The Climate Change AND contentious science thread- vampires and dark matter

[Foreigner]

^ I'm not someone who believes AGW is false. To me it's so evident that even coining it a "belief" anymore is preposterous. It's like believing gravity is real or not, or the earth is flat. There's too much immediate evidence causally linked to changes in global climate changes for us to dismiss it and instead infer that an unknown factor is behind it. I haven't talked to one person around the world whose local climate isn't changing in drastic ways. The acceleration is obvious.

IMO it's too late, for the very reasons you mention. If you put an ant hill under a magnifying class the ants will be business as usual. Some will start running around thinking it's too hot while the other ants keep doing their thing. Eventually all the ants are scrambling to save their young and relocate somewhere less hot. People only change when conditions change, but in this case it's going to be too late. We will be implementing solutions when most of the coastal regions are being flooded and industrial agriculture is being demolished by floods or dust bowls. Unlike in past human disasters, we won't have any ecology to flee to. The over harvesting and destruction of ecosystems have ensured that.

We can blame corporations for fudging the data, but let's face it, the only reason why these people can get away with it, and why so many people are skeptics, is because it panders to temporary human comfort. People don't want to change, individually or collectively, until they are stimulated to do so. People can't even come to terms with their own mortality as a whole, so why would people want to talk about drastic global changes that will kill millions (maybe even billions) of people and displace even more? Nobody wants to look at the truth. The truth is hard.

I'm not saying it's not worth it, but when it comes to cataclysm, it's kind of a zero sum game. Either most of humanity gets on board or we are totally SOL. There can't be a minority implementing solutions if they have to drag the rest of humanity kicking and screaming. I am considering the possibility that I may witness a potential human extinction even within my lifetime. Maybe we are not worthy of survival, given these behaviors. All I know is I'm definitely not having children.

Btw... the reason I think it's too late is because I've spent significant time in China and India. This whole discussion isn't even happening in those places. People are concerned about local pollution and human health but there is zero impetus to change these developing places. People still only care about their immediate families, making money, and reproducing. Then on the other side of the pond you have the U.S. puritan capitalists working overtime to make sure their short term profits are not affected. These same psychopaths will be selling water at $5/bottle when there's nothing left to drink.

 

[Kittycat5]

To play Devil's advocate for a moment here, how do proponents of unfalsifiable theories in physics and cosmology justify defining these theories as scientific?

I am very far from an expert on science, but I have studied a little bit of science at University level. One thing that is constantly drummed into you in the classes I have taken is that for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable, this is a fundamental part of the scientific method. I am not suggesting unfalsifiable theories which have evidence to support them are not worth paying attention to, but when you start speculating about unfalsifiable theories does this stop being science and become philosophy, or perhaps some other field of enquiry? If not, why not? Why should proponents of string-theory (for example) get a pass on calling their unfalsifiable theory scientific?

Again, I am not trying to downplay the importance of these theories. The question I am raising is about the appropriate definition for them.

Also, I am not suggesting unfalsifiable theories are limited to physics and cosmology, it just so happens the ones I can think of off the top of my head are from these fields.

This is an excellent question and one that surely is not lost to proponents of things such as string theory, eternal inflation and even the question on the interpretation of the foundations of quantum mechanics (Copenhagen, many worlds etc.).

But I believe the physicists who work on these things would say that while currently such topics are indeed unfalsifiable, they would still categorize them as scientific for a few reasons.

First, these unprovable or unfalsifiable theories are not islands. They are very often the natural progression of science's attempt to better understand aspects of ideas that have been tested but are either incomplete or new data shows something unexpected. Theoretical physicists' jobs are to expand the current theories and follow the equations wherever they may take them. Sometimes it leads to a place that give the experimentalists nightmares, but as I will say below, may very well be the truth.

The history of physics has shown that elegant mathematical equations have be extremely successul at describing how nature works and have been validated through experimentation. Based on this history, the theoreticians continue refining their work, because discarding mathematics, that not only describe a physical process but also resolves the paradoxes or infinities that earlier equations could not, because they currently cannot be tested would be akin to throwing away the actual natural occurrances themselves.

