In a special one hour documentary airing this Sunday night, NBC News’ Ann Curry reports there is virtually no debate among climate scientists: 97 percent now believe climate change is real and the warming is largely caused by human activity. A year in the making, and less than a week after stunning predictions about the future from the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Ann Curry Reports: Our Year of Extremes – Did Climate Change just Hit Home?,” takes viewers on a journey to the Arctic at the top of the world, to drought stricken regions in the American West, to the edge of rising seas in Florida, and into extreme weather events all over the globe.
Dark Snow Project Chief Scientist Jason Box continues to be a go-to guy for journalists across the world. Here he chats with NBC’s Ann Curry at Disco Bay, Greenland.
The report features ordinary people who say their experiences convince them – they are eyewitnesses to climate change, including the Inuit in Greenland, and the victims of Hurricane Sandy. We also hear from some of the world’s top climate scientists who explain whether there is a link between climate change and extreme storms, like the deep freeze this past winter in places like Atlanta. They also tell us how to get ready for what some call the new normal.
“If climate scientists are right, we could face a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions,” said Curry. “We owe it to our children to put politics aside, and weigh the latest scientific evidence for ourselves. Our report aims to give our viewers a chance to do just that.”
Social media users can join the conversation and share their thoughts with hashtag #Extremes as “Ann Curry Reports: Our Year of Extremes – Did Climate Change just Hit Home?” airs this Sunday, April 6 at 7p/6c.
40 thoughts on “NBC Will Examine Ordinary People Impacted by Climate”
Guess I’ll miss 60 Minutes tomorrow—considering what CBS and ABC have been reporting on climate change lately, it will be no great loss. Some of the environmental groups should start on-line petitions thanking NBC for devoting time and attention to the topic of climate change and encouraging more programs like this—-how about devoting one Dateline a month to AGW rather than stupid crime/courtroom trash—-same thing for the twitter and facebook folks—-talk it up. If they think people are watching, they may respond.
Whenever I talk with my friends and relatives about climate change topics,they usually just sit quietly,waiting for me to finish,then change the subject to sports,movies,TV or the latest popular gossip topic,without the slightest engagement with what I was saying.
It’s like trying to have a conversation where the other parties are just waiting to talk without even listening to what you have to say. I really believe they just don’t want to acknowledge that their world is about to change for the worse.It makes them very uncomfortable.
You’re not alone there. I think you speak for many of us. Perhaps one out of 20 of my friends and relatives will really engage on the topic, and they don’t know very much about climate change to start with—-when one attempts to give them the “details”, their eyes glaze over. I can’t wait to ask them if they purposely watched the NBC special—-I fear that many will make other choices.
I think it’s confusing and too complex for people unless they really engage with the details for an extended amount of time. Given that,it is really easy for them to be bamboozled by superficial ‘skeptic’ arguments,and then they just throw up their hands and say “Who knows?”.
That’s the insidious thing about the denial front,they don’t really need to win you over,they just need to cause you to give up having any opinion at all. Mission accomplished!
Well said. Unfortunately, it is much easier to peddle FUD than science. There is no effective tactic to combat people who have sold their souls and lie without shame, especially when they overlay their lies with the “politics” that many folks want to believe.
The fair number of FORMER friends and acquaintances that I have personally accumulated speaks to that for me. They are all politically motivated to believe the deniers, and my refusal to allow them to ignore the science has caused them to just stop talking to me.
I FW stuff about AGW to them incessantly whether they like it or not, and they will occasionally respond, usually to tell me such truths as “you can’t trust Al Gore, the planet stopped warming in 1998, and it’s all God’s will”.
I would go a little further and say that when you talk to your family and friends about climate change, they look at you like you’re the relative who is ‘a little off’, in other words, amusement. I find it amazing in my own life that so many of my family think I’m full of it on this subject, despite the fact that they have NO SCIENCE background, and I do. Many didn’t even go beyond high school. And yet they’re happy to talk and argue all night about who killed Kennedy.
Ha! You are probably right about that.And I don’t really mind if they are appropriately skeptical about something that they are not sure of,but they should then inform themselves instead of just dismissing it,because the issue is not a trivial one.It deserves some diligent scrutiny,and that seems to be what is lacking.
But then again,we are also talking about a population that also fails to plan for their financial future,and neglects their physical health,which are issues much closer to home (at least in their minds).
Yes, a familiar feeling, although those who know me well enough know better than to “look at me with amusement” to my face. Unless they want me to rip them a new anal orifice, that is. What they think about me and say about me in private is not of much concern, but one thing they would probably agree on is that I value truth more than standing still for willful ignorance among “family and friends”—-maybe that’s because I won’t be around much longer and would like to leave behind a legacy of some small understandings rather than a few pictures on the mantel.
I find the hypocrisy of “politeness” and the willful ignorance of so many folks while the world goes to hell in so many ways to be beyond amazing—it’s infuriating. I don’t think those of us who “know” can afford to sit still for it. SOMEBODY has to “stand the wall” and/or “be the sheepdog”.
(And are we really sure who killed Kennedy? I’ve read a lot of non-fiction on the topic down through the years because it IS fascinating, but by far the best book I’ve read on it is fiction—-The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter, one of the Bob Lee Swagger series. So well-researched that it reads like non-fiction, but it makes as much sense (and more) than what has been written before).
This is more than I’d expect corporate news to cover climate change, so kudos for that. Hopefully, it won’t trot out Myron Ebell or somebody to provide ‘balance’.
oldguy – “If they think people are watching, they may respond.” It would depend on the ratings for the program, but skepticmac’s experience is hardly his own. People don’t want to hear bad news. I’ve said this before here – we’re the minority that worry. We think everyone should think like us (and goshdarnit, they should!), but by some freak genetic wiring or past experience we don’t have a problem contemplating bad news and what to do about it. Most people put up mental roadblocks from ever getting there, and these range from active denial to avoidance of the subject matter.
If you asked a crowded room how many would rather seeing a documentary about puppies getting killed in Sochi or an animated feature about puppies on a road trip, what would be the result?
Yup, you got it right—and that’s why I myself don’t think there’s any real hope that the human race will avoid destroying itself and nearly all life on the planet.
I watched most of the “Great Minds” segment on RT yesterday. Thom Hartmann interviewing Guy McPherson—-very discouraging in that McPherson had no positive answers to our dilemma beyond his usual “enjoy the moment”.
I don’t know what kind of knowledge Hartmann has regarding AGW (he is a very smart guy in so many fields), and his questions did seem like they were coming more from an interested layman than from a scientist, but at the end of the discussion, he was kind of sitting there with a look of pained resignation on his face.
I don’t think I would personally put much stock in McPherson’s truly alarmist (and I don’t use that term usually re AGW ) ideas. Watching a video of one of his presentations, my skeptic alarm was going off almost immediately. His claims are so out of line with what most serious climate scientists are saying,that I think he does more to discredit the science,rather than to support it.
The situation is bad enough as it is,without hyping some outlier scenarios without a hell of a lot of research to back it up. There is also the real danger of causing people to abandon all efforts to mitigate future damage,if they believe that we are already screwed with nothing to be gained by taking action…other than buy as many guns,ammo,dried foods and move to the hills and set up a survivalist compound. Maybe that’s what he is really all about.
Guy basically cherry picks the science, taking phrases and statistics out of context from certain reports and using them to justify a belief in complete catastrophe within 30 years. It’s climate denial in reverse – same tactics.
