Scientific Literacy vs. Concern Over Climate Change 545
New submitter gmfeier writes "An interesting study reported in Nature Climate Change indicates that concern over climate change did not correlate with scientific literacy nearly as much as with cultural polarization. Quoting: 'For ordinary citizens, the reward for acquiring greater scientific knowledge and more reliable technical-reasoning capacities is a greater facility to discover and use—or explain away—evidence relating to their groups’ positions. Even if cultural cognition serves the personal interests of individuals, this form of reasoning can have a highly negative impact on collective decision making. What guides individual risk perception, on this account, is not the truth of those beliefs but rather their congruence with individuals’ cultural commitments. As a result, if beliefs about a societal risk such as climate change come to bear meanings congenial to some cultural outlooks but hostile to others, individuals motivated to adopt culturally congruent risk perceptions will fail to converge, or at least fail to converge as rapidly as they should, on scientific information essential to their common interests in health and prosperity. Although it is effectively costless for any individual to form a perception of climate-change risk that is wrong but culturally congenial, it is very harmful to collective welfare for individuals in aggregate to form beliefs this way.'"
An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty well educated, and all that jargon gave even me a fucking headache. Here is a much better summary, FTFA:
A US government-funded survey has found that Americans with higher levels of scientific and mathematical knowledge are more sceptical regarding the dangers of climate change than their more poorly educated fellow citizens. . . .
According to the [authors], this is not because the idea of imminent carbon-driven catastrophe is perhaps a bit scientifically suspect. Rather it is because people classed as "egalitarian communitarians" (roughly speaking, left-wingers) are always highly concerned about climate change, and become slightly more so as they acquire more science and numeracy. Unfortunately, however, "hierarchical individualists" (basically, right-wingers) are quite concerned about climate change when they're ignorant: but if they have any scientific, mathematic or technical education this causes them to become strongly sceptical.
And here's a news-flash for whoever wrote that summary: Terms like "Culturally congruent risk perception" have no obvious meaning for the general reader. Field-specific jargon is just annoying to everyone who doesn't happen to be in your field (i.e., almost everyone else on the planet).
And could you say "culturally" a few more dozen times in your next summary? It really makes you sound smart, and not full of shit at all.
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the translation: "People are more apt to be influenced by their peers than by science". This is not new; it has been known for decades. The best way to influence someone is to use those around them. This is why you see change.org petitions. The petitions themselves are crap, but if five of your friends send you a petition, you are more likely to think about the subject the same way as your friends.
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the translation of the TFA (as opposed to the bizzarro summary) is that climate models are very difficult to parse and so it's easier to talk about pretty much anything else. Even the culturally congruent lefties don't use modeling much.
Doesn't surprise me. I'm a biologist by training, grew up in the era of quantitative biology and still find the reporting on the models pretty much useless. I don't really have a good feel for exactly how good the models are, how fast they change, what their strong points are, what their weak points are.
I could spend the time to read the literature, except that I really can't. That would involve hundreds of hours of skull sweat that frankly I don't have even if I do have the background to assimilate it. And most people don't have that background.
So, for the vast majority of humans, it does boil down to a leap of faith. I have more faith in dedicated scientists from multiple disciplines and localities working with inadequate, but nonetheless rather powerful, tools and concepts than in governmental / religious / financial institutions with a really narrow financial / social viewpoint.
But that's just me.
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't read too much into this study.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nclimate1547-s1.pdf [nature.com]
EARTHOT
The center of the Earth is very hot [true/false]. 86%
HUMANRADIO
All radioactivity is man-made [true/false]. 84%
LASERS
Lasers work by focusing sound waves [true/false]. 68%
ELECATOM
Electrons are smaller than atoms [true/false]. 62%
COPERNICUS1
Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth? 72%
COPERNICUS2
How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun? [one day, one month, one year] 45%
DADGENDER
It is the father's gene that decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl [true/false]. 69%
ANTIBIOTICS
Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria [true/false]. 68%
None of these should be difficult if you've gotten through the first year of highschool
Re: (Score:3)
The math questions
EVENROLL. .0005. Out of 10,000 people, about how many of them are expected to get infected? 48%
Imagine that we roll a fair, six-sided die 1,000 times. (That would mean that we roll one die from a pair of dice.) Out of 1,000 rolls, how many times do you think the die would come up as an even number? 58%
PCTTOFREQUENCY1.
In the BIG BUCKS LOTTERY, the chances of winning a $10.00 prize are 1%. What is your best guess about how many people would win a $10.00 prize if 1,000 people each buy a single ticket from BIG BUCKS? 60%
FREQUENCYTOPCT1.
In the ACME PUBLISHING SWEEPSTAKES, the chance of winning a car is 1 in 1,000. What percent of tickets of ACME PUBLISHING SWEEPSTAKES win a car? 28%
COMPFREQUENCY.
Which of the following numbers represents the biggest risk of getting a disease? 86%
COMPPCT.
Which of the following numbers represents the biggest risk of getting a disease? 88%
DOUBLEPCT.
If Person A's risk of getting a disease is 1% in ten years, and Person B's risk is double that of A's, what is B's risk? 64%
DOUBLEFREQUENCY.
If Person A's chance of getting a disease is 1 in 100 in ten years, and person B's risk is double that of A, what is B's risk? 21%
PCTTOFREQUENCY2.
If the chance of getting a disease is 10%, how many people would be expected to get the disease:
A: Out of 100? 84%
B: Out of 1000? 81%
FREQUENCYTOPCT2.
If the chance of getting a disease is 20 out of 100, this would be the same as having a __% chance of getting the disease. 72%
VIRAL.
The chance of getting a viral infection is
BAYESIAN.
Suppose you have a close friend who has a lump in her breast and must have a mammogram. Of 100 women like her, 10 of them actually have a malignant tumor and 90 of them do not. Of the 10 women who actually have a tumor, the mammogram indicates correctly that 9 of them have a tumor and indicates incorrectly that 1 of them does not have a tumor. Of the 90 women who do not have a tumor, the mammogram indicates correctly that 81 of them do not have a tumor and indicates incorrectly that 9 of them do have a tumor. The table below summarizes all of this information. Imagine that your friend tests positive (as if she had a tumor), what is the likelihood that she actually has a tumor? 3%
SHANE1.
A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? 12%
SHANE2.
In a lake, there is a patch of lilypads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? 27%
The pdf didn't give complete information for a few of the questions.
