# 15,000 scientists can't be wrong



## Harpo (Nov 14, 2017)

15,000 scientists just gave a catastrophic warning about the fate of humanity


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## Cathbad (Nov 14, 2017)

Sorry... our President won't stand for this hoax!


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## Caledfwlch (Nov 14, 2017)

The West and everywhere Wealthy is going to have to dig deep into it's pockets to help out the third which - which will have to be an essential strut to any platform to save our environment.

The Developing World , places such as India are hugely reliant on Oil and Coal for transport and power - and with their vast populations, the pollution they put out probably already exceeds most Western Nations.
Equally, we cannot turn round to people we have spent decades, if not centuries saying "you should be like us, covet what we covet" then now say "yeah, you see, we have badly damaged the planet, so your not getting a turn, Im afraid we arent "allowing" you to have cars, and 21st century lifestyles whilst you are damaging the earth through being so dependent on fossil fuels.

The easiest solution is building nuclear and hydroelectric power stations for them, free, to help them cut CO2 etc.

Of course, many of the people in power are Climate Change Deniers. 
Never mind Trump, I am still genuinely astonished, and appalled, that Michael Gove, now a has been Tory MP who's gamble for Power failed, made a statement in which he urged the Public, during the Brexit referendum campaign to "don't listen to Experts - afterall, what do THEY know?" yeah, Mrs Miggins, a waitress in a Pie Shop, who doesn't have a GCSE or A Level to her name, is proud that she has never read a book of any kind, clearly knows more than someone with a Scientific Doctorate who has spent their long career investigating climate change, or indeed some windbag MP who couldn't even manage to successfully Backstab a colleague, despite belonging to a Party where backstabbing has been developed to a fine art clearly knows better too.

It appears that in the English Speaking part of the Western World, we are sorely lacking in Mature Adults amongst our Politicians, when we need them more than ever.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 14, 2017)

It may already be too late to do much of anything .


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## Harpo (Nov 14, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> It may already be too late to do much of anything .


But, as they point out, we fixed the ozone layer in time, so we know we *can* do what's required if we just get it together


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## BAYLOR (Nov 14, 2017)

Harpo said:


> But, as they point out, we fixed the ozone layer in time, so we know we *can* do what's required if we just get it together



We can't fix this.  There are way too many people living on earth then the Earth can viably sustain,  generating too much waste and who won't make the sacrifices  necessary to to make any kind of difference.


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## Harpo (Nov 14, 2017)

So there's no solution? Certainly if we all sit around saying "we can't fix this", or arranging to have big discussions every five years to set targets decades in the future.
*parties like there's no tomorrow*


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## BAYLOR (Nov 14, 2017)

Harpo said:


> So there's no solution? Certainly if we all sit around saying "we can't fix this", or arranging to have big discussions every five years to set targets decades in the future.
> *parties like there's no tomorrow*



Siting around and talking about it is all most of us are ever going to do about it.


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## Cathbad (Nov 14, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> We can't fix this.  There are way too many people living on earth then the Earth can viably sustain,  generating too much waste and who won't make the sacrifices  necessary to to make any kind of difference.



Ridiculous.

No, we cannot sustain things as they are.  A radical change in our lifestyles is required.  This earth _can_ sustain this many - and probably three times as many!  But not by subjecting it to the abuse we are currently putting it through.

We are but Renters on this planet.  If we don't treat the property we have leased with the proper respect, we won't be allowed to continue renting it (survive).


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## Mouse (Nov 14, 2017)

There are too many people on the planet, we should be encouraging people who choose to be childfree, not punishing or shaming them. To nick a phrase from the animal rescue community: Adopt, Don't Shop. Same thing should apply! Countless kiddies needing homes already...

Saying people won't make the sacrifices necessary... I'm not sure that's completely true. Yeah, there are horrible, lazy people, there are the deniers etc. etc. But I think there's a hell of a lot of young people who are more interested in being eco-friendly nowadays. My younger bro and his mates gave up a whole weekend a few weeks ago to go and pick litter from the beach. This wasn't a community scheme, they did it off their own backs. My bro even took everything home and recycled it.

