@uberdeity
very well put

I don't mind people going on about it in the news, it's the focus on CO2 that really pisses me off.

I've seen or heard of no evidence that even comes within spitting distance of proving that CO2 has anything to do with it. The most persuasive bit I saw suggested that an increase in CO2 was caused by increasing temperatures!
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:31, 2 replies)

If you are talking about that Channel 4 show
on a while ago, it was somewhat discredited by the fact that it was made by a bunch of climate change deniers in the pocket of the oil industry.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:32, closed)

it wasn't from that
great global warming swindle wasn't it?

that's not where I heard it. Embarrasingly I can't remember where it was though....
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:35, closed)

You're an expert on climate then?
"I've seen or heard of no evidence that even comes within spitting distance of proving that CO2 has anything to do with it."

Oh? You've reviewed ALL the evidence then? All data ever published in any academic journal on climate research? No? You have a degree in climate science, though, right? No? Then maybe you should shut up and listen to the people who know what they're talking about*...

* which does NOT include most environmentalists - but at least the sane fringes of the environmental movement are doing just that - listening to the experts.
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:37, closed)

I do read about it
I work in coastal and river engineering and climate change plays quite a part in a lot of stuff I do.

I work closely with environmental scientists and frequently read their journals.

For something that such a big fuss is made of, you would think that if someone did have some evidence they would shout it from the rooftops.

Also, a lot of predictions are based on climate models. I work with/on much simpler models on a daily basis, and there is fuck all data to calibrate and verify those, so the assumption that someone can build a global climate model that is for most purposes unverified and uncalibrated as well as making huge assumptions and not containing a large proportion of the variables involved and get meaningful and believable results from it, is laughable.

also, fuck you

also also, what does having a degree in it matter? I know a shitload more about some things that I don't have a degree in than I do about the ones I do.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:49, closed)

Not to get into a mud slinging contest
There are very large numbers of scientists doing lots of research and the majority of them have come to the conclusion that the earth is warming up due to man made effects. However, they get shouted down by a small number of more vocal scientists, a lot of whom (and i'm not saying they all do, but it's still a lot) are funded by oil companies, who have a vested interest in this not being believed by people.

Throw into the mix the fact that politicians look to capitalise on the general ignorance on the subject, and you get a confusing state.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:57, closed)

my original point
was that regardless of whether or not anthropogenic climate change is happening there is an overt focus on one particular sub-issue of a bigger picture.

We should be concentrating on making good use of our resources, alternative methods of energy generation, not being twats etc. for their own sake rather than because of a media-generated terror* of releasing CO2.

I said I haven't seen or heard any evidence of it and I think that if I and the rest of the public are to have it rammed down our throats the way it is, that the people who do have this persuasive evidence might go about releasing it in a way that reaches more than their peers.

*this may be an exaggeration

edit: a sub-point: isn't the antarctic continent cooling down?

further edit: to put what I am trying to say more clearly: over-emphasising the CO2 element is like saying "Hitler must be stopped because he kicked my cat" rather than because of the war and jew-gassing.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:01, closed)

I hate the constant use of the term "carbon"
as a lazy catch all. The way the evidence is distributed isn't down to the scientist who do teh research, it's down to the media, a media which doesn't understand the science and frequently reports things wrongly, as well as media which may well have an interest in discrediting certain fields.

It's naive to expect such a complex issue to be boiled down to a few soundbites. If you really want to have a totally informed opinion it will take a lot of legwork.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:08, closed)

kind of along the lines of my point I think
it is naive to expect the issue to be boiled down you are correct.

what I said however, was that it pissed me off, and then I vented somewhat.

then I got accused of knowing nothing about it. I suspect that the accuser is an exeter uni student however, which means they were almost certainly rejected from Oxford or Cambridge, come from Guildford, wear a "popped" collar and are called Rupert.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:11, closed)

Oh sorry
I didn't notice his comment there.

I just jumped straight into the middle of your post.

Ignore him. Sounds like a tit.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:12, closed)

that's ok
I've discussed this stuff with you before I think, and you do have some interesting stuff to say.

