But the Copenhagen Climate Summit/Council/Conference was not called the Copenhagen Sustainability Summit. I think some people are suspicious of the larger green movement because it seems so shifty. Basically the conversation between "earthers" and "doubters" has been going like this:
Earther: global warming is bad.
Doubter: if the planet is warming, why is it so cold?
Earther: actually it's climate change.
Doubter: what's so bad about changing climates?
Earther: actually it's about sustainability.
The message needs to be consistent and clear. Snapshot of earther and doubter sentiments in time:
1970 Earther: Split wood, not atoms.
1970 Doubter: I like big cars.
1980 Earther: There will be no oil in 20 years.
1980 Doubter: I like semi-big cars.
2000 Earther: There will be no oil in 20 years.
2000 Doubter: I like big cars.
2010 Earther: Split atoms, save the trees.
2010 Doubter: I like semi-big cars.
''Because your point on "consistent and clear" is based completely on a made up discussion between what sounds like 3rd graders (or politicians)''
Unfortunately, it's the politicians that are making the decisions - and a lot of the interest in current affairs from the general public is around the level of the third grade. Look at the writing standards in many tabloid newspapers for evidence of that.
Without spending an awful lot of time examining the data (which I am not willing to do), I cannot see a way of having a view on AGW. The entire issue is so politicised and so tribal (with astonishingly naive, provably false claims from both sides of the argument) that I've given up caring. I just don't have the time or energy to make a sound judgment precisely because of the tone of the debate.
I agree, voter apathy due to political shenanigans is a huge problem. People just disengage from the process.
Straw man arguments don't fix it, instead they perpetuate the same useless bickering. Trumpeting dishonest scientists or shifty politicians without seeming interest in rising above their quality of debate is just more of the political game.
Madair, politics, not science operate on "quality of debate". Science operates with the assumption that all claims are false until they have been proven to be true by an empirical observation.
Therefore, the only way this conversation could scientifically meaningful is if someone provided an empirical experiment that verifies that the error range of modern climate models is small enough to make them meaningful. I don't claim to be capable of proving that they aren't, I merely observe that such an experiment has not been done.
Until that occurs, those models (and this discussion) are effectively meaningless unless viewed from a political angle. So, welcome the useless bickering, because you are a part of it.
You're making the same mistake that Eliezer describes in his essay.
Many things in science are not proved true - in fact, it's fundamentally impossible to prove a scientific theory is true. You can only disprove - falsify - it. The best we can do with a scientific theory is say it agrees with all observations.
