What do you think of climate change?

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went to the catholic answers 2018 science and faith conference here in san diego to find out more about how the other catholics view the issue of climate change and laudato si

given the theme of conference “science and faith” was surprised no one publicly asked any of the speakers any questions about “climate climate” but did ask Dr. Stacy Trasancos (on the side) who was one of the headline speakers (w/ a science background) about her opinion,… basically she mentioned that climate science was not her field of study

FWIW my own background is went to various catholic schools before going to a public university to study math and science,… AND in a seminar class that is where I became interested in the topic of climate change decades ago

anyway a few months back an individual who started a community garden at local elementary school to teach the kids and their parents about the importance of a healthy diet,… asked if I could help out,… so donated a weather station along w/ a bunch of sub-irragation planter setups I’ve designed for my own use

given an existing school garden, I’m thinking with just a little tweaking the kids could also be introduced to the subject of “climate change” and perhaps the early exposure in life might lead to an interest in a STEM career

WRT STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), seems there is essentially zero knowledge (in the general public) about the scientific mechanism of why CO2 causes a green house effect

just happens here in my hometown there was an event called startup week,… have a few ideas I’ve been kicking around so went to see what I could learn

sandiegostartupweek[dot]com

did my own rough poll on the topic of scientific knowledge about the mechanism of the so called “green house effect” and sadly I seem to have confirmed the findings in a published paper (based on data gathered here in san diego) that there essentially zero understanding of the mechanisms that cause climate change in the public at large

at startup week there were presentations on how to give presentations so I put together a document of curated solid “science” using the tips I picked up from various speakers

so the following is a PDF on GoogleDocs that outlines “101” knowledge that should be well understood if the goal to address/fix the problem(s) and includes a parable of sorts that catholics should appreciate on the topic of climate change

TinyURL[dot]com/HowBigIsTheEarth

have a look at the “pitch” as they say in the startup world, would be interested in what catholics think about the social justice issue of climate change, given various knock on effects on humanity
 
I do not know that it is a lack of understanding on the subject or the fact that people refuse to take concrete steps to reduce their carbon footprint, because they feel they are entitled to a certain lifestyle. For example, I drive a hybrid car and own an electric lawn mower. People often tell me: ‘well that is fine for you but me, never! I have to have the SUV and gas-powered mower… I will never give that up!’
 
My personal opinion is:
  1. I don’t have the expertise to refute accepted science in the field of climatology. I don’t understand how people can believe that they know more about climate change from reading a few internet articles vs. the people who’ve spent decades studying the topic.
  2. The worst case scenario if “man made climate change is all a lie” is that pollution and waste are reduced “for nothing”. But it won’t be for nothing. Millions of people with underlying respitory conditions will have a longer / better quality of life due to reduced pollution. Not to mention probably saving some of the Amazon rainforest. I’m ok with multinationals’ profit margins taking a small hit to achieve a cleaner planet.
 
ShrodingersCat said:
I don’t have the expertise to refute accepted science in the field of climatology. I don’t understand how people can believe that they know more about climate change from reading a few internet articles vs. the people who’ve spent decades studying the topic.
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To my knowledge, this isn’t exactly accepted science. I believe the majority opinion among meteorologists is that there is not enough information to tell if climate change is a problem, the next most common opinion is that it is not, and the respected minority holds that it is. You can hardly call that a consensus.
 
EZweber said:
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ShrodingersCat:
I don’t have the expertise to refute accepted science in the field of climatology. I don’t understand how people can believe that they know more about climate change from reading a few internet articles vs. the people who’ve spent decades studying the topic.
Click to expand...
To my knowledge, this isn’t exactly accepted science. I believe the majority opinion among meteorologists is that there is not enough information to tell if climate change is a problem, the next most common opinion is that it is not, and the respected minority holds that it is. You can hardly call that a consensus.
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doubt many meteorologists have a good understanding of orbital mechanics, or an understanding of nuclear isotopes which can finger print for lack of a better term,… that carbon 12 which is ancient organic material in nature, is being released in a chemical reaction to produce the CO2 being measured worldwide

since it seems few fully grasp all the parts of the puzzle needed to understand the complex nature of climate change,… I’ve outlined what people need to know to grasp why scientists are pretty concerned

TinyURL[dot]com/HowBigIsTheEarth
 
phaster said:
doubt many meteorologists have a good understanding of orbital mechanics, or an understanding of nuclear isotopes which can finger print for lack of a better term,… that carbon 12 which is ancient organic material in nature, is being released in a chemical reaction to produce the CO2 being measured worldwide

since it seems few fully grasp all the parts of the puzzle needed to understand the complex nature of climate change,… I’ve outlined what people need to know to grasp why scientists are pretty concerned

TinyURL[dot]com/HowBigIsTheEarth
Click to expand...
Do you understand it?
 
phaster said:
there essentially zero understanding of the mechanisms that cause climate change in the public at large
Click to expand...
There is essentially zero understanding of most things that don’t have to do with Kardashians, Marvel Comics, Game of Thrones, Survivor, Housewives of various cities, Walking Dead, or The Bachelor in the public at large.
 
