Interbane wrote:

ant wrote:(eg climate change is causing terrorism)
I mean, seriously??

You didn't understand him ant.

Oh sure.

See my obliteration of Nye's claim that global warming is responsible for the terrorist attacks in Paris.

Also,

There sure as hell was a lot of "tension" during the great depression of the 30's but nobody ran around screaming JIHAD JIHAD looking for heads to chop off

There sure as hell was a lot of tension in Japan after not one but two atomic bombs were dropped on their country. No one ran around screaming Allahu Akbar looking for people to burn alive.


It's a dumb connection.
We could do this all day.
It's bullcrap regardless. Crap you're likely to defend for obvious reasons.

ant wrote:It's a dumb connection.
We could do this all day.
It's bullcrap regardless. Crap you're likely to defend for obvious reasons.

You're demonstrating that you still don't understand. I'm not defending anything. Person A is saying one thing, and you're hearing another.

Interbane wrote:

ant wrote:It's a dumb connection.
We could do this all day.
It's bullcrap regardless. Crap you're likely to defend for obvious reasons.

You're demonstrating that you still don't understand. I'm not defending anything. Person A is saying one thing, and you're hearing another.

You're demonstrating your eagerness to divert the topic of discussion to something it's ultimately not about, which is, Robert's tripe that can never be proven false. Frankly, it's irresponsible of him to even attempt a link between climate change and terrorism (specifically) - of any kind.

Within the context of my topic of discussion, Bill Nye's overt claim that climate change was responsible for the Paris attacks is brutishly stupid.

Please stop with your diversion tactics. It's dishonest of you, yet again.

On another note:

Some of you wish to be seen as authority figures. Well, I reject your authority. I will gladly question it openly.
(See Roy's post about rejecting authority)

ant wrote: It's astonishing how you fail to realize how tyranical you become when someone disagrees with some of your poor reasoning (eg climate change is causing terrorism)
I mean, seriously??

I agree with Ant on a couple of points here, though I think his tone, as usual, is way over the top. As is Robert's.

The tone if intolerance against "climate deniers" does reach the level of tyrannical at times. All Ant said was that he was skeptical that all of climate change is caused by human emissions. And for that he's branded a "denier"? There's no attempt to discuss the complexities of climate science. For every "denier" there is an "alarmist" screaming the sky is falling. There’s much depth and nuance to these issues that are getting lost in the noise.

Very broadly speaking, what 97 percent of climate scientists agree on is that “Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.” (This from N.A.S.A’s web site). It’s true that there’s a lot of evidence that supports this basic premise, but this is only a small part of the debate. Most of the noise we hear has to do with how to address climate change, and this is political. Those who condemn the "deniers" are lumping politics with the science and this is, frankly, dishonest.

We really don’t know that much about the mechanisms of climate change, and there are good arguments to be cautious. There can be unintended consequences in putting the cart before the horse, making wide-ranging political decisions that go well beyond our understanding. For example, in the past decade or so, fracking has become hugely popular, in part, because natural gas is presumed to be a much better choice than coal (environmentally speaking). When you burn natural gas, it releases half as much carbon dioxide as coal. But what no one understood when these decisions were being made was that fracking releases a lot of methane into the atmosphere, and methane is much better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

See this story:

http://billmoyers.com/story/global-warm ... chemistry/

What prompts many conservatives to dig their heels in is that the science has been co-opted by liberal politics and is now part of the liberal platform. Yes, we can make a good argument that we should start reducing carbon emissions. And, in fact, there are many good reasons to develop alternative energy sources and green technologies without going into the politics of climate change. Unfortunately because the national dialogue has become so politicized, and because the science is so complex, the national conversation has degenerated into a battle of social media catch phrases. It’s not just the tone of intolerance, but presenting the issue as settled science when it's not.

Ant is also right that it's far too presumptive and simplistic to say that a terrorist attack or a hurricane or a drought is specifically related to climate change. Though it seems likely that in an era of warming and water shortages and food shortages, we can expect to see more violence.

