1. Deny a problem exists (it's "junk science").
2. Deny humans are the cause ("the climate has always changed, it's not because of industrial activity" - never mind the rate of change and the source of change).
3. Deny it's a problem ("global warming will benefit humanity").
4. Deny we can solve it ("renewable energy is not practical on a large scale", "carbon taxes don't do anything for the climate, plus they hurt the poor", etc.)
5. It's too late anyway...(so lets just keep going with business as usual...)

The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report

Quote:
More at the link.

Vuk11 wrote on Sep 19^th, 2013 at 4:22pm:


Correct. Everything must be put to the test, however, you do tend to see a lot of recycled old arguments. 

This is quite a good article on how science works in practice. It's worth reading it through. The alarm bells should go off when you see some of the fallacies in Section 3.

http://www.av8n.com/physics/scientific-methods.htm

Then, there are the basics. If you want to show that a premise is invalid, at least represent the premise correctly.  Most run of the mill denialists fail to do this. I don't know how often I've seen the claim that a runaway greenhouse effect is highly unlikely, when in fact nobody is claiming that it's remotely possible.

The other issue is jumping on anything that non experts say in defence of climatology. People often get things wrong if they are describing something outside their field.  That doesn't invalidate anything.

If you are a genuine sceptic (we should all be sceptics) then you should be just as concerned about the false scepticism as I am. After all, it's just noise. Too much of that false scepticism has an unwanted consequence.

The danger is that everything will be tarred with the same brush because there is just so much of this false scepticism to wade through.

# wrote on Sep 19^th, 2013 at 4:14pm:

The funny thing is when the deniers straddle several of those stages at the same time.

How many times have you heard some "genius" on here obediently parrot the Daily Mail's columnists silly idea that there has been "no warming for 17 years" - and then in the next post tell us that the warming is due to the sun, or cosmic rays or some other mysterious "natural" forcing.

I recall one moron recently claim that observed sea level rise is not due global warming, because it isn't melting ice causing it - it is thermal expansion.  When asked why the oceans are thermally expanding when he claims that there has been  "no warming for 17 years" - well, he just ran away - as he normally does.

muso wrote on Sep 19^th, 2013 at 7:16pm:


I agree this also includes the science coming out of the IPCC........???????

Now yesterday the IPCC where saying that the missing heat was in the deep layers of the ocean 3000m plus.

Which muso defended vehemently......!!!!!

AR5 is saying that most of the heat in the oceans is in the top 700 metres......!!!!

They seem to change their science like the wind changes direction......!!!!!

What is the excuse for this 180 degree back flip......!!!

Off-Topic replies have been moved to this Topic.

Vuk11 wrote on Sep 19^th, 2013 at 7:49pm:

meaning??? 

DRAH - can you just ease off with the crack?  It's not nice to accuse somebody of being a crack smoker.

Ajax - Don't you read my posts at all? By insisting that the IPCC have ever claimed that most ocean heat is in the lower ocean levels is just making you look very stupid. Even Gizmo disowned you.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Sep 21^st, 2013 at 12:58pm:


Meaning I'm willing to participate in a conversation about climate change until it devolves into personal attacks and pointless assumptions/accusations.

Funny thing, I read sometime ago now that the second point (basically it is just natural and has happened for eons) is quite easily dismissed because the actual science about climate coined the term climate change to directly articulate or describe effects on climate based solely on human interaction with the environment. Whereas the naturally occurring climate fluctuations are described as climate variation.

This may be a small point, but it is IMHO at least, an important one. The definitions are important to have a reasonable debate.

By the way, just those two terms would seemingly suggest that the scientific community already acknowledge that climate naturally has some variance, however, what seems to have been the trend has been systemic changes occurring specifically since we (human's) became industrialised.

Whether it is proved or not is beyond my knowledge base and skill set to understand, but, it is concerning that the language used is not accurate at times.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Sep 26^th, 2013 at 3:05pm:



Well then you would be in part totally wrong mate. Since I have heard of nomenclature, guess which bit you're wrong about - not that it would actually add anything to the debate.

So apart from my voting choices - you're pretty much off the mark.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Sep 26^th, 2013 at 7:08pm:


Neither are you I suspect

Phemanderac wrote on Sep 26^th, 2013 at 7:08pm:

I'm not trying to, but you are! 

Phemanderac wrote on Sep 26^th, 2013 at 7:21pm:


He's a nut, he only comes on here to get attention. It could have been any forum, it just happened to be this one. Don't respond to him, like many posters on this forum, he is a black hole.

Off-Topic replies have been moved to this Topic.

2b seems particularly prevalent here. Come to think of it, shouldn't that be:
2b(i)   deny there's a consensus;
2b(ii)  deny that it matters?

muso wrote on Sep 26^th, 2013 at 8:56pm:


I've nailed this a few times but I will have to nail it again.

In the last 15 years from the 1998 more than one third of ALL that's ALL human emissions of CO2 have gone up into the atmosphere that's (440 giga tonnes).

And temperatures remain flat............?????

There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature, for those interested look at our history and you will find that CO2 and temperature have never correlated.