Discussion about climate change from a thread about the psychology of it

[C1ay]

Moderation note: The first 5 posts of this thread were moved from the Psychology forum thread 18436 because they discuss the science of climate change, rather the psychology of why people believe what they do about climate change and evolution.

 

Anyone should be able to see from the Earth's climate history that the Earth has historically had an average global temperature of 17°C, has for much of it's life had a global temperature of 25°C and is currently around 13°C-14°C on the upswing from the last ice age. Global warming is quite real and quite natural. OTOH scientific claims that humans are the primary cause based on analysis of only the most recent portion of Earth's history are not really objective analyses at all. We only have one Earth and one set of data to analyze. Can you imagine doing a drug study on only one patient? We do not have the data needed to draw any conclusions on any primary cause of warming but we can tell from the past that the Earth is traditionally a warmer planet than it is now. We'd better get used to it.

 

OTOH, I think it is undoubtable that man is the primary cause, the only cause from my point of view, of massive global pollution and environmental damage. We only have one planet capable of supporting life as we know it and we all have to share. If we trash what we have we've nowhere else to go. So far massive exterminations have occurred as a result of asteroid impacts or volcanic acivity. Will man be the first species to cause it's own extinction over poor house keeping?

[HydrogenBond]

With respect to global warming, there are two affects that are merged. On the one hand, we have good historical data. The second aspect is we extrapolate that into the future, where there is no data.

 

If you look at hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea, we have all the historical data, which is gathered with great care. This is good science. From that data and using models, each season we make predictions. This is never 100% correct, even though that should be easier than a global prediction, which is more complicated. What I would like to hear is, "this is our best guess of what might happen, but like hurricanes prediction, which we have been doing for decades and not just a few years, prediction is as much an art as science. The art part, we hand off to politicians to spice it up.

 

Here is the scenario. Say this year we predict 10 hurricanes with 3 major ones. It is a good guess but it may not happen that way. But if this has to be perceived, as exactly right, we will hand it off to politicians, who will run with it and make it appear as though it is 100% certain, right down to where each landfall will be. Next, everyone gets all excited and we push to build dikes and levies, seawalls to minimize the loss of human life for the 10-3. If you don't just go along, you are in denial.

[Essay]

"On the one hand, we have good historical data. The second aspect is we extrapolate that into the future, where there is no data." -HydroB

...kinda like the case for cigarettes and diseases.

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Wouldn't a more apt analogy be that upon learning all that "scientific" data, insurance companies would charge far higher premiums (or cancel policies) for coastal dwellers in "danger zones?"

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Though even legislatures might get involved, either to mandate coverage, limits, liabilities, or subsidies; they might even prepare for emergency situations, and coordinate with other activities that may be affected.

 

Oooops, now I've got them bilking "dikes and levies, seawalls" also.

But you can be sure they won't be naive enough to say they're 100% certain of a hit this year--just within some number of years.

 

Just as with cigarettes, self-appointed experts try to scare the public--with no proof--and try to get governments involved. What a bunch of selfish idiots. I bet they even get funding from the government--public tax dollars--to try and "prove" a link between cigarettes and diseases.

If you don't just go along, you are in denial.

 

~ :)

[HydrogenBond]

Cigarette smoking is a small puzzle. Global climate change is a huge puzzle. Hurricane prediction is sort of in the middle. The bigger the puzzle, the more speculation we have in terms of prediction, and therefore the more politics has to enter the picture to fluff it up using entertainment affects.

 

Let me approach this from another angle. Say we had a hurricane approaching. What the government would do, is go in with the needed resources. When it does, they bring in food and other logistical resources. The government is acting as a helper leading the entire disaster operation.

 

If you look at global warming, the current reaction is not bringing in the National Guard or national labs to lead the situation, but sit back, bark orders and talk about fines to raise revenue. The reaction is not what one might expect of a real disaster about to happen. It is more like a new toll road to raise revenue.

