[kirant]

I apologize in advance. I just realized how I accidentally referred to "both groups", which likely pointed towards the idea that I referred to "it exists" and "it doesn't exist" type of crowds. I've been wrapped in a debate elsewhere with two heavily ingrained sides (one where they say it's a minor issue and one which suggests it's a matter of major change that must occur now), so I was referring to them.

The matter at hand for me is no longer that earth has climate change due to human GHGs, but the extent at which we impact things (which I guess I didn't make clear. I did state I accept that GHGs impact temperature of the earth (which, unless you're using media logic, means that they have a positive correlation) and humans creating GHGs, but it was left implied that I believed humans created positive temperature changes), be it somewhere from "a minor change" to "scorched earth" and the salesman like pitches made to sell us on certain predictive model types.

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

In general I agree with what you're saying. However, I also share the frustration expressed above. Many people in this 'debate' aren't looking to increase their knowledge on the subject or even to have a real conversation about it. Instead, they have already decided their view, often based on non-science, and close themselves off to the facts.

And I think that's an issue in society - many times people don't discuss things to exchange ideas, but to attempt to convince others that their viewpoint is right...that they're opinion is the be all, end all.

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

There have been very few (two to my knowledge) of misleading scientific information or "bad science" being played by the group that has demonstrated the causes and eventual effects of GHG and global warming. Almost all of the "bad science" is being played by climate change deniers.

I'll be the first to admit I don't keep count of who's been proven wrong anymore. I did in high school, but post secondary eats up so much time. Little things though such as some pretty favourable curving schemes (I recall a big article which used what looked like temperature exponential curving on a data expectation that should not, in theory, be any exponential factors to cause such a rapid change) are what I notice as a red flag.

But the existent/non-existent crowds aren't what I intended to refer to. I mean how we're all now creating a wide stripe of predictions of how strongly GHGs impact the temperature. Even a 10 second Wikipedia search yields uncertainty ranges of about 1.5 degrees Celsius variance (2 to 5 degrees Celsius) 100 years from now. And my intention as a fence sitter is to wait until all this cleans up to decide exactly how badly GHGs actually are an issue, which seems to be a lot of politics (and occasionally gives fuel to the argument that GHGs aren't an issue when they overstretch the realm of logic and reasoning...hardly support for denial, but for people impatient and unwilling to look at the figures and arguments, I would posit that it swings readers one way, even though it shouldn't).

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

One 'side' has done EXTENSIVE research into this and has conclusively demonstrated the same thing over and over again. The other 'side' doesn't do research.

Fair enough. Again, when we consider it "no global warming" against "is global warming", I don't see much of an argument. The extent at which GHGs and global climate interact is a bit of a mystery and something I have no intend debating because of the weirdness played in it.

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

There is a fall equivalency being made here. There aren't "two sides" that are arguing the issue. There is no issue to argue. The science is fairly straight-forward. One 'side' of the 'debate' is using science (and lots of it) and the other 'side' of the 'debate' is using primarily nonsense.

Fair enough. That was a mistype on my behalf (see above, where this issue in my mind really shouldn't be considered two partied).