VincentRJ

I hope my following response is not considered to be out of context in this thread. I consider a belief in God to be a belief without sufficient evidence, which is similar to a belief in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. I agree that one should look at the evidence. That's exactly what I do, or at least try to do. I check various sites for more precise and reliable information than is provided by the media. I check sites such as the Bureau of Meteorology, NASA, NOAA, and the Working Group 1 section of the IPCC reports, as well as contrarian sites which are skeptical of the significance of AGW. It's important to consider both sides of the story if one wishes to be unbiased. The Working Group 1 section of the IPCC reports deals with the scientific evidence rather than the political advice to policy makers, which is in another section. This WG1 section of the report provides (at least sometimes) a more balanced view of our current state of understanding of climate change. It uses terms such as 'Low Confidence', 'Medium Confidence', and 'High Confidence', relating to the frequency of extreme weather events, for example. What I find in my enquiries is that there seems to be terrible confusion in the media and the general population about the difference between weather and climate. As a result of the widespread 'meme' that has been promoted by the media, that we are on a trajectory of increasingly disastrous changes of climate due to our CO2 emissions, every extreme weather event is seen as yet another example of a looming, world-wide catastrophe due to AGW, yet even the IPCC has clearly stated that one cannot attribute the cause of any particular extreme weather event to AGW. Consider the recent flooding of the Ahr Valley in Germany this July. Angela Merkel immediately associated the event with climate change. "She said the force of the storms suggested that they had "something to do with climate change," adding, "We have to hurry, we have to get faster in the fight against climate change." What you probably won't find mentioned in the media is the history of flooding in the Ahr Valley region. I had to do a lot of searching to find the following site which lists 75 major floods in this region that have occurred during the past 700 years or so, which is more than 7 floods per century, on average. https://www.kreis-ahrweiler.de/kvar/VT/hjb1983/hjb1983.25.htm Here are descriptions of just a couple of the floods mentioned. "1590, May, Hemmessen: At the end of May, the Ahr swelled higher than in living memory due to a large storm with torrential rain." "1601, 30 May, Antweiler: On this day, a thunderstorm with rain and hail suddenly arose in the afternoon, the sky darkened, the locks of the sky opened and unimaginable masses of water fell down, so that the horrified inhabitants believed in the end of the world." In Australia it's common for the media to report on every extreme weather event, such as a major flood, as unprecedented, or the worst in a century, or the worst on record. However, when I do my own research into the BOM records of past flooding events, I find these media reports are false, and that the flood, in terms of flood height, is only the 5th or 6th or 7th worst on record. If you take the trouble to look where the consensus of opinion lies, as you suggest, you will find that the consensus varies depending on what aspect of climate change is addressed. For example, I imagine there would be a very large consensus that we are currently in a slight warming phase, and that average, global temperatures have risen around 1 degree C during the past 150 years or so. However, when one starts being more specific, and asks questions such as: "Is a mere 1 degree warming over 150 year period bad for the environment? Is the current warming mostly due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, or mostly natural? If we continue using fossil fuels, are computer projections of future temperature rises and catastrophic changes in climate, reliable?", then the consensus will change significantly. I also suspect there would be a high consensus that the severity of heat waves has been increasing since the industrial revolution. This is to be expected because we are currently in a warming phase and have created many Urban Heat Islands, that is, cities, suburbs, roads and pavements which absorb a lot of heat when the sun shines, and have also created additional heat which is emitted from lots of vehicles and air-conditioners and other devices. The temperature in cities can often be as much as 3 degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside. Of course the media will create bad news from rising temperatures and heat waves, because creating bad news is their business. The human mind is instinctively programmed to pay more attention to bad news than good news because of our instinct for survival, and the media capitalizes on this fact. They'll report on rising death rates due to heat waves but never mention falling death rates from extreme cold as the climate warms. The reality is that far more people, world-wide, die from extreme cold than extreme heat. As the temperature warms, and cold areas experience less extreme cold periods, the fewer number of deaths from extreme cold are far greater than the increased number of deaths from extreme heat. I think I'd better stop here. ????

I think you've been reading too much bad news. ???? Remember, the media specializes in bad news because it grabs our attention better than good news, and we are programmed to pay more attention to bad news, or threatening situations, in the interest of our survival, hence all the bad news about the effects of climate change. There are nine countries that possess nuclear weapons; the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. The presence of these nuclear weapons, in areas across the globe, should prevent the start of any nuclear war because it's so bleeding obvious what massive and long-term destruction to the human race and the entire globe would result. It would be far worse than CAGW. ????

