BSM1
What? Me worry?
You mean to one showing the apocalypse? Nope. Sorry, I missed that one.
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Does anyone else experience anxiety over climate change?
- Thread starter JeremK
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- anxiety climate change
You mean to one showing the apocalypse? Nope. Sorry, I missed that one.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
There is actually a very large consensus over it. Just like there is a very large consensus over evolution and natural selection.
Wirey
Fartist
Who cares? Death approaches. Take the time to stop and smell the roses.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
While you're breathing and drinking?
BSM1
What? Me worry?
Now you can start that broccoli farm.
Yes, they are similar in that respect.
JeremK
Member
Doesn't sound like there's much hope in solving it, assuming it does exist (which might be dumb, because I'm ignoring the burden of proof, but whatever). Either way, though, I should probably just enjoy my life, embrace mortality, and accept that someday we'll go extinct whether it's real or not. It's just inevitable, you know?
Thanks for the advice.
Thanks for the advice.
Haven't read the whole thread, but this comes closest to my response to OP.
I would just add that my anxiety around climate change, of which I am very much a skeptic, is balanced by my understanding of nature/natural (man being entirely natural) and so, I think if we all perfectly understand that this planet wasn't meant to last forever and/or that humans living on the planet wasn't going to last forever, then it is really just about coming to terms with that FACT. I do have anxiety around "the end is near" but seemingly have my own set of concerns which if shared openly might be seen as some things are thousands of years away and some things are possible to occur tomorrow or this year.
Doesn't help the climate change case that certain things were predicted to have occurred by now, and haven't, thus one of the reasons I put it waaaaay down on my list as well. When I encounter those that want to bump it back up on my list, I find it very easy to take what they are purporting with a grain of salt. Call me naive, but I think humanity has a good century to another millennium on this planet before something like mass extinction is truly occurring. Global thermonuclear war strikes me as something to be more anxious about, especially understanding the nature of humanity.
Aye, the lack of predictive value of climate models is problematic.
There's too much faith in the doom & gloom worst case scenarios.
I say it's happening, but the planet & our species won't be doomed by it.
I will attempt to help you understand, in perhaps a variety of ways.
First, I read your post and think of the same thing for existence of God. Literally, proof is all around for said existence. But people still refuse to acknowledge it. Why? Well partially because of simple denial, but also because they see it as something other than God/gods. That is perhaps more likely. Looking at the allege occurrence of something, but calling it by something other than what an overwhelming majority sees it as.
Second, because I don't see it occurring all around me. This is perhaps stating the first in another way, but would perhaps be stipulated by what one means "all around you (or me)." I'm currently sitting indoors, and don't see anywhere around me, evidence for climate change. I'm glad to go for a walk around the block, or places I normally visit looking for actual evidence. But if it is asking me to look through a filter where I can only conclude it is climate change (and no other interpretation of what I am observing is deemed worthwhile) then I think that would be something to argue with. Akin to someone saying, just see everything you look at as created by gods, and there's your answer. God did it!
The next points assume it could be occurring, but I think feed denial mindset rather than help in overcoming the alleged problem.
Third, is the notion that climate change is natural. This assumes it is occurring, but also assumes it was meant to occur. That nature is doing this, and that every plausible action we think we could take to control it, might be met by larger actions not within human control to stop it. Helps, I think, to understand that man is natural and ALL THINGS man-made are natural. I currently have not found an exception to this. Thus climate change strikes me as something to learn to live with, rather than think that which allegedly caused it is somehow able to also control it, when it (or we) seemingly barely understands how it was caused, and is willing to have debates (forever and ever) on what is "natural."
Fourth is related to the idea of what truly could be done about it, by way of what is currently being done or has been done. I frankly see this in relation to a lot of perceived problems on the planet, and is where things get both highly political and arguably deceptive for reasons that aren't fully explained. Like "feed the hungry" has been a big issue in my lifetime for ever since I can remember. I am aware of lots and lots of actions taken by humanity to eradicate this perceived problem. Lots and lots of resources/money spent on this problem. If anything, it seems like it has gotten worse in my lifetime. Would be nice to hear stories of it getting massively better. Instead, it seems like whatever we do is actually making it worse. So, with regards to climate change, I think the same is quite possibly occurring. Again, doesn't help that predictive models have shown up as inaccurate based on such and such was supposed to occur by this (past) date, and now let us adjust things in an ad hoc way to make it all appear like we know the actual problem and can therefore have a game plan that works with a viable (updated) deadline. With the religious folk who say "the end is near" and then predict that means next Tuesday at 4 pm, but that date comes to past, do we then say no problem with your ability to predict things and next time you claim the end is near, and provide a specific date, I shall have no reason to be skeptical or show up in denial of your claims?
