virusrex comments

It sounds like it may have been the cyclist's fault

The description would also apply if the driver was not putting attention and did not notice the victim until it was too late.

It’s very sad. But, it’s obviously before the covid vaccine.

Some people are more interested in pushing their own agenda, so they will try to make spurious relationships and hope people will not notice the time make those relationships impossible.

Dave from the article have a much better attitude, as the last part reads, actually learning from what happened in order to become a better person.

Good on the wife, unfortunately there are many cases where the mother could have hidden the abuse until it was much worse, hopefully the victims makes a full recovery and that this was the first time he was abused.

How can there be a defense? 

Do you honestly believe decades of abuse could be done without the participation of countless other people? A case could be easily done if the evidence expected from this systematic abuse is completely absent. This is obviously not the case.

What? I've never said that climate change doesn't exacerbate substance abuse in this subset of the population

That is what you are saying, when you say it is invalid to conclude the consequences of climate change are not as described this is exactly what you are saying, specially when you fail to prove an opposite effect that could in any way offset what is already described. Even in the impossible case that only the studied population is affected negatively that still means the article description is valid and correct.

 I also never mentioned poverty. 

Wild goalpost moving may have made yourself forget what you wrote already, but it is still there for anybody to check. You wrote:

For example, some could reduce people's disposable incomes available for buying alcohol or drugs. 

As a factor that could refute the conclusions of the article, it is extremely easy to disprove this with what is already known about substance abuse. The same has happened with every specific reason you tried to use, which is why you stopped and instead tried to argue an unknown, never before found factor that could disprove the article, which of course is as invalid as it could get.

Where? They've been characterized for, at best, a subset of a subset of a subset of the global population

And unless you can provide evidence for these characterization to be invalid the only rational thing to conclude is that they are, else you are arguing that the heart may not actually be pumping blood since it has not been corroborated to have this function on every single person of the planet.

those vulnerable to substance abuse because they are vulnerable to mental health conditions caused by their vulnerability to a subset of climate change impacts

As long as every relationship has been characterized in separate and you can't argue how this magically stops being valid when the relationships are simply together this is not a valid argument.

The reasons you have tried to use have been easily debunked (like thinking poverty would mean less substance abuse) that is why you no longer try to use examples to support the invalid reasoning, there are none.

Yes, and people died because these facts were censored.

Still false (easy to see as how you could not argue against the counter argument) people died because they listened to irrational conspiracies that convinced them covid was not dangerous, vaccines not safe, etc.

I wonder if somebody has made a study about the impact of Trump on legal fees, I suspect he represents a nice bump on the money lawyers made the past year.

Well, that’s you, I could care less what the majority so called consensus think

As long as you make it clear you understand you are wrong but you don't want to accept it that is fine, the problem is when people pretend the science must be wrong and try to mislead others into making the same mistakes.

Pretending the scientific method is only right when you personally agree is of course another way to be irrational.

I disagree

That is of course of no importance, arguing to demonstrate your point is correct would be the only way to avoid that situation, giving up without even a single argument do mean you understand you can't do it, therefore accepting is wrong. The thing you are rejecting is not "religion" but logic, so you are explicitly recognizing being irrational.

Musk actions made him an easy excuse, companies can now take an easy and cheap gesture that is seen by the people as rejecting bigotry and discrimination just by dropping their advertising on X and it is all thanks to Musk. I would be sorry for Yaccarino since her reputation is now destroyed as well but she had every chance to drop the company and instead choose to make impossible excuses.

Some "conspiracy theories," especially with regard to COVID, actually turned out to be facts.

No they have not, things like the disease being benign, measures inneffective of it being originated in a lab have been debunked completely.

The elites are not pleased that ideas not sanctioned by them are being communicated.

That is irrelevant, the problem are ideas that can be demonstrated as false being pushed in order to mislead people in to making worse decisions.

What does she think the alternative would have been?

Why would an alternative bee needed? describing how something that is happening originated in no way requires for an alternative, that would be much more valid for things that had an intrinsic negative value, specially if that was known even at the time.

Well, than you can believe that or anything you want when it pertains to Climate change, so shall I.

When the scientific consensus of the world can prove something that means that believing the opposite is simply wrong.

I wholeheartedly support the oil industry, as we need it,

But when you feel the need to believe things that can be demonstrated false to do it you make very clear that this support is unjustified.

