Note: This is not a debate about whether man-made climate change is a real thing or not. It is instead for those that are at least somewhat scientifically literate that have views regarding the magnitude of climate change and whether or not it is the most prominent threat that humans face today as a species.
It would also be interesting to hear views as to how to play our part as citizens as well as possible proposes for what to do about it at a governmental level.
From what I remember at the time of writing his book "Brief answers to the Big questions" by Scientist Stephen Hawking the threat of runaway climate change did appear to be very very significant and posing more of a threat to human species than that of anything else at least some hundred years down the line.
That being said, I haven't really kept much up to date on this issue since then. However, it would follow logically that humans doing their part can help to reduce runaway climate change as well as many other things to help the planet and all present and future generations both human and other animal species. Albeit, I haven't really taken into account yet if this is happening at a significant level and much more than years before.
Now, what are your views?
The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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Arguments
Seems to me, that the Earth itself, has the advantage knowledge wise, when it comes to the realities of Climate Change?
Man is billions of years, behind the knowledge curveball, if the truth be told?
If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the theory over Climate Change, reside within the confines of a computer, or a series of computer's?
Being that some scientists, came up with the concept in regards to Climate Change?
From Wikipedia:
"Early hominins—particularly the australopithecines, whose brains and anatomy are in many ways more similar to ancestral non-human apes—are less often referred to as "human" than hominins of the genus Homo.[5] Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia, and gave rise to anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa about 315,000[6] years ago.[7][8] Humans began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago, and in several waves of migration, they ventured out of Africa and populated most of the world.[9] "
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Runaway Climate Change is indeed the most pressing matter among those listed... Because of the width of the spectrum of areas of life it affects...
Climate Change causes big population movements, comes at a huge cost to the economy (infrastructure, agriculture, etc.), loss of coastal land means more concentrated population, etc...
All those effects are putting pressure on social order which in turn destabilizes the economy and it's a downward spiral to greater chaos...
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1) Runaway Climate Change - when our civilisation reaches the level of technological advancement allowing us to launch an irreversible long-term climate change process, we will be just as much able to easily repair the damage.
2) Overpopulation - will not be a problem until our numbers reach trillions, and by then, again, our technology will provide a solution.
3) Artificial intelligence - if anything, this is the greatest boon in human history, as merging with the AI will uplift us as a species to an unimaginable level off existence.
4) Nuclear war - aside from it being unable to wipe humanity out, it is also very unlikely to happen, as everyone - including the vilest states in the world - knows what is at stake.
In my view, the greatest threat in human history is the one that has been plaguing our civilisation every since it emerged: intellectual collapse. Countless totalitarian philosophies have attempted to enslave humanity, and so far they have only succeeded locally, and mostly reversibly. But as the communications become easier and the more marginal voices now have access to everyone's ears, it is unclear whether this will always be the case.
And the biggest threat, in my opinion, comes not from organised totalitarianism, but, rather, from slowly encroaching totalitarianism based on initially good intentions. Something like an appealing version of socialism taking ideological dominance in the world over centuries and becoming so deeply ingrained in people's minds that they take it as objectively correct ideology. If this ever happens, then humanity will be in a serious trouble and will start devouring itself - and even if we survive as a species, we will be damaged and broken.
But realistically, this probably will not happen either, since, as I see it, technological development will naturally put more and more focus on the ideas of individual freedom and independence. I see the future of humanity as bright and prosperous, and it is possible that even within my lifetime even aging will be defeated. There is truly no limit for our growth.
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How many volcanoes on this planet have spewed ash and smoke on and off, for how many billions of years now?
Man in general, is familiar with 315,000 years, out of the 4.5 Billion years, that the Earth has been around for, the Climate Change ideology, is grasping at straws, with an ideology, birthed from the artificial existence of technology?
From Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Etna
"Mount Etna, or Etna (Italian: Etna [ˈɛtna] or Mongibello[mondʒiˈbɛllo]; Sicilian: Mungibeddu [mʊndʒɪbˈbɛɖɖʊ]or â Muntagna; Latin: Aetna), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina and Catania. It lies above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is the highest active volcano in Europe outside the Caucasus.[3] It is currently 3,326 m (10,912 ft) high, though this varies with summit eruptions. It is the highest peak in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2(459 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km (87 miles). This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. Only Mount Teide on Tenerife in the Canary Islandssurpasses it in the whole of the European–North-African region west of the Black Sea.[4] In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder and king of gods, and the forges of Hephaestus were said to also be located underneath it.[5] "
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But I do not expect this scenario to occur, since advancements in cybernetics, genetics and medical sciences will keep us in shape no matter how easy life gets. When you can take one pill a day and be fitter than Mike Tyson in his prime, smarter than Einstein, happier than Dalai Lama and more enthusiastic than Steve Jobs, then laziness has no power over you.
