Why don't Letsrunners believe in global warming?

A2ER wrote:

I'd never realized how many dumb runners there are here.

Climate change is real and thoroughly backed by science, it is a huge threat and doing nothing about it is beyond stupid.

But we won't be arguing about this in the near future as it will be so obvious that even the dumbest, most ignorant people won't be able to ignore it.

Ask someone in Moscow who was there during the forest fires if it's real...

Are you saying there were never any forest fires before say 1500? Would that mean that lightning didn't exist back then? I know I am dumb so could you please answers these questions for me.

used to be cool wrote:

That is more or less the million dollar question. I will say this though: We are currently in an interglacial period which, ...

Many thanx for this

used to be cool wrote:

Increasing solar activity probably contributed to the warming during the late 19th and early 20th century, but it doesn't explain the warming over the past half century. There hasn't been any massive effusive volcanism or large-scale release of methane hydrates that can explain it. The Milankovitch cycles are actually trending towards cooler temperatures as we move towards the next ice age. Also, some of man's activities have actually been acting to suppress emission-caused climate change such as land-use change (increasing reflectivity) and SO2 emissions.

I think this puts it quite nicely.

After 2000 years of a very stable climate, I highly doubt that it is just a coincidence that temperatures started to rise during the latter part of the Industrial Revolution. There is certainly a possibility that humans do not play a role in global warming, but that possibility is probably not more than 10-15%. Greenhouse gas emissions from humans really is the best explanation for the acute and prolonged rise in global temperatures over the past century. Sun spots and volcanos really would not be enough.

To answer my original question, I think Letsrunners (and many conservative Americans) choose not to believe in global warming because it does not fit within their ideological view of the function of government. If there is global warming and its caused by humans than the government has to do something to stop it or prevent it from getting worse. They don't care what the consensus say, they had to really go out and look for that 10-15% margin that points to the possibility that global warming is not caused by humans.

This post is so fallacious, it's amazing. First, you are comparing two totally unrelated theories, one of which is legitimate, one of which is not. Second of all, you are shifting the burden of proof. You have to prove there is a concensus. And I don't mean that the earth is warming. I mean that humans are affecting the climate, and that this will have catastrophic results.

I couldn't follow the quoting so I couldn't figure out which two theories you were talking about.

This is what somebody posted earlier:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/science/earth/03climate.html?ex=1328158800&en=61f42312221df544&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss%3Cbr%20/%3E

The IPCC is pretty clear. Do you think that the IPCC is false or not using good data?

I love science, and study it often. My beliefs are the only ones between us that are consistent with scientists. I find it interesting that you would bring up the medical question because it is becoming far more obvious to people that conventional medicine does not work, through experience. In fact, doctors and allopathic medicine were ranked as the #3 cause of death in the U.S. according to this link:

How anyone can trust modern medicine is beyond me, but I have personally had much success with what you call "fringe" medicine. I can guarantee it was not the "placebo effect" either. In fact, it has been shown that placebos are often more effective than allopathic medicine.

What I call science is observable and testable. Global warming and evolution are neither observable nor testable. Your faulty computer models and circular reasoning is the only thing that helps you stay afloat with these completely unscientific ideas. There are so many falsities in the textbooks about evolution, it is unbelievable, such as humans having "gill slits". You call this science? That's not what I call science, and if that's all you have to support your theory, you should probably consider getting a new theory. I call my ideas science because they are scientific while yours are not.

C'mon people. No one on letsrun is going to change their views on anything because they are all runners who have watched Without Limits 1000 times (I'm there, too) and will never back down to anything they even only slightly believe in. If the OP is trying to sway people with logic that will prove or disprove global warming, he shouldn't be posting it on Letsrun. This isn't really a place for logic (no worries, I'm guilty of this one, too)

Just to add to the actual debate, the discussion should be more based on whether human beings are impacting the environment in ways that they can control.

example: If your car is directly hurting the earth and it's overall environment apart from natural cycles, then we can decide what to do. If your exhaling of CO2 is the source of the earth's unusual weather cycles, we're not going to start regulating people's breathing.