 

Bush had his war on terrorism, with billions spent to protect a hundreds of people from random acts of disaster on American soil. It didn't go around taxing potential targets, to pay for the potential disaster fund. The government was acting as the leader using the general tax fund. If global warming was real and imminent, there is not enough logical action being displayed with the goal of saving the projected millions. It doesn't add up logically, so I assume there is political science fluff.

 

When the government around the world pump billions into R&D to provide the technology for a soft retro-fit, you know something is about to happen. They will put their own muscle behind the sand bag line, without expecting to be paid by the citizens in an extortion way to protect them. They will commandeer the best talent like a manhattan project since this would be needed for the urgency. The best talent will also volunteer to help the cause.

[HydrogenBond]

The data from the past is solid and does show a trend in global warming. I have no problem with that. But the science is still empirical, such that it is not exactly rational, therefore allowing the subjectivities of uncertainty. The uncertainty is ripe for political subjectivity that can be argued either way. If you want one side to win consensus, you just give that side the most resources. Science will say, they have the preponderance of the data and wins by default.

 

Let me give an example of how politicians have figured this out how to use the limitations of empirical to their possible advantage. The Obama administration suggested altering the way the census was performed from the direct head count to using an statistical model. This seemed contradictory to the Democrat way which is to create jobs via the government, since a direct head count is more labor intensive and will create more jobs.

 

The goal is to use statistical models to alter the head count and change voting districts in a subjective way. One can't do that with a direct head count since cause and affect will not add up. But with an empirical approach, one can funnel resources to those who can create a consensus based on what they need them to do. There will be people arguing both ways. The trick is fund those who argue your way, so it looks legitimate because the preponderance of the data will be what you need it to be. This is smart and adaptive since they saw how this worked in the field. The direct head count ends up too rational, since the data is not fuzzy dice. It is hard to add the subjective fuzzy, since it would hit against common sense. I don't blame them, it is quite clever, politically.

 

That is one of the problems with empirical science. The fuzzy dice theories can't be used to reason the future since it fuzzes out. Within this fuzzy, the imagination will become active and politics becomes part of science. With rational, like the direct head count, politics has no wiggle room. This makes science pure. I like the global warming and evolution science, but would prefer higher purity; no room for politics. At that point, we vote on science and not let science define itself in terms of reality.

[C1ay]

With respect to global warming, there are two affects that are merged. On the one hand, we have good historical data. The second aspect is we extrapolate that into the future, where there is no data.

 

The big problem there is in what range of data the gloom and doom crowd want to include and how they wish to portray it. Much of the global warming crowd only looks at the last thousand years or so of data and points there finger solely at mankind as the cause. When you look at millions of years of data you see the planet is naturally a tropical place with dotted ice ages as a deviation from the norm. If you were looking for a stock to invest in would you look at one day of data or several years before dumping your life savings in it?

[REASON]

The big problem there is in what range of data the gloom and doom crowd want to include and how they wish to portray it. Much of the global warming crowd only looks at the last thousand years or so of data and points there finger solely at mankind as the cause. When you look at millions of years of data you see the planet is naturally a tropical place with dotted ice ages as a deviation from the norm. If you were looking for a stock to invest in would you look at one day of data or several years before dumping your life savings in it?

 

This is a good point, but I think the issue here is one of risk. Because the outcome for humankind is unknown, yet evidence seems to show a fairly rapid increase in temperatures, we have to consider the potential ramifications of our actions. Not to do so would be pure negligence on our part. Even if we're not talking about wiping out the human race, are we willing to potentially wipe out significant portions of populations in certain parts of the world that are most vulnerable to the effects of increasing temperatures, simply because we are able to find inconsistencies in the data or models and are resistant to change?

 

What we are ultimately weighing with this issue are costs - the costs of modifying our energy consumption patterns in an effort to reduce our impact on the environment vs. resisting the concerns expressed by scientists in the fields of study in favor of a continuation of current practices and at the most, a slower pace of change.