---
You also mentioned Stephen Hawking in your post, and he warned us that any contact with an advanced alien civilisation will probably lead to our extermination. It is hard to assess how likely this scenario is, since we do not know anything about aliens, how common they are, what they are like and so on. But thinking about it, aliens or any other mass extinction event triggered by something outside our Solar system is, probably, the only thing that can annihilate humanity at this point with us not being able to do anything about it. We have advanced too far to either exterminate ourselves or be exterminated by anything else our planet or its surroundings can throw at us.
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With regards to what we can do, I'm afraid not much... We cannot stop it, cannot prevent it, cannot reverse it... It's too late for that imo...
The only relevant thing to debate at this point, is how best to prepare for the inevitable consequences (population movements, loss of land, social unrest, etc...). Climate change won't bring about the end of the world, nor the end of humanity, but a rapidly increasing number of humans will suffer from it, directly or indirectly...
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In other words, the planet, is going to do what it does, whether it fluctuates from hot to freezing, and all that humanity can do, like its been doing for 315,000 years, is adapt and change, to its various climates, and just grow and live with it, and hope for the best?
Being that man has been dealing, with the earth's weather, long before the Climate Change Ideology ever showed up, and before, the internet ever showed up as well?
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what is the criteria to differentiate "runaway climate change" from "climate change" ?
Personally I never believed the claim about the world ending in 12 years when it was made, thought we can hope, but is there a time frame in which the "runaway climate change" will have detrimental effects?
what is the pollution level cut off that tips weather changes to man made runaway climate change? are we 10% over the threshold? 50? how far? how much?
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood"
The Animals
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The largest scientific estimate for global output of carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes(500 million tons) is less than 2% of the known total global output of co2 created by humans every year (24 billion tons). Note that I said the largest ESTIMATE when it comes to volcanoes, and the KNOWN global output. The volcanic co2 output is usually much smaller than that output every year, but the human co2 output will grow every year!!!!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/?redirect=1
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Man can alter the climate locally in a pretty significant way, but launching an irreversible process, or one that will take centuries to reverse, is far beyond our capability. Even if we try as hard as we can to make our planet a living hell, a few years/decades after we stop things will be back to normal. The planet is much more resilient than we give it credit for, and it has been through epic mass extinctions and prevailed.
We have already managed to wipe out countless species, and all it did is reduce the competition for other species that moved in and started to reproduce many times faster. In the Medieval times we eliminated entire forests, and then several harsh winters and plague epidemics nearly wiped us out and the forests grew back in a matter of years.
We can change the environment, but we cannot make it worse. Maybe in 200-300 years with a very focused effort we could, but as of now we are mere ants in comparison to the natural forces. We can produce as much CO2 as we want, detonate all of our nuclear weapons, chop off and burn down forests, spill oil all around the oceans - and all we will do is make life a bit harder for ourselves. Nature as a whole will hardly notice the disturbance and forget that anything happened a few years later. As for us, we will quickly adapt to the changes, as we always have.
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The bit highlighted is also what Stephen Hawking went on to say but in similar words by the way.
As for the other bit you mentioned I think that a lot of us at times tend to see things either bigger or smaller than what they are. There is a cognitive bias at play here I think withal I cannot remember the specific name of it. Although there was a huge leap of technological advancement after the second world war and the fact many great achievements have occurred in technology since then I think a lot of us at times tend to be under the illusion that our technology is far greater than what it actually is. And I would also have to agree with Stephen Hawking when he said that it will be some hundreds of years yet before artificial intelligence supersedes us and we can enjoy many more great scientific minds in the process before and if that actually happens.
With that being said, within the next some hundred years while the planet could indeed be in climate change turmoil space travel could very well be possible and a viable solution to saving ourselves and many other living species from the catastrophic effects of runaway climate change due to advances in technology. As for ourselves, for now, we can at least do our part and help prevent things getting even worse, people at a governmental level can continue to implement policies that can contribute the prevention of further damage.
Some References including peer-reviewed data on runaway climate change irreversibility:
https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-change/
https://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1704?sid4fdad7e-23ad-4d54-a3c6-75041ad31328=
The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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That would rest on decades of scientific research backed up by a plethora of empirical and objective evidence which are documented in thousands upon thousands of scientific peer-reviewed journals that can be read and examined.