If everybody did a small thing, even, instead of thinking 'well nobody's bothering, so I'll not either' then it'd help. I'm pretty pleased with the fact I have zero food waste in my house, for example, and I don't eat meat. I also don't drive very often, though I'm lucky to work mostly from home - I know most people can't do that.


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## Caledfwlch (Nov 14, 2017)

The fastest growing populations are in the third world, for exactly the same reasons that large and even huge families were normal in Europe, and I think in the United States in the past. Really poor people in developing nations have multiple children, even though they can barely feed themselves, let alone a child, because those children when older can work, and bring in cash, or work on the family farm/business, not to mention horrendous child mortality rates.
The Vatican has a huge amount of responsibility both for the overpopulation, the fact that poor African families are having multiple children they cannot afford to feed, to get medical care for, and the spread of HIV. Because of their insistence that sexual congress using physical contraception that would prevent the spread of HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases is a Sin. It's nice to see the Cardinals swanning around in the sort of Luxury most people can only dream about, whilst the victims of their irresponsible prohibition on Contraception are left starving, dying, forced to work at 5 years old and so on. It has huge influence across Africa, and it it changed it's ludicrous position, then the birth rates would slow, and more importantly, the rapid spread of HIV will decline.

Saving the World is not just an environmental issue, dealing with it requires political, spiritual, religious and many other approaches.


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## SilentRoamer (Nov 14, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> We can't fix this.  There are way too many people living on earth then the Earth can viably sustain,  generating too much waste and who won't make the sacrifices  necessary to to make any kind of difference.





BAYLOR said:


> Siting around and talking about it is all most of us are ever going to do about it.



I have to agree wholeheartedly with Baylor. There are a number of reasons this will never happen.

The population levels as they currently stand are completely unsustainable moving forwards irrespective of what energy types we use. Sure clean energy will make a huge difference but you still need to feed this incredible amount of people which means increased agriculture and ever increasing deforestation. This is assuming that energy demands can be met purely by clean and renewable energy sources - which I really do doubt. 

Then there is of course the problem with the trillions of tonnes of non degradable plastics which we have dumped into the ocean and are now making their way into the food chain as micro plastics - what does the death of the oceans mean for the planet?

Then there are the increasingly likely situation of Nuclear War and proliferation of devices.

The environment is so tied into society, economics, agriculture and human behavior that any major changes would require a paradigm shift, the problem for me is that we already accept the Paradigm shift - I don't know a single person in real life that would deny climate change is real, however getting people to act outside of their own bubbles is impossible.

I see it as a question like this: could human beings collectively and globally agree a framework for energy supply and consumption that both meets the needs of the human population of Earth whilst also safeguarding the Earthen environmental conditions - entailing cross economic partnerships, increased collaboration between neighboring states (just a reminder some of these are currently killing each other) and the complete and unfettered sacrifices in lifestyle for the Western World at the same time as telling the rest of the World they cannot follow the same path to economic prosperity that the Western world has? It's kind of like asking whether the world could exist without murder - it is of course entirely possible, but it's never going to happen.

Call me a naysayer and a prophet of doom but I genuinely do believe that humans are going to have to learn to survive on a hell of their own making, certainly in the next few hundred years.


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## LordOfWizards (Nov 14, 2017)

Harpo said:


> 15,000 scientists just gave a catastrophic warning about the fate of humanity



Ah, Harpo. I've been doing everything I can about this most of my life. I always recycle, I have solar power on my roof, I drive a Prius and have a Tesla 3 on order. I'm afraid you are definitely "preaching to the choir" here. You are addressing a group of intelligent educated people on this site. We may all agree whole-heart, and yet there are billions of folks struggling everyday just to stay alive. If you know of a way to educate people who are so poor they can't_ pay_ attention, please tell us how!


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## Caledfwlch (Nov 14, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> Ah, Harpo. I've been doing everything I can about this most of my life. I always recycle, I have solar power on my roof, I drive a Prius and have a Tesla 3 on order. I'm afraid you are definitely "preaching to the choir" here. You are addressing a group of intelligent educated people on this site. We may all agree whole-heart, and yet there are billions of folks struggling everyday just to stay alive. If you know of a way to educate people who are so poor they can't_ pay_ attention, please tell us how!



Income does not determine Intelligence. I know 1 or 2 people who are very poor, on disability benefits, have never worked, yet have vastly more intelligent than for example most of the people sat in the House of Commons.

