<p>If the issue is assessed on other grounds than science ones there can be rational reasons to reject climate science. e.g. if it is being assessed with respect to how addressing versus not addressing AGW impacts costs, competitiveness and profitability of specific business enterprises then rejecting climate science and encouraging other business operators as well as governments, courts and regulators to reject it, to avoid compliance costs of addressing it appears rational. The advice given by lawyers to people and companies facing lawsuits to admit no responsibility and seek to undermine the plaintiff's arguments, including questioning the veracity of expert witnesses is not irrational. Unethical perhaps, but it is not irrational.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:56:46.017Z
When I say rational, I mean consistent with the truth about anthropogenic global heating, AGH and thus do not mean deception based on greed.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T10:19:30.207Z
@polcott - a bit flippant but I'm not sure your question can be answered in terms of Earth Science.
Ken Fabian
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T23:00:07.130Z
Yes it might be construed as flippant on the basis of what you said without the underlying assumptions that I did not say. According to my own projections merely extrapolating the current CO2 increase and its temperature effects 200 years into the future we get 5200 PPM of CO2 which causes 12C of global heating, change of climate more than all of the mass extinction events. So I was interpreting what you said is a bunch of business men decided that preventing the extinction of the species is not worth the money.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:43:11.737Z
2019-10-31T23:43:11.737Z
Ken Fabian
<p>Just because someone says that man made CO2 emissions are not the sole cause of climate warming does not mean they are rejecting climate science. On the contrary, it is those who claim it is the sole cause who are rejecting science. Prof.Malte Janson of the University of Chicago, quoted in the journal Nature Geoscience, is among those who say man made CO2 is not the sole cause of climate warming, but his academic status will probable deter the climate fanatics from labelling him an heretic and climate change denier.</p>

<p>Jensen's team have found that increase or decrease of sea ice in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica plays an important part in the CO2 content of the atmosphere. When there is an increase in sea ice, the ocean beneath the ice can no longer release CO2 into the atmosphere, and that, in addition to the ice reflecting solar radiation back into space, causes cooling. When the sea ice retreats, the opposite effect occurs: CO2 is released and there is also less reflectivity, so the world warms up. This helps explain why the Milankovitch cycles are not an infallible guide as to when ice ages will occur.</p>

<p>Between 1979 and 2014, ice cover in the Southern Ocean increased, and had this trend continued, then according to Prof.Jansen it might have eventually led to the start of a mini ice age or worse, but from 2014 to the present time the ice has been retreating. No one is sure what will happen next, whether the ice will continue to retreat or resume its advance. According to the researchers, the Younger Dryas climate event of  about 12,800 years ago may have been caused by a sea ice advance of this sort. It is also a possible cause of the 400 year Little Ice Age from roughly AD 1400 to AD 1800. The point I am making is that many so-called climate change deniers are in fact nothing of the sort, they are just less fanatical than those who have made climate change their religion.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:53:17.797Z
No leading institutions studying climate and providing reports and advice to science communities, governments and public say CO2 is the only factor in current global climate change. Climate science has sought to identify every significant factor - and identified CO2 as the most significant. Taking such reports and advice seriously is not fanaticism, nor religion. I may be a new contributor but I don't think that kind of rhetoric is appropriate in answers here.
Ken Fabian
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T00:03:33.810Z
https://skepticalscience.com/wigley-santer-2012-attribution.html
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T00:04:14.620Z
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-012-1585-8
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:19:07.673Z
2019-10-31T23:19:07.673Z
Michael Walsby
<h1>Here is my logic (thus not opinion) if the anthropogenic global heating AGH deniers actually do not have any rational climate science basis for rejecting anthropogenic global heating then everyone should understand that their position is baseless.</h1>

<p>It would seem that consistent failure by global heating deniers to provide a rational basis for their rejection of climate science would form sufficient evidence that no such rational basis exists.</p>

<p>I am diligently striving to use logical analysis to cut to the heart of the truth about global heating in such a way that all true skeptics (not those hired to lie) will immediately see the light of the truth. </p>

<p>I make this post so that all global heating deniers will be provided an opportunity to present their side. </p>