And last is something many of us fail to consider. Physics has reached a point where the ideas are more advanced than the technology to test them. Take string theory for example. It would take an accelerator something like a billion billion billion times more powerful than the LHC to verify certain hypotheses and predictions of string theory. We are pretty near the capabilities of any telescope, terrestrial or in space, at any wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, so seeing further away or back in time, may be decades to centuries away from what is needed to explore ideas already conceived in astrophysics and cosmology. And even when we can actually design and build experiments right now to test some of the more esoteric ideas of physics, they are such monumental feats of engineering, that even these real life experiments may still not be adequate technology.

But I see all this as a testament to our collective intelligence and why these seeming unscientific theories still are real science and we must press on.

 

[spacejunk]

We can blame corporations for fudging the data, but let's face it, the only reason why these people can get away with it, and why so many people are skeptics, is because it panders to temporary human comfort. People don't want to change, individually or collectively, until they are stimulated to do so. People can't even come to terms with their own mortality as a whole, so why would people want to talk about drastic global changes that will kill millions (maybe even billions) of people and displace even more? Nobody wants to look at the truth. The truth is hard

Sadly, i think this is absolutely right.
Having noticed the climate change dramatically in the last 10-20 years in my hometown (as the subtropics extend further south of the equator, bringing increasingly humid summers each year) i'm past the point of humouring or debating people that want to quibble about climate change or call it a "scam". It's a tragedy unfolding before our eyes - something that is already affecting every one of us - that will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

As i said, i'd like to see discussions of practical ways to "manage and cope" with climate change.
I agree that we have long passed tipping point, in regards to preventing catastrophic climate events, and the only way forward is to approach the future with as much potential for renewable energy as possible, to prevent global famines and such.

Call me "alarmist", but the next century looks likely to bring many grave challenges.

 

[Foreigner]

Well, in terms of practical solutions, the only ones that are really on the table are making nuclear the primary energy source, with a lot of green energy to supplement. The thing about nuclear is... it has a really good safety rating, except for the 0.005% of instances where a core melts down. In those instances, the immediate vicinity becomes uninhabitable for some thousands of years, and if nuclear matter goes into the atmosphere or ocean, it contaminates much further distances for just as long. Nobody talks about Fukushima in the media anymore, like not at all. I can't remember when I last heard an update. That whole crisis still isn't over.

The other problem, simply put, is human population. I know anti-Malthusians are going to gang up on me and say that the earth can actually support a lot more people, but it can't. Our numbers need to be scaled back and population controls put into place. We have a luxuriant western world (and China to some degree) trashing the planet to maintain those luxuries, and at least a dozen contenders all vying for "developed" status. Everybody wants 'all the things' and it's destroying every natural resource we have. The problem continues to be consumer capitalism, combined with humans who won't fucking stop having babies. Everyone talks about how advances humans have become. Really? People can't even control their reproductive urges. I wouldn't say we are that much higher than animals.

Related to the above, we must learn to conserve. It's a word nobody wants to hear, especially in the U.S. Nobody wants to be told to buy less, eat less, reduce waste, etc... because it's viewed as being part of some left-wing conspiracy. It's also contrary to the growth model of economy. People want to stuff their fat, gluttonous faces and feed their endless addictions without any awareness of the cost. They've also been brainwashed to want to do this, along with feeding their endless desires. Planned obsolescence should be illegal... any company doing it should have its execs arrested. Product should be made more durable and built to last potentially a lifetime of use.

At this point, in a way, I would support a benevolent fascist state, in order to stop these people from destroying our planet. I mean, we're so stuck on whether or not climate change is real, but: plastic pollution is real, deforestation and desertification is real, strip mining is real, toxic byproducts of technology manufacturing are real, the decline or contamination of natural resources is real, etc. Even if we somehow get through climate change, we're still fucked because multi-national corporations own more than half the planet via the banking system and the IMF, and they'll just keep stripping the planet for short term profit.

I would summarize ALL of this by saying the best way to solve the problem is to change the fiduciary responsibility of the economy and its participants, probably to a resource-based economy or at least one where environmental costs are factored into input costs. Long-term preservation of ecology and sensible resource management would have to play a role too. This myopic view of quarterly projections has to go.

 

[-=SS=-]

^ I just read up on that and looked for more sources, and this is apparantly acknowledged (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30oct_ftes/). Interesting for sure, but I don't see an immediate connection to climate here in earth. the question is, if these charged particles travelling along this merging magentic field make a significant difference besides all the photons which are hitting the earth all the time anyway. neither your link nor the NASA article claim such a thing, and, in my opinion, if it was significant compared to light, we would know.

