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Unknown Member
Deleted UserFebruary 15, 2010 at 4:00 pmWarming is not unusual. Agreed. Straw man dutifully destroyed.. again. Anyone who has taken a 7th grade science class knows that. Remember the Ice Ages? Concept understood.
What is unusual is that man has been pumping all kinds of stuff into the environment for 200 years. That IS unprecedented. Climate change in that setting IS unprecedented, and needs to be studied. Maybe its a causal relationship, maybe not. But its still unprecedented. Arguing the opposite is just silly. Pursuing the science will tell the story eventually. Until then, you just have to do your best, and not abandon the science.
I agree with part of your logic though. If you do not think the CO2 levels are causing the warming (if you even concede that warming is occurring), or you do not think that manmade actions are responsible for increasing CO2 levels, then there are no scientific reasons to limit CO2 production. It is not a pollutant if its not a significant greenhouse gas. The entire argument thus becomes geopolitical and economic if you discount those two factors, I agree.
One point though regarding discounting the warming itself: Its hard to argue that the glaciers aren’t receding over the course of the past 100 years, just to take one small example. Say what you will about fudged data, or interviews with scientists, or warming periods in the dark ages that are not novel or even interesting, where are the glacier’s going? Is that not pretty good evidence of warming, if not overly simplifying a complex science? If you concede that glaciers are disappearing alone, then you can’t just throw out the science and frame the argument as a solely geopolitical issue of energy policy. I’m sure the glaciers have receded in the past, probably for a multitude of reasons. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not receding now. Nor does it mean that the cause of the recession in the past is the cause of the recession now. Maybe manmade causes are not contributing a lick to the current climate change. Maybe its a repeat of previous changes, with similar causes. We don’t know, and that’s why its a scientific pursuit.
My only problem is when people make the “Dark Ages” argument, or the “Scientist X is Lying” argument, or the “Climate Change is Expected So Theres No Need to Study It Or Change Our Policies Because Of It” arguments, they’re intentionally trying to shut down the debate with flawed logic. If you want to win a scientific argument, you have to use credible logic, and those above just aren’t credible.
EDIT: I forgot. Why do you want to limit carbon emissions again, if they’re not causing warming? Seriously, I can’t remember the argument and want to be fair. Good debate.