Index to AGW Denialist Claims

[theropod]

Mar 1, 2020 18:01:55 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

theropod, it's pretty hard to follow the news (as in lots and lots of stuff always happening) and I don't really do it much. That was the thing.

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51213003

Take your pick. All time favourite (paraphrased): "It’s cold outside, so how can the earth be warming?"

Ironically, back in 2009 Trump signed a statement in the NYT saying the exact opposite of what his Twitter account claims. Which seems to support my hypothesis that he probably doesn’t know how to read.

[creature386]

Mar 1, 2020 19:03:14 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

So anything at all from any point? That's easy enough

Let's say anything from since the 2016 presidential election.

Trump was actually rather liberal some time before that.

[dinosauria101]

Hehe, that should be good. There is quite a bit of stuff.

[all]

The purpose of this tread from what I understand is to debunk given points set forward.  I don't think i have quite enough of knowledge to do this.

My points will be reflecting my views on this topic in general

First of all here in Chicago summers are hot and humid they are getting hotter and more humid . One could say summers in Chicago always have been hot and humid. However Chicago usually had relatively cold winter. This year winter was like spring while spring was little bit like winter with what are normally coldest months were almost as warm as April during spring.  While in April on the other hand it actually snowed for few days. This breaks up cycle of seasons which has bad side effects.

to name one ticks some of which cause lime disease normally die off in winter. with hotter winters they pose significant problem.
The early signs of Global warming also include hurricanes which were growing stronger and stronger every year and they also traveled north further north this increase coincides with increase of speed of melting of Ice on Arctic.  

Since Ice caps are melting with much more significant speed than ever before if we don't do something now it will be too late to stop rise of the oceans. 

Animals at arctic are all ready suffering polar bears for example. 

As it was mentioned large oil companies pay off politicians to vote on their side. They then ignore or dispute scientist's findings for political reasons

In last 10 years solar cells and other clean energy sources became much more efficient than before. And could replace or at least decrease the amount of fossil fuels we emit into the atmosphere.  The reason they were not implemented is because of oil companies. Because they influence politics statements from those politicians cannot be fully trusted. Scientists have nothing to gain and they are trained in this field their word is more trustworthy and they all agree that global warming can be a disaster.   

[theropod]

Claim: "It was just as warm as/warmer than today in historical times (E.g. medieval warm period)"

Rebuttal:

Global temperature record for the Holocene adapted from Marcott et al. 2013 and NOAA 2020 data.

Composite temperatures in the middle ages and late antiquity were approximately as warm (or cold, depending on how you look at it) as the frequently used 1961-1990 reference period (NOAA 2020, Marcott et al. 2013). That means only approximately 0.1° warmer than the average of the 20th century, around 0.3° warmer than the average of the 1880-1940 period (NOAA 2020).
On the other hand, the decade 2000-2009 was 0.7° warmer than the 20th century average, and the decade 2010-2019 was 0.8° warmer (NOAA 2020).

This is also consistent with findings of Crowley & Lowery (2000), who, while acknowledging some individual records with temperature spikes during this time, conclude that composite temperatures for the warmest intervals in the medieval warm period did not exceed modern (i.e. pre-2000) temperatures, and Huges & Diaz (1994), who acknowledge regional warm periods warmer than most of the 20th century (but not the "most recent decades"), but a lack of global synchronicity between these events.

In other words, yes there were warm phases during the middle ages, at least regionally, but sustained global temperatures were at most as high as during the mid-late 20th century, well below current levels.


Crowley, T.J. and Lowery, T.S. 2000. How Warm Was the Medieval Warm Period? AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 29 (1): 51–54.
Hughes, M.K. and Diaz, H.F. 1994. Was there a ‘Medieval Warm Period’, and if so, where and when? Climatic change 26 (2–3): 109–142.
Marcott, S.A., Shakun, J.D., Clark, P.U. and Mix, A.C. 2013. A reconstruction of regional and global temperature for the past 11,300 years. Science 339 (6124): 1198–1201.
NOAA. 2020. Global Surface Temperature Anomalies | Monitoring References | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Downloaded from www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/anomalies.php on 17 July 2020.
Raftery, A.E., Zimmer, A., Frierson, D.M.W., Startz, R. and Liu, P. 2017. Less than 2 °C warming by 2100 unlikely. Nature Climate Change 7 (9): 637–641.