<p>If such a rational basis exists, then it can be provided. If it cannot be provided then no such rational basis exists. <strong>If no such rational basis for rejecting climate science exists then the matter of: anthropogenic global heating (AGH) is concluded in closure.</strong> </p>

<p><strong>3C ± 1.5C for every doubling of CO2 plus the following 100 PPM spike in global CO2 since 1950 really seem to explain the temperature increase.</strong> </p>

<p>If we apply climate sensitivity analysis to the current level of atmospheric CO2 we find that this increase of CO2 predicts a temperature equilibrium of +1.65C: 3 * log2(410 / 280) = 1.65C. </p>

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change</a></p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/9wDcP.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/9wDcP.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/t0e3c.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/t0e3c.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T22:49:10.647Z
I don’t think any intelligent and informed person has any real doubt. But when money gets involved they may pretend to doubt the science and data, and some people probably have a legitimate psychological denial of the matter.
Gordon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:02:53.077Z
@Gordon Since we really need to form a sufficient quorum of public support relatively quickly and we could do this if we won over all of the actual skeptics I have focused on approaches to utterly discredit AGH deniers as succinctly as possible. When we ask them for their rational basis for denying AGH and they come up empty it becomes much more obvious which position is based on deception and subterfuge.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:11:23.427Z
Your strategy is wrong here.  You shouldn't expect much more that a lacklustre skeptical response asking this question in a broadly non-skeptical community, which would prove nothing.  You need to ask them on their territory.  Be prepared that they may just view AGW as [Russell's teapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot), and not up to them to disprove.
Deditos
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:20:40.233Z
@Deditos It is up to them to provide a rational basis for their decision to reject a mountain of scientific evidence. I am doing this on Facebook and I am getting responses that are Youtube videos of Youtube celebrities.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-31T23:38:57.030Z
I read an article online that some farmers in Central America were already having trouble growing coffee, and climate change was given as the reason. Sorry I did not save it. But if you are on YouTube doing this you may want to present evidence that it is happening  now. How many of the migrants have simply lost their livelihoods and they need to leave their country to survive?   This would be an interesting study.  Good luck with your efforts.
Gordon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T12:49:15.510Z
What happens to the ones who don't leave their country and therefore don't survive? Is Latin America going to be full of ghost towns and the stink of rotting bodies?
Michael Walsby
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T17:44:19.710Z
@polcott If someone's trying to convince you of their argument then, yes, they need to provide a reasoning that satisfies you.  But if they just disbelieve or ignore your argument there's no obligation on them to justify that decision to you.  You can't compel them to satisfy your need, and trying to can come across as sealioning.  It sounds like you're already engaged in a debate and, in my experience, you need to tailor your argument to the individual - there's no silver bullet.  It's usually a game of whack-a-mole though.
Deditos
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T17:54:54.357Z
@ Deditos "But if they just disbelieve or ignore your argument there's no obligation on them to justify that decision to you." Anyone claiming that anthropogenic global heating is not real must be required to support this position so that gullible people will not be lead astray by empty rhetoric bereft of reasoning. Anyone asserting that anthropogenic global heating is not real knowing full well that it is real should be held civilly liable for compensatory damages of intentional disinformation that has the purpose of deceptively swaying public opinion against mitigation.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-01T22:31:03.397Z