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets be fair - computing a Bayesian is not exactly easy or intuitive.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:4, Informative)
Here are a couple of FAQ's on the big General Circulation Models (aka Global Climate Models) from the guys who actually write them. They should give you a good idea about what they are all about.
FAQ on Climate Models [realclimate.org]
FAQ on Climate Models, Part II [realclimate.org]
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I once had an argument with a friend, he insisted to me that using a broken ruler was foolish. The ruler was broken and bent, how could anyone possible get an accurate measure from it? He insisted that would be able to guesstimate the size and be much more accurate. After arguing a bit over whether that made any sense, we decided to test his hypothesis. So he guessed and I measured, then we got a tape measure and measured it accurately. I was off by 2cm and he was off by almost 30 cm. The lesson to le
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Modeling isn't a instrument, its closer to guessing.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful. -- George E. P. Box [wikiquote.org]
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. It's so just guessing.
I've got a climate model - that the temperatures are higher in the summer than in the winter.
It's complete bunkum. Boy do I wonder why people think the summer should be warm and the winter cold. Obviously you get a far better fit to the results if you just toss a coin to decide whether the winter or summer was warmer in any one year.
There is empirical modelling and physical modelling. Empirical modelling is the curve fitting you allude to and, in certain circumstances can point to underlying physical processes that aren't yet understood - e.g. the Balmer formula in 1885.
Physical modelling is building a model from underlying physical properties and then seeing how closely it fits the actual data. Climate modelling is almost exclusively physical modelling.
In fact AGW in particular was predicted around 150 years ago based on the measuring of the physical properties of IR absorption of CO2 long before there was any signal available to be measured. Most climate models predicting warming *cannot* be empirical models because the models existed before the data.
But I can be very confident that noon will be warmer than midnight. Given enough historical data I can even work out how likely it is that on any given day midnight will be warmer than midday. If I start seeing far too many instances where it isn't the case then I can have a high confidence that something has changed since my historical data was compiled.
Tim.
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It is very important to understand is that climate models don't make predictions, they make projections. The difference is that projections are based on "If A happens then B will be the result" whereas predictions are "B will happen". Most of the inaccuracies come from incomplete matches between A and actual events. For instance, climate models don't account for economic factors so they can't predict events that have had serious implications for the short-term amount of CO2 emissions (such as the collaps
Re: (Score:3)
Just for you the following link compares actual data up to the end of 2011 to climate model projections:
Model/data comparisons [realclimate.org]
Did you even bother to read the FAQ's I linked or did you just base you statement on your "superior knowledge"?
Re: (Score:3)
There is a very simple time-saving metric which allows you do discover whether someone knows what they are talking about, or are living in fantasy-land making stuff up.
If discussing CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) there is a superior metric for this.
Simply ask the climate alarmist you're talking to if he or she supports vastly increased nuclear power generation, along with a reduction in fossil fuel power generation. If not, it's "fantasy-land" time.
Either the problem is severe enough to warrant the only workable solution, or it's not a real concern. Simple enough.
Probably wrong argument anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always felt the argument to curb greenhouse gases has been ill-stated. While there are some who still deny global warming is happening, the primary debate between the left and right seems to distill down to whether it is man-made (left) or cyclical (right).
It seems to me the better argument from the left would be: is polluting the air good for you or not? The answer is obviously, no, it's not good for you. So regardless of whether it causes global warming, we should always be striving for less pollutants and cleaner air in much the same way we strive for safer cars. I suppose the global warming aspect helps push the immediacy of the need for change vs. the cost of that change, but so much time, effort, and money has been wasted on both sides arguing the merits of man-made global warming, I wonder if this was the most effective road to go down.
No one is ever going to say how much it would suck if the air near factories or major metropolitan areas smelled as clean and fresh as the air in rural Vermont.
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"is polluting the air good for you or not? The answer is obviously, no,"
Open a biology text book once in a while, you'll find that CO2 is not a pollutant, it is an essential nutrient for plant life.
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Open a biology text book once in a while, you'll find that CO2 is not a pollutant, it is an essential nutrient for plant life.
By that logic, oxygen isn't a pollutant either. So, maybe you should breathe 100% oxygen for the rest of your life.
Re:Probably wrong argument anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Or put those claiming it isn't a pollutant in a 10% CO2 atmosphere for 1/2 hour."
In order to increase O2 concentration by the same amount, you would have to have an atmosphere that was many, many times greater than 100% oxygen.
And 100% oxygen will kill you pretty damned quick, too. So your argument is nonsense.
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I'll posit this - either both CO2 and O2 are pollutants because they are excrement of life (either plant based or animal based), or *neither* CO2 or O2 are pollutants because they are the engines of life (either plant based or animal based). Making the case that one is a pollutant, while the other is not, is difficult.
It's not difficult at all, really. The CO2 released by animals and consumed by plants is just a metabolic fact of life. The CO2 released by massive coal-burning power plants and fossil-fuele
Re:Probably wrong argument anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Open a biology text book once in a while, you'll find that CO2 is not a pollutant, it is an essential nutrient for plant life.
I cannot believe how pathetic this argument is. Can you have too much of a good thing? Let's see:
This is kindergarten stuff.
Re:Pollution not a valid argument for the left (Score:5, Insightful)
CO2 absolutely IS "pollution", in a sense: our atmosphere is supposed to be a balance of various gases: O2, CO2, N2, and some other trace gases. The ratios of those gases is important for life and for maintaining our ecosystem. More CO2 means hotter temperatures due to the greenhouse effect, just like too little O2 means we have trouble breathing. So while CO2 isn't a "toxin" as long as the air you're breathing has the right amount of O2, too much of it causes problems. The question is: how much is too much?
The thing that's really annoying, however, about some of the environmentalists, is their cries for power plants to emit less CO2. I got a petition just like this a couple days ago. Do these people not understand basic chemistry? While too much CO2 is obviously a bad thing, they're talking like you just need to add some "scrubbers" to a power plant and they'll take out the CO2!! Did these people never take a chemistry class in college, or know anything at all about combustion? You can't reduce CO2 output without basically shutting the plant down, and no one is going to accept shutting down all the power plants, or reducing their output and having to put up with rolling blackouts. More nuclear power, however, would allow us to use less fossil-fuel-generated power, but these same people are all against nuclear power too (there's a Slashdot stories a couple stories down from this one today about this).
