Climate Change as a Secular Religion

[longview]

9 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

So you exclude any data that could prove models correct.

Please show me WHERE I have made an exclusion?  I have debated point by point.  I have a life long experience in reviewing much literature and technical publications.  I have seen the embarrassing expose of University of East Anglia email scandal, shocking cynicism of Michael Mann's hockey stick graph and the unscientific behavior of Dr. Hansen, and on and on.  I asked you for ONE prediction that has come to pass, can't you even do this?   Please do so.

9 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

At that point isn't your view unfalsifiable?

What does that even mean?  I am NOT an expert but I have made numerous observations and correlations in a wide variety of venues for more than 40 years.  Can all of that be boiled down to just ONE view?  Can we do a fallibility test on this one view?   That would not make sense.  I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Math.  I had an exciting 30 year career in computer programming and system design.  It was rigorous, challenging and VERY gratifying.  I love science but (like Hugh Nibley) we simply cannot take at face value the rhetoric of society or trust in the narratives of "experts" or any scientists.   There is NO consensus.

9 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Speaking as a physicist, physics of all kinds are chock full of assumptions. Newton's laws of gravitation are no different. The issue isn't whether there are assumptions but whether the predictions test out.

There are wide range of rigor and discipline.  Gravitation are more directly observable and testable.  We get pretty good accuracy on local level but we do start to see surprises, such as anomalous orbit of Mercury (relativistic effect being near the Sun).  Other sciences are much softer and tend to have great deal more speculations.

9 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Richard Muller found that they were pretty accurate and changed his views. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/converted-contrarian-argues-humans-to-blame-for-climate-change/

I have to leave for work in  a few.  Will study this later.

9 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Issue isn't the warmth it's the rapidity of the change. Do it over tens of thousands or millions of years and evolution has time to adapt. Do it over a century and things are liable to get uncomfortable.

No predictions has panned out for either the short or medium term.  Can you come up with one?

[Sky]

For accurate, mainstream information about climate science, and potential solutions, here are a few places to start.  It’s not all doom and gloom.  Even if it’s not completely reversible at this point, we can still take action to avoid the worst effects.  

https://climate.nasa.gov/

http://www.drawdown.org/

https://www.climaterealityproject.org/

 

The oil companies and the the tobacco companies have been shown to use the same tactics to sway public opinion:  

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-used-same-researchers-to-sway-public1/

 

I see no problem with being both a Mormon and a supporter of climate change science.  Because I was always taught that we are a religion that accepts truth wherever it may come from. 

 

 

[Sky]

The 2017 Hurricane Season is a testament that something is amiss:  

https://www.google.com/amp/s/relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/public/amp/2017/11/2017-hurricane-season-most-expensive-us-history-spd

[strappinglad]

While we are listing links, here's one for the skeptics in the room.

Sorry for the double post.

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, snowflake said:

Climate models have done suprisingly well? Wow. I have been lied to about this issue for over 20 years! Al Gore's doomsday clock came and went. No sea level rise.....wait 1mm in 25 years, well withing the range of normal!

What. You mean maybe, just maybe Gore wasn't a great spokesman for the science and exaggerated? So does that mean that if some other politician misrepresents things the things he misrepresents must also be false?

Again. Don't go to popular media for accurate representation of science. If you're rejecting science because of how the media misunderstands, sensationalizes and so forth then the problem is with you not the science.

43 minutes ago, Gray said:

For just general news? Washington Post, BBC, CNN, ABC, CBS. Responsible news outlets that take journalistic standards seriously.

All TV news including their websites are horrible for science. The BBC's science reporting in particular is egregiously bad. I've not followed the WaPo's science so I can't say much there. The NYTs science is usually excellent if it's done by the science department. There have been an occasional bad story come through but usually it's done by political reporters rather than science reporters. Even those are rare.

