist and paint yourself as a underdog hero regardless of what side your on.

No doubt, however, I'm sure we can both agree that has nothing to do with the truth of the matter. An unkind interpretation of what you've written would find you stating no aspect of AGW is dogmatic belief, while I assure you most everyone in this thread, including myself isn't qualified to make a first hand judgement call on the matter.

I'll say that I find AGW far less dogmatic than arguments that primary appeal to "every ones against us" and don't seem to have much merit beyond trying to invert occam's razor by invoking a conspiracy.

And you may well feel the same about the coming Ice Age cooling scare of the 70's, who knows really. I find defensive certainty usually symptomatic of dogma, but to each his own.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
I find defensive certainty usually symptomatic of dogma, but to each his own.

Apollo moon landing hoax theorists claim Aldrin punching this guy is proof hes hiding something.

Sigh.

How is this even relevant to the global warming?

Quote:
Energy independence Energy dependence

Rainforest preservation Rainforest exploitation

Environmental sustainability Environmental destruction

Green jobs Dirty jobs

Livable cities Unlivable cities

Renewable resources Nonrenewable resources

Clean water Dirty water

Clean air Dirty air

Healthy children Unhealthy children

So if government officials decide all of the sudden that global warming is not happening then they will ignore all other issues in question and not do anything? Of course not. Pollution is causing problems like acid rain and importing oil is more expansive than producing it locally. If you ever studied economics you would know that these problems are already off-loaded to business and the like. If global warming related externalities are added to the list you're talking about an even larger economic loss, possibly unneeded if global warming is not even real.

Still, assuming global warming *might* be happening, do these regulations even matter?
What's the most important greenhouse gas out there? If you think it's CO2, you are wrong. Water vapor constitutes 95% of the greenhouse effect on earth. CO2 is only about 3.6%. As a result, the actual contribution to the greenhouse effect from human activities is 0.28%. Since you can't shutdown all human activity, but only reduce it, you are talking about a few hundredths of percents difference here. I don't think that little change will make the kind of chaotic changes the climate activists claim will happen in 50 years.
source

Quote: http://www.skepticalscience.com/

The fact that this kind of site even exists implies to me that global warming is currently in a hot debate with no conclusive facts.
People keep mentioning that the oil industry has some kind of agenda, there are a lot more websites, news stations, books, tv shows, and organizations that support global warming so how is it that the oil industry has the agenda?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
The issue is with the one size fits all solution people hold that government solves all ills. As if government can legislate the weather. No claim is too grand nor scope to broad to even raise an eyebrow among the devoted. It's a comedy of errors and a tad bit maddening when you don't share the common taboos of your time.

That's a rather ironic coming from someone who advances anarcho-capitalist theories here...

Given the following two political approaches:
A) Analyze the problems and failures within the current scenario, and how dozens of various interventions could alter the situation for better and worse. Tally up the financial and social costs, and debate the worthiness; versus,
B) The answer is always "No" to government intervention, regardless of the situation. We propose you should ALWAYS let the market figure it out.

Which one could possibly be the "one size fits all" mentality?


Quite unlike anarcho-capitalism, the consideration of government intervention doesn't come with a pre-determined "solution."

Quote: Original post by Momoko_Fan

Quote: http://www.skepticalscience.com/

The fact that this kind of site even exists implies to me that global warming is currently in a hot debate with no conclusive facts.
People keep mentioning that the oil industry has some kind of agenda, there are a lot more websites, news stations, books, tv shows, and organizations that support global warming so how is it that the oil industry has the agenda?

That doesnt really make sense...

The fact that a site exists to explain something simply means that there are a lot of people who dont yet understand that subject, not that there "are no conclusive facts".
eg: The fact that Gamedev.net exists doesnt mean that knowledgeable people strongly debate the existence of computer games. Its here to help people understand more about them.


As for CO2 being only a small percentage - to say "I cant imagine it making a difference" is the classic argument from ignorance. Just because something cant be personally imagined doesn't mean its not true. Particularly when youre only selecting broad figures without understanding the relationship between them - as Zalhman's link points out, water vapour is a significant positive feedback mechanism, so it will actually amplify the "tiny change" that the CO2 makes. "Natural" water vapour is created as a direct consequence of even a tiny temperature rise due to CO2, which in turn creates more "natural" water vapour, and so forth.

Or as a counter example, I could pick a few other numbers in the same vein to make the situation seem critically dire. For example: The earth receives 174 petawatts of energy from solar radiation. Thats 174,000,000,000,000,000 watts. 0.28% of that is 487,200,000,000,000 watts. More than 30 times greater than total worldwide human power consumption. Does that still sound like a "tiny change" that couldnt affect the temperature?
But honestly, neither my "huge" figures nor your "tiny" figures are representative of what actually occurs. What is representative of what happens?... The climate models created by knowledgeable climate scientists.

Quote: Original post by Eelco

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse
I still don't get this supposed "liberal politicization."

The Democrats stand to gain .... what exactly that would compromise their objectivity?? Are we supposed to believe that the super-powerful scientist lobby is outclassing ExxonMobil and the rest of the energy industry? Where exactly is the compromising upside for politicians who support an issue that doesn't exactly fire up masses of voters and doesn't make the deep-pocketed lobbyists happy?

^^Did any of the denialists come up with an answer for this one...?

It hardly needs answering The political incentive is crystal clear. It provides a reason for an increase in government power. Politicians arnt exactly averse to that.

Quote: Original post by Eelco

Quote: Original post by LessBread
What new government powers? Governments already have the power to levy taxes and regulate pollution.

Shades of grey, dear less. But for a qualitative difference; I bet the international aspect of it has its appeals.

So, you want us to believe that politicians have compromised their objectivity all for the sake of some nebulous "need for power (to do things they can already do)," and the need is so strong that these politicians don't mind pissing off voters and lobbyists. Yeah. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

Technically everything in the atmosphere is a green house gas. If the earth had no insulation it would be a frozen desert like mars. Since the difference between 0% and 100% of current greenhouse gas is the difference between a frozen rock and what we have now 1% is a fairly large variable.