AdamB wrote:Do you expect that people SHOULD have a scientific understanding of....anything? I would argue that most people, including some alleged "scientists" (a clue...a PhD doesn't automatically make you a scientist, although generally it does mean you understand research), don't know squat about science because they don't have the analytic and curiosity chops to entertain the idea, let alone APPLY it.
jawagord wrote:Always funny to read these dooms day prognostications, even funnier when it’s dumbed down into a YouTube video with little graphs and pictures to make it “understandable ”! Our fore-bearers survived 100’s of thousands of years of glaciation and abrupt warmings and sea level rise with less than Stone Age technology,...blah, blah, blah
simple fact of the matter is all the conditions lined up just right for humanity and modern consumer culture (as we know it) to thrive,... BUT
on a finite planet (i.e. earth) with finite natural resources there are limits to economic growth (which is what is happening now AND it is the reason why there is conflict over limited resources)
there is an expression
"Can't see the forest for the trees" and it applies to "scientists"
my own back ground is physics AND a clue a PhD means 'PILE it HIGH and DEEP' in a specific area of study
political conservatives especially in the USA love to point out there is a Nobel 'physics' prize winner who says man made climate change is pure bull shit (i.e. 'fake news' in tRUMP speak)
http://www.foxnews.com/science/nobel-pr ... al-warmingas I see things this is akin to asking a proctologist to give his expert opinion about a virus that infects the respiratory tract (e.g. covid-19)
capeesh?! if not ponder this dumbed down
'climate scientists' illustration,...
as for do I expect the average non trained
'climate scientists' to have a specific understanding of the topic,... as I see things if they have any friends and family who they don't want to see harmed, then I'd say they better grow a backbone and learn to face the unpleasant reality (instead of burying their head in the sand which is basic human nature)
BTW I'll admit there have dooms day prognostications in the past by various fringe groups,... but this time is different because various scientists in different fields physics, chemistry, biology, etc. have collected various puzzle pieces of scientific data to show there is an existential threats to humanity
http://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/new-climat ... al-threatshttp://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/FWIW I've always used a twisted sense of humor as a psychological coping mechanism which allows me to confront difficult issues head on,... for example WRT man made climate change I realize the issue is difficult to say the least,... BUT the IPCC group 3 report gives me hope that there are technical solutions
OTOH basic human nature makes most people bury their head in the sand when daunting problems arise (so this is why as I see things why the problem of man made climate change continues to be unaddressed)
http://youtu.be/WW2FIaVIo1s