(Second comment to the other half of your reply, since LJ doesn't encourage verbose discussion...)
>...regarding anthropogenic climate change, I like expert opinion...
Ah. Well, I like facts.
OK. That's not entirely fair, and I don't want to come across as an asshole. In the absence of information, it's natural to fall back on the opinions of people who you think have the information you lack.
However, you spent the entire rest of that paragraph making an appeal to authority. Ironically, the Royal Society's own motto warns against this!
Finally, your argument there consisted entirely of, "Here's a bunch of references from expert organizations, have fun." One, my time is as valuable as yours is; please make your own argument, rather than putting the onus on me to read all of your references before continuing the argument. Two, I am in fact well-informed on what the leading organizations are saying about climate change. I follow the subject closely. It may not have been your intention to imply otherwise, but you did nonetheless.
Not a one of those organizations can quantitatively state just how much of an impact human activity has had on global environment, or what effects that impact has had. The only possible exception there is changes in atmospheric content. We can say, CO2 levels are currently being measured at these amounts, and previous measurements put them at these amounts, and based on current methodology, we think that historically they were at these smaller amounts. The problem is, there has been a regularly cyclic variation in atmospheric content for at least 400,000 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png). If you can figure out exactly how that cycle works, there just might be a Nobel prize in it for ya.
The counterargument is that current CO2 levels during the last century are higher (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png) than any of the numbers on that graph, taking us possibly into uncharted territory climatologically. However, IIRC, the current CO2 levels are nowhere near the highest guessed to have existed in Earth's history. As long as we can't unlock the mechanisms behind natural climatological cycles, I think that when experts guess at the effects of climate change, they're still just guessing.
And, this is just one factor. One element of one system, complexly interwoven into other systems. There is at least one respected scientist who's finding data suggesting that solar activity plays a much more important role in Earth's climate than popularly believed. Is he an American, working under Bush's questionable environmental policies? Nope. His name is Henrik Svensmark, and he is the director for the center for Sun-Climate Research in Copenhagen. I remembered reading the article some time back, and dug it out of my pile of magazines so that I could find the specific information. You can read the article yourself, from the July 2007 Discover magazine (http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/the-discover-interview-henrik-svensmark). Put that in the authoritative consensus pipe and smoke it.
Even Wikipedia's article on Global Warming includes a section on Solar Variation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Solar_variation), and if you pay attention in the section on effects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Attributed_and_expected_effects), they use the word "may" an awful lot.
Finally, please remember that I am not arguing against the idea of global warming or anthropogenic climate change (or the next new term that will be applied to the same idea); I'm merely arguing against the certainty of it. This belief that we already know what's happening, and that human activity is definitely the cause of whatever ecological problem you wish to examine, prevents us from continuing research on the actual causes. If we truly want to shape our own environment, to try to keep this planet's systems working the way we like them, then these assumptions undermine our own efforts.
Edit: Ah, read this comment as by peri_renna - thanks!
Look, I can't pretend to know enough about climatology to have my own opinion, here - that's why I cited experts in the first place. Further, I wouldn't expect human activity to be the only important influence on the environment. However, what I've heard suggests that continued deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions would likely effect major climate changes (if they haven't already) and that major climate changes would likely devastate human civilization. That deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions significantly affect the weather is obvious - you can see it on the weather radar loops near cities. The degree to which they affect the climate is more difficult to show, but the expert consensus seems to be that it's significant. The degree to which the weather affects human civilization is obvious - just look at what happens when a drought strikes. The degree to which climate change could affect human civilization is, again, harder to determine, and again, the expert consensus is that it's significant.
If the above don't constitute facts, then I'm sorry. If the totality of these facts don't lead you to a particular conclusion, I'm sorrier still. There is rational ground for concern here, and it bothers me when the incompleteness of our knowledge is used to belittle that concern.
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no subject
>...regarding anthropogenic climate change, I like expert opinion...
Ah. Well, I like facts.
OK. That's not entirely fair, and I don't want to come across as an asshole. In the absence of information, it's natural to fall back on the opinions of people who you think have the information you lack.
However, you spent the entire rest of that paragraph making an appeal to authority. Ironically, the Royal Society's own motto warns against this!
Finally, your argument there consisted entirely of, "Here's a bunch of references from expert organizations, have fun." One, my time is as valuable as yours is; please make your own argument, rather than putting the onus on me to read all of your references before continuing the argument. Two, I am in fact well-informed on what the leading organizations are saying about climate change. I follow the subject closely. It may not have been your intention to imply otherwise, but you did nonetheless.
Not a one of those organizations can quantitatively state just how much of an impact human activity has had on global environment, or what effects that impact has had. The only possible exception there is changes in atmospheric content. We can say, CO2 levels are currently being measured at these amounts, and previous measurements put them at these amounts, and based on current methodology, we think that historically they were at these smaller amounts. The problem is, there has been a regularly cyclic variation in atmospheric content for at least 400,000 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png). If you can figure out exactly how that cycle works, there just might be a Nobel prize in it for ya.
The counterargument is that current CO2 levels during the last century are higher (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png) than any of the numbers on that graph, taking us possibly into uncharted territory climatologically. However, IIRC, the current CO2 levels are nowhere near the highest guessed to have existed in Earth's history. As long as we can't unlock the mechanisms behind natural climatological cycles, I think that when experts guess at the effects of climate change, they're still just guessing.
And, this is just one factor. One element of one system, complexly interwoven into other systems. There is at least one respected scientist who's finding data suggesting that solar activity plays a much more important role in Earth's climate than popularly believed. Is he an American, working under Bush's questionable environmental policies? Nope. His name is Henrik Svensmark, and he is the director for the center for Sun-Climate Research in Copenhagen. I remembered reading the article some time back, and dug it out of my pile of magazines so that I could find the specific information. You can read the article yourself, from the July 2007 Discover magazine (http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/the-discover-interview-henrik-svensmark). Put that in the authoritative consensus pipe and smoke it.
Even Wikipedia's article on Global Warming includes a section on Solar Variation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Solar_variation), and if you pay attention in the section on effects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Attributed_and_expected_effects), they use the word "may" an awful lot.
Finally, please remember that I am not arguing against the idea of global warming or anthropogenic climate change (or the next new term that will be applied to the same idea); I'm merely arguing against the certainty of it. This belief that we already know what's happening, and that human activity is definitely the cause of whatever ecological problem you wish to examine, prevents us from continuing research on the actual causes. If we truly want to shape our own environment, to try to keep this planet's systems working the way we like them, then these assumptions undermine our own efforts.
no subject
Look, I can't pretend to know enough about climatology to have my own opinion, here - that's why I cited experts in the first place. Further, I wouldn't expect human activity to be the only important influence on the environment. However, what I've heard suggests that continued deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions would likely effect major climate changes (if they haven't already) and that major climate changes would likely devastate human civilization. That deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions significantly affect the weather is obvious - you can see it on the weather radar loops near cities. The degree to which they affect the climate is more difficult to show, but the expert consensus seems to be that it's significant. The degree to which the weather affects human civilization is obvious - just look at what happens when a drought strikes. The degree to which climate change could affect human civilization is, again, harder to determine, and again, the expert consensus is that it's significant.
If the above don't constitute facts, then I'm sorry. If the totality of these facts don't lead you to a particular conclusion, I'm sorrier still. There is rational ground for concern here, and it bothers me when the incompleteness of our knowledge is used to belittle that concern.