No, some models conform to the hypothesis that the global average temperature is climbing, but vary to the extent at which it's happening

Which still prove the consensus is right, and your position unsustainable, if the consensus is that climate change is happening because of human activity and will bring serious negative consequences a small difference in the amount or speed of these changes do absolutely nothing to refute this consensus. The whole point of science is that a consensus is reached precisely by taking into account the best evidence, not just anything independently of quality. So pretending it needs to include lower quality evidence is simply a mistake.

This was climate scientists themselves admitting they can't find statistically significant warming from CO2

That is false, the role of C2 has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt. "Revealing" falsehoods make no sense.

Huh? When did I ever claim there's a benefit in the same number of hurricanes destroying more infrastructure and killing more people. 

When you tried to use this as an argument that refute the fact that climate change is having a negative effect. Without this assumption you would be accepting the predictions were right and hurricanes have become more destructive and dangerous.

Declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming

See, this has no importance because what the models predict is higher risks from the cyclones, which is accurate according to what has been observed.

Rational people aren't scared of colours, but I don't think you have a very solid grasp of psychology,

That is not an argument, just an excuse for disproving your mischaracterization of the data based solely on the colors chosen, as if that in any way would refute the values that prove the point of the scientists.

How sure can you be of that?

They make their reports data, methodologies and conclusions open so anybody can check if there is a rational problem with them, that you have not been able to refute the conclusions that support the global consensus means you have not been able to argue against their rational process. And by irrationally opposing this valid consensus you are the one exhibiting a much less rational attitude.

There are plenty of people in any walk of life who will believe something if their paycheque depends on it, or manipulate others into believing it.

But your point depends on the whole scientific community of the world doing that, which is frankly impossible to believe, the much more likely, rational and easy to believe option is that the whole scientific community of the world is not wrong, but the nameless people on the internet that can't support their claims with actual evidence.

It depends on the strength of the relationships, and the accuracy at which the relationship can be measured. You and the author may be overestimating both, and I want to see if it's the case.

The relationships have already been proved beyond any reasonable doubt, the only thing this article is doing is putting all the relationships together so the very high risk of this specific consequence is clearly exposed, pretending the relationships are yet to be characterized is simply mistaken.

You're contradicting yourself, expecting this article to be universally inclusive, and the IPCC report (which is thousands of pages long) not to be. 

That is completely false, this article deal with ONE single thing and addresses it without problem, it does not deal with the the multiple related socioeconomical things that are affected by climate change or originate it, once again you are making up an argument nobody has used and try to refute it instead of addressing the real arguments being used. It is inconsequential that the IPCC report is long, nobody except you expects it to deal with everything related with climate change, rational people can easily understand somethings like the topic of this article is not included, the same as the uncountable other related things that could be brought about climate change and are not addressed in it.

Look, we have a fundamental difference of opinion

That would not be a problem, the problem is when you try to misrepresent the article being published here as if it could be contradicted by some imaginary factors that according to you should be considered, which of course is an illogical position to take, because that would theoretically apply to everything, from microbial theory of infection to the composition of the moon, everything could end up being completely false according to a vague something that nobody has considered yet, even if the available evidence is clearly in support of the current understanding.

You're willing to accept a claim that there's a significant relationship between A and D because A is (usually) related to B, and B is (sometimes) related to C, and C is (sometimes) related to D. I

Not only relationship but a causal relationship, A causes B and B causes C, therefore there is nothing illogical in concluding A will cause C, the irrational argument that A could prevent C is what is not supported by the evidence and instead contradicted by it. Without presenting a realistic scenario where the logical causal relationship is broken you have no argument, and the options you have brought as examples have been very easily disproved.

This isn't like theoretical physics, where we have to rely on indirect relationships to make a conclusion because the phenomenon we want to measure can't be directly measured.

Not having to make those relationships does absolutely nothing to being able to do those relationships. That is extremely common, even something as simple as saying that antibiotic misuse will likely cause an increase of deaths works this way, misuse cause resistance, resistance cause failure of treatment of bacterial infections, this failure ends up increasing the number of deaths, nothing to do with theoretical physics but still commonly used as an argument.