The poor are not unwilling to be educated on these issues, and they *can* pay attention, they simply cannot afford to do anything about it.
A Middle Class Professional on a reasonable income can afford to get Organic Chickens, free range eggs etc, to get food that is much better for the Planet and it's sustainability. A poor person simply has no choice, They cannot afford the often shocking price of food that is organic, free range, gluten free, vegan, vegetarian and so on.

I had organic free range chicken once - I loved it, my ex fiance didn't - she just found the chicken taste too overpowering. At the time that Tesco organic chicken cost around £10, whilst a much larger standard Tesco Chicken (battery farmed I assume) cost £4. We simply couldn't justify spending that much on a Chicken. Luckily she could cook, and she quickly taught me to cook, so for a short period of 3 or 4 months, when a Recruitment Agency let us down, and we were forced to subsist on Jobseekers Allowance, a couple claiming get less than if they stopped living together and made separate claims which is crazy, but due to being able to cook, and having the wits to go to the Library and find budget recipe books, so we were able to maintain eating freshly prepared food, rather than relying on Iceland and other stuff filled to the lid with sugar, E numbers and other chemicals - I am diabetic, and those sorts of foods, sauces etc are lethal, they are packed with so much crap.

But many people don't have that option. If Organic etc came down in Price to be the same as the non organic/veggy stuff, if it could compete better, ,then maybe more poor people would start adopting it, and tuning down the factory harmed animals they are living on now.


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## LordOfWizards (Nov 14, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> Income does not determine Intelligence. I know 1 or 2 people who are very poor, on disability benefits, have never worked, yet have vastly more intelligent than for example most of the people sat in the House of Commons.



Let me start by saying it is in no way my intention to start any kind of drawn out argument here, but stating that you know of an exception to the norm does not qualify in my mind as an excuse to ignore the general trend. I have worked with organizations like United Way and so forth and I find it to be the general rule that the poorer you are the less you have been educated, and I would wager that at least 80% of the world's population has not been to college. If your day consists of trying to find something to eat for your family, you will not be concerned with topics like climate change etc. That's all I'm saying.

*6.7% Of World Has College Degree*


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## Caledfwlch (Nov 14, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> Let me start by saying it is in no way my intention to start any kind of drawn out argument here, but stating that you know of an exception to the norm does not qualify in my mind as an excuse to ignore the general trend. I have worked with organizations like United Way and so forth and I find it to be the general rule that the poorer you are the less you have been educated, and I would wager that at least 80% of the world's population has not been to college. If your day consists of trying to find something to eat for your family, you will not be concerned with topics like climate change etc. That's all I'm saying.
> 
> *6.7% Of World Has College Degree*



All I am trying to say is that just because people are poor does not mean they do not understand the problem of climate change, and also that there is no point in educating them, most would understand what you would like to teach them, they simply lack the ability or wherewithal to actively contribute towards cutting practices that are damaging the environment, and employing practices that help substainability, so recycling more, buying healthy food that doesnt have as far to travel, is not covered in harmful pesticides, or antibiotics etc etc

Poor people in the Developing World don't really need that education anyway, they are generally making the least damage to the climate, in terms of what they consume, they cant afford expensive food imports, Ipads, BMW Cars, and even if it were available which seems unlikely, they couldn't afford to eat vegetarian and vegan meals, beyond a natural element in their diet, due to being poor, so existing on cheap local veg etc.

Even in the UK with it's famed Welfare State a person on Benefits cannot do what middle class people and families are to help substainability, healthy, organic or "free of various things" food is quite simply beyond affordability if your only receiving £73 a week. It is also beyond the affordability of people in full time work on minimum wage.


