Reply #44: You're going to get piled on here... [View All]

sorry.

3 points that are of significance, and that Crichton would, and I believe has, pointed out:

1. Science isn't done by "consensus". Science isn't a democratic process. When was the last time you heard "a majority of physicists agree, E=mc2", or "we took a vote, and evolution by natural selection is what we decided as the origin of species"? You haven't, because such a claim would sound ridiculous. Science isn't decided by consensus. Science involves the generation and testing of hypothesis that can be checked in reference to the real world, and it only takes one researcher to be right. When someone falls back on "consensus", take it as a warning sign.

2. The climate change hypothesis rests upon a series of claims. Laying it out entirely: 1) The climate currently appears to be in a warming trend (there's currently little argument about this over the time period for which we have good data, about the last 150 years or so); 2) the preponderance of carbon dioxide, methane, and other "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere bears a significant degree of responsibility for the climate change (there's somewhat less agreement about this, and no one can yet say exactly how much or little an effect (on an interval scale) specific greenhouse gases are supposed to have); 3) Human production of these greenhouse gases has a demonstrable link to the warming trend (here's where things start to break down. We can show a warming trend over a period of increasing greenhouse gas production, but we can't rule out either a spurious association nor even find the exact degree of association that would support the link). All three claims would have to be true for global warming to be attributed to human cause.

3. When people make the claim that we ought to have less of an impact on the environment "just in case", and "who could it hurt?", they're ignoring the costs and consequences of retooling or limiting human economic activities in order to produce such an outcome. The fact is that "going green" will cost something and will be paid for in lost production and trade in the economy. If you're relatively well off, maybe that's not so many car trips or plane trips here and there or something. If you're not so well off, that means something else altogether.