[johnteller]

Because the disaster we're heading into is backed by laws of physics that have been proven again and again over centuries. It's not possible to come up with arguments to "push back" against it. If you think it is, you simply lack the level of required scientific education to understand what is going on.

[joshgev]

The problem with this is there do seem to be quite legitimate physicists who disagree with the "sky is falling" conclusion that all popular discussion is premised on. I recently heard an interview with Dr. Richard Lindzen that, for instance, provides what sounds like a very reasonable counter to the prevailing attitude.

Anyone who says "the science is settled, the laws of physics cannot be violated" fails to realize what physics is even about. The vast majority of victories that physics has had since Isaac Newton are based on incredibly simplified models that strip out all of the complexity from a system. Basically everything interesting is treated as linear (as in f(x) ~ x) and a lot of the other stuff is just thrown into constants. After a few decades of working with that, both in theory and with experiments, you might get comfortable enough to add some small corrections to your theories. In this way you step closer and closer to "truth" but we are still very far off, even with our best physics, from fully understanding anything of even moderate complexity. This is not to say that we don't get incredibly useful results from physics (just look at our technology!), but it does mean that we need to constrain statements about how much we really understand and where our "laws" really are applicable. Take for instance the equation for kinetic energy, k=.5 * mv^2. Hugely useful, but dead wrong if you try to apply it to things moving at relativistic speeds.

The problem of climate science, from my perspective, is that we can't strip it down like we do for simple systems like a ball moving in space. Climate is inherently very complex; if you try to ignore how oceans interact with vegetation, how vegetation interacts with clouds, how clouds and rain are connected, etc, then your models can be interesting and might reveal something, but they can't be used to predict what will happen with any degree of confidence because they are too far removed from the real thing. And if you don't strip something out of the system when doing your modeling, well then good luck: you'll never understand anything at all because the thing is too complex to be used to calculate anything of interest.

edit: added some words.

edit2: more words.

[cassepipe]

Sorry, this is typical denial discourse up there. "Oh but we are not perfect, we can't be sure". The fact that there a greater margin of impredictability should make us even more wary of potential disastrous consequences. Plus, scientists working on the question do acknowledge that there is a big room of impredicatability. Which is why they make best-case and worst case scenarii that vary wildly.

There's however a consensus on the fact that it's going to be bad. What don't know is how bad. Which is IMHO frightening enough

[AbrahamParangi]

That the planet is warming is backed by very good science but the magnitude of the ecological impact to humans is unknowable and thus not science at all.

Aside from borderline impossible claims of a runaway greenhouse effect, there is absolutely no world where human extinction is on the table and frankly I would argue that mass death is unlikely as historical evidence is by far in the favor of human adaptability.

[pjc50]

> I would argue that mass death is unlikely as historical evidence is by far in the favor of human adaptability.

I would argue that mass death happening somewhere else is almost an inevitability by historical arguments; it just doesn't look like it's climate related. Is a refugee from desertified Africa who drowns in the Mediterranean a "climate death"?

Mass death won't look like the Al Gore movie. It'll look like COVID: a line going up on a chart which people can ignore.

[pjkundert]

This is the same argument Galileo experienced.

[cassepipe]

The difference with the Galileo situation is that the consensus before Galileo was not based on scientific work but on "It's written in the very old book of Truth, duh"

[pjc50]

Unlike climate change deniers, Galileo could read a thermometer. Which he invented.

[nathanaldensr]

Your argument doesn't work, if it ever did. People have already decided where they fall. You'll never beat them into submission; you'll only make their positions more entrenched.

But please, keep trying.