<story><title>Massive glacier collapse</title><url>http://unofficialnetworks.com/collapse-video-glacial-size-city-116670/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>run4yourlives</author><text>The problem is that nobody really &quot;knows&quot; what is going on. Climate science is still very much a work in progress. This is the sad truth of the matter.&lt;p&gt;Trying to figure out whether or not humans are a direct cause of climate change is like trying to figure out if exposure to a certain household product gives you cancer. People get cancer all the time from various sources, and while certain folk can point directly to said chemical being a carcinogen, even if that agreement exists it starts to open up a whole new debate about whether or not there is &lt;i&gt;enough&lt;/i&gt; of a link to matter.&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, ignoring the single idiots on either side, we&apos;ve got:&lt;p&gt;1. A general consensus that the world is warming;&lt;p&gt;2. A slightly less strong consensus that humans are contributing to this warming;&lt;p&gt;3. A majority (but not a consensus, IMO) extending that to humans being the most direct and primary cause of warming;&lt;p&gt;4. A strong consensus that we should reduce our overall carbon emissions (for obvious reasons), regardless;&lt;p&gt;5. A small but significant &lt;i&gt;scientific&lt;/i&gt; group arguing that we are not the primary cause of warming, even though we may be a contributing factor;&lt;p&gt;6. A large contingent of non-science laymen that feel that because 5 may be a valid opinion, the entire study of climate science is bunk;&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s basically the best I&apos;ve found. There are zealots in every camp above. There are also those that feel that each individual point being right means we should either ignore everything else, be it science or consequence.&lt;p&gt;Given how complex the earth&apos;s climate is, and how little we know about things like the sun, earth&apos;s climate history, and the long term effects of particular chemical compositions in our atmosphere, I feel we won&apos;t progress much past our current stage in enough time to make much a difference overall. IMHO, if we believe that climate change is real, we should be focusing all efforts on dealing with it as best we can.</text></item><item><author>MichaelGG</author><text>Can anyone recommend a good book (preferably on Kindle) that explains climate change and our actual scientific knowledge? The issue seems to be so politicized that all sources seem incredibly biased. Sure, there might changes happening, but from history, isn&apos;t that what the climate does? It seems that one side portrays it as no big deal, and the other says we&apos;ll all die in a few decades.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not looking for something telling me how to behave or react, just something that covers how/what we know for certain. Or is the science and understanding required too far out of reach for laymen?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>justsee</author><text>&amp;#62; 3. A majority (but not a consensus, IMO) extending that to humans being the most direct and primary cause of warming;&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s just flat out wrong. There is a scientific consensus that humans are responsible for global warming. To elaborate: &quot;That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 19 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. More specifically, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.&quot; [0]&lt;p&gt;This is based on models that have been refined over decades, and data and analysis from multiple separate scientific disciplines that agree with each other.&lt;p&gt;Your resignation that we don&apos;t &apos;know&apos; (which alludes to an unscientific requirement for 100% certainty), and that climate science is &apos;still very much a work in progress&apos; betrays a lack of knowledge about scientific models in general. It is worth reading this section on climate models to understand their purpose, value, and reliability [1].&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-co...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate....&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Massive glacier collapse</title><url>http://unofficialnetworks.com/collapse-video-glacial-size-city-116670/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>run4yourlives</author><text>The problem is that nobody really &quot;knows&quot; what is going on. Climate science is still very much a work in progress. This is the sad truth of the matter.&lt;p&gt;Trying to figure out whether or not humans are a direct cause of climate change is like trying to figure out if exposure to a certain household product gives you cancer. People get cancer all the time from various sources, and while certain folk can point directly to said chemical being a carcinogen, even if that agreement exists it starts to open up a whole new debate about whether or not there is &lt;i&gt;enough&lt;/i&gt; of a link to matter.&lt;p&gt;From what I can tell, ignoring the single idiots on either side, we&apos;ve got:&lt;p&gt;1. A general consensus that the world is warming;&lt;p&gt;2. A slightly less strong consensus that humans are contributing to this warming;&lt;p&gt;3. A majority (but not a consensus, IMO) extending that to humans being the most direct and primary cause of warming;&lt;p&gt;4. A strong consensus that we should reduce our overall carbon emissions (for obvious reasons), regardless;&lt;p&gt;5. A small but significant &lt;i&gt;scientific&lt;/i&gt; group arguing that we are not the primary cause of warming, even though we may be a contributing factor;&lt;p&gt;6. A large contingent of non-science laymen that feel that because 5 may be a valid opinion, the entire study of climate science is bunk;&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s basically the best I&apos;ve found. There are zealots in every camp above. There are also those that feel that each individual point being right means we should either ignore everything else, be it science or consequence.&lt;p&gt;Given how complex the earth&apos;s climate is, and how little we know about things like the sun, earth&apos;s climate history, and the long term effects of particular chemical compositions in our atmosphere, I feel we won&apos;t progress much past our current stage in enough time to make much a difference overall. IMHO, if we believe that climate change is real, we should be focusing all efforts on dealing with it as best we can.</text></item><item><author>MichaelGG</author><text>Can anyone recommend a good book (preferably on Kindle) that explains climate change and our actual scientific knowledge? The issue seems to be so politicized that all sources seem incredibly biased. Sure, there might changes happening, but from history, isn&apos;t that what the climate does? It seems that one side portrays it as no big deal, and the other says we&apos;ll all die in a few decades.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not looking for something telling me how to behave or react, just something that covers how/what we know for certain. Or is the science and understanding required too far out of reach for laymen?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>moultano</author><text>Your post is unsupported by evidence, and seems to be just lazily taking the middle road in an attempted to appear enlightened. The two sides of the &quot;debate&quot; are not equal. There is not substantial disagreement that the climate is changing and that humans are directly responsible.&lt;p&gt;See the consensus report here for the net effects of different factors on the climate. The net effect from human activity is the largest component.
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-human-and.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>