I need a good short debate that is very convincing to climate skeptics.  I have come to believe that humans are making the Earth worst, by making it hotter.  There are some who argue that warmer is better.  The high CO2 is good for plants.  How do you counter that argument?

There are studies that show sea levels are not rising among Pacific Islanders.  The islands seem to float above the sea level rise by accretion.

Coral reef islands can accrete vertically in response to sea level rise | Science Advances

Another climate skeptic claim is that when you compare the graphs of historic, and prehistoric, CO2 levels in the atmosphere, to the graph of average temperature, it seems that the spikes in temperature come BEFORE the spikes in CO2.  They claim that means high CO2 does not CAUSE high temperatures.  Anyone agree?

"In a vote of 7-0, The most prolific climate revisionist editor ever at Wikipedia, with over 5400 article revisions has been banned from making any edits about climate related articles for six months."  Any opinions about this?

Thanks for any ideas, but I've seen a lot of climate skepticism lately.

 

Edited July 2, 20241 yr by Airbrush

2 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

How do you counter that argument?

It’s hard using logic and reason to change the mind of a person who arrives at their position using neither 

If facts mattered, we’d have begun addressing this when it was first brought to congress in the 1980s as a real risk 

16 minutes ago, iNow said:

It’s hard using logic and reason to change the mind of a person who arrives at their position using neither 

I saw a debate where the climate skeptic showed a graph of world co2 compared to temperatures and it looks like first temperature rises, then co2 rises later, so it doesn't look like rising co2 CAUSES warming of the GLOBAL AVERAGE.  The "climate alarmist" in the debate had no response to that.

I searched for another graph of co2 with temperature and I found this which shows co2 going up and down over 800,000 years, and temperature peaks seem to COINCIDE with high co2.  One does not seem to lead the other.  Was someone fooling around with these graphs?

Edited July 2, 20241 yr by Airbrush

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

I saw a debate where the climate skeptic showed a graph of world co2 compared to temperatures and it looks like first temperature rises, then co2 rises later, so it doesn't look like rising co2 CAUSES warming of the GLOBAL AVERAGE.  The "climate alarmist" in the debate had no response to that.

I searched for another graph of co2 with temperature and I found this which shows co2 going up and down over 800,000 years, and temperature peaks seem to COINCIDE with high co2.  One does not seem to lead the other.  Was someone fooling around with these graphs?

You  can really get dragged into the weeds trying to react to individual random graphs generated to sow disinformation, unless you are an expert in the field. There’s a whole cottage industry peddling disinformation “talking points” and as soon as you knock down one they will come up with another.

The question really is whether these people seriously believe all the climatologists are wrong, whereas they, with their barrack- room lawyer’s opinions, are right, or whether they think the climatologists are all - worldwide - engaged in some kind of conspiracy, and if so, to what end?

 

Edited July 2, 20241 yr by exchemist

15 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Another climate skeptic claim is that when you compare the graphs of historic, and prehistoric, CO2 levels in the atmosphere, to the graph of average temperature, it seems that the spikes in temperature come BEFORE the spikes in CO2.  They claim that means high CO2 does not CAUSE high temperatures.  Anyone agree?

All that means is CO2 did not cause the original temperature rise in those events. Not that it can’t. 

Yes the timeline is way in the past- predating human activities and includes switches between ice ages and interglacial periods which were initiated by factors other than CO2. Note that coming out of an ice age, the increase in temperature can also increase CO2 production by e.g. stimulating biological activity. This can result in a feedback that further increases CO2. Note that after the initial lag, CO2 and temp tend to rise together. However, you will also note that the timeline is not really great to see the current impact of CO2 on temperature. 

On 7/1/2024 at 8:41 PM, Airbrush said:

The high CO2 is good for plants.

Water is also good for plants but it is quite possible to overwater most of them.

20 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

Water is also good for plants but it is quite possible to overwater most of them.

Is there evidence that too much CO2 — in the ranges we could have on earth — is bad for plants? The levels we’re seeing are lower than what you’d typically have indoors unless you have incredible ventilation, so is there evidence indoor plants suffer?

”good for plants” is a reach, as if it balances out negative aspects, but it also needs to be quantified. Is CO2 a limiting factor in plant growth?  Going from ~320 ppm to ~420 ppm in the last ~60 years should have already been quite a boon if “good for plants” had validity.

Yep, in nature the principal limiting growth factors are water and soil nutrients, so more CO2 is not going to necessarily help, especially if it is raising the temperature in places where that leads to more drought and wildfires.  Plants need the right balance of water and soil nutrients and pH and so on to take advantage of more CO2 - a balance that rapid AGW tends not to provide.  

