Has anybody ever seriously and unbiasedly researched both sides of Environmental Issues?

Question

I have seen people argue passionately and intelligently about their side and ignorants (*cough*Shadepm75*cough*) just shoot down the side opposing their views indiscriminately. I have seen people argue without basis propaganda, intrigue, and other myths and conspiracies. Now I want to hear rationality. Has anybody ever even listened to eachother's side and addressed their criticisms with science? Has any environmentalist ever even heard of the hockey stick curve and the little ice age. How can you convince anyone when you don't even address why they don't believe you? Rather than point to a website, can anyone actually debunk a myth of the opposing side with logic and science. The more logical and scientific your answer the higher chance of being best answer. I am not opinionated. You can be an environmentalist or the opposing side. I just want a sign of rationality and logical argument.

Answer 1

Define environmentalist?  You will probably get a number of view points.  I come from a logging family and they are considered evil  by certain groups of environmentalist.  I know longer log I have a BSEE, but I will never forget the mob mentality and bad behavior of those environmentalist believing they are saving the earth.

Answer 2

Of course.  That's how science works.  And of course we've heard of the hockey stick and Little Ice Age and addressed these issues ad infinitum.  You want me to address them with rationality and logic rather than with scientific evidence?  Okay, I don't think it will be very convincing though.

There was essentially nothing wrong with the hockey stick.  I can't prove it without links, nor can you prove otherwise without links.  The National Academy of Sciences reviewed the hockey stick and determined that the analysis was basically correct.  Perhaps a bit overly smoothed, but not fundamentally wrong.  The criticisms were not valid.  In case you're interested in an explanation of this, I've linked one below.  Many subsequent proxy studies have also confirmed the general accuracy of the hockey stick.  Again, I can't prove this without links, because this is not a logical argument, it's a claim about scientific data.

The Little Ice Age happened.  So did the Midieval Warm Period.  I'm not really sure what else you want me to say.  Natural climate changes happen.  That doesn't mean that humans can't also cause climate change, and doesn't tell us anything about the current global warming.

Was that rational enough for you?

Answer 3

You assume that I am trying to convince someone.  I am not.  Anyone who is likely to matter to me probably knows what is happening, or is easily convinced by a few authoritative references.  I  want to be talking to those people, and listening to what they have to say.  We have people here from all over the world with a common problem we must solve if we are to survive.  This isn't the first time the human race has been in this situation and probably won't be the last.  We can't really afford the luxury at this point of focusing on the white noise rather than finding solutions fast.

Answer 4

One of the issues I have with the whole global warming thing, is that it feels like nothing more than a way to tax.  Then I question the whole thing, and why global warming?  I saw a news story that plastic is the new “sand” in the oceans, meaning: There is so much plastic in the oceans, it is being broken down into smaller and smaller pellets and the sea life is ingesting it.  No one knows what harm this may or may not cause, but the idea that so much junk is going into the ocean— amongst other pollution, and that this is not being addressed, is beyond my thinking.  

The Earth is a dynamic living environment, and to think that its temperature is to remain stable for thousands and millions of years is not logical.  

I reject anthropogenic (man made) global warming for the simple reason that every few years or so, there is always some new scare to reign in the masses.  Many people do not think critically and ask what and the why .  Tell me we need to cut down our use of oil to make it last longer.  But don’t lie to me to try to scare me.  Don’t tell me, “Global Warming has made this the warmest winter ever,” then turn around and say, “This is the 4th snowiest winter we’ve had in 100 years.”  To me there is a disconnect there.  

In the 1970’s when I was a teenager, the scare of the day at that time was that we were headed for a mini ice age.  Reason, the burning of fossil fuels.  The carbon dioxide in the air was supposedly reflecting sunlight back into space, causing the Earth to cool.  The reason for all this fear was the deep freeze winters we’d get with weekly dumps of at least 12 inches of snow.  The same language used for Global Warming now, was used to “global cooling” then.   Now in the last 30 years, did carbon dioxide change properties?  Did it go from reflecting light to holding in heat?   It was the environmentalists that wanted catalytic converters put on cars to begin with.  Catalytic converters “convert” a car’s exhaust to carbon dioxide and water.

