Lock Up Climate Deniers?

[Carrikature]

It's less crazy than climate change denial itself. It's lethally negligent to build bridges which structural engineers say will collapse someday and kill anyone driving over them at the time, but the kind of person taking money to push that through who honestly believes the bridges will hold up is incompetent, not malicious.

Er, what? It's not as if we have the means to build bridges that never erode, decay, or wear down from use...

[Carrikature]

And yet that is exactly what happened, we built bridges that are now collapsing all over the country due to bad design and materials, and guess who approved them? Structural engineers. I guess bridge engineering isn't a "settled science" eh?

Bad example Sea.

This is really dumb on soooo many levels. We do have bridges that are collapsing due to bad design and/or materials, but far more is due to the fact that our existing infrastructure is decades old. Even granting that they all collapse due to solely bad design and materials, it's irrelevant to state that they were approved by structural engineers. It's not as if engineers of any stripe are immune to money and/or incompetence, so you've not even made a point. And if that weren't enough, making the link from bridge engineering to "settled science" is downright nonsensical. Engineering, especially structural engineering, actually is done on extremely solid scientific grounds. It's not as if shear and tensile strengths are poorly understood phenomena. You've failed yet again to make a point, as if somehow incompetence invalidates the science.

[Epoetker]

You've failed yet again to make a point, as if somehow incompetence invalidates the science.

If the scientists in the field who promulgate the science fall to this level of civic incompetence as soon as they step outside their field, in a way that most doctors and engineers generally don't, then yes, I will very much claim that the incompetence of its practitioners invalidates the scientific field, at least as it's practiced today.

It's sort of like how serious economics is "Austrian economics", even if it's just economics without a pro or anti-statist bent on public statements.

[John Reece]

"Climate Change Denial"

There is no such thing as "Climate Change Denial" ― every sentient person is familiar with and acknowledges the fact that climate is always changing: that is simply the nature of reality.

The Third Left has simply created another of countless terms and labels by means of which to demonize anyone who takes exception to any of their lines of propaganda.

"Climate Change Denial" alludes to "Holocaust Denial" so as to impute to targets of the former term the opprobrium associated with the latter term.

[seer]

I prefer to simply talk about the matter of available data, theory and inference as far as I can and focused on the substance; and I am delighted to find anyone from any side, regardless of their views, who is happy to share in that with mutual good will. Together, we can set a better example.

Cheers -- sylas

I have a question sylas. From what read the global temperature as risen a little less than one degree in the past 100 years or so. So what negative weather effects have we seen because of this? More and stronger hurricanes, more and stronger tornados, more and stronger droughts, more and stronger storms in general? I have been on this earth and living in New England for 61 years and weather events just really haven't changed that much up here.

[sylas]

Denial is a word used in MANY contexts where people deny something in the face of all evidence. It isn't picked just to associate with one other kind of denial, but simply because of the word's meaning. Denial in the context of climate is about denying what we know ABOUT climate change. Specifically -- that climate is currently changing exceptionally fast because of the heating up of the planet resulting from human induced changes in the atmosphere.

There are a number of points where what is entirely unexceptional scientifically is in fact active rejected by a significant number of folks in spite of all evidence.

Specifically:
(1) That the changes in the atmosphere are indeed caused by human actions
(2) That the changes in the atmosphere to indeed cause significant heating of the planet
(3) That the heating of the planet brings about significant changes in the climate

In all cases, these are large effects; well outside what is normal in the absence of the human factor. There are many many open questions as one digs into the details, but these three discoveries are really basic, and amply established by many lines of measurement and data. They shouldn't be controversial at all. And yet, they are. I'd much rather talk about the details of the substantive questions than exchange disparaging remarks across points of disagreement.

I've looked in particular at the first of these points -- the human causes of atmospheric changes. This is as settled and solid as science ever gets. Yet that point is disputed, incredibly.

Cheers -- sylas

[seer]

There are a number of points where what is entirely unexceptional scientifically is in fact active rejected by a significant number of folks in spite of all evidence.