Also, most people should be able to agree that the earth has natural weather changes that can be extreme. If you believe in evolution, you probably believe in the ice age. If you believe in creationism, then you should believe in The Flood and other stories from the Old Testament (although, the Flood did destroy the entire Earth so there might be a hole in my logic on that one...what did you expect? This IS letsrun).

The only reason you think I don't know what evolution is is because I don't believe in it. Actually, I don't believe in it because the science does not support it. I bet a vast majority of "authorities" in the soviet union didn't believe in capitalism. It's all we teach in schools, and it's the only thing they will allow scientists to publish. No wonder there's a "consensus".

Your "offer" is very insulting, as I am perfectly aware how science works. You have no idea how well I know science, and yet you assume I know nothing simply because I don't believe what you believe, and this is the reason you are proposing your "offer". I know what evolution says. Beside, you probably don't even know what the creation story says, so why should I take you seriously? The only reason you make your offer is to insinuate that you are smart and I am stupid. I don't debate like this, and you shouldn't either.

History is not replete with "outliers". It is replete with concensus that was dead wrong. Bloodletting, anyone? Geocentrism? What makes you think our culture is so much better? There are a number of factors that can influence a consensus, and this should never be the basis for truth.

I should have said my ideas are the only ones consisten with science, not "scientists," in my above post.

Stop misrepresenting "science". As we discussed on the other thread, the genetic evidence for evolution is written in every species on the planet. Evolution is a theory that consistently explains that information. We continue to test that information with every genome we sequence.

For what it's worth, I never truly appreciated how overwhelming the case for evolution was until I took a bioinformatics course and saw how perfectly a multitude of data points have lined up. Entry-level genetics courses ask you to take a lot on faith and I don't fault you skepticism if that is your background.

How many times are we going to go round and round on this? Global warming has been the subject of many Letsrun threads, and it's obvious that we're not going to come to a consensus on it.

I think many of us that lean right are not true "deniers" (or "flat-earthers" as you libs prefer) who have totally dismissed the possibility of global warming. We just have not been convinced that the scientific data is so compelling as to cause us to be heavily taxed and to drastically alter our lifestyles.

Well, now that we've got that settled. I believe (and you'll never convince me otherwise so don't even try) that most people here are arguing based on emotion, not logic. That being the case this is a waste of everyone's time and energy. People love to argue about this but it seems that an argument is what everyone wants. No one wants to be convinced that they are wrong. Everyone wants to be proved right. Once a person makes a statement, that person feels they have to defend that statement or lose face. It's like 2 dogs fighting over a bone. Notice how I made it clear near my starting point how open I am to debate. It seems to me that's how open to debate everyone here is on the topic of climate change. That's why arguing about it is pointless. This is my idea of a fact. It's a fact that nothing (or very little) will be done about climate change until it is too late to do anything about it. In which case, I hope the non-believers are right.

someone else wrote:History is not replete with "outliers". It is replete with concensus that was dead wrong. Bloodletting, anyone? Geocentrism? What makes you think our culture is so much better? There are a number of factors that can influence a consensus, and this should never be the basis for truth.

Bloodletting and geocentrism both fell before the might of the scientific method. Our culture is better because we are willing to test and compare; our culture is better precisely because we don't think we're right, while they were wrong precisely because they thought they were right.

No one, literally no one, doesn't believe in global warming. It's psychologically impossible, to the same extent that I cannot convince myself that red is blue, no matter how hard I try. Why? Because all our data points indicate global warming. You can't argue with the recording of temperature over the last 100+ years that demonstrates a decisive if fluctuating increase in temperature. Fact cannot be disagreed with or not believed in. If you can go back and disprove those temperature measurements, then fact is different than what we thought, and I can no longer argue with you; that's fine.

Anyway, people can't disbelieve global warming. All they can disbelieve is that humans have caused it, and that is open to debate. We have far too little information one way or the other to determine if we're the cause. No one can be sure of our causal efficacy, exactly as no one can doubt that the earth has gotten warmer since we've started measuring its temperature.

