Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
I still don't understand how a retiring emeritus professor would believe so fervently that AGW was a hoax and that his society of scientists was actively silencing valid debate.
The vast majority of people do not understand issues outside their area of expertise, yet think they do. It's that simple. There are literally uncountable different areas of expertise, and some of the rules always change with every different area. We expect to find something like nuclear physicists who do not understand geophysics, yet still express opinions as if they're qualified. People routinely fool themselves into thinking that they can understand things via proxy or analogy. This is the primary reason I refused to engage in that economic island retard scenario in that other abortion of a thread. No matter how you slice it, you cannot explain modern econ using a stupid island, and no matter how you slice it, you do not have authority to explain climate science unless you're a leading climate researcher.

And the physics has been explained. It's very, very simple stuff. People are just really, really, really stupid and let themselves get fooled into thinking things that aren't true. The AGW debate was over decades ago, and it was never even a debate in the first place; it was a data gathering process and logical determination. But then liars and retards didn't like that so they started voting Republican.

Either potholer or greenman has a video showing the most basic of the physics and chemistry. It's not that we don't have a Feynman to explain it, it's that it's been explained over and over and over and over but we miss it due to the misdirection tactics of propagandists. Propagandists are not much different than magicians. The latter uses visual misdirection, the former uses psychological misdirection, or however you want to describe it.



Another thing to note is that the most logical analysis of global warming strongly suggests that it is a doomsday scenario i.e. the human world comes to an end. This is extremely hard for people to swallow, and even most climatologists tend to ignore this truth. However, as each year goes by, several more climatologists are coming out saying it really is a going to be the apocalypse, yet they're still mistakenly thinking in terms of mass displacement and ecological destruction. That's baby stuff compared to the real levels of heat trapped in the biomass we're returning to the earth's surface

My prediction, for which I fortunately will not be around to witness, is that AGW turns the earth into one of the hottest and most toxic climates its had since formation. Given the amount of GHG we're releasing, this is almost undeniable. I say "almost" because it's possible that some time in the future we may have some super sci fi artificial sequestration technology that can bring us back from the brink. The bottom line, though, is that we can't open up the coal mines and the permafrost without facing the consequences, and we know those consequences are several magnitudes beyond what humans are capable of dealing with under current and theoretically practical technology

AGW denialism will almost never disappear. Most people are not prepared to admit that everything they are and everything they ever will be, the entire progeny of their entire being, is finished. 150 years from now, when the globe is 10 degrees hotter, be fully prepared for that times' rendition of the teabagger fundie xtians screaming how nothing is wrong or it's god's will or whatever. One of the natures of humankind is that our egos know no bounds. Our egos are adamant in making us subconsciously believe that we are unbeatable and will go on forever.



On the bright side, global warming is awesome. I fully support it, and have zero desire to try to go green or whatever. Nothing imposes suffering as massive and horrible as humans, this suffering increases exponentially with technology, and I believe that given full technological development, the amount of evil in the world will be unfathomable and virtually infinite. AGW annihilation may be the only thing that could stop the sensory havoc we wreak upon ourselves. 30k years ago, the weak died; today, the weak suffer imprisonment, starvation, depression, etc for decades; in the future, the weak will likely suffer limitless misery due to extreme technologies like agelessness and virtual reality.

What do you think is going to happen when the technology exists to trap a sensory perceptive network in a virtual self-replicating and self-sustaining system of torture? It will happen, just like the equivalent happens today to the greatest degree that technology allows. I say bring on the global warming and its total environmental collapse. At least then human suffering will be extinguished once and for all.