The Global Warming Thread

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by David Harrison, Mar 3, 2016.

  1. Tom bayley

    Tom bayley Valued Member

    I agree, I think it just comes down to ego. the world is a complicated place. there is no way that a single individual can fully understand the entire science behind somthing like climate change - from the phisics of heat, light, and the transfer of energy, to climate and climate modles, to ecology, to the ecology of disterubed sytems, to the economics of disturbed sytems, to politics, to the impact of policiy changes on national economies and of economies withing sectors.

    there is just too much. so what do you do when you reach the edges of your understanding? if you are a scientist you trust the scientific system and you trust that the consensus view is being rigorously tested and retested, because that is how we understand science to work.

    But to do this acknowledges our own individual limits - many people are simply unable to do this.
     
  2. philosoraptor

    philosoraptor carnivore in a top hat Supporter

    I dunno, I don't think that you need to understand that much to recognize the threat of climate change and the validity of the science behind it. End of the day what one needs to recognize is:

    1) CO2 acts as an insulating gas.
    2) Human activity has released billions of tons of it from sequestered sources.
    3) Human activity has damaged the ability of the global ecosystem to sequester atmospheric carbon.
    4) Precipitous warming is a problem for human interests.

    None of these require that much of a leap of faith and to reject them amounts to the strangest of conspiracy theories.
     
    Dead_pool likes this.

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