Moreover, one is to do with the magnitude of the damaging effects of the climate due to human activities. The other is to do with the natural cycle of climate change unhindered by human activities. The current global scientific consensus is that the "current warming being experienced is completely out of sync with previous cycles" https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/10-myths-about-climate-change and is largely therefore at current climate change is largely man-made.
With the bit in bold, you'd be right not to believe such a ludicrous claim which mainly came about via some media outlets; not reputable scientific sources. With the other bit, there is an excessive amount of scientific papers to refer to.
A rule I have is that when it comes to media and/or politicians reporting scientific information is to take them with a grain of salt being that they are famous of so often misreporting the actual scientific studies.
The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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"launching an irreversible process, or one that will take centuries to reverse, is far beyond our capability. Even if we try as hard as we can to make our planet a living hell, a few years/decades after we stop things will be back to normal. The planet is much more resilient than we give it credit for, and it has been through epic mass extinctions and prevailed."
That's some very interesting argumentation, and I'm glad to see you've backed your argument with documentation to prove it?!?!?!
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I was being sarcastic
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Unfortunately, it looks like this is becoming a debate about whether climate change is real.
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Wow, isn't humanity being good to this planet then, choking it out, with our demands?
We want our vehicles, we want the oil, we're creating smog, with our demands?
Are you going to chew out the other countries in the world that pollute their own skies, as well?
Or just chew me out, because its easier to do?
Man can abuse, the atmosphere all that he wants, are you going to chew out, some of the industries in the United States, that are filling the skies above their properties as well, with their smog?
Go ahead, @piloteer, go to D.C., and chew Trump out, tell him, that he's failing your mindset?
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I will chew you all out. I have an electric car and solar panels. I think carbon emmiting people like you should be taxed so hard your grandkids will be in debt.
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The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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You can, keep your mouth to yourself.
You're another anonymous name on the internet, using it to wage your complaint fest with, right?
"I have an electric car and solar panels. I think carbon emmiting people like you should be taxed so hard your grandkids will be in debt."
I don't care what your individual self drives.
So, unless, you're big enough, to tell the rest of the world, and the rest of the United States, about, how your individual self is living your life via your individual electric car with its solar panels, and that everyone else should do as you do?
Then, your words are as useful, as toilet paper is, it would seem, in the light above the Real World reality, right?
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I'm a voter, and I will vote to make sure polluters are so broke they can't afford the things they need to make their pollution. Or toilet paper.
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This is your counter argument?
"I'm a voter, and I will vote to make sure polluters are so broke they can't afford the things they need to make their pollution. Or toilet paper."
What about the other talking points?
You're another anonymous name on the internet, using it to wage your complaint fest with, right?
"I have an electric car and solar panels. I think carbon emmiting people like you should be taxed so hard your grandkids will be in debt."
I don't care what your individual self drives.
So, unless, you're big enough, to tell the rest of the world, and the rest of the United States, about, how your individual self is living your life via your individual electric car with its solar panels, and that everyone else should do as you do?
Where are your other non expressed counter arguments for the rest of the above?
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The "talking point" was a claim that you made which eluded to the idea that volcanoes produce more, or a comparable amount of co2 as humans do. I refuted that claim with documented evidence. That left you with three viable options. Either 1) attempt to refute the evidence I put forth. 2) try and approach the argument at a different angle, or 3) concede your point. You chose option four, which was to totally forgo any further debate, and try and use character assassination to refute my case. So given the fact that you no longer want to have a discussion, I will henceforth be demeaning your character because it seems like you just want to play the name calling game. OK, I like a good mud slinging fest. But just so you know, this is a debate site, and you were only able to try and attack my character (which like you said is only an anonymous name on the internet, so I'm not really sure what you're trying to attack), rather than address the issue of how much emissions volcanoes give off. That seems to be a pattern with you though. You try to make a point, and when somebody attempts to refute that point, you have a temper tantrum and go all sideways on everybody and neglect to address the issue any longer, which makes me wonder why you're on a debate site, if you don't know how to make any proper arguments. If you'd like to discuss volcanoes, or climate change, I am totally willing. If you wanna just roll around in the mud, just realize, some of us actual debaters know that you're just having another one of your temper tantrums.
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Kudos to you for your patience with science deniers. And kudos for fortifying your arguments with documented evidence. It was an interesting question you've posed for us, but sadly it seems like we won't really even get to the discussion of whether climate change is the greatest threat to humans in human history, because it seems the reality of climate change is still a question to some.
Although I do believe climate change is the greatest threat to humans currently, I don't think it is the greatest threat to humans since the beginning of human history.