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In that case are you also willing to admit that oxygen and nitrogen are also pollutants? I don't think most 'deniers' are claiming that the greenhouse effect doesn't exist or that enough CO2 will not create it. If you could show that we had increased CO2 to say 5% of the atmosphere I would find AGW to be a lot more plausible. The part about going from TRACE_AMOUNT to 2x TRACE_AMOUNT is just not all that persuasive of an argument that we are about to become Venus. The less than 1 degree increase over more th
Re:Pollution not a valid argument for the left (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, here it is. In and around 1800, CO2 was about 0.028% of the Earth's atmosphere. It is currently around 0.0395%. This data comes from the ice core from Law Dome, Antarctica and current observation.
Have you ever played with a scale? The old-timey ones with the scale on one side and the counter-weights on the other? It doesn't take much to cause a huge imbalance, and if you are going to argue that the world is a little more robust than that, I would refer you to the 150 acres per minute of rainforest lost, the 30 mile per year that the Sahara desert's border is moving south, and the more than 700 documented animals that humanity has caused to go extinct (since the 1600s). CO2 is one facet in a larger, we-are-changing-the-whole-of-the-earth problem.
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150 acres per minute = 78,624,000 in a year
The Amazon Rainforest covers over a billion acres
1 billion/78,624,000.00 = approximately 12 years.
Considering they have been logging at this rate for several decades, I'd say your hyperbole factor is running quite high.
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He didn't limit that to just the Amazon.
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Because there aren't any rainforests outside the Amazon, right?
Re:Pollution not a valid argument for the left (Score:4, Informative)
See that's the problem of if I can't see it, its not happening. Or worse, if I don't understand it, its not a problem. There are a million things that depend on precise balance and happen in infinitesimal quantities. NO2 happens in the junctions of your synapses in mind numbingly small quantities and lasts as NO2 for only nanoseconds. However, without that happening you cease to function. 1 pound of botulina toxic properly distributed is enough to kill the entire human population several times. You haven't the foggiest clue which species or processes are critical to the continued function of our ecosphere, how can you begin to measure what is or isn't significant without understanding that living things have indirect and profound impacts and implications.
Our planet functions on virtually countless feedback cycles, so when something over here shifts another system over there picks up the slack and tends to recenter the system. Increase the heat, more clouds and earth reflects more sunlight. Up to a point. Once you exceed the normal capacity for the "Global System" to absorb more energy/ CO2/ heavy metals/ plastic... whatever, then old systems breakdown and subtle but significant shifts begin to make themselves evident as fundamental perturbations in the existing system.
The change in carbonate vs carbonic acid in the ocean is telling (and making life for carbonaceous shelled sea life growingly more difficult.) The loss of glaciers and polar marine ice while possibly enhancing navigation, is already having significant impact both in rising sea levels and changes in ocean salinity. In fact a recent report suggests that as much as 40% of the increased sea level and reduced salinity is directly attributable to human enterprises over the last 2 centuries.
CO2 is in fact toxic, but not in the quantities one is likely to see on an earth that isn't in catastrophic environmental meltdown. I don't see such a meltdown happening in my lifetime of that of my grand children's. However there is a potential avalanche of greenhouse gases soon coming where the warming caused by CO2 triggers a sudden explosion of methane from decaying permafrost in the high latitudes and potential release of massive methane ice seeps in the ocean. Its all tied together. Its a little like someone saying I need some wire while driving a truck, and having your passenger go under the dashboard and cut you some. You might get away with that for a little while, but sooner or later something really nasty will happen. Why would anyone, keep cutting. Its silly. There's no need. The only folks who would truly suffer are the incredibly rich executives at companies that sell us our fossil fuel fix (and by the way the warnings of jobs are coming from the folks who I would suggest are far more worried about their golden parachutes and fat campaign contributions.) Let's simply make the move to saner energy sources, by all means nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, add OTECs, Tidal hydro generation, new hydrogen technologies. Nobody can tell me that it would be more difficult to build a sustainable energy economy than to send a man to the moon 1960. We actually have sufficient technology to resolve our own problem today, all we lack is the leadership and will to implement it.
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The biggest problem with the AGW crowd is their continued insistence that the west reduce their CO2 emissions as if everyone else will simply follow suit. This is of course absurd on the face of it. More importantly according to their own models, even if ALL CO2 emissions stopped the warming would continue for at least another 3/4 of a century and would not reverse on its own. You would think that they would be screaming for massive amounts of research primarily into carbon sequestration first as well as nu
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What's the "problem"? We are a successful species and we have been changing the environment for many thousands of years. Of course, sometimes we screw up, but "changing-the-whole-of-the-earth" is not by itself a problem. And if you think that only started in the 1600's, you're naive. Even in 1600, there were almost no "natural" ecosystems left on any continent that had humans on it.
Re:Pollution not a valid argument for the left (Score:5, Informative)
If I may be permitted to make an analogy:
There's a certain chemical, (6aR,9R)- N,N- diethyl- 7-methyl- 4,6,6a,7,8,9- hexahydroindolo- [4,3-fg] quinoline- 9-carboxamide [wikipedia.org], which some claim produces hallucinations and other related physical and psychological effects in large mammals.
Others claim that the amount of this toxin ingested - a few micrograms - is insufficient to make any difference to such large mammals that usually weigh upto 100 kilos and beyond.
Think of EVERY SINGLE medicine or drug in the world! Your dosage is usually in exactly the same ratio to your body mass as CO2 in the atmosphere - that is to say, it's in parts per million. Yet, they produce powerful, often fast-acting effects in the body.
The climate system is similarly complex. A "small" change in one of its components can produce powerful, fast-acting feedbacks. I think that should be fairly obvious!
The point is that a change in composition of 0.01% is actually quite high for CO2. What you should be looking at is the amount of forcing it introduces into the system per unit of change, not how big or small the change is. Take a look here [pik-potsdam.de]. Your intuition is irrelevant. Model and actual results matter.
What is obvious is what has happened (Score:3)
The point is that a change in composition of 0.01% is actually quite high for CO2
it is "obviously" not as the supposed "huge increase" in CO2 levels has led to very little actual warming for the climate overall.
The fears of some kind of runaway reaction have been totally debunked.
As for the climate getting slowly warmer, as a species we would be very lucky if that is actually the case - but it's too soon to tell, people are trying to use year to year swings to guess what the climate will be like 100 years h
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I am not disputing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I am disputing that there is evidence that an increase of 0.01% has a noticeable effect on the temperature of the planet's atmosphere. In theory it should make a very slight difference, but the evidence that it actually has is pretty shaky. There is also no direct evidence that the entire 0.01% increase has been caused by humanity's use of combustion. No doubt combustion adds some amount of CO2 to the atmosphere, but determining the amount even to within an o
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The part about going from TRACE_AMOUNT to 2x TRACE_AMOUNT is just not all that persuasive of an argument that we are about to become Venus.
