And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[drogulus]

JFK argued for Medicare for All.

      There wasn't any Medicare, but nevertheless you're correct. Dems have supported universal coverage since Truman. There will be no advantage for Dems to both underpromise and then underdeliver. If you want to convince voters that you stand for something, the best way is to stand for something.
     

[North Star]

If that's the chart I think it is, it uses cherrypicked data to give the impression that  the rate of change is faster than it really is. It understates temperature change in earlier times and overstates temperature change in modern times. Result, it gets people to say OMG! based in manipulation.

Even it is an honest chart, it merely shows correlation. The evidence for causation is remarkably thin, especially when you understand that although we know rather little about nonhuman factors in climate change, what we know suggests all of the change can be accounted for by nonhuman factors.

Which illustrates my main point.

You are assuming the information you get from AGW advocates is impartial and honest. It's actually biased and subject to manipulation. AGW advocates can look towards government grants and money from the  industries that would benefit from development of alternate energy. So they have as much motivation to mislead the public as the ones who work for the fossil fuel. Be as skeptical of the advocates on your own side as you are of the ones who advocate for the other side.  They are not trying to inform you, they are trying to persuade you. That means the information you get from them is edited and arranged. It's not impartial.

Be a cynic. Distrust both sides.

These charts below from NASA and NOAA are more cherrypicking, I guess? (here's Poju's chart. 'It' doesn't understate or overstate anything, as it is a composite of 11 different reconstructions. You're welcome to show that the compiler cherry-picked or altered the 11 reconstructions to manipulate the resulting chart and to prove your earlier claim.)  And I see you already offer the correlation is not proof of causation defense next. We know since John Tyndall and Svante Arhus in the 19th century of the greenhouse effect, and that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has a dramatic effect on Earth's surface temperatures. Can you point out an alternative explanation for the correlation between atmospheric CO₂ levels and changes in Earth's climate? I suspect forest fires increasing with the temperature rise will not be enough to explain the recent rise.
And then, you try to prove that those who have shown with scientific methods that the science showing man-made climate change is scientifically true, are just as dishonest as those who try to show that science is wrong, or that science is not certain, or that science is corrupt because scientists want money for their solar energy plants? Maybe you should show us a chart that displays how a scientist's expressed views on climate change correlate with the money on their bank accounts. After that you would only have to refute the science. You say that these are just two sides to a story? "A lie ain't a side of a story. It's just a lie", to quote The Wire...
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/



https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warming/last-2000-years

1) Temperature reconstructions from premodern times are by their nature speculative.
2) Even in the modern period, temperature comparisons are usually not completely completely on point because human construction can impact microclimate.
Which means that the data is not as reliable as you think it is. (And if human action is the cause of increasing CO2 levels, thre would be less fluctuation in prehuman eras and a faster rate before 1950.)
3) The point is, we do not know enough about natural factors like solar flares, etc. to say that CO2 is the only, or even the most important, reason.  We don't even know enough about the greenhouse effect: it may actually have a cooling effect.
Hence, the most reasonable attitude is skepticism if anyone claims CO2 is the main reason.
(Forest fires may have an impact, in that they result in less CO2 being taken out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis.)

If you mean that they are not based on thermometer readings, you are correct. That doesn't mean that the methods used by scientists (coral skeletons, tree rings, glacial ice cores, etc) allow for errors of the magnitude that would result in the recent development looking unexceptional.
Oh, so global warming is just the misrepresentation of the thermometers in Vancouver and Oslo that were originally in the forest, suddenly being inside an office building.

Nobody suggested that human action is the only thing that can raise CO₂ levels. The point is, The recent trend is something totally different than the fluctuation caused by volcanoes and weather.
Solar flares etc have existed for a long time, and so have variations in those. The climate has warmed faster than ever since the industrial revolution, according to the best means we have to measure that. Is there any reason to think that solar flares etc are suddenly having a more dramatic effect than ever before?

So can you clarify which part of the idea, exactly, you do not support?

Do you not support that carbon dioxide and some other gases have 'greenhouse', heat-trapping properties?

Do you not support that the level of carbon dioxide is increasing?

Do you support that the level is increasing, but not support that human activity is the cause of this?

Or do you not support that increasing levels of carbon dioxide will have an impact on climates?

The last, more or less.

Essentially, AGW advocates ignore the natural factors that have been driving climate change since Earth had a climate that was capable of changing, and which in and of themselves are capable of causing all the change we see to date and are likely to see in the near and medium term future.  There's a lot we don't know about those factors, but AGW advocates act as if they don't count. It's like treating the brakes as the only important part of a car.

The more honest ones admit the importance of those natural factors, admit the actual uncertainty about how important carbon emissions are, but argue that the potential impacts are so enormous that we have to act to avoid them no matter what.

Added to this is the parade of catastrophic projections which seem designed to grab headlines. Rather as if proponents want to scare people instead of actually persuading them.

No. Scientists who don't deny AGW see that the rate of climate change in the past decades is far faster than what those natural factors would cause. You're driving without headlights in the dark while telling us the ones you could use are not perfect.

