Earth Sets a Temperature Record for the Third Straight Year | Hacker News Reader

Earth Sets a Temperature Record for the Third Straight Year

nytimes.com

147 pointsuptown135 comments

At the time I write this post :"What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn" has over 220 comments and 509 points. This post has 80 points and 81 comments.

I know there is not much to say in response to this fact really - and HN is a tech news resource, but it saddens me that this topic garners less interest than making money. Like money will save us from the effects of this?

"...as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics."

According to Lovelock, this is just the start of a 100,000 year journey into the unknown for the planet. Just the start.

Based on the current data, I think the predictions James Lovelock made 11 years ago were quite modest.

http://www.jameslovelock.org/page10.html

One article was posted four hours ago, the other posted two hours ago (at the time I write this post).

Humanity causing its own end is a heavy topic. And it is a hopeless topic considering the new leadership in america.

The temperature has been increasing for the last 130 years. But what does the average 130 period look like? What is the average variance for 130 year periods over the last 100k years?

Imagine looking at the daily closes of a stock price, then trying to judge if the tick data from the last 5 minutes constitutes a meaningful trend.

We just don't have the data to prove it yet. With that said:

Should we stop polluting? Yes

Should we research renewable energy sources? Yes

Should we try to save energy and get more efficient where possible? Yes

Should we aim to reduce energy usage per person over time? Absolutely not

Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living. Sure we might be able to keep making CPUs use less energy, but there will probably never be a way to make heating/cooling a house or manufacturing physical products a magnitude more efficient. Our only solution to make the world better is to increase energy production.

You need to add looking for another livable planet to the list. More energy * More people = more energy to dissipate. Eventually, even with the cleanest energy sources and the highest efficiencies, humanity's energy production will be too great for the planet to support.

Since we don't have a planet lined-up for colonization and temperatures are already threatening stability - we need to deal with the first half of the equation before nature does it for us.

> Should we stop polluting? Yes

> Should we research renewable energy sources? Yes

> Should we try to save energy and get more efficient where possible? Yes

All of these questions have become weirdly politicized. It seems to come from thinking less pollution hampers business profits. If a company is required to pollute less, many think that increases cost.

Two strategies that could fight this:

1. Point out how polluting less could also result in enhanced energy efficiency, which could overall reduce cost (especially when factored over many years)

2. Make it even more abundantly clear what the consequences will be.

Many visualizations exist to help the consequences be visible, but they still seem very academic.

Unless someone can internalize how something will negatively impact their life, inertia rules and no change will be made.

I am working on something that will remind people of the concrete negative consequences more often, but I must be careful to still be accurate.

Communicating what we know now in extremely concrete, easy-to-understand, visual and visceral terms, seems essential to removing the politicization of these questions.

Imagine somebody a hundred years ago saying:

"Should we aim to reduce calorie intake per person over time? Absolutely not. Calorie intake per capita is effectively our standard of living."

...well yes it was, until some day it wasn't any more.

Energy per capita is only a proxy for standard of living. You can build a well-insulated modern house that needs a fraction of the energy required to heat a 1930's house with similar size, but nobody will say the person living in the modern house is poorer for that.

Compared globally, access to technologies that allow the same convenience with less energy is a better indicator for our standard of living.

> but there will probably never be a way to make heating/cooling a house or manufacturing physical products a magnitude more efficient.

You'd be surprised how much more efficient houses can be with pre-existing tech and very little change in lifestyle. Measures such as:

a) smaller houses (median American house size has doubled in the past 60 years or something like that) b) better-designed houses (large south-facing windows, more thermal mass, better insulation) c) more effective heating systems (eg. radiant heat) d) moving away from central heating and cooling and instead only heating/cooling the rooms you're actually in

can get you a long way (actual numbers in links at bottom).

If you actually want to get into "personal sacrifice", putting on thermal underwear is a great way to reduce your heating bill. It's difficult to argue that wearing thermal underwear is a diminishing of one's standard of living. It's also possible for many people to buy fewer manufactured goods with very little effect on standard of living e.g. does every homeowner need a lawnmower, instead of sharing one with a neighbor? (again, we're into "personal sacrifice" territory).

> Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living.

Only if we're running at 100% efficiency already, which I've demonstrated that we aren't. Right now the costs of running at sub-optimal energy efficiency aren't particularly high so we choose to be comfortable instead of efficient.

Source (apologies they're all from the same place) http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/03/25/cut-your-power-bil... http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/02/16/the-radiant-heat-e... http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/01/what-is-thermal-ma... http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/05/01/beating-the-stock-...

