What are we really arguing about when we argue about climate change?

[Triana]

Members of the public are drifting into the climate change sceptic camp in recent months and years. How do we stem the flow? From Carbon Commentary, part of the Guardian Environment Network

The phrase 'the science is settled' is regularly used by politicians arguing for meaningful action on climate change. To the majority of the world's scientists, global warming is a clear and present danger and those who deny it, or argue that its effects will limited or benign, are dangerous lunatics. Nevertheless, an increasing numbers of voters, particularly in the US and the UK, have drifted into the sceptic camp in recent months and years. A Pew Research October survey in the US showed the percentage of people seriously concerned by the climate change issue down from 77% to 65% in two years. An international survey by HSBC showed a fall from 32% to 25% over the past year in the percentage of people saying that climate change was the biggest issue that respondents worried about.

A batch of highly successful books from journalists and maverick scientists has provided the intellectual covering fire for this decline. The result of the growing scepticism will be a weakening of national resolutions to take the difficult steps required to shift rich countries away from dependence on fossil fuels.

Why, when the tone of urgency from mainstream scientists is getting ever clearer and the research results more worrying by the week, is the sceptic case in ascendancy? I try to argue in this article that the reason is that the scientific arguments for dangerous man-made climate change are somewhat easier to attack casually than most climate scientists admit. Second, the sceptic case runs strongly with the grain of a fierce antagonism to big government and all its works. Many people I talk to have heard the arguments of the sceptics and the deniers, have noted the accompanying rhetoric against politicians and know-it-all scientists and thus feel an immediate kinship with the case against dangerous global warming. We could continue to disregard the opinions of this growing and sizeable minority but I think we need to start dealing with their concerns. To do so does not necessarily involve any step back from a full-hearted commitment to reducing global deforestation and fossil fuel use.


The chronicles of Vikings are now being used to stoke the flames of climate scepticism.


MORE...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/04/network-climate-change-scepticism

[Triana]

1. Whatever effing moron unrec'd this - you might want to READ it first. It's NOT "anti" climate change

Or, do we have Exxon-Mobil operatives here? I know we have GOOpers lurking. Blazing idiots.

[villager]

2. was wondering about that effing moron myself!

:shrug:

[Triana]

5. Teh stupid abounds. n/t

[harun]

3. Might want to stop using stupid ass phrases like "Climate Change" to start

Climate changes all the time, heck on a cosmic level we just got out of a catastrophic ice age. Same goes with the term "Global Warming". The CO2 problem is the real issue. This rising at the pace it has is going to give results we cannot predict. It could turn us back in to a giant ice ball. Global warming wouldn't describe that very well would it? Problem is we just don't know and the consensus is, letting global warming gases increase at the rate (and level) they are could cause HUGE issues. Our modeling of exactly what issues this could cause is not very good yet. The push should be for increased funding in modeling what will happen and to find the best ways to reduce the rate of increase in these gases.

Maybe we should call it the "Greenhouse Gas Impact". Because the impact could be an ice ball or a water world or something worse that we don't know about.

[Triana]

4. Well that IS THE TITLE OF THE ARTICLE AS WRITTEN. I didn't change it.

The AUTHOR of the article (ie: NOT me) used the phrase. That is how it was written.

Don't shoot the messenger and miss the message.

[Statistical]

6. I think that was the point.

The authors, all authors are using a term that fits poorly.

[harun]

7. Understood. I just get pissed at how much fodder we give to the likes

of the Limbaugh's of the world when we say "Global Warming". Gives the hate radio guys fodder to say "How bout all this Global Warming?" every cold day during the winter. The pollution issues we are having could very well lead to global cooling out of the norm and if it does and we claim "Global Cooling" the debate will be about "Look at these Liberals, one day saying we have a cooling problem, the next a warming one". And in fact they would be right, don't debate the warming or cooling, debate the amount of green house gases and how out of the norm we are on levels of gases like CO2.

I feel they are really using the wrong language when debating the topic.

[The2ndWheel]

8. To add to that, we also want to change the climate

from where it's going, to where we think it might be better to be. We always hear about cutting back to 1990 levels, as if anything we were doing in 1990 was sustainable. So we don't even want to stop climate change.

"The CO2 problem is the real issue."

I wouldn't even say that is the real issue. We altered environments when our species hunted with sharp sticks. To me, it's not the type of energy we use, it's the scale of our activity which would be the real issue.

[Ron Green]

9. There are two important talking points around the impending climate crisis:

1) What we can do to slow or reverse the man-made damage (if it's not already too late.)
2) What we can do, as a species, to survive the effects.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Because emotionally; it's easier to deny the implications of global warming climate change

than face the hard reality of change; whether humanity volunteers for that task or mother nature indifferently drafts.


"Why, when the tone of urgency from mainstream scientists is getting ever clearer and the research results more worrying by the week, is the sceptic case in ascendancy? I try to argue in this article that the reason is that the scientific arguments for dangerous man-made climate change are somewhat easier to attack casually than most climate scientists admit. Second, the sceptic case runs strongly with the grain of a fierce antagonism to big government and all its works. Many people I talk to have heard the arguments of the sceptics and the deniers, have noted the accompanying rhetoric against politicians and know-it-all scientists and thus feel an immediate kinship with the case against dangerous global warming. We could continue to disregard the opinions of this growing and sizeable minority but I think we need to start dealing with their concerns. To do so does not necessarily involve any step back from a full-hearted commitment to reducing global deforestation and fossil fuel use."

Thanks for the thread, Triana.