Winning arguments with AGW deniers/ 2011

[SeaGypsy]

Recently, Cid Yama posted a list of scientific evidences for AGW published by the IPCC which contains enough information to scare the bejeezus out of anyone with a pulse and a few functional neurons.
The report revealed that the tipping point when giant methane deposits along the edge of the Arctic Ocean begin pouring out of melying permafrost seems to have been reached. This and the likely rapid die off occuring in ocean plankton, which create most of the oxeygen we need to breath, (and run combustion engines etc) are very frightening scenarios. Hence the term: Runaway Global Warming.

Problem is, while the problem is running away, humanity has nowhere to run.
No country in the world has taken serious steps to address the urgency of the situation.

Cid is convinced, along with many top climate scientists, that it is too late. We have passed the tipping point and there is now nothing we can do to prevent devastating climate change over the next decade.

If correct, climate change will bring on the end of the world as we know it, in the same time frame oil diminishes to a point where our global economies wheels fall off diminishing further any ability humanity might have to mitigate disaster.

Now, whether you believe in AGW or not, may not make the slightest difference to the outcomes we are all facing or about to face. Yet if you are of the hopefull side of the AGW debate, you may still be interested in personal mitigation and in lobbying friends/ family/ workplaces and governments to make serious steps towards change.

Last year, the Copenhagen climate change meetings were a flop, mainly because of poor information handling proceedures and the ability of denialists to sieze on some shonky science done in some quarters. There are very important lessons in this debacle.

Recently in some environment forums, this contention has been shown to have not been grasped by many of the AGW lobby. It is still common to see posts loudly touting individual events as evidence in and of themselves. To me this is like peak oilers pointing at prices as the most important, most obvious warning about peak oil, yet failing to anticipate demand destruction were easily laughed off when the price dropped. Right now many people are happy to point to the cold winter in much of the northern hemisphere as evidence against global warming. I don't think anyone predicted the pattern which has raised temperatures by 20 degrees celcius in an area of north eastern Canada and frozen everything for thousands of miles around it. The fact this has happened and may continue does not deter denialists from arguing the lowest common denominator position "It's very cold so global warming is bull".

So, how to win an argument with a climate sceptic?

and/

Is there any point in even trying?

What about people with no inclination to understand or a very limited grasp of physical geography?

What to do when one of the team starts spouting bodgy science or unscientific emotionalised responses to singular incidence of weather anomaly?

What to say when people muddle up causation and effect, lumping every weather event together as if they must all be caused by AGW, when it can be proven that without AGW many of these same effects would still be present? Soil and forest degredation, creeping salinity and desertification, concrete jungles, particulate pollution, all have very significant climate effects.

Does a rigorously scientific argument alienate too many people to win a debate?

Can any other argument be used without risking ridicule from the denial lobby?

[Asterisk]

It is futile, I have tried more times than I care to imagine (as have many others on here).

99% of skeptics that are online are not interested in facts and they lie as easy as breathing. They Google "global warming is a hoax" and then read around until they find an article to post that agrees with their nonsense. Don't even think about trying to convince them.

The other 1% are ignorant of the facts and they are able to be convinced with facts. But they are the vast VAST minority in the online community.

In 'real life', the facts are just too scary and they freak people out. More often than not that turns into anger at YOU. I wouldn't recommend it.

Bottom line: you know the facts, and you will therefore be in the .01 percent of the population that will have a heads up when the time comes to build your proverbial bunker (in the next 1-3 years if you ask me...). Be grateful that you are able to see clearly when most are not. It may very well be the same trait that keeps you alive when reality hits the public like a ton of bricks.

[Keith_McClary]

What to say when people muddle up causation and effect,
...
Does a rigorously scientific argument alienate too many people to win a debate?

Most people have no clue what is "a rigorously scientific argument" or "causation and effect" or the logical structure of theorems and proofs.

Conservatives believe what their daddy and grandpa believed.

Biblethumpers believe their preachers and scriptchers.

Cornies and cargo cultists believe in manna from heaven.

If there are more bozos shouting more arguments louder, who you gonna believe?

Your notion of "winning a debate" is off base - it's not a "debate" as you define it.

Google for: psychology climate change denialism

[Outcast_Searcher]

Conservatives believe what their daddy and grandpa believed.

For the rich conservatives (i.e. WSJ editorial page crowd), I think it's worse than that. I think that MANY of those folks aren't as stupid as they pretend to be, nor as ill-informed about the realities of science.

I think the bulk of those folks know the truth about AGW and how we're ruining the planet, but THEY DON'T CARE. Why? Because they don't want ANYTHING to interfere with their main agenda -- the fastest economic grwoth (and therefore profits for them and their peers) possible.

They figure they'll be dead by the time the serious consequences affect the wealthy, so the hell with everyone else.

Since these people hold virtually all the real sources of power in society, and the "common man" is totally disorganized and mostly fighting amongst themselves over trivia or trinkets -- nothing really stands in the way of the rich conservative's agenda (plunder to the max).

