I'm not here to troll nor to incite any sort of misguided

>>8711431
The Pope and Algore said climate change was real. What more proof do you need /pol/tard ?

>there are many climatologists, some very prestigious ones, who are clearly stating we're unable to determine how big of an impact humans have on the climate

I'm not an expert in climate science, but this sounds like a very weak criticism. How certain are they about the sign of the impact? Probably much more certain than they are about the magnitude.

Let's suppose that there's just so much uncertainty in climate models that there's only a 5% probability (in a Bayesian sense) that future climate change will severely endanger human welfare -- which, you will note, is a weaker claim than saying that said climate change is *also anthropogenic*.

If climate change weren't a problem at all, and you could press a red button that had a 1/20 chance of causing worldwide catastrophe and a 19/20 chance of causing slightly slower economic growth on account of unnecessary environmental regulations counterbalanced by the pleasure of living in an unpolluted world, would you press that button?

To be more direct, even if it's untrue that there's a consensus about catastrophic global warming in the future, the tail risk seems high enough (and the short-term downsides of paying attention to climate change seem low enough) that it seems transparently obvious that we should impose sensible environmental regulations and call it a day.

Like, okay, maybe there's only a 5% chance climate change is a problem. Maybe it's 3%, maybe 1%, maybe even lower. Are you willing to bet on it being low enough for us to comfortably ignore?

And exactly what's _bad_ about investing into renewable energy, fining pollution, and just replacing old forms of energy production with newer ones (especially nuclear plants)? I honestly find myself sort of baffled here. At worst it slows down the economy marginally, but we get to enjoy a better power grid and a cleaner world, which... seems like the sort of thing that sustains long-term economic growth anyway.

>>8711444
>/pol/
I'm liberal, I don't visit that place full of hate.

>>8711451
I realize it's an appeal to authority, but I was taught that in science, it's more about how falsifiable your prediction is rather than consensus. So, B.F. Skinner came up with a good method that predicts human behavior and it doesn't matter if every other psychologist speaks up against him, he is able to produce and reproduce his results which is a net positive. Now, to your last point, I completely agree actually. I am not denying that climate change is happening, which it most certainly is. I'm very skeptical however that is is human beings who are at fault here. My proposition therefore, is to invest money into research and come up with technologies that will allow us to control temperature on the planet or somehow shield us from devestation (hurricanes etc.). This would require funding as well as current fossil fuels (energy) and in my opinion is a better allocation of resources. If you misidentify the problem (humans) then your solutions are not only going to be ineffective, but they are going to cost you in the long term, because you missed the opportunity to create the proper fix.

>>8711467
>I'm liberal
>I don't visit that place full of hate.
Sorry but /pol/ is libtard & SJW central

>>8711466
>And exactly what's _bad_ about investing into renewable energy, fining pollution, and just replacing old forms of energy production with newer ones (especially nuclear plants)?

Nothing really, but do you realize how much of the planet requires fossil fuels? Renewable energy as you would like to have it, is hardly efficient and a good alternative to what is currently available. I recommend reading this:
https://www.forbes.com/2010/06/18/oil-spill-economy-terrorism-opinions-contributors-alex-epstein.html

>>8711480
>Nothing really, but do you realize how much of the planet requires fossil fuels?

Yeah, although natural gas seems much better than coal, so it would be fine to encourage switching away from coal alone. I think in principle it should be possible to shift a lot of the world onto nuclear energy (not immediately obviously but over a period of many decades); the only problem is the ignorant public's hysteria over "risks" they don't understand.

>>8711467
/pol/ is a board of peace. You racist bigot

#notallpolacks

>>8711485
>nuclear energy
See, we completely agree here too. I'm with you here and that is why I'm arguing in my OP that this "green energy" bandwagon with a doomsday scenario a la climate catastrophe is a red herring. It's not going to get us any closer to interstellar travel and its proponents are antagonistic towards nuclear.