"For every Scientist that says Global-Warming is real, there's....

[BlueJazz]

....an equal number of Scientists that says it's false."

This is being debated on another Forum I visit...

The typical response: "Well..I don't know, I think the Earth may be getting warmer but mankind
has had little to do with it."

I pointed to LOTS of studies but it's all falling on Deaf ears...I even said:
"Gosh..isn't it strange that just when we Humans decide to pollute the atmosphere the earth decides to go into a Warming stage."

As Church Lady says: "How Conveeeeenient!"

Christ...why do I even bother?

Seems the only intelligent folks on the web reside at DU. :)

[niyad]

1. ask these morans why it is that the only scientists who deny global warming/climate change just

HAPPEN to be on the payrolls of the oil companies?

[redqueen]

2. It's discouraging, isn't it?

*sigh*

Many just do not want to change their ways. That's what it seems like, to me.

[phantom power]

3. Actually, the ratio is more like 1 "skeptic" to 1000 scientists.

[CT_Progressive]

15. And that skeptic is employed by the oil industry.

Tell them that, and end the thread.

[liberal N proud]

4. The polar ice caps speak for themselves

[NoGOPZone]

5. Obvioulsy, the person that's making that claim

gets all their scientific info from the mainstream media and not peer review journals.

[Selatius]

6. Show them pictures. Pictures are easier to understand than words.

This is a measure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the last 50 years:



This is a measure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the last 400,000 years:

[Gregorian]

7. Tell them to imagine 1000 barrels of oil burning per second.

That's close to the actual number of barrels consumed.

It's almost impossible to think about. Unless you imagine the note C, two octaves above middle C.

Edited for the idiots who don't get it. That C note is just over 1000 Hertz.

[BlueJazz]

9. Funny you bring up "C note" Even being blessed/Cursed with....

..Perfect Pitch, I start to "Fall apart" (Not being able to distinguish the exact note)
above about 4000 cycles ... or below about 30 for that matter! :)

[Az]

8. As an old debater in the evolution vs creation debates

I can tell you nothing new to see here. There are going to be individuals that lock themselves in place and refuse to accept anything that does not coincide with their personal beliefs. Its the nature of the mind. If you have a strong emotional attachment to a particular belief or position there is no room for doubt in your thinking. And if there is no room for doubt then there is no place for reason to get a foothold and change your mind.

Its going to take an event or experience that directly impacts their expectations of things. That is the only way to shatter their faith based convictions. And words alone seldom accomplish that.

[Gregorian]

13. Sadly, I agree.

I fall victim to that as well. As you know.

My experience with this is that it's how people embrace information. It's what they decide are "facts". I believe something is a fact, so it is a fact.

Personally, I only do that with one thing. But I continue running into people, especially conservatives, who pick and choose their facts. It's maddening.

The greatest thing I know is seeing the transformation of one's facts. The honesty to discover the truth, versus what one wants to believe.

Anyways, you already knew all of that. :)

[codjh9]

10. Wishing facts away doesn't make them any less true! n/t

[hatrack]

11. . .. one one-thousandth of a scientist who says it's false!"

:eyes:

[opihimoimoi]

12. Soon DIKE BUILDING will be a GLOBAL EFFORT as millions of acres will be threatened

Lack of food will be a cause of a Mega Famine....and the Bushies will be in Peru or some other high spots...

[Turbineguy]

14. I think it's OK to be sceptical as to the cause

but the Planet is warming up and the default position is to try and do something about it.

Engineers will be familiar with the term "critical heat flux". It's a condition where a runaway overheating occurs, even in an adequately designed system. Starting an extra cooling pump may not do the trick to reverse this as the situation has advanced too far and damage has occured. In machinery normally this is counteracted by automatic shutdowns of the main machinery generating all the heat. We do not have the shutdowns in this case. As far as we know the natural weather cycle has corrected itself in the past but our own dumping of additional heat into this system while it is in a natural upswing may be too great. There could come a point were we would literally have to shut all human controlled heat generation down, like transportation and powerplants (at least for a period of time until we saw a leveling off or trend change). This would be devastating. The longer we wait to take action, the greater the dislocation (as in any cure put off too long).

Those who make dismissive comparisons between volcano eruptions, hurricanes and such and human endeavors are wrong because it only takes a slight amount of overheat to start the system to go out of balance. Like tipping the balance.

Of course the natural warming pattern could swing the other way, meaning we got away with it (Whew!).

[damntexdem]

16. "For every Scientist that says Global-Warming is real, there's....

a nutcase out there denying it.

[Odin2005]

17. One thing that annoys me to hell when arguing with denialists is their use of the "Galileo Argument"

When I point out that the "experts" that deny that GW is caused by humans are an extremely tiny minority they go on some postmodernist rant about "dogmatic scientists silencing minority views" and I can't reason with them because they'll just accuse me of the "Argument from Authority" fallacy. :banghead: