A man who linked CO2 to climate change in 1895

You just created fake news. You took the context, the facial expression and the exact wording out of that quote and ignored it. When I listened to EXACTLY what he said and watched EXACTLY how he said, it doesn't look like he's suggesting we shouldn't listen to the science, it doesn't look like he doesn't know why we should listen to the science.

The nuance of the way he said what he said is important. The guy could still be a complete idiot, I don't know him, but you seem to have not been too honest with your quote.

He's asking the girl to expand upon why it is SO important to listen to the science, it almost sounds like an exploratory question rather than him trying to say we should not listen to the science.

I ask questions at work that test basic assumptions all the time because when someone says something, they may not mean it the way you think they mean it.

Perhaps we should come up with a convincing answer to that question, rather be unprepared in the moment and the act indignant after the fact.

Here, I'll start:

- Science gave us antibiotics a hundred years ago, savings hundreds of millions from certain death since then. Now would be a good time to listen to science again, or we will be facing a catastrophe of biblical proportions in the next hundred years.

Please add your ideas in the comments.

It's more complicated than that. I'd say the problem is not even scientific facts, but entirely political. The conclusions from my observations are:

1. Many ordinary people around the world only cares about living a better life, they do not care, or even are hostile to the welfare of the people faraway. If a policy inevitably affects them personally, many would boycott all actual policies and refuse the take any responsibility, e.g. "they are taking away our X", X can be an incandescent lightbulb, a car, a job, or the national economy.

You can argue how an incandescent lightbulb have better overall environmental records in its entire lifecycle, it's a matter subjected to objective data and their interpretation, but it's not what I meant - People often react strongly without doing any evaluation. Last time, I saw a post about how eBay banned shipping vacuum tubes because they don't want to spend time distinguishing the restricted mercury rectifiers and unrestricted tubes, a bad decision for the buyers. The posters in the comment section literally replied something like, "the evil liberals are banning vacuum tubes! The 100% of the RoHS regulations is bullshit!"

If such things can trigger strong reactions among a group of people, imagine what would happen if one wants to implement a policy, for, e.g. refugee settlement, or climate.

The fact that the privileges elites are not affected and not accountable by a policy makes the issue worse. First it strengthens the People vs. Establishment image that can be exploited by propagandists, Second, not being affected personally encourages bad policies or bad executions.

2. The political establishment has lost all credibility to many people. What is the reason for people to believe you when you have a government machine that has a long records of manipulating politics against foreign nations, conducting unethical human experiments, publishing media propaganda, ignoring the Constitute by setting up military base [0] in Guantanamo, establishing mass surveillance systems all over the world, and often acts in favor of private interests and other wrongdoings?

To many people, it means they would distrust the establishment entirely. If the governments spent millions of dollars on vaccination across the world, backed by WTO, to many people, why can't it be another huge conspiracy, e.g. mind control? Even if the establishment says "1 + 1 = 2", some people would see it as another huge conspiracy going on. Don't forget what I said before: You can argue rationally and even make good arguments, but people often react strongly without doing any evaluation.

And now the establishment is telling you that the global climate is in crisis and strong international efforts must be made globally. To many people, it instantly means an authoritarian or totalitarian "New World Order". It is backed by evidences from scientific findings, that are not intuitive, and not easily verified from personal experience, it would only make the people more suspicious. (Remember, in the 1920s, some high-profile physicists denied the existence of molecules, mainly because there was no "intuitive" way to see it yet. And ball lightning was not accepted until the 1970s. My point is that even the best people on evaluating evidence can reject something simply because it's not intuitive enough)

Also, "often acts in favor of private interests" is a bullet point. There are genuinely a lot of money to be made, a lot of interest to be gained, in the attempt of curbing climate change. It's entirely persuasive that a climate policy can be exploited in many malicious ways, and I'm sure at least one major corruption is not uncovered yet. Even if there isn't a huge conspiracy, smaller ones are bad enough, for example, the new-energy industry in China has a lot of bad actors, some of them only do it to get some subsidies, and others totally ignore the environmental regulations and creates highly toxic semiconductors waste, only to sell cheap solar panels.

Also, the hypocrisy of some elites - they are supposed to hold more responsibility over social issues, but some are actually the people who want to use the platform for personal benefits.

All of these don't do any good for PR. And not be mention that all of these can be weaponized by propagandists for different agendas, especially in the Internet age when information is readily available.

Finally, because of Observation No.1, "Many ordinary people do not care, or even are hostile to the welfare of the people faraway", even the "best" politicians selected by the people are likely to put the interest of one's nation above everything.

[0] Ironically, also because of Observation No.1, "Many ordinary people do not care, or even are hostile to the welfare of the people faraway", quite a few people think their government must be allowed to ignore the Constitution and continue the torture at Guantanamo.

3. Most subjects of science are not intuitive. What is being written in popular science and most textbooks is merely a caricature of the subject, far from the full picture, but is considered "correct enough" to be a useful mental model (or physical model) for public consumption. For a simple example, an electric circuit is inherently an electromagnetic phenomenon, yet the fairy tale of "the flow of electron" is commonly used, it's an incomplete and flawed model even at DC. We use it because most people, myself included, are incapable of thinking the physical picture of vector calculus and solve PDE mentally, let alone Quantum Field Theory, not to mention the "truth" is only sometimes relevant and useful.

