Point 1: Yes, but what does this mean? Children have always been drowning so should we bother trying to prevent it?
Children haven't been drowning for billions of years before humans were around. The drowning of children is an entirely human-created event. It could never happen without humans. So we have a good degree of control over it. It has been shown that trying to prevent children from drowning does result in children being saved from drowning. If someone sees a child in danger of drowning in a pool, and jumps in to save the child then it is almost certain that the rescue would succeed. Similarly, enclosing a pool with a safety fence is almost certain to prevent most young children from accessing the pool. On the other hand, attempting to prevent the climate from changing is almost certain to fail.
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Point 2: Yes, undoubtedly. This point can also be used as a case for action - we have seen the huge changes, and undesirable climates that are possible. What was the temperature last time CO2 was 400ppm?
Climate change may make some parts of the world more desirable while making others less desirable. Humans can adapt to a wide range of climates.
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Point 3: True, do we fully understand anything before we manipulate or take advantage of it? Do you understand how GPS works? Do you understand the chemistry inside your car engine? Do you know how microwaves work? Do scientists understand gravity?
Yes, scientists understand all of those things better than they understand climate change. Theories based on those things have all been tested, and can be tested quickly and easily, and in isolation. But because climate change is much more complex and happens very slowly, it's impossible to test or measure anthropogenic influences on the climate in isolation from other natural influences.
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Point 4: True, but good statistical analysis can help here. Point 5: See point 4.
We will never have granular information on what the climate did in the past. We will never know what happened to temperatures, sea levels, CO2 levels between 200,000 BC and 199,950 BC for example.
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Point 6: If you have a stable river flow, then widen and dredge the river mouth a little bit then upriver there is 10% less water, how much is this the fault of widening the river? Do you continue to widen the river and blame the variable rainfall?
If the river flow was always stable in the past, regardless of variable rainfall, then it is highly likely the reduction in water is a result of the widening and dredging.
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Point 8: We should do both because we will need to. Putting efforts into both horizon 1 and 2 projects is required. Horizon 1 projects of adaption will provide immediate results by reducing the effects (they will need to be done anyway), Horizon 2 projects of prevention of further damage.
There is only a certain amount of money/resources available to tackle the problem, so we need to decide whether to focus on adaption to change, or prevention of change.
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Point 7 is undoubtedly correct if taken at face value. All it really states is we cannot force the climate to remain static - there no doubt that this is true. However humans can change the rate and direction of climate change over longer periods of time.
We may be able to change it but I don't think we can control the changes. It is like driving a car blindfold... you might be able to make the car move, but since you don't know what speed you're going at, or what direction you're moving in, or what direction the other cars on the road are moving in, you could cause huge damage in the process. We don't really know what direction or at what speed climate change is moving, and we don't fully understand what other drivers are causing it. Since we don't understand what's going on, we should just accept that the climate will change and adapt to those changes in order to protect ourselves.
Would the Catweasel like the existence of a God? Yes it the surely a would. It a relish to be able to leave its mortal fur and frolic in fluffy clouds and eat juicy melons bigger than its paws.
Its comments about contradict belief is area of deep fascinate. But it a think that belief structures often dominate more by Herald Sun and socialization than empiricism and a so-the-called logic. And mouzealot exhibit that the belief conundrum perfectly.
But whatever the hurdles and puzzles of a knowledge theory throws at a forum, most is at very the fundamental level, yet even supposedly potent mouzealots collapse in heap.
There you go Shadow. Catweasel doesn't believe in God.
Shadow
1 Nov 2012, 12:56 PM
Children haven't been drowning for billions of years before humans were around. The drowning of children is an entirely human-created event. It could never happen without humans. So we have a good degree of control over it. It has been shown that trying to prevent children from drowning does result in children being saved from drowning. If someone sees a child in danger of drowning in a pool, and jumps in to save the child then it is almost certain that the rescue would succeed. Similarly, enclosing a pool with a safety fence is almost certain to prevent most young children from accessing the pool. On the other hand, attempting to prevent the climate from changing is almost certain to fail.
Climate change may make some parts of the world more desirable while making others less desirable. Humans can adapt to a wide range of climates.
Yes, scientists understand all of those things better than they understand climate change. Theories based on those things have all been tested, and can be tested quickly and easily, and in isolation. But because climate change is much more complex and happens very slowly, it's impossible to test or measure anthropogenic influences on the climate in isolation from other natural influences.
We will never have granular information on what the climate did in the past. We will never know what happened to temperatures, sea levels, CO2 levels between 200,000 BC and 199,950 BC for example.
If the river flow was always stable in the past, regardless of variable rainfall, then it is highly likely the reduction in water is a result of the widening and dredging.
There is only a certain amount of money/resources available to tackle the problem, so we need to decide whether to focus on adaption to change, or prevention of change.
We may be able to change it but I don't think we can control the changes. It is like driving a car blindfold... you might be able to make the car move, but since you don't know what speed you're going at, or what direction you're moving in, or what direction the other cars on the road are moving in, you could cause huge damage in the process. We don't really know what direction or at what speed climate change is moving, and we don't fully understand what other drivers are causing it. Since we don't understand what's going on, we should just accept that the climate will change and adapt to those changes in order to protect ourselves.
1 - So you agree with my hypothesis. Although you tried to avoid it with deconstructionism I will assume you are smart enough to realise this or we might as well close the thread now (heck - I know you don't know what you were doing, that is obvious, but I'd like to continue for now).
2 - Yes, what is the economics cost of this? See Stern Report and for recent emotional anecdotal evidence see Frankenstorm and look at the damage bill. Extrapolate and compare to the cost of reducing CO2 emissions.
3 - Untrue, almost nothing is known about how gravity works. You have no idea how GPS works, or microwaves - yet you believe the experts, is this faith? On the point of not being able to test global warming theories - yes that is true, so does that mean it can't be happening?