Some 200,000 years ago, when humans still lived in the trees in Africa, human kind was faced with a huge threat. The trees were dying, and arid African plains were impeding on our living space. Some geneticists believe that when those humans came down from the trees and started walking upright, their numbers dwindled. Possibly to less than one hundred. They had to devise an entirely new way to survive, that there bodies were not adapt to do. Some say our only guiding light was the fact that we sweat, while other mammals pant. Mammals that pant need to stop and rest to let their bodies cool, while humans could continue running for far longer periods of time. They learned to hunt in pacts that would track an animal simply by continuing to run toward it. When the animal needed to stop and rest, they could kill it with tools. So the threat of reworking our entire way of life just to survive was a bigger threat to human kind, in my mind at least.
Some 75,000 years ago, the island of Sumatra exploded. The "super volcano" on that island is one of the largest in the world (possibly the largest). When it erupted way back when, it covered all of southeast Asia in ash. Up to 20 feet in some places. Ash covered all of India, and even reached Africa. The ash cloud blocked out the sun around the entire world. The ash cloud remained for around 5 to 20 years. Neil Degrass Tyson described it as a worldwide, ten year long, cloudy day. Plants in the tropics froze and died. Geneticists say that around that time, there was a huge disruption in our DNA. They claim that our population dwindled to less than 30,000. Whatever catastrophic event it was that occurred to cause that bottle neck in our DNA, actually made all of humankind more closely related genetically. An event like that certainly rivals climate change, as far as "The greatest threat to humans" goes.
As opposed to what some people might think, nuclear war can be an even greater threat to humans than climate change. All the nuclear weapons that exist on earth have the potential to destroy every land mass on earth. Not even considering the nuclear fallout that would occur. The top layers of all of the earths land masses would be blown up. I think nuclear war, or even any war in general (because war is an effective pollution maker itself) is possibly a bigger threat to humans than climate change. Someone did point out that no country would use nukes unless it was absolutely warranted, so as long as nuclear weapons aren't ever used, they aren't a threat at all. But the fact that they exist is at least as much of a threat as climate change, at least in my mind.
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The Climate Change Ideology, appears to me, to be a peculiar and puzzling science?
(This planet has undergone global changes, and will continue to do so, at its Earthen leisure.
The winds, the currents of the oceans, the tectonic plates, the droughts, the rainy seasons, the hurricane seasons, the tornadoes, the nor'easters, tsunamis, and earthquakes, are all going to do their Earthen diligence, because that's what this planet does, it changes how it will, and we're all along for the ride, (regardless of what some of the alternative minded scientists say about it,) just like our ancestors, were along for their rides, and the upcoming generations down the road, will get to experience those earth changing experiences as well?)
It exists within the hard drive of a computer, or a series, of alternative science minded individuals computers?
And because those alternative minded, Climate Change ideological scientists, can't go back in time, to the very creation of this planet, and re-evaluate, and can self support their individual climate change ideology, with some solid facts, because they went back in time, 4.5 Billion years ago, and documented in person, every single, climate changing event, that has affected this very planet?
Then all that they can do, is push hearsay, speculation, and hypotheticals based upon their alternative climate change mindset, or mindsets?
And all we as humans can do, is adapt to whatever the climate evolves to next, or humanity might see some changes to its own existence in varying degrees?
You stay warm, you stay cool, you hydrate, you stay healthy, and you work at staying healthy, and our bodies go through changes just like this planet does, its as, simple as that.
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AI at this point isn't a real concern and overpopulation could cause mass death but wouldn't offer an existential threat in itself. Millions more people would die of malnurtition and preventable disease each year, but millions already die and people in developed countries barely notice.
Nuclear war is the only contender but the science on if a nuclear winter would actually occur and devestate human civilisation is somewhat iffy. It would be devestating but we aren't sure if it would actually be an existential threat.
Climate change stands out because it could destroy human civilisation and that's the direction we're heading towards. Not only that but it contains within it the dangers of both nuclear war and overpopulation.
In terms of overpopulation, there is no set amount where we count as overpopulated. It's all relative to out ability to produce commodities (especially essentials like food, clean water, medicine, etc) and this will drop as.climate change devestates crops and production.
In real terms, I think climate change also puts us at risk of nuclear war due to the effect on the Himalayan watershed. Almost half the world population relies on the Himalayan watershed and India and China have already based decades of growth on unsustainable groundwater extraction. The Himalayans are heating up faster than the norm and even if we limit ourselves to a modest rise in temperature we can expect a large reduction in the water flow from their, resulting in drought and famine in 3 nuclear powers (China, Pakistan, India) that are already in territorial conflicts with one another. When tens of millions of people in those countries are dying, are we sure the social upheaval won't spread into war and nuclear war?