The problem is that NASA obliges that conventional wisdom and standard cosmology.. there can be no electrical circuits or interaction in space, only collisions, explosions, and other phenomena that rely on gravity to drive it. Hence they use conceptually dishonest terms like "magnetic ropes" or "flux events". Those ropes are Birkeland currents, and they are associated with electrical flow.. the magnetic element is just one component.

What does this have to do with climate change? Well, if you have electrically connected bodies in a solar system that are transferring charge between themselves then that energy has to go somewhere. NASA has only conceded the existence of these "ropes" in the past 10 years, when Birkeland had hypothesized them almost 100 years ago. What else do we not know, or misinterpreted about our Sun? All I'm saying is I think there is genuine reason to re-evaluate our conception of the solar model, and as a byproduct of that position we are not in any position to lay the blame of climate change on one individual (human orientated) factor.

In my opinion, your logic is completely flawed here. the greenhouse effect is a real, established thing, and it is known that higher CO2 content will reflect more IR radiation back to earth. climate change correlates historically to the industrial age on earth. but you basically just say "the sun is important" and then go on to say that because the sun is so big and so little is known about the universe (which is not exactly true), they must be the cause of climate change. can you please explain this logic to me?

See point above. The greenhouse effect as a mechanism involving Co2 and solar radiation, OK, proven in a laboratory setting.. however the Earth is far more complicated than anything a scientist can replicate in the lab. Simply saying we know Co2 causes a rise in temperatures because we know Co2 traps solar radiation or whatever is not a thorough enough conceptual structure for me. For one the Earth is not an isolated system (re: see Sun/Earth electrical connection), two the Earth has many different interlocking systems that interplay with each other which in themselves we barely understand, three the Earth has feedback mechanisms, four the Earth is dynamic system.

Climatologists to me have even less of a scientific reputation than psychologists. Until we have a firm grasp on all these things making massive hysterical leaps of faith should remain a personal decision and belief, and not one than will result in the enforcement of ideals or processes upon society. No different to any religious crusade. I reserve the right to tell you to keep your beliefs to yourself and don't demand society adapt itself to your concept structure. I believe it is flawed and I have explained why.

 

[Bagseed]

@ SS
ehm NASA acknowledges in this article that electrically charged particles go along this magnetic ropes, and of course they have an energy. my question was, if this energy is sufficiently large to influence climate on earth. I doubt it, but if you can present evidence, feel free. but please read my posts and questions carefully and reply to what I really said instead of repeating yourself over and over.

of course climate is more complicated than a lab setting, but this can simply imply that the temperature across the globus changes not uniformly, but with an average. in some places more than in others.

edit: also, technically speaking, the IR radiation which is retained comes from warm bodies on the earths surface eg soil, rocks and all the other things, and not (directly) the sun's light. it travels upwards and would just leave the earth's atmosphere if it weren't reflected by greenhouse gases. and, fyi, it is pretty easy in a lab to check how a compound reacts to certain spectra of EM radiation, this field of science is called spectroscopy. and if we know that CO2 reflects IR radiation in this certain way, it will also do so outside of the lab, in the atmosphere. since the atmosphere is a gas, we know that CO2 must be uniformly distibuted among the volume (not strictly true, because the volume is so big that gravitation comes into play to determine the distribution of gases among heights), but in a certain height (other fluctuations or streams might also come into play, but this is just educated guessing), CO2 will be uniformly distributed (this is how gas mixtures work). which means we can easily calculate how much of IR radiation this volume of gas will reflect back. so I really don't think this is all guesswork the way you make it look like. it is actually basic physics (mostly thermodynamics, combine that with spectroscopy, and you're there).

and please stop discrediting whole fields of science, because "not all is known". nobody claims that scientists know everything, but the goal is to get there.

 

[-=SS=-]

ehm NASA acknowledges in this article that electrically charged particles go along this magnetic ropes, and of course they have an energy. my question was, if this energy is sufficiently large to influence climate on earth.

