Seems to me that it would be much simpler and more convincing to just set forth a scientific theory that explains the observed facts better than the AGW theory does.

[U]If truth really is on the side of the AGW-deniers, why don't they just do that?[/U]

Hint: They'd have to explain, among other details, why the increase, in recent decades, of downward far-IR flux to Earth's surface has a spectrum that matches what would be expected from the increase in measured amounts of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (but in their theory it'd have to not actually originate from anthropogenic greenhouse gases!). I'll bet many anti-AGWers wouldn't understand the significance of the Evans 2006 study that found this IR spectral fingerprint, even if they'd heard of it.

[U]If the supposed AGW conspiracy actually exists, then the anti-AGW folks have to come up with an explanation of how AGW climatologists managed to make [I]Earth's atmosphere[/I] look like something it's not!![/U]

Which is more believable: that AGW climatologists have faked Earth's atmosphere, or that we're seeing another occurrence of the sort of anti-science FUD campaign we've seen in the past?

[quote=ewmayer;220740][B]Technical objection:[/B] If you "really have no power or model to foresee the impact", then you have no business using pop-science-lit phrases like "the world's marine ecosystems are reaching tipping points". You can speak of rates of deterioration and the *possibility* of a tipping point, but "We are becoming increasingly certain" about the imminence of the latter is scientifically unsupportable, however sexy and quotable it may be.[/quote]As previously noted, we had only the McClatchy article's blend of partial quotes and Les Blumenthal's paraphrase.

Here's the [I]Science[/I] article's abstract (full text requires membership or payment):

[URL]http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/5985/1523[/URL]

[quote]Marine ecosystems are centrally important to the biology of the planet, yet a comprehensive understanding of how anthropogenic climate change is affecting them has been poorly developed. Recent studies indicate that rapidly rising greenhouse gas concentrations are driving ocean systems toward conditions not seen for millions of years, with an associated risk of fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation. The impacts of anthropogenic climate change so far include decreased ocean productivity, altered food web dynamics, reduced abundance of habitat-forming species, shifting species distributions, and a greater incidence of disease. Although there is considerable uncertainty about the spatial and temporal details, climate change is clearly and fundamentally altering ocean ecosystems. Further change will continue to create enormous challenges and costs for societies worldwide, particularly those in developing countries.[/quote]

When the [I]National Post,[/I] a Canadian conservative-oriented publication, publishes an article about global warming, it's usually from an anti-AGW point of view. (See a list of their articles tagged "Global Warming": [URL]http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/tag/global-warming/[/URL])

But among the recent articles was this against-the-grain one:

"Bad science: Global-warming deniers are a liability to the conservative cause"

[URL]http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/15/bad-science-global-warming-deniers-are-a-liability-to-the-conservative-cause/[/URL]

I have boldfaced some of the statements explaining why conservatives are so resistant to persuasion by AGW facts and consensus:

[quote=Jonathan Kay]Have you heard about the “growing number” of eminent scientists who reject the theory that man-made greenhouse gases are increasing the earth’s temperature? It’s one of those factoids that, for years, has been casually dropped into the opening paragraphs of conservative manifestos against climate-change treaties and legislation. ... Another colleague proclaimed that we are approaching “the church of global warming’s Galileo moment.”

Fine-sounding rhetoric — but all of it nonsense. ...

How has this tiny 2-3% sliver of fringe opinion been reinvented as a perpetually “growing” share of the scientific community? [B]Most climate-change deniers (or “skeptics,” or whatever term one prefers) tend to inhabit militantly right-wing blogs and other Internet echo chambers populated entirely by other deniers. In these electronic enclaves ... it becomes easy to swallow the fallacy that the whole world, including the respected scientific community, is jumping on the denier bandwagon.[/B]

[B]This is a phenomenon that should worry[/B] not only environmentalists, but also [B]conservatives themselves[/B] ...

[B]Conservatives often pride themselves on their hard-headed approach to public-policy[/B] — in contradistinction to liberals, who generally are typecast as fuzzy-headed utopians. [B]Yet when it comes to climate change, many conservatives I know will assign credibility to any stray piece of junk science that lands in their inbox … so long as it happens to support their own desired conclusion. [/B](One conservative columnist I know formed her skeptical views on global warming based on testimonials she heard from novelist Michael Crichton.) The result is farcical: Impressionable conservatives who lack the numeracy skills to perform long division or balance their checkbooks feel entitled to spew elaborate proofs purporting to demonstrate how global warming is in fact caused by sunspots or flatulent farm animals. Or they will go on at great length about how “climategate” has exposed the whole global-warming phenomenon as a charade — despite the fact that a subsequent investigation [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10538198"]exculpated[/URL] research investigators from the charge that they had suppressed temperature data. ...