[Sixstrings]

No country in the world has taken serious steps to address the urgency of the situation.

I wouldn't go that far. The European countries have done quite a bit (they're even doing cap and trade, though I don't agree with that). The US has done less but it could be worse -- we have a decent environmental record, certainly better than anyone else in the Americas other than Canada, and all of Asia other than Japan and some of the smaller countries.

Yet if you are of the hopefull side of the AGW debate, you may still be interested in personal mitigation and in lobbying friends/ family/ workplaces and governments to make serious steps towards change.

That's feel good first worlder stuff. Western capitalism voraciously consumes and trashes everything outside the manicured lawns of Europe, Canada and the US. If you want to find a bad guy here, turn your attentions to the Western-dominated globalist corporations. Of course, a lot of do-gooder liberals have stock in these same corps, and overall their first world cushy jobs and lives DEPEND on the exploitation going on "over there."

Bottom line, you're just preaching to the choir SeaGypsy. The problem is in the DEVELOPING WORLD. You live in the Philippines... do an experiment sometime and see if you can get anyone there to care about AGW. They'll probably look at you like you're crazy. It's just not in their frame of reference, they have bigger and more immediate problems in their everyday lives.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.. there are hundreds of millions of English speaking Indians. They're tech savvy and use the internet.. and yet on this international forum why is it just Anglos and Euros on here worrying about peak oil and climate change? That just doesn't make sense, you never see a Mexican post on here or an Indian, Chinese, Thai, middle easterner, Russian, literally nobody but us anglos. We have a couple people who post from France but I think they're expats.

Only non-anglo natives I've noticed on these forums are Scandinavians, some Dutch, and maybe a German or two. But that's it.. apparently the rest of the world just doesn't care.

[vtsnowedin]

Conservatives believe what their daddy and grandpa believed.

For the rich conservatives (i.e. WSJ editorial page crowd), I think it's worse than that. I think that MANY of those folks aren't as stupid as they pretend to be, nor as ill-informed about the realities of science.

I think the bulk of those folks know the truth about AGW and how we're ruining the planet, but THEY DON'T CARE. Why? Because they don't want ANYTHING to interfere with their main agenda -- the fastest economic grwoth (and therefore profits for them and their peers) possible.

They figure they'll be dead by the time the serious consequences affect the wealthy, so the hell with everyone else.

Since these people hold virtually all the real sources of power in society, and the "common man" is totally disorganized and mostly fighting amongst themselves over trivia or trinkets -- nothing really stands in the way of the rich conservative's agenda (plunder to the max).

This type of angry demonetization of the rich is off the mark. I am not rich by any means but I think indulging in such delusions is dangerous to us all.
If you assume that the rich are both aware of AGW theory and except it as fact you still have the fact that the rich have children and want them to survive as much as you do yours. But before you jump to the assumption that the rich are abandoning their children's future consider that a vast majority of people have not even considered the question or think the question is in doubt. The distribution of believers to deniers is proportionally spread between rich and poor so the observation that the majority of rich people ignore AGW and imminent tipping points and go about their lives normally proves only that they don't accept the theory not that they are trying to take the last dollar and run. Do we not have some very rich people trying to build wind mills across the great plains and investing in railroads and their upgrades. I think beating up on the rich sounds eerily like Hitlers diatribes against the Jews and serves only to turn people away from the real problem and misdirect anger towards others.

[SeaGypsy]

[
This type of angry demonetization of the rich is off the mark. I am not rich by any means but I think indulging in such delusions is dangerous to us all.

The funniest Fruedian slip I have seen here, perhaps ever.

"Sixstrings"
I wouldn't go that far. The European countries have done quite a bit (they're even doing cap and trade, though I don't agree with that). The US has done less but it could be worse -- we have a decent environmental record, certainly better than anyone else in the Americas other than Canada, and all of Asia other than Japan and some of the smaller countries

Europe is a league ahead of the USA but still by their own admission a long way behind where they need to be. Please don't try to say the US has a decent environmental record when it refuses to tax carbon based fuels to fund mitigation or while it abuses NAFTA and other trade agreements around the world to export foul industries elsewhere. Smoke and mirrors, hype, propoganda.

Your assertions about lack of interest in big picture topics in the developing world is true until you are talking to someone with a lot of money. They do tend to be as aware as educated people anywhere. But those with an education and not rich, do not have time for the indulgence.

