ID and AGW

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Can someone familiar with the thinking at Uncommon Descent explain why there is such opposition to the idea of Anthropogenic Global Warming?  There’s this today, following several long commentaries by VJ Torley on the pope’s encyclical, mostly negative. I don’t get the connection. Is it general distrust of science? Or of the “Academy”?  Or is there something about the idea that we may be provoking a major extinction event that is antithetical to ID?  Or is it, possibly, that the evidence for major extinction events in the past is explains the various “explosions” that are adduced as evidence, if not for ID, then against “Darwinism”?

I’m honestly curious.  Personally, I’m really concerned about global warming, and about the more general impact the human species is having on the rest of the world’s ecology, not because I think that major extinctions are inherently tragic (I know Earth will become lifeless one day, and that major extinctions are inevitable) but because human beings evolved to live in one ecosystem, and are unlikely to be fit for a very different one.  So we are on the list of potential extinctees.  And a hell of a lot of human suffering will occur if our climate changes too rapidly.  If there’s anything we can do to slow things down, surely we should?

305 thoughts on “ID and AGW”

  1. Allan Miller:
    CharlieM,

    I don’t think it follows automatically that our degrees equip us to evaluate these claims better than others. My wife believes all sorts of nonsense! I’ve seen some very intelligent people advance some ridiculous arguments.

    And your wife, even if she may be too polite to say it, probably thinks the same about you.

    You are an ID supporter. You don’t say if you have a degree or not, but I do and I am not an ID supporter. It’s even in a biological disipline. Do you take any notice of me? No? So why care about a subset of geologists, physicists and chemists?

    I left school at the age of sixteen and have had no formal education to speak of since then.

    Why do you say that I take no notice of you? We wouldn’t be having this conversation if that were the case. Taking notice and agreeing with what you argue are not the same thing.

    Meantime, what about the AAAS and Royal Society?

    Well I have looked at your links, but only briefly.

    From your link to the AAAS
    First message

    1. Climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now.

    So do people who have signed the petition – Freeman Dyson has this to say:

    …there is man-made climate change, its a question of how much and is it good or bad. There are all sorts of questions. The fact that it exists is not a question. Certainly there is some effect of humans on climate and we have to try to find out what it is. I would say first of all we don’t understand the details, probably much less than is generally claimed and the most important thing is that there are huge non-climate effects of carbon dioxide which are overwhelmingly favourable, which are not taken into account. To me that is the main issue, that the earth is actually growing greener.

    Second message from your link:

    2. We are at risk of pushing our climate system toward abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts.

    Of course there is a risk. What I would like to find out is the size of the risk. How do the models compare with reality? How have past predictions faired? Why do some top scientists consider that the models are inaccurate?

    Third message

    3. The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost. And there is much we can do

    Lord Christopher Monckton discuuses costs in this video at about the forty and a half minute mark.

    From your link They write:

    In summary, responding effectively to the challenge of climate change requires a full understanding that there is now a high degree of agreement among climate scientists about the fact that climate change is happening now, because of human activities, and that the risks—including the possibility of abrupt and disruptive changes—will increase the longer greenhouse gas emissions continue.

    Well I think its a good idea to come up with ways to use fossil fuels in a more efficient and responsible ways, but I am still not convinced that there is an appreciable amount of global warming due to human activities.

  2. CharlieM,

    Lord Monckton is a moron, I’m afraid. I’ve seen more than enough of him.

    I am still not convinced that there is an appreciable amount of global warming due to human activities.

    Me either. Not convinced. But I am on balance inclined to think it true, and with all the fringe benefits, I think action is justified. If climate change is not a reason to reduce fossil fuel burning, but finite resources, acidification and other pollutants are, why argue against action, and instead promote the ostrich-like, politically-fuelled nonsense of the Moncktons and Robinsons of this world? I wouldn’t favour promoting a lie – getting reductions because of something that is known to be false – but the solution is the same regardless of the driver.

    Of course, politics is the another strand. I actually doubt the ability of humanity to collectively do much about the problems we face, and it’s not just because of the baffling tenacity of the ‘deniers’ in pursuing their campaign of misinformation. Climate Change is but a part of a rather worrying whole. We have gone forth and multiplied.

  3. Allan Miller:

    Lord Monckton is a moron, I’m afraid. I’ve seen more than enough of him.

    So no arguments about what he is saying, just your opinion of him as a person.

  4. CharlieM,

    There’s no point us arguing with each other about him. I think his approach to science is poor, and I have seen enough to know I do not consider him credible. You do, that’s wonderful.

    It’s like arguments by quote-mine: pointless. Paste and counter-paste. I’ll see your ‘expert’ and raise you mine.

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