Growing bigger runs into overlapping with other plants, so not only competing for water and nutrients, but I would imagine that sunlight is also a limiting resource, since you can only have a certain surface area getting direct sunlight.

@Airbrush Careful they don't wear you out working out why their arguments are wrong only to just shift to different wrong arguments whilst conceding nothing; those debates rarely change minds. If you want to know why those arguments are wrong (or not even wrong ie irrelevant) it will only be for your benefit; anyone who can't see the logical problem with evidence of instances where warming preceded CO2 and the CO2 amplified it implying CO2 cannot be the cause of warming now (but when we get enough warming, cause CO2 stores to be released and amplify it?) isn't going to be much open to logical arguments. And if someone thinks not being convinced means the science is wrong they are not being properly skeptical - if they don't know they cannot know that it is wrong.

It may be better to shift the argument to one of whether and why to trust the institutions, practices and practitioners of climate related science - to trust in the studies and reports by science agencies and science teams tasked with working out what is really going on, versus "do your own research" on a point by point basis. Why for example is every Intelligence Agency, who's job is sorting truth from lies and uncovering nation damaging conspiracies, unable to find evidence of falsification in climate science? Or are they in on it?

Some points (for your benefit) - graphs of CO2 vs temperature with 1,000 year increments can't really demonstrate the connection between temperature and CO2 over very short timescales, such as between 1800's to present, where CO2 has been preceding warming that shows very rapid response to it, measurable within decades - and it is an observation that the CO2 rise is a consequence of fossil fuel burning and not a response to warming from other causes, or what do they think comes out of exhaust pipes and smoke stacks? Just CO2 and temperature seems inadequate for arguing for other causes than CO2; they need to show the other causes, and then show how those causes are working now.

Looking at too long to be relevant timescales is a common way people get misled or mislead themselves - just as too short time scales where internal climate variability dominates - where each year is not incrementally warmer than the preceding one, but over time averages to a clear warming trend (remember The Pause?) - is misleading.

Effects of raised CO2 on plants in isolation from the full range of environmental changes - temperatures, rainfall, growing season length - is also likely to mislead. More crop growth with raised yields but reduced nutritional value (where all else is equal) needs to be put into the context where all else is not equal. And increasing global biomass (vegetation) isn't so easy to attribute to plant response to elevated CO2 - temperature change and rainfall change seem to be more significant factors, with overall increased global precipitation a major one. But that is not leading to increased rainfall everywhere; warmer air will hold more water vapor and deliver more rain where conditions suit, whereas in arid conditions warmer air needs higher levels of water vapor to rain at all. More tundra spending more time thawed (Arctic greening), some regions getting more rainfall (eg NW Australia) seems more directly significant to change in vegetation in those places.

I don't mind people asking questions - feel free - but I am not a fan of being JAQed around by people who aren't interested in the answers.

Edited July 16, 20241 yr by Ken Fabian

4 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

@Airbrush Careful they don't wear you out working out why their arguments are wrong only to just shift to different wrong arguments whilst conceding nothing; those debates rarely change minds. If you want to know why those arguments are wrong (or not even wrong ie irrelevant) it will only be for your benefit; anyone who can't see the logical problem with evidence of instances where warming preceded CO2 and the CO2 amplified it implying CO2 cannot be the cause of warming now (but when we get enough warming, cause CO2 stores to be released and amplify it?) isn't going to be much open to logical arguments. And if someone thinks not being convinced means the science is wrong they are not being properly skeptical - if they don't know they cannot know that it is wrong.

It may be better to shift the argument to one of whether and why to trust the institutions, practices and practitioners of climate related science - to trust in the studies and reports by science agencies and science teams tasked with working out what is really going on, versus "do your own research" on a point by point basis. Why for example is every Intelligence Agency, who's job is sorting truth from lies and uncovering nation damaging conspiracies, unable to find evidence of falsification in climate science? Or are they in on it?

Some points (for your benefit) - graphs of CO2 vs temperature with 1,000 year increments can't really demonstrate the connection between temperature and CO2 over very short timescales, such as between 1800's to present, where CO2 has been preceding warming that shows very rapid response to it, measurable within decades - and it is an observation that the CO2 rise is a consequence of fossil fuel burning and not a response to warming from other causes, or what do they think comes out of exhaust pipes and smoke stacks? Just CO2 and temperature seems inadequate for arguing for other causes than CO2; they need to show the other causes, and then show how those causes are working now.