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## LordOfWizards (Nov 14, 2017)

Sure, I agree that they can understand and maybe even chip in here and there. I also get your point that they are not the ones most likely contributing to the issue. As far as there being a point in educating them, I think it is a fabulous idea, but the real barrier is in fact money. Most of those who have enough money to help educate others who might benefit don't seem inclined to take that kind of initiative. The point I was attempting to make is that I have been a crusader for all sorts of noble causes, and it gets very tiring when so few seem to care. I live in the US, and right now I almost wish I could move to Britain. (maybe that is just the grass is greener syndrome) I can't say a whole lot more about that without getting into political issues, and there has been some clashes on this site that have caused the moderators to shut down that kind of discussion. I wasn't a part of that, but I was informed of it, and I enjoy the company here so I prefer to avoid narratives that could get me into any of that nonsense. In my middle class neighborhood, I am the only person I know of within a square mile or more that has a solar powered house. Other than setting that example, I don't know how to motivate people. Frightening them will most likely be unproductive. If anyone knows of a good way to get those in power to do anything, I'd love to hear it. I don't necessarily mean elected officials. I believe that big money holds the puppet strings anyway, but that is only my opinion, and all who wish are free to disagree.

Edit: It also occurred to me that ironically, the poorest in the world are the most likely to suffer from "vast human misery" as the article puts it.


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## Parson (Nov 14, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> Edit: It also occurred to me that ironically, the poorest in the world are the most likely to suffer from "vast human misery" as the article puts it.



This will always be the case. ---- I am particularly aggravated by wealthy people living on the coast who do not want wind farms obstructing their view. Is it not possible to see those majestic mills as keeping a train load of coal in the ground and out of the air?


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## DelActivisto (Nov 14, 2017)

Harpo said:


> 15,000 scientists just gave a catastrophic warning about the fate of humanity



Heya, that's my university!

Being poor does prevent people from being as "green" as they can. Poor people often make choices that benefit them in the short term, not long term. So they are buying vehicles that spit out lots of GHGs, they eat out too much, use disposable plates because they're constantly out of times, and definitely can't afford Leafs or Teslas or solar panels. 

Radical redistribution of income would alleviate much suffering in the world. A sustainable world, equitable for all, and moderately socialist, is the world we should be striving for to make sure everyone is happy, healthy, and safe, and ensure the earth's species do not die off in droves. 

We can make it happen. We must make it happen.

Otherwise we're all going to die.


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## LordOfWizards (Nov 14, 2017)

Parson said:


> This will always be the case. ---- I am particularly aggravated by wealthy people living on the coast who do not want wind farms obstructing their view. Is it not possible to see those majestic mills as keeping a train load of coal in the ground and out of the air?



Yes Parson. I'm with you there. Another irony is that the coast these folks so dearly want to preserve will likely disappear in the next 50 - 70 years due to global ice melt.


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## AlexH (Nov 14, 2017)

There was a study a few weeks ago saying human-powered climate change had been over-exaggerated. Obviously the Daily Fail (UK newspaper - maybe the equivalent of Fox News) ran with a headline along the lines of "World leaders duped by climate change".

It's all a big mess, and while we have a consumerist, convenience society, where economies and businesses constantly need to grow or else be seen as failing, we'll get nowhere. What if Apple decided to release a new iPhone every 3 years? That would actually be a big help to the climate. Even climate change is used to scam, and probably will be more so in future - the trading of carbon credits, for example. Exporting waste to less well-off countries to deal with. And the fact that getting rid of petrol and diesel cars is going to improve the environment and the well-being of everyone worldwide - in cities, perhaps, but the energy has to come from somewhere. How about the forests being cleared for biofuel farms, or the people who can't get food because now biofuel plants are being grown in its place? The cities in rich countries may be able to reach their targets, but how about everywhere else?

Something I don't see mentioned - I don't get how ice breakers are allowed - surely the sheer number of them has a massive impact on ice melting? If you make the pieces smaller, it melts quicker.

Anyway, that was my rant. Maybe we can't fix climate change right now, but we can slow it down by the choices we make, and who knows in the future. We can certainly take more care of the environment, by using less plastic, for example, and only replacing things when we need to, rather than going for the latest trend or status symbol.


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## Parson (Nov 14, 2017)

AlexH said:


> I don't get how ice breakers are allowed - surely the sheer number of them has a massive impact on ice melting? If you make the pieces smaller, it melts quicker.



Maybe I don't understand, but this would seem to me to be a very small thing, and one that just slows down the inevitable by a relatively short time.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 14, 2017)

Cathbad said:


> Ridiculous.
> 
> No, we cannot sustain things as they are.  A radical change in our lifestyles is required.  This earth _can_ sustain this many - and probably three times as many!  But not by subjecting it to the abuse we are currently putting it through.
> 
> We are but Renters on this planet.  If we don't treat the property we have leased with the proper respect, we won't be allowed to continue renting it (survive).