@polcott - How to win arguments with deniers is not a question for EarthScience IMO. Not convinced there is a problem with "true skeptics" - real skeptics say THEY don't know, not that everyone else doesn't - and don't say others are wrong until they do know. Scientific skepticism needs expertise; it's most important use is for working scientists to avoid embarrassing themselves. False skepticism says existing knowledge is wrong until and unless they are personally convinced - which lets them reject anything they don't, can't or choose not to understand, a fallacy that logic won't breach.
Ken Fabian
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-02T00:21:47.553Z
Sorry, above I said ... if you are on Youtube.. I meant to say ... if you are on Facebook...
Gordon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-02T02:34:17.063Z
@KenFabian I should have specified my terms more precisely, there are (1) Damn liars that have been hired to lie and (2) People that have been convinced by these lies through the group-think of their echo chamber. Neither one is a true skeptic. The first are utterly unreachable unless we cut off their pay to lie. The second are possibly reachable. The #1 reason why deniers that have converted is that they found out more climate science.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-02T15:37:40.730Z
@polcott Ah, I think you've expressed your position pretty clearly now. It sounds like you see most people as sort of logical rationalists, so we only need to present solid pro-AGW and anti-denialist arguments to convince the middle-ground.  But that doesn't address the role that [values](https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.269) play in people forming their opinions.  Long term change in AGW opinions requires values change, which isn't well addressed by just [confronting people with facts](https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.570). (For similar reasons, I'll be ducking out now.)
Deditos
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-02T16:58:27.720Z
@Deditos To paraphrase what you are saying in very harsh stark words is seems that you are saying that some people are damn liars because they don't give a rat's ass about the truth, their value system gives truth very little weight. This would seem to imply that in these value systems greed and self-interest carry far more weight than truth. Is that what you mean?
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-02T17:03:38.230Z
The problem with this question is that it assumes that all people are rational.  That is contrary to observation.  The rational people, at least those who've bothered to examine the evidence, were convinced long ago.
jamesqf
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-02T17:14:50.580Z
@jamesqf All people are rational and emotional. Quite often emotions supersede and override logic. If ALL the facts and science points to a specific answer yet the opinions of the reference group that one trusts go in the opposite direction then many people allocate more weight to the opinions of one's group-think reference group than they do to the actual verified facts.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-08T04:54:55.663Z
@BarryCarter So far the closest thing that I have found for a rational basis for rejecting that anthropogenic global heating is not severe enough to require what-ever resources are required to drastically reduce GHG emissions ASAP are mistaken notions of climate science. On the other end of the spectrum there does seem to be quite a bit of irrational ideas. Do you have any climate science basis?
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-08T16:01:25.867Z
@BarryCarter The concerns mentioned on your other link seems to be falsifiable so you used good science in this sense. Since much of global heating has occurred since 1970 we can test your hypothesis on the basis of this subset of the data. Of this data that has hourly readings we can test how much a weighted average of hourly readings varies from the average of high low readings. This other idea: "Select a large number of random points on the Earth's surface" can also be tested on the basis of existing data.
polcott
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-08T16:01:45.493Z
@BarryCarter  Because all this data is available to the public you could do this testing yourself. It does sound quite implausible that the climate scientists would not have already thought of this and tested it.
polcott
<climate-change>
What could possibly be a rational basis for rejecting climate science?
polcott
# What could possibly be a rational basis for rejecting climate science?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-10-31)