Looking at too long to be relevant timescales is a common way people get misled or mislead themselves - just as too short time scales where internal climate variability dominates - where each year is not incrementally warmer than the preceding one, but over time averages to a clear warming trend (remember The Pause?) - is misleading.

Effects of raised CO2 on plants in isolation from the full range of environmental changes - temperatures, rainfall, growing season length - is also likely to mislead. More crop growth with raised yields but reduced nutritional value (where all else is equal) needs to be put into the context where all else is not equal. And increasing global biomass (vegetation) isn't so easy to attribute to plant response to elevated CO2 - temperature change and rainfall change seem to be more significant factors, with overall increased global precipitation a major one. But that is not leading to increased rainfall everywhere; warmer air will hold more water vapor and deliver more rain where conditions suit, whereas in arid conditions warmer air needs higher levels of water vapor to rain at all. More tundra spending more time thawed (Arctic greening), some regions getting more rainfall (eg NW Australia) seems more directly significant to change in vegetation in those places.

I don't mind people asking questions - feel free - but I am not a fan of being JAQed around by people who aren't interested in the answers.

Excellent reply, thanks for the info!

Another thing the climate skeptics were arguing was that hotter climate is better, as the temperature peaks were literally "optimums" meaning it was great for plants to have hotter climate and more co2.  I figure climate change alters normal weather patterns, so the "bread baskets" become dried deserts, and the deserts get flooded and become lush tropical forests.  People are all mixed up because it will require all new infrastructure to move agriculture to new areas, as coastal areas flood more with rising sea level.  So coastal people are forced to move inland, causing wars, etc.

Edited July 16, 20241 yr by Airbrush

8 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Another thing the climate skeptics were arguing was that hotter climate is better, as the temperature peaks were literally "optimums" meaning it was great for plants to have hotter climate and more co2.

But we should have an answer already. It’s hotter and there’s about a third more CO2 than 50 years ago. If this was happening, there should be plenty of examples to point to. At least as many as the flood/drought issues we’ve seen, and can point to.

It’s a mistake to frame global warming as something that will happen, because it’s happening already.

16 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Excellent reply, thanks for the info!

Another thing the climate skeptics were arguing was that hotter climate is better, as the temperature peaks were literally "optimums" meaning it was great for plants to have hotter climate and more co2.

Thanks. I think that first paragraph of mine fell a bit short of the ABC I was after - accuracy, brevity and clarity - but I hope the meaning came through. Missed the time limit to edit or I'd have tried for more of the B and C. I do struggle with the B.

I think stability is the optimum for the species including humans, that are around and doing well at the time.

Not changing too much too quickly is much more "optimum" than any specific global average temperature especially if major and rapid climate changes are involved in getting there - but I note that (confirmed by the graphs provided) we were not in some cold part of natural cycles when we started burning fossil fuels in a big way, but were already at and just past peak of a natural warm period - so added warming doesn't take us back to a warmer "optimum" it takes us into territory not seen before, not unless looking at very long times ago, when conditions were too different to make any "better" or "worse" global climate comparisons.  I'd call the argument a not actually relevant  kind of wrong.

The Holocence, the last 10,000 years or so, since the last Glacial Maximum had been unusually stable and there are good grounds to think that stability made it possible to get reliable food supplies from agriculture, enough for civilisations to arise and persist. Even the relatively small changes during that time saw rises and falls of civilisations.

The warming isn't happening during a cold period, it is happening just after one of those peaks, one already different to what was happening before - warmer than prior peaks and persisting long after - (the red circling came with this graph, not mine, but finding one with the period before the Holocene wasn't so easy - not without log scaling that compresses the earlier times) -

17 hours ago, Airbrush said:

I figure climate change alters normal weather patterns, so the "bread baskets" become dried deserts, and the deserts get flooded and become lush tropical forests.  People are all mixed up because it will require all new infrastructure to move agriculture to new areas, as coastal areas flood more with rising sea level.  So coastal people are forced to move inland, causing wars, etc.

Whilst climate change will alter weather patterns many regions are that way because of geography that isn't going to change - changed intensities of what they already get appears more likely in most places rather than the wetter places turning dry or dry climates turning wet. eg Deserts with mountain ranges between them and oceans will mostly stay deserts, but the coastal sides can get wetter. Big atmospheric and ocean circulations get affected but not entirely overturned; lots of prevailing winds will still go the same directions, cross oceans and gather moisture - more water vapor than before. Where conditions suit that means more rain. For arid climates warmer air needs to have more water vapor content to reach saturation, in order to rain; they can get more rain from occasional extreme rain events that do reach further inland but outside those times get less.