Continuing on the fourth point, it strikes me as big business combined with big science got us partially in this mode where the alleged man-made version of climate change is occurring. But now seems like it is really really huge business to perpetuate claims about climate change. All of which in doing the normal actions of any business, seem to be utilizing things that are allegedly highly counter productive to 'fixing the planet.' Like why would a president of a country who claims to care deeply about climate change, fly around in a plane (i.e. Air Force One) that is arguably causing more of the problem than just about everyone reading this sentence, combined? The answer to that question, that gives lots of benefit of any doubt, is because that president believes their meeting other people in that fashion is helpful to other problems, and/or is worth the risk to win the longer battle. To me, it sends a fairly direct message that the issue isn't that imminent. As long as jet fuel is allowed to be as big of a business as it currently is, tells me that all who are looking at this problem are also in some sort of shared denial. And when it is alleged spokespersons of the cause, doing these things, it is either hypocrisy at work or plausible deniability. Do as I say, not as I do.
Fifth, because it has become a very huge business, with careers based around the alleged problem, and desires to control others actions, I feel that alone is reason to be highly skeptical of what is the alleged problem. Add in the hypocrisy factor and suddenly deniable becomes equally sane response, politically speaking. I see your hypocrisy and raise you by my choice for deniability. Perhaps when I see the hypocrisy factor go down by 10 notches, I'll take that as a sign that my deniability factor can be turned down a notch, or ten.
Really, business as usual - whether that be for big greedy corporations or humble noble scientific organizations - strikes me as pretty good reason why deniability makes more sense than anxiety on an issue that is plausibly naturally occurring, isn't exactly visible for everyone, and is suddenly a very huge business in and of itself.
Yes, but it's mostly over the fact that every time I wade into to the literature to answer the most fundamental questions (in particular, the magnitude of the feedback parameter and the amount of warming caused by humans) I find a quagmire I can't get out of. The models are immensely complex, they have generally been wrong, we keep improving our models and data post hoc, and because of the politicization many scientists are loathe to share data for fear that some outspoken (and almost certainly amateur) critic of mainstream AGW will take the data out of context to mislead the public into thinking global warming is all hype and has little or no empirical support (which is patently false).
It absolutely is not on par with "evolution denial." For one thing, the various alternatives to anthropogenic global warming proposed by naysayers don't invoke an omniscient deity but natural phenomena. For another, evolutionary theory is much older and has over a century of success stories behind it, while climate change is fraught with wrong predictions, poor predictive power, disagreements among data simulations of the temperature record, and other issues. Most significantly, the core of climate change (or at least the core of the mainstream, IPCC version of anthropogenic global warming) is the insertion of a positive feedback parameter in order to allow the models to fit past data. Put differently, when we plug everything we know about the climate into models and run them forward from 1900 or 1950 or some other time suitably far back, the models underestimate the observed warming. The theory holds that this is because the human-caused increases in GHGs creates feedback in the climate systems that has a net positive effect. Thus there is no known physical mechanism at the foundation of the theory, there is a parameter.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
We have a huge fresh water supply.
It just isn't where many people want.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
That's an awful lot of fresh water.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
It is because we know it is going on. We know, factually, it is happening. We may not have it all worked out yet, but Darwin didn't even get everything right yet it's simply absurd to denounce evolution via natural selection.
We think it is, or at least many of us do and most of those whose expertise in some relevant field do.
Darwin proposed the basic mechanism for the theory of evolution that, even though it is no longer generally considered to be the only mechanism, remains the primary one today well over a century later (i.e., natural selection). There is no agreed upon mechanism for the core or foundation of anthropogenic climate change because the entire reason we are worried about the effects on global temperatures and climate that emissions of GHGs due to human activity will have is the positive net feedback. That is, we aren't worried about the tiny increases in temperature caused solely by the increases in atmospheric CO2 and other GHGs, but rather the sensitivity of climate systems to these increases. Our best models tell us that the magnitude of the feedback will drive temperatures into seriously dangerous ranges and have already caused significant increases.