I’d have to agree that it doesn’t help the science itself, or help in selling the general conclusions of the science to others. But he’s right about industrial civilization being the main problem. Also, it won’t matter if we screw up the joint in 30 years or 300 years in the end. That’s just the blink of an eye in geological terms.
And he’s not a survivalist. He’s not interested in his own skin (typical survivalist trait), nor does he teach crossbow tactics and gun maintenance. I think he’s in a lot of pain about the world and it’s genuine pain, and really, who can blame him for that? The world’s effed up, seriously.
On if he draws people away from mitigation, do we really see mitigation taking place? He’s moved to a permaculture community, which is a heck of a lot more than most people do. Also, his appeal is pretty limited. Few people want to hear we’re in real trouble – almost no one wants to hear or believe we’re doomed in three decades. Someone who really buys into that probably wasn’t go to be a world leader in mitigation efforts in the first place.
Finally, his end message is that we should just live the best that we can, which all we ever could do in the first place.
He doesn’t need to be a survivalist to have his message feed in to the already panicky alarmist mindset of those who are snatching up high capacity weapons and ammo,to the point of creating shortages all across the country.
Do you believe that mitigation in the form of trying to put a halt to the rise of greenhouse gases is not worth doing? I do,because there is no way we really know how this will play out yet.Our knowledge of climate dynamics is getting pretty good,but we are no where near being certain as to what will ultimately happen,and how long it takes,so unless we all throw up our hands in fatalism,we had better keep the pressure on to keep moving forward.
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You are way off the mark when you speak of “the already panicky alarmist mindset of those who are snatching up high capacity weapons and ammo,to the point of creating shortages all across the country”. They are not doing this because they fear the coming AGW apocalypse. Hardly any of them are smart enough to understand the science to begin with, and nearly all of them DENY AGW vigorously, as you can discover of you spend some time on the right wing-nut web-sites.
They are “alarmist” over what they see as the impending collapse of society because of the actions of big government and the commie-marxist-Nazi-fascist-socialist-Kenyan Dictator who wants to take their guns, redistribute everything they own to the moochers and takers, and make gays, women, and non-whites equal to everyone else.
And they believe all that deluded horsepucky because the Kochs and the other fossil fuel interests are spending big bucks to convince them. It’s part of the same infowars strategy that is also fighting “mitigation efforts” so that the FF folks can sell off every last bit of FF and profit from it.
We engage in some pretty bloodless discussion among ourselves here on Crock, talking mostly to people who are like us. How many of us are active politically and working to “mitigate” the real problems? We will NEVER bring the rise of GHG to a halt without first addressing the fact that our government no longer belongs to us and applying pressure there.
As for “….there is no way we really know how this will play out yet. Our knowledge of climate dynamics is getting pretty good,but we are no where near being certain as to what will ultimately happen,and how long it takes….”. That’s an opinion, and you’re entitled to it. Look at the facts upon which all meaningful opinions should be based, and list out for us in two columns the science FOR ultimate CAGW and AGAINST it—-then place your bet.
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To clarify my poorly worded sentence above,I do believe it is worth trying to halt the rise in greenhouse gasses. Proof reading fail.
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May I suggest that skepticman (and jimbills a bit) are guilty of a bit of head-in-the-sand wishful thinking and that’s the real denialism here?
The scientists are slowly and methodically “proving” the science of AGW to a world that is NOT paying attention because they’re at the mall shopping or too busy texting on their cell phones or watching “reality” TV. McPherson is NOT “TRULY alarmist”, he merely cuts through all the polite dithering of the scientists who are afraid to look into the future and really tell it like it is. It is not “alarmist” to take measured and proper action when fire breaks out in a crowded movie theater—it is insane NOT to do so.
SM and JB say that his claims are “out of line with what SERIOUS climate scientists say” and he “cherry picks and takes data out of context” and that “doesn’t help the science” or “doesn’t help to sell the general conclusions”? “It’s denialism in reverse”?
Sorry, but even Omnologos would question the logic there. It is NOT “denialism in reverse” to pick out certain “extreme” TRUTHS from the body of AGW science and emphasize them—-those truths were uncovered by “serious” climate scientists who are afraid to talk about them, but they ARE truths, and the history of AGW has shown us time and again that climate change IS trending to the worst cases and most past predictions are turning out to be conservative. The denialists flat out lie and distort the truth in an attempt to sell the idea that climate change is NOT happening. McPherson is in agreement with the 97% of scientists who support AGW’s impact, and some (like Mann and Hansen) are moving in his direction of “extremism”. One doesn’t have to LIKE his “extremism” but it wrong to so casually dismiss what he says.
McPherson’s point that the only thing that may save the earth is the complete collapse of industrial civilization is a valid one—-an unpleasant thought perhaps, but valid, and jimbills recognizes that. The collapse of industrial civilization will likely result in a large reduction of the number of humans on the planet, particularly in the places that contribute the most to man’s carbon footprint.
One of my (few) strengths during my working career was the ability to see the “big picture”, and after 50 years of study my view of where we are going parallels McPherson’s. It’s not IF, but WHEN if we don’t make some pretty drastic moves quite soon, and I don’t see that happening. Nature DOES bat last, and it’s not extremist to say that.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree I guess. I have to rely on what the sources that I trust have to say about it,and I see very little support for the kind of extreme scenarios that McPherson sees in the short term.And I still believe that we have a chance at limiting the worst possible outcomes if we manage to ramp up our efforts.But fatalism is not conducive to motivating people to do anything.In fact it has just the opposite effect.
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oldguy – I’m referring to Guy’s conviction that North America will become uninhabitable by 2035 and that a runaway Venus effect on Earth will occur a few decades after that. He doesn’t just think this is possible – he thinks it’s certain.
No, this isn’t anywhere in the science. What Guy does is select phrases from reports (like the IPCC) and ties them with fringe science (like Malcolm Light). Light is someone with zero credentials, which is fine, maybe he’s right, but there isn’t anyone else in the published science agreeing with him, and some vociferously so, like Gavin Schmidt.
Do you see how this ties in with the habits of deniers? Take phrases, turn them, and use reports by isolated scientists with no consensual backing?
I’ve followed what Guy has to say for several years now, and I don’t feel like bashing him further. It’s just that I read what he says and I double check his sources. They often don’t stack up to scrutiny (although he’s a great source for finding unpublicized findings).
Guy’s argument on this is that conventional science is too conservative, which I think is highly probable. But his timeline is so out of whack with any of the science that it’s basically a leap of faith to buy it.
That said, I think Guy has a LOT more valid points than most people out there, because I happen to agree with most of what he’s saying about our culture and environment in general. Is it more right to look at the causes of our problems or is more right to simply believe that capitalism and technology will solve problems largely created by capitalism and technology?
On collapse, I don’t think it’s necessary, and I don’t think it’s probable. If I know one thing about humans, it’s that they’re stubborn. We’re going to try and prop this thing up as long as we can. Guy thinks we’re going to have complete collapse instantaneously – snap, and everything falls apart within weeks. This is peak oil related, of course, but complete collapse also ties into WHY he thinks we’ll have runaway AGW in a few decades (this is too much to go into here).
What I think is far more probable is a series of hiccups and fits and starts lasting many decades. Most of these will be financial and governmental in nature, which will both be related, often vaguely, to resource depletion and crop failures. As we progress, we’ll see more and more environmental effects, too, adding stresses to an already stressed system.
But we won’t just throw up our hands and become Mad Max world (although this may happen in particular regions, as has already happened in Libya and Syria).