At the rate were going, *Soylant Green* is in our future. And I won't taste very good.


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## LordOfWizards (Nov 15, 2017)

DelActivisto said:


> Being poor does prevent people from being as "green" as they can. Poor people often make choices that benefit them in the short term, not long term.



I believe i know where you are coming from 'Del'. (Can I call you Del?) This sounds like the US. I fully agree, although I was also referring to those in other less well off countries. My stand on the state of affairs is to educate people in general on every front. Not only would this provide them a better life, it would improve conditions for all of us. But I'm _not_ referring to education as we know it, at least not in the US. These people need life skills. They could grow their own food, build their own infrastructure (sanitation in particular). Once your basic needs are covered, you can learn that bringing up children is a huge responsibility if it is to be done properly, rather than seeing them as an investment to make money for the family. 

Most of the folks on the planet can only dream of such things. I am downright suspicious of the corporatocracy in their motivations. It is business as usual to go into a relatively poor country, promise their governments lots of money, and then rob them blind of all their natural resources. They pay off the governments so that they will hire soldiers or police to stop the populations from meddling in the crimes they are committing. If you want specific examples, I will gladly provide such. How this ties in to education - I don't think the big money wants people to be educated. If they were so, they might find out what I'm telling you now and rebel. _Just because it's a conspiracy theory doesn't make it false. _


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## tinkerdan (Nov 15, 2017)

That's like::
0.000189873417722%
of the population of the Earth.
Pretty small percentage.

and

0.214285714286%
of the total number of scientists in the world.
This::
97 percent of working climate scientists agree that the warming of Earth’s climate over the last 100 years is mainly due to human activity that has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
::could be impressive if we had the actual number, which I've yet to find, of working climate scientists.

Unfortunately the 15,000 are not listed as  working climate scientists and I'd guess there is a reason for that.

They need to be more forthcoming about the number of actual working climate scientists there are as opposed to the number of Concerned Scientist. And then bring the real numbers into play regarding the consensus amongst the those experts.

As it is  the number in relationship to scientists would be so small that it would be like saying that we believe that the 1 out of 1,000 experts should be considered infallible.


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## DelActivisto (Nov 15, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> I believe i know where you are coming from 'Del'. (Can I call you Del?) This sounds like the US. I fully agree, although I was also referring to those in other less well off countries. My stand on the state of affairs is to educate people in general on every front. Not only would this provide them a better life, it would improve conditions for all of us. But I'm _not_ referring to education as we know it, at least not in the US. These people need life skills. They could grow their own food, build their own infrastructure (sanitation in particular). Once your basic needs are covered, you can learn that bringing up children is a huge responsibility if it is to be done properly, rather than seeing them as an investment to make money for the family.
> 
> Most of the folks on the planet can only dream of such things. I am downright suspicious of the corporatocracy in their motivations. It is business as usual to go into a relatively poor country, promise their governments lots of money, and then rob them blind of all their natural resources. They pay off the governments so that they will hire soldiers or police to stop the populations from meddling in the crimes they are committing. If you want specific examples, I will gladly provide such. How this ties in to education - I don't think the big money wants people to be educated. If they were so, they might find out what I'm telling you now and rebel. _Just because it's a conspiracy theory doesn't make it false. _



You can call me Del, DA, or Ted, whatever you'd prefer. I've had people call me Lemons before, so there's always that option, too. 

I get what you are saying. Education is important. Some of those countries are poor because of corrupt government. That is true. Our corporations often take advantage of these corrupt governments. We don't do anything about it if corse, because that would effect our bottom dollar. 

Education is very important. I think despite some of our more vicious companies, we're making global progress. Birth rates are falling all across the board. Democracies are being experimented with. Some of them are falling apart, but hopefully they will be rebuilt. The healthy society can make a healthy environment. Can. It can also destroy the environment. But the main reason Americans nearly destroyed the environment here is because we thought the continent was endless. Turns out it wasn't so.