The tone if intolerance against "climate deniers" does reach the level of tyrannical at times. All Ant said was that he was skeptical that all of climate change is caused by human emissions. And for that he's branded a "denier"? There's no attempt to discuss the complexities of climate science. For every "denier" there is an "alarmist" screaming the sky is falling. There’s much depth and nuance to these issues that are getting lost in the noise.

geo wrote:All Ant said was that he was skeptical that all of climate change is caused by human emissions. And for that he's branded a "denier"?

Not true Geo. The post by me in question is

Robert Tulip wrote:

ant wrote:I accept the trends indicative of a warming planet but remain reasonably uncertain if it is largely due to mankinds carbon footprint. .

That statement could only come from a Climate Denialist, a moron, a complete illiterate or someone with their head in the sand.

Take your pick.

The denialism in the comment here is quite different from your much more reasonable paraphrase, into which you have addressed new ideas about all of climate change. And I do also hold out that there are other possible reasons other than denialism for advancing the false view that we can be "reasonably uncertain if [global warming] is largely due to mankinds carbon footprint." But rationality is not among them.

I agree with your comments on the politics of climate change by the way, and will add some further comments on that.

I accept the trends indicative of a warming planet but remain reasonably uncertain if it is largely due to mankinds carbon footprint. .

Dear Robert:

What dont you understand about the above comment by me?

You truly are out on a witch hunt, Robert.
Any regular BT member with an ounce of honestly knows how intolerant you get when people express reservations about absolute truths generated by consensus science.

As Geo indicated, the entire field is highly complex. No one person need not accept every piece of "evidence" generated by this field of science. Men far far brighter and more successful than you are in science, like Freeman Dyson, also express reservations about some aspects of climate change.

You are being a schmuck.
And you started up with name-calling, which is entirely immature and exposes your tyrannical authoritarian intolerance.

You are not an authority on this subject. You're simply appealing to a consensus, which is your right. I am not intolerant of your choice.


Robert jumped to Nye's defense when I pointed out how idiotic it is for Nye to link the Paris terrorist attacks to climate change. It's a stupid claim, as I pointed out for reasons stated by me in a subsequent post.

Robert started rambling on about climate change "deniers" and Interbane jumped in to once again mischaracterize my initial point.
Double teamed by two very intellectually dishonest people.

Only one person had the guts to comment that as far as the entire climate change issue is concerned, I am skeptical of what is the PRIMARY CAUSE.
And two totalitarian knuckleheads want to burn me at the stake for it.

(EDITED)

geo wrote:The tone if intolerance against "climate deniers" does reach the level of tyrannical at times. All Ant said was that he was skeptical that all of climate change is caused by human emissions. And for that he's branded a "denier"? There's no attempt to discuss the complexities of climate science. For every "denier" there is an "alarmist" screaming the sky is falling. There’s much depth and nuance to these issues that are getting lost in the noise.

Very broadly speaking, what 97 percent of climate scientists agree on is that “Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.” (This from N.A.S.A’s web site). It’s true that there’s a lot of evidence that supports this basic premise, but this is only a small part of the debate. Most of the noise we hear has to do with how to address climate change, and this is political. Those who condemn the "deniers" are lumping politics with the science and this is, frankly, dishonest.

What most people want to know is what the facts really are. It has become politicized and I agree with Geo on the problem of noise around the issue.

Those convinced global warming is man made regard any dissent as malevolent sabotage of the planet.I'm not convinced all dissenting scientists are shills for big industry though some may be.

One of the main arguments against man made global warming is that historically co2 increases in the atmosphere have followed not preceded periods of warming.

I would be interested to hear a response to this argument from those who hold to man made global warming.

Some years ago the British TV station channel four,broadcast a documentary titled "The great global warming swindle".

Channel 4 is a politically left leaning liberal station but they do allow dissent from the status quo.