[theropod]

Claim: "The sun is causing climate change, not humans!"

Rebuttal: The evidence refuting this claim is two-fold.

1) For starters, in order to be causing rising temperatures, the solar irradiance would actually have to be on the rise, unless there is some way for less energy to be causing higher temperatures that nobody has yet been able to explain to me. Is this the case? Well, the answer is pretty simple: no.
This is what solar irradiance (in yellow) has been developing like over the last 50 years, a period that saw a massive rise in global temperatures (in red and green):

Data sources: lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/data/nrl2_tsi_P1Y/
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/anomalies.php#anomalies
climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/global-surface-temperature-data-gistemp-nasa-goddard-institute-space-studies-giss

As you can see the overall trend of solar irradiance is not just not rising, but even slightly positive. It is also small compared to the amplidude of the 11-year sunspot cycle, meaning solar irradiance varies much more over the course of those 11-year cycles than along the multi-decadal trend, at least for recent times. So if solar irradiance where the primary driver of recent climate change, then why is the global temperature going up more or less continuously, and not oscillating between warm and cold phases along the sunspot cycle, or getting slightly colder following the multi-decadal trend of solar irradiance? Well, again, simple: because solar irradiance isn’t what is driving recent climate change, greenhouse gases are.

What you can furthermore see is that the absolute climate forcing (in W/m²) of solar irradiance is small (deviating from the mean ~0.5 W/m² along the sunspot cycle) compared to that of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which gets us to our second point:

2) The claim fails to refute and in fact plain ignores, the radiative forcing (i.e. the change in the energy balance for a given area) of greenhouse gases, which is far higher than any solar forcing over the relevant time period and, according to the claim, nevertheless somehow magically without any effect.

For reference, even the most optimistic of the IPCC scenarios (representative concentration pathway/RCP 2.6) works with a GHG-induced forcing of 2.6 W/m² for 2100 relative to pre-industrial levels, which we have basically already reached now. On the high end of their scenarios, the forcing is 8.5 W/m², this being the kind of scenario we are trying to prevent.

van Vuuren, D.P., Edmonds, J., Kainuma, M., Riahi, K., Thomson, A., Hibbard, K., Hurtt, G.C., Kram, T., Krey, V., Lamarque, J.-F., Masui, T., Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N., Smith, S.J. and Rose, S.K. 2011. The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Climatic Change 109 (1–2): 5–31.

Compare that to the less than 0.5W/m² that solar irradiance has increased on average since the year 1800, which is less than what methane alone contributes to the GHG-induced radiative forcing caused by humans. CO2 meanwhile has increased from about 280 ppm to 415 ppm since then, which corresponds to a radiative forcing of over 2 W/m².


Etminan, M., Myhre, G., Highwood, E.J. and Shine, K.P. 2016. Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: A significant revision of the methane radiative forcing. Geophysical Research Letters 43 (24): 12,614-12,623.

So in Summary; The sun does not excert a major climate forcing compared to greenhouse gases, and it does not explain the trend in global temperatures, unlike greenhouse gases, which have been rising continuously along with the latter.

The fallacy in point 2 may also come from the unfounded (or circular, as in "the sun is what’s causing climate change, not GHGs! Why? Because the greenhouse effect isn’t real! Why not? Because the sun is what’s causing climate change!") a priori assumption that the greenhouse effect, in which case of course the one making the claim will of course dismiss evidence like what I just presented as part of a global conspiracy of climate scientists who simply made up the greenhouse effect. That claim is worth its own post some time in the future, but for now please note that there are simple experiments available in which even school children can convince themselves of the greenhouse effect (e.g. sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/files/archive/activities/ts1hiac1.pdf) . So unless the laws of physics themselves are complicit in that conspiracy, it is hard to see how the greenhouse effect could be made up by some sort of global elitist plot.

