Something else for science skeptics to deny

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/ne...rive-manhattans-heat-related-death-toll/5649/

Discuss!

Translation: "Fear for sale! Get ya fear wholesale right here!"

Translation: "We don't have any hard data to present, but some researchers gave coming up with some the old college try!"

Translation: "We don't even have sketchy evidence to back this statement up with, but PANIC!!!"

You might as well fuckin' quote Nostradamus if you're going to offer up this crap.

I like how you try to make skepticism sound like a dirty word, though. Way to go there. We'll all try to question "authority" less in the future.

You believe me on that, right?

What you call skepticism, is actually denial. Taking your three quotes and responses, we have you labelling data as fear, analysis as guesswork, and a description of an outlier scenario as the only conclusion (you and Paladin must be comparing notes).

"Get your ostrich heads here! Excellent sand-covered ostrich heads!"

I'm not a climate change denier, but come on... this article is talking about future-projection models, not historical data! Have there been any models that have been 100% accurate looking 70 years down the road?

At least there is enough historical data to confirm that earth's climate is changing. But projecting death tolls 70 years in the future is pretty fucking lame.

[Pedant]
Science is the realm of skepticism, so to be skeptical of skepticism...is to be a fuckin' idiot.
Yes, that is the technical term.

[/pedant]

If current trends continue, the world will he extinct by 2200.

Holy shit! They used data going all the way back to the 1980s!? That's, like--someone help me with the archaeological terms--an eon? an epoch?

Basing a prediction about the earth on data collected in the past 30 years is like saying that, because I haven't eaten since 6pm yesterday, I will never eat again.

Now go stand in the corner, dumbass.

You guys are all playing to type, congratulations!

In order to prevent heat-related deaths in Manhattan we should force people out of the city and then tear it down.

Clearly cities must be banned.

Yes, I'm going to debate projections about 2080. Call me when they actually come to pass. I'm not putting too much stock in models about 2080 when no one's been able to predict 2013.

And I'm not a science skeptic. I'm skeptical about the theory that CO2 created by human activity is a significant--and ultimately catastrophic--driver of the climate. The skeptical view is scientific.

You used the word first.

Because "data" has never been used to provoke fear in an audience.

Was there any proof presented? Geometry-level proof? No? Then there's an element of guesswork when you're ESTIMATING what MIGHT happen in the future. You're guessing at what seem to be reasonable values for parameters, if nothing else.

Outlier scenarios are a dime a dozen, and it's telling that whoever wrote the article felt the need to offer the "worse" possibility without bothering to come up with possible reasons for the "not as bad" possibility. That is bias -- not a dirty word, but an actual thing nonetheless -- and what should people be skeptical about if not bias?

Wow, how'd I miss that the first time? Using 30 years of data to make predictions about conditions 70 years out. Someone with even a 7th grade education in science should be able to see the flaws in this methodology.

The crowning irony is that if you took a good, actually viable use of statistical analysis like, I don't know, how as gun laws have become more permissive and gun ownership has increased violent crime has dropped while gun deaths have remained flat to make the case for less restrictive gun laws, gul would be like "no sir, I don't see it."

Or just move them all north to Canuckistan.

Let's put in the entire comment:

So these projections say all 32 models...ones where there is massive growth and ones where there are population slow down and technological changes to fight climate changes...doesn't matter...major heat growth either way.

That's a retcon of the Denier stance.

It's gone from "There's no such thing as global warming. You guys just want to take away our Stuff!" to "Maybe there is and maybe there isn't, but it's just an excuse for you guys to try to take away our Stuff!" to "Okay, yeah, maybe, but it's a natural phenomenon, AND THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT!!!"

I will adapt.

For those of you who are also able to adapt, I'll see you on the other side of the apocalypse. If not,

This is actually my attitude as well. The science is strong that it's happening and that human civilization is a culprit. But that doesn't mean we can necessarily stop it. The most sensible thing to do is prepare for greater heat, more tropical disease, more localized coastal flooding, and all the attendant disruptions.

As Tamar noted, the heat rise continues even when we scale back the human contribution. At this point, it's self propagating. Figure out how to survive the worst, make sure we're ready when it happens.

A "crisis" that occurrs 67 years from now is not a crisis.

Even if it has Kewl Space Battlez?

I just wish that in the early 90's, when it came down to "we're going to have to start making some changes now before it's too late", the Robber Baron Class had just come right out with an honest and concise "NEVER!!!! ", instead of the foot dragging, and propagandizing, and game-playing that there has been.

But...expecting pure honesty, and the courage to convey it, from evil....is like expecting good from evil.

So...I dunno why I was wishing it.
Last glimmering little flecks of naivete, I suppose

Why do you insult space battles?

And I suppose Ancalagon still wants everyone shoved into cities.

Good.

Well, yeah. High density housing is the most efficient way to control the proles . . . I mean, most efficient use of resources.

Droll and all, but most coop boards can't even control their own members.

Tell that to your daughter.

AGENDA 21!!!!

He's not. He's insulting you.