The study they did acknowledge that many studies were essentially rubbish because they overestimated forcing scenarios, which I think they wisely omitted from their studies, but many of those dodgy exaggerated ones seem to be what a lot of policy is based on.

So the studies that conform the consensus are precise, so you will ignore them and pretend others that you don't bring are the ones that conform the consensus? that is not a rational argument.

Sea levels are predicted to climb, tropical storms have already been confirmed to increase in intensity and damage. What is the benefit you see in the same number of hurricanes destroying more infrastructure and killing more people.

Also, the projection video in the NASA article uses the old trick of scary colours to make the issue look worse than it most likely will be.

Rational people are not scared of colors, instead take into account the information provided, what actual scientific evidence do you have to prove NASA is "most likely" wrong about their projections? the whole point of doing things now is to not let things be as bad as they would be if everybody was in denial and called the scientific consensus wrong as you do. This means things would not be as bad only as long as your position is validly ignored.

You are assuming that all climate change impacts are negative, and that all negative impacts lead to higher substance abuse.

No, that is not part of the assumption, the article that apparently you have still not read clearly list the impacts that would be related to poorer mental health levels and therefore to drug abuse. As long as they are present that is enough to justify the explanation. Unless of course your new argument is that these deeply negative consequences are less important than the much more limited opposite ones, this would mean you are now arguing climate change is not a problem and it is even desirable, which at this point becomes a deeply antiscientific position based on denialism.

You're also not considering that mental health isn't the only thing affected by negative impacts of climate change

That is also irrelevant, since the factors you imagine would neutralize the increase have never been described in this way, poverty has never been correlated with lower substance abuse but with higher, the difference is only abuse of cheaper substances.

Again, I'm playing devil's advocate and basically agree that the author's claim is plausible (just not tested).

The problem is that you are doing it with unrealistic, unbelievable arguments that do not correspond to what the related sciences have demonstrated about mental health and substance abuse. It is as valid as saying that maybe climate change would let more "cosmic waves of positivity" reach people and make everybody immensely happy. That is not a logical argument to make unless you can prove it is realistically possible for it to happen.

The latest IPCC WG2 report's Summary for Policymakers doesn't even mention the impacts of climate change on substance abuse*

And what importance as an argument do you think reports are not universally inclusive? do you think is the only thing not included in the summary that still is expected? because that is again not a rational argument, if anything that would be a criticism for the Summary for not including something of importance, not for that important factor being unproved or inexistant.

Let's not jump ahead of the science.

Again, the negative consequences of climate change have been already described, how these negative consequences affect mental health (independently of what causes them) also, and finally how poorer levels of mental health promote substance abuse as well. There is no jump here, the article simply describes the relationship between three related known things.

Irrelevant, really? We're not just talking about billionaires going to these shindigs

Yes irrelevant because they are not the origin of the scientific conclusions, so they are still completely valid and accurate unless you can scientifically disprove them. It does not matter who says the Earth revolves around the sun, even if the person you hate the most in the world and that routinely lies it would not make the statement less true or valid.

So the conclusions are still valid and disprove your personal beliefs, and will keep doing it as long as you can't refute them with actual scientific arguments. Address the arguments because when you run away from them you are recognizing they debunk your position.

Do try to build a stronger straw man.

You keep trying and failing to use fallacies to discuss, a straw man would be saying this is your argument, which obviously is not, it is an example that proves your logic, while applied in a similar situation, is obviously flawed and should be discarded.

Again, you clumsily dodge the point. If their methods, data and models were so accurate, how come the predictions are all over the place? 

The predictions have been confirmed until now, which is why the scientific community is still on consensus about it, claiming they are not is just another thing you are saying that you have not been able to support with evidence. The predicted changes are happening, the problems that derive from those changes are also beginning to be observed. This is not being "all over the place" but the opposite.

There's no such thing as a monolithic "scientific community" that agrees with your views,

When every single instruction of science, in every country, all over the world says you are wrong that is enough to confirm the consensus, I am the one agreeing with them, you on the other hand baselessly claim they must be wrong because you want to live without taking into account their conclusions. Yet, repeatedly fail to bring even one example of any institution that agrees with you, indirectly confirming the consensus is real and against what you claim.

There is no need to concede any ground to baseless claims not supported by any valid appeal to authority nor scientific evidence.

I'd take these people seriously if they practiced what they preach.

