Nick Fox's Soapbox - Response to David Mitchell on the Burden of Proof

[mformonarch]

3.25% more CO2 and you think "what a small percentage!" and write it off. Well, as it turns out, you're full of crap. Pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 was at ~278ppm and didn't vary more than 7ppm during the previous 800 years. In 1958: 315. In 2004: 378, 36% more.

Review: CO2 up, temps up, humans produce tons of CO2, and all you have is "water vapor is a green house gas too!" Well guess what happens when that CO2 raises temps? More water evaporates, temps rise, and more water evaporates...

[TheNickFox]

@mformonarch Guess what happens when you warm the oceans. No really, guess. No guesses other than "Water evaporates?" It releases CO2. Warm ocean evaporates creating water vapor which warms the ocean and releases CO2. That is just as reasonable an explanation.

Can you provide ANY causal link between industrialization and CO2, or is it all correlation and conjecture? I'm not willing to put my money on any pony without a causal link.

[mformonarch]

@TheNickFox And what experiment do you recommend for "proving" causation? Not that it's even necessary... There is a ton of evidence indicative of anthropogenic climate change and no other explanations fit the evidence nearly as well.

And no that isn't just as reasonable, it's merely uninformed. The oceans have taken up 1/2 of the CO2 produced by man and are acidifying from it... There is more CO2 in them now compared to 200 years ago. So, where is all that excess CO2 coming from?

[Cragget]

Good Christ, Nick Fox... you're like a young Richard Dawkins: your arguments are questionable, at best, and you're arrogant, to boot, despite you saying in the first 30 odd seconds or so that you aren't!

[TheNickFox]

@minimacca999 Most theologians would disagree with you. The modern religious view of the afterlife is that people who live just and moral lives would be welcomed into "heaven." Think about it like this, Hitler loved God, felt he was doing things that would appease God (Make the world more pure) so with that relationship with God, he would be welcomed into heaven. (Theologians believe this) An atheist lives a nice life, never kills or steals, keep his family safe...why shouldn't HE be allowed in?

[TheNickFox]

@minimacca999 Yes we know that CO2 can warm the atmosphere, that's a given. But only just over 3.25% of all atmospheric CO2 is a result of human actions. Water vapor, of which less than .001% if of human origin, is actually the most prominent greenhouse gas. (95% of the total greenhouse gas concentration is water) Warming conditions also cause the oceans to release CO2. So that's CO2 produced by warming! Where's my causal link for humans?! If you can't produce proof, why should I believe you?

[roddiegibb]

Sorry I find it difficult to argue with people who infer things I didn't say from my words (really Neil, I wonder what can you really "tell" about people from what the write on a You Tube comments page?). Honestly, this is my least favorite thing about the internet in general. Too many people dancing on ego driven pinheads instead of actually doing something. We have such short lives and I can't help but think that even writing this is sapping away part of mine. Where does this get any of us?

[Canaderek]

Mitchell points out that EVERY body of scientists that has studied the theory (even, eventually, those employed by American Association of Petroleum Geologists) have agreed that global climate change is occurring and human-driven, or that it seems to be.

Pascal's Wager is a fun thought experiment most of us bump into in first year philosophy (or in popular media), and, in this instance, is known as a "straw dog" argument.

Theoretical theology is very different from evidence-based science.

[TheNickFox]

@Canaderek And if you had actually has a first year philosophy course, you would know it's known as a straw MAN argument. And you would also understand why this isn't one. Mitchell presents an exact copy of Pascal's Wager, substituting an eternity of mild temperatures in place an eternity of happiness.

There is no such thing as truth by consensus. All 6.7 billion people on this Earth could believe something but it does not make it true.

[Canaderek]

@TheNickFox I'm reading the Tao Te Ching and messed up by saying "Straw Dog" rather than "Straw Man". I think the fact that you open your rebuttal by pointing this out, with ad hominem, further paints you as a fan of the "Straw Man" style of debate (whereas I hadn't even mentioned the creative grammar in said opener, until now).

You're using a creationist's mindset. They speak EXACTLY the same way about evolution as you do about climate change. I find it difficult to argue with such people.

[TheNickFox]

@Canaderek That was my second post to you, so I hadn't opened with it. It was well and truly in the middle. And nice straw man with the creationist example...Sad to say I'm an atheist...and a cynical asshole. I think that last one might run in my family.

Debates aren't arguments. They are meant to challenge you, to push you to defend your beliefs or positions.

[TheNickFox]

@Canaderek That was my second post to you, so I hadn't opened with it. It was well and truly in the middle. And nice straw man with the creationist example...Sad to say I'm an atheist...and a cynical asshole. I think that last one might run in my family.

Debates aren't arguments. They are meant to challenge you, to push you to defend your beliefs or positions.

[Canaderek]

@TheNickFox Debates are, necessarily, based on arguments. Google "debate" for more info. I do agree that what you're doing is something entirely different.

Sorry I hadn't realized the first response was meant for me. The "@roddiegibb" threw me off.

I can tell you're an atheist, a cynic, AND an intellectual. I can imagine it must be very difficult for such a person to be a conservative in the United States. Maybe give the "science-worshipping", "egg-headed", "Ivy tower" Left a try...?

[TheNickFox]

@Canaderek It actually seems YouTube may have eaten my first post to you. Weird.

And I wish my own particular ideology was as easy to define as you make it out to be. I'm neither conservative nor liberal, left nor right. The closest political ideology to my own is Libertarianism. It's not a perfect analogue, but it's close. I often joke that my dream world is one in which I can go to a gay friend's wedding, where he can afford to serve pot at the reception because he save so much from tax cuts

[roddiegibb]

If you take away the need to prove a causal link that climate change is man made then there is quite a lot of evidence to say that climate change is happening, the earth is warming, the ice caps and glaciers are melting. This argument is a total irrelevance. The seas will rise and we'll have to defend ourselves, costing trillions if we find a link to it being man made or not. We needs to take our heads out of the sand and stop solely trying to figure out what would be the easiest way out of this

[TheNickFox]

@roddiegibb Yes, Mitchell says those things, but can you point to ONE scientific study shows a direct causal link between human actions and global temperature norms. (I'll accept either warming or cooling trends to make this as fair as possible to you) There is only correlation, much like there was a big correlation between stress and ulcers. All scientists accepted that...until Barry Marshall and J. Robin Warren came along, and after being ridiculed for going against the grain won a Nobel.

[TheNickFox]

@roddiegibb So, you're saying that even if this warming trend is part of Earth's natural cycle we should attempt to affect it? Change it it to bend to our comfort and will? Isn't that the exact OPPOSITE thing that all environmentalists should be arguing for; removing the affect of man from the Earth. So, because the Earth's temperature does not suit us, we have the right to augment it, possible causing worse harm? Sounds dangerous.