
'No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts - pseudolus
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99
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dsaavy
“The bad news is there is still a lot of work to do yet as climate deniers
continue to persistently attack the scientific consensus.”

The impact of climate change deniers who are simply rejecting the scientific
consensus is vastly overblown IMO. Those who actually impact climate change on
a large scale (executives at large corporations, policymakers across the
globe, etc.) are choosing to ignore scientific consensus for financial and
power related reasons.

It’s a red herring to focus on the last 1-3% of true “non-believers”. Everyone
should be focusing on explicitly calling out nefarious actors.

~~~
tfehring
> _It’s a red herring to focus on the last 1-3% of true “non-believers”_

Your estimate of 1-3% is too low by an order of magnitude, at least in the US
[0]:

> _Majorities of Americans overall say most scientists think global warming is
> occurring (66%), it is caused by human activities (64%) and its effects have
> begun (60%)._

[0] (2018) [https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-
concern-s...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-concern-
steady-despite-partisan-shifts.aspx)

~~~
tracker1
There's also the issue of what level of impact man has had, or can have moving
forward. Of course, a lot of the actions suggested and proposed won't have
meaningful impact or will overburden societies with even more minimal
impact... Or a Socialism program named an environment program.

No air freight shipping. Work weeks limited to 4 days a week for employees,
and stiff tax penalties for employers with employees with longer work weeks.
Those two would be more of an impact than replacing all the straws and several
other options being explored with minimal real impact. Forcing farmers to
rotate the grazing lands for their livestock as well as addition grass
seeding, watering and planting of trees. Fines for local power companies that
effectively block home generated power. Higher taxes on regions using Fossil
fuels for electricity generation. Makers/sellers of electrical equipment must
be built to last at least 10 years under a full, no cost warranty. Makers of
computing devices no longer receiving security updates within the first 10
years must release the source and appropriate keys for users to self-maintain
their devices. All electrical devices with a battery must be user serviceable.

I'm not really a fan of raising taxes... but it wouldn't take much for
significant impact.

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radford-neal
The article is quite emphatic that there is "no doubt left", but is rather
sketchy on what exactly the claim is that there is no longer doubt about.

Almost nobody thinks that CO2 has zero effect on climate. The debate is about
the _magnitude_ of the effect. It is not a yes/no question.

~~~
f_allwein
Strange that there is no link to the three studies the article reports on.
Here is the editorial that links to them:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0428-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0428-1)

