Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by waffles4all 4580 days ago
You use many assumptions too: take all of your questions and take the negative, you can't show them either. I am a practicing scientist, I work in alternative energy and develop semiconductors. I am not a climatologist, and it is not likely you are either. Expert-level knowledge matters, unless you've yet to master anything.

The climate is a very complex system. Small perturbations can have unexpected results, see the butterfly effect. We do not know the whole picture, but neither do you. Caution and conservation would suggest we want things to remain the same, such as CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Producing carbon dioxide by thermal combustion is old technology. Ultimately fossil fuels are solar energy, the overall solar-to-electricity efficiency for fossil fuels is very low, <<1%. We can make PV with >40% using evidence-based principles developed using the scientific method. Scientific methods and principles are used in climate research. Cherry picking is not what I do when it comes to the scientific majority. If they are wrong and they later determine this, great, it is science. If they are right, great, it is science. If you ignore the scientific conclusion, you are not practicing science unless you are a researcher working to show why other experts are mistaken.

Experts have concluded that anthropogenic CO2 is a real and potentially serious problem. I have to trust them because my time is better spent developing potential solutions rather than rehashing their work. We advance by building off the shoulders of our predecessors.

The costs of being wrong about anthropogenic climate change and doing something are negligible especially if we make progress while doing so, but the costs of being right and doing nothing are potentially dangerous if we destabilize systems which require predictability such as agriculture.

1 comments

> You use many assumptions too (..)

No I didn't. I pointed yours.

Furthermore, you inferred my position on the matter simply by me pointing out your assumptions. I could too want a better world less dependent on fossil fuels for all you know.

My position is in line with the scientific majority. This is not new by any stretch of the imagination.

Taking issue with the assumptions used in this already established finding could suggest you either (1) don't know much about subject, (2) you have biases not from your own scientific inquiry, (3) you have drawn conclusions from your own research. There are large and well-funded disinformation campaigns, which work hard online to inject doubt into this discussion. Most certainly you aren't involved with this in any way, but it's possible you're influenced by it.

It is unreasonable for every post to be completely exhaustive, otherwise few would or could say anything. Perhaps you point out every discussion's assumptions, but if you do not then it might lead one to wonder what your deal is with this one.