PS: NOAA also has a nice site that lets you play around with various different variables relevant to the climate here: www.climate.gov/maps-data

[creature386]

Today, let's dissect a classic from those who accept that global warming take place, but assert that all those who wish to fight it are Evil Liberals Trying To Smack The Economy For No Reason.

"We [as in, North America and Europe] don't have to do anything against global warming as long as China doesn't."

1. This argument has a number of faulty premises. The first is the notion that China doesn't do anything to combat climate change. This is often based on misrepresenting the Paris Agreement, according to which China allegedly can emit as much CO2 as it wants until 2030. This makes it sound as if 2030 was the earliest date from which on China is planning to do anything at all. The opposite is true. 2030 is the latest date on which China must reach peak emissions.[1] This might seem very late, especially considering that Western countries are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions right now, but considering China's immense economic growth, which it refuses to slow down, high increases in CO2 emissions are inevitable. By contrast, most Western countries have stagnant economic growth. Therefore, it China doesn't lay the groundwork for a green economy, its greenhouse emissions will not shrink after 2030. Its government knows. China leads the ranking of countries with the highest installed renewable energy capacities by a long shot,[2] with an upward trend being discernible.[3] Moreover, President Xi Jinping announced a goal to achieve carbon neutrality by the year of 2060.[1]
To make one thing clear, a very valid case can be made that China isn't doing enough, but to imply that it's doing nothing at all (or significantly less than the West) is factually incorrect.

2. The second assumption is the idea that a transition to renewable energies is inherently harmful for the economy or something. It is not:

© 2009 Joel Pett
(There's also the issue that fossil fuels create health-care costs[4] which are bad for the economy in countries with universal healthcare and even in those without.)
This article[5] goes into more detail.

3. But let's just ignore these first two points. Let's assume that continuing to emit CO2 emissions is good for a country's economy, even if it's bad for the planet as a whole. Then, we're dealing with what is called a prisoner's dilemma. A prisoner's dilemma is a dilemma in which cooperation greatest the greatest amount of net benefit for both parties involved, but defection is always more beneficial on the individual level.[6]
The classical example involves a scenario in which two prisoners are in solitary confinment and they are given to testify whether the other prisoner comitted a crime or not. The prisoners can cooperate by not betraying each other or they can defect by betraying each other. If both defect, they serve two years in prison. If both cooperate, they only serve one year in prison. If one betrays the other, however, and the other does not, the one who testified will be set three while the one who kept silent will serve three years in prison. The moral of the story is that betrayal is almost always better for the individual prisoner, regardless of what the other does, but cooperation is always best for the prisoners as a collective.
However, this is all assuming a one-shot PD. If multiple PDs happen in succession and other "players" can see whether a certain player cooperates or defects, things look different. The player who tends to betray others will be more likely to face betrayal in turn, making cooperation a viable strategy.
Climate change policy is very much like an iterative PD. However, there is an important difference. Climate change is a bit abstract, so, for the players involved, the benefits of reducing their greenhouse emissions aren't so clear. Thus, countries are expected to be less cooperative than players in a "normal" iterative PD.[7]
However, this is precisely the reason why cooperation must be enforced through collusions like the agreements in Paris or Kyoto.[8] This will only lead to cooperations if everyone cooperates, even countries whose emissions are less than 1% of the total ones worldwide.

[1] climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/pledges-and-targets/
[2] www.statista.com/statistics/267233/renewable-energy-capacity-worldwide-by-country/
[3] www.irena.org/publications/2021/March/Renewable-Capacity-Statistics-2021
[4] skepticalscience.com/renewable-energy-is-too-expensive.htm
[5] www.bcg.com/de-de/publications/2020/short-term-solution-to-tackle-climate-change
[6] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
[7] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#Environmental_studies
[8] skepticalscience.com/monckton-myth-15-tragedy-of-the-commons.html

[Supercommunist]

Ballpark predictions on how bad the effects of climate change will be 50 years from now?

