@hiiro: I'm not entirely sure if i get where you're coming from here, so forgive me if i've misinterpreted you.

But i don't think anyone has made any logical errors of that type (i guess this is what you were intending: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem). When people argue, they make certain assumptions. But making assumptions isn't the same as making logical errors. If someone does object to those assumptions, then you can move on to a different, more fundamental part of the conversation.

There are many different levels on which disagreements occur, and yes, you have to figure out which one you are arguing. Suppose we're arguing about climate change. Well, most of the time we're going to be arguing about whether climate change exists or not. This is based on the assumption that if we can agree that it does exist, we can also agree that we don't want it to. Which is based on other assumptions such as that climate change is going to cause a great deal of human suffering. Which is based on the assumption that neither of us thinks humans suffering is a good thing. Both of those may also be arguable points, and someone should bring them up if they have a problem with them. But assuming (rather than stating) that the person you're debating with also don't want other humans to suffer doesn't amount to a logical error.

Although there are times when getting to the moral heart of a discussion really is important, most of the time everyone understands the assumptions being made, and it makes more sense to argue the points above that level instead. Because after all, if someone really did think that human suffering is totally fine for whatever reason, there's no good reason to discuss anything at all with them. If that was their view i'd just leave them to it and speak to someone else instead.

Last edited by IceCream (2012 November 10, 6:14 pm)

eikyuu wrote:

The gist of it is that: 1) there's a warming of the earth and oceans that occurs because of the sun's orbital cycle (Milankovitch cycle) 2) that warming of the oceans causes a release of CO2 from the oceans and then further warming.

So that's why you see in this case the temperature warming before the increase in CO2. The sun causes a warming and a release of CO2, and then the CO2 causes further warming. But still, most of the warming happens after the release of the CO2 "Overall, more than 90% of the glacial-interglacial warming occurs after the atmospheric CO2 increase"

Then how do you explain the cooling periods? Why didn't the world enter a catastrophic warming spiral after the CO2 starts getting released after previous cold periods.

That 90% of the warming occurs after C02 started rising still doesn't prove that CO2 causes that rise. If I were to walk 100 meters while dragging a trolley attached to a 10 long rope, then I will walk 90 meters after the trolley starts moving, but that doesn't mean the trolley is causing me to move... If the trolley finishes the race first then you may be on to something. But look at the graphs. The temperature drops also precede the CO2 drops.

eikyuu wrote:

Yes, sorry. Well, temperatures have varied a lot, but this has also had major impacts on the planet: mass extinctions for example. If we have to face a major event of climate change, this is going to be very costly. Most of humanity lives on the coast. All of these cities will be flooded. We will have to change all of our crops and where we grow them. We get bigger and more dangerous storms. Oceans will be hard hit: we depend on them for our food. This will be a major catastrophe. It's much cheaper to just release less greenhouse gases.

No one is denying that climate change may be catastrophic. What is being questioned is whether or not the relatively puny quantity of C02 humans have added to the atmosphere is having or will have any appreciable effects. Humans should of course prepare for climate change, but we shouldn't make poor economic decisions in a futile attempt to prevent it.

nadiatims wrote:

That 90% of the warming occurs after C02 started rising still doesn't prove that CO2 causes that rise. If I were to walk 100 meters while dragging a trolley attached to a 10 long rope, then I will walk 90 meters after the trolley starts moving, but that doesn't mean the trolley is causing me to move... If the trolley finishes the race first then you may be on to something. But look at the graphs. The temperature drops also precede the CO2 drops.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7699867_build-g … arium.html

It's basically a feedback mechanism. So temperatures rise, which causes more CO2 to be released, which causes more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere, which means that the temperature rises, which means that more CO2 is released, which... etc.

So, it really doesn't matter which comes first, temperature rise or CO2. If you raise either one, you should get the same effect.

It's really not that puny a rise of CO2. If CO2 generally cycles between 200 and 300 ppm, and it's now almost 400ppm, as a percentage that's a big increase.

What i'm interested in, if anyone knows, is by what mechanism the temperature starts to cool? Usually it just suddenly stops getting hotter and the temperature goes down, and the planet goes into an ice age. What causes that to happen? Is it some kind of self regulatory mechanism? If so, are we going to have to deal with a new ice age right after global warming?!?

Last edited by IceCream (2012 November 11, 7:45 am)

Rate of temperature increase is important too. If the CO2 rises and causes temperature rises over that course of centuries, then that would give animals/plants to adapt. But if the rise is significant in decades. Then no ecosystem can adapt that fast and you'll have problems.

nadiatims wrote:

Then how do you explain the cooling periods? Why didn't the world enter a catastrophic warming spiral after the CO2 starts getting released after previous cold periods.