 

While it is clear that the Earth's climate is extremely complex, the changes that occur are driven by factors that are empirical and can be identified. No matter what period in history, with enough evidence, it is possible to understand what is causing the climate to be in the condition it's in. We haven't completely achieved that level of understanding as of yet so we are forced to rely on the ability we have to analyze the information that is available and attempt to make predictions. As of now, the information appears most to be pointing at the increase in CO2 levels and the removal of natural cabon sinks that are a result of human activity. I'm unaware of any other more plausible explanation other than the notion that the readings are wrong and the temperature isn't actually increasing at an accelerated rate. But than I am left with the most obvious question of what is causing the rapid melting of polar ice and glaciation?

 

If the affect of human activity on the climate is negligible and the curent rate of warming is occuring naturally, than any potential costs to human populations are unavoidable, and efforts to minimize our impact will simply be seen as our attempt to do the right thing. At worst we invested in clean energy technology to exist in consideration of the Earth's natural systems, which is a worthwhile endeavor.

 

But if the science is correct and human activity through the release of carbon into the atmosphere is the culprit driving a rapid temperature increase, and we are able to restore the natural rate of change by altering our energy consumption practices, than there will be no doubt that the costs of a new energy policy were warranted.

 

As I see it, either way, the smart decision is to avoid damaging our environment. Whether the scientific data is incomplete or is being interpreted the wrong way is beside the point. The benefits of clean energy far outweigh the potential costs of resisting change, especially since I don't think we are currently doing a real good job of managing our impact on the balance of nature.

 

To me, it's a no-brainer.

[Boof-head]

We should as rational marketeers, assume we might ask questions of the trading process - the one we're engaged in with the planet.

Can we keep trading natural resources for pollution, loss of habitat and diversity etc for a place to live?

Can we ask if we really understand what the consequences might be?

 

For example, that we have invested enough in determining ice sheet dynamics in polar regions, that we can answer definitively the question: "do we know if there will be any catastrophic collapse. and can we estimate what might cause it, or when, given we know that they've come and gone over millions of years in the past?"

 

We know we can answer the question: "will 6 billion humans survive a 70m rise in sea level?"

[InfiniteNow]

In science, nothing is ever absolute or definitive. We understand things with varying levels of confidence, but remain open to the possibility that new data will present in the future which requires a change in the information we previously used and accepted.

 

This, however, is in no way a legitimate reason to simply throw our hands up in the air and say, "Oh well... we should just do nothing because we can't be certain we're right." That's practically the same ridiculous position taken by people who say evolution is "just a theory," and it speaks of the ignorance of the speaker, not our lack of understanding of the subject.

[C1ay]

This is a good point, but I think the issue here is one of risk. Because the outcome for humankind is unknown, yet evidence seems to show a fairly rapid increase in temperatures, we have to consider the potential ramifications of our actions.

 

 

The slope of this graph indicates the current rise is slower than the rise in either the Ordovician Era or the Permian Era. Yes, temperature is changing but I'm not so sure how much we are really contributing to that rate of change. It looks like nature has done a pretty good job of it in the past.

 

I think what we really need to look at is the changes man is causing to the atmosphere, the land and bodies of water, not the temperature. I don't think we really have the ability to effect the temperature so much as our ability to effect the quality of our environment. The current concern of the global warming crowd is carbon dioxide but carbon dioxide is not really a pollutant. That doesn't mean we should ignore the problems of producing to much of it but there are far more dangerous toxins we are polluting the environment with and they deserve a much higher priority that CO2. Warm air is something we can survive, poisonous air is not. Neither is the growing number of polluted streams and lakes that are unsafe for swimming or fishing.

 

IMO the global warming crowd has got our priorities out of order and we should spend more of our energy and resources on real pollution. Man's contribution to the rate of global warming is debatable but his contribution to poisoning the global environment is not.

[REASON]

The slope of this graph indicates the current rise is slower than the rise in either the Ordovician Era or the Permian Era. Yes, temperature is changing but I'm not so sure how much we are really contributing to that rate of change. It looks like nature has done a pretty good job of it in the past.