But it is NOT simply that we haven't figured out all the details. The foundations of the whole theory are based upon tuning models and the assumption that there is no other forcing that could account for the difference between our models without a strongly positive net feedback and the temperature record. This isn't a matter of filling in details- it's the core of the theory and widely regarded by climate scientists as a serious problem.
"The envelope of uncertainty in climate projections has not narrowed appreciably over the past 30 years, despite tremendous increases in computing power, in observations, and in the number of scientists studying the problem. This suggests that efforts to reduce uncertainty in climate projections have been impeded either by fundamental gaps in our understanding of the climate systemor by some feature (which itself might be well understood) of the system’s underlying nature. The resolution of this dilemma has important implications for climate research and policy."
Roe, G. H., & Baker, M. B. (2007). Why is climate sensitivity so unpredictable?. Science, 318(5850), 629-632.
Also unlike evolutionary theory, there do exist alternative theories explaining the observed warming that do not depend on a deity, supernatural forces, etc. A long-standing alternative is the cosmic ray/climate link. See e.g.,
Gervais, F. (2016). Anthropogenic CO 2 warming challenged by 60-yearcycle. Earth-Science Reviews, 155, 129-135.
Courtillot, V., Gallet, Y., Le Mouël, J. L., Fluteau, F., & Genevey, A. (2007). Are there connections between the Earth's magnetic field and climate?. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 253(3), 328-339.
Erlykin, A. D., Sloan, T., & Wolfendale, A. W. (2010). Correlations of clouds, cosmic rays and solar irradiation over the Earth. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 72(2), 151-156.
Gervais, F. (2014). Tiny warming of residual anthropogenic CO 2. International Journal of Modern Physics B, 28(13), 1450095.
Kirkby, J. (2007). Cosmic rays and climate. Surveys in Geophysics, 28(5-6), 333-375.
Lu, Q. B. (2009). Correlation between cosmic rays and ozone depletion. Physical review letters, 102(11), 118501.
Marsh, N. D., & Svensmark, H. (2000). Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays. Physical Review Letters, 85(23), 5004.
Shaviv, N. J. (2005). On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 110(A8).
Scafetta, N. (2010). Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 72(13), 951-970.
Soon, W., Connolly, R., & Connolly, M. (2015). Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century. Earth-Science Reviews, 150, 409-452.
Scafetta, N., & West, B. (2006). Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming. Geophysical Research Letters, 33(5).
Svensmark, H. (2007). Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges. Astronomy & Geophysics, 48(1), 1-18.
Svensmark, H., Bondo, T., & Svensmark, J. (2009). Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds. Geophysical Research Letters, 36(15).
Tsonis, A. A., Deyle, E. R., May, R. M., Sugihara, G., Swanson, K., Verbeten, J. D., & Wang, G. (2015). Dynamical evidence for causality between galactic cosmic rays and interannual variation in global temperature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(11), 3253-3256.
Wei, M., Qiao, F., & Deng, J. (2015). A Quantitative Definition of Global Warming Hiatus and 50-Year Prediction of Global-Mean Surface Temperature*. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 72(8), 3281-3289.
Zarrouk, N., & Bennaceur, R. (2010). Link nature between low cloud amounts and cosmic rays through wavelet analysis. Acta Astronautica, 66(9), 1311-1319.
The science isn't settled, AGW remains a theory, and the truth is that it is very likely humans are causing dangerous increases in global temperatures from GHG emissions, but this is NOT certainty and dogmatic claims to the contrary don't change this. It is certainly understandable for scientists in any field to downplay the uncertainties, errors, problems, and so forth in current research when describing it to the public, particularly when the field is important for policy-making. It is not generally appreciated, outside of scientific circles, that "all models are wrong" and uncertainties as well as errors, mistakes, etc., are part of the research process. In particular, there are innumerable individuals and organizations that seek to influence public opinion by distorting the inevitable problems and uncertainties in climate science, turning them into vindication that global warming is a sham.
However, the way out of this conundrum s NOT to make idiotic claims about the science being settled (a nonsense notion if ever there were one) or continued assertions that AGW is a fact, plain and simple. This was done, and the fact that our models failed to predict a hiatus that is approaching the length of the period of warming ascribed to humans, as well as the continual retroactive adjustments to datasets to make them more in line with theory, have undermined public confidence and fanned the flames of "skeptics/deniers" as much as any honest admission of uncertainty could have.