Here's the link to that documentary where the usual premises are challenged by reputable scientists.There's also the problem of imposing restrictions on poorer developing countries and the impact on them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg

Bill Nye regards himself s a failure as a science communicator because of widespread rejection of neo-Darwinism in the U.S.
There's some macho posturing going on here. The end is nigh says Bill Nye the prophet guy and he's willing to bet on it!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4bDk-pPgbs

Bill Nye regards himself s a failure as a science communicator because of widespread rejection of neo-Darwinism in the U.S.
There's some macho posturing going on here. The end is nigh says Bill Nye the prophet guy and he's willing to bet on it!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4bDk-pPgbs

Aside from this, southern californians, we were expecting the mother of all el nino's to hit this year with a ferocity unseen in decades. at least that's what the "experts" kept telling us.
We got just a tiny bit of rain fall over an annual norm.
So far, nothing else close to the monster that was predicted.
Disappointing. We needed it.

geo wrote:Most of the noise we hear has to do with how to address climate change, and this is political. Those who condemn the "deniers" are lumping politics with the science and this is, frankly, dishonest.

The logic of the climate change movement goes something like this. Observing that right wing people tend to deny climate change, and left wing people tend to agree with climate science, therefore people interested in saving the climate think that installing left wing governments is the only way to save the climate. They see the only way to install left wing governments is to support all policies of left wing governments, especially the tax and spend idea that salvation is by increasing the intrusion of government. Therefore they think the only climate policies that will work are those which align to the left wing vision of big government. Taxing carbon to reduce energy use and enable shift to solar and wind is therefore seen as the keystone to climate salvation.

Right wing people react to this implicit logic with horror and disgust. They see energy taxes as sand in the gears of economic growth, destroying wealth and initiative. They see the tax and spend mentality of the carbon tax as corrupt and stupid and hostile to enterprise. They reject the idea of taxing carbon, and see the most effective way to stop the tax juggernaut as being to cast doubt on climate science in order to prevent political acceptance of bad tax measures that in any case would not reduce temperature.

My own view is as follows. Climate change is the top security threat facing the planet. The ‘canaries in the coal mine’ for global warming include the Canada fires, coral reef bleaching, Arctic melting, super storms, ocean acid, poleward migrations. The science on the greenhouse effect is simple, proving that burning all fossil reserves would boil the sea. So we need a new energy paradigm. But we can forget about carbon tax as a solution. Taxing carbon is like pushing on a string, a bit like saying to Poland in 1939 that they could stop Hitler invading by changing their tax code. Security threats need direct action to address the cause of the problem. We need the fastest and most efficient way possible to remove twenty gigatons of carbon from the air every year, and store it in useful products such as road and building materials. The best method is large scale ocean based algae production, expanding NASA’s pilot offshore membrane enclosures for growing algae. The key goal is to use negative emission technology to remove far more carbon than we add.

The climate left react to my ideas with horror, disgust and condescension. They say my ideas would remove all incentive to reduce emissions. I agree with them that removing carbon as a climate strategy removes the incentive to reduce emissions. But that does not matter! Incentives to reduce emissions are actually peripheral to saving the climate. Reducing emissions is only a means to remove carbon from the air, not an end in itself. And reducing emissions is an order of magnitude smaller in impact than direct action for CO2 removal.

The climate left are confusing means (emission reduction) and ends (CO2 reduction) and ending up with an unworkable policy. There is nothing wrong with emissions of CO2 as long as we then remove the added carbon from the air. The simple engineering model for this process is sanitation. There is nothing wrong with defecating as long as you have a sewerage works that takes the waste out of the waterways. London did not solve its big stink in the 1850s by asking people to shit less, but by removing the excrement from the Thames River, as the first generation technology for mass urban sanitation. The same technology model applies to the carbon cycle. We should remove the carbon after it is burnt, not prevent the burning. We could keep burning coal, oil and gas at present level or more, as long as we have a large scale ocean based carbon mining system that converts the added CO2 and more back into useful sellable commodities, especially food, fuel, fodder, fertilizer and fabric. We can build vast carbon cities out of the plastic and graphite etc mined from the air and sea, rapidly pushing CO2 back to 280 ppm to prevent sudden tipping points of sea level and temperature rise. We need to step back from the brink. But emission reduction just slows our fool march towards the cliff edge. The fool says emission reduction is the key to climate stability. The dog warns him that No, we need to mine carbon.