Exxon knew of climate change but continued to fund deniers...

[StriderX]

We seem to have allowed all the 'eggs of apocalypse' stay in the same basket for decades, it is kinda funny, but... frankly the migration has already begun.

The single biggest issue here is, there will be little to no fish by the end of the century if the Acidification/Deoxygenation/heating of the oceans continues, this more or less ruins Asian coastal economies and elsewhere (though the West doesn't quite eat as much).

 

[Richdog]

I accept the planet is warming and that man contributes to it.

What seems to be less clear to me (and happy to be educated on it) is the ratio of man's effect [compared to natural forces] and the actual consequences of it.

The planet has always and will always change. You can't keep the climate and geographical nuances as they are now exactly the same forever after all.

For example let's say climate change could decimate a current area of India used for fishing. Of course that is bad but the effects won't happen overnight and those people affected will eventually, through the generations it will require to take effect, move to another area. Just as their ancestors did due to purely natural phenomena.

Once you accept that given enough time, societies will move about and once fertile lands will become baron regardless of our presence, the question becomes at what rate can we adapt to change. I find a lot of environmentalist seem to be chasing the ideal that the planet must remain in exactly the same state as it is now, forever.

You really do make some head-scratchingly dim posts... there is zero scientific or even logical basis for those statements you're making, as others have rightly pointed out above me.

We are not talking about natural climate changes over periods of many centuries or millenia, we are talking about greatly accelerated climate change in the space of mere decades as a result of our industrial and societal actions.

As for your comments about people simply moving when land becomes "baron", ye gods, I think that pretty much sums up your background knowledge on the subject.

 

[Orionaut]

To my mind.

If the "Smart Money" believed that AGW was a fact and that moving away from fossil fuels would "Prevent" it then we would be pursuing a "Manhattan project" effort at cracking Fusion.

The fact that we are NOT doing so suggests to me that the "smart money" doesn't believe it!

There are of course other possibilities but my basic argument is...

No Manhattan project=No AGW!

 

[Cosimo]

Welcome to the dark side of globalization Money and greed over anything else.

That's just normal business practice.

 

[joeyjojo]

No Manhattan project=No AGW!

Interesting point of view, so I looked up some numbers.

The Manhattan project cost $2 billion dollars, or $26 billion in today's money.

ITER alone has cost (so far) $14 billion dollars. JET cost about $0.4 billion. NIF cost about $3.5 billion. So just the first 3 fusion facilities that came to my mind cost two thirds of what the Manhattan project did.

This source thinks $22.4 billion has been spent in total on fusion research in just the USA. That's pretty comparable to the Manhattan project.

And this is just one avenue for averting some climate change (by switching to clean power generation). The amount of money spent on renewable energy sources, mitigation, modelling, carbon capture, cleaner fossil fuel plants, more economical cars, more economical aircraft, geoengineering, ... is a really huge amount of money. Substantially more than spent on the Manhattan project when considered all together.

So I think you're way off!

 

[Christmas themed thank]

I just cannot believe what I am reading here. People honestly believe that man's contribution to global warming is small?

What?

 

[ubersonic]

So what you're saying is there is no proof of man-influenced climate change?

Are you sure about that?

Yes, it's all theory, no actual proof has ever been offered (one exception of course being the debunked hockey stick graph but that proved to be incorrect). If your planning to point out something like the Ozone layer hole caused by CFCs that wasn't man made climate change it was direct cause and effect damage, citing it as proof of man made climate change is the same as citing man's ability to jump as proof he can fly

 

[Christmas themed thank]

Yes, it's all theory, no actual proof has ever been offered (one exception of course being the debunked hockey stick graph but that proved to be incorrect). If your planning to point out something like the Ozone layer hole caused by CFCs that wasn't man made climate change it was direct cause and effect damage, citing it as proof of man made climate change is the same as citing man's ability to jump as proof he can fly

There was no "hole" in the ozone layer, that sounds like something that would come from somebody who doesn't really know much about science.

We stopped using CFCs, the ozone layer has now virtually recovered. So don't try and tell me the two aren't linked.

 

[alx]

The ozone depletion due to CFCs and climate change are two different things.

 

[Christmas themed thank]

The ozone depletion due to CFCs and climate change are two different things.

I didn't say they weren't, I was using the example of humans releasing substances into the environment that damage it.

Very basic chemistry (GCSE level) can easily show that we are destroying the environment with the amount of carbon dioxide that we release. I just cannot begin to understand how people can deny that.

 

[Doohickey]

Yes, it's all theory, no actual proof has ever been offered (one exception of course being the debunked hockey stick graph but that proved to be incorrect). If your planning to point out something like the Ozone layer hole caused by CFCs that wasn't man made climate change it was direct cause and effect damage, citing it as proof of man made climate change is the same as citing man's ability to jump as proof he can fly

It's a theory, which was then proven. It's probably one of the most proved and indisputable theories that have ever been made. In fact there's so much proof, I literally wouldn't know where to start pasting links to etc. The only debunking or disagreement in the scientific community has been done by scientists who have been hired to present that case. And that case is still wrong.

 

[Tephnos]

Yes, it's all theory, no actual proof has ever been offered (one exception of course being the debunked hockey stick graph but that proved to be incorrect). If your planning to point out something like the Ozone layer hole caused by CFCs that wasn't man made climate change it was direct cause and effect damage, citing it as proof of man made climate change is the same as citing man's ability to jump as proof he can fly

Serious?

This is the typical ignorant hogwash that people who don't know anything about the subject or science in general attempt to use: 'oh it's just a theory'.

I don't think you know what a scientific theory actually means. A casual theory in the way the general public use it would means guesswork or conjecture from some random Joe. A scientific theory is an extremely well substantiated explanation of some aspect through the scientific method, which means it can be repeatedly tested and proven in experiments consistently and whenever you want.

In layman's terms, as close to fact as you can get. The theory of evolution is fact, the theory of relativity is fact, and so on, yet people will still try to deny those too when it suits them.

 

[Christmas themed thank]

I just cannot understand how anybody can think that pumping tonnes and tonnes of gases into the atmosphere can do no harm.

I just cannot understand that at all.

 

[Zethor]

Yes, it's all theory, no actual proof has ever been offered (one exception of course being the debunked hockey stick graph but that proved to be incorrect). If your planning to point out something like the Ozone layer hole caused by CFCs that wasn't man made climate change it was direct cause and effect damage, citing it as proof of man made climate change is the same as citing man's ability to jump as proof he can fly

That is one of the most half-witted post I've ever read.

A theory is not the same as a hypothesis. From wikipedia:

In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a position to understand and either provide empirical support ("verify") or empirically contradict ("falsify") it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge, in contrast to more common uses of the word "theory" that imply that something is unproven or speculative (which is better characterized by the word 'hypothesis'). Scientific theories are distinguished from hypotheses, which are individual empirically testable conjectures, and scientific laws, which are descriptive accounts of how nature will behave under certain conditions.