Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/8339652.stm

But I aspire to be this bloke:

Why not? Like all other religions, it's a load of bollocks that people have decided to believe in. And then use as an excuse to persecute others for failing to share their beliefs.

This chap sounds like an absolute twat, though. The very picture of the alfalfa-eating "Mr. Weird-beard" Jeremy Clarkson goes on about.

I thought that there is quite a lot of scientific evidence to support the theory that human activity is affecting climate. That's the basis for my view anyway, I don't particularly want it to be true, quite the opposite in fact. So fuck all like a religion.

Well, yes, apart from all the science.

I have never understood the arguement, "well, it might not be man made, so let's not worry."

But then also
and

Also, can we go back to calling it the active sounding "global warming", rathe than the passive newspeak "climate change", which so conveniently sounds more like something that's inevitable and normal and nothing to do with us please? Thanks.

Or maybe call it something that acknowledges that we might be pissing the planet about a bit much. "Dumbfuckery", perhaps.

I haven't read anything scientifically reputable about it for a while, but I'm pretty sure that nobody can say with any reasonable certainty that billions of people constantly spewing out large volumes of chemicals isn't ever going to have any impact on anything.



That is fucking ridiculous, though. So now there's a precedent that anything anyone has an opinion on can now be considered a valid and legally protected religion? Well done, you goddamned idiots. Hey, I believe there's a shortage of electrical equipment in Iraq, whereas my employer has loads of computers they don't strictly need. There's clearly a moral imperative for me to steal stuff from work. Legal protection, please.

I saw this on the news tonight. Defies belief really. Stupidity lives I see.

It is marginally more socially acceptable than - 'My life expectancy is only 45 years more, and it won't be all that fucked at that point'.

The reason for this semantic change is, the cynic inside me says, that if the whole thing proves to be a crock of shit and human CO2 output doesn't in fact warm the planet, then any climatic change - warming or cooling - can be blamed on CO2 emissions.

I am a believer in cutting emissions, getting away from our oil dependency and generally being less shitty to the place our species calls home, but I'm not so sure about this agw theory or of its, supposedly proven, cause. My major areas of doubt are:

1) The planet is an insanely complicated thing; it seems to me too convenient that CO2 is the one and only cause of global warming. In a way it would be good if it is, because we'd then be on the road to controlling the climate and eventually even the weather - but nothing's every that simple, surely?
2) It seems to me that a lot of the scientific evidence is based on computer modelling. Computer models are in themselves complicated things, even when dealing with comparatively simple things like finance - and look how good they were at predicting the current economic situation. Plus they can be "tweaked" to give a preferred result.
3) When politicians start getting involved and talk about raising taxes, clamping down on "freedoms" etc. etc. I pause to wonder if they are acting in the best interests of the planet and its people.
4) If the problem and its causes are real, then we're fucked anyway. Not least because our elected governments talk a great game about getting agreements on emissions, cutting CO2 and going on jollys to Bali, but actually haven't achieved a damn fucking thing. If it isn't real, then they can quietly hush that up and claim that the "action" they've taken solved the problem.
5) There's always talk of the science in the media, but never talk about the science - who conducted the research, what the methodology was, no discussion of peer review, very little dissent...
6) Notice how those scientists who do dissent are treated as pariahs; it's almost as if disagreeing with the theories behind agw is as bad as denying the Holocaust. Politically correct science is not a good thing - and in fact is an abomination.
7) I also wonder how many scientists have seen how much money is floating around for research into agw and either a) jumped on the bandwagon ditching whatever they were researching, or b) found a slant on their current research (either real or not) so they can tap into the fund.
I find the rise of far-right "eco" groups, who justify their actions with agw, disturbing. Got some acid thrown in your face did you? That'll teach you to deny global warming*.

*Hasn't actually happened yet, as far as I'm aware, but I can see the day coming.

Whilst this guy is a dick there is a certain important issue here. If you religiously believe something then you can get special dispensations for that belief (which isn't necessaryly wrong).

If you have philosophically thought about something and made the same conclusions then you don't get the same dispensations.

If you are a sikh and think you shouldn't take your turban off you can ride a motorcycle without, if you have a philospical belief that results in the opinion that you shouldn't wear a helmet then you still have to wear a helmet.

That could come across as a little bit BNP so a better example is the draft in america. If you were a quaker then you could avoid the draft because quakers are pacisits, if you had thought about the issue a lot (probably more than most quakers) and become a pacifist then you couldn't.

Oh, yeah, or of course the you can't descriminate against gay people unless your religious.

Either we all get to be discriminating douchebags or none of us do.

Being told what to think should give a person more rights than someone who came to his thoughts on his own.