I believe strongly, we use too many irreplaceable resources, to make too many (largely disposable) things, which raise the standard of living of the few instead of benefiting the many.

I also think reducing per-capita energy usage over time is a laudable goal - provided we continue the trend of increasing efficiency we've had over the last 100 years.

I have no doubts that climate change is happening - I'm just not certain its the most pressing problem humanity has right now - and certainly not the most pressing problem for most developed countries.

Humanity will eventually put a fix in for climate change, but we have a habit of not fixing such things (threat of global calamity) until the last possible second - and I can make a strong argument that humanities finest hour has consistently been when hope is all but lost.

>Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living.

That is true for developing countries. But for developed countries, the two have been disconnected for several decades, with per capita wealth going up while per capita energy use goes down.

Here are the graphs to the actual data: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

I never understand why these article don't just provide you with the sources where this data was captured...let alone the actual data used. I guess we are just suppose to "believe" them?

Because it would make it easier for competitors to source the information and the average reader likely doesn't care to fact check, dig deeper, etc.

>I guess we are just suppose to "believe" them?

That's generally the purpose of a journalistic organization, yes.

Thanks for tracking this down. It would be one thing if journalists on the science beat were generally accurate and reliable, but they get so much stuff wrong all the time.

edit: Do you (or anyone else) know why they choose their zero point the way they do? If the graph is going back to 1880, why not just call that the zero? The closest year I could find that was at 0 was 1972 at +0.01C. Is it supposed to be based around when the satellites started taking measurements or something?

I believe that's what the linked paper is referring to by "base period" which it discusses a bit on page 2: https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Hansen_ha00510u.pd...

If I understand it correctly, the 0 point is the average of the period from 1951 to 1980, which was chosen relatively arbitrarily based on when research on this stuff began in earnest, but is about as early as it can reasonably be.

Zero represents the 30-year mean of the years 1951-1980, i.e. some representation of a recent baseline climatology. Choosing 1880, or any other year, might skew perception positively or negatively.

From the Earth Observatory [0]:

> The period of 1951-1980 was chosen largely because the U.S. National Weather Service uses a three-decade period to define “normal” or average temperature. The GISS temperature analysis effort began around 1980, so the most recent 30 years was 1951-1980. It is also a period when many of today’s adults grew up, so it is a common reference that many people can remember.

[0] http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/deca...

I find it very unlikely that we'll "solve" this problem. At best we'll just deal with the effects and survive accordingly.

1. The majority of the world isn't even on par with say, France, in terms of their contribution to this problem. It's only going to get worse as they develop (finally).

2. Those living in the countries that contribute the most aren't going to pay the price, figuratively or literally. Would you take an 80% paycut to eradicate this problem? Probably not. Would you not have children (who will comparatively consume, and therefore contribute far more than 3rd world children)? Probably not. This line of thinking is obviously a part of the problem.

> Would you take an 80% paycut to eradicate this problem?

Where do you get this from? I haven't seen anything suggesting that such a paycut would be necessary and/or follow from the required CO2 reduction.

If you're an oil company executive you may need to take a 100% pay cut :)

But in general I think* that sustainable energy and technology will actually make high quality of life cheaper and more achievable.

* No sources cited, take with grain of salt

I guess I wasn't clear -- the point I was trying to make isn't about the paycut, or even the percentage, but rather just conveying that a huge lifestyle change would be necessary. One I'm skeptical that most would be willing, and able to make.

I for one is scared of this lifestyle change...

How am I ever going to live with electric cars with instantaneous torque that drive themselves?

Or all the electricity I can get from the sun?

I really don't know how I'm going to deal with paying almost nothing to heat my house in the winter due to geothermal heating instead of this nice gas fire that is currently burning in my furnace.

And I'm going to miss having all those plastic bags from the grocery store under my sink. It will be so inconvenient having to reuse the same durable bag every time.

And it's too bad I'm going to have to have a 1/2 cm thin high efficiency OLED 4k TV instead of having a 20 lbs monstrocity hanging from my wall.

I'm being snarky and a bit of an ass but I see a world gone green as a world of opportunity not a world of sacrifice.

And free fertilizer from compost instead of paying a small fortune for it at the store is a real drag.

We really can have our cake and eat it to. In many many cases green technology is both better for the environment and just plain better all around. Well unless you're invested in dirty energy.

