This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This seems to paint a good summary but I’m not an expert in the subject.
Your position is that climate change is happening, but that it’s not caused by humans and not a cause for concern? What lead you to this belief?
Especially the latter one. Natural rapid global warming, whatever the cause, still leads to rising sea levels, flooding of coastal areas, warming of the oceans, extreme weather events (hurricanes, droughts, etc. which can be devastating especially to less prosperous nations).
And do you think greenhouse gases don’t influence the climate at all, or that we’re not emitting enough to cause an impact?
That's a 31 page single spaced document. I'm not going to go searching through it to find answers to simple questions I asked you. I take it that
(1) you are unable to summarize the best evidence that mankind's greenhouse gas emissions, if unchecked, will lead to DANGEROUS warming, i.e. warming sufficient to cause substantial harm to human life and property. For ease of reference, I will refer to this claim as "CAGW."
(2) You don't know whether or not CAGW represents scientific consensus.
Is that correct?
Not exactly. I believe that (1) climate change is happening (as has happened for millions of years); (2) human activities are contributing to some extent; and (3) the effects from the human contributions are very unlikely to be cause for concern.
What led me to these beliefs is -- basically -- that I have studied the issues very carefully and discovered that (1) the argument that man's activities are primarily responsible for recent climate changes does not stand up to scrutiny; and (2) the argument for CAGW does not stand up to scrutiny.
By "greenhouse gases" can I assume you mean "greenhouse gases which are the result of man's activity"?
Anyway, I've answered your questions as best I can. You've claimed "it's all motte." I assumed this meant you personally believe (and can offer justification for your belief) in CAGW. Did I misunderstand you?
Do you believe in CAGW?
Do you believe in CAGW because you independently understand the evidence and argument for CAGW, or do you believe simply because you heard it from someone else?
What? No. That’s a bizarre conclusion.
Why do they not stand up to scrutiny?
I’m not a climatologist. I just go by the fact that over 99% of them agree on human-caused climate change. I believe this the same way I believe cigarette smoking causes cancer, that the moon landing wasn’t a hoax, or that eating junk food is bad for you long term. It would be a massive waste of time for me to do my own research on the hundreds of topics and the likelihood that I’d be wrong (due to lack of specialty or time to spend on each) is far too high.
It's not bizarre given that you dodged my question (and continue to dodge).
First please answer my questions. (Actually, it would help if you first acquired a basic understanding of what's in play.)
The paper you link to actually proves my point beautifully. To summarize for any lurkers, the researchers created 7 categories of scientific papers, number 1 through 7. This ranged from category 1 ("Explicit endorsement with quantification") to Category 7 ("Explicit Rejection with Quantification").
Here is an example of a claim which would be put into category 2: [Edit: Papers in Category 2 were apparently deemed by the study authors to be part of the 99% consensus]
Significantly, this is is something which I absolutely agree with. To put it another way, my views on climate change are absolutely positively part of the 99% consensus you point to.
How can this be?
The answer is very simple: As I said before, there is motte global warming and bailey global warming. When Leftists want to claim that there is a "consensus," they retreat to motte global warming. But when they want to demand extreme changes in public policy, they pivot to bailey global warming.
Earlier you said this:
I hope you can see now that this was completely and totally wrong.
Edit:
There is "motte" climate change, which is highly likely to be happening (which even follows from straightforward mathematics), but which does not necessarily require extreme measures to mitigate;
There is "bailey" climate change, which is unlikely to be happening, but which is dangerous and would require extreme measures to mitigate.
Climate activists on the Left pivot back and forth between the motte and bailey -- in classic fashion -- and promote the false idea that based on scientific consensus, there need to be big changes to public policy in order to save the planet.
More options
Context Copy link
Without commenting on the truth/falsity of the actual topic, I think that a baseline skepticism is warranted and healthy any time a discrete group of people reach broad agreement that there is a crisis that requires giving the discrete group more power and money.
Priests are in 99% agreement that paying the tithe is necessary for salvation.
Of course I agree with this, but I think it's worth taking a look at this 99% paper to see what kind of positions were actually counted in arriving at this 99% figure. Because there's a big difference between saying "Mankind's emissions are contributing to climate change" and "Mankind's emissions, if unchecked, will lead to serious negative consequences."
Put simply, this is a classic motte and bailey situation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link