# Here is my logic (thus not opinion) if the anthropogenic global heating AGH deniers actually do not have any rational climate science basis for rejecting anthropogenic global heating then everyone should understand that their position is baseless.

It would seem that consistent failure by global heating deniers to provide a rational basis for their rejection of climate science would form sufficient evidence that no such rational basis exists.

I am diligently striving to use logical analysis to cut to the heart of the truth about global heating in such a way that all true skeptics (not those hired to lie) will immediately see the light of the truth.

I make this post so that all global heating deniers will be provided an opportunity to present their side.

If such a rational basis exists, then it can be provided. If it cannot be provided then no such rational basis exists. **If no such rational basis for rejecting climate science exists then the matter of: anthropogenic global heating (AGH) is concluded in closure.**

**3C ± 1.5C for every doubling of CO2 plus the following 100 PPM spike in global CO2 since 1950 really seem to explain the temperature increase.**

If we apply climate sensitivity analysis to the current level of atmospheric CO2 we find that this increase of CO2 predicts a temperature equilibrium of +1.65C: 3 \* log2(410 / 280) = 1.65C.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change>

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/9wDcP.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/9wDcP.png)

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/t0e3c.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/t0e3c.png)

**Tags:** climate-change

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I don’t think any intelligent and informed person has any real doubt. But when money gets involved they may pretend to doubt the science and data, and some people probably have a legitimate psychological denial of the matter.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 Since we really need to form a sufficient quorum of public support relatively quickly and we could do this if we won over all of the actual skeptics I have focused on approaches to utterly discredit AGH deniers as succinctly as possible. When we ask them for their rational basis for denying AGH and they come up empty it becomes much more obvious which position is based on deception and subterfuge.  
> **username_2**: Your strategy is wrong here.  You shouldn't expect much more that a lacklustre skeptical response asking this question in a broadly non-skeptical community, which would prove nothing.  You need to ask them on their territory.  Be prepared that they may just view AGW as [Russell's teapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot), and not up to them to disprove.  
> **username_0**: @username_2 It is up to them to provide a rational basis for their decision to reject a mountain of scientific evidence. I am doing this on Facebook and I am getting responses that are Youtube videos of Youtube celebrities.  
> **username_1**: I read an article online that some farmers in Central America were already having trouble growing coffee, and climate change was given as the reason. Sorry I did not save it. But if you are on YouTube doing this you may want to present evidence that it is happening  now. How many of the migrants have simply lost their livelihoods and they need to leave their country to survive?   This would be an interesting study.  Good luck with your efforts.  
> **username_3**: What happens to the ones who don't leave their country and therefore don't survive? Is Latin America going to be full of ghost towns and the stink of rotting bodies?  
> **username_2**: @username_0 If someone's trying to convince you of their argument then, yes, they need to provide a reasoning that satisfies you.  But if they just disbelieve or ignore your argument there's no obligation on them to justify that decision to you.  You can't compel them to satisfy your need, and trying to can come across as sealioning.  It sounds like you're already engaged in a debate and, in my experience, you need to tailor your argument to the individual - there's no silver bullet.  It's usually a game of whack-a-mole though.  
> **username_0**: @ username_2 "But if they just disbelieve or ignore your argument there's no obligation on them to justify that decision to you." Anyone claiming that anthropogenic global heating is not real must be required to support this position so that gullible people will not be lead astray by empty rhetoric bereft of reasoning. Anyone asserting that anthropogenic global heating is not real knowing full well that it is real should be held civilly liable for compensatory damages of intentional disinformation that has the purpose of deceptively swaying public opinion against mitigation.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 - How to win arguments with deniers is not a question for EarthScience IMO. Not convinced there is a problem with "true skeptics" - real skeptics say THEY don't know, not that everyone else doesn't - and don't say others are wrong until they do know. Scientific skepticism needs expertise; it's most important use is for working scientists to avoid embarrassing themselves. False skepticism says existing knowledge is wrong until and unless they are personally convinced - which lets them reject anything they don't, can't or choose not to understand, a fallacy that logic won't breach.  
> **username_1**: Sorry, above I said ... if you are on Youtube.. I meant to say ... if you are on Facebook...  
> **username_0**: @username_4 I should have specified my terms more precisely, there are (1) Damn liars that have been hired to lie and (2) People that have been convinced by these lies through the group-think of their echo chamber. Neither one is a true skeptic. The first are utterly unreachable unless we cut off their pay to lie. The second are possibly reachable. The #1 reason why deniers that have converted is that they found out more climate science.  
> **username_2**: @username_0 Ah, I think you've expressed your position pretty clearly now. It sounds like you see most people as sort of logical rationalists, so we only need to present solid pro-AGW and anti-denialist arguments to convince the middle-ground.  But that doesn't address the role that [values](https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.269) play in people forming their opinions.  Long term change in AGW opinions requires values change, which isn't well addressed by just [confronting people with facts](https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.570). (For similar reasons, I'll be ducking out now.)  
> **username_0**: @username_2 To paraphrase what you are saying in very harsh stark words is seems that you are saying that some people are damn liars because they don't give a rat's ass about the truth, their value system gives truth very little weight. This would seem to imply that in these value systems greed and self-interest carry far more weight than truth. Is that what you mean?  
> **username_5**: The problem with this question is that it assumes that all people are rational.  That is contrary to observation.  The rational people, at least those who've bothered to examine the evidence, were convinced long ago.  
> **username_0**: @username_5 All people are rational and emotional. Quite often emotions supersede and override logic. If ALL the facts and science points to a specific answer yet the opinions of the reference group that one trusts go in the opposite direction then many people allocate more weight to the opinions of one's group-think reference group than they do to the actual verified facts.  
> **username_0**: @BarryCarter So far the closest thing that I have found for a rational basis for rejecting that anthropogenic global heating is not severe enough to require what-ever resources are required to drastically reduce GHG emissions ASAP are mistaken notions of climate science. On the other end of the spectrum there does seem to be quite a bit of irrational ideas. Do you have any climate science basis?  
> **username_0**: @BarryCarter The concerns mentioned on your other link seems to be falsifiable so you used good science in this sense. Since much of global heating has occurred since 1970 we can test your hypothesis on the basis of this subset of the data. Of this data that has hourly readings we can test how much a weighted average of hourly readings varies from the average of high low readings. This other idea: "Select a large number of random points on the Earth's surface" can also be tested on the basis of existing data.  
> **username_0**: @BarryCarter  Because all this data is available to the public you could do this testing yourself. It does sound quite implausible that the climate scientists would not have already thought of this and tested it.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2019-10-31. Score: 0