But I don't appreciate some tosser telling me to shut up because I don't know anything about a subject based on a (flawed) assumption.

as we know, assumption is the brother of all fuck-ups
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:18, closed)

You're slightly right.
I am an Exeter Uni student, though I'm not called Rupert, not from Guildford, don't wear collars, and never applied to Oxbridge. But fuck you for that, anyway.

And the point of the accusation of "knowing nothing about it" is that you made a blanket statement of "no evidence". There blatantly is, you may disagree with the interpretation, but there's LOADS of evidence, starting from basic physics suggesting a mechanism for an effect, to various graphs strongly suggesting a link. The details get complicated and I'll grant you a lot of the graphs that get rolled out on a popular science level of understanding are somewhat debatable or could be interpreted either way, but to say there's "NO evidence" does sound stunningly ignorant.
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:31, closed)

do you at least agree that the majority of exeter uni students are as I described?
you will find that I said I have seen or heard of no evidence that comes close to proving the CO2 link.

there is a big difference between that and saying there is no evidence.

That comes down to interpretation of what I wrote though, so I'm willing to forgive it.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:37, closed)

Hah, I try to avoid the popped-collar Ruperts.
OK, I'll grant your point was a bit more subtle. I still think we should leave the judgment of how good the evidence is to those who really know their stuff. In the same way that I'm quite happy leaving health (beyond a superficial eat-your-greens approach) to my doctor, and the car to my mechanic, and the boiler to my CORGI registered gas installer. While I focus on understanding in-depth my own research, and maybe a few things I have a private interest in.

The questioning-of-experts aspect is something that annoys (but also interests) me more than it should - the way I see it, it's quite similar to what, say, the creationists are doing. Preferably with added "the scientists lie to keep their funding" conspiracy theory...
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:59, closed)

you do have a point about leaving it to the experts
but I don't get the news or people in the street, or even some of my mates, telling me that there is something wrong with my car or my boiler!

if CO2 left me alone, then I'd leave it alone too!
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 17:06, closed)

Indeed.
Blaming climate scientists for the lack of good climate change reporting (or even calling climate change into doubt because of the shoddy reporting) strikes me as a bit backwards. Are we blaming doctors for the lack of good health reporting? Physicists for all the "Oh Noes! LHC is going to destroy the world!" bollocks? True, most of these groups probably should be trying harder, but *some* of them certainly are - Ben Goldacre in the case of medicine, Brian Cox for physics, and e.g. James Hansen and Stefan Rahmstorf for climate change. All legitimate experts in their fields that are doing a lot of public media work.

By the way Vipros, I sort of agree (or at least sympathize) with your point about CO2 being over-emphasized, at least as far as energy and transport policy goes. There are plenty of reasons to burn less coal and oil, climate change being only one of them (albeit quite an important one).
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:26, closed)

I totally agree with what you are saying here
and the media are responsible for the reporting of this stuff, and let's face it, we know they aren't that bright.

look at the people you were at school with who did media studies....

you have arrived at my original point, in at least semi-agreement, so the slandering can cease!

Intelligent debate, ACTIVATE!
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:44, closed)

I think we can leave it at that.
Pub time!
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 17:03, closed)

yeah, bit late for debate...
I've got band practice to get to....
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 17:06, closed)

I don't want to get too tangled up in this, but here goes
I agree the degree thing was a bit silly, but my point (as not-a-climate-scientist) is that it annoys the hell out of me when people go round shouting "no evidence, no evidence" and basically rubbishing the work of genuine climate scientists, who are working their arses off trying to get to the bottom of this.

A lot of the detailed predictions are based on models, which are of course problematic, but the basic physics of why CO2 affects the climate is simple enough. And you can calibrate the models - e.g. by taking the (known to pretty good precision) parameters of the atmosphere in, say, 1950, and running the model to "predict" what should be happening now. Which you can argue the models have been tweaked to do, so it doesn't prove much. More impressively, I saw a comparison between temperatures predicted by a model they ran in 1980, compared to what's actually happened since 1980. It fits surprisingly well.
Of course, as I saw it summed up elsewhere, if you don't think human-produced CO2 causes global warming, you need to explain two things: why the climate *is* warming up at the moment, and why the CO2 we're emitting isn't doing it, when basic physics says it should.

