Climate Change -- conspiracy theory or is it time we all drive a Prius?

Quote: JimRockford

The earth has but we humans have not. The human species is about 200,000 years old. Humans have experienced global temperatures similar to today about 120,000 years ago. Obviously we survived, but there were only about 20,000, scattered around Africa doing the tribal hunter gatherer thing. Civilization has never seen it this warm. Our temp is rising about 10 times faster than it did back then and we haven't peaked yet.

To me the "right" temp is one that civilization can adapt to and still maintain a modern standard of living. Emerging from past ice ages, temperatures rose 2 degrees C in about 2000 years. We have risen more than 2 deg C in 140 years.

Quote: odiousgambit

Cold snaps and heat waves are just weather, no real scientist would try to draw conclusions from single events. So here we go, the media brings journalists on who claim otherwise and we sit here and say "oh, I've listened to the science now" all too easily.

Quote: odiousgambit

Cold snaps and heat waves are just weather, no real scientist would try to draw conclusions from single events. So here we go, the media brings journalists on who claim otherwise and we sit here and say "oh, I've listened to the science now" all too easily.

Quote: JimRockford

At the same time there will be those who refute the media or Al Gore or Emma Thompson or me for that matter, and claim they have refuted the climate scientists.

Quote: odiousgambit

and there is the irony that someone like me, who likes the outdoors, and is retired and thus unworried about what screwy ideas might do the the economy and his job prospects, who really has no reason to carry any water for polluters of any kind, winds up taking the side of those pushing back.

Quote: rxwine

I think you can show that there are always some number of pieces of evidence in almost any science that lends itself to someone who is a skeptic of common assertions of that science.

True or false?

Quote:

Katharine Hayhoe on her Facebook page (January 2017)
https://www.facebook.com/katharine.hayhoe/posts/1814155105476035

""Climate Change is a Hoax ....Big Money For Scientists to get Grants....Climate Change is Welfare for Scientists!!"

I receive messages like this on a regular basis. And when I point out that an earth scientist with a PhD would get a lot more money working for an oil company than a university, it's met with total incomprehension.

Why is it that people are so convinced all climate scientists are shoveling millions of dollars of government grant money into their Swiss bank accounts (and oil executives aren't shoveling billions into accounts in the Cayman Islands)?

Part of it might be because grants always seem to involve such enormous sums. And it's true, the biggest grant I was ever awarded was the stunning amount of $1.1M USD. Stunning, that is, until we break it down. Here goes!

I wrote the grant with 4 co-principal investigators from different universities. So we divided up the money about equally, giving each of us around $220,000. Still a nice amount.

The grant was for 4 years, which meant I had $55,500 to spend each year. Still nice, right?

Then the university takes 1/3 of that for "facilities & administration" costs. F&A doesn't cover the luxuries — my office has no window, I bought all my own furniture and computer — but it does give us internet, electricity, and an infernal amount of paperwork. That leaves $37,000 for me to spend each year.

With that money, I pay a graduate student the princely salary of about $25,000; I pay the university their tuition, which is around $10,000; and that leaves $2,000 left over each year. Year one, I buy the student a computer; year two, I pay for them to attend a scientific conference; and years 3 and 4, I pay for us to publish one scientific paper because yes, those cost about $2,000 as well.

BOOM - that's how a scientist spends $1.1M! Surprised?"

Quote: rxwine

Addressing another point.