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Your first point is semantic. I grant it, but I don't see that it changes anything. You still oppose carbon regulation, which is the issue at hand.

Your second is just a bizarre analogy. Yes, that's exactly what my argument is saying. But analogizing a decision of real world regulation (where we should be able to make a rational decision) to criminal justice (where we get tied up with the moral issues of unjust punishment, or "soft on crime" tolerance) is just weird. Are you trying to argue that "unjustly" regulating carbon is a violation of someone's basic human rights? Again, weird.



You still oppose carbon regulation

In fact I do not, and you've placed me into one of the two mutually exclusive categories I accused you of creating earlier.

I'm only arguing that relevant data/predictions should be reasonably vetted (this article makes some pretty strong claims against that point). And second, that whatever policies we enact should be supported by rational gathering of evidence, not just fabricated urgency.


You are making the mistake assuming that the level of understanding of our climate for scientists is a limited as your own. If that was the case then certainly there would be good cause to delay action until further knowledge was gained. However it turns out that many brilliant people all around the world have been devoting their professional lives to understanding this. The data/predictions have been 'vetted', evidence has been 'rationally gathered' the urgency is based on fact and has been not fabricated.

Unless you are prepared to devote a large portion of your life to studying climate there is no chance you (or I) will develop anything like a sufficient understanding of the models to have a meaningful opinion their accuracy. All we can do is choose who to believe on the topic. We are all 'blindly following' other people's opinion on the matter.

The reasonable default position is to believe the people who are spending the most time and effort looking into the issues - the 'experts'. For whatever reasons you are choosing not to believe them but instead following a group that has devoted far less time and effort in research.


Granting more power through regulation just because you think "something" needs to be done about something you haven't proven to exist. That doesn't seem like a bad idea at all, does it? "Don't just do something, stand there."


That's the absolutist argument. You want "proof" before you will do anything at all. Read up the thread, it's exactly what I'm arguing against -- that logic just plain doesn't work. If you're not looking at risks and costs, you're not looking seriously at the problem.


I want proof that there is a good possibility of a problem happening before I do something about it. You would really venture into throwing around labels and debating against that stance? Regulation is bad if it's not needed, that doesn't make me and absolutist. That means I've evaluated the potential of a problem and the proposed 'fix', and I think it does more harm than good. I don't write code unless it solves a clear problem, why should I treat regulation any differently?




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