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heartbroken that John Clauser seems to have joined climate change denial.
SiliconWizard:
Every time there is a claimed scientific consensus relayed by media on some topic with deep political implications, you know it smells funny.
tom66:
--- Quote from: PlainName on August 08, 2023, 06:59:29 pm ---
--- Quote ---We then would fear the demise of the human race via cooling instead of warming.
--- End quote ---
To change the subject slightly, which would be, ah, least worst? I think we could keep warm in the cold, but it would be more difficult to get cool if it got hot. Though personally I prefer a nice summers day to winter...
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If we were somehow emitting something that cooled the climate by too much, presumably it would be possible (with a few consequences) to just burn more fossil fuels to warm the climate by some equivalent amount.
The opposite idea is where things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection come into play, the idea that we can inject cooling, reflective aerosols into the atmosphere, like sulfur dioxide. The risk is that we really don't understand what such huge quantities of SO2 would do to everything else. It also offers no solution for the acidification of oceans by CO2 absorption.
Another interesting alternative I've heard proposed is a "solar sunshade" positioned roughly around L1, attenuating solar radiation by around 1%, though the cost and time required to launch it make climate abatement seem cheap. Such methods bring short term fixes, but as CO2 levels rise, they eventually need to upgraded, and if a 1% shade is expected to require some 300 launches of a Starship class launcher to reach orbit, it doesn't really seem like a sustainable or economic solution.
cbutlera:
--- Quote from: vad on August 08, 2023, 09:23:01 pm ---...
In physics, for example, there is no consensus on topics such as dark matter.
...
However, in climate science, somehow there is consensus. I wonder why?
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Because climate science does not lie at the outer boundaries of theoretical physics.
When there is only one credible theory it can hardly be surprising that there is a consensus.
There has long been consensus on all of the relevant thermodynamic and other physical laws on which climate science is built. The basic theory of anthropogenic global warming is more than 100 years old. Using modern GCMs (general circulation models) this theory has been thoroughly tested against the last 50 years or so of climate records. Where are the alternative competing theories that can, when tested with GCMs, get even remotely as close to the same level of agreement with those records?
tom66:
--- Quote from: vad on August 08, 2023, 09:23:01 pm ---I was always wondering why there is the consensus in climate science, especially when other scientific fields often leave ample room for debate.
In physics, for example, there is no consensus on topics such as dark matter. The Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) theory, which is one of the alternatives to the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model, is still very much alive. Popular theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is one of the vocal proponents of MOND. If you read scientific journals, you will find that in modern cosmology there is no consensus on topics such as the age of the Universe (some recent paper claims the age is twice as long), and that in physics of condensed matter there is no consensus on whether LK99 is really a superconductor.
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A lack of consensus in the area of dark matter is hardly surprising given no one has actually been able to observe anything other than its proposed impacts on large galaxies and their neighbours. We don't even know if it actually exists or not, it's just that there doesn't seem to be a better explanation for their rotational characteristics, for instance.
There is reasonably strong consensus in other non-climate science fields. For instance, quantum mechanics is more or less universally accepted as the explanation for the very small behaviors at the subatomic level. There may be the odd disagreement here or there as to the theoretical level with things like string theory. The same applies in climate science, but everyone agrees with the observed results even if they don't fully accept how things got there.
I don't know why you think the edge of theoretical physics is a good retort to some physical system that we can observe and model well with mostly well understood physical principles. For instance, you can measure a good part of the LWIR absorption of CO2 very accurately using a $200 thermal camera and a blackbody. The emission profile of the sun is well understood. Plug the two together and you have a first-order estimate for CO2 forcing in watts per m^2 per part million, then input the amount of CO2 that we've pushed into the atmosphere and you have a good estimate for warming. There are lots of factors to correct, like the percentage of CO2 which ends up in oceans, but it'll show the effect closely enough if you struggle to believe that it exists at all.
No one serious in climate science disagrees that the planet is warming and that humans are causing it. There's debate as to the exact extent of the anthropogenic component, and how harmful that is, but the consensus is pretty solid on the outcomes being overall bad.
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on August 08, 2023, 12:37:31 pm ---
--- Quote from: bezzada on August 06, 2023, 05:42:48 pm ---I don't think it is necessarily about "enslavement" or any other "big reset" conspiracy theories.
--- End quote ---
It's not a conspiracy theory. It's straight from their website:
https://www.weforum.org/focus/the-great-reset
Oh, and this is from yesterday:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/08/apprenticeships-could-change-the-way-americans-work-and-learn/
Can't afford a college degree? Work for free at this large company and receive their accolades that are useless everywhere else.
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Apprentices aren't like Interns---they get paid while they learn, which is fair, as they are a productive part of the workforce.
That was the standard way for most tradespeople to learn their trade for many years.
Anywhere that has a proper Apprenticeship system officially recognises Trade qualifications.
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