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GENERAL MODNOTE This thread is for posting and discussing climate change denial. This might include general remarks denying climate change or it's anthropogenic basis, or what a columnist, politician, 'radio personality' or stand-up comedian says about it all. If you wish to discuss the science of climate change - pro or con - you are welcome to do so here, but please read the moderation note in the OP of that thread, and restrict yourself to discussion of the science. Members are invited to contact a forum moderator if they need further clarification, or to use the report system if posts need to be reviewed by staff.

One of the more serious threats to the world in the near future is - IMHO anyway - climate change denial. Despite the preponderance of evidence, the majority consensus amongst experts in the field, and the lack of relevant qualifications amongst the ranks of the deniers, one often comes across people who don't want to accept that this is happening and it is caused by human activity.

If anyone has good links to information useful for arguing against deniers of Anthropogenic Global Warming, please post them here. I'll start with this and this. These are both links to lists of commonly used arguments by "sceptics" of AGW.

Of course, if anyone has access to this reputable science we are assured exists that debunks AGW, please feel free to point out my gullibility at being hoodwinked by the "climate change industry"*.







*I am assured by my father that said industry exists and has somehow developed more power than all the greenhouse gas producing industries combined. To put this in context, he also believes that Julian Assange started Wikileaks for profit.

The National Center for Science Education has a nice section about climate change and climate change denial.

Oh don't worry...there's plenty of "respected climate change supporters" who are responsible for setting policy that have qualifications other than climate science...such as economics, etc.

There's an awful lot of grant money around if you put in the right papers...and an awful lot of career suicide if you go against the approved state religion which states the Earth is a steady state system that has always had the same climate and will never change ever again in the future...and if it does it must be mans fault...

It almost does become religious...for example the scare campaign over the Great Barrier Reef. We must do everything in our power to protect it so for ever more people can appreciate it. Too bad it wasn't even there as little as 14,000 years ago, and probably won't be there again in the future. That's what's called living on an ever-changing planet instead of a stable one with no change.

johnbrandt wrote:Oh don't worry...there's plenty of "respected climate change supporters" who are responsible for setting policy that have qualifications other than climate science...such as economics, etc.

Ok, well that still leaves:

preponderance of evidence, the majority consensus amongst experts in the field

I'm just always amused how we must listen as absolute gospel anything at all said FOR climate change, yet every single word AGAINST climate change must be ignored and not listened to for fear of muddling the gentle little publics minds...

johnbrandt wrote:I'm just always amused how we must listen as absolute gospel anything at all said FOR climate change, yet every single word AGAINST climate change must be ignored and not listened to for fear of muddling the gentle little publics minds...

Again:

preponderance of evidence, the majority consensus amongst experts in the field

johnbrandt wrote:I'm just always amused how we must listen as absolute gospel anything at all said FOR climate change, yet every single word AGAINST climate change must be ignored and not listened to for fear of muddling the gentle little publics minds...

I wasn't aware we did this. Could you perhaps be a bit hyperbolic in your descriptions?

The interesting thing to note about climate change denial is that these are the kinds of arguments I seem to hear almost all the time. If the denialists want to be taken seriously, they should present evidence to change the overwhelming consensus view by the majority of the experts. No less than THE ACTUAL SCIENTISTS doint actual science, is what can do this. Not politicians, not special interest groups or political organizations, not random internet nobodies. Do the science, convince the scientists. That's how it works.

johnbrandt wrote:I'm just always amused how we must listen as absolute gospel anything at all said FOR climate change, yet every single word AGAINST climate change must be ignored and not listened to for fear of muddling the gentle little publics minds...

Oh and by the way, who the fuck "fears muddling the gentle little publics minds" ???

It seems to me like in this arena there is too much talk and not enough action. It appears to me that in the search for a kind of political truth on this matter we have omitted almost all consideration of basic common sense in regards to our lifestyles and habits.

Greed and vanity are driving us to manipulate and dominate this planet at an alarming rate. Just look around and see how much we waste. How much we live in excess of our needs. How little understanding we have of finding balance with nature instead of conquering it.

If we don't start honestly assessing our place within nature at a fundamental level, I fear we will render the biosphere incompatible with human civilisation.

Why do we need to be told to do something about this?

kris wrote:It seems to me like in this arena there is too much talk and not enough action. It appears to me that in the search for a kind of political truth on this matter we have omitted almost all consideration of basic common sense in regards to our lifestyles and habits.

Greed and vanity are driving us to manipulate and dominate this planet at an alarming rate. Just look around and see how much we waste. How much we live in excess of our needs. How little understanding we have of finding balance with nature instead of conquering it.

If we don't start honestly assessing our place within nature at a fundamental level, I fear we will render the biosphere incompatible with human civilisation.

Why do we need to be told to do something about this?

Because there will always be people who seek to exploit every situation for their own short term profit.

Spearthrower wrote:Because there will always be people who seek to exploit every situation for their own short term profit.

We enable those people through our choices and habits.

It seems to me as though there is an overall disconnect with nature that cannot be filled by statistics of weather pattern distributions.

Nicko wrote:. . . arguing against deniers. . .

The problem is that for denialists, whether of global warming, evolution, free will, moon landings or whatever, denial is their adopted epistemic paradigm. Accordingly, they deny supporting evidence, validity of arguments, etc. There really isn't any point in arguing with such people. Nevertheless, they are an extremely destructive force, they need to be marginalised, somehow.

ughaibu wrote:

Nicko wrote:. . . arguing against deniers. . .

