The first four stages have always baffled me. Anyone who knows basic chemistry understands how carbon dioxide interacts with infrared radiation. Combine that with the fact that human activity is releasing tens of billions of tons of CO2 every year, which does not magically disappear. In fact, it's quite measurable.
The climate is complex, but the basic facts of the situation are incredibly simple and unavoidable. And yet, people have still tried.
Indeed, I studied chemistry and certainly believe that carbon dioxide interacts with infrared radiation, but actually understanding that process is a totally different story.
What I don't like about "my side" of the climate change conversation is that it so often underestimates the difficulty and time investment necessary to really understand this stuff, and in so doing, disrespects people who aren't scientists. Is it any wonder then, that those people turn to the side that is willing to put things in terms they understand instead of making them feel stupid?
We need more Carl Sagan types; people who recognize that their years of scientific study have put them in a position to understand things that vanishingly few people can even conceptualize, and make it their work to educate rather than condescend.
Another interesting tidbit: You'll find this on both sides of most public discussions I guess.
A whole lot of the people who tries to defend man made global warming in public forums seems to be parroting what they have heard, just like the naysayers.
Getting to the facts instead of gettings served up brochures seems hard and asking questions gets you smacked down by a bunch of zealots.
Which is why I found this piece interesting: at least some numbers and charts that seems understandable.
Lots of people across broad spectrums do this all the time. It's uncomfortable to publicly admit you don't know something; a lot of people, especially otherwise smart people, try to apply their expertise in one area to another area they have no specialized knowledge in.
Programmers as a group are maybe a little bit worse about this than most other groups (except maybe physicists), because they view themselves as "systems people", and "everything is a system", therefore similar rules apply everywhere: software is buggy by nature, so scientific research must suffer from similar error rates, for example.
Well, a lot of people argue that the moon landing was a hoax (without knowing basic engineering) and that the holocaust didn't happen (without knowing basic history). I find it more depressing than baffling.
Well, carbon dioxide's interaction with infrared radiation would be more studied by physics than chemistry.
Also, I kind of hate these types of statements. I could say something like, "Anybody that knows anything about music should know that parallel minor of A Major is F# minor," but it's not like I would be adding anything to any discussion by saying such.
The climate is complex, but the basic facts of the situation are incredibly simple and unavoidable. And yet, people have still tried.