And... er, the evidence is kinda shouted from the rooftops. Most of the reporting in the popular media is appalling, as it is for pretty much all science, but that doesn't prove anything.

So, have you told your environmental scientist colleagues to their face, that you think they're wrong about the results of their work?
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:19, closed)

too trusting?
Of course these scientists have no vested in interest in proving the hypothis right (continued funding) or no chance in getting it wrong (ice age predicted in the 70s).
(imp123, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:37, closed)

Just a quick one
the vested interest will apply either way - by that argument, the (oil/coal/car/cattle/pick your preferred evil empire) industry will probably happily give you research grants if your research points the other way. And seriously, even in the mainstream, if you have solid evidence going against the accepted view, it will be noticed and become accepted eventually. And you'll probably be famous for it.

And the 'ice age predicted in the 70s' thing is a bit of a canard, there was never any sort of broad-based agreement on that as there is now on climate change, not to mention that the science has become a lot more mature since then.
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:46, closed)

you mention the physics of it
CO2 is a tiny proportion of the earth's atmosphere around 0.04% if what I have read is to be believed.

My knowledge of physics inclines me to think that it can't have that much of an effect.

and yes I have told my environmental scientist colleagues what I think.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:41, closed)

As I saw in a different forum...
... if you think .04% can't have much of an effect, try injecting yourself with a tiny drop of 0.04% solution of Oxyuranus microlepidotus venom (er, whatever that is, apparently it's not very good for you). It's not a very useful analogy really, but the point is that tiny numbers can matter. Perhaps closer to the topic, atmospheric concentrations of CFCs were probably never even close to that, but ask the Australians how their ozone layer is doing...

As Ben Goldacre likes to say, I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

So how did your colleagues respond? Not saying this to prod you further, I'm genuinely curious.
(julius, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:51, closed)

a fair point about the tiny amounts and the ozone layer comment is well made!
that is based on chemistry though, rather than physics ;-)

as for what my colleagues say, it's kind of half split between them giving me looks of horror, as if I had sprouted scaly wings and horns, and ambivalence.

I need to reiterate though that I don't disagree that climate change is happening. My quandry is with the magnitude of the effect that humans are having on it.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:56, closed)

Okay, for physics rather than chemistry,
Ozone itself is at a concentration of about 2-8 parts per million (ppm) in the ozone layer. CO2 is about 380ppm in the troposphere. That small amount of ozone blocks almost all the UV energy from the sun. Trace gases, including CO2, have an effect. Fact.
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 17:51, closed)

That's not an appropriate comparison
The venom actively attacks bits of the human body. Continuing with the "ALL CARBON IS EVIL" thing, you'd be talking about Carbon Monoxide. CO2 is relatively benign.

I think bodyfat would be a more appropriate comparison; it's non-toxic- even beneficial- in a certain level.

Increase your bodyfat by whatever proportion we're increasing CO2 in the atmosphere and it's not that impressive a growth. It'll eventually affect your other bodily systems, causing catastrophic screwups. Limiting it is probably a pretty good idea, but only to the point where that limiting isn't having serious repercussions on your financial and mental state.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Fri 20 Feb 2009, 10:05, closed)

^^
"You have a degree in climate science, though, right? No?"

I don't have a degree in medicine either, but I know if I am sick.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:55, closed)

Wait , a degree in Climate Science?
Surely that's only one step up from David Beckham studies?

"Yeah, so we think it's getting warmer, mmkay, but it's going to get colder earlier."

And at exam time
"Question one: Who's the most evil?
(1) The Oil Companies
(2) Those bastard capitalist CORPORATIONS
(3) SUV drivers"

Edit: Or it could be a real course that teaches rational thought about the environment. But that'd be more "don't interfere with nature more than is neccesary, we always screw it up" rather than "down with those rich cunts".
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:06, closed)