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## Vladd67 (Nov 15, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> Never mind Trump, I am still genuinely astonished, and appalled, that Michael Gove, now a has been Tory MP who's gamble for Power failed, made a statement in which he urged the Public, during the Brexit referendum campaign to "don't listen to Experts - afterall, what do THEY know?" yeah, Mrs Miggins, a waitress in a Pie Shop, who doesn't have a GCSE or A Level to her name, is proud that she has never read a book of any kind, clearly knows more than someone with a Scientific Doctorate who has spent their long career investigating climate change, or indeed some windbag MP who couldn't even manage to successfully Backstab a colleague, despite belonging to a Party where backstabbing has been developed to a fine art clearly knows better too.
> 
> It appears that in the English Speaking part of the Western World, we are sorely lacking in Mature Adults amongst our Politicians, when we need them more than ever.


This is just another case of the Media fixating on a fraction of a statement and ignoring what was actually said, what Gove said was 





> had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong’.


 not that the guy isn’t an idiot but it wasn’t quite don’t listen to experts what do they know?


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## The Crawling Chaos (Nov 15, 2017)

We need to legislate globally. Climate change deniers and heavy polluters should be prosecuted for negationism and crimes against the planet / humanity.

As long as polluting will be cheaper than going green, multinationals will have no enticement to do anything about it. We need to hit them where it hurts, their wallets, as usual. There should be a vast array of laws out there (taxes and fines) to make pollution costly.


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## Mouse (Nov 15, 2017)

Caledfwlch said:


> A poor person simply has no choice, They cannot afford the often shocking price of food that is organic, free range, gluten free, vegan, vegetarian and so on.



I'm going off topic a bit now but... I'm coeliac (therefore I have no _choice_ but to eat gluten free, otherwise my immune system attacks my own body) and I'm veggie (by choice). I'm on a very tight budget (I have a spreadsheet showing all my incomings and outgoings and I update it all the time so I know exactly how much I can spend each month). I hear people on my coeliac page on FB complain all the time about how expensive GF food is. Yes, it is. GF bread can be £3 a loaf! The thing is, _lots of food is naturally gluten free_. Vegetables, for example. Vegetables also happen to be cheap. It's cheaper being a vegetarian than it is being a meat eater because, wait for it, _vegetables are cheaper than meat. _Even when I was a meat eater, I bought Quorn most of the time because it was cheaper! And yeah, I know people don't want to eat veg all the time. I frigging love cakes and biscuits - gluten free versions of which are ridiculously expensive. So you know what I do? I bake my own.


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 15, 2017)

AlexH said:


> Something I don't see mentioned - I don't get how ice breakers are allowed - surely the sheer number of them has a massive impact on ice melting? If you make the pieces smaller, it melts quicker.



My guess would be that most ice breakers are either used in the North-West passage or along the northern edge of the continents - generally for commercial reasons - and a few will be used to support scientific expeditions to the Antarctic. So the main impact is in the North. And really there should be no impact - because if the entire North Pole's ice cap were to disappear it would virtually no difference to sea level*. The main ice sheets to worry about are the ice sheets resting on land at the moment - so Greenland and Antarctica - which of course a ship can't go across!

Now you might argue that, perhaps the few ships that go to Antarctica (which are, I believe few and far between) are somehow 'carving' off ice, and this promotes more ice to slip off the continental ice masses...but my guess is that there will be a maximum thickness of ice a ship could attempt before being stopped - and the traversable ice sheets may be thin enough that the path they are making refreezes reasonably quickly after their passage. So given that there only a few such missions, my guestimate is that there is probably no impact compared to the main driver of increased ice calving - the vastly increased temperatures at the poles.

----------------------
* Ice is less dense than water, so any ice that floats will displace the same mass of water- if the ice melts the resultant mixture has virtually no impact on sea level. (There may be odd perturbations, because ice has virtually no salt and polar sea water is pretty salty - so that when they mix there _is_ an impact that would increase sea level, but I believe the people that looked into this, calculated that if all sea ice were to melt it would increase global sea levels by the order of centimetres.)


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 15, 2017)

Vladd67 said:


> This is just another case of the Media fixating on a fraction of a statement and ignoring what was actually said, what Gove said was  not that the guy isn’t an idiot but it wasn’t quite don’t listen to experts what do they know?