We don't have nearly enough renewable energy yet to replace coal and oil based electricity

Check what happened in the UK in 2016 for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. And then look how far north the UK is compared to the USA. If the UK can do it, almost every nation is guaranteed to be able to do it. (Those that aren't guaranteed, have other options).

As someone from the UK, what are you referring to? We have a pretty poor environmental record as things go, especially as what little there is is propped up by scotland

For a few days in 2016, the UK burned zero coal. This is was the first time on record, and those go back to the first coal fired power station in 1882: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/13/uk-energ...

Edit: Yes I do know this didn't continue permanently, but as recently as 2013, coal was the UK's largest single source of electricity. Change is faster than most people realise. :)

> We don't have nearly enough renewable energy yet to replace coal and oil based electricity

"Yet"

Because people keep fighting it. Meanwhile I bet you that Elon Musk is going to make a fortune off of clean technology. A smart business person who is highly capitalized should be jumping on the opportunity to turn "not yet" into "now"

> Would you not have children (who will comparatively consume, and therefore contribute far more than 3rd world children

Anecdotally, I know many people who are doing just that. Not having kids for ethical reasons related to climate change.

Not saying I agree or disagree, just presenting an anecdote from the group of people I know.

That's how Idiocracy starts

There is quite a bit you'd have to state to justify this belief.

Idiocracy is a 2006 movie by Mike Judge. The plot of the film starts with intelligent people declining to reproduce.

Oh. I did not know this was a reference to a movie. Thank you!

Here is the (classic) opening scene of Idiocracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E

Thanks. I did not get the reference.

How do they know their kid wouldn't be the one who would have solved climate change?

The way I see it every new human expands our global hive mind super computer and it's also a lottery ticket at getting a new Einstein. All you need is one genius to advance a science to the next level.

How do they know their kid wouldn't be the one who would have solved climate change?

Probability, and the probability says their kid will turn out to be the same level of idiot as the rest of us, all the while using 400x (or whatever the number is) energy and resources of someone in a developing country.

All you need is one genius to advance a science to the next level.

History has demonstrated that the singular genius coming up with a breakthrough is largely a myth.

There is no problem that I can think of that we have that adding more people is going to fix. I really want a way to prevent people from being fertile by default. I wouldn't trust any government I know to implement that without quickly falling into eugenics, however.

In response to your first point, you don't account for the very real possibility that these developing countries, which are already disproportionately affected by climate issues, will instead invest heavily in sustainable energy sources as they continue to become cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.

They'll invest in whatever is cheapest. For the foreseeable future, that means oil, coal and natural gas.

Solar's the cheapest these days. The rest are only backups.

The issue with energy, especially electrical, isn't strictly about cost per KWH. There's the fixed cost of existing power plants that are expected to return a (highly regulated) profit, the problem of getting enough baseline power to run the grid, and also the fact that some sources of fossil fuels are cheaper to extract than others.

These are huge problems that can't be fixed by any one group and are going to need solved in the next 10 years before we can replace most or all of our existing power plants with renewables.

There's a third reason that I've thought about for a while. I call it "it's better to reign in hell."

Extreme poverty is worse than most natural disasters. I wouldn't be surprised if infant mortality is substantially lower in a developed nation during a category five hurricane than it is in a poor nation during calm weather. It's better to reign in hell.

The benefits of development may actually outweigh the cost of, say, losing one's coastal cities.

I wonder how strongly correlated poverty is with the quality of life impact associated with natural disasters.

You're going against the narrative there ... no amount of progress is worth sea level rise.

If only sea level rise was the only problem.

I wasn't saying it's a good thing, just that it's a fact. Wealth brings the luxury of caring about the environment. Poverty is absolute desperation. If you are dirt poor the only thing that matters is not being dirt poor.

This is also why what I call "abstinence based" solutions to environmental problems are doomed. This refers to the use of shame and ideology to convince people to accept a lower standard of living. Telling people to forego the benefits of energy consumption is going to work about as well as telling them not to have sex.

The only solution to climate change is large scale renewable and/or nuclear energy sufficient to economically replace fossil fuels. All else is futile.

I kind of agree, in that it's not an individual action problem but a collective action problem. You want to reduce emissions in the aggregate, you need something like a carbon tax which encourages people and companies at the margin into making the choice that emits less carbon.

Except that the vast majority of greenhouse gases are generated by the developed countries. Especially if you look over the entire history since the industrial revolution. We can't fix this problem by bringing India, Africa and China up to western levels of emissions and then converting them. We've got to ramp down the levels in the west while rolling out renewables in the developing countries from the start.