If the issue is assessed on other grounds than science ones there can be rational reasons to reject climate science. e.g. if it is being assessed with respect to how addressing versus not addressing AGW impacts costs, competitiveness and profitability of specific business enterprises then rejecting climate science and encouraging other business operators as well as governments, courts and regulators to reject it, to avoid compliance costs of addressing it appears rational. The advice given by lawyers to people and companies facing lawsuits to admit no responsibility and seek to undermine the plaintiff's arguments, including questioning the veracity of expert witnesses is not irrational. Unethical perhaps, but it is not irrational.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: When I say rational, I mean consistent with the truth about anthropogenic global heating, AGH and thus do not mean deception based on greed.  
> **username_4**: @username_0 - a bit flippant but I'm not sure your question can be answered in terms of Earth Science.  
> **username_0**: Yes it might be construed as flippant on the basis of what you said without the underlying assumptions that I did not say. According to my own projections merely extrapolating the current CO2 increase and its temperature effects 200 years into the future we get 5200 PPM of CO2 which causes 12C of global heating, change of climate more than all of the mass extinction events. So I was interpreting what you said is a bunch of business men decided that preventing the extinction of the species is not worth the money.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2019-10-31. Score: -7

Just because someone says that man made CO2 emissions are not the sole cause of climate warming does not mean they are rejecting climate science. On the contrary, it is those who claim it is the sole cause who are rejecting science. Prof.Malte Janson of the University of Chicago, quoted in the journal Nature Geoscience, is among those who say man made CO2 is not the sole cause of climate warming, but his academic status will probable deter the climate fanatics from labelling him an heretic and climate change denier.

Jensen's team have found that increase or decrease of sea ice in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica plays an important part in the CO2 content of the atmosphere. When there is an increase in sea ice, the ocean beneath the ice can no longer release CO2 into the atmosphere, and that, in addition to the ice reflecting solar radiation back into space, causes cooling. When the sea ice retreats, the opposite effect occurs: CO2 is released and there is also less reflectivity, so the world warms up. This helps explain why the Milankovitch cycles are not an infallible guide as to when ice ages will occur.

Between 1979 and 2014, ice cover in the Southern Ocean increased, and had this trend continued, then according to Prof.Jansen it might have eventually led to the start of a mini ice age or worse, but from 2014 to the present time the ice has been retreating. No one is sure what will happen next, whether the ice will continue to retreat or resume its advance. According to the researchers, the Younger Dryas climate event of about 12,800 years ago may have been caused by a sea ice advance of this sort. It is also a possible cause of the 400 year Little Ice Age from roughly AD 1400 to AD 1800. The point I am making is that many so-called climate change deniers are in fact nothing of the sort, they are just less fanatical than those who have made climate change their religion.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: No leading institutions studying climate and providing reports and advice to science communities, governments and public say CO2 is the only factor in current global climate change. Climate science has sought to identify every significant factor - and identified CO2 as the most significant. Taking such reports and advice seriously is not fanaticism, nor religion. I may be a new contributor but I don't think that kind of rhetoric is appropriate in answers here.  
> **username_0**: https://skepticalscience.com/wigley-santer-2012-attribution.html  
> **username_0**: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-012-1585-8  

---