4 - No, we won't. What is your point here ? What happened to the 3,066,097,565 water molecule in your porridge that you microwaved, did it get directly stretched by a microwave or was it heated via convection, or did it have a lower energy than those around it? You will never know what happened to it. It's a long time in the past, it's not coming back to haunt us.
6 - Was it stable? Define stable? Surely it must have varied somewhat, was anyone recording it accurately? What was the level like in 200,000 BC and 199,950 BC for example?
7 - So we should not try and manipulate the climate, because we are doing it blind? Then we'd better stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere then, huh?
8 - This is a very contentious issue. You are correct, more research is needed here. What if the cost of adaption was higher than the cost of prevention? This becomes a meeting of science and economics, the Stern review is a good start but it's a bit old. You will find further reading on the wiki page. You can then relfexively disagree with the reports that state that prevention is better than adaption and start a new thread. I will see you there in a few weeks.
So it appears from the points above you believe human induce climate change is possible, but it's not certain, however we need to do more research into both adaption and prevention. Wow, you are quite close to me.
I don't think so. You seemed to be making an analogy between doing something that we know usually works and that is entirely anthropogenic (saving kids from drowning), and doing something that is very likely to fail and not entirely anthropogenic (trying to prevent the climate from changing).
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2 - Yes, what is the economics cost of this?
Since we don't know in advance how the climate is going to change, we can't calculate the cost of any change in advance.
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3 - Untrue, almost nothing is known about how gravity works
I can drop a stone and it will fall. I can see gravity working. I can perform a test and see the results. There is no test to determine what impact humans have on the climate.
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You have no idea how GPS works, or microwaves - yet you believe the experts, is this faith?
I believe the results that I can see. I put food in the microwave and it gets cooked.
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On the point of not being able to test global warming theories - yes that is true, so does that mean it can't be happening?
No, it means that we don't know whether or not it is happening, or the extent to which it may be happening. On the other hand, if I drop a stone I can see the extent to which gravity acts on the stone, watch it falling to the ground, measure the speed at which it falls, measure the force of the impact, measure the weight of the stone etc. I can also tell if I influence the fall of the stone, for example if I catch it before it hits the ground, or whack it with a baseball bat, my human influence of the path of the stone can be observed. But it is impossible to observe or measure human influence on the climate.
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4 - No, we won't. What is your point here ?
My point is that without knowing what happened to the climate in the past, we can't tell whether recent changes are unusual, or just a normal part of natural cycles.
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6 - Was it stable? Define stable?
You said the river flow was stable, what did you mean?
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7 - So we should not try and manipulate the climate, because we are doing it blind? Then we'd better stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere then, huh?
We should try to reduce pollution in order to improve air and water quality. We can measure those things, and our impact on them, relatively easily. But yes, we should not try to manipulate the climate itself.
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8 - What if the cost of adaption was higher than the cost of prevention?
The cost of prevention is infinite, and wasteful, because we can't prevent climate change.
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So it appears from the points above you believe human induce climate change is possible, but it's not certain, however we need to do more research into both adaption and prevention. Wow, you are quite close to me.
Yeah. The Chinese hate the US Embassy's twitter feed, but they can't do anything about it. The US embassy is American soil.
You can bleat all you like about propaganda, though. Those photos were fog. Wrong colour for air pollution. And air pollution alone never drops the visibility below about 3-5km. Thank goodness for that, because everybody would be dead if it did.
No idea if it is foggy or not today because I am not there. The US embassy tells me particulates are pretty bad at 170 though. Over winter they got over 400 a couple of times which is truly horrendous. you could still see buildings 3-4km away, though.
Sydney occasionally gets up around the 100 mark.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
Is this the Ayn Rand who believed in the supremacy of the individual, just as long as you belonged to the White collective?
Rather than inject irrelevant ad hominem into the argument, why didn't you just have a shot at Ayn Rand's logic? It's pretty terrible.
Ayn Rand starts off postulating that it is impossible to prove the existence of God. Fair enough nobody dissents at that stage.
Then the interviewer puts it to her that she also cannot prove that there is no God, to which she replies that she "is not required to prove a negative."
This is totally specious, because the postulation "There is No God" is definitely a positive statement, just as the postulation "There Is a God" is a positive statement. She's full of shit.
David Hume may be the greatest atheist of them all (in fact he never declared himself to be an atheist, deist, or a theist, but he did refuse to recant his supposed atheism on his deathbed), but according to his biography by Roderick Graham, when Hume went to Paris and had lots of dinners with the Philosophes, they all said 'we are atheists' and he said he'd never encountered such firm faith in all his life. He thought it took a position of faith to call yourself an atheist.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
This is totally specious, because the postulation "There is No God" is definitely a positive statement, just as the postulation "There Is a God" is a positive statement.
Yes, in truth I'm probably more on the atheist side of agnostic, rather than total atheist. I can't prove there aren't 'gods' in the traditional sense, but I think it's highly unlikely. On the other hand, I can't prove the existence of aliens either, but I do think it's highly likely that they do exist. Advanced aliens may be indistinguishable from 'gods' to less advanced cultures, so I'll keep an open mind about the existence of alien 'gods'.
( this should get Catweasel into a right flummox )
There's no problem there. Science and Religion may be opposites, but Atheism itself is not a science. Yes, you can have an Atheist religion.
Basically religion is Mysticism and there is no requirement for a personal god in religion.
Yes I agree you can have an Atheist religion.
No I disagree that Science and Religion being opposites. They are orthogonal and attempt to answer different questions. It can be perfectly consistent to be a physicist and a deist at the same time. In fact you could probably even be a physicist and a theist at the same time without being inconsistent, although that would be harder.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
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