There are two things that have to happen in tandem:

1) Mitigating the effects

2) Minimizing the effects

Going all in on one or the other is a fools' errand.

The appropriate solution, IMO, is a substantial carbon tax, with some proportion of it going to funding mitigation and the rest going toward a citizens' dividend.

A pro of this arrangement: to the degree that it's easy to cut down on carbon pollution, it will drive people in that direction. And in the areas where it's really hard to cut down on carbon pollution, it'll act as an economically efficient tax that's passed on to consumers and then rebated to the people. There're almost no losers (except for the many people who disproportionately benefit right now from offloading their carbon pollution onto other people).

A link with nice plots: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/science/earth...

In short, the temperature record of 2015 is beaten last Wednesday; the record of 2014 was beaten in 2015. So, we've had three record years in a row.

This issue solves itself once South Eastern US states are submerged due to global flooding and thus lose the electoral votes.

Coal and oil are a major industry outside of the south east. The Dakotas are big in that and so is utah

And PA, West Virginia, Ohio, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.

Not if New York is submerged at the same time and California dies out due to drought.

The catastrophic almond milk shortages will kill everyone before then.

I think that there will be a lot more carnage (and I don't use that word lightly) associated with climate change via extreme weather well before there's really substantial sea level rise.

Specifically, I think there's a chance that, worldwide, it will get more difficult to find places that basic food crops can be grown with sufficient reliability, due to extremes in heat, cold, storms, drought and flooding.

According to the data I've seen, on a worldwide average, this hasn't started happening yet, but it already happening in some regions.

The Russian and Canadian permafrost tundras will be incredibly productive farmland once they thaw. The main food problems will come near the equator, where people tend to be poorer. They'll lose farm land as well as fish stock in the oceans.

Indeed. That's been the traditional wisdom, which I was also on board with for a long time.

What I'm concerned about is 'weather weirding'. On average, everything gets warmer, but because there's a lot more overall energy, the highs get higher, and the lows get lower, along with more extreme rain/flooding, along with more extreme drought. And, of course, a lot more intense storms.

I hope I am wrong, and it seems like the analysis of this line of thought is just starting to ramp up.

Anecdotally, it's why, for example, we got something like 10 or 12 '100 year' and '500 year' weather events in the US in 2016.

Except that they'll also emit more methane as they thaw which could drive temperatures even higher in the interim. And it will also cause precipitation patterns to be more erratic, which is bad for farming in general.

By the time that happens, voting and elections will be the least of your concerns (as they should already be now)

But it's cold outside, and the politicians keep telling me it's not true!

We just had a 60 degree F day in mid January in Northern New England. While I like being able to go outside with no coat and I like that the snow melts faster, that is dang warm for my part of the world in January.

My favorite is trying to explain to people how climate change can produce more snow not less and that doesn't mean it is not getting warmer... it means that the air is warmer and because of that can hold more moisture and thus larger more severe precipitation events.

So I've read, I'm not a climate scientist.

Actual quote I hear multiple times per winter: "Look at all that snow! Global warming my ass!"

Don't forget the newspaper cartoonists. If they say global warming is a hoax, who are we to disagree.

The snowball says it's not true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3koOUFp4crU

Somewhat dated (2015) but useful visualization for factors driving climate change and global warming: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-wo...

The money quote from that site: "Atmospheric CO2 levels are 40% higher than they were in 1750".

I think it's a shame that legislation on climate change seems to be the expediting/forcing factor behind getting companies to improve their products and services.

It seems to me that Fortune 500 businesses have been especially slow taking advantage of computing developments over the last 10-15 years. I feel like there is so much potential for them to be better for the environment by more efficiently creating better products - and I can't understand how they would pass up on such opportunities. It's better for them because these improvements could lead to better product (competitive advantage) and marketing superiority (earth friendly!).

Maybe I'm naive or maybe Jevon's Paradox makes it all useless.

Obama on the clean energy revolution

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/01/06/scien...

How many years in one year, this sort of news comes every few months.

Got links to back that up? I suspect you're confusing "hottest year on record" news with stuff like "hottest April on record".

Just check the following Google news results and scroll back to see how frequently this sort of news is being churned out https://www.google.com/search?q=hottest+year&ie=utf-8&oe=utf...

It seems that all the results about 2016 are from yesterday. Can you provide examples of this is the hottest year not in January, the month the data is presented?