Electrically charged particles is not the same as talking about an electrical circuit. NASA does not embrace that possibility at all because it conflicts with the current paradigm. I wasn't actually suggesting these ropes are the cause of climate change or necessarily influencing that dynamic, though I will say that more local weather phenomena like thunderstorms/lighting definitely is connected to this Earth/Sun dynamic.. which is a fascinating topic area in itself.. we still don't really understand lightning as well as the textbooks insinuate we do. According to conventional understanding the electrical charge across a thundercloud is an order of magnitude weaker than it needs to be to give rise to lightning. Most people aren't even aware that phenomena can occur well above the thunderstorm extending many miles into the upper atmosphere (jets, sprites, elfs). Lightning is essentially still a big fucking mystery.

You'll notice that conventional lightning theory is based around Newtonian type thinking.. collisions of raindrops.. mechanical up drafts.. and importantly seeing clouds as isolated bodies when they may not be! Clouds may not be generating the charge, but merely acting as a conduit or capacitor as part of a wider circuit. We assume thunderstorms generate lightning but only because we treat them as isolated entities, same as we treat Earth as an isolated entity.

Anyway.. What I was suggesting was that given the existence of these "ropes" we can't pretend to really know the score, especially if they do behave in the sense of an electrical circuit. That's a whole other factor we haven't even taken into consideration in any modeling. And as far as I'm concerned there is more than enough evidence to suggest we've ignored a fundamental piece of the puzzle involving electricity and plasma physics.

 

[Bagseed]

you still just come back to "there is so much we don't understand, so we definately cannot understand the role of the greenhouse effect in global temperature". where is the logic in that?

ps: I don't think you saw my full edit...

pps: a circuit is just a way along a current may flow, or not? and an electric current is charged particles flowing within an electric field. so I don't really get what you mean... if charged particles travel, which they seemingly do, there is a current.

ppps: look at your post, you just ramble off into musings instead of actually presenting a logically valid answer. it kind of sems that you deliberately try to drift from the topic. you basically just talk like a politician

 

[-=SS=-]

you still just come back to "there is so much we don't understand, so we definately cannot understand the role of the greenhouse effect in global temperature". where is the logic in that?

The greenhouse effect is one mechanism in a huge dynamic system. I'm saying we don't know all the relevant factors at play. So to automatically assume Co2 is causing (perceived) warming is jumping the gun.

 

[swilow]

Its not really jumping the gun when we know CO2 is a greenhouse gas...

 

[Bagseed]

perceived is not the same thing as measured. no scientist talks about climate change other than in terms of recored temperatures over time. statistics and all. this is not the same thing as perception! and fyi, there is one single, but most important factor for earths climate, and it is the radius of the orbit around the sun. why can't you accept at least the possibility that the greenhouse effect plays another big role? of course there are other factors, but not all will be as significant, but some will be.

you make it seem like everthing is totally random, but it is not. of course in such a dynamic system, it's hard to get exact numbers, but scientists are very good at approximation

also, you didn't really answer what the logic in your argument is, because for your reply, you just switched to a slightly different argument...

 

[-=SS=-]

Its not really jumping the gun when we know CO2 is a greenhouse gas...

So? As I insinuated we're not talking about one factor in isolation here, the whole climate system has many interlocking influences and factors. Co2 on its own may have properties that are conducive to trapping heat so to speak.. but that is a far cry from extrapolating out to the entirety of Earth, which is so dynamic and complex you can't possibly replicate it in a lab or on a computer with any degree of accuracy. Hence why predictions thus far have been so weak. Climatology is like psychology or economic science.. not really a science except by label.. specialists trying to be generalists, making predictions, and failing hard.

also, you didn't really answer what the logic in your argument is, because for your reply, you just switched to a slightly different argument.

What are you talking about, I've repeated the same point several times now. The Earth is a massively complex and dynamic system, for which I believe we are missing one crucial piece of the puzzle (re: electric involvement), but even going beyond that the factors we do know we don't know that well let alone when working in conjunction with all the other factors.

 

[-=SS=-]

Going back to my contention that space is not an electrically neutral environment, I mentioned somewhere about how comets provide great evidence to support the hypothesis of electrical activity in space. This video was released today from the thunderbolts channel, has some great information about the mystery of comets, in particular the recent Comet 67P. Highly recommend anyone with an open mind who can entertain an alternative cosmology watch it. At the very least you'll get an appreciation for what I've reiterated many times so far.. the astrophysicists encounter bafflement after bafflement because they refuse to see beyond the narrow scope defined by gravity led cosmology/no room for electricity in space.