Let me be clear: Climate-change denialism does not comprise a conspiracy theory, per se ... But [B]the most militant denialists do share with conspiracists many of the same habits of mind[/B]. Oxford University scholar Steve Clarke and Brian Keeley of Washington University have defined conspiracy theories as those worldviews that trace important events to a secretive, nefarious cabal; and whose proponents consistently respond to contrary facts not by modifying their hypothesis, but instead by insisting on the existence of ever-wider circles of high-level conspirators controlling most or all parts of society. This describes, more or less, how radicalized warming deniers treat the subject of their obsession: They see global warming as a Luddite plot hatched by Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and Al Gore to destroy industrial society. And whenever some politician, celebrity or international organization expresses support for the all-but-unanimous view of the world’s scientific community, they inevitably will respond with a variation of “Ah, so they’ve gotten to them, [I]too[/I].”

In support of this paranoid approach, the denialists typically will rely on stray bits of discordant information ...

In part, blame for all this lies with the Internet, whose blog-from-the-hip ethos has convinced legions of pundits that their view on highly technical matters counts as much as peer-reviewed scientific literature. [B]But there is something deeper at play, too — a basic psychological instinct that public-policy scholars refer to as the “cultural cognition thesis,” described in a recently published academic [URL="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1549444"]paper[/URL] as the observed principle that “individuals tend to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce one or another idealized vision of how society should be organized[/B] … Thus, generally speaking, persons who subscribe to individualistic values tend to dismiss claims of environmental risks, because acceptance of such claims implies the need to regulate markets, commerce and other outlets for individual strivings.”

[B]In simpler words, too many of us treat science as subjective — something we customize to reduce cognitive dissonance between what we think and how we live.[/B]

[B]In the case of global warming, this dissonance is especially traumatic for many conservatives, because they have based their whole worldview on the idea that unfettered capitalism[/B] ... [B]is synonymous with both personal fulfillment and human advancement.[/B] The global-warming hypothesis challenges that fundamental dogma, perhaps fatally.

[B]The appropriate intellectual response to that challenge — finding a way to balance human consumption with responsible environmental stewardship — is complicated and difficult.[/B] It will require developing new technologies, balancing carbon-abatement programs against other (more cost-effective) life-saving projects such as disease-prevention, and — yes — possibly increasing the economic cost of carbon-fuel usage through some form of direct or indirect taxation. [B]It is one of the most important debates of our time. Yet many conservatives have made themselves irrelevant in it by simply cupping their hands over their ears and screaming out imprecations against Al Gore.[/B]

[B]Rants and slogans may help conservatives deal with the emotional problem of cognitive dissonance. But they aren’t the building blocks of a serious ideological movement.[/B] And the impulse toward denialism must be fought if conservatism is to prosper in a century when environmental issues will assume an ever greater profile on this increasingly hot, parched, crowded planet. ...[/quote]

A Case Study:

For instance, let's look back at the way mdettweiler entered this thread, starting with post #443. He displayed practically all the characteristics that Jonathan Kay describes.

Dettweiler didn't lead off with (or, indeed, ever actually offer) any sound factual or scientific refutation of the AGW hypothesis. Instead, his first message was to express opposition to "totalitarian" solutions -- consistent with Kay's characterization of the primary conservative motivation.

[quote=mdettweiler;196447] < snip > Requiring people to live in a certain type of house, drive a certain type of car, or eat certain types of food just for the sake of a negligible contribution to preventing the highly debatable premise of global warming is, indeed, totalitarian. Forcing people to submit to such collective regulations on how they live is the worst kind of micromanagement, and it stifles any bit of imagination, individuality, and freedom just in the name of "saving the planet".[/quote]Dettweiler's reasonable disclaimer should also be noted:

[quote](Disclaimer: I am NOT saying that oppressive regulation is necessary to maintain our planet, just throwing it out hypothetically.)[/quote]In his next post (#446) he led off with the denial-of-consensus and media-suppression arguments:

[quote=mdettweiler;196458]Really? There are plenty of real scientists out there who raise perfectly valid points against global warming. It's just that the media doesn't give them the time of day, thus creating the illusion of it not being highly debatable.[/quote]He then presented what he termed "convincing anti-global-warming evidence" -- but it wasn't from any scientific journal. Instead, he cited an article from [I]Der Spiegel[/I]'s online site.

[I]Der Spiegel[/I] is a fine, respectable, popular mass-market publication with, as far as I know, a good reputation for integrity. But a glance through its table of contents (e.g., [URL]http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/[/URL]) reveals that it's no scientific journal, much less one specializing in climate science.