That said, my political position is that the risk of it being our fault outweighs the risk to the economy/personal liberty of not reacting to it. I'm going to act as if we've caused it, and seek to limit any impact I might have, because that's what I believe to be the responsible way to behave toward the future. I can't fault people who value unchecked industrial growth, and consider the economic benefits of a higher quality of life right now to be more valuable than a vague threat to the wellbeing of the future. I will try to dissaude/persuade you, because that's how politics works.

But that's a value debate, and is not relevant to belief in global warming. Only nutjobs who are willfully ignorant of the facts of reality disbelieve the phenomenon of global warming--it's akin to saying red is blue. Perfectly rational people disagree about the probability that it's our fault, and disagree over the political/social values at play in responding to the possibility of our responsibility, but that's not related to the phenomenon of global warming itself.

Oh, and if I haven't beaten this dead horse enough, it isn't really global warming we need to worry about, it's global climate destabilization. The record snowfall that's been slamming me and hindering my running is a result of changes to the flow of the North American jet stream because of a general increase in worldwide temperature. Global warming causes record cold and snow too, because it shifts weather patterns. And if there's any chance that my tax dollars supporting green energy technology can help limit the amount of record snowfall I have to run through on my tempos twenty years from now, I'm happy to support legislation aimed at combating climate change.

Actually, you're wrong on every single account here. I think you don't know what evolution is because you used evolution terminology on the other thread very inappropriately, mistakes you wouldn't have made if you had actually studied the subject. I've had very rational discussions with creationists who know all about evolution. You are not one of them. Intelligent people can believe in creationism. You could be very intelligent. But that doesn't mean you know the theory of evolution.

"Evolution is the only thing they will allow scientists to publish?" Seriously? Who is "they?" There are loads of different scientific journals out there. Articles are peer-reviewed, and there are loads of controversial articles published all the time! If there were evidence that evolution weren't true and that evidence was discovered scientifically, geez, that would make the cover of Science and Nature (the two very, very best science journals). If I could find evidence that evolution isn't true, or instances where evolution weren't happening, and my methods were rigorous enough to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, I would be famous. And then rich. I would love to be the person who showed that evolution doesn't exist, or doesn't always exist, but I haven't been able to do that yet.

I'm aware that my offer can be construed as insulting, but that was not its intent, as I tried to say. But since it's clear you don't know about evolution (see above), I am very willing to help you understand what evolutionists think. If, at the end of that, you still think evolution is false, my sharing of evolutionary theory will only serve to bolster your anti-evolution arguments. We're both passionate about evolution (although we're on opposite sides, we are both very interested in it) and I can't imagine not wanting to get a better knowledge of it.

I'm very open to any offer you might make to share creationism with me. I was raised Christian and one of my parents used to believe in creationism, but I know that I do not know every bit about it and would welcome any offer you make to share that with me. Seriously. If you're interested I can create an anonymous email, you can do the same, and we can take this off the boards.

someone else wrote:

Your faulty computer models and circular reasoning is the only thing that helps you stay afloat with these completely unscientific ideas.

someone else wrote:

I call my ideas science because they are scientific while yours are not.

Did you just say that my logic was circular when the argument you use is "I call my ideas science because they are scientific?" What exactly are your ideas and how are they scientific?

someone else wrote:

There are so many falsities in the textbooks about evolution, it is unbelievable, such as humans having "gill slits". You call this science? That's not what I call science, and if that's all you have to support your theory, you should probably consider getting a new theory.

That is not all I have to support my theory. At all. You say you understand evolution, then you say that gill slits are the only support evolution has? Do you understand how I could think you're not very familiar with science?

The VAST majority of experts said the human body was not capable of running a 4 minute mile...

Experts base their conclusions on the science/technology that is available at that time. When science/technology improves, those conclusions often change. That is not to say that in this case they are not right, but it also doesn't mean they are right.

used to be cool wrote:

That is more or less the million dollar question. I will say this though: We are currently in an interglacial period which, ...

Perhaps to frame possible outcomes in context:

How much impact is expected vs other historic changes such as the KT Event or Permian Volcanism? In terms of percent

Funny, cause the most vocal are the ones who support the global warming hoax.