 

I've seen that graph numerous times in other threads. It is an important graph to consider when trying to understand the variability in the Earth's temperatures over hundreds of millions of years. The problem may be one of scale. The large scale of this graph makes it difficult to detect sharp increases or decreases in temperature that have occurred over much smaller amounts of time - say, thousands of years, or even tens of thousands of years. It is true that the rate of increase in temperature shown from the Pleistocene Era to today is at a slower rate than say the first half of the Permian Era, but a better comparison might be to look at the rate of increase in temperatures over a hundred thousand years during the mid Permian Era relative to the last hundred thousand years from today. The scale of this graph doesn't allow an examination at that level.

 

It is true that there have been periods throughout Earth's history that have been significantly hotter on average than it is today. I don't think anyone is seriously denying that. But our society did not exist during those periods and we do not know how well we would adapt to those temperatures, particularly if we were to rapidly ascend to those levels. All species of life need time to adapt to significant climate changes or face the possibility of extinction. So the rate of change at a relative scale is what we are currently concerned with as I understand it, not simply that it is changing.

 

Not to mention, I'm having a hard time imagining that if it were as easy as looking at this graph to understand that we are not at all responsible for the rate of average temperature increase, there would be all this hubbub about anthropogenic climate change. It's far more complicated than that.

 

 

I think what we really need to look at is the changes man is causing to the atmosphere, the land and bodies of water, not the temperature. I don't think we really have the ability to effect the temperature so much as our ability to effect the quality of our environment. The current concern of the global warming crowd is carbon dioxide but carbon dioxide is not really a pollutant. That doesn't mean we should ignore the problems of producing to much of it but there are far more dangerous toxins we are polluting the environment with and they deserve a much higher priority that CO2. Warm air is something we can survive, poisonous air is not. Neither is the growing number of polluted streams and lakes that are unsafe for swimming or fishing.

 

I agree with you, C1ay, except for to say that I think both issues are equally important. Our efforts to modify and improve the way we consume and thus affect all critical parts of our environment should be devised with utmost consideration. I don't see why we shouldn't expect that we can lead the way in the development of an energy policy that is a package deal, and looks to science as a means to understand better ways to live in these times so that we are not wreaking havoc on the environment we depend upon for our survival. Environmental consciousness needs to take precedence over convenience, in my opinion. Or at least we should develop conveniences that are environmentally conscious. It's one of our primary responsibilities.

 

Also, I think it is very important to understand that climatologists are not looking at carbon dioxide as a "pollutant." It's what we exhale, for cryin' out loud. The issue is that CO2 is a known greenhouse gas. In fact, it is the second most abundant greenhouse gas in our atmosphere behind water vapor, and represents approximately 9 to 26 percent of the greenhouse effect. It seems clear to me that continually increasing the amount of a known greenhouse gas in our atmosphere can create an imbalance that can cause warming to occur, even though many argue that the amount we are contributing is negligible, and can have little effect. What's missing from their argument is any data to support the amount of CO2 necessary to actually effect a change, or an adequate alternative explanation for what is driving the documented temperature increase over the last 60 years in particular.

 

What's also important to consider is other feedback mechanisms that occur that can accelerate the warming process such as the reduction of polar ice and glaciation, which reduces the reflectivity of solar radiation and increases heat retention at the surface. Combined with the increase in greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels, the increase in deforestation, which reduces the natural ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and the release of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost, this creates a recipe for increased average temperatures globally.

 

The temperature increase we are experiencing is already presenting challenges to food and water supplies in various parts of the world such as Australia, and how much more can our electric grid handle people running their air conditioners. And then of course there's the effect on coastal communities (of which there are many) by the rise of ocean levels. The ocean has also risen and receded numerous times throughout the Earth's history as a result of changes in the amount of polar ice. This is just a smattering of the things we should be considering as we evaluate our energy policy in regard to climate change.

 

 

IMO the global warming crowd has got our priorities out of order and we should spend more of our energy and resources on real pollution. Man's contribution to the rate of global warming is debatable but his contribution to poisoning the global environment is not.

 

I agree wholeheartedly, and yet I still believe that each of these issues are linked in that they are both examples of our willful neglect, and thus deserve equal priority status as we look to change our methods.

 

Our goal should always be to find ways to minimize any adverse effects we have on the environment, at any level.

 

I can't find a legitimate argument against that concept.