There needs to be a test cast to put personal, well thought out beliefs on a level pegging with faiths (or more fairly one rule for everyone, with common decency for peoples quirks) - but this isn't it.

Accidental Dimlies are brilliant.

The reason for this semantic change is, the cynic inside me says, that if the whole thing proves to be a crock of shit and human CO2 output doesn't in fact warm the planet, then any climatic change - warming or cooling - can be blamed on CO2 emissions.

I am a believer in cutting emissions, getting away from our oil dependency and generally being less shitty to the place our species calls home, but I'm not so sure about this agw theory or of its, supposedly proven, cause. My major areas of doubt are:

1) The planet is an insanely complicated thing; it seems to me too convenient that CO2 is the one and only cause of global warming. In a way it would be good if it is, because we'd then be on the road to controlling the climate and eventually even the weather - but nothing's every that simple, surely?[/quote]

An argument of disbelief, CFCs were a single huge factor in the whole in the Ozone layer and banning them has started a slow healing process (last time I checked at least) so disbelief doesn't change whether it is true or not. But also a straw man. No one thinks CO2 is the be all and end all of climate change. But thats not saying it's a large factor. As a unit of environmental cost CO2 is a good (if not perfect) standard to use. At least to get people thinking properly. But it is clearly a first step.


I've done a PhD in a computer modelling, and there is a lot of truth in that. But that doesn't mean that they can't inform and illuminate truth. There is a thing done in science called bench marking. Where disparate groups working across the planet work on independently derived models. Then they fly somewhere pretty and all model the same situation together. differences between the models are then analysed to see the range in opinion and confidence in the data. It helps minimise people tweaking and computational quirks from the physics.

Aside: I think most people in finance new what was going to happen but was making too much money to think about the long term. We know we are going to run out of oil (and plastic and drugs) but look at us.



No we aren't. Thats just defeatest. And regardless of whether we do it now or in a few generations, as the total energy output of human endevours (which rises exponetially) becomes of order of the energies involved in the climate then we will effect it.

Yes what we are doing today won't achieve anything if things are really bad, but it is the first step to changing mankinds viewpoint on things. To poo-poo that is madness.


Welcome to all science journalism ever. If we had that, then we would be years ahead in sorting outselves out of the mess we are making for ourselves.


That would be an abomination but thankfully it isn't the case. At all.

Corporate interests and political interests often pretend their is a huge coverup that is getting people shut and it's the same bullshit that the creationists use.

Yes there is debate amongst actual climate people (because that is what happens in good science), but it's informed debate. The matter of %s and errors. Not some binary 'it isn't/it is happening crap'



Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah aha ha ha hah ha ha ha. Oh god my sides. Oh wow. Ha ha. ha. Wheeze wheeze. I promise you, no one is getting rich via research into global warming. Getting money for anything is hell for an academic exactly because you don't get into a field by promising specific results.



very much

This thread has reminded me that I really should get round to reading Trouble with Lichen. Scientist discovers lichen that vastly prolongs human life. Possible repercussions are discussed, including the point that since everyone will now be living for another couple of centuries, they'll actually start giving a shit about pollution and fuel and the future of the planet because it'll affect them, because people are basically dicks. Fifty years ago. Wyndham .

Sorry - only just saw your reply!



I have two problems with this argument: Just because one thing is true, does not make another thing true. That is a real straw man argument, to say that 1+1 = 2 and therefore the moon must be made of cheese. Also, if CO2 is not the be all and all of climate change, why is CO2 portrayed as the bogeyman of the modern world?



I accept your qualification in the field, but I've worked as a software contractor/developer almost my entire working life, and have covered sausage production all the way up to finance. In each case I have been given a series of inputs and expected outputs, and my software is judged by its ability to meet those outputs. I can't possibly be an expert in all the fields I've worked and so must rely on others to provide that expertise... often they're wrong. But worse than wrong, then others base their decisions on the basis of faulty assumptions.



I don't understand this argument. We either have to do something or not. Changing mankinds view point to what end?



Well if that is the case, where is the counter case and discussion in the media?



Are you so sure? So does research sponsored by Exxon hold equal weight with you? Science might be "pure", but people are not.

A 'paper' published by an employee of Exxon doesn't get peer reviewed & a journal release, it gets a press release.
It isn't science, it is propaganda and has more to do with marketing than scientific research - it's about casting doubt on science, not progressing knowledge in any way.
None of these papers gets referenced by real scientists, as they know its all crap.

Funding into climate change by genuine scientists (who are expected to produce papers for peer review) get very little funding as there is not much money in climate change being true. Certainly the institute that is paying the scientist won't make any profit from it.