I read the results of the study with interest a few days ago. Unfortunately, it does not rescue me from my doubts, because I never doubted that that global warming was happening. I have only doubted whether it was primarily due to human agency, and likewise doubted whether or not humans have the ability to change it.
I have also noted that it would appear as an 'inconvenient truth' (sorry, had to do it) that what was shaping up to be a mini-ice age *may* have been pushed back a bit through this larger warming trend. In other words, the global warming was not all bad.
Unfortunately, the two topics ('Global Warming', also known as 'Climate Change', and 'AGW' or 'Anthropological Global Warming') are often conflated with each other; quite often is is a deliberate act. If one accepts Climate Change but doubts AGW, one is a 'Denier' who refuses to believe Climate Change is happening. Sigh.
So your thread is right on cue, although I am sure you did not mean it as a club over the head. The article says nothing about whether or not the now twice-confirmed global warming is human-caused, or whether or not man can do anything about it. But we still segue straight from the one into the other as if they were the same thing, don't we?
Imagine if some scientists proposed that there are more volcanoes recently, and that they are increasing. They further proposed that human activity caused these volcanoes. They finally supposed that mankind ought therefore do something about it. Despite the fact that all three things are volcano-centric, they are still in fact three completely different things. Are there more volcanoes now than in the past and are the numbers increasing? We can crunch numbers on that, and perhaps it is true. That does not say that humans caused them though, does it? And supposing that someone comes up with compelling evidence showing that yes, human are the cause of all the recent volcanoes, that does not demonstrate that we can do anything about it, does it? Still, if the science is sufficiently adopted as a political cause célèbre, any who dast gainsay the increase in volcanic activity, human agency in them, or that a cure can be devised, are tossed into the same pot and labeled 'Deniers'.
It does get a bit old, my friend.
Fix or ignore? I haven't a clue that we can 'fix' anything regarding Climate Change. I rather suspect that we haven't the power to affect weather on a global scale by intentional action. Even if we could, I sincerely doubt we have enough understanding of the global climate to 'fix' it without nudging it too much one way or another, causing catastrophes hitherto unseen. And not only do I fear mindless experimentation of this sort, I also do not wish to pay for it through taxes and radical mandated changes to my way of life. Imagine if some scientist devised a clever plan to set the world aright; it only involves setting off a hundred or so H-Bombs directly around the equator, and all should be well. Whee, let's embrace that; it will surely simply nudge our climate back into alignment without too much risk of say ending the world entirely, right?
We are so full of ourselves, aren't we? We broke the entire planet, we're that powerful. But we're so beneficent and our power so finely-tuned that we can also fix what we broke. I have trouble believing either of those.
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. Do American's in general really not think that they should be concerned about recycling, minimising resource wastage or constraining pollution?
