Yes, if you want scientific opinion, you should ask a scientist! Very true!

But, you will not get a 99.5% "yup, the evidence says it's true" from any scientist at random that you ask.. But, hey, that's what science is for! Go give it a try and see for yourself!

But what "evidence" specifically, are we talking about? The evidence that climate change is mostly caused by humans? I don't think any scientist says that. The debate is about whether 1% of that change is caused by humans or not and whether that 1% is a catastrophic thing or not. The debate is not about whether the climate goes through changes or not. On that, everyone agrees. Climate changes.

And the political debate is mostly about whether the proposed regulations will make any major difference or not. These are not the same "debates."

(One thing not in dispute by most climate scientists is that cattle is the primary cause of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.)

(And what there is 99.99% scientific consensus on is that climate change debates on social media are a waste of time and completely irrelevant to climate change.)

I think the parallel with gravity is that although the exact cause is debatable, the effect isn't.

If gravity were to be discussed like climate change is then we'd have people arguing about whether or not a ball will fall downwards if dropped, not about whether a graviton is the cause. The right would be arguing that the 'scientists' only observe the ball going down because they're throwing it down.

We're living under a cliff and rocks are starting to fall down on us with alarming regularity, far more often than they used to. We should be building shelters to hide from them or moving away, or strengthening the cliff to stop more rocks from falling but we aren't because we don't know if the graviton exists or not.

I just don't understand the controversy. The earth is warming, and it's going to have a catastrophic effect on a lot of the life on the planet, including us. We could potentially do something about it, or at the very least try to do something about it. But instead there's all this fighting and bitterness.

I'd resign myself to the fact that the human race are a bunch of fucking idiots and we'll get what we deserve but six months ago my wife gave birth to our first child. Every time I look at him I think about the world we're going to leave for him and his kids and realise what a bunch of arseholes we're being. I would love to know what catastrophic things the deniers think will happen if we do try to do something about climate change. What could be worse?

could be serbia or bosnia. they're dealing with catastrophic floods these past week

Very funny. Its always "scientists" who bring that up and who first brought that up. Do you even read those reports? Scientists and their studies (more like very flawed simulations) are always quoted. First they said (Mojib Latif and others) that there wont be any hard winters anymore due to AGW. After it became evident that those utterings were utter bullshit, they said that hard winters will be very often due to AGW (PIK and others) and after we got a normal winter again, they said that this is typical for AGW too (PIK and others again).
If it wasnt for them, this hype wouldnt be nearly where it is.

They just say what is convenient and what fits into their agenda. Its all about money and personal security. Nothing more nothing less, they just think its something different due to their indoctrination. AGW has become a huge self-sustaining (thanks to those corrupt "scientists") economic booster where insurances, scientists, politicians and many many companies (even oil companies - yes, check the global warming lobby) and their lobbies are benefiting from. Its simply not possible to talk about it objectively anymore. And if you try, people like you will come up and defend it like a religion, and prove this fact very quickly. Just look at "bio" fuels. Its a HUGE part of economy already, but it simply isnt eco-friendly at all. Instead people are starving because mono cultures are used instead of different plants for food, so much water is used for producing bio fuels that people have to suffer. The rain forest and others are cleared to be able to put more mono cultures up. Companies like Monsanto are becoming more and more powerful because of it and studies that bio fuels are bad for lots of engines are being censored or simply not funded since even car manufacturers profit from it when engines blow up sooner.

More extreme weather? Bullshit aswell. Thats simply not true, as quite a few (ignored by the "consensus") studies have shown. Its just the reports about even the tiniest things that have bloated up in the globalized and interconnected world of today and untold truths that are fooling you and of course the agendas that need to be kept upright with even the tiniest happenings that fit into it. Next time when you see a report, ask yourself if something like that would have been mentioned globally 20 or 30 years ago.

Take the flood in Pakistan for example. Oh, it was soooo bad and soooo AGW caused, oh the horror, we will all see the same thing and worse in our own countries if we continue to sin in the face of our go-- err scientists!
No, it wasnt. It was as normal as all the very common floods there before. It just wasnt mentioned that since the 70s Pakistans population has tripled and the vast majority of those people have settled down on the fertile lands around the (straightened!!!) rivers.

