That, of course, is not the point of my note or your statement at all.

Finding out global warming isn't as bad as we thought would indeed be more valuable than finding out dietary fat isn't bad for you.

Reality, of course, doesn't care what benefits us. The evidence is what it is. Its a bizarre form of wishful thinking to imagine a conspiracy where reality is what you and I wish rather than what the scientific evidence shows. It's like people who say scientists are conspiring to hide evidence that homeopathy is real.

One note I completely disagree with you on is “if it turns out wrong it will be like how we found out fat isn’t bad for you”.

The motivation for that campaign was health, and a little economic power to health-food providers, and the consequence was a minor economic inconvenience to those that chose to believe it.

The motivation for CO2 is power (my assertion, but detracts none from the rest). As long as the solution is voluntary, you are right. However, these are not the solutions being proposed. The solutions are massive, economic restrictions, regulations and socialist programs subsidizing fundamentally inferior technology. This is not a Roseanne Rosannadana “never mind” moment, and the fundamental reason I oppose the assertions regarding CO2 and AWG which are 1) unproven and 2) fundamentally, technically wrong from a greenhouse gas standpoint, which all scientists in the community know, but will not educate the masses, because though true, it takes away from the “campaign”.

Scientific studies and observations are becoming politicized, which only make rhetorical arguments more frequent. It's very unfortunate.

I would love to read that! I'll even read the original Declaration (which is something I should have done by now) so I have a good base of knowledge.

You're welcome. Happy you found it substantive.
This is not so much about the rhetoric of "Climate Change" as it is to how much long term trends and tendencies in CO sequestration, or lack thereof, affect sensitive life forms and then cascade as "domino" effect.
The Krill population in Antarctica has been monitored for about 100 years. The Krill population is down about 90%. Polutions of many kinds might affect the numbers. The one thing we do know......humans are the only species of mass pollution sustained over centuries. If compared to a bacterium or virus.....way too similar. The film: The Global Brain" 1985, Peter Russel, imposed a stratospheric view of a large metro area over that of a cluster of cancer cells....hmmmmmm.
Be cautious of the rhetoric encountered here. Things have degraded from objective interactions and explorations to expostulate of frustrations in many cases. Adding to divisiveness only fuels conflict......is that an oxymoron?
Objective behavior is becoming less frequent here.
I've an exploratory for you in mind. Care to take a shot at a re-write of The Declaration of Independence? I've been staring this down for about 2 years.....kinda fun!

I just finished reading the book 'Timefulness' by Marcia Bjornerud, which discussed geology and connected human activities to climate change. With the evidence that was cited, human accelerated global warming seems very plausible. I am curious nonetheless about the natural sources of climate change (e.g. the Milankovitch cycles) and want to learn more about one of her proposed solutions: peridotite. Peridotite is an igneous rock that is mainly found in Earth's upper mantle and reacts with carbon dioxide to form magnesite and quartz. There are some places in Earth's crust (Oman, Cyprus, etc.) where peridotite can be used; one study even suggested the rock in Oman could sequester 1 gigaton of carbon per year. It's pretty amazing.

I finally finished the book and did, in fact, find it valuable. I now have a lot more respect for geology and appreciated the evidence she cited. The most interesting part I found was the chapter concerning radiometric dating. I ended up falling down a rabbit hole on the internet trying the learn more! Nuclear physics is very interesting...

I plan to check out opposing views, but at this point I agree with her stance on climate change (and am probably more pessimistic than she is). I especially want to research all of the natural sources of climate change that have been acknowledged and see how many different variables there truly are. On another note, I was very surprised she never brought up the topic of nuclear energy. I simply don't understand why nuclear power plants are being shut down, when they seem to only cause thermal radiation and are otherwise relatively safe.

Also, I always thought science was a "closed-off field"; that I couldn't possibly enter the field because I'm not inventive enough. I planned to go into the medical field as a sort of compromise- because I still do enjoy math and science exponentially more than any other subject. The book changed my mind. There is still so much we don't know and hopefully a lot of room to be filled within the science community.

Thank you for recommending the book!

The climate changes - it cools and it warms. This the same on all planets to different degrees and extremes. The fact that many scientists had to form consensus rather than come to a conclusion based on empirical evidence makes the issue of man impact on the environment suspect. The Gore scheme and the rest of the political maneuvering that always ends up in more taxation and less liberty based on falsified data make the entire argument crap..real or not. If it were real there would be definitive proof and no one would have to embellish things (lie) to assure their funding and prominence.

