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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Give me the reasons why you are a climate sceptic?

382 replies

malificent7 · 29/02/2020 12:51

I'm not by the way...but neither am i overly anxious about it.
Some of my friends are and are also very against Greta Thunberg etc. So is it possiblook e to be worried about climate change but anti Greta and/ or do you think climate change is baloney?

Given the recent bush fires in Australia i think we should all be aware that we are all at the mercy of our climate, even if we don't think change is man made.

OP posts:
Furfockssake · 03/03/2020 14:49

@Skierrdery 3% of scientists have offered differing hypotheses which have not offered as plausible an explanation for climate change as those offered by the other 97%. This is not a matter of opinion. Scientists aren't bothered by personal opinion.

MashedPotatoBrainz · 03/03/2020 14:49

When I was a kid it was all about how the world was cooling. We were heading into another ice age. Then it changed and it was global warming we all needed to worry about. Then it changed again and was climate change. But still if it warms by x amount we're all going to die. But at the museum this weekend there were fossils of dinosaurs that lived in the forested antarctic, so clearly it was a lot warmer than it is now and they didn't all die. Except they did.

So I don't know what to believe. It all makes my brain hurt.

onionface · 03/03/2020 14:55

@Mashedpotatobrainz you understand that humans and dinosaurs are different physiologically, right? And that "dinosaurs" comprises many many different species, that lived over a timescale of millions of years?

Deckthehallswithlotsofcake · 03/03/2020 14:56

@pallisers Exactly what I was thinking.

Skierrdery · 03/03/2020 14:57

And that "dinosaurs" comprises many many different species, that lived over a timescale of millions of years?

It was time to get rid of them in fairness Grin

MangoFeverDream · 03/03/2020 14:59

Elevated co2 levels might benefit some plants, they may or may not be the plants that are beneficial to their ecosystems. And the effects of increased temperature are likely to affect long living plants like trees more because, unlike animals, they can't just migrate somewhere cooler in a hurry

Well yes, the growing zones will undergo a shift. Global warming is real, after all. But I don’t like that CO2 has overtaken concerns like habitat protection/deforestation/plastic waste.

onionface · 03/03/2020 15:00

If you take a baseline of zero and look at the impact of geology, physics and humans on the environment, how much is attributable to humans?

It's a nonsensical argument.
Humans have done enough to tip the balance of ecosystems into a point where things are collapsing. It might be a small change, but it is having widespread effects because the current species on Earth have evolved to be able to live within a very specific set of environmental conditions, and those conditions are rapidly changing, faster than any biological or evolutionary process can keep up.

pallisers · 03/03/2020 15:01

Skierdery

I don't have the technical or academic knowledge to answer those questions. So I rely on scientists who do - not my gut feeling.

climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Furfockssake · 03/03/2020 15:04

To be fair this thread has many similarities with the ones about COVID-19 - people don't think it's serious despite what they are being told by the scientists who are informing the WHO who are informing national governments. Somewhere along the line society has seriously gone wrong if we're teaching children science whilst simultaneously teaching them not to believe it.

onionface · 03/03/2020 15:05

But I don’t like that CO2 has overtaken concerns like habitat protection/deforestation/plastic waste.

It hasn't. They are all problems that are being tackled by multiple scientific research groups worldwide. Sometimes simultaneously, because each individual driver of environmental change will interact in many and surprising ways with other drivers. It's extremely complicated research, which is why sometimes the science doesn't fully agree. We're still working on it. But it's not something you can work out with logic based on GCSE biology and an ability to Google stuff. Which is why this thread is so depressing.

MangoFeverDream · 03/03/2020 15:16

Sometimes simultaneously, because each individual driver of environmental change will interact in many and surprising ways with other drivers. It's extremely complicated research, which is why sometimes the science doesn't fully agree

Not only does it not agree but it’s at cross purposes at times. Especially when it comes to land use issues.

MangoFeverDream · 03/03/2020 15:19

We're still working on it

And stop acting as if scientists have a unified voice

Deckthehallswithlotsofcake · 03/03/2020 15:46

The scientists actually have an amazingly unified voice when it comes to global warming.