As I mentioned in my previous post, "I agree that pollution, wars, overpopulation and extreme poverty are major problems for humanity in many parts of the world, but fortunately not the entire planet." There are certain areas where complete madness seems to prevail, and dealing with madness is very challenging. ????

Well, I am certainly good at living in peace and harmony with nature. ???? However, I agree that pollution, wars, overpopulation and extreme poverty are major problems for humanity in many parts of the world, but fortunately not the entire planet. As I've mentioned before, 'nature' or the 'natural environment', even without the existence of humans, is a continuous process of conflict at every level. Every creature, from bacteria to primates, survives and reproduces by eating other life-forms, and frequently kills other creatures, as well as members of their own species, when competing for resources and/or the female for reproduction purposes. Whilst it's true that we humans, because of our greater brain power, have invented much more effective means of killing and more destructive pollution bi-products than any other animal, at least some of us also have a greater awareness of the damage we are doing, and try to address it. In Australia, a person can be fined $200 just for throwing a cigarette butt out of the car window. ????

Religions are based upon a consensus and rely upon the continuation of the consensus, which is why there is a history of horrible punishment for those who expressed religious views that criticized and weakened the consensus. The current 'Climate Change Alarmism' is often described as a form of religion because it relies upon a fictitious or exaggerated consensus which is promoted by the 'believers'. Those who question the consensus tend to be vilified, are called 'Climate Change Deniers', and can suffer career consequences as a result. The 'methodology of science' is not based upon a consensus, although consensuses do exist for a while, after all attempts at falsification of a particular theory have failed. However, science is never 'settled', especially when the nature of the subject is complex, chaotic and non-linear, as 'climate change' is. The problem is not necessarily a conspiracy, which by definition is 'a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful'. The problem is more correctly described as 'Confirmation Bias'. Most scientists in the modern era are employees in a business or Government organization. They need a continuation of their salary to support their family and pay off the house mortgage. Many of the great scientists in the past, who contributed to significant scientific progress by challenging the current consensus, were self-funded because they were wealthy, or had another job not directly related to their research. I can imagine quite well, if a person were in a career related to climate science, and enjoyed his job in an organization which was government-funded because of a perceived concern about the potential disasters of human CO2 emissions, that such a person would be reluctant to even attempt to publish research which implied that current CO2 rises had a negligible effect in changing the climate, or, for example, that such effects of rising CO2 levels were more beneficial than harmful because CO2 is a 'food' for plants and essential for all life.

One assumes they are referring to the percentage of the total population that has died from Covid-19. Cambodia's current population is 17,025,929. 2788/17,025,929 = approximately 0.017%. I'm surprised this wasn't obvious to such a smart lady.????

"Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Varawut Silpa-Archa announced Thailand’s framework to help international partners pursue their goals of zero greenhouse gas emissions and limiting the rising temperature." The most significant greenhouse gas by far, is water vapor. How is Thailand going to stop the evaporation of water? ????

I think it would be more correct to say, "Humans have often got it wrong". All living creatures get it wrong frequently. Sometimes getting it wrong can be fatal, for example, when a kangaroo is hit by a car as it tries to cross the road. Creatures that get it wrong too often, tend to become extinct, which is part of the process of Evolution. However, the proliferation and increasing prosperity of mankind in recent times would suggest that we have, on the whole, got it right more often than we've got it wrong.

Sounds a reasonable constitutional amendment. We have a similar constitutional rule in Australia which resulted in a few resignations from parliament a few years ago when a certain number of parliamentarians were not aware they could not have dual citizenship as a member of parliament.

Well, it has happened, at least a few times in Australia, during the time that I've lived here. I was employed in Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, when a Category 4 cyclone demolished almost the entire city on Christmas Day 1974. Fortunately, I was on holiday at the time, overseas. The destruction was so extensive that many reports and assessments suggested that there would be no point in rebuilding the city because cyclones were a fairly frequent occurrence in the general area and another cyclone of equal or greater intensity could strike again, demolishing the reconstruction. Land prices plummeted, and I regret not buying, because someone in administration later had a brilliant idea. ???? Why not rebuild all the demolished houses in accordance with a new building code that would ensure the new houses could resist the force of a future category 4 cyclone? That's what was done, and Darwin has not suffered any significant cyclonic damage since. https://www.enjoy-darwin.com/darwin-cyclones.html The city of Darwin was named after Charles Darwin because the HMS Beagle reached the harbour in 1839. Religious fanatics marched the streets, after the Cyclone Tracy hit in 1974, displaying slogans that the destruction was due to God's vengeance for naming the city after that irreligious founder of the Theory of Evolution. ???? "For me, death isn't the end, but a gateway to the next. "Must be sad, thinking that death is the end of everything." Not necessarily. If you assume, or think it's reasonable that you have only one life, then that could motivate you to make the best of the one life you have, in the sense of enjoying nature and taking good care of your health so you'll live healthily and as long as possible. At least that's what I do. I'm currently 79 and on no medication. I hope I'll still be alive in 2050 to see if we've achieved 'net zero carbon emissions'. ???? I suspect, or predict, by then we'll be in another Little Ice Age with serious energy shortages for heating purposes, and there will be a huge number of reports trying to explain how so many scientists got it wrong. ????