Well, a TRACE_AMOUNT of botox [wikipedia.org] is cosmetic, but 2x TRACE_AMOUNT is lethal. I mean, who would have thought!
The point about Venus is crass. The earth's climate is different. CO2 has historically been a feedback (that produces more feedbacks), and now it is a forcing that produces the same feedbacks. The question of climate sensitivity to CO2 is an empirical one. I will take real journal publications (some of which I have read) over your gut-reaction ALL-CAPS reasoning.
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On a per molecule basis there isn't much CO2 in our atmosphere compared to everything else. But the primary components of our atmosphere, Nitrogen and Oxygen, are not greenhouse gases. The second most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is CO2. CO2 is directly responsible for 25% of the greenhouse effect and the CO2's contribution to warming also indirectly a
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Reducing CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)
You are discussing the costs of reducing CO2 emissions, and you're right, the costs are potentially very high.
The only way it makes sense to make a major societal commitment like cutting CO2 emissions is through a cost-benefit analysis. In the interest of disclosure I am one of the tree-huggers who thinks CO2 emissions are a clear and urgent problem. I think you and I can none the less agree that a cost-benefit analysis is the rational way to make a decision on whether to shut down power plants (and switch to windmills or nuclear plants) or not.
Unfortunately we're at a stage in the debate where people who should know better are still claiming that the cost of the other side's recommended approach is infinite. That's disingenuous and no way to make policy decisions.
So yes, shutting down fossil-fueled power plants would be costly. It may none the less be worth doing. Likewise, doing nothing will anger tree-huggers like myself and undoubtedly will have certain costs (disruption of agriculture, rising sea level, mass extinction of wildlife) but it may be the economically rational choice.
I'd like to see more talk about costs and benefits and less talk to the effect, "I dislike the implications of what you're recommending therefore your analysis is wrong."
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The first sentence above is the best comment I've read. It is essentially the only fully rational viewpoint I've seen, because all the other viewpoints have been variations on assuming their conclusion. ("...our atmosphere is supposed to be ...") In the interest of disclosure I am one of the conservative skeptics who believes that AGW hysteria derives from the the same psychological dynamics as past hysterias about avian flu or swine flu or the world ending in the year 1000. This is not the same as saying t
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Clearly you understand neither carbon nor ocean salinity. Human beings have in fact decreased the overall salinity of the ocean and raised the sea level as well as dramatically increased the CO2 levels in the ocean as carbonic acid. We can measure those things. CO2 occurs naturally in the atmosphere. If by human enterprise and the act of burning materials with carbon in them, you dramatically increase the CO2 in the atmosphere, you have polluted the atmosphere by definition. When human activities produce by
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Salt in the sea is pollution of the worlds oceans.
If you increased the salt concentration in the sea, you will kill everything. The question is how much. That is an empirical question, and has nothing to do with politics.
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Joking aside, too much of anything in the environment is pollution. Increasing the water content in, say, a brackish water swamp or backwater would make difficult conditions for certain life-forms that require a particular salinity to survive. Stuff like shellfish, certain fish, etc. which are eaten by birds. If the salinity is too high, the eggs don't hatch, and the birds are left without food. Ecosystem collapse due to DHMO pollution!
Re:Pollution not a valid argument for the left (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason being, CO2 is NOT POLLUTION.
Our metabolism produces CO2 as a waste product which we expel from our bodies. Same thing with urine. And while you can drink a little bit of urine and be fine (just look at Bear Grylls), and you can breath a little CO2 and be fine, it's clearly crazy to say that emitting CO2 into the atmosphere is not pollution. What if I peed in a drinking water cistern that feeds your neighborhood? It's only a little, it won't hurt you, therefore it's not pollution. According to you.
Re:Pollution not a valid argument for the left (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because 'all or nothing' is a totally valid world view and a good response to a 'everything in moderation' post. You are a true idiot.
Re:Pollution not a valid argument for the left (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Probably wrong argument anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, what? That's simply not true. We are the #2 producer of CO2 in the world. We produce more than twice as much CO2 as the #2 country.
And what's more, it's US demand for goods produced in China that drives a lot of their CO2 production (China is the #1 CO2 producer). If you wiped the US off the face of the Earth, that demand would evaporate, just like a good portion of China's emissions.
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what this says at all. Really this has very little to do with influence and everything to do with perspective and values. Basically the results were:
Both populations are concerned when ignorant (leftists somewhat more so), but when more knowledge is obtained the leftists become slightly more concerned, while the rightists become significantly less so.
So unless you're arguing that somehow acquiring more knowledge also acquires and different social influence with an effect larger than that of the knowledge, and one that varies with the individual's left/right perspective, your hypothesis is not only baseless, but actually _debunked_ by this data. Between the left/right groups we see _opposite_ effects for the addition of knowledge: concern increases with knowledge for the leftists and decreases for the rightists. Now, certainly you can make the argument that (as this study seems to be a simple correlation poll, rather than educating the ignorant and measuring change) social influence changes with knowledge. Still, it's a strong stretch to claim that that effect can account this disparity.
What the results actually show is that right wing people and left wing people have different values. When they're ignorant of the facts, all they can go on is the mass media messages of "Oh noes, GW will ${bad things}", and having no real data simply default to "${bad things} = bad so GW is bad" logic. When educated as to the actually process, the risks and costs involved, they can actually evaluate the concerns of global warming against their own values. Given the general psychology of lefts/rights, I find this data entirely unsurprising (with the slight exception of the ignorant rights being "quite concerned" when I'd have expected "somewhat" or "rather").
One other thing that one could take away from this (and perhaps should, and it's the real value here), is that the hype/emergency surrounding global warming isn't _science_ but rather _opinion_. Yes, the data is the data, and there is warming. But the costs? The sacrifices that should be made to prevent it? Opinion. And that people should stop pushing the 'OMG GW' / 'OMG denier' and instead have rational conversations about the real risks and the real costs and what action is actually reasonable.
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Insightful)
On that final point I will add the following quote from the paper (via the article):
One aim of science communication, we submit, should be to dispel this tragedy ... A communication strategy that focuses only on transmission of sound scientific information, our results suggest, is unlikely to do that. As worthwhile as it would be, simply improving the clarity of scientific information will not dispel public conflict ...
