Politics
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| 30 Day Post Breakdown | Female | Male | Unspecified |
| Posts (Contributors) | 11 (4) | 710 (35) | () |
Jul 2017
4:01pm, 20 Jul 2017
8,070 posts
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rf_fozzy
"However I think everyone should be free to say what we do with the science. We may be certain that humans are warming the earth, this does not extend to a certainty that banning some light bulbs will help." I repeat Brian Cox's quote: "The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” The latter part is important part on this thread - because there is a lot of demonstratable nonsense sprouted daily by some posters. Again we see anti-science sentiment here from the right-wingers. And willfull ignorance which is worse. "banning some light bulbs" - pure ignorance driven by dogma based on personal beliefs. It's not about banning certain lightbulbs or reducing the power of hoovers in isolation. It's is the recognisation that we know that the single most cost-effective way of reducing CO2 emissions (reductions in GW required, or negawatts). How do we know this? Well scientists and experts (you know, those people who've had enough) have looked at the problem in detail, examined the evidence and did the calculations, then that was fed through to the politicians who, for once did something (even if it's a small something). This is a non-issue as we know LED lights use a fraction of the energy for the same output as an incandescent light bulb (and last 20x as long). The legislation is required because people don't think ahead - we need big changes, fast, when it comes to climate change. Chris - I think you're underselling climate science hugely and giving more ammunition the right-wingers on here. Yes, climate science is a chaotic system (not entirely, but ok, let's go with it), but with chaotic systems, although you cannot often predict individual specific details (e.g. the exact sea rise at Great Yarmouth compared to San Diego, or the rainfall patterns in the Gobi Desert) with high accuracy, you can predict the general trends within uncertainities. Climate science, to my knowledge, has a pretty good track record in its predictions - what people fail to understand and are exploited in the right-wing climate science denying community and media is an understanding of uncertainties. The example you posted above about arctic sea ice being gone by 2016 is a detail, but if you look at the general trend in sea-ice volume, it matches the predictions, within the uncertainties. What people also fail to understand is that the models are regularly updated with new evidence as it is uncovered. What is beyond doubt is (a) climate change driven by human interference (i.e. CO2 release from burning fossil fuels) and that (b) if we don't do something about it and fast, then it's going to be very unpleasant and a lot of people are going to die. Saying that climate science has "dodgy predictions" is cherry picking and wrong. All it does is fuel the deniers. |
Jul 2017
4:07pm, 20 Jul 2017
1,150 posts
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Tonybv9
What worries me is who gets to decide which views are "demonstrably nonsense".
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Jul 2017
4:08pm, 20 Jul 2017
8,071 posts
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rf_fozzy
The thing that really really annoys me about science reporting, and in particular in Climate science is the idea that there *has* to be two sides. No. This is an idiotic idea to have. Science doesn't work like this - there *should be* no opinion in science, thus there is no need for false balance or sides. Take note BBC, Channel 4. What there can be is a dispute over the data to support a claim (although it needs to be a sensible, reasoned argument, usually with data to support it) or over the interpretation of that data - in which case you need to provide testable predictions. So, in the case of climate science, the deniers do neither of these things as they cherry-pick data or make dodgy predictions that are demonstrably wrong. But, as with the tobacco companies in the 1970s/80s, the aim of climate change deniers is to kick up as much mud as possible to obscure the truth and delay action that will happen eventually - usually because these people own or are funded by fossil fuel companies and of course taking climate action requires removing our dependence on burning fossil fuels. |
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Jul 2017
4:09pm, 20 Jul 2017
1,151 posts
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Tonybv9
"banning some lightbulbs" was a JOKE I believe. Hardened left wingers might need to look that one up.
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Jul 2017
4:19pm, 20 Jul 2017
7,626 posts
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Binks
According to some science books I've read if you call someones views "idiotic" they are more likely to entrench those views, even if they are absolutely wrong. So you could argue that if you want to change someones views on a subject calling them idiotic is... ermmmm.... idiotic. [begging the question fallacy for me there] |
Jul 2017
4:22pm, 20 Jul 2017
7,522 posts
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simbil
You might be right Binks (side steps the fallacy fallacy). It seems everyone here believes in man made climate change to some degree, so presumably people would also agree that sea levels will rise by some amount and that will have some impact on coastal and low lying regions. So what should we do about it? |
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Jul 2017
4:36pm, 20 Jul 2017
7,627 posts
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Binks
The "what should we do about it" is more difficult than establishing the fact that it's happening. Getting billions of humans to change their behaviour is a tricky proposition. You ban them from taking drugs and what happens? Drugs are still produced, people go to extraordinary lengths to produce them, buy them, people get killed, extorted, imprisoned and you are left to wonder whether things are any better than if they were not banned and people could at least safely buy them and suffer the consequences. There is always a bias for action among people chasing votes. If the answer was "do nothing" no one is ever going to win an election on that. Bloodletting in the olden days was a great example of the bias for action. He has a fever, we must do *something*. The results of bloodletting were worse that if nothing was done. But of course, no one will recommend a Doctor who does nothing. I'm NOT saying we should do nothing here, but I don't think politicians understand just how hard it is to forcefully get behaviour change. How do you change behaviour? There is no "settled science" on this. |
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Jul 2017
4:42pm, 20 Jul 2017
6,387 posts
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Jambomo
Its hard to change established behaviour but putting things in place now can influence younger people who are not already attached to established behaviour. The ideal is to work out what would be the best way to solve the problem and put it in, not with an expectation of getting people to adhere to it today, but with the view of it becoming an established way of behaving in the future. |
Jul 2017
4:45pm, 20 Jul 2017
10,729 posts
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richmac
Come on Politicians are not interested in changing behaviour to combat climate change, or any other issue, politicians are interested in maintaining the status quo that keeps them in power with as little appeasement as possible. Except of course, in the context of climate change, the Green party and look at how that's worked out for them. |
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Jul 2017
4:49pm, 20 Jul 2017
8,072 posts
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rf_fozzy
Did I call someone an idiot. No. I said that believing that opinion has as much weight as science is an idiotic belief to have. Re: what to do re: Climate change. Quite simple really - there's been many studies that show how to do it. We have to switch entirely from our system dependent on fossil fuels to one based on wind, water and solar power. In doing so, it will bring the cost down such that Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel power (we actually passed this tipping point in 2015). This then means that poorer countries can than make the same transition and most importantly *they will skip the stage taken by the developed countries of using FF* - note the coal lobby in 2015/16 were using the line that coal was the way of taking poor countries out of poverty - they've pretty much stopped this now as it's a ridiculous statement and has been proved to be false. I am less concerned about the transition than I was - I'm now convinced by 2035ish, we'll be well over 80% *energy* from RE *globally* - this change will be fast. The problem is that, as it always has been is the political will is needed to keep it driving forwards - Morons like Trump, the Republicans and GWPF will obfuscate things and slow them down and we don't have the margin for error any more. If politicians had acted in the 1980s/90s when the science was already clear, then we wouldn't be in the crisis situation we're in now and less damage would have been done. Make no mistake, even at ~1.5C temperature rise (which is what I think we'll roughly end up with), things ain't gonna be a walk in the park - we will see more wars (like Syria) driven partly by climate change factors and greater migration to the "West." |
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