I don't think that most people who claim to believe in God, believe as a result of some unusual, mind-changing experience or epiphany. They believe because they have been brought up in a religious environment where it is accepted by their parents and teachers as incontrovertible that God exists, just as many children today seem to believe that the climate is changing for the worst as a result of our CO2 emissions, and that such changes will become catastrophic if we don't achieve net zero CO2 emissions in the near future. My impression is that most people who have been brought up to believe in a particular religion, do not bother to investigate other religions because they assume that their own religion is the truest and best. Likewise, those who believe in the religion of 'Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming due to CO2 emissions', will tend not to shake their belief by investigating other interpretations of the data and reading other peer-reviewed studies which show, or at least imply, that there is nothing unusual or alarming about the changes in climate that have occurred since the beginning of the industrial revolution. However, what I do find alarming is the failure of governments to learn from the history of past weather events in their region, and take the appropriate action to reduce the dire effects on the population, of future, similar events which are almost certain to occur, regardless of our CO2 emissions.

Thanks for your response. I'm a bit reluctant to engage in too much discussion on climate change issues because this is perhaps not the right thread, but I do see a connection in the sense there is a wide-spread tendency for most people, especially young people, to rely upon 'authority', rather than do their own investigations, and this applies very much to religious beliefs, and particularly the belief in that 'supreme authority' of a Creator God. Anyway, hoping the moderator does not intervene, I'll respond, for the time being, to just a couple of your comments. I also have some faith that 99 per cent of scientists are not part of a conspiracy to control the world or make money. When I first read in news journals and blogs that 97% of all scientists agree that our CO2 emissions are the driving force behind the current warming and that such warming would be catastrophic if we don't reduce our emissions, I felt instinctively that something was wrong with this claim, so I investigated the issue to find out how such a high consensus figure was obtained. What I discovered is that most scientists, whether specialized in the field of climate science or not, do not respond to such polls asking them 'effectively' if they are a Climate Alarmist' or a 'Denier'. The 97% consensus figure is derived from a 'minority' of scientists who are willing to become advocates, under the guise that they are expressing the results of the application of the true 'Methodology of Science'. The other 3% who express skepticism are not necessarily being just truthful. Some probably are, but some might be funded by the fossil fuel industry, which creates at least some bias. It would be a very expensive project to determine what all scientists really thought about the dangers of our CO2 emissions. I'm not sure we have sufficiently accurate 'Lie Detectors', which would be needed during the interviews. ???? [quote]There's been a fascinating change in Australia where Rupert Murdoch owned media has done an about face and become climate action believer from strong denier. Let's see the latest in the upcoming meetings in Scotland. [/quote] I'll elaborate on this for the sake of the confused. Rupert has stated clearly that he has never denied that climate is changing. Taking action relating to climate, or more precisely, protecting ourselves from extreme weather events, should be the main concern about changes in climate. I don't rely upon newspaper reports for information on climate. They might sometimes stimulate my interest in a particular issue, which I then investigate on the internet and Google Scholar, in order to understand more, and do a 'fact check' for myself. The internet was initially created so that scientists could communicate their research and avoid unnecessary duplication. My main concern is that ineffective action will be taken on climate change, such as spending trillions of dollars trying to exclude the use of fossil fuels because of this religious nonsense that CO2 , in religious terms, is the Devil. The action we should be taking is to protect people from the effects of flooding, droughts, bush fires, cyclones etc, by managing the environment better, by building more dams and better drainage systems, by reshaping the urban landscape to avoid flash flooding, by changing the building regulations so that homes and buildings in cyclone or hurricane areas must be built to resist the maximum category of cyclones experienced in the area, and so on. We have the technology and the energy supplies to do this, but it's not economically appealing. Who is going to become a Billionaire by building some large dams which prevent people's homes from being destroyed during the next La Nina event? ????

