User:Woozle/LwaC/2015-04-03

#lunchWithAConservative Climate Change series, part 2...

So I got back some responses...

Q1. Major global climate changes are taking place right now.

A: Possibly.

Q2. These changes are likely to result in trillions of dollars of damage, at a minimum.

A: No -- Mr Putin would be happy [not at all sure what he means. W.]; see also Freeman Dyson.

Q3. There are actions we can take to minimize the damage (even if we can't affect the change itself).

A: Do you mean we can mitigate/cope with changes? In which case, of course. Prevent? [no, that's Q4. W.] Probably not.

Q3a. The sooner we begin taking such actions, the less costly the damage will be in the long run.

A: See above.

Q4. There are actions we can take to reduce the severity of the climate change itself.

A: Coping/mitigation always possible (Is this the same as 3?) But these are costly, so it all depends on how probable the climate changes are.

Q4a. The sooner we begin taking such actions, the less severe the climate change will be in the long run.

A: See 3.

Q5. The climate changes taking place right now are unprecedented within human history.

A: But not in pre-human, certainly. Maybe not even in human history (Mini ice age; warm Greenland, etc.)

Q6. The climate changes taking place right now are probably (though not certainly) caused by human activity.

A: 50:50, at best; personally, I'm with Salby, so I'd give the probability as closer to 0.1.

Q7. The conclusions of climate scientists are the most reliable guide to how the climate is likely to change in the future.

A: No (see above). It's all models, guys! The best thing would be an experiment -- tough on a global scale. The best approximation is the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. Salby claims that the causation is the opposite of the conventional view: CO2 concentration he claims is driven by changes in temperature (caused by natural oscillations, solar radiation, or whatever), not the reverse. Human-caused CO2 is too small to have much effect, he says. When Pinatubo erupted, global temperature fell by a small amount for a short time, a year or so, apparently. This was accompanied by a sharp decline in the CO2 growth curve. Looks like a weak confirmation of Salby to me. Paper is attached, feel free to study it! (I just skimmed it.) Surely a long -- ca. 100-1000 years change in temperature would produce much larger CO2 changes.

Q8. If the consensus among climate scientists is biased, it is just as likely to be biased in the direction of being too conservative as it is to be biased in the direction of being too extreme.

A: No.

Q9. Scientific bias with regard to new theories tends to err on the side of being too conservative, and asymptotically approaches the correct values as more evidence arises.

A: (Same as 9?) Usually, but not I think in this case when there is a sort of mass movement driven by an anti-capitalism agenda, accompanied now by all those Al Gore's who stand to make much money from 'green' subsidies. Look at the Europeans and their fear of GM crops. Is that science, or something else?

I think I need to analyze, slowly and carefully, exactly what it is about certain points in his reply that I find so incredibly enraging.

...and not try to respond before then.

...and I'm hoping that perhaps this will offer some useful suggestions: http://theconversation.com/social-sciences-are-best-hope-for-ending-debates-over-climate-change-39671 (via +Per Siden in a comment on Part 1, https://plus.google.com/u/0/102282887764745350285/posts/Gxo2Wnpe2V8)