What I’d like to see is voluntary economic reduction in the West, but this is impossible due to the fundamentals of the system itself and because virtually no one agrees with me.
One reason why I’m not an Elon Musk fan is that I see him as symptomatic of humanity’s stubbornness. When you boil his main goals down, it’s to continue to prop up industrial civilization, which is to say, keep things going as long as possible. Even if he’s successful, his companies will only provide a platform for increased resource use and environmental destruction. It won’t even stop fossil fuel use – it’ll provide the financial wherewithal in the system itself to extract very hard to reach FF sources (which would be unlikely in a faltering economy) for use in other areas. It’s not an answer to me, it’s Einstein’s saying of doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result.
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I don’t disagree with very much of what you’ve said here—we are pretty much on the same page. With a big BUT.
I too find McPherson’s timelines to be too short and his predictions perhaps too extreme, but my crap detectors vibrate madly when people say that he’s so extreme that little or nothing he says is credible and that he’s the other side of the coin from the deniers. That’s a false equivalency and simply not true.
You have been watching the progression of AGW and visiting Crock and many other sites for information just as I have. How can you deny that the evidence points in only one direction—-CAGW at some point in the future—-whether decades off as McPherson thinks or centuries off is immaterial. The modern industrial society based on fossil fuels is headed for disaster, capitalism as an economic system is proving unsustainable, democracy is faltering, and societies of all kinds everywhere are in states of turmoil. Human populations continue to grow at a rate that is unsustainable. We will bumble along until the SHTF, but bumble it will be—I see little progress being made on eliminating or even curtailing fossil fuel use.
Much of what you have said here is actually a bit “fatalistic” and does acknowledge that we are in deep trouble. To me, accepting that is not ‘extremism” but rather “realism”. If McPherson is right, we will know soon enough and it will be too late. If he is wrong, it is still better to have him pushing the idea that nature bats last and the game is in overtime to those who are ignorant if the facts.l
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You’re assuming I’m denying something that I’m not, and nowhere have I said that little or nothing of what Guy says is credible. I’m just saying he’s a little out there on the timeline, and his sourcing to reach that conclusion isn’t infallible.
BTW, I’m not a ‘bit’ fatalistic. I’m completely fatalistic. We’re desperate for a solution to this, but the only real solution is the one few to no one will willingly accept – a dramatic curtailing of Western economies tied with some pretty vigorous birth control. As such, I think we’ll almost certainly face multiple catastrophes in the future. But I won’t give any definite timeline, because there are too many wild cards and uncertainties.
On whether it’s too late, I think this argument is pointless. Even if it is too late (something we cannot know for certain), ‘living the best we can’ contains acting responsibly and compassionately towards our fellow human beings and the environment. In other words, we should do what we should have done all along, despite what we think may or will happen in the future.
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Won’t argue with any of that—-we are in virtually total agreement. I doubt that I will love long enough to see much of it occur, and I’m hoping my children and grandchildren will be gone before the worst of it arrives, but we DO need to see some “catastrophes” soon if we ever want to get people’s attention.
My personal timeline, based on my “sources”, has the human population of the planet reduced to perhaps 1/10 of today’s within 300 to 400 years.
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On ‘being on the other side of the coin of the deniers’, that’s a stretch of what I’m meaning. I’m saying he uses some of the same tactics in thinking that deniers do to reach a hasty and false (or at least, probably false) conclusion.
I don’t think this renders what else he has to say as meaningless, assuming I don’t see the same trends in his other conclusions. Almost everyone has something valid to say, but almost everyone has some pretty weak conclusions, too.
A trick we play on ourselves is to automatically invalidate someone’s stronger conclusions by finding fault in their weaker conclusions, thus allowing one to maintain their own confirmation biases. I despise economists for their complete blindness to the bigger picture, but many of their theories do explain market dynamics alone.
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That’s just semantics. I think we need to put morality and ethics into the equation. Infantry “Tactics” in real warfare are the same for both our side and the enemy. If we apply those tactics more effectively, the enemy loses—they die and we celebrate our victory. If the enemy is more effective and “wins” the battle we mourn the loss of our troops who were fighting for “truth , justice, and the American Way”. Our troops are RIGHT and our cause is JUST either win or lose because by definition WE are the good guys and they are the bad guys.
McPherson is a “good guy”, and in my mind I don’t care at all if he exaggerates a bit, cherry picks data, and “pushes” too hard. The “bad guys” are outright liars who deny truth and should not be allowed to get away with it. In my mind they are “bad guys” and even evil. We should not be talking about “tactics”, because McPherson does NOT employ the same tactics by any stretch, we should be talking right and wrong. lt’s just that simple.
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I know this is Debbie Downer territory, but it relates.
When ever someone says that global warming is a bunch of BS, I interject with,
“remember when we learned in school about how the early explorers trying to find the Northwest Passage over the top of Canada would always get frozen in the ice before they even made it half way across? how sometimes they would die, and sometimes they wouldn’t be rescued until a year later? Now pleasure craft are making it across in one summer with no problem.”
Instead of a rebuttal, that statement is usually met with quiet silence as their brain takes in the significance of that fact. My philosophy is don’t try to change their minds all at once, just plant the seeds of doubt.
Thank you, Ray. I watched it again (just so I wouldn’t sleep well), and was again particularly struck by the “habitable zone” idea. Can’t recall seeing a graph like that before. Sweet dreams to all after watching this..
I watched this last night, and I have to say, I think they did a very good job. Finally, network TV does a climate related show where they talk to Actual Scientists about the Actual Science. And I may be shot down for saying this but Pielke Jr. didn’t sound like the villain he’s often seen as.
By the way, is Jason Box going to crowd fund this year’s project too?
I agree. Except for a very few “a single weather event cannot be linked to climate change” comments (which were balanced somewhat with the question “can this be coincidence?”), it was very good throughout.
I nearly rolled off my sofa when I saw Pielke appear (…WHAT?), but his first appearance was a bit confusing and weak (actually pointless), and his second appearance was actually positive. I would love to know WHO picked Pielke and WHY.
Here’s some “opinion”. That’s mainly what Tobis offers here—his “opinions”. I think Tobis suffers from cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning, and ends up being a denier of sorts himself here. His tone is dismissive, condescending, and overly snarky with the ad hominems. If McPherson is wrong, all he has to do is simply prove it (which Tobis does NOT accomplish very well here).
Without spending too much time on explanation (I don’t want a headache), I DO believe that Tobis has badly misinterpreted McPherson’s usage of the terms “additive” and “multiplicative feedback”, and has applied a simple grade school mathematical interpretation that is irrelevant to McPherson’s arguments.
His “verdicts” on McPherson’s talking points are mostly judgmental “too smalls” and “not soon enoughs” to have the impact in 2030 that McPherson claims. I too think that McPherson is pushing it with 2030 (although I won’t bet everything I own against him on all his points), but would ask Tobis “what about 2050?, 2080?, 2010?—-when COULD some of these things occur if present trends continue?”, and “Is there NO connection between all these many things McPherson cites?”, and “Cannot there be a linkage that does in fact cause “positive/multiplicative feedback” by increasing an effect in another area?” i.e., be “multiplicative” in the sense that McPherson uses the word?
If McPherson chose to be less “strident” by pushing back his “doomsday” date to a more reasonable future (like 2083 or 2126?), and didn’t try to tie together so many aspects of AGW, he would be attacked much less—-because he would then not be an “alarmist” but just another scientist making valid observations.
