By-Tor.com

ElfDude wrote:

CygnusX1 wrote:

*looks for another thread to hijack*

Yeah, what's up with that? I post this article that breaks all the current political boundaries and instead of commenting on it you guys go all Beavis and Butthead on me!

To be called science, things must stand up under a process called ?The Scientific Method.? Three steps are involved: One, observe a phenomenon. Two, devise a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. Three, devise a test to prove or disprove the hypothesis. If the third step proves it, you have a scientific truth. Every global warming item I have read stops at step 2 or uses an argument like ?It started at the industrial age, therefore the industrial age caused it.? This is a common fallacy in logic known as ?Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc? (After it, therefore caused by it) which is utterly invalid as far as the scientific method goes. Flat earth theories were not abandoned because of a shift in consensus. They were disproven by step 3 of the scientific method, and our current globe earth science stands up to the method. Most pro-global warming people think the hypothesis must be true so it is true. Even when a disproving step 3 happens (there will be more violent and numerous hurricanes this year because of global warming).

When Einstein?s theory of relativity was thought to be insane, Einstein provided a step 3 method of testing it involving an eclipse and how light would behave. Things happened like he said they would, and we now accept the theory of relativity as science. The point is, if global warming theories were scientific fact, no scientist would be able to dispute it

ElfDude wrote:

Soup4Rush wrote:a silent CK whatever dude. he just tells people that.

He's Scottish, but raised in Ireland. Have you ever seen that last name, Schu?

zepboy wrote:I think that there will come a time, and perhaps in my lifetime, where there will be great laughter at those who got their knickers in a twist over this global warming hubbub. Personally, I think it is feuled by a major global shift in economics, not solid science.

zepboy wrote:I'm kinda surprised by the fact that nobody has mentioned the number one global contributor to atmospheric CO2 . . . the Amazon rain forest! By allowing the forest to undergo late stage decomposition of organic matter, it has long since past the productive renewal stage, and the CO2 output has exceeded its oxygen replenishment rate over ten thousandfold. This has gotten to the point where many canopy dwelling species are being threatened with extinction due to unlivable conditions. This is something the wacko environmentalists refuse to accept, because their stand is based on religion, not science. If people are truly concerned about man's impact on "global warming," we should collectively stop contributing to it by allowing an Amazon clearcut.

Big Blue Owl wrote: It's probably a good investment.

Well, here's why: because it has costs. Producing more energy-efficient cars is costly, cutting down on total energy use is costly, changing from one form of fuel to another is costly, etc.

Let's suppose we knew for sure that unless we cut emissions by 50% next year, we're all going to die. In that case, it would be worth almost anything to cut emissions, and so we'd take on really high costs, more or less stopping the world economy and cutting production drastically to prevent the disaster.

Suppose we lived in a world where emissions had no effect at all on the environment, and oil was cheap and abundant everywhere. In that world, it would be bad to try to change from oil-based energy to something else. After all, the many billions spent on this needless change (as it would be needless in this imagined world) should have instead been spent on something else, like curing AIDs or even buying DVDs.

Now, even if we don't live at either of these extremes, the basic point is the same. We need to have a good idea of how dangerous our pollution is, or otherwise we can't make a rational calculation of what we should do, because we don't know how to measure the relative value of our opportunity costs.

You wouldn't buy insurance that protected you from being murdered by alien invaders. But there is logically possible that you will be killed by aliens. Still, it would be nutty for you to pay a high premium to be insured for this. You should instead spend the money on your kids braces, a new car, give it to Oxfam, or whatever. But it is reasonable to pay for expensive car insurance because there is a very good chance you'll need it (heck, the more it costs you, ceteris paribus, the greater likelihood you'll need it).

So, how high of a cost do we pay for the global warming insurance? It's going to depend on whether global warming insurance is akin to alien murder insurance or car insurance, i.e., whether the danger is ridiculously remote or real.

(P.S.: If we knew absolutely nothing about the probabilities, we couldn't act at all, because we could be living in a world where we would have a disaster unless we put out more emissions. Imagine a nearby parallel universe where we are on the verge of another ice age, and people start polluting precisely to avoid it.)

(P.S.2: Everything I said above takes no side whatsoever on whether global warming is happening or what causes it.)

(P.S.3: Avoid the following fallacy: From "It is possible that X", it does not follow that the probability of X is greater than zero.)

zepboy wrote:I'm kinda surprised by the fact that nobody has mentioned the number one global contributor to atmospheric CO2 . . . the Amazon rain forest! By allowing the forest to undergo late stage decomposition of organic matter, it has long since past the productive renewal stage, and the CO2 output has exceeded its oxygen replenishment rate over ten thousandfold. This has gotten to the point where many canopy dwelling species are being threatened with extinction due to unlivable conditions. This is something the wacko environmentalists refuse to accept, because their stand is based on religion, not science. If people are truly concerned about man's impact on "global warming," we should collectively stop contributing to it by allowing an Amazon clearcut.