[MRRiley]

What is a fact, how do you put it in context, and how is it accepted by others in the scientific community?

Nothing is "a fact" until it has happened. Even the most confident scientist will not state something that he or she thinks is going to happen is "a fact." Everything in the future is "a theory" (aka "a prediction") if not an outright guess.

Mike

[Ratmagiclady]

Been watching The Day After Tomorrow RML?

That movie's... Hardly what we'd call 'scientifically rigorous,' even by sci-fi standards.

The point that is missed most of the time is that the Earth is a self correcting system. Push hard enough in one direction and Big Mama Gaia is gonna push back. And she can push a whole lot harder than we can. Point of contention, can we push hard enough to get her attention? I'm on the fence when it comes to "climate change."

Well, despite attempts to confuse and obfuscate about the matter, at least as far as some binary-literalist-authoritarian thinkers-with-a-sense-of-identification-with-those-who-profit off irresponsibility...


The scientific community is *not* on the fence about this stuff to any significant degree, not on the kind of levels and paid corporate 'think tanks' and conservative pundits want to pretend.

*No* credible argument from anyone suggests that taking the measures that would mitigate our impact on climate change are a bad idea for anyone but a few who make big bucks at our expense from ever-worsening the status quo, and keeping us reliant on things they intend to ride into the ground, using delay and denial.

There IS evidence that overall temps are up, but there is no concrete proof that the changes are outside of reasonable tolerances and historic trends over the scale of 4.5 billion years.

That's a nonsense comparison. Over 4.5 billion years, Earth's often been uninhabitable for our species, never mind the kind of civilization we're accustomed to.

Of course that time scale is meaningless to our flickers of a lifetime.

When you have to go back millions, never mind billions of years, to talk about things that may have taken a millenium even then... To compare to something that's happening in one of *our* 'flickers of a lifetime, ...Then you bet your bippy there's cause for concern.

Yes, Earth changes. But the *rate* of change we're triggering is burning down what we can't replace.



And faster than we have any reason to think most of our kids, never mind what we hold most dear... can adapt.

No sophistry or obfuscation changes that. We know what the pollution does, we know that we can't burn fossil fuels and forests forever, anyway.

Change or be changed, that's what Earth says. to *us.* Fatalism doesn't help.

Most of the 'denier' crowd are living in some kind of world of 'Blame or be blamed.'

[MRRiley]

I suspect more of the scientific community is on the fence than you think. Its simply that you can't get grants trying to counter-argue "climate change" or "warming." The grant money is all in "how can we fight warming" and "lets validate the prevailing wisdom" so that where the scientists are.

And the purpose of the 4.5 billion year issue is that we could very well be in the middle of a natural cycle that we are misinterpreting to be the effects of our activities.

I agree that we shouldn't be wasting resources or doing things like burning down the rain forests. However the current "countermeasures" proposed by the "on the bandwagon" scientists are unproven and questionable. Maybe more research needs to go into how to survive the coming environment such as developing strains of food grains which can grow in less ideal climates or creating strains of plants which are more efficient at fixing carbon dioxide or more efficient at producing oxygen.

Mike

What on earth ever did happen with the "next ice age" that they were so sure was coming back in the 70's?

[Ratmagiclady]

I suspect more of the scientific community is on the fence than you think. Its simply that you can't get grants trying to counter-argue "climate change" or "warming."

The people who make billions and trillions off irresponsibility and pollution actually pay a whole lot better.

This 'grants' meme... Well. Bring on the grants. Sweetie would love to buy me a new pair of shoes once in a while.

And the purpose of the 4.5 billion year issue is that we could very well be in the middle of a natural cycle that we are misinterpreting to be the effects of our activities.

That's where people prioritizing 'blame' over the 'wise thing to do' shuts down intelligent measures before we even *get* to science education.

Saying, "It's a hot day out, not my fault, let's cut down the shade tree, ,put another log on the fire, and crank the AC.." Doesn't make sense in *any* scenario.

Maybe more research needs to go into how to survive the coming environment such as developing strains of food grains which can grow in less ideal climates or creating strains of plants which are more efficient at fixing carbon dioxide or more efficient at producing oxygen.

Mike

Speaking of RML's shoes...

Well, let's just say your idea of 'where the money is' is profoundly-misplaced.

Question. Since the bergs are mostly underwater as are the caps, and ice has less density than water would the oceans actually rise?

Question. Since the bergs are mostly underwater as are the caps, and ice has less density than water would the oceans actually rise?

Not due to icebergs melting but it will due to glaciers melting.

Not due to icebergs melting but it will due to glaciers melting.

From Wikopedia

Glaciers occur on every continent and approximately 47 countries. Extensive glaciers are found in Antarctica, Chilean Patagonia, Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Iceland. Mountain glaciers are widespread, e.g., in the Andes, the Himalaya, the Rocky Mountains, the Caucasus, and the Alps. On mainland Australia no glaciers exist today, although a small glacier on Mount Kosciuszko was present in the last glacial period, and Tasmania was extensively glaciated.[24] The South Island of New Zealand has many glaciers including Tasman, Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. In New Guinea, small, rapidly diminishing, glaciers are located on its highest summit massif of Puncak Jaya.[25] Africa has glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, on Mount Kenya and in the Ruwenzori Range.

So is this because of manmade global warming too?

[Ratmagiclady]

Not due to icebergs melting but it will due to glaciers melting.

Right. *Sea ice* is about *albedo.*

Icebergs as such are what you get when sea ice breaks up and drifts away. They're temporary phenomena.

[causey]

In some matters you'll have to rely on the authority of scientists. There are hard facts that prove the theory of relativity true, but few would understand them. BTW, what is the kind of fact that someone without adequate scientific background could accept with respect to predictions of global warming?
(Personally, I'm not fond of science--I think its metaphysical framework is part of the culture that doesn't make us wiser as individuals or generally better off as humanity. But that's another matter--and I'm not Amish either.)

When they show us *provable, consistent facts* I'll believe it.

Right now the variations could come from natural occurrences, eg sunspots, wobble, or our temp sensors now aren't as reliable as the sensors from 1000 years ago, or the sensors in the coldest spots have stopped working and have not been replaced, the formulas could have wrong data, (gee that hasn't happened now has it) or any of a 120 other things.

Right. *Sea ice* is about *albedo.*

Icebergs as such are what you get when sea ice breaks up and drifts away. They're temporary phenomena.

As is "Global Climate change"

In some matters you'll have to rely on the authority of scientists. There are hard facts that prove the theory of relativity true, but few would understand them. BTW, what is the kind of fact that someone without adequate scientific background could accept with respect to predictions of global warming?
(Personally, I'm not fond of science--I think its metaphysical framework is part of the culture that doesn't make us wiser as individuals or generally better off as humanity. But that's another matter--and I'm not Amish either.)

The scientist can't agree or rely on each other. You expect us to?

[causey]

It is a fact that 2+2=4.
It is a fact that you will understand this sentence.
It is a fact that tomorrow the sun is going to rise.

Empirical theories explain phenomena based on facts and make predictions concerning facts. Of course, a prediction can be wrong about future facts. (There are also non-empirical theories whose business is not to make predictions.)

Nothing is "a fact" until it has happened. Even the most confident scientist will not state something that he or she thinks is going to happen is "a fact." Everything in the future is "a theory" (aka "a prediction") if not an outright guess.

Mike

[Ratmagiclady]

In some matters you'll have to rely on the authority of scientists. There are hard facts that prove the theory of relativity true, but few would understand them. BTW, what is the kind of fact that someone without adequate scientific background could accept with respect to predictions of global warming?
(Personally, I'm not fond of science--I think its metaphysical framework is part of the culture that doesn't make us wiser as individuals or generally better off as humanity. But that's another matter--and I'm not Amish either.)

Well, I'm a kind-of-mystic who respects science and actually groks special relativity... and has met with some success teaching it to people who assumed they wouldn't. (The equations fell out of my head a long time ago, but what can we do. )

The problem for the 'layman' isn't so much that global climate science is that hard to *explain,* or to *evaluate,* the problem is when people try to treat it as competition with religion, ideology, or 'What we'd rather you think.'

The difficulty, like with relativistic models, isn't so much that it's *impossible to understand,* but rather that if someone wants to believe 'God doesn't throw dice,' they find it easy to claim 'common sense' means you can ignore the numbers.

You can go to the moon with Newton.

If 'The theory of Relativity' weren't a good means of measurement and prediction. tube televisions would never have worked.

[MRRiley]

In some matters you'll have to rely on the authority of scientists. There are hard facts that prove the theory of relativity true, but few would understand them. BTW, what is the kind of fact that someone without adequate scientific background could accept with respect to predictions of global warming?
(Personally, I'm not fond of science--I think its metaphysical framework is part of the culture that doesn't make us wiser as individuals or generally better off as humanity. But that's another matter--and I'm not Amish either.)

"authority of scientists"??? Scientists have no intrinsic authority.. they may have credibility or influence, but not "authority." As for "the theory of relativity" its reasonably certain that it is accurate on many scales and in practical applications (RML's television example), but even most scientists admit that since it cannot be "proven" to 100% certainty it remains "a theory." Sure there is a lot of evidence supporting it's "accuracy" but all fall short of "proofs." Same with global warming/climate change. Lots of evidence that it's happening, but no proof, much less proof that man is influencing it more than natural forces.

Mike