I think we need more McPhersons trying to wake us up while the Tobises mill around in denial. I would much rather see the debate center around “it’s going to be very bad if we don’t do something but not THAT soon” rather than between the overall truth of AGW and the lies of the outright deniers.
Hmmm…that’s an interesting idea you have there,that making exaggerated,overblown claims will do the science more good than making valid claims. Seems to me that that would give justified ammunition to deniers to actually make a valid criticism for a change. Can that really be a good thing?
How about in 16 years,when people look around,and realize that “Hey! We’re still here!” ? Don’t you think that might set back the efforts to keep our Co2 emissions lower? I might remind you about Paul Ehrlich,and how his missed predictions have been exploited by naysayers too. He wasn’t really wrong about his concerns, it just turned out his timeline was thrown way off by improvements in agriculture and substitutions for metals etc.
I think we are in for a rough road ahead,but if you really believe that we are hopelessly screwed because it’s too late,then what the hell are we fighting climate deniers for?
Too late to do anything?…Might as well go ahead and burn it all.
That by the way is the 5th (or 6th,depending on how you count) stage of climate denialism.
Please don’t put YOUR ideas in MY mouth. YOU are the one who considers McPherson to be making “exaggerated, overblown and invalid claims”, not me.
Can you guarantee that we’ll “still be here” in 16 years? Who is the “we” you speak of? And in a world that is not drastically changed from today’s?
Were you alive when Ehrlich made his predictions? Did you read The Population Bomb? It was a much different time back then, and his predictions, as well as those of other “doom-sayers”, caused much concern. You yourself DO state that he “wasn’t really wrong”, just that “his timeline was off”. Do you understand that we have gone from 4 billion to 7 billion humans since Ehrlich wrote that book, and the timeline keeps advancing? And that the technological advances that kept Ehrlich’s predictions from coming true are now starting to fail and that just sets the stage for a bigger disaster at some future time?.
“If you really believe that we are hopelessly screwed because it’s too late,then what the hell are we fighting climate deniers for?” is a good question. I would ask in return “Why would we NOT fight climate deniers even if we believe we are hopelessly screwed because it’s too late? Is that not the moral and ethically correct thing to do?”.
Putting all that aside, we were asked for our opinions about the piece “fisking” McPherson. I made my comments about what Tobis said, and based on your reply to me, I’m not sure you even read them. Do you have anything to say about the article and/or my specific comments about it?
I was alive when The Population Bomb was written. I was 17 then,and read it when I was 19 or 20. I wrote a book review of it for a writing course I was taking then.I totally accepted his premise and timeline. I do still think his core ideas for the most part are valid,but he wasn’t able to know how the world would respond to the pressures,and that goes for McPherson too.
I did read the Tobis piece,and I agree with his analysis,but I’ll leave it up to others to decide who is closer to doing science.I don’t care to debate it with you on this forum.
As far as me putting my ideas in your mouth,I’ll again let anyone who cares to, read through your previous comments to see if I was wrong.
That’s it for me on this thread.
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“I did read the Tobis piece,and I agree with his analysis,but I’ll leave it up to others to decide who is closer to doing science. I don’t care to debate it with you on this forum”, you say?
Abandonment of discussion is NOT a winning discussion/debate strategy and you employ it all too often. Do you agree with ALL of Tobis’ analysis? You find NONE of it to be in the slightest bit lacking? What about his criticisms of McPherson’s proposed “multiplicative” effect of feedback mechanisms? A very interesting concept that Tobis criticized on a simple “math” basis without even taking the trouble to understand the logic behind it.
“As far as me putting my ideas in your mouth, I’ll again let anyone who cares to, read through your previous comments to see if I was wrong”.
More abandonment of discussion and another appeal to others to bail you out. Do you really expect anyone to agree with your fantasy that “that’s an interesting idea you have there, that making exaggerated, overblown claims will do the science more good than making valid claims” is a fair representation of what I said? It is obvious to all that you are merely projecting YOUR feelings onto me and putting words in my mouth, whether you want to talk about it or not.
Later.
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I generally think using faulty or weak science hurts when trying to convince those who either don’t know yet what to think and to those rare few who might currently be deniers but who are possibly open to a reversal in opinion.
But beyond that, I don’t agree with him being hurtful to the ’cause’. He’s not a factor on affecting the end story of how AGW plays out. His appeal is very, very limited, and those whom he does appeal to were hardly likely to make a major difference, anyway. If anything, he spurs discussion amongst those who care about the issue and therefore helps to bring clarity to those who really want to understand it. Most people already have their minds made up on this, and so his appeal is to those already thinking along the lines that he does. He’s not going to have any influence over the Elon Musks or Barack Obamas of the world.
Some people are upset about Guy’s message that it’s too late to do anything about our situation, and so the logic goes that that belief and its resulting actions aren’t much different than the deniers’ “they aints no problem” approach. The sad irony, though, is that most people’s solutions will only end up bringing us deeper into environmental catastrophe (and not just via AGW) by prolonging and enhancing those systems that create it.
We desperately want to believe there’s hope while not changing our behaviors, and so we march on to the same beat we’ve been on for the past half millenia. It’s a madness so inherent we don’t even see it.
On extremism – on a macro view, in politics and social matters, extremes pull the center. Extremes of the far right end up making the right-of-center mindset seem far more reasonable, and the same on the left. Believe me, you don’t want a world where only the right is extreme. The left, and the environmental movement, needs its extremists to make the left-of-center approach more reasonable, and to balance shifting opinions against a scale tipping sharply right (as has been happening alarmingly so the past three decades).
Well said, particularly the last half. I’m going to post a new comment right after this in an attempt to show the magnitude of the problem we face. As jimbills put it (with a small change added)
We desperately want to believe there’s hope while not changing our behaviors (and recognizing certain laws of nature), and so we march on to the same beat we’ve been on for the past half millenia. It’s a madness so inherent we don’t even see it.
I’ve made comments like this before on other threads, but the ongoing denial of certain truths by so many who visit Crock leads me to do so again. I’ve also made comments about the large number of hockey sticks that we are seeing appear on the “score sheet” of the human race. Once again, let’s look at some population dynamics:
1) Estimated world human population at the dawn of civilization 8-10,000 years ago was ~5,000,000 (5 million)
2) Estimated human population in 1800 was 1,000,000,000 (1 billion)
3) It took 130 years to add another billion and reach 2 billion (1930)
4) It took 30 years to add the third billion (1959)
5) It took 15 years to add the fourth billion (1974)
6) It took 13 years to add the fifth billion (1987)
7) It took 12 years to add the sixth billion (1999)
8) It took 13 years to add the seventh billion (2011)
9) Estimates are that it will take 13 years to add the eighth billion (2024)
Google “human population growth” and view the graphs for yourself—you will see a huge and near-perfect hockey stick. The growth rate IS declining, and the UN projects that there will be 10 billion humans in 2062, ~50 years from now. That’s adding roughly one billion every 25 years. Now you need to superimpose the many hockey sticks I have previously referenced from “blog2009 The Graph: A Picture of the Present and Future”.
Then realize that the hockey sticks of UN-sustainability you see there result mainly from the activities of the 20-25% of the human population living in the developed world and that most of the remaining 75-80% want to achieve the same “standard of living” (read “consumption level”) as we in the west enjoy. Then do some extrapolation, and you will find that if that occurs, the carbon footprint of the human race 50 years from now could be equal to as many as 40 to 50 billion “2014 human equivalents”.
BUT, you say—-“We we are converting to renewables…and Elon Musk…and wind power…and EV’s…..and….”.