This is just amazing to me. They are literally saying that educating people about global warming will increase their skepticism, and therefore actually transmitting sound scientific information would be bad. So simply conveying accurate information and allowing people to reach their own conclusions would be bad because those aren't the conclusions you want them to draw. So you reevaluate the merits of your own conclusions, right?
Nope!
It does not follow, however, that nothing can be done ... Effective strategies include use of culturally diverse communicators, whose affinity with different communities enhances their credibility, and information-framing techniques that invest policy solutions with resonances congenial to diverse groups. Perfecting such techniques through a new science of science communication is a public good of singular importance.
That's right, kids. Just communicating facts won't work, instead we need to use "information-framing techniques" delivered by "communicators" specifically chosen to "enhance their credibility" in order to convey these 'facts'. This will be a new science. And we shall call it...
Propaganda.
I disagree with you (Score:3)
This is just amazing to me. They are literally saying that educating people about global warming will increase their skepticism, and therefore actually transmitting sound scientific information would be bad.
That's not how I read what they're saying. They aren't saying "bad". They're saying "if you give them ONLY the facts, it won't help." You then strawman that into "they want to stop giving us the facts and just give us propaganda".
Persuasive writing is all about knowing your audience. If throwing pure
Re: (Score:3)
You really think that simply explaining things clearly works?
As phony as the article sounds, it's still true that convincing people of things is very complex, and little of it is to do with the facts themselves, but in fitting them into the listener's worldview. Which is psychology, and all this cultural mumbo jumbo in the article comes in.
Re: (Score:3)
On that final point I will add the following quote from the paper (via the article):
One aim of science communication, we submit, should be to dispel this tragedy ... A communication strategy that focuses only on transmission of sound scientific information, our results suggest, is unlikely to do that. As worthwhile as it would be, simply improving the clarity of scientific information will not dispel public conflict ...
This is just amazing to me. They are literally saying that educating people about global warming will increase their skepticism, and therefore actually transmitting sound scientific information would be bad. So simply conveying accurate information and allowing people to reach their own conclusions would be bad because those aren't the conclusions you want them to draw. So you reevaluate the merits of your own conclusions, right?
Nope!
Epic fail at reading comprehension. The statement says nothing of the sort. It says that conveying clear scientific information to the public, while a noble goal, does not affect those with preconceived notions. No amount of evidence, proof, etc. no matter how obvious or clearly stated will have an impact. This isn't anything new or noteworthy, and it regularly comes up on slashdot (young earther's, creationistas, etc.).
Also, the majority of people are not really qualified to draw conclusions from complex s
Re: (Score:3)
Epic fail at reading comprehension. The statement says nothing of the sort. It says that conveying clear scientific information to the public, while a noble goal, does not affect those with preconceived notions. No amount of evidence, proof, etc. no matter how obvious or clearly stated will have an impact. This isn't anything new or noteworthy, and it regularly comes up on slashdot (young earther's, creationistas, etc.).
Your epic fail, and indeed the one I was pointing out in the paper*, is that it's not about "preconceived notions", but rather different outlooks and values. Which is to say, that someone can know all the facts and simply not care. You can say 'hey, if you go skydiving it's X% more likely you'll die', and I can say 'yep, but I'm okay with that'. It doesn't make me wrong. It's not "tragic". It's just my outlook.
* I put this asterisk here because the paper nearly points this out. However, it fails (mayb
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:4, Informative)
Propaganda
Well, scientists have been sidelined by a sustained multi-decade propaganda effort. Frank Luntz was the (modern) author of the war on climate science, but he comes at a long list of propagandists who have a well-oiled machine. (See Merchants of Doubt [merchantsofdoubt.org] for a jumping off point on a stupendous amount of evidence for this point.)
/is/ really propaganda.
The extensive social psychology research on belief and the transmission of information has been used by marketing and political institutions -- but not by scientists. Given the extra-ordinarily bizarre quality of the public discourse on the topic, scientists are finally warming to the idea of making use of science in science communication [skepticalscience.com].
What the scientists are proposing is not really propaganda, but trying to find ways to transmit information that actually work. Frank Luntz and his cohort are going more for the Noble Lie, which
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Insightful)
On that final point I will add the following quote from the paper (via the article):
One aim of science communication, we submit, should be to dispel this tragedy ... A communication strategy that focuses only on transmission of sound scientific information, our results suggest, is unlikely to do that. As worthwhile as it would be, simply improving the clarity of scientific information will not dispel public conflict ...
This is just amazing to me. They are literally saying that educating people about global warming will increase their skepticism, and therefore actually transmitting sound scientific information would be bad. So simply conveying accurate information and allowing people to reach their own conclusions would be bad because those aren't the conclusions you want them to draw. So you reevaluate the merits of your own conclusions, right?
Nope!
Completely wrong. They aren't saying that educating people will increase their skepticism. They are saying that ONLY communicating sound scientific evidence will NOT fix the public conflict. Because people's opinion on this matter is influenced a lot more by their "beliefs" than by how much they know about the science. So, just communicating the science will not change things.
They NEVER said to convey inaccurate information OR not to communicate the correct scientific information. They just said that communicating sound scientific information would not be enough to convince many people. It's a simple fact of human nature that has been known for a while (many people will hang onto their beliefs in spite of scientific evidence to the contrary), they are just applying it to this particular subject here.
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In other words, sometimes people disagree with you. These people are wrong. So you should manipulate what information they're exposed to, so they come to conclusions you want them to about "what is good for society".
Your post just respun the GPs post positively, while not actually contradicting what he said was going on.
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"People are more apt to be influenced by their peers than by science"
Even scientists, mind you.
Jargon - you don't know what you're talking about (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know who said it (Richard Feynman, maybe?) , but:
If you can't say it in small words, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Re:Jargon - you don't know what you're talking abo (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly a man who lacks culturally congruent risk perception.
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Inconceivable, you must ingeminate.
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Insightful)
So let's put it in plain english:
Political leanings had a bigger influence than their level of education.
There. Simple, to the point, guaranteed to have rooms full of people shaking their finger at the computer screen. Because that's what you get when you simplify. :D
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. They were confirming that point, but that's already been shown. What they showed is that *people with higher levels of education are *more* influenced by their poitical leanings* because they use their additional knowledge to justify those leanings.
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Nice, simple easy to read and wrong. The article says specifically that it was level of education that started to sway some people.
