[quote=livinincali]
There’s certainly more CO2 in the air caused by man but it’s effects on the climate are not completely understood.
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“Completely understood” is not a reasonable standard for most things. Certainly not for climate change.
[quote=livinincali]
Yeah sure we know what happens when you pump CO2 into a box and those climate models probably used that as a model, but those models haven’t accurately predicted the warming that would occur.
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Depends on your definition of accurate. Some of the problems with the model turned out to be problems with the data: https://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/hoax.asp
[quote=livinincali]
Of course every time it’s a little hotter than usual or a hurricane hits New York we can blame it on climate change. Then hopefully we can get the people to support a new tax or a new ban on something.
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Only a person who was truly uninformed (scientifically) would point to a single weather event as evidence for (or against) man-caused global warming. You obviously see that and agree with it. But to point to those uninformed people (and their opinions) as evidence we don’t need to do anything (which, I could be wrong, but you seem to be obliquely implying with your sarcasm here) is an invalid argument.
[quote=livinincali]
To go back to what it was in the previous millions of years would require us to pretty much completely stop using fossil fuels. So you have a choice, reduce fossil fuel usage significantly and lower the standard of living for all of us. Or replace it with a different technology and understand that you aren’t going to be able to do it with wind and solar. We could probably do it with fast breeder Thorium nuclear reactors. The dream would be solving the mysteries of recovering net positive energy from fusion. Wind and solar might have a place where it makes sense but it’s never going to be more than 10-20% of total power generation without some sort of storage technology break through
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I agree with that paragraph. Yes, to significantly reduce fossil fuel usage without alternative energy sources to replace them would be extremely (possibly disastrously) costly in many ways. But not as costly as catastrophic global warming. So it’s obviously very important to understand global warming and its causes, because if we’re wrong about it in either direction, it’s going to cost us dearly.
This is not an issue on which we can afford to have an agenda other than understanding as best we can global warming and its causes and its consequences.