Look at how Exxon Mobil intends to burn every last bit of fossil fuel they can find, and how much coal India and China (with 1/3 of the earth’s population) intend to burn over the next 50 years. Then tell us we’re not whistling past the graveyard as we head towards 500 PPM of CO2 fifty years from now. The story is not here in the U.S. or in Germany or in France, folks, and Guy McPherson is not the extremist many would make him out to be—he is a realist..
Guess I’ll miss 60 Minutes tomorrow—considering what CBS and ABC have been reporting on climate change lately, it will be no great loss. Some of the environmental groups should start on-line petitions thanking NBC for devoting time and attention to the topic of climate change and encouraging more programs like this—-how about devoting one Dateline a month to AGW rather than stupid crime/courtroom trash—-same thing for the twitter and facebook folks—-talk it up. If they think people are watching, they may respond.
Whenever I talk with my friends and relatives about climate change topics,they usually just sit quietly,waiting for me to finish,then change the subject to sports,movies,TV or the latest popular gossip topic,without the slightest engagement with what I was saying.
It’s like trying to have a conversation where the other parties are just waiting to talk without even listening to what you have to say. I really believe they just don’t want to acknowledge that their world is about to change for the worse.It makes them very uncomfortable.
You’re not alone there. I think you speak for many of us. Perhaps one out of 20 of my friends and relatives will really engage on the topic, and they don’t know very much about climate change to start with—-when one attempts to give them the “details”, their eyes glaze over. I can’t wait to ask them if they purposely watched the NBC special—-I fear that many will make other choices.
I think it’s confusing and too complex for people unless they really engage with the details for an extended amount of time. Given that,it is really easy for them to be bamboozled by superficial ‘skeptic’ arguments,and then they just throw up their hands and say “Who knows?”.
That’s the insidious thing about the denial front,they don’t really need to win you over,they just need to cause you to give up having any opinion at all. Mission accomplished!
Well said. Unfortunately, it is much easier to peddle FUD than science. There is no effective tactic to combat people who have sold their souls and lie without shame, especially when they overlay their lies with the “politics” that many folks want to believe.
The fair number of FORMER friends and acquaintances that I have personally accumulated speaks to that for me. They are all politically motivated to believe the deniers, and my refusal to allow them to ignore the science has caused them to just stop talking to me.
I FW stuff about AGW to them incessantly whether they like it or not, and they will occasionally respond, usually to tell me such truths as “you can’t trust Al Gore, the planet stopped warming in 1998, and it’s all God’s will”.
I would go a little further and say that when you talk to your family and friends about climate change, they look at you like you’re the relative who is ‘a little off’, in other words, amusement. I find it amazing in my own life that so many of my family think I’m full of it on this subject, despite the fact that they have NO SCIENCE background, and I do. Many didn’t even go beyond high school. And yet they’re happy to talk and argue all night about who killed Kennedy.
Ha! You are probably right about that.And I don’t really mind if they are appropriately skeptical about something that they are not sure of,but they should then inform themselves instead of just dismissing it,because the issue is not a trivial one.It deserves some diligent scrutiny,and that seems to be what is lacking.
But then again,we are also talking about a population that also fails to plan for their financial future,and neglects their physical health,which are issues much closer to home (at least in their minds).
Yes, a familiar feeling, although those who know me well enough know better than to “look at me with amusement” to my face. Unless they want me to rip them a new anal orifice, that is. What they think about me and say about me in private is not of much concern, but one thing they would probably agree on is that I value truth more than standing still for willful ignorance among “family and friends”—-maybe that’s because I won’t be around much longer and would like to leave behind a legacy of some small understandings rather than a few pictures on the mantel.
I find the hypocrisy of “politeness” and the willful ignorance of so many folks while the world goes to hell in so many ways to be beyond amazing—it’s infuriating. I don’t think those of us who “know” can afford to sit still for it. SOMEBODY has to “stand the wall” and/or “be the sheepdog”.
(And are we really sure who killed Kennedy? I’ve read a lot of non-fiction on the topic down through the years because it IS fascinating, but by far the best book I’ve read on it is fiction—-The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter, one of the Bob Lee Swagger series. So well-researched that it reads like non-fiction, but it makes as much sense (and more) than what has been written before).
This is more than I’d expect corporate news to cover climate change, so kudos for that. Hopefully, it won’t trot out Myron Ebell or somebody to provide ‘balance’.
oldguy – “If they think people are watching, they may respond.” It would depend on the ratings for the program, but skepticmac’s experience is hardly his own. People don’t want to hear bad news. I’ve said this before here – we’re the minority that worry. We think everyone should think like us (and goshdarnit, they should!), but by some freak genetic wiring or past experience we don’t have a problem contemplating bad news and what to do about it. Most people put up mental roadblocks from ever getting there, and these range from active denial to avoidance of the subject matter.
If you asked a crowded room how many would rather seeing a documentary about puppies getting killed in Sochi or an animated feature about puppies on a road trip, what would be the result?
Yup, you got it right—and that’s why I myself don’t think there’s any real hope that the human race will avoid destroying itself and nearly all life on the planet.
I watched most of the “Great Minds” segment on RT yesterday. Thom Hartmann interviewing Guy McPherson—-very discouraging in that McPherson had no positive answers to our dilemma beyond his usual “enjoy the moment”.
I don’t know what kind of knowledge Hartmann has regarding AGW (he is a very smart guy in so many fields), and his questions did seem like they were coming more from an interested layman than from a scientist, but at the end of the discussion, he was kind of sitting there with a look of pained resignation on his face.
I don’t think I would personally put much stock in McPherson’s truly alarmist (and I don’t use that term usually re AGW ) ideas. Watching a video of one of his presentations, my skeptic alarm was going off almost immediately. His claims are so out of line with what most serious climate scientists are saying,that I think he does more to discredit the science,rather than to support it.
The situation is bad enough as it is,without hyping some outlier scenarios without a hell of a lot of research to back it up. There is also the real danger of causing people to abandon all efforts to mitigate future damage,if they believe that we are already screwed with nothing to be gained by taking action…other than buy as many guns,ammo,dried foods and move to the hills and set up a survivalist compound. Maybe that’s what he is really all about.
Guy basically cherry picks the science, taking phrases and statistics out of context from certain reports and using them to justify a belief in complete catastrophe within 30 years. It’s climate denial in reverse – same tactics.
I’d have to agree that it doesn’t help the science itself, or help in selling the general conclusions of the science to others. But he’s right about industrial civilization being the main problem. Also, it won’t matter if we screw up the joint in 30 years or 300 years in the end. That’s just the blink of an eye in geological terms.
And he’s not a survivalist. He’s not interested in his own skin (typical survivalist trait), nor does he teach crossbow tactics and gun maintenance. I think he’s in a lot of pain about the world and it’s genuine pain, and really, who can blame him for that? The world’s effed up, seriously.
On if he draws people away from mitigation, do we really see mitigation taking place? He’s moved to a permaculture community, which is a heck of a lot more than most people do. Also, his appeal is pretty limited. Few people want to hear we’re in real trouble – almost no one wants to hear or believe we’re doomed in three decades. Someone who really buys into that probably wasn’t go to be a world leader in mitigation efforts in the first place.
Finally, his end message is that we should just live the best that we can, which all we ever could do in the first place.
He doesn’t need to be a survivalist to have his message feed in to the already panicky alarmist mindset of those who are snatching up high capacity weapons and ammo,to the point of creating shortages all across the country.
