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Comment by olouv | Hacker News Reader

I've always had mixed feelings regarding man-made climate change, seeing it as a marketed mainstream show. For me, this broad, somewhat blind, frightening threat is the ecological equivalent of the idea of terrorism.

I can't help myself to think that there are a lot of other ecological issues, even more critical, and affecting our societies today. Water/soil pollution for instance does kill millions of people a year.

People are scared by the carbon dioxyde they exhale, while they eat polychlorinated biphenyl and a thousand more toxic chemical compounds on a daily basis.

I don't think anyone wins when you remove/censor contrarian views.

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> I don't think anyone wins when you remove/censor contrarian views.

I agree, and I don't think the solution is to silence discourse, but to hold everyone to the same high standard.

If you publish a paper that gets citations like the rest of the scientific community, then I heartily defend your bid to be heard on BBC, climate change denier or not.

Do you think equal time should be given to all opinions on scientific issues that are not backed by evidence? Should we teach Christian creationism next to evolution? Should we teach about the balance of humors next to germ theory?

A rather grubby device for argument! What kind of evidence do you think is provided by a stasis in warming (no one is now denying this stasis!) when all the climate models predict warming? Models provide zero evidence; they only offer predictions. And they have all failed.

No one suggests there has been no warming at all and a measure of this will reasonably be due to CO2 emitted by man. The argument is about the extent. It's also about spending billions (follow the money! Who, specifically wants to stop that?) to 'prevent' a rise in temperature. Using IPCC figures, it can be shown that whatever Britain does (to take an example) even if it went back to the stone age, the effect on global temperature would not be measureable. Meanwhile the old and poor die in the winter while their increased charges for power subsidize useless wind turbines.

Eh, seriously?

"By 2030, the benefits of these three sets of sector policies would include 94,000 premature deaths avoided annually and GDP growth of $1.8 trillion-$2.6 trillion per year," according to the report. "The policies would avoid 8.5 gigatons of CO2-equivalent and almost 16 billion kilowatt-hours of energy saved, roughly equivalent to taking 2 billion cars off the road. Together, these implementing these policies could represent about 30 percent of the total reduction needed in 2030 to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius."

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/10643/world-bank-climate...

Who benefits from climate reform? Rich People. -people with beach front property. -Green energy producers whose products are otherwise not economically viable. -People with "green" businesses that can sell Rec credits.

Who is harmed? Poor people. -Higher fuel prices -Higher food prices (fuel is the big input, and warming creates more farmland-- think Canada and Siberia)

Wow. Just a raft of unfounded assumptions there. For example, warming won't necessarily create farmland in Canada (much of the topsoil in Canada is very poor anyway) but will certainly destroy vast amounts of farmlands in warmer countries ... along with devastating the oceans as a food supply (via acidification). Everyone loses with a warming climate.

>People are scared by the carbon dioxyde they exhale

What is that supposed to mean? That it is somehow safe just because we exhale it?

We cannot live without drinking water, but if you drink too much of it , you would die.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

So it is possible that releasing CO2 by burning huge amounts in huge amounts in the air may be changing climate. I am not arguing that it is, but arguing against "we should not be scared because we exhale it".

>while they eat polychlorinated biphenyl and a thousand more toxic chemical compounds on a daily basis.

Sure, but they don't come close to what climate change can do. If they can be linked to mass deaths, I am sure people will get more scared of those than they are now.

Back on topic, Is the statement "It must be safe because exhale it" deserving of equal airtime?

People are scared with hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, etc.

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