I have no doubt that climate change is real. However, the 'myth' that has been created is that the climate in its natural state is relatively benign and that our emissions of C02 will cause the climate to become, on average, catastrophic for mankind and other species, and that we can make the climate relatively benign again, as it's supposed to be, by reducing our CO2 emissions. This myth relies upon the obscuring or under-reporting of the history of past climate changes and the history of extreme weather events. For example, in the science of Geology, it is well-established that sea levels around 20,000 years ago, during the last Glacial Maximum (often called the Ice Age) were on average around 120 metres lower than today. Doing some basic maths, 120 metres is 120,000 mm. Divide that by 20,000 and you get 6 mm. In other words, the average rate of sea-level rise during the past 20,000 years has been 6 mm per year. However, the average rate of sea-level rise since the beginning of the industrial revolution is claimed (by the alarmists) to be around 1.9 to 2 mm per year, with some recent rises as high as 3 mm per year, which appears to be very worrying for those who subscribe to the new religion. ????

There's a new religion. It's called 'Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming', or CAGW for short. In other words, if we don't eliminate our use of fossil fuels, which have been the basis of our progress and development for the past 150 years, our civilizations will be destroyed by catastrophic changes in climate, resulting from unprecedented floods, droughts and hurricanes, which will be driven by increases in atmospheric CO2 levels from 0.0286 % to 0.045 %, which it is claimed has occurred during the past 150 years or more as a result of the burning of fossils fuels. Of course, this new religion of CAGW has to be supported, promoted, and enforced by the wealthy and powerful, as do most religions. Those who are wealthy can afford to buy multi-million-dollar homes by the beach, regardless of possible sea-level rises, and if the price of energy rises as a result of terribly inefficient windmills, it won't be of much concern to the wealthy who are probably the ones who are selling that expensive energy and making a significant profit. However, I'm pleased that the methods of promoting and enforcing this new religion are not as bad as the situation in the past when those who questioned the authority of the priests, or the validity of the biblical texts, were horribly tortured, drowned, or burned alive. Nowadays, if a scientist questions the fictitious consensus that CO2 is a bad pollutant which will catastrophically harm the environment, the worst that will happen to him is probably the loss of his job and/or the loss of government funding to continue his research.

No. He lives on the opposite side of Australia, about 4,000 km away. I'm on the East coast. ????

Since I live in Australia, outside of a bustling city centre, and also have a 5-acre retreat in the countryside, surrounded by cute Wallabies and Kookaburras, I have no difficulty finding a place of tranquility, (although I do admit the loud laughter of the Kookaburras can sometimes be a bit disturbing ???? ). I've heard about Suan Mokkh and did consider staying there a few years ago, but was put off by stories of the concrete beds without a mattress, and the wooden pillows. ????

That's almost 7 years. Well done! ???? Meditation, introspection, control of one's desires and habits, or self-control in general, is a great achievement. I think one can practice this without becoming a monk, but the fundamental teachings of Buddhism helps to provide insight and understanding of the major issues in life that affect all of us.

Thanks for your response. I've never experienced life as a monk, although I have at times considered trying it, because I have a general interest in religious matters, as well as the 'truth' (whatever that is), and I like experimentation. However, the strict adherence to hundreds of rules has put me off life as a Buddhist monk. I'm not a 'conformist'. I prefer to work things out for myself and do what I think is sensible and ethical. I'd be interested to know why you are no longer a monk, and what you gained from the experience.

Exactly! Except the precepts are not always clearly and consistently defined because Gautama Buddha lived during a period in India when there was no written script. Everything the Buddha taught was passed down by memory for hundreds of years before his teachings were eventually written in the Pali language, in Sri Lanka, during the 1st century BCE. However, the Buddha lived during the 5th century BCE, and spoke a language which was different from Pali, so already there is a language-translation issue which could distort to some degree what the Buddha actually meant during his speeches. Also, we tend to categorize Buddhism into just a few major sects, such as Theravada which is prevalent in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand, and Mahayana which is prevalent in Tibet, and Zen which is a mixture of Mahayana and Taoism, and prevalent in Japan. However, since the time of the Buddha there has evolved literally dozens of different sects with different interpretations and/or different emphases on the Buddha's teachings. The following Wiki article provides a very detailed overview of the many different sects or schools of Buddhism. However, I couldn't find any mention in the Wiki article of the recent Thai sect named Santi Asoke. This is a Buddhist reform movement which has been heavily criticized by the established Buddhist authority in Thailand, probably because the communities refuse to accept monetary donations, insist on being vegetarian, and support themselves by growing vegetables which they sell at a low price in the local markets. They also allow women to become fully ordained and allow the monks to work within the community, which is very controversial. ???? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_Buddhism

"Monks' behaviour has to be respectable in the public eye. It doesn't have to change with the time to appease young people," said Srisuwan Janya, head of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution. As I understand, a basic principle of Buddhism is that nothing is permanent, and everything is subject to change.