My 2 bits.

"I do think there would be negative consequences if the global warming theory is proven wrong."
It's unlikely that such a major part of geology would be found wrong, but it's likely that parts of it will. I don't see new information as causing a problem. Science seeks new information.

Global warming is a net cost, i.e. a bad thing. If it turned out human activities didn't affect it or that the costs of global warming would be minimal, this would be an unambiguously positive discovery. I suppose it would be bad for people seeking to exploit it politically, but they'll find something else. Things change faster than you think. In the 80s I thought we were due for another war between major powers, probably a world war, probably way more devastating than the past two, and way more costly than global warming. It hasn't happened (knock on wood), and life goes on. Something like that will happen with global warming. Maybe we find out it's not as bad as we thought. Maybe we find technology to stop emitting carbon, to absorb carbon already emitted, or to offset the effects of carbon. The problem will go away, and human nature will find new things to be fired up about.

I understand your argument a lot better now haha...

I'm definitely biased and favor the opposing side of the global warming theory, however I'm glad to see a different opinion in this thread. I do think there would be negative consequences if the global warming theory is proven wrong. That is, financial issues because of taxes, poor investments, an increase in social division, etc.

I wish I had a definitive stance on the issue but I don't, mainly because I haven't looked into it yet. However, I'm curious as to what evidence you are specifically referring that support the global warming theory.
Apologies for misunderstanding your original comment.

"The big argument against nuclear is that the nuclear waste"
I saw a funny cartoon with two power plants arguing. The nuclear plant said to the coal fired plant, "oh yeah? Well there's no safe place to store your waste either!"

"nuclear waste has a long half life."
Many people wrongly think its having a long half life makes it more dangerous.

" A girl asked, "if global warming ended up being false, should we not have tried to address it?""
I do not understand her question. If you thought you had a malignant tumor, had it excised, and then found out it was not harmful, should you have had it removed? Of course not, if there were some way to know it wasn't harmful. If the best evidence was it was malignant cancer, though, of course it's right to remove it if it's operable.

Like having an operation, we definitely should not needlessly avoid carbon emissions if they turn out (contrary to current understanding) to be harmless.

The idea that we would avoid something that's productive for no reason is such a bizarre claim, the burden is on them to explain why. This does not sound like a scientific class.

"Timefulness"
Thanks. Added to my list.

" they wouldn't be closing nuclear power plants. They work 24/7 (unlike wind and solar) and have more than 50 years with the safest record of any power source -- including Chernobyl and Three Mile Island."
We should be building more nuclear plants (not shutting them down) and developing nuclear technology. Everything has costs. If we want zero illness or death from any technology, we simply can't develop it. That goes for traditional cars, driverless cars, even IoT capabilities of an oven. Someone somewhere will be hurt by them.

Even if greenhouse gases did not cost costly global warming, we should still develop nuclear. Given the potential costs of global warming, we should have starting building more nuclear power long ago.

"If I reach the same conclusion as you and believe the global warming theory is a sham"
I think I may have written it confusing. I think global warming is a serious problem. I wouldn't call any scientific theory a sham.

"I want to know who's specifically pushing that agenda and why they are."
I believe it's simple. Many human activities, tens of trillions of dollars of economic activity, in some way contribute to global warming. So there is enormous political pressure to reach the desired conclusion that the activities do not have significant indirect costs. With motivated reasoning, you can start with any desired conclusion and find evidence to support it. Despite all this, the evidence is overwhelming human activities cause global warming, which will be costly. How much they cause it and how costly are still unclear.

What's more, people are now using the problem as an excuse to sell socialism. I can't imagine being a scientist working in a field with so much political nonsense flying around it.

"There are definitely sides. It's the value of the two arguments that aren't equal in weight- and that's what I want to verify."
I see what you're saying if you define "sides" loosely.
It's what people who want to keep studying ESP and alien visitation say. Why not keep looking into both sides of the controversy? Why be closed minded? Scientists have studied ESP and alien visitation and found they do not happen. It would take extraordinary evidence now to show one of them is happening.

