Neil deGrasse Tyson says it might be 'too late' to recover from climate change

BipolarFuk

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Scientist and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said Sunday that, in the wake of devastating floods and damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, climate change had become so severe that the country "might not be able to recover."

In an interview on CNN's "GPS," Tyson got emotional when Fareed Zakaria asked what he made of Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert's refusal to say whether climate change had been a factor in Hurricanes Harvey or Irma's strength -- despite scientific evidence pointing to the fact that it had made the storms more destructive.

"Fifty inches of rain in Houston!" Tyson exclaimed, adding, "This is a shot across our bow, a hurricane the width of Florida going up the center of Florida!"

"What will it take for people to recognize that a community of scientists are learning objective truths about the natural world and that you can benefit from knowing about it?" he said.

Tyson told Zakaria that he had no patience for those who, as he put it, "cherry pick" scientific studies according to their belief system.

"The press will sometimes find a single paper, and say, 'Oh here's a new truth, if this study holds it.' But an emergent scientific truth, for it to become an objective truth, a truth that is true whether or not you believe in it, it requires more than one scientific paper," he said.

"It requires a whole system of people's research all leaning in the same direction, all pointing to the same consequences," he added. "That's what we have with climate change, as induced by human conduct."

Tyson said he was gravely concerned that by engaging in debates over the existence of climate change, as opposed to discussions on how best to tackle it, the country was wasting valuable time and resources.

"The day two politicians are arguing about whether science is true, it means nothing gets done. Nothing," he said. "It's the beginning of the end of an informed democracy, as I've said many times. What I'd rather happen is you recognize what is scientifically truth, then you have your political debate."

Tyson told Zakaria that he believed that the longer the delay when it comes to responding to the ongoing threat of climate change, the bleaker the outcome. And perhaps, he hazarded, it was already even too late.

"I worry that we might not be able to recover from this because all our greatest cities are on the oceans and water's edges, historically for commerce and transportation," he said.

"And as storms kick in, as water levels rise, they are the first to go," he said. "And we don't have a system -- we don't have a civilization with the capacity to pick up a city and move it inland 20 miles. That's -- this is happening faster than our ability to respond. That could have huge economic consequences."
 

Chocolate Lab

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In an interview on CNN's "GPS," Tyson got emotional when Fareed Zakaria asked what he made of Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert's refusal to say whether climate change had been a factor in Hurricanes Harvey or Irma's strength -- despite scientific evidence pointing to the fact that it had made the storms more destructive.
:lol
 

Smitty

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Silly.

Humans are gonna be able to correct it all in another 100 years anyway.
 

shane

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Yeah, it will be difficult for Tyson to draw a paycheck from idiots if people don't believe this nonsense. That's why he's crying.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Silly.

Humans are gonna be able to correct it all in another 100 years anyway.
Everyone has to be soo dramatic in order to get followers to do what they want.

By the way, if it really is "too late" to recover from climate change then I guess there is no point in trying to be more environmentally friendly. We've already blown it and it's over from here. Might as well just enjoy ourselves.
 

Angrymesscan

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Soooo, let's just ignore what 98% of the scientific community is saying because last winter was very cold...?
 

Cowboysrock55

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Soooo, let's just ignore what 98% of the scientific community is saying because last winter was very cold...?
Was it?

It was actually a very mild winter for us here in the middle of the United States. Probably one of the nicest that I can remember. But I don't think anyone is saying that our planet isn't getting warmer.
 

Angrymesscan

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Silly me, I thought expressions like:

:lol

Silly. Humans will be able to correct it...

...this nonsense...

Sooo dramatic...

were to say the least condesending, if not downright mockery, but again I'm ESL so maybe I just got it wrong...
 

Smitty

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Silly me, I thought expressions like:

:lol

Silly. Humans will be able to correct it...

...this nonsense...

Sooo dramatic...

were to say the least condesending, if not downright mockery, but again I'm ESL so maybe I just got it wrong...
Without speaking for anyone else, my comments were about it being silly to declare it "too late" to recover from climate change, which is not a consensus that 98% of scientists have reached as you implied.

We have technologies right now that could probably defeat global warming, if they were applied en masse. Cost, specifically cost of the energy to run them, is what keeps us unable to use them.

Once fusion is solved, solving man's carbon emission problem will be no big thing. Neither will cleaning up the oceans or a lot of other issues that sound scary today.

Unless you think society is going to collapse in the next hundred years, which I don't, since we've been hearing that society is going to be wrecked by global warming for at least 50 years, with no tangible long term damage sustained yet, then making it another 100 shouldn't be a problem.
 

Smitty

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How is fusion going to make all the trash in the ocean go away?
There are ocean cleaning technologies that could be applied if you had the energy to power them all. You could run the equivalent of a huge vacuum cleaner and filter it all out.

If you had unlimited energy to do so.
 

jsmith6919

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The science is settled :lol
 

DLK150

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When did Tyson become a climatologist or meteorologist? Last time I checked, he was an astrophysicist.
 

L.T. Fan

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Soooo, let's just ignore what 98% of the scientific community is saying because last winter was very cold...?
The scientific writers are using recorded weather information of about 250 years tops. Then they are using weather hypothesis from other writers which is someone's accepted presumption. The earth and its weather is miliennas old and no one alive knows what the weather has been over it's history. It is assumed that there has been cathostropies that have occurred over time but it's an exercise in futility to take a few years actual records and make a forecast of what will be the outcome at a point in time in the future. It may have a certain amount of truth about contributing factors that can adversely affect the weather but it's as much fiction as fact because the charting system is miniscule compared to what has actually occurred and what will occur.
 
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