If that wasnt enough, people like you even completely ignore the fact, even if all their claims were true, that warm periods were ALWAYS much much better for this planet and its inhabitants than cold ones and colder ones than we have right now (we live in an ice age after all) were always bad, if not catastrophic.

And because of that fact I wont be that stupid and waste my time here with more replies, since you guys have made it very obvious already where you are coming from.

Just one little thing to think about for you guys (yeah I still have hope, though its prolly not very realistic), since the rest of my posts will get marginalized by your ignorance anyway:
Just because most scientists are pro-AGW doesnt prove crap. It was always only very few if not only a single scientist who tried to prove many other scientists wrong in their assumptions and most scientists were wrong and very arrogant, especially if they formed something like a society. But like before, there are thankfully still a few of them left who treat science as science and not as their religion or extension of their ego.

I think this is a very important point. I watched a movie about the Challenger disaster yesterday with Richard Feynman on the committee. Richard Feynman was some sort of kook, who asked the experts at NASA what was the failure rate of the Challenger. They said there was a 1 in 100,000 chance that a Space Shuttle would fail catastrophically (Destroyed and all Crew Dead). Feynman knew that was "a wish" because that would mean if you launched Space Shuttles every day it would be 274 years until one failed (on average). Furthermore he polled the engineers of the shuttles and their numbers were 1 in 200 some as low as 1 in 50.

You throw numbers at people and a lot of times they don't know what to do with them. How to categorized what they're hearing. And if you throw science at them which specifically NASA was doing to the public to try and confuse them, it takes a brilliant mind such as Feynmans to explain in basic terms what is going on.

The same method to determine whether or not the world is heading for serious ecological collapse is why we are all standing here today. Why our medicines work, why our machines work, why the little rectangles that we gaze at all day bring us the entire world.

If you are curious about this sort of thing, and you come at it with an open mind and work off of a basis of scientific knowledge to understand the world, you will come to the conclusion that global climate change is happening and it's getting very serious. If you come at this with cynicism, or superiority, or especially politics you won't get it and that's on you, not science.

You completely misread my post (big surprise). This is another one of those distinctions that make no pragmatic difference. What does distinguishing between"believers" and "deniers" do for cleaning the air (and cleaning the environment)? Do "believers" contribute less to smog, greenhouse gasses, pollution, etc.? I remember driving to NYC from Boston and noticing the filthy brown/grey cloud enveloping the city as visible as you approached it. Is that because all NYC dwellers are "climate change deniers?" How about the L.A. smog? These are real problems, much more so than some "climate change believers" whose predictive models keep proving to be inaccurate.

Of course, as is pointed out here, "denier" is simply a shaming slur, and "climate change" is yet another tool in the hypocrite's toolbox to "prove" how much we need the rulers to save you from the weather.

Meteorology has many many variables that need to be considered, making it next-to-impossible to conduct experiments under controlled conditions in order to prove or falsify your theories. The pragmatic response then, is to ask what are you (going to) do(ing) about it (with it being whatever the article says)?

(In other words, it looks like the Prius came into being about 135 years too late.)

Bottom line is, if "man-made catastrophic climate change" is not happening, then society needs to stop listening to politicians and other hypocrites. If "man-made catastrophic climate change" is happening, then society needs to stop listening to politicians and other hypocrites if it wants to put a stop to it. And also take a good look at their own behaviors and contributions to waste and pollution because "belief" or not makes ZERO DIFFERENCE; only actual behavior makes a difference.

This. Seriously, if a Republican was in office right now, they would be screaming the same thing everyone else was screaming, that's he a welfare rancher, refusing to pay his federally mandated dues that Regan made last forever now...