Do you believe that mitigation in the form of trying to put a halt to the rise of greenhouse gases is not worth doing? I do,because there is no way we really know how this will play out yet.Our knowledge of climate dynamics is getting pretty good,but we are no where near being certain as to what will ultimately happen,and how long it takes,so unless we all throw up our hands in fatalism,we had better keep the pressure on to keep moving forward.
You are way off the mark when you speak of “the already panicky alarmist mindset of those who are snatching up high capacity weapons and ammo,to the point of creating shortages all across the country”. They are not doing this because they fear the coming AGW apocalypse. Hardly any of them are smart enough to understand the science to begin with, and nearly all of them DENY AGW vigorously, as you can discover of you spend some time on the right wing-nut web-sites.
They are “alarmist” over what they see as the impending collapse of society because of the actions of big government and the commie-marxist-Nazi-fascist-socialist-Kenyan Dictator who wants to take their guns, redistribute everything they own to the moochers and takers, and make gays, women, and non-whites equal to everyone else.
And they believe all that deluded horsepucky because the Kochs and the other fossil fuel interests are spending big bucks to convince them. It’s part of the same infowars strategy that is also fighting “mitigation efforts” so that the FF folks can sell off every last bit of FF and profit from it.
We engage in some pretty bloodless discussion among ourselves here on Crock, talking mostly to people who are like us. How many of us are active politically and working to “mitigate” the real problems? We will NEVER bring the rise of GHG to a halt without first addressing the fact that our government no longer belongs to us and applying pressure there.
As for “….there is no way we really know how this will play out yet. Our knowledge of climate dynamics is getting pretty good,but we are no where near being certain as to what will ultimately happen,and how long it takes….”. That’s an opinion, and you’re entitled to it. Look at the facts upon which all meaningful opinions should be based, and list out for us in two columns the science FOR ultimate CAGW and AGAINST it—-then place your bet.
To clarify my poorly worded sentence above,I do believe it is worth trying to halt the rise in greenhouse gasses. Proof reading fail.
May I suggest that skepticman (and jimbills a bit) are guilty of a bit of head-in-the-sand wishful thinking and that’s the real denialism here?
The scientists are slowly and methodically “proving” the science of AGW to a world that is NOT paying attention because they’re at the mall shopping or too busy texting on their cell phones or watching “reality” TV. McPherson is NOT “TRULY alarmist”, he merely cuts through all the polite dithering of the scientists who are afraid to look into the future and really tell it like it is. It is not “alarmist” to take measured and proper action when fire breaks out in a crowded movie theater—it is insane NOT to do so.
SM and JB say that his claims are “out of line with what SERIOUS climate scientists say” and he “cherry picks and takes data out of context” and that “doesn’t help the science” or “doesn’t help to sell the general conclusions”? “It’s denialism in reverse”?
Sorry, but even Omnologos would question the logic there. It is NOT “denialism in reverse” to pick out certain “extreme” TRUTHS from the body of AGW science and emphasize them—-those truths were uncovered by “serious” climate scientists who are afraid to talk about them, but they ARE truths, and the history of AGW has shown us time and again that climate change IS trending to the worst cases and most past predictions are turning out to be conservative. The denialists flat out lie and distort the truth in an attempt to sell the idea that climate change is NOT happening. McPherson is in agreement with the 97% of scientists who support AGW’s impact, and some (like Mann and Hansen) are moving in his direction of “extremism”. One doesn’t have to LIKE his “extremism” but it wrong to so casually dismiss what he says.
McPherson’s point that the only thing that may save the earth is the complete collapse of industrial civilization is a valid one—-an unpleasant thought perhaps, but valid, and jimbills recognizes that. The collapse of industrial civilization will likely result in a large reduction of the number of humans on the planet, particularly in the places that contribute the most to man’s carbon footprint.
One of my (few) strengths during my working career was the ability to see the “big picture”, and after 50 years of study my view of where we are going parallels McPherson’s. It’s not IF, but WHEN if we don’t make some pretty drastic moves quite soon, and I don’t see that happening. Nature DOES bat last, and it’s not extremist to say that.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree I guess. I have to rely on what the sources that I trust have to say about it,and I see very little support for the kind of extreme scenarios that McPherson sees in the short term.And I still believe that we have a chance at limiting the worst possible outcomes if we manage to ramp up our efforts.But fatalism is not conducive to motivating people to do anything.In fact it has just the opposite effect.
oldguy – I’m referring to Guy’s conviction that North America will become uninhabitable by 2035 and that a runaway Venus effect on Earth will occur a few decades after that. He doesn’t just think this is possible – he thinks it’s certain.
No, this isn’t anywhere in the science. What Guy does is select phrases from reports (like the IPCC) and ties them with fringe science (like Malcolm Light). Light is someone with zero credentials, which is fine, maybe he’s right, but there isn’t anyone else in the published science agreeing with him, and some vociferously so, like Gavin Schmidt.
Do you see how this ties in with the habits of deniers? Take phrases, turn them, and use reports by isolated scientists with no consensual backing?
I’ve followed what Guy has to say for several years now, and I don’t feel like bashing him further. It’s just that I read what he says and I double check his sources. They often don’t stack up to scrutiny (although he’s a great source for finding unpublicized findings).
Guy’s argument on this is that conventional science is too conservative, which I think is highly probable. But his timeline is so out of whack with any of the science that it’s basically a leap of faith to buy it.
That said, I think Guy has a LOT more valid points than most people out there, because I happen to agree with most of what he’s saying about our culture and environment in general. Is it more right to look at the causes of our problems or is more right to simply believe that capitalism and technology will solve problems largely created by capitalism and technology?
On collapse, I don’t think it’s necessary, and I don’t think it’s probable. If I know one thing about humans, it’s that they’re stubborn. We’re going to try and prop this thing up as long as we can. Guy thinks we’re going to have complete collapse instantaneously – snap, and everything falls apart within weeks. This is peak oil related, of course, but complete collapse also ties into WHY he thinks we’ll have runaway AGW in a few decades (this is too much to go into here).
What I think is far more probable is a series of hiccups and fits and starts lasting many decades. Most of these will be financial and governmental in nature, which will both be related, often vaguely, to resource depletion and crop failures. As we progress, we’ll see more and more environmental effects, too, adding stresses to an already stressed system.
But we won’t just throw up our hands and become Mad Max world (although this may happen in particular regions, as has already happened in Libya and Syria).
What I’d like to see is voluntary economic reduction in the West, but this is impossible due to the fundamentals of the system itself and because virtually no one agrees with me.
One reason why I’m not an Elon Musk fan is that I see him as symptomatic of humanity’s stubbornness. When you boil his main goals down, it’s to continue to prop up industrial civilization, which is to say, keep things going as long as possible. Even if he’s successful, his companies will only provide a platform for increased resource use and environmental destruction. It won’t even stop fossil fuel use – it’ll provide the financial wherewithal in the system itself to extract very hard to reach FF sources (which would be unlikely in a faltering economy) for use in other areas. It’s not an answer to me, it’s Einstein’s saying of doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result.
I don’t disagree with very much of what you’ve said here—we are pretty much on the same page. With a big BUT.
I too find McPherson’s timelines to be too short and his predictions perhaps too extreme, but my crap detectors vibrate madly when people say that he’s so extreme that little or nothing he says is credible and that he’s the other side of the coin from the deniers. That’s a false equivalency and simply not true.
