First of all, I notice that you're pivoting and deflecting, desperately avoiding my challenge. I repeat:
the scientific consensus is that global warming is actually a net negative for humanity. If you think they're incompetent, you have to prove it. If you think they're lying, you have to prove it.
Otherwise, there's not even the slightest reason to give a shit about any of your objections, because the experts have almost certainly collectively already taken every single one of them into account!
I never did deny that the climate is changing, I question the many other assumptions that lead to a general freak out about the future. There are many other facts that are ignored in this debate, such as...
<list of irrelevant facts>
The above are facts. I could cite all of them for you, but if you are actually interested in the truth of the matter, google works as well for you as it does for me.
First of all, I'm happy to acknowledge those facts (except one, below). The trouble (for your argument) is that the climate conditions in the depths of geologic time
don't matter. What matters is the climate conditions that are convenient for modern civilization, which is a lot more fragile than life in general, or even human life in general. Nobody's trying to claim global warming will destroy all life on the planet, or even homo sapiens as a species. What they're claiming is that it's going to cost a fuck-ton of money, and cause a fuck-ton of human suffering, for civilization to cope with it.
I do have to call this "fact" out, though, because it's wrong:
The entire mass of fossil fuels; coal, oil, natural gas, etc; was derived from the decayed mass of ancient plantlife. Plants get their CO2 from the air. Therefore, logically, all of that carbon was part of our atmosphere at some point in the past, before it was sequestered into the Earth.
The carbon cycle includes more than just atmospheric CO2, biomass, and fossil fuels. It also includes
carbonates, CO2 dissolved in the ocean, methane clathrate, etc. The idea that, at some point in the past, there might have been enough CO2 in the atmosphere to equal the carbon found in the sum of all fossil fuel deposits could be true for all I know, but your statement is not sufficient to prove it.
So these other facts bring up their own questions that need answering. Would another doubling of CO2 (to 800 ppm) result in a net decline or a net increase, in agricultural productivity, or no effect at all? Would such a doubling of CO2 result in shrinkage of the world's deserts, since more plantlife would be able to survive on less water along the edges of those desert regions? Would a significant warming in the great northern regions of the Canadian Northwest Passage islands & Russian Siberia be beneficial to humankind? And would the tropical regions even notice the climate change, beyond a generational change in the sea level? If we stopped using fossil fuels today, would humanity be better off next year, next decade or next century as a result?
None of these questions are easily answered, and they do matter.
What, and you don't think scientists consider these things before writing their reports?
Again, the claim that the vast majority of climate scientists are incompetent is an extraordinary one, which requires extraordinary evidence to support.
You know that was an example of the relative ease of solving this kind of slow moving problem, not a particular recommendation. Human kind has much more immediate problems to manage than climate change; such as world poverty, malaria, child mortality due to many causes such as poor water access or quality.
I'm amused that you cite malaria as something to worry about more than global warming, since global warming increases the spread of malaria. Ditto with poor water access or quality, considering that droughts cause water shortages and floods destroy water treatment facilities.
That list is long, yet the greatest amount of human time, energy and capital is being diverted into the study of, and argument over, whether or not humans effect their climate. Of course we do, it's part of what we are. Arguing over exactly how & to what degree we actually do so is futile. We are going to do it anyway. Railing about perceived harms caused along the way is akin to complaining that poop stinks. The best you can expect is to teach others how to safely manage that poop, so that it's effect on the environment is limited, not bitch that they keep doing it. However, you don't really know how to septic system for CO2, and no one even really knows if it will be necessary; so all you can do is stand on your soapbox and cry, "the sky is falling!" No, it's not; and even if it is, you're not really helping.
You've got to be kidding me. This has so many different fallacies rolled into it that it's self-contradictory, and I'm having trouble even disentangling it enough to enumerate them all. You're somehow trying to pretend to agree with me, accuse me of being the problem, then argue for the position you just finished repudiating all at once. It's masterfully incoherent; congratulations!
Instead of going through it piece-by-piece, I'll just ask you this: don't you realize that I
wouldn't have to "stand on my soapbox" if people like you weren't grasping at every excuse you could find, no matter how flimsy, to avoid action? (And by the way, the idea that we "don't know how to septic system for CO2" is patently absurd; at the very least, we could certainly (metaphorically speaking)
start shitting less!)
I mean, sure, if you want to declare this argument over and move on to a discussion about what concrete actions we need to take to fix the CO2 problem, then I'm all for it! But that's clearly not what you want. Instead, you want me to go away so you can keep pretending that maintaining the status-quo is an acceptable solution.