Also I believe that he was referring to experts in that most dismal of sciences, economics. A science so dismal, it is barely a science.

Hence my disbelief at virtually all projections in that field - the latest Rees-Mogg one for example.

Oddly enough, Gove seems to be listening to real science in his current job and making the right noises about soil degradation and pesticide impact on Bee health. What he actually manages to do, concretely, is another thing.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 15, 2017)

The Crawling Chaos said:


> We need to legislate globally. Climate change deniers and heavy polluters should be prosecuted for negationism and crimes against the planet / humanity.
> 
> As long as polluting will be cheaper than going green, multinationals will have no enticement to do anything about it. We need to hit them where it hurts, their wallets, as usual. There should be a vast array of laws out there (taxes and fines) to make pollution costly.



That won't happen for a lot practical and impractical reasons.


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## Mike Donoghue (Nov 16, 2017)

Ignoring the politics/controversy of AGW, 15,000 scientists _CAN BE WRONG. _That is the entire point of the scientific method! If enough data, experiments, and replication conclusively show that a reigning model of anything is wrong, then adherents to that model are wrong. Case closed.


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## Cathbad (Nov 16, 2017)

Mike Donoghue said:


> Ignoring the politics/controversy of AGW, 15,000 scientists _CAN BE WRONG. _That is the entire point of the scientific method! If enough data, experiments, and replication conclusively show that a reigning model of anything is wrong, then adherents to that model are wrong. Case closed.



"Case closed"?

Where is the results of that data/experiments that proves the 15,000 wrong?


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## Cathbad (Nov 16, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> That won't happen for a lot practical and impractical reasons.



"Impractical"?

Are you suggesting that the destruction of our species is "more practical"?

(Not saying I'd necessarily disagree with such an opinion...)


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## DelActivisto (Nov 16, 2017)

Mike Donoghue said:


> Ignoring the politics/controversy of AGW, 15,000 scientists _CAN BE WRONG. _That is the entire point of the scientific method! If enough data, experiments, and replication conclusively show that a reigning model of anything is wrong, then adherents to that model are wrong. Case closed.



Yep. They can be wrong.

But your statement is mostly irreverent without anything to back it up. So, what makes the case closed?


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## Cathbad (Nov 16, 2017)

DelActivisto said:


> Yep. They can be wrong.
> 
> But your statement is mostly irreverent without anything to back it up. So, what makes the case closed?



Perhaps we're no supposed to believe 15,000 scientists IN CASE they are later proven wrong?


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## BAYLOR (Nov 16, 2017)

Cathbad said:


> "Impractical"?
> 
> Are you suggesting that the destruction of our species is "more practical"?
> 
> (Not saying I'd necessarily disagree with such an opinion...)



Im suggesting that people aren't going to be practical in how they make their choice in this.


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## Cathbad (Nov 16, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> Im suggesting that people aren't going to be practical in how they make their choice in this.



~shrugs~

Then our race dies.

'k


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## BAYLOR (Nov 16, 2017)

Cathbad said:


> ~shrugs~
> 
> Then our race dies.
> 
> 'k



Cathbad , relatively few people look at the big picture.  Live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself. Maybe that's a reason why we've found no other intelligent life out ther,e because maybe they took the same attitude that people in our world are taking now and died out as a result of short sighted thinking about the fate of their worlds.


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## Cathbad (Nov 16, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> Cathbad , relatively few people look at the big picture.  Live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself. Maybe that's a reason why we've found no other intelligent life out ther,e because maybe they took the same attitude that people in our world are taking now and died out as a result of short sighted thinking about the fate of their worlds.



Like I said...

~shrug~


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## Parson (Nov 16, 2017)

@BAYLOR and @Cathbad, I'm not sure that @Mike Donoghue was saying that the 15,000 scientists were wrong, just that they could be wrong. I don't believe that they are wrong about climate change and that it's man made, but there's no doubt that 15,000 scientists have been wrong before. Physics for example has undergone some significant revisions in my 67 years.


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## Mike Donoghue (Nov 16, 2017)

Parson said:


> @BAYLOR and @Cathbad, I'm not sure that @Mike Donoghue was saying that the 15,000 scientists were wrong, just that they could be wrong. I don't believe that they are wrong about climate change and that it's man made, but there's no doubt that 15,000 scientists have been wrong before. Physics for example has undergone some significant revisions in my 67 years.