TV science news always was bad and usually prone to misrepresenting the story in sensational ways. However since the collapse of advertising revenue most outlets have cut what meager science staff they had. Typically you now just have people with no science background reading press releases and rewriting them in a sensationalist way. Now University PR releases are their own problem. Normally they'd not be a problem if there were reporters doing things like interviewing people familiar with the topic. Especially reporters with experience of communicating clearly science to a lay audience. When you get people with zero science understanding rewriting already bad PR releases it's a disaster.

3 hours ago, snowflake said:

My point is that I've been told the world is going to be beyond recovery, massive deaths, Florida underwater, we are all going to die for 26 years.....I decided about 10 years ago to stop listening to the boy crying wolf.  

The whole movement is based on computer models, and a demonization of plant food (CO2).

Or maybe you just pay attention to bad sources. What you've done is instead of stopping listening to the boy who cried wolf you've decided there are no wolves because a few untrustworthy boys made false claims.

 

[clarkgoble]

16 minutes ago, longview said:

Please show me WHERE I have made an exclusion?  I have debated point by point.  I have a life long experience in reviewing much literature and technical publications.  I have seen the embarrassing expose of University of East Anglia email scandal, shocking cynicism of Michael Mann's hockey stick graph and the unscientific behavior of Dr. Hansen, and on and on.  I asked you for ONE prediction that has come to pass, can't you even do this?   Please do so.What does that even mean?  I am NOT an expert but I have made numerous observations and correlations in a wide variety of venues for more than 40 years.  Can all of that be boiled down to just ONE view?  Can we do a fallibility test on this one view?   That would not make sense.  I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Math.  I had an exciting 30 year career in computer programming and system design.  It was rigorous, challenging and VERY gratifying.  I love science but (like Hugh Nibley) we simply cannot take at face value the rhetoric of society or trust in the narratives of "experts" or any scientists.   There is NO consensus.

Hold it, you love science, have a math degree, have life long experience in reviewing such literature and don't know what the term falsification means? Really? Forgive me but I find that hard to believe.

The video I linked to had predictions by date and then recent dating confirming the predictions. It was a series of graphs. So if you say I didn't give one prediction that came to pass I start thinking you're not even reading.

[clarkgoble]

10 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

While we are listing links, here's one for the skeptics in the room.

Oh my gosh. He finds some places where temperatures go down does not tell us anything about how climate changes which is about the planet. Again weather != climate. This is really basic. But more to the point, making claims about the future is not the same as the past. Now I'm actually fairly skeptical on a lot of these types of predictions. Models predicting future temperatures for specific locations just aren't terribly accurate. However this rejoinder is pretty awful. Further using this as evidence about the strong confirmed by numerous scientists claims about aggregate climate makes no sense.

I think I just need to drop out of this thread. It's sort of the physics version of the Godmakers.

Edited January 25, 2018 by clarkgoble

[strappinglad]

Where's my tinfoil hat ? I think I left it with my sarcasm scarf!

[Brother Bear]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Dang

Why didn't I just do it that way? 

 

I’m sure you anticipated that the thread would wander when you included climate change in the topic, but it’s kind of shocking how the point of your topic was lost so quickly. 

Edited January 25, 2018 by Brother Bear

[Bob Crockett]

33 minutes ago, Sky said:

The 2017 Hurricane Season is a testament that something is amiss:  

https://www.google.com/amp/s/relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/public/amp/2017/11/2017-hurricane-season-most-expensive-us-history-spd

I don't think so.  My mind is open about climate change, but speaking as one who hires experts for the work I do, one cannot rely on anecdotal evidence for climate change claims.  A proper climate change analysis would require sophisticated computer modeling to predict the non-steady state equilibrium effect, which would rely upon millions of data points we likely don't have -- such as water temps, air temps, from thousands of sources, water levels, Co2 levels, tree-ring evidence, from around the world; arctic ice analysis and so forth.  But I know one thing for certain.  One cannot say -- hey, a record temperature was recorded in Austin Texas in 2017 and thus this is evidence of climate change.  It isn't.  

