Fabulous instruction. Thank you so much. I am sharing it with my wider whanau. We learnt this method of reasoning in basic essay writing technique in the 70s . Thank you Melanie. This is an important lesson for us all.
In my opinion, your recommendation to look in philosophy for direction on logical discussion is a very good one. A modern philosopher is Sven Ove Hansson who writes very clear and accessible articles on many topics as well as what you are discussing here. Epistemology is more or less central to your discussion and I guess another interesting direction is provided in Hansson, Sven Ove. "Social constructionism and climate science denial." European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10, no. 3 (2020): 37. which can be accessed directly from Google Scholar. A rather interesting article he wrote is Hansson, Sven Ove. "How not to defend science. A Decalogue for science defenders." Disputatio 9, no. 13 (2020): 197-225. One can see ties between the first article, a rather detailed exposition, and his "decalogue". A very interesting article is Hansson, Sven Ove. "Can uncertainty be quantified?." Perspectives on Science 30, no. 2 (2022): 210-236. but it is not available without subscribing to a service but should be accessible with a public library card:)
In my personal opinion, much of the "push back" on climate change has not necessarily been against technological or scientific claims but rather a perspective that realistic operational solutions have not been proposed. That is in my opinion, the opposition to the scientific claims is less about whether or not the science is telling us how nature will respond and more about providing solutions that can actually be implemented. My current (and fluid) perspective is that it is possible the populists Hansson and others point to who "push back on/deny" the climate change agenda do so because, although they may accept the problem exists, those who bang on are doing nothing more. What is needed at this point are practical solutions.
What must be faced is that the current, really staggering, worldwide energy consumption is approximately 420 exajoules annually and rising. Effectively all of that energy comes from burning (let's say oxidizing) fossil fuels in various forms. The atmospheric carbon dioxide storage, or buildup is shown graphically in Houghton, Richard & Goodale, C.L.. (2004). Effects of Land-Use Change on the Carbon Balance of Terrestrial Ecosystems. Ecosystems and Land Use Change. 85–98. 10.1029/153GM08. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228849045), Figure 2. They point out that the models used in the analysis are subject to high uncertainty but nevertheless, even if they were substantially wrong, there would still be a relatively large (and growing) amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Although much less so than direct combustion, it is somewhat interesting that changes in land use appears to be a problem as well (as shown in Figure 2). I guess most everyone, certainly there are a few not on board, can agree on increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide as a matter of observation but what I guess we most disagree about is, given the scale of energy requirement, what to do about it.
In summary, from what little I know, there is an ever increasing buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Additionally, from what I know, there are no practical solutions that would completely or even substantially offset the fossil fuel contribution especially if all effects (pollution, economics, environment) are considered important. My opinion again from the little I know, is there may be some things out on the horizon such as nuclear fusion that could offer: 1) negligible land use (very small footprint) and therefore can be distributed; 2) non-polluting (can be a problem in D-T due to tritium but p-B11 gets around that); 3) it can be designed to operate continuously (like fission reactors) and ; 4) can be arbitrarily scaled and located almost anywhere. Unfortunately, fusion has been five years from reality for the last several decades, although the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) puts out encouraging news (https://youtu.be/R45jMWhjwRk?si=H2lD5tpdiJpNkhQH) from time to time. Nevertheless, even if fusion becomes operational, there will be many difficulties to overcome not the least of them how to capture the incredible energy content that can be had in a gas tank moving around with an automobile, for one example. Oh well ...
Thanks for the recommendation - I'll definitely look into Hansson. I took a quick look as his Stanford Encyclpaedia of Philosophy entry and it's really interesting, it's given me an idea for another topic I want to explore.
I think that one of the big problems we have in climate change is that the efforts that certain groups made to obscure the evidence and force endless debates on whether climate change exists have prevented us from having the important conversations about what can be done, because there are absolutely valid debates about the science as well as policy in this area.