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EZweber said:
40.png
phaster:
doubt many meteorologists have a good understanding of orbital mechanics, or an understanding of nuclear isotopes which can finger print for lack of a better term,… that carbon 12 which is ancient organic material in nature, is being released in a chemical reaction to produce the CO2 being measured worldwide

since it seems few fully grasp all the parts of the puzzle needed to understand the complex nature of climate change,… I’ve outlined what people need to know to grasp why scientists are pretty concerned

TinyURL[dot]com/HowBigIsTheEarth
Click to expand...
Do you understand it?
Click to expand...
yup, better than most,… given a physics back ground, etc.

actually back in the day (before there was google, youtube, etc.), when I had my seminar class at UCSD,… when introduced to the topic by Roger Revelle (look up the name to get an idea of how big this guy is, along with his 1957 paper), basically I asked lots of questions, so had the pioneers in the field like Keeling (look up keeling curve) walk me thought the science
 
I think I’ve seen the climate of my own little corner of the world change in my lifetime.
I think it might be natural cycles and causes.
I also think it might be man made.

And…I am extremely uneasy at the tactics of the scientist who promote the anthropogenic model, that they just dismiss anyone who isn’t in lock-step with their opinion as “stupid” and “crazy”
 
In many places, the two alternatives you describe are CO2-equivalent.

Charging the electric mower or the hybrid car often requires utility power that is generated using fossil fuels, so the result is the same as the conventional mower or car.

For those not living near a hydroelectric dam or a nuke plant, the only climate brownie points come from the hybrid car likely being smaller.

ICXC NIKA
 
phaster said:
TinyURL[dot]com/HowBigIsTheEarth
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First, ‘climate change’ is a term used to represent whatever environment issue someone is advocating, it’s not about science (but it makes a nice club)

I skimmed your slides and think you are missing the big enchilada.

There really isn’t any dispute among opposing ‘experts’ that CO2 is a GHG and will warm the earth about 1C with doubling, due the physics of radiative forcing.

The whole climate change dispute is about the feedbacks that are second order effects. The climate models have thousand of ‘feedbacks’ written into their code and they are projected to cause anywhere from 0.5 to 3.5C in additional warming because of the increased CO2.

If the discussion and research was focused on validating the feedbacks, we could come to a true consensus.
 
I note that conventional wisdom fall heavily on one side of this argument and that any and all opposing, or even critical viewpoints tend to be ignored or suppressed.

 
Theo520 said:
First, ‘climate change’ is a term used to represent whatever environment issue someone is advocating, it’s not about science (but it makes a nice club)
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^^^Problematic if we care about stewardship and our eco-system.

We hold the capability of killing off species in the palm of our hands, and some sea life perform vital functions.

My heart hurts for the ignorance in the area of science, thank goodness persons like the OP are making a worthwhile footprint vs one of carbon.
 
phaster said:
that there essentially zero understanding of the mechanisms that cause climate change in the public at large
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To be fair, I started out as an environmental science major until changing majors. Even I still only have a basic knowledge of how it works. Then again, I was focused more on ecology, where we mostly deferred to the experts when climate change came up.
ShrodingersCat said:
I don’t understand how people can believe that they know more about climate change from reading a few internet articles vs. the people who’ve spent decades studying the topic.
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One word: Pride.
EZweber said:
To my knowledge, this isn’t exactly accepted science.
Click to expand...
To quote Skeptical Science:
Surveys of the peer-reviewed scientific literature and the opinions of experts consistently show a 97–98% consensus that humans are causing global warming.
Click to expand...
As the graph further down in that article shows, those with a better understanding of climate science have a much higher consensus on global warming being real than those with a low level of understanding.
 
DENNYINMI said:
^^^Problematic if we care about stewardship and our eco-system
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I do care about the environment, which is why I feel greater precision and wording is essential.

To give an analogy, it’s like just labeling every behavior wrong from adultery, addiction to murder as “sinning” Such a broad label is useless in trying to solve the many components that fall under it.
 
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I’m not going to go look it all up, but I’ve read (books, not internet articles!) in the last couple years that we can now go back about 500,000+ years and see the temperature and rainfall with pretty good accuracy at multiple points around the world. What struck me was that “climate change” (or whatever you want to call it) is NOT necessarily a gradual process. Within 10 years striking changes can take place (again, not because of one factor, but because one factor triggers something else, which triggers a couple other changes, which trigger…) a cascading effect that can change climate within a decade. Most people are oblivious of this. Maybe when they start hitting the beach on Long Island in January they’ll catch on. Maybe not.

In the past, climate change didn’t matter much. If it got colder, humans just migrated to Spain and Italy and hung out there until things improved up north. If it got warmer, they moved north. If the oceans rose, you simply picked up your stone tools and headed inland. I’m not sure how we “pick up” NY, London, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sydney, etc.

As for the religious aspect, we’re supposed to be good stewards of the earth and nature. What grade would you give us?
 
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