One only needs to spend a little time in the Yucatan to realize that immense hurricanes have been leveling that place for eons.  

Edited January 25, 2018 by Bob Crockett

[CV75]

My religion is...

CHILLIN'... just chillin'...

[strappinglad]

I'm sure it's just me, but I see the MSM report high temps and droughts and follow with editorializing about global warming and climate change. If there are record snows and cold it is reported on of course , but there is no editorializing about it other than to say it is just weather.

I have a theory as to why the wind blows. It is because the leaves on the trees move and that causes the air to flow. Leaf movement anywhere in the world can cause the wind to blow anywhere else. The butterfly effect , right?

And I can prove this theory. On the Moon there is no wind. Why? , it's obvious, no trees!

[RevTestament]

2 hours ago, snowflake said:

You are catching on Rev, it is a moral issue (or feelings issue). The good news Rev is that it sounds like you are ready to confess your sin of (being an American and living like an American), and you can atone for this horrible sin, ( by believing in Climate change) and become a soldier for Gaya (preach the truth of climate change) and change your life (buy a prius, vote Democrat and feel like you are saving the world!!!  which is what you are doing when you believe in this movement!).

LOL. I've readily said I do not favor extreme electrical asceticism. To cut back markedly on our electrical usage would negatively affect our productivity, and probably throw us into a recession. Yet, I do believe we could encourage better usage of electricity, and sources that will allow the rest of the world to develop somewhat like us. For the rest of the world to become developed based on the western model of fossil fuels is just untenable, and would also serve to make fossil fuels prohibitively expensive. We need a better model for plain economic reasons, and some other reasons I listed in that same post of mine you're quoting:

Quote

There are other very valid and good reasons to break our oil habit. It is the main cause of our trade deficit, which causes our nation to continually impoverish itself. It is also enriching countries which are using this money to export an unfriendly religion, and to fund terrorism. We would have much fewer worries about this if we stopped sending billions overseas for oil. With a new better technology, we could become an exporter of energy to help the rest of the world into a clean and efficient energy future. How can they really help themselves without affordable energy? Instead we are squandering this chance imho. And lastly, continued reliance on fossil fuels always seems to ignore the "hidden costs" of this outdated fuel such as the health problems the pollution causes, which can be an enormous cost, and other environmental impacts such as acid rain(although we have largely corrected the latter, other countries may not be so inclined ie China). 

So I not only see moral issues involved, but really it's in our best economic interest to cut our reliance on coal and oil now. Yet we can only do this I feel with a new source of cheap electricity. With that hydrogen fuel cells will become economically feasible. We could heat our homes with hydrogen made from electrolysis right in our home, and provide another alternative to natural gas which is entirely non-polluting. Cheap electricity would make electric cars more feasible than gasoline and diesel. Why not at least try to develop a thorium MSR plant? The government stopped funding it under Nixon largely for political reasons, and we are at least 3/4 of the way there. We have just lacked the political will to fund it. We don't even need any extra money for it like I have said. All we need to do is encourage our Dept of Energy to move some of its discretionary funds to be used for this purpose, and finish the groundwork private companies don't want to do for fear of spending a billion dollars only to have the agency say no, we won't approve that. We need to get some public pressure involved, and the CO2 scare will help do that, even if it is overblown. We could also provide research money to some fusion start-ups. The ITER Fusion project is decades from commercializing, and may prove prohibitively expensive in the end, even if it does achieve net energy output. There are several promising startups. 

4 hours ago, snowflake said:

Here are the biggest lie's i've been told since I was in high school. We are all going to be underwater from global warming. Peak Oil is going to throw us into a stone age and we'll all die. Y2K, all the computers will crash and economic catastrophe will soon follow. Saddam had WMD's. The republicans are for smaller Gov'ment. Obamacare will make my premiums cheaper.  Don't you get it Clark, they are full of S*&t!!!!! and just want your money.  CO2 is plant food, not a pollutant.  