[JBS]

No. Scientists who don't deny AGW see that the rate of climate change in the past decades is far faster than what those natural factors would cause. You're driving without headlights in the dark while telling us the ones you could use are not perfect.

Yet the NOAA graph you posted actually proves my point. The rate of change is well within the norms of the previous 20 centuries.

[Florestan]

Try arguing with me.

I won't argue with anyone anymore. How I wish I could unsubscribe from all these bloody political threads. Actually, I should heed my wife's advice, or rather obey her enjoinment, to drastically cut the time I spend on GMG. She's right and I wish I could. Sometimes I feel like I'm really addicted to GMG.

[Madiel]

The last, more or less.

Essentially, AGW advocates ignore the natural factors that have been driving climate change since Earth had a climate that was capable of changing, and which in and of themselves are capable of causing all the change we see to date and are likely to see in the near and medium term future.  There's a lot we don't know about those factors, but AGW advocates act as if they don't count. It's like treating the brakes as the only important part of a car.

The more honest ones admit the importance of those natural factors, admit the actual uncertainty about how important carbon emissions are, but argue that the potential impacts are so enormous that we have to act to avoid them no matter what.

Added to this is the parade of catastrophic projections which seem designed to grab headlines. Rather as if proponents want to scare people instead of actually persuading them.

The problem with this line of thinking is twofold. First, you don't seem to be asking whether those natural factors are currently PRESENT. In some cases they're not. For example, the fact that high volcanic activity has had an effect in the past is not relevant if we are not, presently, in a period of high volcanic activity. My understanding is that we are not.

The other thing you seem to be ignoring is timeframe. Natural factors simply don't operate at the same speed as the sharp spike in greenhouse gases that we have generated. And it's not climate change per se that is the issue, it's the speed of that change, which will affect whether ecosystems have the capacity to adapt. So again, the fact that natural factors could cause the temperature to increase by a couple of degrees is completely beside the point if you don't ignore the difference between increasing the temperature by a couple of degrees in a human lifetime and doing it over thousands of years. A forest can't march north a few hundred kilometres in the short timeframe the way it could in the long one.

Speed is critical here. Otherwise, me putting a bullet in my hand and throwing it at you would have the same effect as me putting the bullet in a gun and firing.

As to your general reliance on natural factors, this is as good a starting point as any. https://skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate.htm

[Madiel]

The rate of change is well within the norms of the previous 20 centuries.

No it isn't. Not if you take a global perspective instead of doing the typical white thing of thinking only your part of the world matters.

See: "It was warmer during the Medieval Warm Period". https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-07-27/climate-change-denial-zombies-killed/11291724

Or just pick a selection from this list. https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

[Madiel]

Perhaps a better thing to ask is: why are people so keen to throw doubt on the consensus? What's actually in it for you, beyond the general human tendency to try to explain away things that are uncomfortable or inconvenient?

The whole thing would be a lot simpler and, frankly, cheaper, if people just got on with making the necessary adjustments. The Stern Review said this in 2006. I mean, in parts of the West people have spent years arguing until they're blue in the face arguing why solar energy - which is the foundation of all life on this planet and readily available - isn't a viable energy source. Meanwhile, in China there were companies who just went ahead and figured out HOW to make it viable, and are making billions as a result selling cheap solar around the world.

Billions.

America and Australia are two countries where truly enormous market opportunities have been missed because people have been so utterly consumed with arguing why they should hold onto the old markets. As it's a political thread, it's worth pointing out that the USA has a higher rate of climate change skepticism than anywhere in the world. What are the "natural factors" explaining THAT?

It's kind of like arguing why the Y2K bug isn't a problem instead of just fucking getting on with figuring out how to fix it.

I mean, this cartoon is a true classic.

[Madiel]

We don't know enough about natural change to allow us to have a theory about unnatural climate change.

Trying to claim that natural factors are the cause in one post AND that we don't know enough about natural factors in another is ludicrous. Make up your mind.

And scientists are telling you they DO know enough. Seriously, do you have any understanding of the scientific method? Do you not understand that scientists have tested out a whole tonne of hypotheses, all of the zombie ones that people like you keep resurrecting, before arriving at the position that the best explanation for what's going on is that human-generated emissions are causing an unusually rapid change to the climate?

It's just ridiculous to sit there at your computer typing that we don't know enough when there are decades upon decades on research, started LONG before you were even paying attention, that have been directed to these questions precisely because people thought they were important questions.  The problem is simply that you don't know enough, or haven't found enough bits of material that you're prepared to accept lest they upset your little thought bubble.

I mean, saying that we don't know enough is the very worst form of denial. The question wasn't first raised when pundits on Fox News first started talking about it. This has been under discussion in the scientific community before many of the people on this message board were even fucking born. The initial observations that CO2 levels were changing date back to the middle of the 20th century.

If you think we don't know enough, then fucking shut up about it and leave the conversation to the people who actually have knowledge. Don't parade your ignorance. You can either be involved in a discussion or claim there's nothing to discuss, but not both at once.