Again, that is irrelevant, the arguments are the ones you have to listen, not the people that have absolutely no importance in the weight of the arguments.

You are trying to ignore scientific conclusions just because you feel better being in denial of these realities and justify in your mind not changing your behavior, but since you have no actual arguments to do that your excuse is to pretend the people repeating those conclusions magically make them less correct, which of course makes no sense.

If a billionaire is not worried at all about his companies polluting the city you live in, would that mean they are right? because that is what you are arguing.

How sure can you be that all the methods and conclusions you claim are valid?

Because that is what the scientific method is all about, the experts of the whole world agree on those conclusions even when the methods and data are open for anybody to analyze, pretending the whole scientific community of the world is in some kind of conspiracy to hide the "real" situation is simply outside of what is believable. Either the scientific community of the world is wrong or you are, and since you have presented no argument, no scientific criticism, no evidence to support your claim, that means you are the one mistaken.

but it's essentially a case of what Chomsky called manufactured consent all those years ago.

No, it is not, when not a single respected institution of science in the whole world agrees with you that the consensus is not real that means it is, even if you personally don't want to accept it. Nobody is "accepting" anything that is not true, what is happening is that even in countries with deep antiscientific bias of the lowest common denominator as the US people no longer can deny the dangers of climate change nor the role humans have producing it, so year after year more people end up finally accepting the scientists were right.

At this point it makes no sense to buy tickets, the two only likely scenarios are for the expo to be mediocre/boring or to be a huge disaster that is not cancelled only because it is a huge source of profit for a few.

Everybody is losing money from the taxes that will be used to support this failure, the organizers are betting on many people to be willing to lose even more by buying tickets.

You know it makes sense, because they're better than you.

No, the conclusions about the importance of climate change are valid because they are proved scientifically, the arguments have weight on their own since they come from valid evidence analyzed scientifically. It does not matter at all who repeats those scientific conclusions, they will not become more or less valid according to who repeats them.

Can you refute the data or methods used to conclude climate change is human activity derived and will have deep negative consequences? if not that means the only rational position to take is to accept these conclusions, even if they are repeated by people you don't like or trust.

I didn't say that. I'm saying, at the global scale, it's more complex than that due to regional variations in climate change impacts

None of the variations would act positively for mental health, once again you are making an invalid point by pretending variations in the degree climate change negatively affects mental health could mean it impacts them positively, that is still not a realistic position to take. If in one region the negative impact is 5%, in another 25% and in another 0.5% that still means a negative impact.

Once again, not knowing how much this negative impact will be in no way refutes that the negative impact will be present.

some of which may potentially lessen susceptibility to substance abuse

Again, you are trying to argue an imaginary scenario where the consequences of climate change (disasters, deaths, disease) reduce substance abuse but without being able to bring any example where it is actually the case. That means this is not a realistic position to take and depends completely on magical thinking.

My point is, if you want to make a global generalization like this, your hypothesis should be well tested before putting it out there in case you're missing something that's not immediately obvious

When every example available results in the same consequence the generalization is valid, your argument depends completely in demonstrating disasters somehow reduce substance abuse, no examples means you have not refuted the validity of the generalization.

My point is, although it's unlikely, there are factors that could invalidate this hypothesis

That is not a valid argument unless you can at least identify these factors, else anybody can simply make the same irrational argument backwards (as in "there could be factors that make invalidation of this hypothesis impossible") What factors, where have they been identified? you are not talking about something unlikely, but something that has not been described ever by any professional in mental health or substance abuse, which means they can be ignored, specially when you not only need for this to happen but to happen to a higher degree than the well described phenomenon of disasters decreasing mental health and poor mental health leading to substance abuse.

but I'm an environment scientist, and I always want to see claims that are based on the data.

Appeals to authority are invalid from anonymity. If someone here says you are wrong based on his position as a Head of environmental science department in several universities (without providing any proof of that), would this comment have any relevance?

Address the reason why there is a labor shortage, inhumane work conditions for very low pay and pretending the people are just contractors so their rights can be trampled by companies. Improve conditions, get more people working on the deliveries and redeliveries will stop being such a burden.

No direct link? that is not useful googling would let you find the folders more easily, 1000 yen for only two is not very enticing either.