This youtube channel has a lot of videos by scientists regarding global warming.

https://www.youtube.com/user/1000frolly/videos?sort=p&shelf_...

One video that HN readers may enjoy, given it's mathematical nature is a talk given by Dr. Murry Salby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM

I hope you'll actually at least watch the one by Dr. Salby to perhaps see why some of us are not as convinced as the rest of us about this issue.

Indeed. Much more eloquently put by our great leader:

  The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on.

- President Trump

Somehow, he is right.

And he must be really upset, because that is replacing an age where everybody was completely sure about anything that powerful people (like him) wanted them to be.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus algorithm to prove him wrong on this point.

Upset? I think he's doing just fine btw.

Curious about an appeal to the authority of this "Dr. Salby," I went to his Wikipedia page:

>In 2005, the National Science Foundation opened an investigation into Salby's federal funding arrangements and found that he had displayed "a pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money.[2] He resigned his position in Colorado in 2008 and became professor of climate risk at Macquarie University in Macquarie Park, New South Wales. In 2013 he was dismissed by the university on grounds of refusal to teach and misuse of university resources.[3]

He is unconvincing as an authority on the subject due to his ethical issues. As far as presenting an actual argument, let's see it as traditional scientific papers rather than a collection of YouTube videos, hmm?

Why don't you watch the lecture, hmmm? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM

Nobody "appealed to authority". I only gave you his name. You, however, spent 2 minutes to dig up some dirt on the internet, in a desperate attempt to discredit without actually looking at his argument.

When a channel is almost composed of "lectures" from "scientists" in the International Conference on Climate Change[0] it says all that is is needed to know about the channel

> The International Conference on Climate Change is a conference series organized and sponsored by The Heartland Institute which aims to bring together global warming skeptics who "dispute that the science is settled on the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change."

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Conference_on_Cl...

While this guy does have a shady past, It would be better to shown why his data or logic is false/inaccurate; and not base argument against him on his résumé, if only to better educate people watching the video.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natura...

I quickly glanced over the post, it looks great. This kind of rebuttal is more convincing to a misinformed audience than saying, "the guy is bad". On the other hand, the frustration from people continuously spreading scientifically wrong ideas is understandable.

My question is why are we even bothering with a guy with a shady past instead of starting with those more reputable people that are much less likely to be intentionally deceiving us? Why give this guy any consideration until we've exhausted learning about the ideas that have been vetted and passed muster? Why start with somebody that is a charlatan in part?

I completely agree with you on such matter, but I don't need any convincing. From the point of view of a guy who does not believe in climate change, saying that Dr. Murry Salby should no be trusted might actually have the opposite effect, and present this Dr. as a person fighting against all odds for the truth.

Who is Murry Salby? Wikipedia to the rescue:

> From the mid 1980s, Salby conducted research out of University of Colorado Boulder. In 2005, the National Science Foundation opened an investigation into Salby's federal funding arrangements and found that he had displayed "a pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money... In 2013 he was dismissed by [Macquarie University] on grounds of refusal to teach and misuse of university resources.

  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murry_Salby

It gives one pause.

Clickable link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murry_Salby

To be fair, though, even if he had displayed a "pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money is not a valid argument against his climate science.

But it is a reason to disbelieve any of his claims and any data that he has generated. The logic can be trusted if one can go back to other data generators.

At that point, what purpose does he serve as a scientist? Are you going to go check all his citations and make sure that he's not misapplying them?

There is also great reason to doubt his science:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natura...

As those are pretty basic errors to be making. Basically he's a total mess.

He did it twice! After getting kicked out of a top-tier university, he got a job at some obscure place, then got kicked out of that. Maybe he's a genius who sees things that 99% of climate scientists don't see, but can't follow basic institutional rules. I'll remain skeptical.

It's reason enough. The scientist has demonstrated that he is deceptive and not trustworthy. I'm not going to sift through the bullshit to find a nugget of truth when I've got better sources with which to work.

Please keep your conspiracy theory propaganda off of HN. You're a danger to the world we live in. Ty.

Why don't you want HN readers to watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM

This is a scientific lecture, given by a professor. I found it very interesting. Why does it threaten you so much?

Hello pdx.

You wrote: "Why does it threaten you so much?"

This is a classic aggressive move, no-one has claimed being threatened, they have instead pointed out useful information about this obvious fraud.

As you have been on HN indeed a while, may I ask you that you justify this "Why does it threaten you so much?", or go away?