(Note Dettweiler's "amazing fortune of being allowed to surface" tag -- again, in line with the conservative media-suppression myth.)

[quote]Here's an example of one article presenting some convincing anti-global-warming evidence that had the amazing fortune of being allowed to surface:
[URL]http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html[/URL]
My point of bringing this up is not as much to argue against global warming as to demonstrate that the matter is far from closed. Legitimate, scientific debate on it is as lively as ever.[/quote]... and sure enough, there was the standard conservative denial-of-consensus line.

In post #448, Dettweiler claims to know what a "good scientist" should do, but then backs off to the standard conservative denial-of-consensus -- unintentionally revealing his lack of knowledge of the real state of climate science on AGW.

[quote=mdettweiler;196499]Actually, a good scientist should account for [I]all[/I] known evidence, including evidence that doesn't support his position, when doing research--and in this case, when sunspot cycles obviously affect the Earth's temperature so much, to ignore that when researching global warming would be irresponsible. Unless, that is, you're deliberately trying to [I]prove[/I] anthropogenic global warming. :smile:

< snip >

Lastly, let me remind you that my point of bringing up that article was not so much to argue against global warming as to simply illustrate that the debate is far from over on it.[/quote]Compare to Jonathan Kay's list of characteristics:

1) JK: "will assign credibility to any stray piece of junk science that lands in their inbox … so long as it happens to support their own desired conclusion"

Citation of the Spiegel article as containing "convincing anti-global-warming evidence". Check.

2) JK: "the most militant denialists do share with conspiracists many of the same habits of mind"

Dettweiler's no militant, but he referred to media suppression as a given and included a gratuitous "amazing fortune of being allowed to surface". Check.

3) JK: "generally speaking, persons who subscribe to individualistic values tend to dismiss claims of environmental risks, because acceptance of such claims implies the need to regulate markets, commerce and other outlets for individual strivings"

Dettweiler led off with, and spent the most words of his first few posts on, opposing "totalitarian" responses to global warming. Though he did disclaim that "oppressive regulation is necessary to maintain our planet", he didn't spend much time championing specific less-than-totalitarian responses to follow up that disclaimer, did he?

Check (with credit for the disclaimer, offset by lack of followup to it).

4) JK: "too many of us treat science as subjective — something we customize to reduce cognitive dissonance between what we think and how we live"

Dettweiler seemed to think he knew what good science was, and that it supported his worldview, but he offered no scientific evidence to support either of those. Check.

I had thought in the past, and have seen climate science blogs advocate, that a sustained campaign of presenting the facts in a clear manner might be the best way to reach anti-AGW folks.

But it seems clearer that a more psychological and cognitive-science approach will be needed to reach most of that group.

Let me clarify that I'm speaking of what people can do to try to respond to AGW in a rational manner, during the remainder of my lifetime, [I]ahead[/I] of being forced to respond with fewer available options by Mother Nature in future decades beyond what I can hope to witness.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221920]
Let me clarify that I'm speaking of what people can do to try to respond to AGW in a rational manner, during the remainder of my lifetime, [I]ahead[/I] of being forced to respond with fewer available options by Mother Nature in future decades beyond what I can hope to witness.[/QUOTE]
I'm in my 20's, and I can tell you that global warming is far down the list of my concerns. Top priorities are economic ones: getting a nice job, making education and healthcare affordable, and stopping tax increases. Almost all of my classmates and friends feel the same way, and so does nearly everyone else. From:

[url]http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2009/01/pew_global_warming_dead_last_a.php[/url]

[quote] On more than 20 issues, the polling organization asks respondents to agree or disagree whether each should be a "top priority" for the president and Congress. For the past three years, global warming has been a bottom tier issue, with fewer Americans agreeing it should be a "top priority" than most other issues. This year, in an analysis released today, as depicted above, it ranks dead last.[/quote]

But despite this, a very vocal minority continues to be obsessed with this issue. Sigh.

[quote=Oddball;221929]I'm in my 20's, and I can tell you that global warming is far down the list of my concerns.[/quote]So what? That's fine. I was stating my own interests.

If global warming is far down your list, why do you bother posting in a thread where the first two words of the title are "Global Warming"?

[quote]Top priorities are economic ones: getting a nice job, making education and healthcare affordable, and stopping tax increases.[/quote]That's nice ... and common.

[quote]Almost all of my classmates and friends feel the same way, and so does nearly everyone else. From:

[URL]http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2009/01/pew_global_warming_dead_last_a.php[/URL][/quote]So what?