You have been watching the progression of AGW and visiting Crock and many other sites for information just as I have. How can you deny that the evidence points in only one direction—-CAGW at some point in the future—-whether decades off as McPherson thinks or centuries off is immaterial. The modern industrial society based on fossil fuels is headed for disaster, capitalism as an economic system is proving unsustainable, democracy is faltering, and societies of all kinds everywhere are in states of turmoil. Human populations continue to grow at a rate that is unsustainable. We will bumble along until the SHTF, but bumble it will be—I see little progress being made on eliminating or even curtailing fossil fuel use.
Much of what you have said here is actually a bit “fatalistic” and does acknowledge that we are in deep trouble. To me, accepting that is not ‘extremism” but rather “realism”. If McPherson is right, we will know soon enough and it will be too late. If he is wrong, it is still better to have him pushing the idea that nature bats last and the game is in overtime to those who are ignorant if the facts.l
You’re assuming I’m denying something that I’m not, and nowhere have I said that little or nothing of what Guy says is credible. I’m just saying he’s a little out there on the timeline, and his sourcing to reach that conclusion isn’t infallible.
BTW, I’m not a ‘bit’ fatalistic. I’m completely fatalistic. We’re desperate for a solution to this, but the only real solution is the one few to no one will willingly accept – a dramatic curtailing of Western economies tied with some pretty vigorous birth control. As such, I think we’ll almost certainly face multiple catastrophes in the future. But I won’t give any definite timeline, because there are too many wild cards and uncertainties.
On whether it’s too late, I think this argument is pointless. Even if it is too late (something we cannot know for certain), ‘living the best we can’ contains acting responsibly and compassionately towards our fellow human beings and the environment. In other words, we should do what we should have done all along, despite what we think may or will happen in the future.
Won’t argue with any of that—-we are in virtually total agreement. I doubt that I will love long enough to see much of it occur, and I’m hoping my children and grandchildren will be gone before the worst of it arrives, but we DO need to see some “catastrophes” soon if we ever want to get people’s attention.
My personal timeline, based on my “sources”, has the human population of the planet reduced to perhaps 1/10 of today’s within 300 to 400 years.
On ‘being on the other side of the coin of the deniers’, that’s a stretch of what I’m meaning. I’m saying he uses some of the same tactics in thinking that deniers do to reach a hasty and false (or at least, probably false) conclusion.
I don’t think this renders what else he has to say as meaningless, assuming I don’t see the same trends in his other conclusions. Almost everyone has something valid to say, but almost everyone has some pretty weak conclusions, too.
A trick we play on ourselves is to automatically invalidate someone’s stronger conclusions by finding fault in their weaker conclusions, thus allowing one to maintain their own confirmation biases. I despise economists for their complete blindness to the bigger picture, but many of their theories do explain market dynamics alone.
That’s just semantics. I think we need to put morality and ethics into the equation. Infantry “Tactics” in real warfare are the same for both our side and the enemy. If we apply those tactics more effectively, the enemy loses—they die and we celebrate our victory. If the enemy is more effective and “wins” the battle we mourn the loss of our troops who were fighting for “truth , justice, and the American Way”. Our troops are RIGHT and our cause is JUST either win or lose because by definition WE are the good guys and they are the bad guys.
McPherson is a “good guy”, and in my mind I don’t care at all if he exaggerates a bit, cherry picks data, and “pushes” too hard. The “bad guys” are outright liars who deny truth and should not be allowed to get away with it. In my mind they are “bad guys” and even evil. We should not be talking about “tactics”, because McPherson does NOT employ the same tactics by any stretch, we should be talking right and wrong. lt’s just that simple.
I know this is Debbie Downer territory, but it relates.
Ratings for last night:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/04/07/tv-ratings-sunday-once-upon-a-time-rises-believe-revenge-crisis-dip-academy-of-country-music-awards-down-from-last-year/251708/
‘Ann Curry Reports’ numbers were twice higher at its opening show:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/06/29/tv-ratings-friday-cult-returns-low-ann-curry-reports-wins-night-dateline-up-2020-down/189625/
That show was about a man who gets a face transplant.
There is little hope for the nation or the human race. Note the numbers for Cosmos as well.
When ever someone says that global warming is a bunch of BS, I interject with,
“remember when we learned in school about how the early explorers trying to find the Northwest Passage over the top of Canada would always get frozen in the ice before they even made it half way across? how sometimes they would die, and sometimes they wouldn’t be rescued until a year later? Now pleasure craft are making it across in one summer with no problem.”
Instead of a rebuttal, that statement is usually met with quiet silence as their brain takes in the significance of that fact. My philosophy is don’t try to change their minds all at once, just plant the seeds of doubt.
The “Conversations With Great Minds” segment mentioned above is here. The McPherson interview starts at Minute 30:00:
Thank you, Ray. I watched it again (just so I wouldn’t sleep well), and was again particularly struck by the “habitable zone” idea. Can’t recall seeing a graph like that before. Sweet dreams to all after watching this..
I watched this last night, and I have to say, I think they did a very good job. Finally, network TV does a climate related show where they talk to Actual Scientists about the Actual Science. And I may be shot down for saying this but Pielke Jr. didn’t sound like the villain he’s often seen as.
By the way, is Jason Box going to crowd fund this year’s project too?
I agree. Except for a very few “a single weather event cannot be linked to climate change” comments (which were balanced somewhat with the question “can this be coincidence?”), it was very good throughout.
I nearly rolled off my sofa when I saw Pielke appear (…WHAT?), but his first appearance was a bit confusing and weak (actually pointless), and his second appearance was actually positive. I would love to know WHO picked Pielke and WHY.
as to funding this year’s Dark Snow project – stay tuned.
Be interested in your opinions of the fisking of McPherson here:
http://planet3.org/2014/03/13/mcphersons-evidence-that-doom-doom-doom/
Here’s some “opinion”. That’s mainly what Tobis offers here—his “opinions”. I think Tobis suffers from cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning, and ends up being a denier of sorts himself here. His tone is dismissive, condescending, and overly snarky with the ad hominems. If McPherson is wrong, all he has to do is simply prove it (which Tobis does NOT accomplish very well here).
Without spending too much time on explanation (I don’t want a headache), I DO believe that Tobis has badly misinterpreted McPherson’s usage of the terms “additive” and “multiplicative feedback”, and has applied a simple grade school mathematical interpretation that is irrelevant to McPherson’s arguments.
His “verdicts” on McPherson’s talking points are mostly judgmental “too smalls” and “not soon enoughs” to have the impact in 2030 that McPherson claims. I too think that McPherson is pushing it with 2030 (although I won’t bet everything I own against him on all his points), but would ask Tobis “what about 2050?, 2080?, 2010?—-when COULD some of these things occur if present trends continue?”, and “Is there NO connection between all these many things McPherson cites?”, and “Cannot there be a linkage that does in fact cause “positive/multiplicative feedback” by increasing an effect in another area?” i.e., be “multiplicative” in the sense that McPherson uses the word?
If McPherson chose to be less “strident” by pushing back his “doomsday” date to a more reasonable future (like 2083 or 2126?), and didn’t try to tie together so many aspects of AGW, he would be attacked much less—-because he would then not be an “alarmist” but just another scientist making valid observations.
I think we need more McPhersons trying to wake us up while the Tobises mill around in denial. I would much rather see the debate center around “it’s going to be very bad if we don’t do something but not THAT soon” rather than between the overall truth of AGW and the lies of the outright deniers.
Hmmm…that’s an interesting idea you have there,that making exaggerated,overblown claims will do the science more good than making valid claims. Seems to me that that would give justified ammunition to deniers to actually make a valid criticism for a change. Can that really be a good thing?