Thank You

You don't need to say "I feel threatened". Who the hell says "I feel threatened"? The fact that there is so much anger and gnashing of teeth is evidence that a worldview that does not include AGW must be viciously and immediately attacked. I find that fascinating.

Anger? No, just tired of the same old debunked denyalist bullshit claims

By "I find that fascinating," do you mean "I interpret that as meaning people who believe in anthropogenic global climate change are closed minded and unwilling to entertain opposing viewpoints"? Because if so, that's not at all what's happening here. What's happening is that people are unwilling to devote an hour of their time to an untrustworthy actor peddling a viewpoint that is heavily pushed by those who have the most to lose from a global switch away from fossil fuels. There are so many reasons not to bother watching this video, and the best reason you can come up with is "it's interesting".

People feel threatened because people like you are the reason our planet may well be unable to support global civilization in the near future.

"You're a danger to the world we live in." is not pointing out useful information.

The person he replied to wrote:

|You're a danger to the world we live in.

The above person is saying he threatens the world, and as a resident of such world, is also being threatened.

Wow, this is a quite serious accusation to be throwing around like that. Can you back it up?

I don't think this kind of response is useful.

Haven't we learned that dismissing or insulting people isn't going to change their opinions but rather just push more people over to their side?

It's tough to come up with the most useful response to what happened here. With time, I've come to see deadcast's response as one of the more useful. It's accurate, and honest, but you have to read a ton of pdx's comments and familiarize yourself with the science in order to realize it's true.

People just casually reading through might be turned off by it, but looking at any of the data will prove deadcast to be right.

People can believe in crazy conspiracy theories in one part of their life and be perfectly normal in the rest of their life, so it's not a universal condemnation of the poster. But it's a huge waste of time for anybody to watch those YouTube videos unless they make a study of conspiracy theories or the art of deception or scientific cranks themselves. So in that regard, saving 90 minutes of a persons life is a kindness.

You might be right about people who believe in crazy conspiracy theories. Usually, if anybody gets really fanatical about some cause, there's nothing you can do to change their mind.

However, by being aggressive and dismissive, we are insulting people that are on the fence, as well as the opposition. They will feel stupid and will see the other side as being more reasonable and accommodating. That is why I say that this kind of comment is not useful. It's actively pushing people in the center towards the other side.

EDIT: Accidentally posted without finishing typing the comment.

I have the same feeling towards gravity!

https://www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natura...

Please read this and respond.

I'll consider your request after you consider reading the 99%+ of the content supporting the science based community that advocates that global warming is happening and is the result of human activity. Then we'll talk.

Done and Done! Let's talk.

There is a body of evidence that correlates CO2 to Temperature. Where I think this falls down is the causality.

There is evidence that CO2 is caused by higher temperatures, rather than is the cause of them. We see lags of a thousand years in ice core samples, where temperature goes up, and 500 to 1000 years later, CO2 goes up. This is waved away as "due to solar variability", but when solar variability is used by non AGW proponents, they are ridiculed. This is obviously cherry picking of data.

This is a common misconception, so maybe it warrants explanation.

Imagine there are two large reservoirs, connected via a narrow pipe. One is CO2. Another is Temperature. The pipe represents feedback mechanism, when one becomes higher, that also causes the other to go up. (Obviously the real Earth is much more complicated, but you get the idea.)

Now imagine that the Temperature lake slowly gets more water. (Say, the sun becomes slightly brighter, or a continent drift away, reducing the amount of glaciers reflecting sunlight.) As the temperature goes up, CO2 starts to follow, lagging behind. Which also makes the temperature goes up even further, but not as much as the initial change. Eventually it stabilizes.

(Obviously, if the feedback coefficient is >1.0, we'll be Venus now. Thank god.)

Now imagine someone suddenly dumps a lot of water in the CO2 lake, causing its level to jump up instantly. What do you think will happen?

> ...when solar variability is used by non AGW proponents, they are ridiculed.

Well, yeah, duh, when we can exactly measure the solar irradiation and it's trending downhill right now, anyone using that to explain away AGW would be ridiculed. What did you expect?

Fact #1 Greenhouse gases are those that absorb and emit infrared radiation in the wavelength range emitted by Earth. Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

Fact #2 Fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide - roughly 40 billion tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere in 2014.

Fact #3 The quantity of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing in the atmosphere - It was roughly 320 PPM (Parts Per Million) around 1960, and currently over 400 PPM

Fact #4 The temperature of Earth has been steadily climbing

Which one of these facts do you take issue with?

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