[chiefalchemist]

Simple enough… share links to the science that thoroughly proves what you’re saying. “Al Gore said it, it must be true,” isn’t going to cut it.

As for the “never ever”, that’s another assumption. The climate record over the looooong term simply is not that accurate.

Of course, there is a fair amount of correlation and circumstantial evidence, but parroting that as absolute fact and causation does make it scientific. There is a lot of “telephone” on this issue. Those using hundreds of years or even thousands should be met with skepticism.

To clarify: I agree 100% that the climate is changing. It always have. Unfortunately, the rabbit hole of proof is not that deep. Most of “proof” is based on consensus and groupthink dictated by “the experts.”

[BLKNSLVR]

"the experts"

You mean those who have dedicated their careers to learning the science and studying the various evidence and using that as a base of reference?

Who would you cite otherwise?

Those providing the alternate view to "the experts" all seem to be seriously lacking in any related qualifications. Politicians, radio personalities, fossil fuel industry lobbyists, marketers, advertising executives. They're all pundits, they're not experts, they literally don't know what they're talking about.

If you believe everything, or even most things, those various groups tell you, well, I'm not sure how to help.

[chiefalchemist]

Let me rephrase:

The most important Science [1] in the history of Science and history of The World… is no science at all. It’s consensus. Nothing more.

Let that ^^^ sink in.

I might consent, as a matter of caution. But I do so reluctantly and with skepticism. Most importantly, I’m not fooling myself and thinking I’m believing in something that is. Not. There. That is, Science. I’m not mindlessly parroting a narrative [2] - like a bad version of kindergarten telephone - because I’m afraid of asking obvious, worthy, and intelligent questions. I’m not a victim of my biases.

We’re done here.

1 - Please note, the upper case S.

2 - Examples given, there are others.

[chiefalchemist]

You’re assuming. Dedicating their career doesn’t mean they’ve remained dedicated to The Science. They have egos, careers, reputations, etc.

Read the articles in my Original comment.

Add this (book) to the list:

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/05/05/children-pandemic-vi...

You said all you said and yet didn’t site anything. How is that? But this is exactly the problem. People take a position, bias kicks in. They double down. More bias. There’s no turning back.

Thank you. You’ve proven my point.

Why do you think “the experts” are any different? They’re likely worse, as they have more to lose.

[khriss]

> Most of “proof” is based on consensus and groupthink dictated by “the experts.”

Ah of course, because the 'experts' are tainted by 'groupthink' any 'rebuttal' made by armchair internet warriors must therefore be absolutely true.

[chiefalchemist]

Read the reference articles. All perfectly legit sources. All are examples of how corruptible “The Science” can be.

Maybe that’s not the case with climate? Yet, not a single shared link pointing to science-based proof.

This thread is a perfect example of the type of human behavior that leads to false consensus.

[anonymous_user9]

If anyone were to share a link, you'd doubtless say it isn't thorough enough.

Can you give any thorough scientific evidence as to why we should consider this unprecedentedly fast change normal?

[wk_end]

> To clarify: I agree 100% that the climate is changing. It always have [sic].

Did anything I said imply that I didn't recognize that? There's no need for you to clarify, I was very clear myself that I was responding to your lack of understanding about the nature of the changing climate.

The XKCD comic I already linked shows you the climate record for the past 22000 years; you can see with your own eyes that the rate of change since we began burning hydrocarbons on an industrial scale, particularly since the year 2000, has been precipitous and looks like nothing that's happened in the entire history of humanity as depicted. Maybe you missed it - it's a little subtle - but the comic already lists its sources on the side. At a high level, they determine the climate record by examining things like tree rings and ice cores; if you're curious, those sources are happy to explain their methodology in detail. Beyond that, do you have a specific reason for casting doubt on those sources?

So let's see - going back to my comment, I pointed out the climate appears to be warming up faster than ever before; I (well, XKCD) has given you sources for that. You yourself acknowledged that there was a correlation between the warming climate and the Industrial Revolution, but I suppose we need a source for the correlated rise in carbon dioxide. Here's a graph from climate.gov using data from NOAA, ETHZ, Our World In Data, and the Global Carbon Project. If you visit each of those sources (which are linked to from the graph) you can then drill down and how they themselves synthesized it (as we know, that's how science works).

https://www.climate.gov/media/12990

Finally, I guess I asserted that carbon dioxide traps heat. Here's a paper from 1856, where a simple experiment demonstrates the effect:

https://www.risorsa-acqua.it/PDF/eunicefoote.pdf

So at this point we have evidence of a phenomenon (the planet suddenly warming much faster than before, per the XKCD visualization and its sources) and we have a demonstrable mechanism (the warming effect of carbon dioxide, per Eunice Foote's experiments circa the mid-19th century) matching our data (the increase in carbon dioxide, per NOAA and ETHZ and Our World In Data and the Global Carbon Project) that solidly explains it. That looks like science to me. Further skepticism without any contradictory evidence and you're just getting into poor epistemology frankly, and I'll just have to start throwing around metascientific ideas like Occam's razor and Russell's teapot and post-critical logic. You keep demanding more "science", but what does that actually look like to you? You look at the entire scientific community (who you scare quote as "the experts") and their body of work and mindlessly dismiss it for not being "scientific" enough. It's a rhetorical feint, not genuine intellectual curiosity.

To be honest with you, I haven't even seen An Inconvenient Truth myself. Have you? Does Al Gore just come on-screen and assert things, or does he give explanations for you to ignore? Sources for you to ignore?

If my tone is short, it's because it's both frustrating and amusing to be treated with such airs of intellectual condescension when at this point the evidence and consensus for anthropogenic climate change is so strong. When everyone who's devoted their life to understanding something says you're wrong - even if you think you may actually be right! - it'd probably be better to argue from a position of humility, because the odds are very good that you are in fact wrong. As Carl Sagan said: they laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

A few years ago I was walking through Queen's Park in Toronto and saw a Flat Earther accost people with the same sort of arrogance. Most laypeople walking through the park on a sunny weekend afternoon, it turns out, couldn't tell you off the top of their head about how we know that the Earth is round; whereas Flat Earthers performing a stunt are more than prepared to tell you why they know that the Earth really is flat. And I guess there's something valuable about court jesters making people aware of how much common sense they take for granted, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of ridicule.

[chiefalchemist]

This is the last time I’m going to say this… FFS…

consensus === Science.

In fact the repetition of consensus is a classic tool of propaganda. “I’ve heard it a bunch of times… it must be true.” And if you don’t think scientists aren’t subject to the same influence, you’re naive.

Stop waving your finger.

Thanks for proving my point.