I sometimes have difficulty responding to GW deniers.

[blackhole123]

The problem is that they often argue about some very complex issues that, to an uneducated person, may seem to favor with them since they take a very simplistic view of the debate. Everything is taken on its face without a shred of actual scientific knowledge.

 

And when I get done researching some very complex issue enough to have a good understanding of it, they have already moved on to another extremely complex issue that I don't quite understand myself (they don't either, but again they cherry pick their issues to find things that may look reasonable if you aren't a climatologist). So I find myself in the position of not wanting to let these people run around spreading lies, but having to be a climatologist to adequately respond to their arguments. Again, this is not saying their arguments are good, just that they throw a ton of stuff into the debate that takes a deep understanding of the issues to refute. The same type of thing happens when debating things like evolution.

 

For instance:

 

http://freenet-homepage.de/klima/indexe.htm

 

Other than pointing out that Thieme is a nut (ZOMG all you can do is attack my sources!), that is a privately owned website, and explain the greenhouse effect, I have no way of directly refuting this article.

[swansont]

The question here is what evidence would make them change their mind — if they can't be swayed at all, then they are ideologues and possess a religious belief. If they require evidence that is not reasonable to expect exists, then they are being intellectually dishonest

(more on that here: http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/4844)

 

The bottom line is that the true deniers (and not everyone who questions AGW is a denier) are not interested in an honest discussion and cannot be persuaded. They will not change their mind, and are willing to lie, distort data and use deceitful debating tactics, such as ones that appeal to emotion rather than fact; making straw men shifting goal posts and using a shotgun approach. This last one involves rapidly questioning a number of lines of evidence, claiming them to be wrong, and simply moving on to the next one when they are debunked, hoping that one can't be so easily dismissed. It's far easier to claim something wrong than it is to carefully show the claim to be specious, and is a drain to continually debunk statements. It's an attempt to win by attrition, as if wearing down your opponent changes actual facts.

 

Related to that is the zombie argument — something that just won't die even though it has been repeatedly been killed. Deniers will trot out already-debunked arguments, knowing full well that the argument has a counter, but that doesn't matter because they won't be swayed by facts. Denialism is a religion.

 

The bottom line is that the greenhouse effect does not violate any laws of physics. This is akin to creationists claiming that evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. It's crap. I'll go into more detail when I have the time, though this is a zombie argument that has a debunking on the web somewhere, I'm sure).

 

edit: here is a debunking http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/09/greenhouse-violates-thermodynamics.php

Edited March 9, 2010 by swansont

[iNow]

To the OP: All of the arguments on that page you linked are countered using the below:

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/resources.php?a=links&arg=161

[Moontanman]

I think GW is most crippled by it's name, it should be Global Climate Change, Global Warming suggests that all is going to happen is the weather will be warmer, Sadly many people will pick up on the cover of a book with out ever actually reading it (I always thought the way a music album can have a wild cover and pick up buyers just for the cover is a good analogy) Most people do not care to read deeply in a science paper and usually stop once they think they have the gist of what it is about. Global Warming = higher temps every where. We might know that is not the case but most people do not see it that way.

 

Then of course there is the religious aspects of it, it ranges from the idea that man cannot have the power to change climate, only god could do that, to the whole thing is the realization of biblical prophecy and man cannot do anything about because the end of the world is coming blah blah blah

[bascule]

The problem is that they often argue about some very complex issues that, to an uneducated person, may seem to favor with them since they take a very simplistic view of the debate. Everything is taken on its face without a shred of actual scientific knowledge.

 

Awfully reminiscent of how evolution deniers work, huh?

[JohnB]

The bottom line is that the true deniers (and not everyone who questions AGW is a denier)

Thanks for that swansont.

 

I think that most who aren't convinced by the arguments could be more properly described as unconvinced by the "certainty" that many arguments are couched in.

 

"The models are correct, we've accounted for everything" leads one to wonder if they include things like the recent findings of Susan Soloman that perhaps 30% of the most recent warming came from a reduction in water in the stratosphere? It's doubtful they do since the findings were onlt released a month ago.

 

Someone early in the debate spoke of "unknown unknowns", the certainty of the predictions implies that there are no more unknowns unknowns left in this field. A highly dubious state of affairs.

 

I would think that Tremberths "travesty" comment would say to any reasonable person that we don't know as much about energy transport within the climate system as we thought we did. If we did, we would know where the warming has gone.

 

Frankly, I see the argument as being about the size of the "A" in AGW.