Jillyhilly · 03/03/2020 15:58

How was the oft-quoted “97% of scientists agree” figure arrived at?

Jillyhilly · 03/03/2020 16:02

Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.

But this doesn’t say what percentage of climate-warming is due to human activity, which is the point “climate scientists” do not agree in. 0.001%? 100%? There’s rather a large discrepancy there in terms of how hysterical we all need to get.

MangoFeverDream · 03/03/2020 16:03

The scientists actually have an amazingly unified voice when it comes to global warming

If that’s the case then why is this happening: www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/02/09/a-climate-blacklist-that-works-it-should-make-her-unhirable-in-academia

Jillyhilly · 03/03/2020 16:20

Yes, Judith Murray is an excellent example of how difficult it is to speak against the prevailing narrative of climate alarmism. And she’s not alone.

pallisers · 03/03/2020 16:44

How was the oft-quoted “97% of scientists agree” figure arrived at?

A review of peer-reviewed studies in academic journals.

climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

PlanDeRaccordement · 03/03/2020 17:00

Science is important. But honestly there are conflicting scientific opinions.

The ‘Greenhouse Hypothesis’, on which IPCC’s belief in AGW is based, is that atmospheric gases trap heat. But this old (19th century) notion is merely an idea, not a hypothesis, because it is untestable, impossible to prove in a laboratory as no experimental container can imitate Earth’s uncontained, well-mixed atmosphere.

All the IPCC computer models are extremely unreliable, e.g. forecast warming for 1995 to 2015 turned out to be 2-3 times too high. See also www.wnd.com/2017/07/study-blows-greenhouse-theory-out-of-the-water/ principia-scientific.org/r-i-p-greenhouse-gas-theory-1980-2018/

Until man began adding CO2 about 1850, warming (determined from ‘proxies’ like tree rings) since the 1600AD Little Ice Age peak was accompanied by slowly rising CO2 (measured in ice cores). A simple explanation is CO2 release by ocean water, whose CO2-holding capacity decreases upon warming.

Supporting this sign that CO2 is a consequence, not a cause, of global warming, a published study of 1980-2011 measurements showed that changes in warming rate precede changes in CO2’s growth rate, by about a year.

Since the 1850 start of man’s additions, CO2’s rise has generally accelerated, without reversals. In stark contrast, the post-1850 to present-day continuance of warming out of the Little Ice Age was interrupted by frequent small coolings of 1-3 years (some relatable to ‘volcanic winters’), plus two 30-year coolings (1878 to 1910, 1944 to 1976), and the famous 1998 to 2013 ‘global-warming pause’ or ‘hiatus’

This unsteady modern warming instead resembles the unsteady rise of the sun’s magnetic output from 1901 toward a rare solar ‘Grand Maximum’ peaking in 1991, the first in 1700 years. After the previous solar Grand Maximum (4th century, long before industrial CO2), in the next decades Earth warmed to near or above today’s temperature. Then ‘sawtooth’ cooling proceeded, through the Dark Ages and ‘Medieval Warm Period’, into the Little Ice Age, paralleling a 1,000-year unsteady solar decline. This 4,500-year cooling contradicts IPCC computer models that instead predict warming by the simultaneous (slow) rise in CO2. This is the ‘The Holocene Temperature Conundrum’ of Liu et al. (2014).

Cross-correlating post-1880 graphs of solar-magnetic flux versus Earth’s temperature suggests a 25-year timelag, such that the 2016 peak temperature corresponds to the 1991 solar peak. The lag is probably due to the ocean’s high thermal inertia due to its enormous volume and high heat capacity, hence slow response to warming.

Dr Robert Higgs work shows that Global Warming’s real cause was a solar build-up to a rare Grand Maximum, which man’s industrialisation accompanied by chance. So IPCC demonising CO2 as a ‘pollutant’ is a colossal blunder, costing trillions of dollars in needless & ineffectual efforts to reduce it. Global cooling is now in progress since February 2016, matching the sun’s 28-year decline from 1991 to today, and allowing for the 25-year time-lag.