[71 dB]

I'm not interested of debating with climate change deniers anymore. I did that in the past enough and learned those people are simply too far gones (TFGs). I believed in man made climated change back in the 80's in my teens so to me it's unconceivable a lot of people don't believe in it in the year 2019. We can only hope the majority of people understand the climate change is an existential crisis that has to be dealt with and we live in a system democratic enough so that this majority is heard.

That said, new endorsements for Bernie Sanders:

- National Nurses United, the largest nurses' union in the country
- Ana Kasparian of TYT
- Cenk Uygur of TYT

[schnittkease]

If you think we don't know enough, then fucking shut up about it and leave the conversation to the people who actually have knowledge. Don't parade your ignorance. You can either be involved in a discussion or claim there's nothing to discuss, but not both at once.

Someone had to say it.

[JBS]

Perhaps a better thing to ask is: why are people so keen to throw doubt on the consensus? What's actually in it for you, beyond the general human tendency to try to explain away things that are uncomfortable or inconvenient?

The whole thing would be a lot simpler and, frankly, cheaper, if people just got on with making the necessary adjustments. The Stern Review said this in 2006. I mean, in parts of the West people have spent years arguing until they're blue in the face arguing why solar energy - which is the foundation of all life on this planet and readily available - isn't a viable energy source. Meanwhile, in China there were companies who just went ahead and figured out HOW to make it viable, and are making billions as a result selling cheap solar around the world.

Billions.

America and Australia are two countries where truly enormous market opportunities have been missed because people have been so utterly consumed with arguing why they should hold onto the old markets. As it's a political thread, it's worth pointing out that the USA has a higher rate of climate change skepticism than anywhere in the world. What are the "natural factors" explaining THAT?

It's kind of like arguing why the Y2K bug isn't a problem instead of just fucking getting on with figuring out how to fix it.

I mean, this cartoon is a true classic.

Ask yourself this: why is the Left so keen to push so many of its goals through its climate change crusade...even the goals that have nothing to do with climate change?

[North Star]

Ask yourself this: why is the Left so keen to push so many of its goals through its climate change crusade...even the goals that have nothing to do with climate change?

And you might well ask why is it relevant what lefties want, when the issue is much of the right claiming they know better than the scientific consensus.

[greg]

Ask yourself this: why is the Left so keen to push so many of its goals through its climate change crusade...even the goals that have nothing to do with climate change?

Maybe conservatives could have done the.same- trying to get their goals done through the climate change scare also. Seems like they missed out on an opportunity.

[71 dB]

What goals that have nothing to do with climate change are the left pushing through its climate change crusade?

[JBS]

And you might well ask why is it relevant what lefties want, when the issue is much of the right claiming they know better than the scientific consensus.

Because the Left tries to make climate change its vehicle/ excuse for all its ideas....

What goals that have nothing to do with climate change are the left pushing through its climate change crusade?

Go upthread to the examples Florestan and I posted.
Then, if you wish, explain to me how fulfilling the list of social justice wishes will do anything to curb emissions.

[71 dB]

Go upthread to the examples Florestan and I posted.
Then, if you wish, explain to me how fulfilling the list of social justice wishes will do anything to curb emissions.

"social justice wishes" as in LGBT rights? How is the left connecting those to climate change?

[JBS]

"social justice wishes" as in LGBT rights? How is the left connecting those to climate change?

I posted the US Green New Deal congressional resolution. Florestan posted a European equivalent. Read them, and you will understand my comment.

[JBS]

Or just pick a selection from this list. https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

I note that most of the rebuttals proposed are either simple reassertions of the basic premise of AGW, or evasions of the argument. For instance,
"Neptune is warming" is not rebutted by the fact that the sun is cooling. It would be rebutted if Neptune is not warming, or if Neptune's warming is at a rate totally different than ours. But the listmakers opted not to do that.  Perhaps because they wanted to avoid the actual meaning of "Neptune is warming" is that Earth's warming is part of a solar system-wide trend.

[North Star]

I note that most of the rebuttals proposed are either simple reassertions of the basic premise of AGW, or evasions of the argument. For instance,
"Neptune is warming" is not rebutted by the fact that the sun is cooling. It would be rebutted if Neptune is not warming, or if Neptune's warming is at a rate totally different than ours. But the listmakers opted not to do that.  Perhaps because they wanted to avoid the actual meaning of "Neptune is warming" is that Earth's warming is part of a solar system-wide trend.

Neptune is one planet. Earth is one planet. There are eight planets. It's not a solar system-wide trend if 25% of the planets, all of them with completely different orbits and properties, are warming. It's about as intelligent a rebuttal as pointing out that my fridge is getting colder. As for the claim that the website Madiel linked to, doesn't properly rebut the claim, the sentence you quoted is a link.

[North Star]

Because the Left tries to make climate change its vehicle/ excuse for all its ideas....

And the relevance to the scientific veracity? Are you trying to say that you think the science must be wrong if someone you disagree with supports it?