You're at the Wrong Place, Friend (Score:2)
Your hierarchical individualist, however, might sneer cynically – first at the prospect of a shower of trick-cyclists managing to change his or her mind on climate change by means of spin rather than hard numbers. The hierarchical individualist might also view the "science of communicating science" push as a rather ignoble attempt by the soft-studies profs to get a share of the climate change research funding bonanza that has poured into the hard science and biology faculties in recent decades. And anyone at all might be rather alarmed, perhaps, at the prospect of actual success in the matter of developing a working discipline of Psychohistory – which could and would surely be used in other areas than climate change policy, and would surely be a threat to democracy if it worked as advertised.
And you're complaining about "culturally congruent risk perception"? This isn't news. This isn't factual reporting. This is someone framing their interpretation of a scientific letter to try to get you on board with him. I think he's rippi
Re:You're at the Wrong Place, Friend (Score:5, Insightful)
The first paragraph of the letter (after the abstract) almost perfectly identifies the problem, although the authors, being social "scientists", predictably fail to understand the implication: "As members of the public do not know what scientists know, or think the way scientists think, they predictably fail to take climate change as seriously as scientists believe they should."
The same is true of climate change, diet, exercise, privacy, foreign policy, gas mileage, law, and so forth: The general public does not take any of these issues as seriously as specialists in those fields think they should. This is not because the specialists are right, though; it is because the specialists devote their careers to those areas, and as a result have a distorted view of how much concern the average citizen should dedicate to the specialist's area of expertise. If I was as concerned about everything as experts thought I should be, I would spend all day worrying and no time getting anything done. Considering that dynamic (which often results in "rational ignorance" by average citizens), it is not at surprising that individuals look to peer groups or ideological leaders for cues on complicated issues.
(I suspect the authors also have an ideological bone to pick, based on the breakdowns they chose -- why focus on "hierarchical individualists" versus "egalitarian communitarians", and mention the hierarchy/egalitarianism and individualist/communitarian axis results in passing? How many other proxies did they look at before settling on those, and why did they reject other possible proxies? These social scientists might be unduly concerned with their narrative and as a result not take methodology as seriously as statisticians think they should [wink, wink -- I know that social scientists tend to take post-hoc analytic methodology more seriously than many domains because they are short on testably predictive hypotheses].)
FWIW, that quote was not part of my submission (Score:5, Interesting)
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Or, in even simpler English, people tend to believe what they want to believe and education doesn't change that, it just means they can rationalize away their own beliefs better. Everyone does this, some people are just more or less subtle about doing so. Note that doesn't mean one side isn't right, but it certainly can mean large portions of one side are right for the wrong reasons. Science is actually rife with those kinds of people, and always has been.
Interesting tidbit: Galileo believed that the tides
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Terms like "Culturally congruent risk perception" have no obvious meaning for the general reader. Field-specific jargon is just annoying
I did have to think about it for a second, but I don't find that phrase particularly field specific. YMMV
Re:An English translation, for us non-sociologists (Score:5, Funny)
According to the [authors], this is not because the idea of imminent carbon-driven catastrophe is perhaps a bit scientifically suspect. Rather it is because people classed as "egalitarian communitarians" (roughly speaking, left-wingers) are always highly concerned about climate change, and become slightly more so as they acquire more science and numeracy. Unfortunately, however, "hierarchical individualists" (basically, right-wingers) are quite concerned about climate change when they're ignorant: but if they have any scientific, mathematic or technical education this causes them to become strongly sceptical.
So, what it is saying essentially, is that to effectively combat global warming we must educate left-wingers and keep right-wingers in the dark. Encourage the home-schoolers, and tell the god-fearin', gun totin', gay haters that academics really will turn them into a godless, muslim-loving, pot-smoking, tofu-eating, pagan-worshipping, Birkenstocks-wearing, tree-hugging, cross-dressing, PETA-supporting, anti-life, hybrid-car-driving, homosexual, lesbian who reads the New York Times.
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I'm assuming the submitter quoted that bit from somewhere (it's not the paper abstract). I'm making that assumption because the submitter did something incredibly annoying: he wrote "quoting:" followed by a quote, properly enclosed in quotation marks.
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Indeed, anytime your noun is composed of four words, you need to go back and re-write the damn thing.
Translation: You must be a Republican (Score:3)
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why people still explain what an ip address is when writing about technology.
If they're writing for a general audience, they should. Now you wouldn't need to do that here, because this is slashdot. But this is a technology site, not a sociology site (or whatever the fuck field that term comes from). I wouldn't head over to a popular sociology site and expect them to understand a summary that uses the terminology of object-oriented programming, now would I?
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What the heck are "hierarchical individualists"? I would've thought that "individualists" wouldn't take naturally to a "hierarchy". ... So a "hierarchical individualist" is an oxymoron... or maybe just a moron.
I think they mean "Individualist" = libertarian, "hierarchical individualist" = Neocon
well ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:well ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, the current western model of government is not a true democracy, but rather a representative democracy, which is quite different. People do not vote for things, they vote for people.
You have one party, the rich guys party, and two competing PR firms with totally different ad campaigns. Oligarchy not representative democracy or democracy.
Technically I do get to vote locally on local govt education bonds, true, although very limited, direct democracy. I'm told some states sometimes have binding referendums, but I've never experienced that.
Also when I was a kid, we had theoretically non political party local judicial elections, which is true representative democracy, but that was done away with a decade or two ago, and in practice the R's shilled for their candidate and the D's shilled for their candidate anyway. There is no longer a representative democracy where I live.
Re:well ... (Score:4, Insightful)
People do not vote for things, they vote for people.
In my experience, they mostly vote against people.
It is about perception, and culture (Score:2)
At some point, having a disagreement/debate with someone becomes about personal perception and world view. All the truth in the world on your side just won't make a damn bit of difference if the person you're debating/disagreeing with just cannot or will not come around to your point of view. Gay Marriage, Abortion, Climate Change, Conservative/Liberal, at some point it all comes down to one thing: you are facing your polar opposite and you cannot give in because to do so would mean that you are no longer
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And exactly one of "Gay Marriage, Abortion, Climate Change, Conservative/Liberal" is a physics problem subject to rigorous empirical validation independent of human opinion.
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The right's resistance to climate change is largely motivated by the fact that a lot of the proposed solutions entail things that some elements on the left wanted to do anyway.
Then why don't they just accept the science and propose their own solutions? Cap and trade was a market based right wing idea originally but now that the left says "Ok, we'll do cap and trade" they say, "Oh no, it's a left wing plot to take over the world". It's hard to hit a moving target.