One factor might be that "The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic, and thus increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing) So at some point the spiral slows down, as you keep adding CO2, it has less and less of an effect. It's also possible that, as the sun gets less intense as part of the cycle, it stops this warming spiral. But really these questions are complex and I can't provide you with a good answer.

nadiatims wrote:

That 90% of the warming occurs after C02 started rising still doesn't prove that CO2 causes that rise. If I were to walk 100 meters while dragging a trolley attached to a 10 long rope, then I will walk 90 meters after the trolley starts moving, but that doesn't mean the trolley is causing me to move... If the trolley finishes the race first then you may be on to something. But look at the graphs. The temperature drops also precede the CO2 drops.

As IceCream as pointed out, you can experimentally verify the warming effect of CO2 in a simple lab experiment. Of course, the Earth's climate is much more complex than that, but there's no doubt that CO2 has a greenhouse effect. This article explains the greenhouse effect produced by CO2: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argumen … &a=133 Here's the summary: "An enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 has been confirmed by multiple lines of empirical evidence. Satellite measurements of infrared spectra over the past 40 years observe less energy escaping to space at the wavelengths associated with CO2. Surface measurements find more downward infrared radiation warming the planet's surface. This provides a direct, empirical causal link between CO2 and global warming."

It seems that they have directly measured using satellites that CO2 indeed absorbs more energy than it did in the past (because there's more of it). So that's a direct observation of the enhanced greenhouse effect caused by more CO2.

Another thing that they have measured is "downward longwave radiation". That's radiation bouncing on the atmosphere and coming back downward. These measurements confirm that the CO2 is indeed bouncing back more radiation down to earth. That's the greenhouse effect.

nadiatims wrote:

What is being questioned is whether or not the relatively puny quantity of C02 humans have added to the atmosphere is having or will have any appreciable effects.

I think that last link really answers that question. Yes, more CO2 causes significant warming.

This image is from the IPCC report and shows how much positive forcing (warming) CO2 is causing compared to other factors: http://cdn.greenoptions.com/c/cd/cd93fd … adforc.jpg "The values reflect the total forcing relative to the start of the industrial era (about 1750). The forcings for all greenhouse gas increases, which are the best understood of those due to human activities, are positive because each gas absorbs outgoing infrared radiation in the atmosphere. Among the greenhouse gases, CO2 increases have caused the largest forcing over this period."

nadiatims wrote:

Isn't a little CO2 good for plants anyway? which leads to another point... Can't we funnel CO2 from power plants and things into greenhouses in order to grow plants in cold environments?

Yes, CO2 helps plants grow. But keep in mind that if you grow a plant, say corn, that will sequester some carbon into the plant, but that carbon will be released when the plant dies. So just growing cereals or veggies in greenhouses boosted with CO2 won't do anything to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere.

Last edited by Eikyu (2012 November 11, 5:41 pm)

Icecream wrote:

btw, i don't think it's fair to say that the jury is still out on whether the added CO2 is going to cause catastrophic warming or not. The very clear scientific consensus is that it will (and is doing). (probably not catastrophic in terms of the whole history of the earth, but certainly to humans).

Consensus does not always equal truth. A lot of scientists are starting to come forward with deep doubts about the so called consensus on global warming, including people who have been involved with or listed on the IPCC. I think the reality is that back in the day when global warming was largely ignored as far as policy is concerned, many people have accepted it without much scrutiny because on the surface it seems to make sense, and because well who wouldn't want to save the planet? But now governments are starting to get real and implement policy which has very real consequences the theory is under greater scrutiny than ever before.

Eikyuu wrote:

Yeah, there's no real doubt about global warming. It's just bogus organizations that try to create uncertainty about the science behind global warming. Sadly, this is working really well.

I don't think it's fair to characterise all doubt as coming from bogus organisations. And there are plenty of vested interests pushing the idea of anthropogenic global warming too. There are massive subsidies and a lot of research grants getting funnelled towards green energy. The science regarding global warming is deeply intertwined with politics.

Last edited by nadiatims (2012 November 12, 7:19 am)

nadiatims wrote:

Icecream wrote:

btw, i don't think it's fair to say that the jury is still out on whether the added CO2 is going to cause catastrophic warming or not. The very clear scientific consensus is that it will (and is doing). (probably not catastrophic in terms of the whole history of the earth, but certainly to humans).

Consensus does not always equal truth. A lot of scientists are starting to come forward with deep doubts about the so called consensus on global warming, including people who have been involved with or listed on the IPCC. I think the reality is that back in the day when global warming was largely ignored as far as policy is concerned, many people have accepted it without much scrutiny because on the surface it seems to make sense, and because well who wouldn't want to save the planet? But now governments are starting to get real and implement policy which has very real consequences the theory is under greater scrutiny than ever before.