 

Nobody in their right mind doubts that the world has warmed in the last 130 years or so. (Anybody with more that two functioning brain cells would think that this is a good thing btw, unless they prefer ice ages and the attendant ills they bring.)

 

The thing is that the climate is always changing, always has and always will, with or without the help of humans.

 

So how much of the warming is due to CO2? If it is a lot, then mitigation is a great idea and should be done. If it's not a lot, then any mitigation attempts won't make much difference in the long run and we would be better off spending the money on dealing with the consequences of climate change.

 

Physics tells us that for a doubling of CO2 from the preindustrial levels, we should get a warming of .5 degrees. That's the starting point. Anything above that is due to other factors which include both forcings and feedbacks.

 

How well do we know those other factors? From above it is clear the answer is "Not as well as we thought".

 

Anybody who wants to claim a 95% confidence in their predictions when recent papers show them to out by at least 30% is pulling your leg.

 

On a purely human side. Some of us just find it extremely suspicious that virtually all adjustments made to data lead to greater warming. Really, what are the odds on that?

 

This might come across as "Appeal to Emotion", but if each time someone corrects a "mistake" with the result strengthening their argument, and alarm bells don't go off, then I have a selection of really nice bridges I'd like you to see.

 

Blackhole, the bottom line is that not everybody who disagrees with AGW is a "denier". Also, since from it's inception, the term was meant to be derogatory and insulting, I would suggest that the best way to talk to someone is to not start by insulting them. It might be productive to follow the lead of the UKs Guardian in this.

 

I difficulty is that there are ideologues on both sides. FRom the loon that you linked to in the OP (who presumably is on "my side") to Paul Ehrlich who seems to believe any climate/eco disaster that comes along (who is on your side). I personally think that anybody who advocates putting chemicals in drinking water to prevent people breeding is a dangerous personality who should be kept somewhere safe.

 

Quite often it seems, something comes up that might be avalid argument (either for or against) which immediately gets blown out of proportion and the response is to argue against the exreme view and not the original idea.

 

Steering between the two extreme camps is sometimes like sailing the North West Passage at full speed in a paper mache Titanic.

[Dudde]

A lot of arguments I hear are that the government and lefties are just trying to prevent us from driving large vehicles and get rid of economic stability brought by having a major resource like gas and oil - and while I find that a perfectly stable and acceptable argument, couldn't the effort be made at least so that we stop being huge lazy slobs as a society as a whole?

 

Don't get me wrong, I like polluting my own drinking water as much as the next guy, and I love developing this cough just because I can't go outside without 50% of the air I breath being pollution, but to relate it to another thing I hate - it's like walking through walmart's parking lot and seeing 10,000 carts 4 feet away from the cart drop-off thingies. I don't necessarily feel that we should need to go through several decades of arguing amongst ourselves in order to decide to clean up a bit, it's not like starting to promote a healthy environment and less dependency on these materials is going to end up doing anything bad, and it's not that expensive for us to stop being so lazy.

 

This is also the best argument I usually use against deniers IRL, because they don't want to look like a slob (and truthfully it doesn't work unless you have others listening to your conversation, otherwise they start talking louder until you stop)

[swansont]

Before things go too far, I'd like to note that this thread has a specific topic. Dealing with other aspects of the global warming discussion should take place in the appropriate threads, rather than hijacking this discussion.

 

 

———

 

 

The treatise linked in the OP is basically making the argument that insulation won't cause a heat source to warm up, which is clearly bogus. It makes the mistake of treating the CO2 as a heat source and draws invalid conclusions from that.

 

If you wrap a blanket around an incandescent bulb, the bulb's temperature will increase, because you have made it more difficult for heat to leave. And this will be true even though the bulb is hotter than the blanket; nothing here violates physics. This is what the CO2 is doing with the earth. The heat source in this case is the sun rather than being internal; the CO2 is transparent to the bulk of the incoming radiation, but not to the outgoing, which happens with a different blackbody profile owing to the lower temperature (300K vs 6000K). The CO2 absorbs and re-radiates some IR back to the earth. As a result, the radiation heat transfer is less efficient (the earth is slightly better insulated) and temperature goes up as a result.

 

As I said before, the claims that this violates physics are crap. Many homeowners can attest to the truth that insulation works.

[Mr Skeptic]

We also have an internal heat source -- radioactive decay at the earth's core. How significant is this? In any case, CO2 will have the same insulating effect for that.

[SH3RL0CK]

Nobody in their right mind doubts that the world has warmed in the last 130 years or so...So how much of the warming is due to CO2? If it is a lot, then mitigation is a great idea and should be done. If it's not a lot, then any mitigation attempts won't make much difference in the long run and we would be better off spending the money on dealing with the consequences of climate change.

