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Originally posted by BadBadNeil I remember in the early to mid 80s there was going to be a hole in the atmosphere from all the hair spray people were using and we were all going to burn to a crisp. Fear of global warming ended the big hair era!

Ha. I remember that too. Lucky for us, the end of big hair was not a bad thing!

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Originally posted by Shakka Ha. I remember that too. Lucky for us, the end of big hair was not a bad thing!

Global Warming criminals

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Originally posted by trancaholic It seems that we disagree fundamentally here. There is an as of yet non-refuted scientific theory that relates the amount of CO_2 in the atmosphere with the amount of heat leaving earth through it. Furthermore, there is an as of yet non-refuted theory which entails that the amount of CO_2 in the atmosphere rises as humans releases it. If you want to say that global warming is not taking place, and that pollution by the human race is not accelerating this, then the burden of evidence is upon you - just as it would be if you stated that there is no such thing as gravity. On the other hand, there is no scientific theory of how teleportation beams would work (in fact there's not even scientific consensus as to *what* is needed for drawing the conclusion that teleportation have happened), and there is no scientific theory that predicts that gold would be a better barrier than, say, led for stopping teleportation beams.

Your belief in global warming strikes me as being very similar to a religious belief. I cannot disprove the existence of global warming any more than I can disprove the existence of a particular deity, or of the invisible, intangible dragon sitting in the middle of my living room. In order for belief in any of these phenomena or creatures to be justified, however, there would have to be some observable evidence of their existence. However, just like those deities and that dragon nibbling on my furniture, belief in global warming is not justified. Although it is true that there is presently no scientific theory regarding alien teleportation beams, belief in such a phenomenon would be equally justified because it is supported by an equally reliable body of evidence. Simply the fact that theories regarding global warming may (wrongfully) be classified as "scientific" does not afford them immunity from the burden of proof.

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Three objections: First. There's no reason why my argument should apply to the entire biosphere, as only parts of it need to be affected by global warming, for that to be a disaster. Second, no eco system can really be viewed as isolated, and thus all the eco systems that the biosphere is compared to are just as complicated as the biosphere. Third, I do not propose that the biosphere has the exact same properties as it's constituent parts, and do not assume it to be a simple composition of eco systems. I'm saying that the biosphere is a delicate system of interconnecting parts, which all exist in a mess of interdependencies among each other - just like it's the case of individual eco systems. I don't see why this comparison would be any different than that of comparing one specific house with another. If your objection is that we have no evidence of other complete biospheres which have been destroyed by human pollution, then you know as well as I that battling global warming will and can never be suggested to be a good case - until we have destroyed the biosphere, that is. It's just that some of us don't want to wait for that.

Your first objection fails because if your analogy were to take that form, then the case regarding the pollution of different ecosystems would have an additional level of complexity not present in the example of two different houses. Your second objection, likewise, poses a complex relationship between the ecosystems under analysis which is not analagous to the rlationship between houses. And, if you third objection actually contains an objection, I must concede that I cannot discern it.

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How would you find the other utility? The one where we do nothing and catastrophe is indeed coming? It would be much worse. That's my point. It doesn't matter if the risk of global warming being a concrete phenomena is as low as 10%, as long as the difference in utilities for the two scenarios is as extreme as it is, the rational choice *is* to do something.

It strikes me that this argument is nothing more than a rehash of Pascal's wager. The choice is between a known harm and a potentially greater harm the existence of which is not supported by any reliable evidence. The rational choice is clearly to ignore these scare tactics until such a time as the supposed catastrophe can be demonstrated to be a realistic possibility.

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Originally posted by Arbiter This data is flawed. Urban and terrestrial areas are severely over-represented, and data is collected too infrequently to be considered an accurate measurement of actual global temperature. NASA's unbiased satellite data, as well as data collected by weather balloons are unaffected by these anomalies and present a far more accurate description of global temperature: Put simply: the increase in temperature within the last 20 years shown in the data you provided does not exist. It is an artifact of the improper and unscientific methodology used to collect those data. The global warming hypothesis fails to hold up to skeptical analysis. Any belief in it at this juncture can only be classified as faith.

Hmm, yes, but if the reason why that data is flawed is because urban and terrestrial areas are overrepresented, it still hints that global warming may come in the near future because urban and terrestrial areas are the ones that get polluted the most. And it also seems that the sea level is rising.



Btw, here's a bit more recent chart that you posted, and from it there does seem to be a very slight rise in a last few years. But nothing significant really.