There is too much noise (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not scientific literacy, bur that you need to be an expert in several fields.
Claims are made from both sides with explanations and theories beyond what most laymen can understand, beyond what even those with a basic scientific literacy can understand.
I consider myself scientifically literate to a basic level and generally have no problem reading studies or extracts to get a basic idea on an issue. The whole climate change thing is impossible though. People make specific claims about carbons, how they bond in the atmosphere, half-lives, tree rings, ice, sea levels...
There is too much stuff being quoted and claimed from both sides, often seemingly backed up.
What we need is a nice, easy summary page, summarizing all the relevant studies so far, and what they imply or mean when it comes to climate page. AN overall summary taking every study into account, giving a good indication, meaning to oppose it is to go against peer reviewed studies or to speculate without a firm basis.
Re:There is too much noise (Score:5, Insightful)
Also politics and science get mixed up (Score:5, Insightful)
The scientific theory of human caused global warming is that the prime or exclusive cause of the observed warming over the past 100 years, outside of known cycles, is CO2 emissions from humans. Ok, no problem. That is a theory that can be looked at and evaluated, though you are correct it is quite complex to evaluate it.
The problem then comes when it is demanded that you not only accept that, but you accept that the only thing to do about it is to massively reduce CO2 emissions and to do that we need things like cap and trade and so on. If you disagree with any of that you are a "denalist" and "anti-science". They try to act as though the politics and policy of a solution are part and parcel to the theory.
Not even close. You can believe that the theory is correct and disagree with the proposed solution for any number of reasons. However question any part and people want to claim you are anti-science. It really does get like a religious argument: "You accept everything we say or your are the enemy."
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You're confusing scientists and scientific results with policy makers and politicians.
Scientists don't want to be politicians. They really don't. They want to do science. Yes, they have opinions. We all do. But they have neither the time nor money nor influence to create policy. They may be consulted, or asked to give their opinions on policy but they do not make policy. They may be paraded before congress and peppered with idiotic questions. But they do not make policy. That is the realm of the politicians
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Nobody who is an AGW "believer" has a problem with people who say "OK, the science has shown that 90%+ of GW is anthropogenic, but I believe that reducing CO2 emissions is not cost effective compared to the cost of climate change."
That's a totally valid viewpoint, for example Lomborg's today (after his conversion.)
What riles "believers" like me is the standpoint that the science can't be true because it would be too expensive to do anything about it.
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Are you kidding? AGW believers will either tear you apart as an evil right-winger bent on world destruction, or they'll just ignore economic arguments altogether and tar you with the same brush as AGW deniers. And then they stand up in forums like these and claim that they woul
Re:There is too much noise (Score:4, Interesting)
There is too much stuff being quoted and claimed from both sides, often seemingly backed up.
What we need is a nice, easy summary page, summarizing all the relevant studies so far, and what they imply or mean when it comes to climate page. AN overall summary taking every study into account, giving a good indication, meaning to oppose it is to go against peer reviewed studies or to speculate without a firm basis.
THIS! Yes. I'm left-leaning, politically speaking. A very good friend of mine is right-leaning. Though we both have some Libertarian tendencies, we have very different ideas. And we're both college-educated, smart people who enjoy (friendly) battles of wits with one another on a variety of topics, and we are big fans of using facts and truth, not propaganda. It's a rare situation where people with differing political views can have constructive arguments and inform one another and learn (unlike much of American politics).
And yet when he and I come to the climate "debate" (my scare-quotes tell you which side I'm on), we carried it to its logical conclusion which resulted in a war of links backing up our claims. It was almost the equivalent of a schoolyard taunt, "my scientists can beat up your scientists!" because neither of us are specialists in the field. I think we were probably both quite frustrated -- and we actually were interested in getting to the real facts, not just name-calling, generalizations and ad hominems (though we employ those just for fun).
fail? (Score:5, Insightful)
What guides individual risk perception, on this account, is not the truth of those beliefs but rather their congruence with individuals’ cultural commitments.
Here's the fail. What is this "truth" they're measuring against?
Something like F=ma seems to correlate with education, not so much with culture. I would hazard a guess that indicates F=ma is a scientific topic.
Something like Jesus is the son of god and belief in him results in your salvation seems to correlate much higher with culture than with education. For example even the dumbest redneck from Texas and some scientist from Texas might agree, but a highly educated scientist from TX might disagree with a highly educated scientist from Japan from a non-christian Japanese family. I would hazard a guess that indicates Jesus's parentage is a non-scientific topic.
Along comes "concern over climate change" and there is a wishy washy hand wringy that based on observation its getting a non-scientific response from the general public. You can almost see the literary dancing to avoid suggesting that maybe, just maybe, the PC orthodoxy about the dangers of climate change is, in fact, non-scientific?
Now please don't jump all over me assuming I think humans have no effect or climate change could never matter. I am well aware its occurring. However,
1) I don't think its very important relative to other more pressing concerns. Seriously, it just isn't that important.
2) I think there is nothing to do anyway. We've burned at least a majority of the EROEI positive carbon fuels and nothing really bad has happened. Twice not much is still not much. The closely related semi-permanent economic decline we've been experiencing for a few decades, and will continue to experience, will "naturally" take care of the rest. The TLDR is SUVs don't matter not because we passed enviro laws, but because they'll never be affordable to the masses again. By the time the next credit bubble comes around, maybe 70 years or so, we'll be waaaaay past peak oil, etc, it just won't matter anymore.
3) There are bigger natural climate changes that we need an advanced industrialized civilization to fight
4) I hate being FUDed so reflexively that I'll fight against the side using FUD, in this case the orthodox climate panic-ers.
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Some questions for you, then:
1) I don't think its very important relative to other more pressing concerns. Seriously, it just isn't that important.
How much of an impact does climate change have to have before it will be considered a serious problem? Could you name monetary cost or number of people killed that would make it important enough to do something about?
2) I think there is nothing to do anyway. We've burned at least a majority of the EROEI positive carbon fuels and nothing really bad has happened.
What's your standard for "really bad"? What level of proof would you require to decide that a particular event was caused by climate change? For instance, if climate change was thought by some to be a possible cause of greater hurricane intensity, what kind of evide
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Could you name monetary cost or number of people killed that would make it important enough to do something about?