The impacts on people is kinda critical in this; for all that Environmentalists are concerned for natural ecosytems it is concern for the impacts on people, agriculture and infrastructure that drives most climate policy. All well and good if there is less desert and vegetation on average but the local impacts can still be overwhelming. I've heard it said that civilisation is just one famine away from collapse; some of the worst potential consequences aren't from the weather and climate and sea level, but from human mismanagement and responses to crisis, including corruption, blame shifting and conflict.

If you live in a part of the world least affected by climate and weather impacts it could become the favored destination for a hundred million refugees; I don't see how any nation in a world that has become so interconnected and interdependent can isolate themselves from the impacts elsewhere.

A bit late to the topic, but for what it's worth, I think it is a mistake to be drawn into detail. When I'm called to summarise the climate situation to non-scientists, which happens quite often, I tend to limit the discussion to a few simple, easily defended points:

Without CO₂ Earth's average temperature would be no higher than the average temperature of the moon. About -20^oC and life as we know it would not be possible.

Until very recently, the planet had 6,000 years of an unusually stable CO₂ level of a little below 300 ppm warming the planet to a comfortable average of 15^oC and life as we know it flourished.

The earliest historical civilisations began 6,000 years ago and have continued, developed, and flourished ever since. This is no coincidence.

We are currently well on the way towards doubling that CO₂ level at a rate far faster than either human civilisation or the natural world can adapt to the rapidly increasing temperature.

Repeat as necessary.

It's worked for me though I appreciate that those living in other environments may have a different experience. Comments welcome.

On 7/1/2024 at 5:41 PM, Airbrush said:

I need a good short debate that is very convincing to climate skeptics.  I have come to believe that humans are making the Earth worst, by making it hotter.  There are some who argue that warmer is better.  The high CO2 is good for plants.  How do you counter that argument?

There are studies that show sea levels are not rising among Pacific Islanders.  The islands seem to float above the sea level rise by accretion.

Coral reef islands can accrete vertically in response to sea level rise | Science Advances

Another climate skeptic claim is that when you compare the graphs of historic, and prehistoric, CO2 levels in the atmosphere, to the graph of average temperature, it seems that the spikes in temperature come BEFORE the spikes in CO2.  They claim that means high CO2 does not CAUSE high temperatures.  Anyone agree?

"In a vote of 7-0, The most prolific climate revisionist editor ever at Wikipedia, with over 5400 article revisions has been banned from making any edits about climate related articles for six months."  Any opinions about this?

Thanks for any ideas, but I've seen a lot of climate skepticism lately.

 

A total of 51,230 papers was published on climate change, for the year 2020, within 5,796 scientific journals (Fig. 1A), leading to 36,355 mentions by international news media. The media attention concentrates on 9% of papers (≥1 mention in news media), while 2% of them reach extensive media attention (≥10 mentions). - Science Direct

Perhaps tell them to read

On 4/2/2025 at 3:04 PM, sethoflagos said:

Without CO₂ Earth's average temperature would be no higher than the average temperature of the moon. About -20^oC and life as we know it would not be possible.

This is factually incorrect. The Moon's average surface temperature is about -23°C, but the Earth would be much colder without greenhouse gases, closer to -18°C to -19°C, not because it's "like the Moon", but because the greenhouse effect is absent.

On 4/2/2025 at 3:04 PM, sethoflagos said:

Until very recently, the planet had 6,000 years of an unusually stable CO₂ level of a little below 300 ppm warming the planet to a comfortable average of 15^oC and life as we know it flourished.

Your statement dramatically simplifies complex climate history. While CO₂ was relatively stable during the Holocene (~260–280 ppm), the phrasing ignores natural variations before that and implies an unbroken equilibrium.

32 minutes ago, Sohan Lalwani said:

This is factually incorrect. The Moon's average surface temperature is about -23°C, but the Earth would be much colder without greenhouse gases, closer to -18°C to -19°C, not because it's "like the Moon", but because the greenhouse effect is absent.

On what planet is "-18°C to -19°C" "much colder" than "-23°C"?

"much colder (than)" is a subset of "no higher than"

Why the italics and quotation marks around "like the Moon"? Not my words, even inferentially.

"because the greenhouse effect is absent" is a subset of "Without CO₂"

Can't actually find any significant rebuttal in your post - more of an incoherent paraphrasing of my own argument.

58 minutes ago, Sohan Lalwani said:

Your statement dramatically simplifies complex climate history. While CO₂ was relatively stable during the Holocene (~260–280 ppm), the phrasing ignores natural variations before that and implies an unbroken equilibrium.

You say that as if it were (in context) a bad thing.

8 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

On what planet is "-18°C to -19°C" "much colder" than "-23°C"?