I'm speaking of average replacement cycles, not specific examples of long lived engineering. Even so, while those are fine examples of major engineering projects designed to last for a long time, they all have massive maintenance programs. If you consider the labor & resources continually invested into those examples, all of them could have been completely replaced at least once. And I was guessing long, too. Most projects have maintenance schedules that would have completely replaced themselves in much shorter timeframes, particularly anything that is near saltwater. Bridges are famous for their need for regular maintenance, and they are just standing structures.
Those were
typical examples, not exceptions. All the other skyscrapers in the world (except for the World Trade Center, for obvious reasons) should last just as long, barring flaws in their construction or being demolished to build even bigger ones on the same spot. Similarly, most other kinds of infrastructure (with the notable exceptions of roads and bridges, as I did in fact mention before), is also designed for the long haul.
And yes, they do have massive maintenance programs. But even so, rebuilding them from scratch would be an
even more massive undertaking.
Furthermore, a lot of the economy of Bangladesh is dependent upon their currently existing tidal shallows, which would only become more vast with a rising sea.
[Citation needed] (for both claims, but especially the latter)
Is your google-fu so weak? Okay...
(http://www.thedailystar.net/agro-economy-of-coastal-bangladesh-51567)
The coastal zone has a significant place in the economy of Bangladesh. About 3.6 million hectares of coastal land constitute nearly 25% of the geographical area; according to 2011 Population Census (BPC) about 25% of the population live in the coastal region. The agriculture sector in the coastal region of Bangladesh is extremely important. The coastal belt is about 710 km. in length.
<...snip...>
The coastal belt plays a vital role in the national economy. We have the world famous mangrove forest (the Sundarbans) and two seaports -- Chittagong and Mongla -- in the region. Besides this, shrimp culture is an important activity in the region, and noticeably influences foreign currency earning. Despite having the potential to accelerate growth, the coastal belt of Bangladesh is one of the depressed, if not neglected, regions of the country. The backwardness of the region is creating inter-regional imbalance, causing confusion and frustration among the population living in this vibrant but volatile region....
You failed to support the second claim: that Bangladesh's tidal shallows "would only become more vast with a rising sea." The extent of the tidal shallows could either increase or decrease, depending on the topography (e.g. whether the area above current sea level has a steeper or shallower slope than the area below, whether the coastline is concave or convex, etc.).
Human beings have been affecting their environment for millennia, and we have proven pretty effective at it. So the burden of proof is upon your side to show that this time is different.
First of all, this is like arguing that a neolithic camp fire is equivalent to a thermonuclear bomb, or that a guy with a fishing rod is equivalent to a global fleet of fishing ships armed with gigantic long-lines and purse-seine nets.
Even if the conclusion were true, it would only be by coincidence because it does not logically follow from the premise!
Second, the scientists
have proven it; you just deny it and ignore it even though most of the people in this thread have been citing various aspects of it over and over and over. Again, your argument is effectively that the scientists are either incompetent or lying, which is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
I haven't been keeping track of the exact number, but this is only one (relatively minor) instance out of many in which you've been arguing disingenuously and in bad faith by misrepresenting what you previously claimed. For that reason, I feel justified in telling you to fuck off.
Really?? I already provided proof that bad weather has decreased, verified by NOAA data. What did you do? You chose to ignore it and instead told me to fuck off. That's real mature, Jack.
If the NOAA data I provided was wrong, PROVE IT. I want actual proof, not unverifiable predictions based on failed computer models.
Yet again, you misrepresent your claims (and the claims of others)
First of all, you did not "provide proof that bad weather has decreased, verified by NOAA data." You previously claimed that "the US has just passed the 10 year mark, which is the longest in its recorded history, without a level 3 or higher hurricane." and that "Tornadoes are also down." Do you see what you did there? Like the proverbial fisherman bragging about the size of his catch, you exaggerated your claim in the re-telling.
Second, you say that as if tornadoes [in the US, presumably] and category-3 or higher hurricanes [making landfall in the US, presumably] somehow constituted the entirety of weather! Apparently in your mind, droughts, floods, blizzards, heat waves, straight-line windstorms -- and oh, by the way,
all types of weather, including tropical cyclones and tornadoes, on the entire rest of the planet -- are somehow irrelevant!
Third, even the entirety of "bad weather"
had decreased over some particular time period, that
still fails to somehow "disprove" global warming and/or the problems of excess CO2, both because a chaotic system like weather is subject to anomalous behavior (just like the economy has bubbles), and because global warming has other important effects, such as ocean acidification, ice-cap melting, changes in ocean currents, etc.