Why not? I don't often see wrinkly breasts. ????

Why is there no video of the woman undressing? ????

I think it is very relevant for climate change, but not so much for smoking. The opposite of the placebo effect is the nocebo effect. If one actually believes that doing, or not doing something, will cause harm, then it will likely cause some degree of harm, even if only psychologically, despite no 'real' scientific confirmation of resulting harm outside of the nocebo effect. I certainly accept that smoking is bad for health, just as I accept that pollutants emitted from fossils fuels and the agricultural burn-offs that take place in Thailand, are bad for lung health. However, a slight warming of 1 degree C during the past century or so, and a rise in atmospheric CO2 levels to a mere 420 parts per million, which helps most plants to grow better and generally greens the planet, is not bad. Certain scientists, such as Michael Mann, who have attempted to exaggerate the effects of the 'warming', and have tried to hide previous warming and cooling events such as the MWP and LIA in their graphs, such as the graph known as the Hockey Stick, are as bad or even worse than those tobacco scientists. ???? The alarm created by such climate scientists is causing psychological harm to the younger generation who are now anxious and depressed about their future because governments are not moving fast enough to reduce CO2 emissions. Attributing to 'anthropogenic climate change', the current devastation in Florida and New York, from Hurricane Ida, is just exacerbating the anxiety of the younger generation. But here's the problem. If the scientists, in conjunction with the media and the politicians, reported these extreme weather events within a historical background, going back to the beginning of human civilization, thus creating a more truthful impression that such extreme weather events have occurred many times before CO2 levels began rising during the industrial revolution, and are therefore, most likely, mostly natural, there could still be anxiety resulting from the very slow progress in the building and re-building of infrastructure and homes to resist extreme weather events, and the slow progress in the building of more dams and better drainage systems in cities and urban areas to avoid flash flooding, and so on. It seems were stuck between a rock and a hard place. In order to adapt and protect ourselves from extreme weather events as soon as possible, we would need to increase our use of fossil fuels, which is totally contrary to the religious demonization of CO2 emissions. ????

If only the situation were that simple. Unfortunately, the complexity of human affairs, such as health concerns and the uncertainty involved in various treatments, and the long-term side effects of approved drugs, and the different life-styles and genetic conditions which can influence the outcome of certain treatments and produce different effects on different individuals, can create a significant degree of uncertainty. One of the major benefits of religious belief, that I've mentioned before in this thread, is the placebo effect. It is perhaps not realized how pervasive this effect is in all societies. It is estimated that, on average, approximately 30% of the effectiveness of treatments administered by doctors, results from a 'belief' in the doctor and the pharmaceutical industry. When new drugs, during their development, are subjected to the 'double-blind' test, where one group of people is administered the real drug, and another group is administered a placebo, and neither the doctor nor the patient knows which is being administered, one might assume that the placebo (sugary pill) would have no effect. However, this is not true. The placebo group generally does experience some degree of improvement in their symptoms, but just not as great an improvement as the drug, if the drug is shown to be successful. Therefore, it should not be difficult to imagine that a person who has a very strong belief in some guru, or authority with claimed magical healing powers, could experience what appears to be a miraculous recovery from their ailment, due to an exceptionally strong placebo effect. Unfortunately, from a scientific perspective, the placebo effect often requires a degree of certainty which cannot be confirmed scientifically. Therefore, in certain circumstances a scientist could face a moral dilemma of either reducing a beneficial effect by honestly declaring the uncertainty, or increasing a beneficial effect by downplaying the uncertainty and exaggerating the certainty.

I'm not sure it's mainly on the deniers' side, unless you are combining the term 'denial' with 'skepticism'. Skepticism, perhaps due to a sense of the irrationality of an argument, or the presence of counteracting evidence which casts doubt on the truth of an argument, is the most fundamental aspect of scientific enquiry. Without it, there would be no scientific progress. The behaviour of certain scientists who were earning a living in the tobacco industry, is an illuminating example of the bias that can result when earning a living might be in conflict with a 'potential' scientific truth which is still in the process of investigation, and which could destroy one's career if eventually proven to be correct. The choice would be to either resign immediately and look for another job, perhaps despite having an expensive mortgage to pay on a house and having a wife and 5 young children to support, or to continue working in the tobacco industry and attempt to downplay the significance of smoking on lung cancer, hoping that the evidence for a significant risk will never become conclusive. However, this problem is faced by many scientists in various industries, including the IPCC. Which is more important, complete scientific integrity and honesty, or earning a living?