"much colder (than)" is a subset of "no higher than"

Why the italics and quotation marks around "like the Moon"? Not my words, even inferentially.

"because the greenhouse effect is absent" is a subset of "Without CO₂"

Can't actually find any significant rebuttal in your post - more of an incoherent paraphrasing of my own argument.

You say that as if it were (in context) a bad thing.

To much of a simplification

8 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

On what planet is "-18°C to -19°C" "much colder" than "-23°C"?

"much colder (than)" is a subset of "no higher than"

Earth, perhaps read on recent climate science

8 minutes ago, Sohan Lalwani said:

To much of a simplification

Earth, perhaps read on recent climate science

Perhaps you should read through the threads before you post to them and gain some small understanding of what's actually being discussed.

Just now, sethoflagos said:

Perhaps you should read through the threads before you post to them and gain some small understanding of what's actually being discussed.

I have, Im pointing out that your statement "Without CO₂ Earth's average temperature would be no higher than the average temperature of the moon. About -20^oC and life as we know it would not be possible" is factually incorrect. The Moon's average surface temperature is about -23°C, but the Earth would be much colder without greenhouse gases, closer to -18°C to -19°C, not because it's "like the Moon", but because the greenhouse effect is absent."

Perhaps you should reread the statements

2 hours ago, Sohan Lalwani said:

This is factually incorrect. The Moon's average surface temperature is about -23°C, but the Earth would be much colder without greenhouse gases, closer to -18°C to -19°C, not because it's "like the Moon", but because the greenhouse effect is absent

Since the moon lacks an atmosphere, “like the moon” means no greenhouse effect.

You might not like the way the information was presented, but it’s not factually incorrect.

27 minutes ago, swansont said:

Since the moon lacks an atmosphere, “like the moon” means no greenhouse effect.

You might not like the way the information was presented, but it’s not factually incorrect.

While I get that you're using the Moon as a metaphor for a planet without a greenhouse effect, it's worth noting that Earth's equilibrium temperature without greenhouse gases is calculated at around -18°C—not quite the same as the Moon’s -23°C, which also lacks the thermal inertia and moderating effect of oceans. So your point stands rhetorically, but the analogy could be tightened if we want to be precise.

9 minutes ago, Sohan Lalwani said:

While I get that you're using the Moon as a metaphor for a planet without a greenhouse effect, it's worth noting that Earth's equilibrium temperature without greenhouse gases is calculated at around -18°C—not quite the same as the Moon’s -23°C, which also lacks the thermal inertia and moderating effect of oceans. So your point stands rhetorically, but the analogy could be tightened if we want to be precise.

But both are very close to the -20C approx. temperature that was quoted. A 4-5C difference is pretty negligible compared to the extremes experienced by other bodies in the solar system. So the comparison is substantially correct. I don’t understand why you have decided to nitpick over this.

Edited April 30Apr 30 by exchemist

2 minutes ago, exchemist said:

But both are very close to the -20C approx. temperature that was quoted. A 4-5C difference is pretty negligible compared to the extremes experienced by other bodies in the solar system. I don’t understand why you have decided to nitpick over this.

Precision matters, I have been imprecise but I correct myself after.

17 minutes ago, Sohan Lalwani said:

While I get that you're using the Moon as a metaphor for a planet without a greenhouse effect, it's worth noting that Earth's equilibrium temperature without greenhouse gases is calculated at around -18°C—not quite the same as the Moon’s -23°C, which also lacks the thermal inertia and moderating effect of oceans. So your point stands rhetorically, but the analogy could be tightened if we want to be precise.

Think this through. If as you say, this hypothetical earth were at or around -20^oC then what state are the oceans in?

As things stand, earth has a significantly higher albedo than the moon, and an ice covering will increase that difference considerably. This will drive the equilibrium temperature of the earth down to the <-50^oC estimates for 'Snowball Earth' scenarios of the late Proterozoic.

(Ref: Hoffman, P. F., Kaufman, A. J., Halverson, G. P., & Schrag, D. P. (1998). "A new model for Neoproterozoic glaciation." Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 286(1-2), 295-310.; Abbot, D. S., & Tziperman, E. (2009). "Glacial–interglacial cycles and Snowball Earth." Nature, 457(7227), 179-183.)

For the specific purposes of this topic, I did not need to introduce this complication in order to establish the principle that having some greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is beneficial.

On 4/2/2025 at 11:04 PM, sethoflagos said:

Without CO₂ Earth's average temperature would be no higher than the average temperature of the moon.

I chose this wording carefully: it is in agreement with expert concensus. Something of an understatement actually.