How about in 16 years,when people look around,and realize that “Hey! We’re still here!” ? Don’t you think that might set back the efforts to keep our Co2 emissions lower? I might remind you about Paul Ehrlich,and how his missed predictions have been exploited by naysayers too. He wasn’t really wrong about his concerns, it just turned out his timeline was thrown way off by improvements in agriculture and substitutions for metals etc.
I think we are in for a rough road ahead,but if you really believe that we are hopelessly screwed because it’s too late,then what the hell are we fighting climate deniers for?
Too late to do anything?…Might as well go ahead and burn it all.
That by the way is the 5th (or 6th,depending on how you count) stage of climate denialism.
Please don’t put YOUR ideas in MY mouth. YOU are the one who considers McPherson to be making “exaggerated, overblown and invalid claims”, not me.
Can you guarantee that we’ll “still be here” in 16 years? Who is the “we” you speak of? And in a world that is not drastically changed from today’s?
Were you alive when Ehrlich made his predictions? Did you read The Population Bomb? It was a much different time back then, and his predictions, as well as those of other “doom-sayers”, caused much concern. You yourself DO state that he “wasn’t really wrong”, just that “his timeline was off”. Do you understand that we have gone from 4 billion to 7 billion humans since Ehrlich wrote that book, and the timeline keeps advancing? And that the technological advances that kept Ehrlich’s predictions from coming true are now starting to fail and that just sets the stage for a bigger disaster at some future time?.
“If you really believe that we are hopelessly screwed because it’s too late,then what the hell are we fighting climate deniers for?” is a good question. I would ask in return “Why would we NOT fight climate deniers even if we believe we are hopelessly screwed because it’s too late? Is that not the moral and ethically correct thing to do?”.
Putting all that aside, we were asked for our opinions about the piece “fisking” McPherson. I made my comments about what Tobis said, and based on your reply to me, I’m not sure you even read them. Do you have anything to say about the article and/or my specific comments about it?
I was alive when The Population Bomb was written. I was 17 then,and read it when I was 19 or 20. I wrote a book review of it for a writing course I was taking then.I totally accepted his premise and timeline. I do still think his core ideas for the most part are valid,but he wasn’t able to know how the world would respond to the pressures,and that goes for McPherson too.
I did read the Tobis piece,and I agree with his analysis,but I’ll leave it up to others to decide who is closer to doing science.I don’t care to debate it with you on this forum.
As far as me putting my ideas in your mouth,I’ll again let anyone who cares to, read through your previous comments to see if I was wrong.
That’s it for me on this thread.
“I did read the Tobis piece,and I agree with his analysis,but I’ll leave it up to others to decide who is closer to doing science. I don’t care to debate it with you on this forum”, you say?
Abandonment of discussion is NOT a winning discussion/debate strategy and you employ it all too often. Do you agree with ALL of Tobis’ analysis? You find NONE of it to be in the slightest bit lacking? What about his criticisms of McPherson’s proposed “multiplicative” effect of feedback mechanisms? A very interesting concept that Tobis criticized on a simple “math” basis without even taking the trouble to understand the logic behind it.
“As far as me putting my ideas in your mouth, I’ll again let anyone who cares to, read through your previous comments to see if I was wrong”.
More abandonment of discussion and another appeal to others to bail you out. Do you really expect anyone to agree with your fantasy that “that’s an interesting idea you have there, that making exaggerated, overblown claims will do the science more good than making valid claims” is a fair representation of what I said? It is obvious to all that you are merely projecting YOUR feelings onto me and putting words in my mouth, whether you want to talk about it or not.
Later.
I generally think using faulty or weak science hurts when trying to convince those who either don’t know yet what to think and to those rare few who might currently be deniers but who are possibly open to a reversal in opinion.
But beyond that, I don’t agree with him being hurtful to the ’cause’. He’s not a factor on affecting the end story of how AGW plays out. His appeal is very, very limited, and those whom he does appeal to were hardly likely to make a major difference, anyway. If anything, he spurs discussion amongst those who care about the issue and therefore helps to bring clarity to those who really want to understand it. Most people already have their minds made up on this, and so his appeal is to those already thinking along the lines that he does. He’s not going to have any influence over the Elon Musks or Barack Obamas of the world.
Some people are upset about Guy’s message that it’s too late to do anything about our situation, and so the logic goes that that belief and its resulting actions aren’t much different than the deniers’ “they aints no problem” approach. The sad irony, though, is that most people’s solutions will only end up bringing us deeper into environmental catastrophe (and not just via AGW) by prolonging and enhancing those systems that create it.
We desperately want to believe there’s hope while not changing our behaviors, and so we march on to the same beat we’ve been on for the past half millenia. It’s a madness so inherent we don’t even see it.
On extremism – on a macro view, in politics and social matters, extremes pull the center. Extremes of the far right end up making the right-of-center mindset seem far more reasonable, and the same on the left. Believe me, you don’t want a world where only the right is extreme. The left, and the environmental movement, needs its extremists to make the left-of-center approach more reasonable, and to balance shifting opinions against a scale tipping sharply right (as has been happening alarmingly so the past three decades).
Well said, particularly the last half. I’m going to post a new comment right after this in an attempt to show the magnitude of the problem we face. As jimbills put it (with a small change added)
We desperately want to believe there’s hope while not changing our behaviors (and recognizing certain laws of nature), and so we march on to the same beat we’ve been on for the past half millenia. It’s a madness so inherent we don’t even see it.
I’ve made comments like this before on other threads, but the ongoing denial of certain truths by so many who visit Crock leads me to do so again. I’ve also made comments about the large number of hockey sticks that we are seeing appear on the “score sheet” of the human race. Once again, let’s look at some population dynamics:
1) Estimated world human population at the dawn of civilization 8-10,000 years ago was ~5,000,000 (5 million)
2) Estimated human population in 1800 was 1,000,000,000 (1 billion)
3) It took 130 years to add another billion and reach 2 billion (1930)
4) It took 30 years to add the third billion (1959)
5) It took 15 years to add the fourth billion (1974)
6) It took 13 years to add the fifth billion (1987)
7) It took 12 years to add the sixth billion (1999)
8) It took 13 years to add the seventh billion (2011)
9) Estimates are that it will take 13 years to add the eighth billion (2024)
Google “human population growth” and view the graphs for yourself—you will see a huge and near-perfect hockey stick. The growth rate IS declining, and the UN projects that there will be 10 billion humans in 2062, ~50 years from now. That’s adding roughly one billion every 25 years. Now you need to superimpose the many hockey sticks I have previously referenced from “blog2009 The Graph: A Picture of the Present and Future”.
Then realize that the hockey sticks of UN-sustainability you see there result mainly from the activities of the 20-25% of the human population living in the developed world and that most of the remaining 75-80% want to achieve the same “standard of living” (read “consumption level”) as we in the west enjoy. Then do some extrapolation, and you will find that if that occurs, the carbon footprint of the human race 50 years from now could be equal to as many as 40 to 50 billion “2014 human equivalents”.
BUT, you say—-“We we are converting to renewables…and Elon Musk…and wind power…and EV’s…..and….”.
Look at how Exxon Mobil intends to burn every last bit of fossil fuel they can find, and how much coal India and China (with 1/3 of the earth’s population) intend to burn over the next 50 years. Then tell us we’re not whistling past the graveyard as we head towards 500 PPM of CO2 fifty years from now. The story is not here in the U.S. or in Germany or in France, folks, and Guy McPherson is not the extremist many would make him out to be—he is a realist..