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: preventable disease    nuclear winter   clean water   real concern  
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Thank you TKDB, those are valid concerns, but I find a few problems with some of the reasoning. First off, there seems to be a complete lack of evidence that climatologists are purposely misrepresenting weather patterns. The claim that there's a conspiracy among climatologists isn't backed by any evidence. Climatologists don't need to go back billions of years to demonstrate that humans are affecting weather patterns adversely. They really only need to demonstrate how the earth has been getting consistently hotter ever since the industrial revolution. Actually, climatologists would be the first to tell you that this is not the first time a runaway climate change has taken place on earth. In fact, it's happened a lot of times in the past. The only difference now is they know it correlates with the beginning of the industrial revolution and the surge of human co2 output. Samples of the ice in the artic show the coal, and oil soot that we know is man made. They can decipher the man made soot from the volcanic ash that's left behind because the ash feom the volcanoes are a denser, heavier residue than the man made residues.
Another problem with the climatologist conspiracy is a total lack of a true motive. Exactly what is it a climatologist will gain by purposely misrepresenting weather patterns? Even if it were to land them a sweet book deal, if they're not good authors, the books won't sell anyway, whether it's fact, or made up junk science. It's also worth noting that a lot of authors who deny climate change sell a lot of books. There's actually quite a lot of money to be made in the climate denier
book industry.
Your feelings about the climate doing what it wants in spite of human activity is exactly what climatologists are saying won't happen. The climate will be adversely affected. It's actually not very difficult scientific algorithms that are needed to determine this. Greenhouse gases are needed for our planet to retain any heat. Without them, all the sun's heat would be deflected back into space and the earth would be an ice ball. This is basic climatology. When we add more greenhouse gases to the equation, we alter the weather patterns. This was known a hundred years ago by scientists, and they knew that it was happening, they just didn't know that it would adversely affect weather patterns, and how it would affect them. After a lot of research was conducted, they realized that catastrophic storms were becoming more common, and at an alarming rate. After awhile, it was pretty easy for anyone who had knowledge of the weather to connect the dots. From there, they were tasked with convincing all of society that we are destroying the tranquility of our weather pattern.
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The Earth, and it's weather, and how it affects the planet overall, is all the factual evidence that I need.
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Well, the weather patterns are changing. Dangerous storms used to happen once every 10 to 20 years. Now they take place around every 3 years. This change took place within one lifetime. I'm not sure how old you are, but if you're older than 50, and you've been documenting your local weather, you'd realize that what climatologists have been saying since you were a toddler is happening just the way they said it would. You can't get anymore factual evidence than that.
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"Never underestimate the difficulty of changing false beliefs by facts."
~ Henry Rosovsky
The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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If you are able to see how false it is so easily, why can't the people all over the world who spend their lives studying this not see it?
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Good luck by the way trying to reason a person out of a position they never reasoned themselves into.
The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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@ZeusAres42
@CYDdharta
Why not interview the alternative scientists themselves, and ask them, your very own questions, themselves?
You could reach out, and interview the millions of farmers who farm their land each year, for a living, and see what their opinions are on climate change?
And see if their individual opinions, maybe coincide, with those opinions, of the alternative scientists?
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We do however, have the self reported opinions of ththe global scientific community, and their stance on this is quite clear. So I ask again: what do you know that they do not, and how?
If it is so obvious, why do the majority of the worlds scientists have it wrong??
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The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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So.... you may want to rethink citing that article.
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The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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The results speak for themselves.
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Did you read the actual study?
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The world is currently being run by the pharmaceutical industry totalitarian dictatorship. Just in case you didn't know.
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The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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The above quoted is a good reflection of the lack of scientific literacy in the US. I am not sure why this is. However, the scientific and educated community of the US which make up the minority do deserve credit for their efforts which so often seem in vain. The above was from 2013 and even today many Americans are still misled on serious scientific matters no longer up for controversy. But Science journalists continue to spend huge amounts of time debunking these myths which indeed never die.
Also, to assert that science by consensus (the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in related fields) is the opposite of science as well as to claim that all scientists that agree on climate change do so because they would get fired if they didn't is just ludicrous.
Moreover, the claim that climate change is largely man-made is an unequivocal fact backed up by decades of research based on a plethora of objective and empirical evidence. And just to drill the above facts home just take a look at the following:
The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.
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