Comment by jstalin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jstalin | Hacker News Reader

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Since you aren't making personal attacks, like others on this message board, I'll explain my personal point of view.

I don't deny that humans can influence earth's climate. But the tone of climate change media is beyond hysterics.

For instance, the headline from this article is, in full, "The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse."

I posted below links to scientific studies showing that Antarctica has 12.5 million cubic km of ice. 125 cubic km of ice is "melting" each year. On top of that, surveyors noticed reductions in Antarctic ice at least as far back as 1932, far far before "climate change."

My naturally skeptical alarms go off when I realize that headlines like the OP are pure hysterics. At the current rate, Antarctica will melt in 1 million years. Of course, climate changes dramatically on that geologic time scale, so the headline completely destroys the credibility, in my mind, of the central argument -- that Antarctica is "melting."

One look a tide gauges shows that the sea level rise we've been seeing has been going on for about 150 years with no change in the rate of rise.

So, naturally, I'm going to be skeptical of hysterical claims.

As to your point about HN being hostile to climate change, I see it the complete opposite way. Any skeptical arguments, even links to objective scientific facts, are immediately flagkilled and downvoted into hell.

Could you use the words "hysterics" or "hysterical" a few more times? You didn't quite hit the once/paragraph ratio I was really hoping to see...

EDIT: In seriousness, so much of the "climate skepticism" I see around here is so overloaded with this kind of hyperbolic dismissal of positions that assume or support it, that it's hard to engage with them, rather than just downvote for destructive (or at least non-contributory) tone. You might try being easier to engage with, and see if that changes how your points are received...

On top of that, surveyors noticed reductions in Antarctic ice at least as far back as 1932, far far before "climate change."

We have been increasing atmospheric CO2 since long before 1932 and Svante Arrhenius predicted that the burning of fossil fuels was increasing the earth's temperature back in 1896.

Even the IPCC doesn't claim human-induced climate change until the 1950s. The amounts of CO2 added to the atmosphere didn't seriously ramp up until after 1950.

Really?

"It is very unlikely that climate changes of at least the seven centuries prior to 1950 were due to variability generated within the climate system alone. A significant fraction of the reconstructed Northern Hemisphere inter-decadal temperature variability over those centuries is very likely attributable to volcanic eruptions and changes in solar irradiance, and it is likely that anthropogenic forcing contributed to the early 20th-century warming evident in these records." - http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-...

Well, I stopped dead reading the article right on the first paragraph. I really could not believe. Ice on water does not raise it a millimeter whatsoever. Once again it is just stupid media writing the next Apocalypse just to sell papers or whatever because really they have nothing better or more intelligent to do.

Sea level has not changed at all in the past 200 years, I would dare to say they probably have not changed at all since the formation of the Mediterranean Sea.

On sea level, it is very simple, the moment the Dutch start fleeing The Netherlands, then I will start worrying; but if they are not buying land on the Himalayan, I will really not to worry about it.

CO2 has nothing to do with temperature of planets, whatsoever! And by the way, "greenhouse effect", the is commonly described, with irradiation and CO2, etc., does not exist!!! And call some gases in the atmosphere "greenhouse gases" is a stupidity that makes no sense whatsoever.

Volcanoes alone on any ordinary year (and last year was nothing ordinary) put at least five times more CO2 on the atmosphere than humans activities today!!! Insects, at least seven times more!!

So, no, humans are not that powerful. CO2 does not control climate. Arrhenius prediction is as much bogus as Malthus. There is no proof whatsoever, nor there can be since the whole scheme is a Physical impossibility.

CO2 is also not a pollutant, never was, never will!

All that said, yes we must find better and renewable sources of energy, since something that is not renewable will end someday. Moreover, our energy system is very inefficient (of course is a Physical impossibility to have 100% efficiency, but we should try harder).

Notwithstanding, some of the apocalyptic scenarios proclaimed may indeed come to happen, because climate (noun) changes (verb). That is what it does. If it stops changing than we would have a problem because that would be not normal! It has been cold before, it has been hotter before. Places that today are land has been under water. Deserts had been green. The planet is in constant change. We do not understand much of the process and that is the reality, not a bogus, deceitful, and damn right ridiculous idea that goes against even the most basics concepts of Physics. Any high school kid should be able to point right at it, were it not so wrapped up in fallacies.

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