Fabulous instruction. Thank you so much. I am sharing it with my wider whanau. We learnt this method of reasoning in basic essay writing technique in the 70s . Thank you Melanie. This is an important lesson for us all.
Thank you, I'm so glad you found it useful. I think it's something that a lot of people aren't taught but should be.
In my opinion, your recommendation to look in philosophy for direction on logical discussion is a very good one. A modern philosopher is Sven Ove Hansson who writes very clear and accessible articles on many topics as well as what you are discussing here. Epistemology is more or less central to your discussion and I guess another interesting direction is provided in Hansson, Sven Ove. "Social constructionism and climate science denial." European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10, no. 3 (2020): 37. which can be accessed directly from Google Scholar. A rather interesting article he wrote is Hansson, Sven Ove. "How not to defend science. A Decalogue for science defenders." Disputatio 9, no. 13 (2020): 197-225. One can see ties between the first article, a rather detailed exposition, and his "decalogue". A very interesting article is Hansson, Sven Ove. "Can uncertainty be quantified?." Perspectives on Science 30, no. 2 (2022): 210-236. but it is not available without subscribing to a service but should be accessible with a public library card:)
In my personal opinion, much of the "push back" on climate change has not necessarily been against technological or scientific claims but rather a perspective that realistic operational solutions have not been proposed. That is in my opinion, the opposition to the scientific claims is less about whether or not the science is telling us how nature will respond and more about providing solutions that can actually be implemented. My current (and fluid) perspective is that it is possible the populists Hansson and others point to who "push back on/deny" the climate change agenda do so because, although they may accept the problem exists, those who bang on are doing nothing more. What is needed at this point are practical solutions.
What must be faced is that the current, really staggering, worldwide energy consumption is approximately 420 exajoules annually and rising. Effectively all of that energy comes from burning (let's say oxidizing) fossil fuels in various forms. The atmospheric carbon dioxide storage, or buildup is shown graphically in Houghton, Richard & Goodale, C.L.. (2004). Effects of Land-Use Change on the Carbon Balance of Terrestrial Ecosystems. Ecosystems and Land Use Change. 85–98. 10.1029/153GM08. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228849045), Figure 2. They point out that the models used in the analysis are subject to high uncertainty but nevertheless, even if they were substantially wrong, there would still be a relatively large (and growing) amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Although much less so than direct combustion, it is somewhat interesting that changes in land use appears to be a problem as well (as shown in Figure 2). I guess most everyone, certainly there are a few not on board, can agree on increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide as a matter of observation but what I guess we most disagree about is, given the scale of energy requirement, what to do about it.
In summary, from what little I know, there is an ever increasing buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Additionally, from what I know, there are no practical solutions that would completely or even substantially offset the fossil fuel contribution especially if all effects (pollution, economics, environment) are considered important. My opinion again from the little I know, is there may be some things out on the horizon such as nuclear fusion that could offer: 1) negligible land use (very small footprint) and therefore can be distributed; 2) non-polluting (can be a problem in D-T due to tritium but p-B11 gets around that); 3) it can be designed to operate continuously (like fission reactors) and ; 4) can be arbitrarily scaled and located almost anywhere. Unfortunately, fusion has been five years from reality for the last several decades, although the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) puts out encouraging news (https://youtu.be/R45jMWhjwRk?si=H2lD5tpdiJpNkhQH) from time to time. Nevertheless, even if fusion becomes operational, there will be many difficulties to overcome not the least of them how to capture the incredible energy content that can be had in a gas tank moving around with an automobile, for one example. Oh well ...
Thanks for the recommendation - I'll definitely look into Hansson. I took a quick look as his Stanford Encyclpaedia of Philosophy entry and it's really interesting, it's given me an idea for another topic I want to explore.
I think that one of the big problems we have in climate change is that the efforts that certain groups made to obscure the evidence and force endless debates on whether climate change exists have prevented us from having the important conversations about what can be done, because there are absolutely valid debates about the science as well as policy in this area.