Thus, if someone wants to engage in denialism or create FUD, one could just write something that is largely relevant but out-of-context, and say "you are being fooled, everything you know is wrong"! I suspect many pseudoscientific subjects frequently use this technique (or fell into it).

The sensationalized scientific reporting by the media is another bad offender, when you exaggerate everything and publicized inaccurate or false facts (e.g. today's weather is hot because of global warming!), it can seriously backfire. Also, to be honest, some famous people on the subject of environment (not necessarily climate) have a tendency to be alarmists that exaggerate a potential risk due to psychological biases, want public awareness, or simply due to limited data or foresight.

All of it, only give more power to the denialism campaign.

The fact that many findings heavily require interpretation doesn't help as well. Historically, there have been some instances that an interest group downplaying the harmful effect of a certain substances, highly-respected institutions creating false and unrepeatable results for power or fame, etc. So, in the eye of a suspicious citizen, the entire body of search on climate science is a huge lie. For example, the Climate Gate scandal is largely about the internal power struggle of a dozen of researchers within a institution, but many people reinterpret it and see it as the "evidence" that the entire climate science is a huge lie.

* So, what is the end-game? I suspect...

1. The result would be serious, a lot of people and places will suffer, but not as bad as the "the end of the world as we know it" painted by some sensationalized media in popular culture.

2. Superpowers and their citizens refuse to take any responsibility. Just like how Gulf War is broadcasted on TV, as long as they are doing well, it doesn't matter.

3. It's possible that the internal political corruptions do more harm than good and don't solve any real issues, but I hope not.

Currently, my belief is:

1. A huge amount of funding should go to carbon extraction projects, maybe allow private fundings. It might be the projects that would face the least public resistance. But thinking again, maybe it's not a good idea, as some people may call it the evil climate control system by the globalists that actually manufactures climate changes and must be stopped (just like how AIDS/HIV deniers said the treatment itself is the cause). Its cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency is also doubtful. I'm not sure...

2. Go nuclear. I'd love to see more AP1000 reactors. But thinking again, I'm not sure, maybe it's not a good idea. Although technically the system is sound, but the political resistance, strong pressure on safety, and mismanagement creates a lot of additional costs and safety risks. Not to mention the resistance of deep underground nuclear waste disposal repository is even higher, despite the fact that there are already thousands buckets of nuclear waste waiting for proper disposal, and without a repository, the risks for the environment is much more higher.

>1.5 degrees

I was under the impression that there was worldwide consensus that we will pass 1.5 -- that it's too late to realistically prevent that. More, that if you count from the late 19th and early 20th century averages we've already passed 1.5.

Yes please continue to give the Nobel Peace Prize to people who have actually accomplished nothing. It will surely keep the stature of said award high.

Is she really related to him ? Her dad shares the same first name, Svante, but the connection to Arrhenius I've only found mentioned on troll sites.

[EDIT] I stand corrected. There is afamily link.

The Nobel Peace prize is a joke. Obama won it despite green-lighting the Afghanistan surge.

It usually happens much slower than pictured in the graph, and it is believed that humans are the cause for the acceleration.

On the other hand it also isn't the end of the world as some people would have you believe.

In terms of graphs, I think this one gives a good overview of how ridiculously precipitated everything is:

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Your claim is that if you put CO2, a relatively easy to acquire gas, into a bottle, the temperature will keep climbing? Isn't this a violation of the laws of thermodynamics.

I'm not so sure your experiment would work unless you specify various other conditions. The main reason that CO2 is a 'greenhouse gas' is that it absorbs thermal infrared light. In other words, CO2 'reflects' infrared light. This, combined with the fact that the sun is continuously heating the earth means that -- in the context of the Earth's atmosphere -- CO2 acts like a giant blanket. Only in the context of a continuously externally heated object does CO2 cause temperature increases, which is not something that is necessarily going to be simulated by 'putting CO2 into a bottle'.

However, CO2 by itself does not cause things to heat up. That is patently ridiculous, and bad science. In fact, if you fill a jar with CO2 and water gas (also a greenhouse gas), and expose it to the air on a cloudless night, and then put some kind of insulating layer between it and the earth (like some feet of straw), it'll actually freeze: https://pazhayathu.blogspot.com/2012/02/water-cooler-air-con...

This misses the actual mechanism, which is not as simple as you might think. CO2 at ground level is actually irrelevant. What matters is CO2 at the height in the atmosphere where an infrared photon might escape to space without further interactions with the atmosphere. Increases in CO2 matter only because with more CO2 the height where a photon might escape increases, and the air is colder at this increased height, and hence the amount of energy emitted is (temporarily) less - until the overall temperature of the earth increase so that the temperature at this increased height is back to what it was before.

The central dispute is not whether CO2 causes a greenhouse effect. It's that CO2 is itself a relatively weak greenhouse gas, compared to say methane (making cow farts a valid concern), and our atmosphere is already relatively saturated. The dispute is whether increases in the amount of CO2 affect other climate systems that work together to magnify the warming, and that requires computer modelling.

Sounds simple but it would be hard to get an accurate test. I mean, it's not a basic kitchen experiment, is it? And why is it that modifying such a small part of the atmosphere (0.04%) can cause such a huge problem?

It's almost as if CO2 is a sort of "greenhouse" gas!