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/temperature/

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Originally posted by occrider Hehe but then the doomsday scientists were caught with their pants down when they failed to anticipate the largest depletion of ozone ever recorded in the far northern hemisphere because of the big bad sun. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar...05-03-03-05.asp

Very interesting. Especially the part about scientists now needing to take these factors into account when projecting restoration of the ozone layer.

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Originally posted by Arbiter Your belief in global warming strikes me as being very similar to a religious belief. I cannot disprove the existence of global warming any more than I can disprove the existence of a particular deity, or of the invisible, intangible dragon sitting in the middle of my living room. In order for belief in any of these phenomena or creatures to be justified, however, there would have to be some observable evidence of their existence. However, just like those deities and that dragon nibbling on my furniture, belief in global warming is not justified. Although it is true that there is presently no scientific theory regarding alien teleportation beams, belief in such a phenomenon would be equally justified because it is supported by an equally reliable body of evidence. Simply the fact that theories regarding global warming may (wrongfully) be classified as "scientific" does not afford them immunity from the burden of proof.

There's no reason to paint up a strawman of religious lunacy. Just because I'm passionate about the issue, it doesn't mean that I have thrown critical reasoning out the window in favour of holy scriptures by my beloved gods the scientists.
Fact of the matter is that there is a wide acceptance of the realness of the greenhouse effect in the scientific community. This theory (and not "global warming is taking place") is what I refer to as the "non-refuted scientific theory". That it is real is in much less doubt than your invisible dragon, and it has been subject to much more analysis and testing than any theories of teleportation beams and their interaction with gold.
Now, a "prediction" of the grennhouse effect theory, is that temperature will be rising as humans pollute with CO_2. (As with other theories on this level of granularity, a host of variables can be drawn into the equations and practically any prediction can be made from it, but as this objection can be raised against any other such theories, we have no choice but to disregard the objection.) Therefore, we have evidence that indirectly points to global warming is either taking place, or will be taking place in the future. We don't have any sort of reasoning like this to support the "gold blocks alien teleportation beams"-hypothesis.
This was an elaboration of my point on why teleportation beams and gold does not make a fine analogy, and I hope I have managed to present it in a more dispasionate manner this time.

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Originally posted by Arbiter Your first objection fails because if your analogy were to take that form, then the case regarding the pollution of different ecosystems would have an additional level of complexity not present in the example of two different houses. Your second objection, likewise, poses a complex relationship between the ecosystems under analysis which is not analagous to the rlationship between houses.

There would be a difference in complexity between any two bio/eco-systems, so I guess, by your argument here, there can never be such a thing as a generalization from observed phenomena in a series of differing eco systems?
Of course, you do know that there's also a difference in security risk of two houses (area, lock, lighting, neighbours, etc), which prompts me to ask why differences in complexity should be considered more prohibitive for generalizations than differences in security or any other properties?

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Originally posted by Arbiter And, if you third objection actually contains an objection, I must concede that I cannot discern it.

My objection was that the shared trait between the biosphere and any eco system, was not that of being an eco system, but merely a complex system of interacting parts. To state that, I need not rely on properties subsisting through composition, which was your reason for denying my reasoning.

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Originally posted by Arbiter It strikes me that this argument is nothing more than a rehash of Pascal's wager. The choice is between a known harm and a potentially greater harm the existence of which is not supported by any reliable evidence. The rational choice is clearly to ignore these scare tactics until such a time as the supposed catastrophe can be demonstrated to be a realistic possibility.

As per the discussion above on the greenhouse effect, and it's consequences, I'll say that I don't agree with your claim that no reliable evidence exists. I'm not talking about climate data showing the catastrophe already having started (as those can *always* be explained away - as a last resort by the uncertainty inherent in statistical inference, from which they are constructed), but the established greenhouse effect, and the projections that can be drawn from that when fed with the scenario of constant pollution by CO_2.
As to the more abstract setting that you describe here (which I agree is a correct abstraction for this discussion), the crux of the matter is that the rational choice is dependent not only on what constitutes a "realistic possibility" but also the difference in serverity of the two harms. No matter how low a percentage you fix as threshold for the greater harm to come true, I can find a difference in harm which makes the choice of taking preventive action the rational one. (At least if you believe in the axioms of Von Neumann/Morgenstern utility theory, which as I stated in my initial post currently is the best formalization we have of rational behaviour.)

Either way, whether anyone believes in global warming or not, one thing is for sure - humans have severely damaged the ecosystem of this planet, in particularly over the past 100 years. I will not get into details, but we all need to repair it before it's too late.

temperature may even go down in some parts of the world due to global warming due to streams cooling down in the oceans caused by the ice-caps melting. thus the average temperature may even drop, but what really matters are the polar ice-caps.

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