The problem is that for denialists, whether of global warming, evolution, free will, moon landings or whatever, denial is their adopted epistemic paradigm. Accordingly, they deny supporting evidence, validity of arguments, etc. There really isn't any point in arguing with such people. Nevertheless, they are an extremely destructive force, they need to be marginalised, somehow.

I agree.

What do you think allows these people to have such a significant impact on public sentiment and belief?

kris wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Because there will always be people who seek to exploit every situation for their own short term profit.

We enable those people through our choices and habits.

It seems to me as though there is an overall disconnect with nature that cannot be filled by statistics of weather pattern distributions.

Who's 'we'?

I see no need to appeal to a state of nature - we're not going to revert to a pleistocene lifestyle by choice. It's our 'nature' to develop tools to solve problems - our technology got us into this, and it will be our technology that gets us out of it

kris wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

Nicko wrote:. . . arguing against deniers. . .

The problem is that for denialists, whether of global warming, evolution, free will, moon landings or whatever, denial is their adopted epistemic paradigm. Accordingly, they deny supporting evidence, validity of arguments, etc. There really isn't any point in arguing with such people. Nevertheless, they are an extremely destructive force, they need to be marginalised, somehow.

I agree.

What do you think allows these people to have such a significant impact on public sentiment and belief?

The ever increasingly obscure nature of scientific knowledge - the fact that people can't see things with their own eyes, and don't have the mental tools to assess scientific findings. It's a problem of education.

When a good percentage of the people in world's biggest culprit on pollution think the world was created 6000 years or so by God for their own use then climate change denial is so far down the list of the faux-reality that they walk around with in their brains then we have to take them out of the decision loop.

Oh look who's back. It's the guy who posts bullshit about climate science, gets corrected on it, and then posts the same bullshit again in the near future: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... e#p1380045

johnbrandt wrote:Oh don't worry...there's plenty of "respected climate change supporters" who are responsible for setting policy that have qualifications other than climate science...such as economics, etc.

Great start John. Another post that has nothing to do with the OP. Do you pull these responses out of a hat or something?

There's an awful lot of grant money around if you put in the right papers...and an awful lot of career suicide if you go against the approved state religion which states the Earth is a steady state system that has always had the same climate and will never change ever again in the future...and if it does it must be mans fault...

Strawman #1, climate science assumes that the earth's climate never changes. (I'm certain that you've been corrected on this before as well)

Look John, the facts you use to try and debunk the claims of climate science (such as the fact that historically the climate has been dramatically different), come from the same scientists and journals that research AGW and conclude increasing the greenhouse gas content will cause changes to the eco system. But does that bother you? Of course not Just close your ears and pull another dumbfuck response out of the hat.

It almost does become religious...for example the scare campaign over the Great Barrier Reef. We must do everything in our power to protect it so for ever more people can appreciate it. Too bad it wasn't even there as little as 14,000 years ago, and probably won't be there again in the future. That's what's called living on an ever-changing planet instead of a stable one with no change.

Oh I like this tactic John, conflate what the media says with the claims of climate scientists, been reading Andrew Bolt's blog again?

If you think the only repercussion that will occur if the great barrier reef gets destroyed is a negative twist for tourism. It just shows your ignorance on this topic once more. Not to mention the poor logic you use, that just because something wont be around in the future, does that make us entitled to destroy it?

I mean, that is a perfectly good justification for the 9/11 attacks. Seriously, how much thinking goes into your posts on climate change?

Do you even know what climate science is John?
Do you know what it takes to become a climate scientist?
Do you actually believe your opinion on atmospheric physics over-rides that of scientists publishing for nature magazine?

Lastly, are you of the opinion that all of your posts on climate science on this forum are an accurate reflection of reality? If not, are there any posts you are aware of where you made an error. Can you please link us, I just want to be sure you have the ability to locate a factual error, or if your blinkers here are just too big.

The funny thing is John, you call climate science a religion. Yet you employ the exact tactics used by creationists on this forum to continue your crusade against physics. I'm not making this up.

byofrcs wrote:When a good percentage of the people in world's biggest culprit on pollution think the world was created 6000 years or so by God for their own use then climate change denial is so far down the list of the faux-reality that they walk around with in their brains then we have to take them out of the decision loop.

Many people I have encountered in my country are not religious at all, they just don't really care.

People say things like, 'Why would I recycle, I'm not going to be alive anyway.'

Nicko wrote:

If anyone has good links to information useful for arguing against deniers of Anthropogenic Global Warming, please post them here. I'll start with this and this. These are both links to lists of commonly used arguments by "sceptics" of AGW

Lots of articles from actual scientists on here, I check it every so often
http://theconversation.edu.au/pages/environment , http://theconversation.edu.au/search?q=climate

Spearthrower wrote:The ever increasingly obscure nature of scientific knowledge - the fact that people can't see things with their own eyes, and don't have the mental tools to assess scientific findings. It's a problem of education.

It's also a problem of sponsored obfuscation. While free speech is laudable, on many levels our society is set up to allow those with the deepest pockets to have the loudest voice and reach the most people. Those same deep-pocketed individuals and companies have a vested interest in preserving the status quo in terms of current taxation laws, regulatory laws and public attitudes towards the commons. It makes perfect economic sense for them to oppose the dissemination of climate change facts.

Much of this comes from the incorrect narrative that corporate directors (C level employees) have a legal duty to maximise returns for shareholders. I know of no such legislation anywhere but it is a persistent "zombie" lie that keeps popping up every time one tries to address corporate lobbying. The fiduciary duty of C level employees is entirely phrased in the negative. They must not make material misrepresentations/omissions to investors and they must not commit fraud. Maximising shareholder value is a tool for enabling the company's debt issuance and for maximising C level renumeration - oh wait, I think I've answered my own question...