5:18 onwards is when 67P is talked about

 

[Bagseed]

and still you only reply to small little parts of my post and try to avoid the points I've made. I really feel that you actually cannot contribute a single logically valid argument to the discussion (besides "the earth is complex", which is true, but this doesn't mean that one cannot know anything about the magnitude of certain dynamics).
in another post earlier, I tried to logically demonstrate, how the CO2 contribution to the greenhouse effect could be easily approximated. you completely ignored that. and then you go on about the "electric universe something" which might be an interesting topic in general, but in this context here becomes only relevant, if you can actually demonstrate how this can come in play to change climate (other than "we don't know, so it might very well be").
also, if you're so confident about CO2 being irrelevant, why don't you show some actual scientific sources. but wait, you actually don't know wether or not it is responsible, you just go on about how you don't believe it. nice critical thinking, mate.

 

[-=SS=-]

in another post earlier, I tried to logically demonstrate, how the CO2 contribution to the greenhouse effect could be easily approximated. you completely ignored that.

Yeh, and I've said, multiple times now, you can not take the greenhouse effect in isolation. You can't say X amount of Co2 will cause Y amount of warming, because there are numerous factors in play, interlocking factors, feedback loops and so forth, it is simply disingenuous to say "an increase in Co2 will cause Y amount of warming". You keep ignoring my statement, yet I know you will actually embrace it after I make my next statement:

Rising temperatures have not been a continuous positive increase in the past 150 years, it has fluctuated, and at present has shown no demonstrable warming for 20+ years. If Co2 has been rising continuously as you say, and it has, then temperatures according to your hypothesis should continue to rise also. The excuse that was trotted out to explain the pause was "the oceans swallowed the heat".. which is incredible really given that they've always been there, like all of a sudden they just decided to swallow more heat.

You nor the climatology experts have the faintest idea what the hell the climate is going to do.

 

[Bagseed]

The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of infrared radiation by gases in a planet's atmosphere warm its lower atmosphere and surface. It was proposed by Joseph Fourier in 1824, discovered in 1860 by John Tyndall,[63] was first investigated quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896,[64] and was developed in the 1930s through 1960s by Guy Stewart Callendar.[65]

=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Greenhouse_gases

it seems that the greenhouse effect has been studied for a long time. not likely that we know as little about its function and magnitude as you claim.

Rising temperatures have not been a continuous positive increase in the past 150 years, it has fluctuated, and at present has shown no demonstrable warming for 20+ years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record

this graph shows that 2004 was the hottest of the last 2000 years, with a rather teep curve upwards. another graph in this article shows also that it has been hotter than now in previous time periods, but the change now is rather acelerated. I'll say it again, you cannot describe nature exactly with mathematics, but one can try to approximate with as high precision as possible. this is being done all the time. yet you just say "nobody has a clue at all" which is plain bullshit. (and if not, please present sources to explain why all people who researched this topic for long times, are false).

edit:

Yeh, and I've said, multiple times now, you can not take the greenhouse effect in isolation. You can't say X amount of Co2 will cause Y amount of warming, because there are numerous factors in play, interlocking factors, feedback loops and so forth, it is simply disingenuous to say "an increase in Co2 will cause Y amount of warming".

but what if you know the other important factors of climate and none of them hasn't changed enough to explain the recent rise in temperature? but this one factor has changed a lot since then, suggesting a strong correlation?

 

[-=SS=-]

I'll say it again, you cannot describe nature exactly with mathematics, but one can try to approximate with as high precision as possible. this is being done all the time. yet you just say "nobody has a clue at all" which is plain bullshit. (and if not, please present sources to explain why all people who researched this topic for long times, are false).

Well here we come back to an argument I made earlier.. mathematical modelling. If you want to trust these people and their statistical analysis that is your choice. I don't. I can not invest my faith into a scientific tangent which is based around statistical modelling, especially when it involves the complexity of the Earth and its climate.. AND when I believe a whole gigantic factor is being ignored in the modelling.