[quote]But despite this, a very vocal minority continues to be obsessed with this issue.[/quote]There's a minority "obsessed" with public health. They become vocal when they think there's an urgent threat to public health. They're organized better than public-health "obsessives" were back in the 1700s and 1800s. But because the tiny minority of public-health "obsessives" of the past remained vocal until they got results, you can now take for granted without thinking much about it that you have safe drinking water and that you can grow up without worrying about cholera, diphtheria, and a bunch of other diseases that used to be common, messy causes of death.

There's a minority "obsessed" with bridge safety. Because they're usually not vocal enough to get enough legislative votes for adequate funding of bridge maintenance, bridge maintenance in this country has been neglected for a couple of decades.

In August 2007, a major bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, killing several people. That got some public attention, but shouldn't the bridge safety minority have been more vocal in order to prevent that from happening?

Just recently, a major Milwaukee bridge started dropping chunks of concrete from its underside.

Rachel Carson was a tiny vocal minority of one when she wrote "Silent Spring", which described, among other things, how DDT was killing birds. She was attacked by conservatives as advocating unsound science. They accused her of "McCarthyism". The chemical industry funded a disinformation campaign to discredit her.

But she was right, and eventually DDT was banned in the U.S.

BTW, do you know why DDT and some other pesticides had such side effects? It was because they persisted in the environment. They weren't broken-down by exposure to sunlight, so even after they'd killed the insects for which they were applied, they kept being active for decades.

Nowadays, all approved pesticides have to be chemically vulnerable to breakdown by sunlight -- not immediately, but over some modest period of time, so that they don't persist forever and ever after being applied to kill a certain pest. See? We've learned how to avoid the dangers that Rachel Carson warned us about.

Similarly, we can learn how to mitigate AGW in the best ways that cause the least disruption. Solutions do _not_ have to be totalitarian despite anti-AGW propaganda to the contrary -- but they do require collective efforts, even if some people prefer to believe otherwise.

In the 1960s the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report showing that scientific studies had established a connection between smoking and lung cancer (plus other diseases). The tobacco industry funded a misinformation campaign designed to discredit those studies. Conservatives attacked them as "junk science".

But eventually we made tobacco companies post warnings, and encourage people not to start smoking. The Surgeon General and the scientists performing the studies he reported were right.

Years later, we learned that the tobacco companies had known perfectly well all along, from their own internal studies, that tobacco smoke caused lung cancer. When those companies attacked the Surgeon General report's studies as unscientific, they were lying.

Now, we have the fossil fuel industries funding a disinformation campaign to discredit the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis.

The companies actually running the disinformation campaign have gotten better each time. They ran the tobacco disinformation campaign better than the DDT disinformation campaign. Now, funded by the fossil-fuel industry, they're even more skillfully playing on human psychology to convince some folks that AGW isn't happening.

Since you're in your 20s, you didn't personally witness the previous DDT and tobacco disinformation campaigns. But you [U]are[/U] currently witnessing the anti-AGW disinformation campaign.

[quote]Sigh.[/quote]Those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it. Learn from the lessons of history.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221935]
If global warming is far down your list, why do you bother posting in a thread where the first two words of the title are "Global Warming"?
[/QUOTE]
I was saying that I was not concerned about the issue, I didn't say that I wasn't interested in it. I'm not concerned about an alien invasion either, but that doesn't stop me from looking at UFO websites once in a while.

Besides, you've posted in this thread 7 times in a row. Someone's got to come in and break up the monotony :smile:

edit:
[quote]So what?[/quote]
You were saying something about "what people can do to try to respond to AGW". Maybe that means something as simple as using more efficient lightbulbs or something more demanding, like biking to work. But whatever that action is, good luck convincing people to do it, because not many people are worried about global warming in the first place.

[QUOTE=Oddball;221929]I'm in my 20's, and I can tell you that global warming is far down the list of my concerns. [/QUOTE]

A typical selfish response from the IGG generation.

Responding to the GW problem will require some sacrifice from all of us.
The exact degree and nature of that sacrifice is yet TBD.

Some people are unwilling to make any sacrifice for the sake of others,
even their children and grandchildren.

[quote=R.D. Silverman;222086]A typical selfish response from the IGG generation. [/quote]Oh, c'mon.

[quote]Responding to the GW problem will require some sacrifice from all of us.[/quote]... and nothing Oddball posted disputes that.

[quote]Some people are unwilling to make any sacrifice for the sake of others,
even their children and grandchildren.[/quote]... and nothing Oddball said evidences membership in that group.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;222181]Oh, c'mon.

... and nothing Oddball posted disputes that.

... and nothing Oddball said evidences membership in that group.[/QUOTE]

Yes, he did. Clearly. He stated that the problem was "far down on his list
of concerns" and his other statements indicated that he was almost totally
concerned only with his immediate well-being.