Right, consensus doesn't always equal truth. A jury doesn't always make the right decision either. But in this case, the jury is very clearly back in, and 98% or so of them think the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is extremely strong.

Now, what percentage consensus would you want before making decisions based on the science? I don't think it's a politician's job to become an armchair scientist and try to assess the evidence themselves. I don't even think it should be their job to make decisions based on what their armchair-scientist citizens think about a subject, which is generally whatever has been swallowed from whichever armchair-scientist-journalist they read. That over-represents skepticism at the cost of solid evidence. And i don't think you need 100% consensus among scientists. You have to make decisions based on best evidence, and our best evidence is clearly that climate change is a big deal, and we can't wait any longer to start tackling it.

Climate change scepticism isn't a new thing, it's been going on for more than 50 years now. Pretty much all of their arguments have been refuted time and time again, and they still aren't all convinced. That's ok, that's part of science. It's healthy for other scientists to come out with as many objections as they can. Maybe one day one of them will come out with an objection that does change the scientific consensus.

Of course, many of them are on the payroll of the oil companies, so perhaps they won't. You can't force science to fit private interests particularly well, not in either direction. You can certainly bodge the numbers well enough to convince armchair scientists though.

EDIT: Tzadeck said it better...

Last edited by IceCream (2012 November 12, 8:27 am)

vix86 wrote:

I've just always thought the effects were pretty 当たり前. Temperatures have been rising at quicker rates than in prior eras (last I read).

Yeah, it is quite 当たり前. I mean, if you bother to look at before/after pictures of glaciers, it's hard to deny that they have been melting. Or look at how the Northwest passage is now open in the Arctic. If you want to see glaciers melting, this is pretty good: http://video.pbs.org/video/1108763899/

nadiatims wrote:

Consensus does not always equal truth. A lot of scientists are starting to come forward with deep doubts about the so called consensus on global warming, including people who have been involved with or listed on the IPCC. I think the reality is that back in the day when global warming was largely ignored as far as policy is concerned, many people have accepted it without much scrutiny because on the surface it seems to make sense, and because well who wouldn't want to save the planet? But now governments are starting to get real and implement policy which has very real consequences the theory is under greater scrutiny than ever before.

Eikyuu wrote:

Yeah, there's no real doubt about global warming. It's just bogus organizations that try to create uncertainty about the science behind global warming. Sadly, this is working really well.

I don't think it's fair to characterise all doubt as coming from bogus organisations. And there are plenty of vested interests pushing the idea of anthropogenic global warming too. There are massive subsidies and a lot of research grants getting funnelled towards green energy. The science regarding global warming is deeply intertwined with politics.

Actually, there are no serious scientists that have doubts about global warming. Richard Muller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Muller) was about the last serious scientist who raised sincere doubts and he's now changed his position. Look here: that's a lot of scientists in favor of global warming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific … ate_change

Sadly, public opinion on climate change is not up to date with scientific opinion. And many organizations continue to try and spread doubt.

I work systematically. I don’t find people’s flaws by coincidence or luck. When I use my system, the flaws practically jump out at me. Start at your opponent’s first sentence. Ask yourself, “is this a moral view or a scientific view?”, “can the words being used be defined to my satisfaction?”, and “are the actions mentioned in his moral views actions of humans that can be observed scientifically?”

I keep saying “scientifically-observable, human action” because this category of action is special. For these actions, one can have a moral view and a scientific view at the same time. Here, “action” excludes “to be” because if “to be” were included, you could say, “it is immoral to be mentally disabled”, “it is immoral to be black”, “it is immoral to be born to poor parents” and other such statements where you would be criticizing a person for what he is (or what is done to him) instead of what he does. The action needs to be human because if it weren’t, you could say, “it is morally bad for a spider to eat a fly trapped on its web”, “it’s immoral for a shark to kill more sea lions than it can eat”, “it’s immoral for a tree limb to fall on a young plant and kill it” and other such statements where you can’t engage the perpetrator in a debate. I also prefer for the moral statement to be in the form of a single, non-descript person because this makes it easy to show that the speaker is acting hypocritically. If your opponent says, “it is immoral for an Asian to start a company in America”, and he is not Asian, it is impossible for him to get caught contradicting himself unless he encourages Asians to start companies in America. I would ask him why Asians are so special, and why his view doesn’t extend to Canadians or Mexicans. If he concedes that point, I’ll ask why his view doesn’t extend to the American children of Asians, Canadians, and Mexicans. In this way, I’ll try to get him to generalize his view so it becomes something like, “it is immoral for a person to start a company in America”. When worded such that the action is performed by “a person”, it is easier to imagine how the holder of that view might end up contradicting himself. However, I don’t consider this a necessity for my method. The human action needs to be scientifically-observable so that you can prove that your opponent is acting hypocritically without needing his testimony. “To think”, “to feel (an emotion)”, and other such verbs are thus excluded. Imagine he says, “it is immoral to kill someone intentionally, but it is not immoral to kill someone unintentionally”. Then he kills someone. What will he say? He will say it was unintentional, of course. And you won’t be able to prove otherwise because science and technology aren’t advanced enough to prove what people are really thinking.