Specifically:
(1) That the changes in the atmosphere are indeed caused by human actions
(2) That the changes in the atmosphere to indeed cause significant heating of the planet
(3) That the heating of the planet brings about significant changes in the climate

Cheers -- sylas

Let me try again sylas. From what read the global temperature as risen a little less than one degree in the past 100 years or so. So what negative weather effects have we seen because of this? More and stronger hurricanes, more and stronger tornados, more and stronger droughts, more and stronger storms in general? I have been on this earth and living in New England for 61 years and weather events just really haven't changed that much up here.

[fm93]

I have a question sylas. From what read the global temperature as risen a little less than one degree in the past 100 years or so. So what negative weather effects have we seen because of this? More and stronger hurricanes, more and stronger tornados, more and stronger droughts, more and stronger storms in general? I have been on this earth and living in New England for 61 years and weather events just really haven't changed that much up here.

Your discussion about climate change went off track when you started asking about weather.

[Zymologist]

Your discussion about climate change went off track when you started asking about weather.

I know that there's a distinction there, but I don't see why it's unreasonable to ask what differences to weather a changing climate could create.

[John Reece]

Let me try again sylas. From what read the global temperature as risen a little less than one degree in the past 100 years or so. So what negative weather effects have we seen because of this? More and stronger hurricanes, more and stronger tornados, more and stronger droughts, more and stronger storms in general? I have been on this earth and living in New England for 61 years and weather events just really haven't changed that much up here.

Change "weather" to "climate" ― for all the difference that makes (see quibble above) ― and I will add my real world observation and experience over a period of more than 80 years living in Virginia and the neighboring state of North Carolina.

Weather/climate is in a constant state of flux, which is quite normal, as that has always been the case; however, over the long haul, including the past eight decades of my life, the three-point belief system stated by sylas has not been observable per my experience, and not proven in terms of scientific data as presented to the public by those who assert the dogma espoused by sylas.

A lot of data has been presented by scientists in efforts to prove the belief system espoused by sylas; however, connecting all that data so that said data add up to what sylas asserted has required quite a bit of deceit and fraud (which I do not attribute to sylas, who has not, at least not in this thread, attempted to connect all the necessary dots) to make the case. Need I mention Michael Mann and his cohorts at East Anglia?

[Carrikature]

I know that there's a distinction there, but I don't see why it's unreasonable to ask what differences to weather a changing climate could create.

It's not unreasonable to ask that. In fact, scientists (and others) are asking that very question. However, there's a very common misunderstanding that observance of local weather patterns somehow (in)validates the changes we see to climate. That mistake is compounded when people start claiming age and personal experience with local weather as if it's relevant.

[seer]

Your discussion about climate change went off track when you started asking about weather.

Why? Are we not told that climate change will cause all kinds abnormal weather events? I'm just asking if we have seen that over the last 100 years or so as the temperature increased.

[seer]

It's not unreasonable to ask that. In fact, scientists (and others) are asking that very question. However, there's a very common misunderstanding that observance of local weather patterns somehow (in)validates the changes we see to climate. That mistake is compounded when people start claiming age and personal experience with local weather as if it's relevant.

Then were are the negative effects on the weather that we are told about? If they are not here in New England or Virginia or North Carolina according to John? If the global temperature has risen a degree in the last 100 or so shouldn't we see the effects?

[John Reece]

It's not unreasonable to ask that. In fact, scientists (and others) are asking that very question. However, there's a very common misunderstanding that observance of local weather patterns somehow (in)validates the changes we see to climate. That mistake is compounded when people start claiming age and personal experience with local weather as if it's relevant.

I concede your point as I understand it; however; what changes do you "see" in climate that have no relevance to local weather? And if the changes you "see" in climate have had no observable effect on local weather over a period of nearly a century in any given locale, why the campaign to impoverish the USA by reducing carbon fuel consumption to levels that will bankrupt the nation and countless families and businesses therein?

[firstfloor]

This is why we can't give leftist any more power!

Climate change denial differs from skepticism and has commercial and ideological roots. It is not scientific and that is why it is evil. It is the devils work.