They tried the mini ice age scare in the mid-1980’s then the term, “global warming” started after one summer of 90 degree + temperatures for several weeks in a row and drought.  One year does not a trend make.  Then there came the holes in the ozone and we were all supposed to be dead from sunburn.  Then NASA told us Chloroflourocarbons are not causing harm to the ozone layer— after people spent lots of money retro-fitting anything with a refrigerant.  

Then came the Year 2000 Bug, a programming work around that was supposed to cause much havoc with the power grid, and water and sewage systems.  Y2K came and nothing happened, even after people were told to buy up and spend lots of money on survival gear, spare food and water and weapons.  

Then recently we had all the meaningless Terror Alert, with color coded scales, red for severe and yellow for none, with shades of yellow, orange, and red-orange representing the severity or immanence of a terrorist attack.  This was a joke, and even Saturday Night Live did a piece on it.  People jokingly wondered "what color" we were.  

In short, global warming, or the thoughts about it, are nothing more than the cultural elites who want to lord it over us and continue to find ways to control us and make us fearful.  Absurdities abound, such as water vapor now being the powerhouse green house gas.  Please don't tell me it's a poison or a pollutant, like CO2 has been branded.  And there are the extremes such as children and excercise as a cause of global warming.  

What ever happened to acid rain?  Did we solve that problem, or is it still happening and we don't hear about it because it's not as s**y as Global Warming.  

Don't like burning fossil fuels to get electricity?  Want to buy an electric car?  Where are you going to get the electricity to run the car?  Now it's not just you, it's 100 million people with electric cars.  Where's the electricity going to come from to charge up the cars' batteries?  What happens when the "carbon tax" hits?   Power plants burn coal or natural gas to produce electricity.   Now you're being taxed, because you're using electricity, so you can charge up your car.  And you bought the car so you didn't have to worry about polluting the air, and you get punished anyway.  What good is that?

Answer 5

Here's some logic for you.

Start with the premise that the world is finite.  The earth is a bounded sphere.  Furthermore, the biosphere is smaller than you might think.  The crust, the ocean and the atmosphere are a small portion of the earth. 90% of life is in margins of the land where it’s not too dry, too hot or too cold, in the shallow and upper portions of the ocean, in the lower portions of the atmosphere.  The atmosphere you can breathe is only a few miles thick; the entire troposphere no more than 10 miles.  You can see farther than the atmosphere is thick on a clear day.  Think about it, the biosphere doesn’t reach up and down endlessly.  In the words of the shuttle astronauts, when you see it from space, the biosphere is a thin gossamer veneer wrapped around the planet.



Taking this further, the web of life has been in a state of dynamic equilibrium since the beginning of life on earth.  Every corner of the globe is populated by exactly the right number and types of species that keeps things in balance.  Recent thinking extends this idea.  It’s possible that everything here is related and interdependent; biological processes, weather, geology, solar and astronomical cycles, even the position of our solar system within our galaxy.  Since the beginning of the earth all have influenced one another and we now have the exquisitely balanced system that allows for our existence.  However you believe this came into being, it is the objective reality to us humans and is the current unalterable state of affairs on this planet.  You cannot change the laws of physics.  You cannot violate the laws of thermodynamics.  No matter how much you or I wish it were not so, how much you believe we can somehow circumvent the limits, how much you believe someone will come and save us before its too late, every bit of objective science in existence today only reinforces the fact that we are bound to and by the environment we live in.



Taking this to the logical extreme, if you change anything at all, anywhere, you potentially disturb the balance and the outcome is not knowable with any certainty.  Would you say that this gives humanity license to change things at will?  Or would it be more prudent to wait and perhaps for example apply the great law of the Iroquois – “In our every deliberation we must consider the impact on the next seven generations”.  With our current state of knowledge our attempts to engineer the planet amount to a giant uncontrolled global experiment.

The whole idea that I should be required to show that a proposed environmental action will be cost neutral and not impede economic development while at the same time you are not required to show that conventional economic development is benign is ludicrous.  

Economic systems are a subset of environmental systems and as such all economic activity is dependent on a functioning biosphere.  All who would use or transform resources should have to show how their activity can be sustained for the long term before being allowed to commence.  

The trouble is, you will find, that the vast majority of all current economic activity on earth carried out by man is ultimately not sustainable.