A question for r/climateskeptics: If the alarmists are wrong, then what's really going on with climate?

EchoInSilence · 2 months

Tangentially related, efforts to reduce consumption of carbon are largely futile since peak oil suggests we cannot emit enough carbon to more than double atmospheric concentrations since pre-industrial times (i.e., from 280 ppm to more than 560 ppm).

I found this one particularly interesting. Do you have any sources on this? What about peak coal and natural gas?

EchoInSilence · 2 months

I should have worded my question better. I realize that there aren't "binary" distinctions - but I still don't think all the skeptics are right about everything.

I mean, I've seen some skeptics claim that the alleged warming trend simply fraud, some say it's within the range of statistical noise, others say that it is just an artifact of the urban heat island effect, others think it is statistically significant but can be explained primarily by the sun or ENSO; yet others think that it's primarily due to CO2 but don't think future warming will be as large as the IPCC predicts. and so on.

While I admit that the explanations aren't exactly mutually exclusive, they do tend to weaken each other - the more truth there is to one argument, the less true the others are. So I'm still trying to figure out which of these objections are valid and how they fit into the bigger picture.

EchoInSilence · 2 months

Sure, but I guess I'm more concerned about the explanations involved. GISS, HadCRUT, etc. might not have the exact same measurements, but there is correlation between their datasets and (this is my point here) they accept the same general explanation about why the climate is warming.

On the other hand I've seen a lot of different explanations from the skeptic side. Some think it's fraud, some think it's an artifact of the urban heat island effect, some think it's primarily solar activity, some agree it's primarily CO2 but disagree about it's future effects, and so on. And while the explanations might not be exactly mutually exclusive, there are still contradictions of sorts. I mean, if you think the warming trend is mostly (>50%) due to the sun, doesn't also make sense to say that it's also mostly due to CO2 but won't be catastrophic. And if you think it's just scientific fraud then the other reasons are kind of moot.

So I'm still trying to get a general explanation about what's going on with climate.

EchoInSilence · 2 months

I have actually never seen a skeptic claim this, though there must be people who believe this because the alarmists keep attacking those people.

I guess I should have worded it better. I meant to refer to different types of arguments which imply there isn't a warming trend for one reason or another- that the data is within the bounds of random noise, that it's solely an artifact of the urban heat island effect, that the scientists have conspired to falsify data, and so on.

I think there is probably a continuum between these two groups.

Of course, but I think you can still say that there is a degree of contradiction. A skeptic who thinks that the warming is 90% natural and 10% human-caused has a position that contradicts a skeptic who thinks it's 80% human caused but won't be catastrophic. And both would contradict a skeptic who thinks the warming trend is actually just fraudulent data.

I think this is where you find the last group you identifiy. They point out that if the climate really were dominated by positive feedbacks, much more warming should have occurred by now. You could, in fact, have someone who believes that 100% of warming over the last century was due to CO2 and still say "Meh." when it comes to supposed catastrophic outcomes because they see no real evidence of climate warming more than a degree or two per doubling of CO2.

Is this also your own opinion of what's going on with climate?

EchoInSilence

TROPHY CASE

you'll need to login or register to do that

create a new account

login