Post history

History for Bullion

Democalypse 2017 - The Election Thread

Back to topic

Current version

Posted July 18, 2017 04:30 · last edited July 18, 2017 04:34

sthn.jeff wrote:

Smithy wrote:

The enormous angst value of a thread like this is because most of the important issues in "the world" contain an overlay of fact and morality.

Welfare, marriage/gender equality, putting a price on water, building a rail link in Northland. These are all issues that capture debate because there is not a "right" answer independent of morality and opinion. 

I am a big fan of welfare, and I have quite a strong dislike for putting a price on water. I don't have very strong feelings about marriage or gender equality. I can trot out various pieces of fact to support my position, but there at least as good facts on the other side of the debate.

Climate change isn't like that though. Climate science is pretty settled. And scientists who argue against climate change are the climatological equivalent of anti-vaxxers. 

Climate change is a real thing. Humans causing it is a real thing too. You can argue the merits of various mitigations, and you can argue the accuracy of the models of future impacts, but the fact of climate change, global warming and human industrialisation being behind it are inarguable. There are no good facts on the other side. 

climate change is cerinly real. the level that humans are accelerating that change (which I beleive it is) is certainly not settled.  Evidence for this are the wildly inaccurate predictions that have been made. By now we were supposed to have no glaciers.

It is imo dangerous to say the science is settled. Science is rarely  ever settled.  

For the layman it's pretty much settled - like gravity.

Edit: this is a nice graphic representation on the various climate forcings: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warm...

Previous versions

1 version
Unknown editor edited July 18, 2017 04:34
sthn.jeff wrote:
Smithy wrote:

The enormous angst value of a thread like this is because most of the important issues in "the world" contain an overlay of fact and morality.

Welfare, marriage/gender equality, putting a price on water, building a rail link in Northland. These are all issues that capture debate because there is not a "right" answer independent of morality and opinion. 

I am a big fan of welfare, and I have quite a strong dislike for putting a price on water. I don't have very strong feelings about marriage or gender equality. I can trot out various pieces of fact to support my position, but there at least as good facts on the other side of the debate.

Climate change isn't like that though. Climate science is pretty settled. And scientists who argue against climate change are the climatological equivalent of anti-vaxxers. 

Climate change is a real thing. Humans causing it is a real thing too. You can argue the merits of various mitigations, and you can argue the accuracy of the models of future impacts, but the fact of climate change, global warming and human industrialisation being behind it are inarguable. There are no good facts on the other side. 

climate change is cerinly real. the level that humans are accelerating that change (which I beleive it is) is certainly not settled.  Evidence for this are the wildly inaccurate predictions that have been made. By now we were supposed to have no glaciers.

It is imo dangerous to say the science is settled. Science is rarely  ever settled.  

For the layman it's pretty much settled - like gravity.