And they don't have a fucking clue. None of them and their mathematical modelling predicted the on-going 20 year pause in temperature rise. According to their modelling the temperature should have continued to rise in line with rising Co2 levels. But it hasn't. The excuse of the ocean eating the temperature difference is bullshit.. you think they didn't know about that factor already? Or do you want to claim they did and concede they don't understand that factor either? So, which is it?..

but what if you know the other important factors of climate and none of them hasn't changed enough to explain the recent rise in temperature? but this one factor has changed a lot since then, suggesting a strong correlation?

Like I said you're free to trust these people and their correlations. I don't. And before anyone suggests it again I don't trust the corporations or any other institutions either, quite frankly everyone is full of shit on this political issue right now. I'm coming from my own personal point of view.. just being honest and saying I do not believe the case is solid, nor by extension is it justified to alter our way of life when we could be focusing attention on many other pressing environmental issues which we have direct evidence for (particle pollution, plastic waste, deforestation, urbanization etc etc).

 

[Bagseed]

you don't trust any data, you just have your opinion because of your feeling, so you will admit that you have no real knowledge whatsoever and you will definately not believe any of the numerous studies which are related to this topic. if that's the case, then you are just plain ignorant.

you discussing something is repeating yourself all over again, without no sources, no logic, just opinion. you have brought no article, no wiki entry, no study to support your very big claims ("CO2 cannot be responsible for global warming", "global warming does not exist", "we have no clue about how the climate works", "electricity in the universe is responsible for climate" (fucking lol), and so on). quite frankly, the way you act, you're "not even wrong", because even when confronted about something, you just go in a circle and don't even consider looking for something to back up the things you say.
furthermore, you show no willingness to even look into the links and sources other people post, because your opinion is so solid that you can't even admit that there might be something to what other people say.

tl,dr: you are the single worst poster to plague CE&P and P&S, I give up, this is pointless. enjoy living in your tiny head world, where everything should be like it was a 100 years ago.

 

[-=SS=-]

you don't trust any data, you just have your opinion because of your feeling, so you will admit that you have no real knowledge whatsoever and you will definately not believe any of the numerous studies which are related to this topic. if that's the case, then you are just plain ignorant.

Oh, and you have knowledge then. Really? I think not. You don't understand all the data in its entirety, hardly anyone does, it comes back to trusting the sources. No where is it written you have to trust all scientific authorities. This isn't a fucking religion although the attitude you have, and many others, often portrays one of religious devotion.. no challenge can be had unless its backed by authority figures you trust. Evidence has to be presented in the way you dictate it should be, or it's irrelevant. I have my opinion on the matter, I DON'T CARE if you're not willing to embrace the possibility.

you discussing something is repeating yourself all over again, without no sources, no logic, just opinion. you have brought no article, no wiki entry, no study to support your very big claims

That is bullshit. You can not expect absolutely everything to come through peer reviewed journals, the top institutions or authorities. They don't have a monopoly on truth. And even if I presented a page or something you'd still just crap all over it anyway, so what the fuck does it matter? You're not going to budge from your position and neither am I.

There is logic to my thought process on this topic. You don't want to see it because you simply can not entertain an idea that doesn't fit your narrow paradigm of how the world operates. And to that, I care not.

 

[thujone]

I'll say it again, you cannot describe nature exactly with mathematics, but one can try to approximate with as high precision as possible. this is being done all the time.

this is why scepticism is warranted, because there are so many factors at play and nobody knows all the parameters to put it into a proper context. precise data is meaningless without the right context, accurate data is what is needed before any reliable conclusions can be drawn about this whole issue. so far CO2 emissions have been like the lynchpin issue, but what of atmospheric ozone concentrations? and what of total human energy usage and its impact on total infrared emissions? i agree that greenhouse gases are probably the biggest factor at play, but do CO2 emissions really offer IGOs/NGOs legitimate grounds to decree how humans must act to reel in climate change in light of the fact that the earth itself naturally releases large volumes of greenhouse gases regularly?

does humanity benefit from me paying a carbon tax to reduce CO2 emissions (or rob me if I can't go any lower) if meanwhile there's an earthquake somewhere on the other side of the world that disturbs a large methane deposit and releases kilotonnes more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with no human involvement? the net benefit of carbon taxing can very well turn out to be nil, but by the time we realize it in hindsight, we could have lost the opportunity to enact real change based on accurate data because the politicians were busy robbing us all blind on a shaky premise.