IPCC could be wrong − there is ample evidence that the sun, not CO2, drove modern global warming

It’s not just one scientist for example, there is the ‘Svensmark Theory’ which says increased solar magnetic flux warms Earth by deflecting cosmic rays, thus reducing cloudiness, allowing more of the sun’s warmth to heat the land and ocean instead of being reflected. In support, a NASA study of satellite data spanning 32 years (1979-2011) showed decreasing cloud cover.

Jillyhilly · 03/03/2020 17:22

Yes, but what did those studies actually look at, pallisers? The moment you start to scratch the surface of these reports (primarily Cook and Oreskes), there is controversy about the data, the way it was collected and what it actually shows. I’m not saying that these studies should be discounted but it is interesting, and I think we should all try to be as precise as possible in our understanding about what was being studied because this makes a difference. And the way those studies was used by politicians and the media (most notably Obama continually referring to “97% of scientists agreeing that climate change is real and dangerous”) was incorrect, misleading and not what the studies said at all. And it makes me wonder WHY they were so exploited by politicians, in such an inaccurate way. This is the kind of thing that has led to some of my scepticism.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 03/03/2020 17:31

Since it's been mentioned a lot, there's an interesting piece about the IPCC here: www.europeanscientist.com/en/features/ipcc-a-governmental-organization/

It's a heck of a rabbit hole to go down, but suggests that a little caution around influence is, as ever, no bad thing

Jillyhilly · 03/03/2020 19:46

That’s quite a read, puzzled. Some interesting highlights relevant to this discussion:

The IPCC nowadays is like a revered authority, a new bible. What it says is accepted as the only truth. It can make any political statement; it will be perceived as a scientific one. It has been able to reach the media, therefore politicians and ultimately citizen

Scientists should be independent thinkers, reaching their conclusions independently of politics. After all, as Karl Popper explained, a theory in science can never be proven but it can be falsified and if the outcome of an experiment contradicts the theory – which is the case with models of the IPCC – scientists should not be searching for justification of the theory. Popper stated exactly the opposite of Al Gore and environmental NGO’S; the former said “I know that I do not know” and the Al Gore claims “the debate is closed, we need to act”. For Karl Popper science is not there to claim, “this is the truth”, but rather to denounce errors. Accordingly, climate change “deniers” have a scientific approach, while those calling them “deniers” do not. This is especially so when trying to marginalise and denigrate anyone disagreeing and even prevent “deniers” to publish in scientific papers as the 2009 Climate Gate scandal demonstrated.

As a demonstration of Popper’s position, science is full of errors. Since 1961 cholesterol was an obsession in dietary labels in the U.S. because there was a consensus that eating food containing cholesterol provoked heart diseases. Two generations were discouraged to eat eggs and bacon at breakfast based on scientific consent. However, in 2015, this consensus collapsed. Similarly, climate change “deniers” should be respected provided they have a scientific approach and environmental NGO’s should stop their absolute opposition to their theories. The progress of Science needs continuous critical review of its conclusions; so that they remain continuously challenged and confronted with evidence from observations obtained by experiments.

My experience is that it’s the sceptics who are much more curious and open to discussion about this topic, while those who firmly follow in Greta’s footsteps seem much more close-minded, hostile, defensive and determined to prove everyone else “wrong”. And it doesn’t work. In fact it is partly that attitude that made me much more sceptical about the whole topic. This is such a complex and confusing issue, and blanket statements about how all scientists agree, “the science is settled” etc just seem rather ignorant, I’m afraid. We should all try to adopt Popper’s attitude: I know that I do not know.

Furfockssake · 03/03/2020 20:22

I agree @Jillyhilly - there’s perhaps more discussion around the specifics than we are lead to believe.

But that’s not the same as saying a lay person’s feeling in her bones is that humans haven’t caused climate change - and that her opinion should be given the same validity as, generally speaking, a scientific consensus.

Furfockssake · 03/03/2020 20:25

I don’t think those ‘gut feelings’ should be taken seriously at all in a discussion on why people are climate change sceptics, and it’s fair to question whether, using unfounded opinions, they are on solid ground denying that climate change is caused by humans.

PrimalLass · 03/03/2020 20:27

I work at en environmental organisation. It's an emergency and I don't know if we can stop it now.