Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

So, swimming, boating, driving a car, flying on an airplane; heck, even bicycling, running and walking are too dangerous — since they are not certainly safe! Your rubber room awaits you…

Wikipedia doesn't qualify as a publisher of academic papers!

Are you still talking about the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC? Evidently not.

How could you be certain such were "certainly safe"?

The IPCC is up to its 5th Assessment Report; and I've read most of it… You?

I'm talking about the Precautionary Principle…
[...]
The IPCC is up to its 5th Assessment Report; and I've read most of it… You?

Random? Shall we then agree to apply the Precautionary Principle only to technology?

Start with crop rotation and irrigation… Obviously, the "certainty" required is a mutable term. And just as obviously you fail to acknowledge such.
Else, no technology is certainly safe — and, as such, should be proscribed!

Do you see the problem with a doctrinaire application of the Precautionary Principle yet?

Simple.

I see that you don't even know what the principle is about and how it works. It doesn't mean "prevent technology". And even if it did (which it doesn't), IPCC is not a judge, jury, and police.

Coal and natural gas (along with nuclear…) will have to provide the majority of our -the world's- energy for about a century or so, unless a breakthrough occurs. The poorest countries will certainly have to be "allowed" to use such; to keep them from doing so would be to consign them to poverty…
But not to worry too much: They will learn to clean up after themselves, much as we did.
Wealth has a way of making one conscientious. (Communist systems have perverse incentives… You've yourself seen their results! So, you might want to study what actually happened in western democracies.)

Quote from: ersi on 2015-06-18, 21:26:36

I see that you don't even know what the principle is about and how it works. It doesn't mean "prevent technology". And even if it did (which it doesn't), IPCC is not a judge, jury, and police.

Many have suggested that it should be! Most recently, Pope Francis…

You won't convince me that the Precautionary Principle isn't self-refuting, ersi.

Some people think that burning fossil fuels, thus adding a shit-load of atmospheric (or oceanic) carbon to our hydrosphere, will "tip" our climate over the cusp, into an unstable state — something that we've not seen before.
These people don't have anything more than failed models to support this contention (if that). Yet you seem to take it for granted that a scientific consensus backs them!
Do any of these models actually model the climate, in a scientific sense?

Give me at least a few papers from the last 20 years that predict global warming (or cataclysmic climate change) that I can argue against! (Surely, you came to your opinions rationally!) I've likely read them, and can show where you went wrong…
But -of course- you won't do that: You can't be wrong! Your ego couldn't stand the strain.

They are there referenced in the reports. You said you read them, dude. Now refute them with the kind of science you think is correct. Not holding my breath.

No! By all means, hold your breath!
You cite nothing, and expect me to refute everything?!

For a start, refute any specific fact that's been mentioned in this discussion thus far

The evidence is incontrovertible that recent extinction rates are unprecedented in human history and highly unusual in Earth’s history. Our analysis emphasizes that our global society has started to destroy species of other organisms at an accelerating rate, initiating a mass extinction episode unparalleled for 65 million years. If the currently elevated extinction pace is allowed to continue, humans will soon (in as little as three human lifetimes) be deprived of many biodiversity benefits. On human time scales, this loss would be effectively permanent because in the aftermath of past mass extinctions, the living world took hundreds of thousands to millions of years to rediversify. Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species and to alleviate pressures on their populations—notably habitat loss, overexploitation for economic gain, and climate change (31–33). All of these are related to human population size and growth, which increases consumption (especially among the rich), and economic inequity (6). However, the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

Seriously, this is akin to logic chopping… Either there is credible evidence of human-caused warming (…or disruption?) of the climate or there isn't. Either there is a credible theory -which makes verifiable predictions- about such or there isn't.
There. Isn't that simple enough?

And you have refuted absolutely nothing concerning my own area of interest - ozone depletion.

Since the ozone layer absorbs UVB ultraviolet light from the sun, ozone layer depletion increases surface UVB levels (all else equal), which could lead to damage, including increase in skin cancer. This was the reason for the Montreal Protocol. Although decreases in stratospheric ozone are well-tied to CFCs and to increases in surface UVB, there is no direct observational evidence linking ozone depletion to higher incidence of skin cancer and eye damage in human beings. This is partly because UVA, which has also been implicated in some forms of skin cancer, is not absorbed by ozone, and because it is nearly impossible to control statistics for lifestyle changes in the populace. [emphasis added; science is tricky, that way… ]
[And]
Ozone, while a minority constituent in Earth's atmosphere, is responsible for most of the absorption of UVB radiation. The amount of UVB radiation that penetrates through the ozone layer decreases exponentially with the slant-path thickness and density of the layer. When stratospheric ozone levels decrease, higher levels of UVB reach the Earth’s surface. UV-driven phenolic formation in tree rings has dated the start of ozone depletion in northern latitudes to the late 1700s. [emphasis added!]
(source)

The issue is ecological, not political.

Therefore the Pope's Encyclical importance that now on defines the social teachings of the Catholic Church on the subject for a more than billion souls in the entire world. That's His contribute, by far bigger than anything else.

Most of my family members are habit Catholics, that is Catholics who were born into a Catholic family and who practice some form of Catholicism but don't pay any attention to papal proclamations.

My wife is a "Catholic" who never attends mass, could care less about the Pope but who prays for people she loves, including me.

Quote from: ersi on 2015-06-20, 19:51:46

And you have refuted absolutely nothing concerning my own area of interest - ozone depletion.

That actually makes sense, in a weird sort of way: The Montreal Protocol eliminated 98% if the CFCs (and other culprits…); but -you'll note- the "problem" hasn't gone away!

• Montreal Protocol doesn't cover all known man-made ozone-depleting substances, notably N₂O.


• The protocol could in principle only cover man-made ozone-depleting substances. If the ozone layer has a natural tendency to wear itself out, we are only mildly postponing the doom.


• Even if man-made ozone-depleting activity is the major or only cause, it's still reasonable to expect no immediate reversal of the effect after the cessation of the cause. It's called inertia.


• Despite everything I listed, the worst problem is your reading skills. From the same page: "A 2005 IPCC review of ozone observations and model calculations concluded that the global amount of ozone has now approximately stabilized." Meaning, the immediate urgency of the problem has been averted. Policy can indeed work, when you don't sabotage it.

The science seemed simple and straightforward… It was; it was also simplistic.

As your favorite source states:

Quote

Since the ozone layer absorbs UVB ultraviolet light from the sun, ozone layer depletion increases surface UVB levels (all else equal), which could lead to damage, including increase in skin cancer. This was the reason for the Montreal Protocol.

So: We don't know how much (if any) deleterious effects can be mitigated, because we don't know if there are any.

And the problem began about 200 years before the culprit was invented!

Science by séance seems to be your preferred "method," ersi.

(If you won't even read the IPCC's assessment reports, what gives you a basis for your opinions about AGW/Climate Change…? Inquiring minds want to know! )

It's an interesting question to what extent this is a man-made suicide and to what extent it's mother nature euthanising us off because we have become a cancer.

You think yourself clever, by never citing actual scientific work; you are, indeed! You're playing the old shell-game!

Thus far EPA and IPCC have been cited, and they are on my side.