Quote:
Originally Posted by Blasted Child
Is it just me or has i-mockery suddenly turned very strict when it comes to debating standards?
Usually when we debate stuff over the internet, we link to articles. What is coolinator supposed to do, record himself as he travels with a weather balloon to collect the data?
We're all laymen here, all we can do is refer to stuff.
I think at least a few of the articles he linked to deserve some merit, and I like to consider myself equiped with a fairly critical set of eyes, but still, sure, everything can be dismissed as biased.
This being said, I'm still skeptical towards the conspiracy movement and the climate deniers, and heck, I agree that coolinator comes across as a tad sanctimonious, but hey he's probably young and going through a phase.
dunno, just thought this debate turned out a bit one-sided.
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The way I see it, (and feel free to disagree, for everyone has an opinion) the real problem witrh this highly emotional and politically charged topic is that people begin arguing viewpoints without a clear understanding of the fundamental principles. Thus, they tend to gravitate toward those arguments that most closely align with their beliefs. It's true in science, economics, health care, and, yes, even politics. (hows that for an oxymoron) This isn't factual, it's faith. (Hence the Latin aphorisms)
Coolie and his blogosphere are arguing based largely on faith. So are most of the proponents of the AGW hypothesis. (It's why you need to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.) What both sides either fail to realize or refuse to speak about is that global climate change is documented and real. Causality is the issue over which there is much debate.
Does mankind have an adverse impact on the global climate? Define adverse. We are as much as any animal products of this environment. Yet we have either developed or have been granted (depending on your conceit) the intelligence and/or desire to alter said environment for our own purposes. Does this process pose a danger to the ecosystem? If we continue burning fossil fuels (incidentally generating tons and tons more CO2 than all other pollutants combined (and that can be calculated independently without resorting to faith)), dumping chemical and biological wastes, continue with irresponsible handling of nuclear waste byproducts, then yes, we do. The
degree of that impact is what is at issue. Does it matter, on a global scale what mankind chooses to do with the environment, or is it merely a perturbation in a much larger and complex global climatary framework?
I recently looked at a similar situation on a much smaller scale - flooding on the Delaware River. Admittedly, I have a vested interest, but as a scientist, I was also curious. I found that there were two factions (surprise!) - those that want the upstate NY reservoirs (feeding fresh water to NYC) cut back to an 80% capacity to reduce the incidence of flooding downstream, and those that want the reservoirs kept at full or nearly full capacity year round, and use the spillways to regulate flow into the Delaware river.
The data for the river flow was readily available, and after some analysis, yielded a rather surprising result - neither side was completely correct. It seemed the real root cause was more likely increased development along the Delaware and in through upstate NY, and insufficient storm water handling provisions. It remains to be seen if keeping the reservoirs at a level slightly less than capacity during the wintertime will help, but the actual creation of the reservoir system has nothing to do with flooding.
I assume that a similar result would be found for the current issue at hand, if one wanted to analyze the data. That's why I don't like taking sides - it also involves narrowing your worldview, and the science suffers.