I know it's a super complex topic and even the foremost experts probably have hard time giving a truly accurate picture but what is the current academic consensus on how bad it will be? Whenever I looked at articles, it really doesn't delve into details unless it concerns animals being decimated by it.

[theropod]

Mar 12, 2024 10:39:34 GMT 5 Supercommunist said:

Ballpark predictions on how bad the effects of climate change will be 50 years from now?

I know it's a super complex topic and even the foremost experts probably have hard time giving a truly accurate picture but what is the current academic consensus on how bad it will be? Whenever I looked at articles, it really doesn't delve into details unless it concerns animals being decimated by it.

The problem with predictions of the effects is that they heavily depend on the emissions scenario, which in turn heavily depends on (hard to predict, as we saw today) political issues.

If we had asimovian psychohistory and could somewhat reliably forecast how human society decided to handle the issue, and how much it therefore emitted, the situation would be easier, because all we would have to deal with would be the (admittedly still large) uncertainty associated with a purely scientific prediction.

A while ago I made this graph, making a simplified prediction of the effects different simplified emissions paths would have on global temperatures. The differences here are still very conservative, because they don’t consider any inherent non-linearity in the system (which are difficult to model), they just assume a linear relationship between forcing by CO₂ and temperature. However, that considered, they are relatively close to what the IPCC models would suggest based on much more complex approaches (definitely well within the error margins.



It really all depends on the political scenario. If we have emissions that keep increasing on the linear path of the last decades (red scenario), then the results are several degrees of warming. If the emissions remain on the average current level, but are stopped before 2050, then there is a reasonable chance, albeit not a certainty, of staying below 2°C of warming (blue scenario). If emissions are reduced on a linear trajectory effective immediately (green scenario), reaching 0 in 2050, we would have a roughly 50% chance of staying below 1.5°. None of these are necessarily likely in this form, but they are all simplified pathways that probably "bracket" whatever scenarios are actually going to happen. As of right now, emissions keep rising, but it is also not to be expected that they will do so indefinitely…but whether they will actually start permanently decreasing at any point in the near future is hard to predict.

As for the effects of these changes, the problem with quantification and attribution studies is that there are very large random effects that confound drawing solid statistical inferences from the limited observational data we have right now. For example current observations suggest that hurricanes might get fewer, but those that do occur are increasingly energetic. But the normal interannual variability is so high that any trends, even if they are significant, are subject to high margins of error, which translates to high margins of error on predictions.

What I can say is that over the last 40 years the overall damage from extreme weather in general, flooding and wildfire relative to the size of the global economy has increased several-fold:


But once again, normal interannual variability is very high, so these trends (the first two are significant) or tendencies naturally are subject to a high margin of error.

Ultimately, as a paleontologist I always get back to this not just being a climate crisis, but also a multisystemic environmental and biodiversity crisis, and we, no matter how we turn it, are part of that biodiversity. Whether we can precisely quantify the impact climate change will have or not, how could we possibly justify knowingly taking the planet outside of the range of temperature and atmospheric conditions in which all of human civilization has developed, and to which we know it is able to adapt, at a speed that is not conducive to adaptation whatsoever?




Especially since we have it on good authority that large temperature swings in the geological past are a primary correlate of major mass extinction events:


Song et al. 2021 estimated the thresholds for a major mass extinction events at a warming of 5.2°C and a warming rate of 10°C/ma. The former is something we are (luckily) not approaching yet, and hopefully won’t, although we could easily reach it given a pessimistic emissions scenario (such as the ones climate change denialists around the world passionately advocate for), but the latter is a rate we have already exceeded by far (10°C/ma=0.001°/century, we are currently at more than 1°/century), and the really scary truth is that we really do not know how this difference by many orders of magnitude changes the equation (although we can certainly expect it to be an exacerbating factor), because we simply don’t have documented, globally synchronous climatic changes of such magnitude in the geological record that also happened at such high speed (although we can assume that at the K/Pg boundary there were probably such changes that are just not detected due to insufficient temporal resolution).