Phew! Glad someone explained it. Thanks, Parson.


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## DelActivisto (Nov 16, 2017)

Cathbad said:


> Perhaps we're no supposed to believe 15,000 scientists IN CASE they are later proven wrong?



That's apparently the idea. "Since they might be wrong, they're obviously wrong." I'm not even sure what kind of logical fallacy this is!


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## Mike Donoghue (Nov 16, 2017)

DelActivisto said:


> That's apparently the idea. "Since they might be wrong, they're obviously wrong." I'm not even sure what kind of logical fallacy this is!



This is not what I said, so I'm going to explain this critical point before this runs out of control.

Most people in the world do not know what the _SCIENTIFIC METHOD _is and think that "scientists" are simply people who wear lab coats, play with chemicals, rocket ships, can explain complex stuff about the natural world, make crystals crawl up a glass, etc. In reality, a scientist is someone who practices the _scientific method_ in a given field and continually checks and rechecks theirs and others works to come to their conclusions. In this case, it's climate science and reputable institutions known for following the scientific method are raising the alarm.

We need to be cautious, though, _always cautious_, because as Parson wrote, revolutions in understanding do occur and that is the only way we are sure of the facts. We need to trust the conclusions of a climate science institution not because we see it researches the climate, _but because we know they are using the scientific method to come to those conclusions.
_
Trust in the scientific method first, then the scientists who we know are applying it. It has and does occur that politics, corporate, and, yes, personal greed taint scientific studies that go on to form the basis for public policies and culture attitudes. I am not saying this is the case for reputable climate change science institutions.


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## Cathbad (Nov 16, 2017)

Mike Donoghue said:


> Trust in the scientific method first, then the scientists who we know are applying it. It has and does occur that politics, corporate, and, yes, personal greed taint scientific studies that go on to form the basis for public policies and culture attitudes. I am not saying this is the case for reputable climate change science institutions.



All great reasons to never trust scientists.

And I find that sad, actually.  You do realize that to become accredited (degreed) scientists, they had that course in scientific method (which most people probably first learned about before high school)?


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## Cathbad (Nov 16, 2017)

Actually, you know what?

I'd like someone to explain this to me:  15,00 scientists are saying we need to clean up our planet.  Now... let's say their predictions of doom and gloom are completely wrong - every one of them.

What's the downside of doing what they suggest?

"Oh, my gods!!  We cleaned up the air and water for absolutely no reason!!!"


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## DelActivisto (Nov 16, 2017)

Mike Donoghue said:


> This is not what I said, so I'm going to explain this critical point before this runs out of control.
> 
> Most people in the world do not know what the _SCIENTIFIC METHOD _is and think that "scientists" are simply people who wear lab coats, play with chemicals, rocket ships, can explain complex stuff about the natural world, make crystals crawl up a glass, etc. In reality, a scientist is someone who practices the _scientific method_ in a given field and continually checks and rechecks theirs and others works to come to their conclusions. In this case, it's climate science and reputable institutions known for following the scientific method are raising the alarm.
> 
> ...



I think this is quite obvious, and for the clearly scientifically literate people here, a lot like saying "water is wet."


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## DelActivisto (Nov 16, 2017)

Cathbad said:


> All great reasons to never trust scientists.
> 
> And I find that sad, actually.  You do realize that to become accredited (degreed) scientists, they had that course in scientific method (which most people probably first learned about before high school)?



No, cathbad, I wouldn't say that's a good reason not to trust scientists. I would say that is a very good reason to trust scientists. The only time I don't tend to trust scientists is if there is heavy industry funding backing them or if the scientists work for an industry known to be controversial. Then I'm going to be a bit more skeptical about their work. 

The thing is, a lot of people get these false equivalencies going. Scientists need to be doing this, doing that, blah blah blah, but oh look, there's this stupid ass right wing blogger over here, his opinion is perfectly valid!

This is a tactic used commonly by the tobacco industry, and was so obscene it's basically got the a name, so let's call it the Tobacco Fallacy. It's where your evidence is all right, and you build up this massive burden of proof requirement for the other side to have to prove, when you take the high ground because "oh, that's just how it is."


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