[vision-master]

O, Thoth, great are ye among Earth children,
but mysteries exist of which ye know not.
Ye know that ye came from a space-time below
this and know ye shall travel to a space-time beyond.
But little ye know of the mysteries within them,
little ye know of the wisdom beyond. Know ye that
ye as a whole in this consciousness
are only a cell in the process of growth.
The Key To Above and Below

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Climate change hits Mars

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 720024.ece

[Repent]

Once the truth of catastrophic climate change becomes undeniable to the wealthy conservatives, the bible thumpers, the ignorant masses and so forth this is what will be attemped:

http://globalwarming.ygoy.com/2008/08/0 ... l-warming/

Imagine millions of tiny mirrors lauched into low orbit to reflect sunlight, or millions of tons of sulpur pour into the upper atmosphere to attempt global cooling. People won't be insulating their homes, or trying to grow their own food, or walk rather than drive- they will attempt to geoengineer the planet.

Our record of 'managing' fisheries, forests, soils, carbon emissions, ect, ect, is already so incredibly bad that I can't see that any of the geoengineering solutions will do anything other than make existing problems worse. Imagine that the sulpur or mirrors rocketed into space settle into a narrow band around the equator. This might cool the equatorial region of the planet, but do nothing to mitigate warming for the poles, at the same time causing massive and unpredictable changes in wind direction, ocean currents, and precipitation as well as unknown affects on agriculture.

I've asked this before, anyone care to write our civilizations epitaph?

[SeaGypsy]

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, didn't.

[vision-master]

It's beyond the makings of mankind. Get over yourself.

[SeaGypsy]

Hey VM get back to us when the LSD crystals stuck in your synapses have melted already?

[vision-master]

You ppl all drink the same tea and listen to the high priests of AGW.

[dohboi]

Well, SG, I guess that's your answer.

If you give a denialist facts about AGW here on earth, backed by over a hundred years of research with millions of data points scoured over by thousands of top scientists, they will just pick one article (out of dozens of others that say the opposite) about...wait for it...MARS!

As if this one article on Mars, a whole nother f'n planet that we know a relatively tiny amount about, out weighs the reams of data and analysis done right here where we can check and recheck as much as we want.

And to prove what exactly? That Martians are behind that whole thing? That some mysterious, otherwise undetected force from within or beyond the solar system is cooking all the planets?

No mention of the dust storms that constantly swirl around that planet through albedo changes are largely responsible for any shifts on the temperature of that very thin, non-earthlike atmosphere.

The implication that anything happening on Mars has the anything at all to do with atmospheric conditions on earth is far beyond wacko.

Yet they keep coming back with these kind of totally inane non sequiturs. No matter how many times their idiocy is shot down, after bringing up some other idiocy, they come right back to the earlier ones. This kind of totally unoriginal blather is the definition of argumentum ad nauseum. And very nauseating it is. (Hey, but I guess we can give them points for recycling! )

I mostly ignore such trolls. I was just using vision munster as an example here, one he most obligingly provided.

By the way, if you do care to bandy words with nitwits, ClimateProgress has a nice list of the standard denialist talking points with brief explanations about how each fails the test of logic, science or sheer honesty (vm's is #25).

CP--rebutting climate science disinformer talking points

[Asterisk]

Seagypsy, glad to see you aren't taking the bait of denialist morons. Goes to show that you are already aware that debating their nonsense is about as productive as debating a monkey (i don't mean to insult monkeys). Wish I had learned that fact a long time ago. Would have spared many a pointless debate.

[vision-master]

The minions have spoken.

A minion is follower devoted to serving his master relentlessly. Generally, minions cannot or will not think for themselves but will follow any command given by their master.[citation needed] Minions usually are of lower status than the commander-in-chief in their life.

[dohboi]

And for further entertainment, here's a cute and informative video effectively debunking this particular canard (and I won't insult readers, as vm just has, by defining every word beyond the 3rd grade level):

Mars Attacks!!!

[vision-master]

Like Jim Morrison once said, When ppl are joking, they are really dead serious, but when they are dead serious, they are funny.

I'm begining to like anti-doomer, shorty, oily and john denver more and more.

[scas]

I don't think there's a point arguing anymore. I only talk to people that mean anything to me, or that I know are willing to listen. I also don't bother scaring kids. But the reality is, at this stage of the game, you are asking people to stare death in the face.

None the less, the best way to get the message across is through documentaries, I have found.

I recall that there isn't an actual measurement of 3.5Gt release, but a smaller release prorated to all the hot spots. Nonetheless, given the present weather it's likely to rupture by 2012 and the feedbacks will continue, perhaps allowing the earth to heat up by 5 degrees by 2015.

What's likely to happen is abrupt climate change will kick certain countries into high gear.
Those countries that are able to hold together may choose to militarize, start synthesizing food from gases, purifying water, and setting up tent cities.

Anyway, if people don't believe anything you say, send em to apocadocs and look at their Year-in-Reviews. http://www.apocadocs.com/ They have a free book too.

There is no historical analogy for what is has happening today. We actually can't look through the lens of the past this time...
There has been a trend through humanity where the scale of our disasters just gets bigger and bigger.

[vision-master]

The FACT is, we really don't know why the climate is changing.

Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds


To blame AGW solely on mans use/ burning of hydrocarbons and such is pure lunacy.