Is climate change denial a pseudoscience?

[SLD]

I realize that understanding the science behind climate change is not easy to grasp. There’s a lot of need to understand physics and chemistry and geology too. But I did just finish a really good book on the history of climate change on earth. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. Fascinating book btw.

But it dawned on me after reading it that the evidence is overwhelming and undeniable. Anthropogenic climate change is real. To deny it is to deny basic observations and facts and even physics. How is it defensible? It seems to me that it is a pseudoscience.

Yet many serious scientists do deny that anthropogenic climate change is real. How do they possibly justify this?

While reading this book, a Facebook friend posted this picture:




Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax. I kinda lost and drafted a long response Pointing out the data from the book I had just read. Now he claims that there’s basically a vast conspiracy to silence scientists who don’t believe in climate change. And this is where I come to the pseudoscience conclusion. I had just watched a flat earth video, and that was the only argument that they made. It was all vast conspiracy by our governments to make us believe that the earth is round. The government is lying to us because they want our money, etc.

Where does this argument even come from? Is this just what Fox News spews out? Where are all these climate scientists who deny it is real?

It’s the same argument. That’s why I say it’s a pseudoscience.

 

[Politesse]

I would not say that climate change denialism is a pseudoscience, because as a whole it does not pretend to be a science. But, it is asociated with many pseudoscientic theories. Akin to the way Creationism iin and of itself s not pseudoscience, but Intelligent Design certainly is. Pseudoscience is that which coopts the aesthetics, language, and social legitimacy of science without engaging in the scientific process.

 

[rjh01]

The photos are not evidence of anything. They might have been taken at high tide in 1943 and low tide in 2023.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

You can always find good info at the Skeptical Science website. A site dedicated to debunking climate change denialism.

Global Warming and Climate Change skepticism examined

Examines the science and arguments of global warming skepticism. Common objections like 'global warming is caused by the sun', 'temperature has changed naturally in the past' or 'other planets are warming too' are examined to see what the science really says.

skepticalscience.com

 

[Shadowy Man]

View attachment 44490


Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

Even if we assume these pictures are real, of the same place, and taken on the dates implied and at the exact same tide level, the global sea level has risen only about 6 inches since 1943. These things are supposed to be 80 feet tall, and I'm supposed to tell from the photo that the sea is 6 inches higher?

 

[bilby]

View attachment 44490


Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

Even if we assume these pictures are real, of the same place, and taken on the dates implied and at the exact same tide level, the global sea level has risen only about 6 inches since 1943. These things are supposed to be 80 feet tall, and I'm supposed to tell from the photo that the sea is 6 inches higher?

The Thames estuary has been undergoing isostatic depression since the last ice age. During the ice age, the land in the north of the British Isles was pressed into the asthenosphere by the weight of ice, and the south rose as a consequence, in a see-saw action.

That land is now falling at about 0.2mm per annum due to this rebound, so sea levels were rising in that area even before climate change accelerated the process.

Sea level in the Thames estuary are currently rising at about 3.6mm per year; 3.4mm/yr of that is due to global effects (climate change), and 0.2mm to local effects.

The Maunsell Forts were constructed in haste, on a soft sedimentary surface; They are likely sinking faster than the local sea level is rising.

Regardless, the magnitude of the change is still far less than the variation due to tides, and far less than could be seen in that pair of photos even if they were taken at the same point in the tidal cycle.

 

[SLD]

View attachment 44490


Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

Even if we assume these pictures are real, of the same place, and taken on the dates implied and at the exact same tide level, the global sea level has risen only about 6 inches since 1943. These things are supposed to be 80 feet tall, and I'm supposed to tell from the photo that the sea is 6 inches higher?

The Thames estuary has been undergoing isostatic depression since the last ice age. During the ice age, the land in the north of the British Isles was pressed into the asthenosphere by the weight of ice, and the south rose as a consequence, in a see-saw action.

That land is now falling at about 0.2mm per annum due to this rebound, so sea levels were rising in that area even before climate change accelerated the process.

Sea level in the Thames estuary are currently rising at about 3.6mm per year; 3.4mm/yr of that is due to global effects (climate change), and 0.2mm to local effects.

The Maunsell Forts were constructed in haste, on a soft sedimentary surface; They are likely sinking faster than the local sea level is rising.

Regardless, the magnitude of the change is still far less than the variation due to tides, and far less than could be seen in that pair of photos even if they were taken at the same point in the tidal cycle.

Yeah that’s what’s so stunningly stupid about the claim. There are things called TIDES. Even if you know nothing else about this picture, you should know something basic about tides. Yet people were posting on this Facebook page about how climate change is such a hoax and this is proof, blah, blah, blah. it’s like they might as well say it proves the earth flat. How fucking stupid can these people be?

The guy who posted it is no dummy. A prominent lawyer who used to be a judge. Actually a distant cousin of mine. But also a big believer in Jesus. Loves Jesus. Lets everyone know it. I really think all of these pseudosciences go together. There’s no global warming because Jesus will save us (any day now!) and there were never any ice ages because the earth is 10,000 years old. Or even flat.

 

[bilby]

there were never any ice ages because the earth is 10,000 years old

Well this is the entire problem in a nutshell.

These idiots have zero idea about time.

They think it's a long time since WWII, and it's also a long time since the last Ice Age; And that therefore these things happened a comparable amount of time ago.

It's an extension of the trope that everything that happened in the past happened at the same time; Which is itself a consequence of humans struggling to grasp any number bigger than twelve.

These same people consider a million, a billion, and a trillion, to be similar amounts - ie LOTS.

So if you tell them the government is proposing spending hundreds of millions to get tens of billions in savings, they think it's a bad policy. Because 100 is bigger than 10.

 

[Bomb#20]

Apparently this demonstrates that global sea levels haven’t risen and thus climate change is a hoax.

You're totally missing the point of the pictures and the point of the debate. It's not about sea level rise and it's not about climate change being a hoax -- everyone knows the climate is getting warmer. The debate is over whether it's anthropogenic or natural. Look at the darn pictures again! Clearly the reason the earth has gotten warmer is because sometime between 1943 and 2023 the sun came out!

 

[Elixir]

 

[Shadowy Man]

You're totally missing the point of the pictures and the point of the debate. It's not about sea level rise and it's not about climate change being a hoax -- everyone knows the climate is getting warmer. The debate is over whether it's anthropogenic or natural. Look at the darn pictures again! Clearly the reason the earth has gotten warmer is because sometime between 1943 and 2023 the sun came out!

then we know the photos aren’t real. Trying to convince me that the sun came out in Britain?? Please…