In terms of the energy balance, you can also easily calculate that our current anthropogenically induced forcing of ~2W/m², as small as that sounds, equals the additional energy of about half a billion Hiroshima-type atomic bombs detonating every year. I think that is useful in terms of visualizing the sheer amount of additional energy that needs to go somewhere, and can potentially be damaging to us. If we think about an additional degree of global temperature, and think it doesn’t sound too bad, what we are really talking about is 500 million hiroshima bombs’ worth of energy being released into the atmosphere every year, and then arguing that we cannot fathom how it could possibly harm anyone.

---
Song, H., Kemp, D.B., Tian, L., Chu, D., Song, H. and Dai, X. 2021. Thresholds of temperature change for mass extinctions. Nature Communications 12 (1): 4694.

[Supercommunist]

Yeah pretty pessimistic. Most people don't think climate change will affect them and dismiss the possibility of it being a threat to our species existence.

I am not going to argue the latter scenario is going to occur because I am not educated on the topic enough, but I think it's clear by now that the average person has little tolerance for inconvenience and we need to make a lot of sacrifices to combat climate change.

I predict that the quality of life will go down in the developed world by the time I am old and grey. Climate change has already decimated the snow crab population and billions of sea creatures died during that Canadian heat wave. I anticipate huge disruptions to our food systems.

Not going to advocate for giving up or anything, but things do look bleak.

One thing I have been doing recently is donating to the clear air task force. I've heard it was one of the most effective climate change charities.

www.catf.us/donate/

[theropod]

The ironic thing is that the average person has so little tolerance for inconvenience that they are unwilling to take the bike to work, but the inconveniences they will suffer as a result of the climate change brought on by that unwillingness are way bigger than that. Sadly the average person is also unwilling to take on a more minor inconvenience now in order to prevent a greater inconvenience later.

I don’t think human extinction is a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future, but human quality of life, and the health, safety and access to basic necessities of a substantial portion of people around the world, will be severely and negatively affected.

We can see how events like the recent floods in Valencia are the rare instance in which a large portion of the electorate actually starts to care about the issue. Germany had a very similar flooding event back in 2021, and it helped (briefly) swing an election, if not in favor of bold climate action, then at least against the party that stood for blindly defending the status quo. The government we elected back then collapsed today (talk about a bad day!) after two years of (relatively speaking, minor) inconveniences, namely rising energy costs resulting from the Ukraine war and relentless anti-migrant fearmongering from the right that has little basis in reality (pretty much the exact same things as everywhere else, in other words) that almost immediately began to severely swing public sentiment against the government, and at least were a major contributing factor in exacerbating the intra-coalition disagreements that ultimately destabilized the government. On the very same day on which a majority of the US electorate voted for a fascist, rapist (incidentally, the uncontested front runner for the next chancellor in my country once voted in favor of maintaining legality of intramarital rape only two decades ago) and climate change denialist.

My impression: people have a very short memory. They care about an actual threat like climate change for a few months when there are exceptional events near them that make them perceive it as a threat, but only as long as they have no other inconveniences that seriously worry them. A bit of a hike in fuel prices, or a flurry of intellectually dishonest media reports about migrant crime, and climate change is quickly forgotten again because it’s always easier to prioritize a (perceived or real) problem for which they can blame someone other than themselves. And of course confirmation bias means that a substantial share of people will happily accept any absurd pseudoscience or fallacy they can find on twitter that seems to sugges to them not just that they personally aren’t concerned about climate change as much as about other things, but that they shouldn’t be concerned about it at all because of *take your pick from list below*.

• "CO₂ is a useful gas that is great for plant growth and necessary for life, and as we know things or substances that we need to survive can never be dangerous in any context, which is also why nobody has ever died due to water, air, ionizing radiation or arsenic (which are or may all be essential for life)!"
• "Humans could never change the climate, that’s just ridiculous, it’s all the sun/the clouds/the cosmic rays/the natural earth cycles[!!!]"
•  "Climate change was made up by greedy scientist in order to get grants, but luckily a benevolent non-profit called the oil and gas industry is here to debunk this hoax"
•  "We might be changing the climate since I hurt my little brain in vain trying to conjure up a coherent argument to refute that right now, but I firmly believe that it getting warmer faster than ever in human history is a net positive!"