At the same time he feels “it is immoral for an Asian to start a company in America”, he can also feel that thousands of Asians start companies in America. In fact, he could feel that no Asians start companies in America. I call this his scientific view, which is separate from his moral view. Now, if he is resentful of Asians coming to America and starting companies, he is likely to say that thousands of Asians are currently doing this. In such situations, he thinks that he has to hold this scientific view in order to get people to agree with his moral view. He is wrong because these two views are not necessarily related, and he might be able to make his moral view more convincing if he realizes the scientific view doesn’t matter. You need to be perceptive and figure out when this mixing is happening because your opponent may not know how to express himself accurately. If you take him at his word and believe that if you show him evidence that hardly any Asians start companies in America, you will be surprised to see him denying your evidence without seeming to have any logical reason or counter-evidence. This is what’s happening between you guys and nadiatims (you guys are committing the same flaw she is). I'll address global warming and the specific flaws you all made next time.

If anyone is interested, recent answer by Al Gore:

Al Gore wrote:

There are at least 15 deeply researched separate lines of evidence that all confirm man-made global warming. They are all consistent, each with the others. Every National Academy of Science on the planet agrees with the consensus. The Academies describe the evidence as "indisputable". Every professional scientific society in every field related to climate science and earth science also agree. And 97-98% of climate scientists worldwide most actively publishing also agree. Animals and plants also agree -- in that they are moving their ranges by latitude and altitude to find climate niches similar to the ones in which they evolved. Even if you leave climate science completely out of it and just measure extreme temperatures, the statistical record of global temperatures shows that three-standard deviation events have increased from 0.25% of the time (from 1951-1980) to 10% of the time now. There is as strong a consensus as you will find in science, with the possible exception of the existence of gravity.

(http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1 … te/c71tvzk)

Yes, i think we all get that nadiatims is spouting a good deal of Randian ideas.

The thing is though, i don't get the impression that nadiatims is a psychopath like Ayn Rand was. I don't think the disagreement is happening at that level.

I think the concept of freedom that everything is based on in nadiatims system is shallow and misguided. The concept of "fairness" is also butchered.  I also think that you have to do a great deal of empirical fudging and ignoring or explaining away data to make it seem like it is anywhere close to a "better" system efficiency wise. It's obvious from the start it's not better socially. So, even if we could agree to disagree on the concepts and morality, i would still think nadiatims was wrong, and still have plenty i could argue.

Sometimes the arguments do veer off towards sounding like we can sacrifice our humanity for efficiency (pensioners who haven't saved don't deserve any help), but i don't think that nadiatims would actually like the reality of that (pensioners starving and freezing to death... hardly the mark of a civilised society), and she does believe in a safety net. So, i don't think we're at a moral impasse yet.

I've tried to address most of these points in my posts, but we still have plenty to argue...

Last edited by IceCream (2012 November 15, 11:17 pm)

I've managed to restrain myself because I'm an economist, and we (like most social scientist) always encounter this problem: If we find something that confirms someone's ideological beliefs, then people say 'oh, but we knew that already. Why did you need maths and stats to show that?' If we find something that contradicts what people think, they say 'that can't be right. My own personal experience and common sense say otherwise.' I also found that there are a lot of ad hominem attacks here that I didn't like.

But now I can't resist any more... about libertarians: being a libertarian is not equal to thinking about the greatest good for the greatest number of people, or about equal opportunity or social mobility. It means that you consider it a moral principle that the free market dictates what a person's outcomes in life will be. I happen to think that's a good thing in many, many instances, and I think that free markets (WHEN THEY WORK) have given us such wonderful things like iPhones, Anki, Ex-Words, Japanese food where there are no Japanese people etc.

But being a libertarian also logically implies lots of other things: that parents should not be allowed to give their children an advantage over others, and in particular, that wealth cannot be passed on to the next generation at all, because that's not earned wealth. Somehow that part always gets 'forgotten', and you end up with rich kids inevitably having rich parents and very, very few poor people ever making it, and ultimately we get a plutocracy. Like in the US, or in Britain, supposedly more capitalist and free than other countries.

I'm about as pro-America as they come without actually being American, but just as a reality check: compared to the US, which country has greater social mobility (i.e. poor people's kids have better odds of becoming middle class etc) and higher life expectancy, and achieves all of this while taking in more immigrants in relation to the existing population?

Sweden. Pretty 'socialist' in my book. Ridiculously high taxes. http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/SE