They are so obsessed with their Anti-Obama message they are missing their best chances to score with the American public at large. The individual mandate of Obamacare, is their idea, it is funded the same way they wanted to fund it. If they were smart, they should be shouting, "we could have had this back under Bush Sr, but the Democrats stopped it twice, and they stopped it again under Clinton. They couldn't pass their single payer or government option so t hey went with our plan. We told them so, and the American people had to wait all these years for them to come around to our plan." They then could explain why they oppose the changes from their versions like going from catastrophic only care to comprehensive care is bad, since apparently stopping people from getting sick is bad in their eyes... For this situation they should be noting how the Federal government got the land in 1848, before Nevada became a state in 1868 and before Bundy and his extended family was grazing cattle on the land in 1877... and ages before his family actually purchased the ranch in 1948... after the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was passed... and even before the BLM was formed in 1946. Their hero, Reagan passed, as Stewart noted, the right to collect grazing fees forever. Bundy is just attempting to make a profit off the government's dime without compensating the government back. They should note how he threatened violence against federal officials... which if a Republican was in office now rather than a black man, they'd be screaming he's a domestic terrorist, and when he called in militia to support him, they'd be screaming how they were all terrorists against the government doing its rightful duty.

The right's hatred of Obama has blinded them to the very things they would normally be for and against, just because suddenly a man (who's probably closer to the Reagan era Republican than any of today's Tea Party members are) they oppose is in office rather than one of their Tea Party extremist...

Again, Wikipedia is not a good science class.
uniformitarianism is an absolutist proposition, easily and quickly proven false...and not only by catastrophe. You admit this, then claim it's still correct and still the base. WHAT?!?
Your "cowboy" is not a fossil, it's calcified at best, if not faked. Ever hear of hard water? That they try to play it off as a fossil only shows their blatant disingenuousness and the gullibility of those that want/need their under-educated opinion to be truth.
The point of finding the same sediment at the same level world wide would be to prove a world wide flood, not disprove dating methods. (WHAT are you talking about, just changing the subject in hopes I'll jump with you?!?)
I cite the ridiculousness and non-scientific basis for your argument(s) as reason to not watch another video, you didn't read closely. I don't have another 1/2 hour to give to the willfully misinformed's silly propaganda.

Uniformitarianism as stated was proven false in the early 1800's

That is not correct:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism

"Uniformitarianism has been a key principle of geology and virtually all fields of science, but naturalism's modern geologists, while accepting that geology has occurred across deep time, no longer hold to a strict gradualism."

The entry says exactly what I have been saying, which is that uniformitarian ideas are foundational to modern geology, excepting now because they have been unable to deny that there were catastrophes they have mixed in catastrophism.

You completely ignore the scientific method

When you stop ranting at me and form a cogent argument, maybe it will be possible to have a dialogue.

neither can fossilization

I guess this cowboy lived millions of years ago:

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/rapid-fossils-rapid-petrifaction.htm

and I love that your 'proof' video includes Uluru, the oldest large rock in the known world, which is proven by numerous differing methods to be well over 550 Million years old

Using logic, the point of demonstrating that you can find the same sediment all over the world would be to show that those dating methods are wrong. Yet, you cite the dating methods as a reason not to watch the video which has proof that they are faulty. Incredible.

so it goes unwatched.

It's simply the close-mindedness that you accuse me of that it goes unwatched.

..I can claim to know far more than you seem to because I went to college and graduated with a degree in science, have a NASA geologist uncle,..

What area of science do you have a degree in? Does having a scientific degree make you an expert in geology? I have a few uncles who are millionaires but that doesn't mean I am good with money or know anything about business.

...Uniformitarianism as described is NOT the cornerstone of geology, that's ridiculous. Geologic forces are not uniform...

Uniformitarianism is the belief that the geological forces at work in present time are the same as those which happened in the past. This is what is meant by the phrase "the present is the key to the past". It is not a belief that all geologic forces are uniform. Again, this theory is the cornerstone of modern geology and also many other sciences. Geologists mix in some catastrophism with their uniformitarianism so they don't really call it uniformitarianism anymore but that is the foundation of geology today.

..and as an anti-science guy..

I am not anti-science; I am a firm believer in the scientific method. What you're calling science cannot be tested with the scientific method, and it is therefore not scientific and requires faith to believe it. I don't have the kind of faith to believe what you believe.

..I would guess you believe the earth is about 6000 years old, right?..

Give or take a few thousand years. I believe we live on a young Earth in a young Universe.

..There is NO evidence of a world wide flood. NONE WHATSOEVER. Either show exactly where the (as yet undiscovered) layer of homogeneous sediment is in the strata world wide or stop lying. You can't, because it didn't happen..

