Scientists have detected a major change to the Earth’s oceans

We've spent way more than that on CO^2 via the Kyoto accords etc. Of course the problem isn't solved, but that's because it's a way bigger problem. We've acted even more on CO^2 than CFC's, but the problem of CFC's was much smaller and easier to solve.

1. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/science/grappling-with-the...

Nuclear power is not a panacea. It looks good on paper but in practice there are tons of hidden costs and failures can be catastrophic. It also pretty much demands hefty regulation, which further adds to the cost in both monetary and social ways.

Finally there is a whole geopolitical order built around fossil fuels. Changing our energy system would fundamentally alter the power balance of the world.

I'm time people will solve these problems. However it's best not to worry because co2 is a natural element that the environment naturally soaks up. I don't think CFCs are naturally absorbed either

The problem with CO2 is that a lot of the energy requirements are solved by the equations:

  coal/petrol/gas + O2 --> CO2 + H2O + energy
  energy --> money

  whatever  --> CO2 + money

But most of the alternative methods are more expensive than a good old coal plant (if you ignore the social cost of pollution and the dangers of coal extraction). I think that nuclear and hydroelectric are cheaper, but they also have some hidden cost.

There is often a reluctance to support more costly non-CO2 producing approaches to energy production given that those approaches have been around longest and are often cheapest.

Some renewable energy technologies are gaining market acceptance and are cost-competitive with hydrocarbons, but unless Tesla and its peers take off in a big way, hydrocarbons unfortunately aren't going away.

With CO2 emissions, serious impacts are all long-term, across multiple generations. On short time scales, it's nontrivial to detect effects, and methodology and measurements are readily disputed.

The truly insidious aspect, though, is how thoroughly committed to massive and persistent change the climate system becomes, before any serious impacts are apparent.

Because for ordinary people, the CFC story is a wonderful one. Multi-national co-operation has halted and begun to roll back a serious environmental degredation.

For a small number of people who are slightly less rich thatn they might otherwise have been, though, it was a catastrophe, something that must never be allowed to happen again; much like the public health victories areound tobacco and lead, it energised a small slice of the world to make sure that future efforts (in the current case, the damagfe of greenhouse gases) are never again repeated. No matter what the cost.

On the energy generation side, it's taken pretty advanced tech to get efficiencies upto acceptable levels in Solar and Wind.

Nuclear unfortunately has proven to have drastic fast acting negative externalities on failure (mass evacuation, increase in cancer rates) and tbe Industry has consistently shown lack of competence in preventing failure. So it's no surprise people have soured on it.

Given the trajectory of tech development, I'm fairly confident we'll get there - hopefully before we screw up our climate too much.

<ost of the so-called skeptics don't know any economics beyond basic things like how to find equilibrium pricing between supply and demand curves and some outdated macroeconomic myths, but they know that the majority of people don't get economics and can be easily scared with threats of recession. That's how we wound up with a President that claims climate change is a myth created by the Chinese to steal their jobs and a dominant party that's champing at the bit to sweep away any and all environmental regulation so they can make a quick buck.

"Green" parties and organizations are infiltrated by double-game lobbyists and influencers from all fronts trying to save their own industry's interests.

What's the easiest way to defeat an adversary? Play it against itself. The same way governments will want to make rebellious opposition groups into violent terrorists, it makes all the sense in the world to make ecologists into irrational, counter-productive idealists.

What kind of powerful (=wealthy) organization benefits short to mid-term from reducing pollution? I fail to see any. The issue of ecology is IMO the hardest fight humanity has had to fight.

There are people high in conscientiousness, who like to follow innumerable rules, moralize others who don't, and administer justice and revenge (on both sides of the political spectrum). There are people high in openness and empathy, who like to think "big picture" and try to improve the world.

These are just personality traits. Both types of people have existed throughout history, exist now, and will exist.

Defeatism will not bring about any change. Build your own platforms, brands, build followings, and change things. The masses have never brought about any change, they only ever did so when being led.

But as always there's a few defectors who screw it up for everyone else, eg Koch brothers.

Unless you can get India and China onboard you will solve nothing. You will just end up moving more manufacturing to those countries. Total CO2 emitted will not change.

These sorts of solutions are only a good idea if we finally get moved over to a low carbon economy and still find we can't reduce warming any other way.

Conservatives and their fellow-travelers have an obsession with this idea that humans are and should always be completely discreet entities with the fewest inter-connecting responsibilities as possible. It's the ultimate narcissistic ideology. It doesn't help that when people believe that their best interests are when they're divided, they're most easily preyed upon by those who REALLY hold the reins of power. The conservative ideology is Condorcet's Secret writ large.

As you've probably deduced, heading off the worst effects of Climate Change is probably the biggest collective action problem humankind has yet encountered.

A question I've pondered many, many times. I believe it's because they are angry that businesses have to lose any profits dealing with the effects of producing less pollution.

The rest of your rant sounds like thoughts I've had going on in my mind. In a loop. It drives me crazy some days.

Because the human mind is extremely susceptible to delusion. Delusions which are more important to the holder than reality.