Climate change is not a lie. The Climate is changing, and the world has heated up an average of 2 deg F in the last 50 years. The issue is is this just part of a natural warm cycle we are currently in, or is the world going to go to pot because of a little CO2 man is adding to the atmosphere? Being that CO2 will encourage more phytoplankton growth in the oceans, and more plant growth on land, nature may be able to balance itself out more than climate scientists are allowing. "Climate change" is really a misnomer, given time, the climate will change whether man does anything or not. Historically, we are really at the end of one of the shorter, warmer periods. Over the last several hundred thousand years, the ice ages have predominated.

Nevertheless, I think man is adding to a warming trend which is scriptural, so maybe we should heed that, and try to be better, healthier stewards of our planet:

Revelation 16:9

9 And men were scorched with great heat, and ^ablasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

D&C 88:

90 And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds.

91 And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men’s hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people.

This last verse is straight from the last plagues of Revelation in the seventh seal.

The combination of scriptures sounds pretty much like a global warming which will eventually cause sea levels to rise so that the seas will not know their bounds. They are essentially straight from your book of Revelation snowflake. So maybe it won't happen in 50 years, but there is a trend beginning. My guess is nothing man tries to do at this point will stop the prophecies from happening though. Nevertheless, I would like to help future saints pursue a better, more economical energy future. A continued reliance on fossil fuels is proving physically unhealthy, and is just not in the best interests of mankind. We can and we should begin the change now. The hysteria would help us do that even if we don't believe all the hype.

[mfbukowski]

51 minutes ago, Brother Bear said:

I’m sure you anticipated that the thread would wander when you included climate change in the topic, but it’s kind of shocking how the point of your topic was lost so quickly. 

Honestly I am not surprised hereabouts.  I suppose I should shut it down.

[Sky]

25 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

I don't think so.  My mind is open about climate change, but speaking as one who hires experts for the work I do, one cannot rely on anecdotal evidence for climate change claims.  A proper climate change analysis would require sophisticated computer modeling to predict the non-steady state equilibrium effect, which would rely upon millions of data points we likely don't have -- such as water temps, air temps, from thousands of sources, water levels, Co2 levels, tree-ring evidence, from around the world; arctic ice analysis and so forth.  But I know one thing for certain.  One cannot say -- hey, a record temperature was recorded in Austin Texas in 2017 and thus this is evidence of climate change.  It isn't.  

One only needs to spend a little time in the Yucatan to realize that immense hurricanes have been leveling that place for eons.  

 

I agree that one record setting weather event in and of itself doesn’t necessarily prove climate change.  

Weather and climate are not the same thing.  This I’m agreement with.  

I was just trying to point out that with everything I have read, we can expect more hurricane seasons like 2017 with climate change.  The reason is pretty straight forward:  warmer temperatures, more evaporation, more water vapor in the air, warmer ocean surface temperatures = more fuel for stronger hurricanes.  

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160119141420.htm

 

“Hurricane Harvey has already dropped a staggering amount of rain over parts of the Houston metropolitan area.  Before it is done, some places may get 50 inches.  It’s a historic amount of precipitation.  The National Weather Service characterized the rainfall as “unprecedented” and “beyond anything experienced.”  

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/29/upshot/harvey-rainfall-where-you-live.html

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2017/8/28/16217626/harvey-houston-flood-water-visualized

 

[mnn727]

On 1/24/2018 at 12:13 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Yeh, we get both ancient bacteria coming back to life in large quantities, and galloping increases in greenhouse gases -- which is happening how.

But yet increasing greenhouse gasses grow; more, better, stronger plants which cause a cooling effect -- You really can't have it both ways.

If climate changing? Yeah, but it has throughout the history of this planet.

Is mankind causing it? the most you could say is we are giving it a slight assist.

Do any of you climate change proponents actually believe the end times prophecies from the Bible and BoM?

[Sky]

2 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

 

Do any of you climate change proponents actually believe the end times prophecies from the Bible and BoM?

