Climate Change Pays a Visit to the Caribbean and Coral Reefs Suffer? Do you believe t

[boulderjohn]

I could have constructed a more-detailed argument to support my premise that claims that the climate is changing are not primarily made by those who secretly believe that is untrue ("lies") or that the primary reason for making such claims is specifically in hopes of crippling the US economy.

However, I think it was simply a dumb statement and said so. Why? Because it beggars my belief that anyone could actually really-truly hold a belief that a vast conspiracy of scientists a) have a goal of hobbling the US economy (and, presumably, only the US economy) in the first place, b) believe that climate change claims represent an effective way of hobbling the US economy (as opposed to, say, building a giant evil death ray and aiming it at Wall Street), and c) do not believe that climate change is occurring yet publicly claim that it is.

Given that I don't believe that such a statement would have been made honestly by a rational person, arguing the point based on facts that have already been rejected using logical tools that appear unavailable to the maker of the statement strikes me as being about as useful as try to refute a statement such as "the claim that cats are mammals and that chocolate is toxic to them is a lie meant to hobble the Belgian chocolate industry" through a process of ratiocination.

I understand your point, and that is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of when I wrote...

On the other hand, I have indeed encounter people saying things that are downright ridiculous, things that really are indeed obvious. Those are cases in which the amount of factual evidence at your disposal to refute the claim is so overwhelmingly enormous that you feel helpless to respond. You know that the person must have already encountered the evidence to the contrary before and chosen to ignore it. Such a person cannot be dissuaded, no matter what you say, so you might as well not waste your breath. In those arguments, the fallacy involved is often one of the various forms of the appeal to ignorance.

 

[AfterDark]

"note that "climate change" is a lie meant to hobble the US economy" has got to be one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard in my life. Whether one believes in science and research or not, stating that scientists knowingly lie for the express purpose of damaging the economy is a completely outrageous thing to say.

Scientists lie for the express purpose of receiving govt. grants. The international communits movement continues the lies for the expressed purpose of damaging the US economy.

I just watched a doc. on History2 from 2007 about GW. It stated one of the ways they measure the temp of the ocean is by the amount of increased (that's more) in coral growth. Apprarently someone realized that people would be willing to spend more money if they're told the coral is being destroyed, so they've changed the result of their "research". This planet has survived forces with effects we could only imagine but somehow we are going to destroy it by living. A load of BS IMO.

 

[boulderjohn]

Scientists lie for the express purpose of receiving govt. grants.

You may have missed this part earlier:

Only a few months ago, a noted climate change denier totally changed his mind: Climate-Change Skeptic Changes His Mind | Sci-Tech Today Here is an excerpt:

"Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming," UC Relevant Products/Services Berkeley astrophysics Professor Richard A. Muller wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

"Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause," he wrote.

"The average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by 2 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1 1/2 degrees over the most recent 50 years," wrote Muller, who founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project to debunk unsupported global-warming claims.

"Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."

He said he and his colleagues "were not expecting this, but as scientists, it is our duty to let the evidence change our minds."

He called his new stance "a total turnaround."

His research was funded with $150,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which, along with its libertarian petrochemical billionaire founder, has historically backed groups that deny climate change.​

 

[AfterDark]

James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.

Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. It’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence.

As a laymen this is the main reason I don't accept that man is having the affect that some claim we are. The amount of variables and the dynamic nature of our planet cannot possibly be known or taken into account by even the smartest among us.

---------- Post Merged at 07:46 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 07:44 PM ----------

You may have missed this part earlier:

Oh one guy changed his mind. I'm convinced then.

 

[Scuba_Noob]

Some of these arguments remind me a lot of this comic.

Climate change is happening. I don't believe that humans caused it all, but I don't believe it's completely natural too. It's always in a grey area, although some proponents of either side exaggerate a bit. However, a lot of the climate change solutions are beneficial to humanity in the long run, though they may cost a bit more. And we should do all we can to make sure we don't contribute to a worsening environment.

 

[AfterDark]

View attachment 135035
Some of these arguments remind me a lot of this comic.

Climate change is happening. I don't believe that humans caused it all, but I don't believe it's completely natural too. It's always in a grey area, although some proponents of either side exaggerate a bit. However, a lot of the climate change solutions are beneficial to humanity in the long run, though they may cost a bit more. And we should do all we can to make sure we don't contribute to a worsening environment.

The premise of the cartoon is stupid. Nobody that I know, heard of or read is against improving our living conditions. These GW advocates however seem to want us to go back in time with windmills and such. One of the most damaging "green house gases" is methene being relaeased from the ground. I've never read anything from any of these alternative engery advocates or GW alarmists about recovering this gas and using for energy. Why

 

[boulderjohn]

Oh one guy changed his mind. I'm convinced then.

You missed the point completely. You said scientists lie to get grants. He got a grant from people who are trying to deny the global warming story, and he came up with an opposite conclusion and published it.

Similarly, several decades ago Gatorade gave a grant to a university team to find out what the best thing was for athletes to drink during competition. Obviously they thought it would turn out to be Gatorade. When the scientists determined it was just plain old water, it got published anyway.

Yes, there are some scientists who skew results to fit funding. Decades of laughable tobacco company-funded research on the effects of tobacco show that. Similarly was the horrible study in the UK that was skewed to show that childhood vaccines were linked to autism, a lying study that is having terrible repercussions today. But when such scientists are discovered and shown to be frauds, their credibility is lost forever, and thus we are only talking about a tiny percentage of that community. When you consider that nearly 100% of climate scientists are in agreement on global warming, you are not talking about a few desperate ones prostituting themselves for grants.

 

[cvchief]

Notice that I used the qualifier "usually" in my description, thus freeing myself from a false generalization charge.

There has nothing that has frustrated me more over years of argument to ask someone to explain the rationale for some belief only to have the person say "it's obvious," and then not be able to say in any way why it is so obvious.

On the other hand, I have indeed encounter people saying things that are downright ridiculous, things that really are indeed obvious. Those are cases in which the amount of factual evidence at your disposal to refute the claim is so overwhelmingly enormous that you feel helpless to respond. You know that the person must have already encountered the evidence to the contrary before and chosen to ignore it. Such a person cannot be dissuaded, no matter what you say, so you might as well not waste your breath. In those arguments, the fallacy involved is often one of the various forms of the appeal to ignorance.

Isn't usually the basis of generalization? Generally and usually seem to be interchangeable....

So you are saying, yes, the best I can hope for is a "B-" and you won't concede an inch?

 

[electrix]

stating that scientists knowingly lie for the express purpose of damaging the economy is a completely outrageous thing to say.

Absolutely outrageous !!! they do it for money

 

[boulderjohn]

Isn't usually the basis of generalization? Generally and usually seem to be interchangeable....

A false generalization implies that something that is true in some cases is true in all cases. If something is true in the majority of cases, then it is usually true, and if it is characterized as such it is not a false generalization. Do I have statistics to show that what I said is true on the majority of cases? Of course not. It is an opinion, but the opinion is so clearly an opinion that it is not an attempt to deceive. It is much like the trope hyperbole. Taken literally, hyperbole is a lie, but because the speaker knows the audience will recognize it as hyperbole (an exaggeration to create a rhetorical effect) rather than an attempt to hoodwink, it is not a lie. (No, your mother did not tell you a thousand times to clean your room; it is a figure of speech.)

But we are taking this too far and hijacking the thread.