It's hard to admit that you might very well be wrong. That your well-intentioned actions may very well be causing damage not only to the world, but to you yourself. It's much easier to deny that, and claim (evidence to the contrary) that your intentions are well and good.

Otherwise intelligent and functional people can hold dear the most ludicrous delusions. Because they're emotionally important.

And in the end, emotion over-rules reason for most cases.

Edit No, I don't mean the scientists are delusional. I mean the climate change deniers are. Pay attention, people.

I hope I can answer this from a neutral perspective.

The left gave up on implementing global socialism; it was rejecting by the populations of almost every country in the world, when given a democratic choice.

Then climate change came along and with it solid scientific evidence. The left jumped on it as a reason to implement a global anti-capitalist societal change towards the left. Therefore green issues were hijacked by the left, and the right responded by being anti-green.

And that's how we ended up in the absurd situation we are in now.

We should call them what they are: Deniers.

There are some legitimate criticisms of science to be had, but before I get to those, I would like to talk about the less concrete issues surrounding the problem.

1) The American education system is failing to adequetly inculcate a scientific mindset in the populous.

2) Media filter-bubbles abuse this lack of scientific education to push agendas of one type or another.

3) The poorer population in general and the political right specifically have a social history of distrust, often rightful, of the intelligensia, academia, and the business and political elite.

4) None of these issues are purely tied to any political party, and are much more about social class and social mobility issues rather than left/right false paradigms.

5) Lack of monetary power and what is essentially wage slavery for a vast majority of the populace reduces the amount of time available for people to engage in intellectual pursuit of self-improvement. (combined with the relatively new requirement of both man and woman to work to sustain what formerly a man could sustain, further impacting childrens education)

So that's how you get a group of politically far right people denying climate change in general without any understanding of the issue specifically: first, they haven't done any reading of their own, (due to 1 and 5), the little information they do get is through a corporate/government infiltrated filter bubble (2), and this manifests itself via (3) in the form of complete dismissal of arguments.

Now, on to some more specific scientific criticisms.

A) Scientific quality is not nearly as good as you think. Papers themselves are used to further careers, and less and less are peer-reviewed (or peer-reviewable due to high specialization and/or costs). Journals often have a monetary interest in publishing and do at best lackluster job of editorial filtering, and often the actual science for the general public is behind a paywall despite the fact most of it is publicly funded. That's not even getting into the vast glut of just plain bad science being published, even in good journals. I held science up on a pedestal until as a sysadmin at a genetics company I started actually reading them as a job requirement... bad science abounds and is rarely called out.

B) Scientific claims are often highly exaggerated or misinterpreted by the political and business class for self-interested pursuits. We have all seen this in action, where a paper says something relatively benign but it is taken completely out of context to support some initiative or another.

So that's just a start to answer your many politically charged questions, and I would like to say I do highly protest the divisive and polarizing manner in which you verbalized them. Part of the key probem in this country is this hegellian labeling of the other, whether it is on the right or the left or anywhere in between. Personally, I think the real war is between the up and down factions (eg, the uber-rich and the middle-class and the poor), but your dismissive manner is unlikely to be anything but abrasive to anybody but the most intellectual of the conservatives.

To illustrate a small example of the kind of distrust of intellectuals, allow me to tell a small story: My grandfather was a logger in the rocky mountain forests in the 70's, working with native americans, and I grew up in the national forest. I remember throughout my childhood, him advocating to the forest service along with other old-timer loggers that they needed to allow them to thin-out the forests by selective logging (not clearcutting) or else there would be major issues down the road. All the PHD environmentalists the forest service hired though dismissed all their sage advice and thought they knew better, reduced controlled burn actions to almost nill and thought everything was going swimmingly... until the pine beetle infestation took hold, and then within a 10 year period we had two forest fires that burned 538,049 acres and 468,638 acres respectively. When they happened I remember my grandfathers words, which I had dismissed as crazy old timer talk being dismissive of the scientists awesome knowledge, and realized he was right. That's a good example of the kind of intellectual bubble the scientists can create that fosters mistrust in the lower classes and in the right in particular.

As someone who has worked in science for several years, questioning is central to understanding any scientific inquiry--especially with regard to such an incredibly complex and nuanced field as climatology. If these questions are continuously suppressed our understanding will ultimately be skewed.

I only hope that we can continue this discourse on such an important subject without resorting to immediate emotional responses in order to come to the most accurate picture that we possibly can.

Please select your desired counter-point.

- "At least I vaccinate my children."

- "I'm having a dinner party, GMOs and gluten okay?"

- "I'm sure homeopathic hemp water will cure cancer someday."

- "Sorry these responses are so rude. I'm a Sagittarius."

- "I'm not sure what I'm more scared of: chem-trails or nuclear power."

- "After this conversation, my aura will be radiating 'pro-science'."

If you stopped and said to yourself, "I don't believe any of those!" Congratulations, use your new found empathy to find common ground with conservatives who do accept climate change.

It may come as a shock but some people want to help the environment and don't want socialism. Go figure!