I’ll just say I’m not gonna help speed it along!  I ultimately believe in making this world a better place in the here and now.  We all share this earth.  And as far as I can tell, there is only one earth.  I also believe in being a responsible steward for future generations.  

[snowflake]

1 hour ago, Brother Bear said:

I’m sure you anticipated the thread to wander when you included climate science in the topic, but it’s kind of shocking how the point of your topic was lost so quickly. 

[mfbukowski]

5 minutes ago, snowflake said:

I have requested the thread be shut down.   Major derail- totally predictable.

We just cannot discuss philosophy here - it's pretty disappointing.

[Bob Crockett]

16 minutes ago, Sky said:

 

I agree that one record setting weather event in and of itself doesn’t necessarily prove climate change.  

Weather and climate are not the same thing.  This I’m agreement with.  

I was just trying to point out that with everything I have read, we can expect more hurricane seasons like 2017 with climate change.  The reason is pretty straight forward:  warmer temperatures, more evaporation, more water vapor in the air, warmer ocean surface temperatures = more fuel for stronger hurricanes.  

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160119141420.htm

 

“Hurricane Harvey has already dropped a staggering amount of rain over parts of the Houston metropolitan area.  Before it is done, some places may get 50 inches.  It’s a historic amount of precipitation.  The National Weather Service characterized the rainfall as “unprecedented” and “beyond anything experienced.”  

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/29/upshot/harvey-rainfall-where-you-live.html

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2017/8/28/16217626/harvey-houston-flood-water-visualized

 

Not even remotely evidence of climate change.  It is evidence that 2017 is different than prior years. 

Edited January 25, 2018 by Bob Crockett

[cinepro]

I've also never understood why someone who believes "religion" is a good thing points out that other groups look like a quasi-religion as if it were a bad thing (usually, it's towards atheism).

If I believe that religious knowledge is the purest form of knowledge, and that religious behavior is the most rational expression of this pure knowledge, then I would be very impressed if a belief in something was able to affect that kind of change and behavior in other people and it would cause me to be more inclined to agree with them.  What higher validation could there be (in this case, of global warming) than for people to have received a religion-like conviction and confirmation of their beliefs? 

Heck, from an LDS perspective, we teach that the surest way to know whether something is true or not is to actually live it, and then see how you feel.  This family has apparently applied that exact test to the theory of global warming and are getting a very strong spiritual confirmation of the truth of that belief.  If discussions on this forum are any indication, they have now ascended to a higher plane of knowledge about global warming that is beyond the need of scientific evidence, and while they may acknowledge evidence that supports their beliefs, they don't need it, because they have received a higher form of knowledge.

Edited January 25, 2018 by cinepro

[snowflake]

22 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Honestly I am not surprised hereabouts.  I suppose I should shut it down.

LOL, MFB, you can always start a new thread and exchange "climate change" with ___________ fill in the blank and end up right back at the same spot.

[Bob Crockett]

5 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I have requested the thread be shut down.   Major derail- totally predictable.

We just cannot discuss philosophy here - it's pretty disappointing.

Your opening proposition is untenable.  It isn't a religion, and you have no standing to tell another person what that person should believe.  It is a matter of religious freedom, in part.  As much as you despise left-wingers and their views of climate change, it does you no credit to demonize them for a false religion.  Make fun of their data, yes, like Sky's assertion that a 2017 hurricane is evidence of climate change.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Bob Crockett

[snowflake]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

For just general news? Washington Post, BBC, CNN, ABC, CBS. Responsible news outlets that take journalistic standards seriously.

LOL, journalistic standards seriously....CNN?  Just general news, with a massive slant and agenda.

[Sky]

4 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I have requested the thread be shut down.   Major derail- totally predictable.

We just cannot discuss philosophy here - it's pretty disappointing.

Climate change science is not a religion, it’s science.  It is measureable and tangible.  

Are there religious and moral arguments to be made to do something about it?  Yes.  

Not sure if this is exactly what you wanted, but it’s how I feel about it.