Do you realize there aren't two sets of evidence, one for creation and the other for naturalism? We are looking at the same evidence and coming to different conclusions. There is volumes of evidence for a worldwide flood, in fact the evidence is irrefutable, but if you come to the data with uniformitarian assumptions you will misinterpret it.

A secular geologist looks at the grand canyon and sees millions of years because of his uniformitarian assumptions about the processes that formed it, and his belief in deep time. Because of the assumptions he is bringing to the table, he fails to see how it could have been rapidly formed and deposited, and the evidence in this video proves that it could have been.

You can find the same sediment (from the same place) deposited the same way, all over the world. The explanation that it was a process that took hundreds of millions of years or longer doesn't match the data. There are plenty of lectures which explain what this looks like, and as a scientist you should be able to understand exactly what they're talking about:

The evidence in this video proves that certain features that we believe took thousands or millions of years to form can form quickly in a catastrophe. The reality is that the geologic evidence we find in the Earth is consistent with a world wide flood. It isn't imaginary evidence, it is out there for anyone to see and it is very well documented. The evidence, such as what you find in this video, is overwhelmingly against the deep time hypothesis, and when you discard deep time you are left with a world wide catastrophic event which matches the Genesis flood.

It is the essential issue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophism

Part of the framework undergirding the concept of deep time is the assumption that certain geologic features take long ages to form, and if that isn't always true, then those assumptions need to be re-evaluated.

@Sniper007

Colonisation of other planets, if it happens, will not ease overpopulation on Earth. Assuming it's actually done with humans rather than, say bacteria which are so much easier to transport; it must involve small seed populations of colonists, not firing billions of people off into space. Where do you imagine the energy required would come from? As it stands in 2014 we can barely move a handful of people into low earth orbit, a few hundred kilometres away.

Think about the logistics of transporting and housing all these billions of colonists in a hostile environment. Making the environment itself habitable is an even greater challenge; we can't even seem to fix the one we have on Earth, the one we spent billions of years evolving to suit.

The expansion of the universe, meanwhile, is always giving us less material to work with and perpetually moving it further away.

@SDGundamX

Relying on technology to solve overpopulation is like refusing to stop smoking because by the time you get cancer science will have found a cure.

Scientific advancement is not a given. It doesn't progress at a guaranteed rate and it isn't a genie that will automatically offer a salve to every need. Or, to coin a cliche, "Where's my jetpack?"

Luckily however, in the instant case scientists have offered an easy solution to overpopulation: Stop having so many children.

@RedSky

Poverty reduction without population reduction - reduction, not stabilisation - is catastrophic. The current global population of ~7.2 billion is only survivable, never mind sustainable, because most of those billions are impoverished peasants who barely consume any resources at all. Elevating the poor to a rich, westernesque lifestyle multiplies the effects of overpopulation tremendously, even if it slightly slows population growth in absolute terms.

Rosling doesn't seem to understand the actual problem, and his predictions are at any rate, horrifyingly optimistic.

We need to be shooting for a global population in the range of 100 million - 1 billion. Any substantially higher number than that is an apocalypse waiting to happen.

I dunno... Malthus was predicting doom and gloom about population growth back in the 1800s but the "Malthusian catastrophe" never came to pass thanks to technology. Technological advancement allowed us to farm better foods more efficiently and to farm areas that were previously inaccessible.

I figure the same process will continue into the future, except it won't be incidental (as it was in Malthus's time) but a deliberate, concerted effort on the part of humanity to be more efficient with our energy and food production while reducing the impacts of our waste... pretty much exactly what Colonel Sanders David Suzuki is saying here.

tl:dr

Science will save us, not family planning.

Yep.

Part of that is laziness/selfishness/greed, etc. but I bet that part of it is also a sense of helplessness or of being overwhelmed at the scale of the problem.

I don't sign internet petitions for anything anymore, because I believe them to be utterly useless as a means to affect change (see also "slacktivist" and "hashtagactivist" for equally useless activities)

Meaningful change is slow.

In some cases (like poverty) that's incredibly detrimental to those affected, but over time things will (hopefully) improve. Certainly humans are generally better off today than they were 100 years ago.

In other cases (like climate change), it's fucking catastrophic.

What's the solution? Damned if I know....