No. And people are notoriously bad at comparing risks. How bout speaking generically a small multiple of current "worse than current weather related death rate of lightning + wind + flooding + hurricanes + tornados + famine" and/or a small multiple of the std deviation of that number (which is likely to be pretty big) . Realizing that "doing something" historically means the politicians F stuff up and the cure is going to kill more than the disease, if those morons are in charge (and they are)
What's your standard for "really bad"?
See above?
What level of proof would you require to decide that a particular event was caused by climate change?
T
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In my experience, it's the most reliable way. The purpose of FUD is deception. Why would you trust people who engage in deception? This is why there are so many skeptics out there. It's not that they are unwilling to believe in science, it's that all the FUD has resulted in a boy-crying-wolf effect.
Methinks it's the anti-AGW group that's using FUD to the greatest extent. Like saying that the carbon tax will destroy the economy, which sounds like hyperbolic "the sky is falling" FUD to me. And making up crazy conspiracies that make no sense (like scientist getting rich on AGW research, or it's all meant to be some sort of crazy wealth redistribution scheme, or a plan to create a one world government.) More FUD. And pretending there isn't a scientific consensus, when there really is. Yet more FUD. A
I don't know where to begin (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, skimming the paper lends neither support for nor contradicts the evidence that humans have caused and are causing the climate to change. It only addresses the likely belief systems of people in their peer groups and how that information can be used to communicate effectively with those groups:
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Did you ever ask the "smart" people you know WHY they don't like to fly? Maybe they don't like being teabagged by arrogant TSA agents, or they are concerned about doing something wrong and being labelled a terrorist, or being detained for some stupid reason, or maybe they get bad motion sickness. There are plenty
The obvious conclusion they are missing (Score:3)
If political leanings sway your view the more you know about the science involved, then obviously the subject under discussion is not really a science.
I think I speak for everbody when I say ... (Score:4, Funny)
What??!?
Burying the lede... (Score:4, Insightful)
The more scientifically informed you are, the less likely you are to believe that human CO2 emissions are going to cause unprecedented, catastrophic global warming.
The less scientifically informed you are, the more likely you are to believe that the past 60+ years of climate change has been mostly driven by human CO2 emissions, and that continued CO2 emissions will cause catastrophic global warming.
The talk about preconceived cultural bias goes for *both* sides - assuming that what we have is a large group of uninformed people who happened on the *right* answer, without actually being as well informed as those who assert the opposite answer, is a stretch, to say the least.
For those of you who didn't quite understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
I understood the writeup very well. It goes directly to the heart of the debate, for me at least.
The global climate change issue has morphed from a brief global cooling 'scare', to global warming debate, and now global climate 'change'. During these changing arguments, I've become convinced of these beliefs:
1- Many parties have ulterior or hiden motives. These vary from wanting to advance their cultural or political policies to wanting to prevail in a factual or scientific debate, and others. I also have an ulterior motive in this debate, and of course I see mine as honest and true, and of course just as I assume everyone else does.
2- All parties seem prepared to use whatever eivdence supports their motives, and discredit the rest. Just as the writeup would suggest.
3- This is not new, and is (I propose) evident beyond contradiction to anyone who engages in minimal critical analysis of the issue. If it wasn't evident to you earlier, you are not paying attention, or not trying very hard at all.
4- Many parties purposefully either fabricate or embellish the evidence they present to make their case. Some do so despite knowing of contrary evidence, and some simply refuse to consider any other evidence at all.
5- Many who make their eivdence fit the argument have good intentions, and seem genuinely to not understand why others, seeing this, tend to mistrust their argument entirely.
Early on, when 'cooling' became 'warming', I started asking why this was so important. And one of the first things I learned was that many who joined the debate and believed that warming was occurring, and that it was man-caused, and could 'only' be solved by reducing our impact on the planet, was that they already wanted us to 'reduce our impact' on the planet, and this was the latest and hopefully (for them) conclusive argument . Scientists rarely like to admit mistakes (neither do I) so many climatologists are engaged in futher analysis of their data to make it fit when reality doesn't quite match with their predictions. Looking at the work done to adjust, normalize, and clean up this data to make it fit leaves me, in particular distrustful of their process.
Now we read some articles on ice melt, , and I'm left wondering how this could have occurred 14,000 years ago before industrialization, and if it could be happening now for those reasons, and nothing we can do would stop it. And the article I linked to doesn't explain much at all. And then [reuters.com] this article [slashdot.org] blames fresh water consumption. We fix this by what, reducing population? Or just becoming more efficient users? Population growth wipes out all but the most aggressive and costly conservation, and then only if we ignore the developing world.
So this dovetails nicely into the anti-capitalist/industrial/consumer movement's goals, and the anti-population growth movement similarly will love this. Basically, they love anything bad for me. I'm just part of the 98% in America trying to get along, doing infinitely better than 90% of the rest of the world. I have a roof to sleep under, and something to keep me off the ground when I do - that makes me better off then most of the world. Add in my access to safe drinking water, and I probably do better than 95% or more of the world. My big complaint is how thick my steaks are.
So I do come to the debate with a very strong 'prove it!' attitude, and when the climate change proponents/worriers are so often aligned with the movements to take from me as much as they can, I rationally (if not logically) react with caution. Actually, skepticism, tainted with outright rejection. these groups can make no scientific argument - they are not motiviated by science.
And the scientists are largely so invested in protecting their reputations that I consider their arguments self-serving at best.
If warming is real, and we can stop it, I'm also conce
Re: (Score:3)
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The study suggests CAGW appeals to someone drinking too long at the communitarian-socialist well, or simply doesn't have a strong enough hard, experimental science background (or ability) to recognize computerized, politicized drivel when served whole with prebaked results. Or snookered by politicians with a D in the science-for-poets-
Re:The rabidly delusional statist (Score:4, Informative)
The simplest answer is that people who learn more about how science works question the AGW agenda which early on stopped being science.
If you RTFA, the effect was only observed in right-wingers. Left-wingers become more concerned about AGW as they get educated, not less.
I'm sure you would be willing to write that off as a clear indication that left-wingers are inherently brain-damaged and are therefore unable to apply their education correctly. Just for that occasion, the study also asked a different question with "reversed polarity" - i.e. a touchy topic for left-wingers to which they tend to react very emotionally and negatively. Namely, nuclear power. And here's the thing: while uneducated left-wingers were highly negative towards it, higher education level was correlated to stronger acceptance of nuclear power among left-wingers.
TL;DR version: educated left-wingers are more willing to veer off from the "party line" on touchy topics than educated right-wingers.
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1. Within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.
"[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia wit