According to the story yesterday, we should triple the energy we get from renewables and nuclear. I don't think that's going to take the whole world back to the stone age. It sounds like developing more advanced technology and engineering to me.

If you want to leave the Earth alone, why not just reduce the amount of fossil fuels we're burning?

Every climatologist I know of agrees we've caused a significant amount of warming. 98% of them agree we've caused most of the warming. The skeptics think that we've caused less than half, although a significant amount. It would help your case very much if you post some evidence to back up your claims. What climatologists are suggesting that we haven't caused a significant amount of warming?

The only thing I'm trying to get across to him is that it isn't up to anyone to convince him to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. If he wants us not to try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, HE has to convince THEM (governments worldwide) not to do it. That's what happened, for example, with CFCs and sulfur emissions decades ago -- governments agrees to cut emissions, and they did. We don't have to go around convincing the non-believers. Good thing, too.

I didn't claim the world agrees on the basis of a report produced by 12 people. I said it because governments around the world agree that we should limit the warming due to burning fossil fuels to 2 degrees Celsius.

At the very heart of the response to climate change, however, lies the need to reduce emissions. In 2010, governments agreed that emissions need to be reduced so that global temperature increases are limited to below 2 degrees Celsius.

You haven't been paying attention to the news at all, have you? Global warming is mentioned all the time, as is the widespread agreement to limit it by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by burning fewer fossil fuels.

I'm not trying to prove or convince you of anything. I'm just stating the facts. We (governments around the world) have agreed to cut carbon dioxide emissions. If you think we shouldn't, you're the one that's going to have to do the convincing.

"We" is the human race. Where did I say anything about taxes or shutting up? Go scream your lungs out if it'll make you feel better. There's widespread agreement that we want to cut carbon dioxide emissions to limit the warming. But it's not up to you, nor to me for that matter. Don't act like we need to convince you first.

Who said anything about freaking out? All we need to do is get more energy from non-fossil fuel sources. It's mostly about building new electric power plants, so it's not like we need your permission anyway.

Considering that the climate varies according to natural variation such as solar output and volcanic eruptions, both of which we cannot predict, I don't think it's surprising that we can't predict climate exactly, especially over the short term. And just because we can't predict climate exactly doesn't mean the predictions are worthless. That's a false dichotomy.

I'd agree with you if it was just one study. But there have been hundreds of studies (starting in 1896), and they nearly all agree that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will warm the planet by 2 degrees Celsius or more. And we've observed the temperature rise nearly 1 degree Celsius with a rise in CO2 from 280 to 400 ppm, which appears to confirm those studies.

It's continued to warm and the ice has continued to melt at an accelerating rate. Isn't that what the models have predicted for decades?

Energy conservation doesn't need to equal depraving ourselves...

Or depriving!

I read that as saying that it's often the right thing to do to break the law. On the other hand, you can't expect no legal consequences because you did the right thing.

You need to be very careful when doing security research. To expose a flaw in a security system, you often need to break the law, unless you have prior permission to expose flaws in a particular system. When I took Halderman's security class, he warned us that any student who broke the law would automatically get an F in his class.

I should have linked to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...