It is honestly very difficult to remain optimistic in the light of this.

[Supercommunist]

The ironic thing is that the average person has so little tolerance for inconvenience that they are unwilling to take the bike to work, but the inconveniences they will suffer as a result of the climate change brought on by that unwillingness are way bigger than that. Sadly the average person is also unwilling to take on a more minor inconvenience now in order to prevent a greater inconvenience later.

Yeah. I hate driving. Would be great if most places had a bunch trains and buses instead of long ass highways.

My impression: people have a very short memory. They care about an actual threat like climate change for a few months when there are exceptional events near them that make them perceive it as a threat, but only as long as they have no other inconveniences that seriously worry them. A bit of a hike in fuel prices, or a flurry of intellectually dishonest media reports about migrant crime, and climate change is quickly forgotten again because it’s always easier to prioritize a (perceived or real) problem for which they can blame someone other than themselves. And of course confirmation bias means that a substantial share of people will happily accept any absurd pseudoscience or fallacy they can find on twitter that seems to sugges to them not just that they personally aren’t concerned about climate change as much as about other things, but that they shouldn’t be concerned about it at all because of *take your pick from list below*.

Yeah. People are pretty bad at prioritizing threats. For instance, everyone is afraid of their kid getting kidnapped or killed by a stranger but drowning is the leading cause of a death for young children yet it isn't discussed nearly as much and a good chunk of the USA population doesn't know how to swim.


I noticed a lot of European people have been talking about how they should beef up their military because of Trump's victory. I think that is a reasonable strategic decision but the military is a huge emitter so if everyone starts building more tanks, ships, and planes, that's a lot more C02 in the atmosphere.

I often wonder what will happen if a humid densely populated place like India will be hit by a wet bulb temperature event.

[elosha11]

I am a sad American realizing today that a majority of my countrymen KNOWINGLY voted in as President a conman, rapist, and narcissist of the highest order. We voted for autocracy, xenophobia, and misogyny, and ushered in a more Orwellian version of history than I could have ever imagined. I struggle to see much more than a dim view of humanity. The majority of Americans, and frankly many world populations, are ignorant, selfish, and blinded by prejudices. Other than immediate family and friends (and perhaps those of their fellow race/ethnicity), much of America and the world seems to treat everyone else as the "others" worthy of distrust and hatred.

I don't know if America and the rest of the world is mature enough, socially responsible enough, and educated enough to ever deal with climate change in a meaningful way. And I think likely humans will continue to go on our merry way and dealing with our own petty struggles, until in some way in 2000, 5000, 10,000 or 100,000 years, we drive ourselves to complete extinction. Death by a thousand cuts. I don't know if we will ever have the maturity and determination, much less the means, to ever evolve into more than dimwitted primates squabbling over and destroying the only planet we will ever lay claim to.

[Infinity Blade]

I should probably be feeling a lot more fearful of the consequences of this election, including on climate change, than I really am. I'm an American citizen (well, at least unless/until Trump bullshits a way such that I no longer am one) and y'know, I live on Earth, so this election impacts me directly. But instead I'm feeling oddly chill about it.

Part of that is because I know that it will affect everyone, including Trump and his ilk and those causing/denying climate change, whether they want to believe it or not. If I'm going to go out, let them reap what they sow and melt themselves to extinction.

[creature386]

Fun fact: Lex Luthor was reimagined as a corrupt corporate executive rather than a mad scientist in the 80's and one of his main inspirations was... Donald Trump (yes, even as a real estate mogul, he already had the mannerisms of a comic book supervillain).

This panel is about the only appropriate reaction to last week's election result:



I can't believe that our survival as a civilization largely depends on if Elon Musk, of all people, can convince Mr. Mugshot to keep supporting green technologies, if only so that Mr. X can sell more of his electric cars.