"If the global warming theory is being shoved down my generation's throat and it turns out to be wrong"
If it's wrong, it will be like how we found fat isn't bad for you. I ate margarine in the 80s thinking it was more healthful than butter. The latest evidence is butter is more healthful. It's unlikely we'll find human activities don't contribute to global warming, but weirder things have happened. It won't cause a political crisis. For issues to politicize with pseudoscience, there is still anti-vax, GMO fear, and the idea homeopathy is in any way real but is suppressed by "big pharma". Plus there will be new politically-driven pseudoscience we can't even think of.

Despite the steady stream of nonsense in the world, people around the world are becoming more educated, standards of living are increasing, respect for people's rights is increasing, and violence from crime and war are decreasing. I think those trends will continue.

My thoughts are that there are a whole lot of lemmings in the world who are too ignorant to look for themselves and ask if the climate has changed in their eyes. Are vast amounts of land being swallowed by the oceans? Is the fact that it is still snowing in some parts of the country proof that the world is getting hotter at an unprecedented rate? What do your own lyin' eyes tell you? But that sort of rational thought is beyond the brainwashed masses.

"Climate Change" as advertised by the MSM and state-purchased scientists, is a pile of bunk.
The 97% consensus is garbage and has been debunked:
The Cook study of climate paper abstracts and its resultant 97% consensus has been roundly discredited.
The online climate survey by Doran, et. al, with its coincidental 97% results, when looked at mathematically, has similarly been trashed. DrZarkov99 offers elaboration.
When 20+ years of IPCC reports slowly remove any notion of the existence of the Medieval Warm Period -- the premise of which would invalidate the necessity for AGW, you just have to know that something aside from Science is taking place.
When 95% of all greenhouse gasses consist of water vapor, and you cannot put a tax on water vapor ... and life-giving CO2 is labelled a pollutant, then you need to be assured that something is rotten at the very core of the Great Climate Change Fraud.
When children are used as tools to further the notion that Climate Change, as the result of man-made use of fossil fuels, is changing or otherwise damaging the Climate, then know that you are dealing with Climate Charlatans.
When you have 250,000 wind turbines, around the world, that directly change the climate via parasitization of surface convective air currents and nobody from the Union of Concerned Communists, er, Scientists, is even bothering to wave a flag, then you can be assured that Climate Change alarmism is merely a ruse for the implementation of Global State Control over all things that might affect the Climate
"Climate Change" as advanced by The State is easily the largest scam in recent history.

Several years ago the far left picked up on the sackcloth movement of "The End is Near" we are ruining the planet movement and pushed it into the center spotlight of their disinformation movement. It evolved into the "Green New Deal" we hear from the lips of the permanently unhappy. The Earth will abide.

The climate change scenario has become a political football. The freshman Democrats are to blame because it's propaganda that can propel them into the fake news media limelight. Electric cars won't solve anything even though I own one, the long-range battery charge technology is still in it's growing pains stage. I agree with a lot of the other comments that climate has changed for a hundred of thousands of years. Articles I read online and even on some cable documentaries where ice cores, lake bottom cores, and other geological investigations have shown that climate change has been part of the Earth's history. Just because there are wild swings in the current climate doesn't mean it's the end of the world.

I recommended "Timefulness" by Marcia Bjornerud to qhrjk. She does not participate in the rhetoric. A reason-abled iteration of the discoveries stored in the geology of our planet.
I filled in all kinds of "gaps" in my understanding of planetary history and the indices that precede and record climatological occurrence.

I'd really like to hear your insights afterward. After a 35 year career in manufacturing I'm beginning a new one of education on human relations, values formation and how conflicts, internal and external may be resolved. I've gone beyond The Objectivist's Ethics. I've also discovered that all one needs to be exposed to in metaphysical practicum may occur in not more than 40 hours.....then the integration begins. Quest-I-On or Quest-shun.....a choice....

:)

Just bought it, though I have a feeling you won't be needing to pay me back :)

The communist Maurice Strong a Rockefeller patsy and the UN’s
Technocracy cult leader passed the torch to his jester Al Gore in the late 90’s. Crushing the US and NWO is the goal.

Marcia Bjornerud: Timefulness is the title.
She gives an insightful iteration of how geology is the record book for many of the things that affected life on this planet over periods of billions of years. She is candid and well studied. Empirical evidence and sources are noted in her authorship. Purchase the work. If you do not find it valuable I shall pay you twice price plus shipping to me.
Make up your own mind instead of depending on the ignorant rhetoric of the unstudied minds of the average.