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 -
I believe that global warming is essentially a hoax. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but the main thing I dispute is that warming due to mankind's emissions will be amplified by a positive feedback mechanism.
So in a sense, I don't dispute global warming. What I mean is that (1) there is little or no dispute that atmospheric CO2 levels are rising due to mankind's activities; (2) since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, one can reasonably expect measurable warming due to mankind's activities. The issue is that according to climate activists, alarmists, warmistas -- whatever you want to call them -- this baseline warming will be amplified to dangerous levels by water vapor feedback. However this claim of amplification, in my opinion, does not stand up to scrutiny. Which means we are left with modest warming as opposed to dangerous warming.
Anyway, as I said, I can't speak for anyone but myself but I suspect that you are attacking a bit of a strawman here. Are you able to identify a few prominent global warming skeptics who "deny the existence of greenhouse gases"?
I've never heard either this objection or anything about water vapor feedback being anything more than a minor contributor. Regardless this doesn't really matter for my point that global warming is nearly solved anyways so I won't focus on it.
As for the second, I remember quite clearly we had someone here that denied greenhouses gases existed, @dale-cloudman, wow it's been 2 years since this guy posted here. Anyways I don't really have any specific examples of popular skeptics explicitly denying greenhouse gases exist but pretty much all of them commonly make arguments that don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist. Mainly quibbling over solar irradiance or how the climate is constantly changing. Since they readily admit to two then the only other way they can argue anything else is causing global warming is by denying CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Respectfully, water vapor feedback is the (or at least A) central issue in the global warming controversy.
Ok, then please give me examples of a few arguments made by a few prominent global warming skeptics which don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist.
I strongly disagree. They could admit that CO2 is a greenhouse gas but take the position that the effects of CO2 have been exaggerated.
More options
Context Copy link
Water vapor feedback is by far the largest feedback; its effect is comparable to CO2 itself, or probably larger.
@omw_68 is wrong in that the water vapor feedback mechanism is very well modeled and understood (unless he's folding cloud cover into water vapor, which does have a lot more uncertainty, including in sign).
I am very skeptical of this, and here's my challenge: Please identify a few instances where prominent climate models of water vapor feedback have made predictions which are (1) actual predictions (i.e. not backcasts or predictions after the fact); (2) interesting; and (3) accurate. TIA.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link