 

Physics tells us that for a doubling of CO2 from the preindustrial levels, we should get a warming of .5 degrees. That's the starting point. Anything above that is due to other factors which include both forcings and feedbacks.

 

How well do we know those other factors? From above it is clear the answer is "Not as well as we thought".

 

I am skeptical, but less about the "A" in AGW and more about the bottom line. What is our best course of action? We do not know.

 

In my mind, this question is really two fold.

 

1) We need to establish with certainty the realationship between our actions and climate change. We need to know that if we do X then Y happens. The climate modeling that currently exists isn't currently capable of doing this with any certainty, IMO.

 

2) Once we answer #1 above (and I am opposed to any serious spending until then), we need to determine how much we are willing and capable of spending to mitigate the climate change. This needs to be a political question and not a scientific question.

 

Perhaps the best course of action is to do nothing. Perhaps it is a few minor lifestyle changes. Perhaps a return to the stone age (though I myself disagree as in this case I would probably either starve or freeze during the next winter).

 

To answer your question of how to deal with a "denier" you first need to determine exactly what is being denied. In JohnB's case, he is denying some claims regarding the "A" in AGW. In my case, I reject some (most until we understand the science better) of the proposed "solutions" to climate change. A debate between either of us would necessarily be different, as it would be to a true "denier" as we have differing viewpoints.

[swansont]

We also have an internal heat source -- radioactive decay at the earth's core. How significant is this? In any case, CO2 will have the same insulating effect for that.

 

It's significant over long time scales, mainly because the decay chains are dominated by some long-lived isotopes. You couldn't ignore it if you were trying to determine the age of the earth by its cooling rate, which is one story I've heard about why William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) got the wrong answer when he determined the age of the earth to be tens of millions of years, back in the late 1800's.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth#Heat

 

gives the total as 4.2 x 10^13W, as compared to more that 10^17W of solar incident on the earth.

 

So a small change in insulation of the decay heat is not going to be significant.

[JohnB]

In keeping with the OP. (And I must admit I got a different message from the one swansont did.)

 

Blackhole, the person who wrote the article isn't a "denier", he is however misinformed and is, as you said, looking at things rather simplisticly.

 

I think that this is a good example where the argument goes wrong on both sides.

 

If you look at the majority of diagrams and explanations available to the general populace, then you see the argument is generally stated as the heat being "reflected back".

 

If you don't believe me, then do a Google search for "Greenhouse Effect" images. Virtually all show a little arrow going out and bouncing back, in effect stating that the energy is reflected.

 

This is, of course, wrong.

 

So the author is refuting the idea that heat is reflected back in some way. His argument is correct in that respect only.

 

However, as swansont pointed out, it's not about reflection but about insulation. So the authors argument is also wrong in as much as it tries to comment on Greenhouse theory.

 

So in this case, Greenhouse Theory is right, but how it is presented (in most cases) to the general public is wrong and the authors refutation of that presentation is right, but his conclusion on Greenhouse Theory is wrong.

 

The author is not a "denier", but he is somebody who should do quite a bit more reading about the actual theory before offering his misguided opinion. His argument is sort of sound but has nothing whatsoever to do with how the atmosphere (and GHGs) really work and so is easily refuted.

 

To a great degree it is a "strawman" argument with the unusual aspect of the strawman being set up by his opponents.

 

*Brought to you by one of SFNs resident AGW sceptics.*

[swansont]

Blackhole, the person who wrote the article isn't a "denier", he is however misinformed and is, as you said, looking at things rather simplisticly.

 

I think that this is a good example where the argument goes wrong on both sides.

 

If you look at the majority of diagrams and explanations available to the general populace, then you see the argument is generally stated as the heat being "reflected back".

 

If you don't believe me, then do a Google search for "Greenhouse Effect" images. Virtually all show a little arrow going out and bouncing back, in effect stating that the energy is reflected.

 

This is, of course, wrong.

 

So the author is refuting the idea that heat is reflected back in some way. His argument is correct in that respect only.

 

However, as swansont pointed out, it's not about reflection but about insulation. So the authors argument is also wrong in as much as it tries to comment on Greenhouse theory.

 

Since the discussion is about radiation, using the term "reflection" isn't out of place. And from the discussion of the effect in the linked post, it's clear the author understands the process. He's just applying blackbody radiation concepts incorrectly. But does it in a way that a non-physicist might think he's correct.