I trust claims backed by data. I don't see any here, 

So you actually think it is necessary data to prove people losing everything to disasters are more likely to develop mental health problems and substance abuse? sorry but that is beyond believable.

.You can't publish a research article in climate science based only on a theory

The problem is that this is not a scientific journal, and this is not a scientific report, it is a news article explaining (which again is what theory means) the consequences of problems already proved to be related to climate change.

For example, if climate change impacts exacerbate substance abuse in areas with generally low substance abuse (or low population densities) but reduce it in areas with generally high substance abuse/high population densities (due to, e.g., milder winters in Northern latitudes), there may be no net increase in substance abuse globally.

That is not an argument to refute a clear, simple and easily understood relationship between disasters and mental health problems, and between mental health problems and substance abuse. It is a completely arbitrary situation that you just imagined. It would be like criticizing an article explaining how antibiotic resistance can lead to more deaths by making up a situation where antibiotic resistance lead to more people being cured from all infections, this in no way refutes the premise of the explanation because it makes no sense and it happens exactly nowhere ever.

My point is, it should not be so difficult to model the relationship between climate changes and changes in rates of substance abuse. It will likely vary by region.

Explain first how would you expect people losing their jobs, their houses, their families are supposed to be less susceptible to mental health problems. Without proving this you can't refute the point that more problems would be expected.

Not being able to say exactly how much more these problems will happen in no way contradicts the conclusion that more (not less) are expected from climate change, for that you need to first to prove how the disasters can promote better mental health.

Yeah, except that the epidemiological evidence clearly supports the opposite.

Cpompletely false, as easily proved as you keep repeating that claim without ever bringing any evidence to supopr ti, meanwhile public health systems around the world clearly, unequivocally recommend the vaccines precisely because they are proved to work.

And there are considerable excess deaths world-wide, which governments/authorities refuse to acknowledge, or they blame other reasons for them.

when those excess deaths are clearly releated to NOT being vaccinated that is not "blaming" other reasons, it is proving it so.

It's not a conspiracy

Well since you keep trying to say you can't present evidence because every single institution around the world are supposedly hiding that evidence that means that yes, your only argument is a conspiracy.

And since you bring zero evidence of how this happens in every single institution of the world it is even worse, it is just a conspiracy theory that you have been unable to prove.

Why are you going to such great lengths to deny this?

When you make a claim you are completely unable to prove and that is contradicted by the available evidence that is what you open yourself to, for anybody to simply debunk that conspiracy not supported by anything.

Modified Excel spreadsheets are exactly how Harvard got into trouble

Vague accusations only means you are clearly misrepresenting the situation, and no, I clearly said the actual hurdle is POST review peer review, which Gino did not pass, it is precisely this what found the problems, which means your own argument refutes the conspiracy theory that according to you explains why you can't prove what you claim.

That isn't the argument. The argument is climate change will cause increased substance abuse

But not just because magic, the problems by which climate change favors substance abuse is well described and proved, so the only extra step done in this article is describing how these problems (displacement, increase of disasters, loss of agricultural products, increase of incidence of public health problems) is related to the substance abuse.

You have failed to argue how this last step requires evidence, which is understandable because the relationship is again proved beyond reasonable doubt so you can't expect people to consider serious your position when it is exposed like that (How can they prove people involved in disasters, losing their families will feel bad???)

I'm not saying the theory is wrong, only that the author hasn't provided evidence here.

Again, what evidence do you think is necessary to think people involved in the problems proved to come from climate change would be affected by mental health problems? Do you actually think losing your health, way of making a living and family members is something usually taken as unimportant?

Experts? The same experts who demanded a one-size-fits-all vaccination scheme for the entire population, including healthy adults? 

Well since that have not happened then that means you are again making up strawman fallacies to criticize something when you can't find reasons to criticize what actually happened. Health y adults still have risks from covid and still benefit from vaccines, believing otherwise do not disprove this fact.

 The same experts who are under investigation overseas for peddling lies?

That would be the "experts" that pretended to prove vaccines were risky hiding data, fabricating inexistent patients or hoping flawed methodologies would not be caught in peer review.

Obviously you can't pretend every single respected institution of the world is under investigation for supporting the value of vaccines, right? nobody can believe that claim.

The same experts who vigorously recommended lock downs? 

When they were justified to save lives? of course, that is what the evidence indicated and proved afterwards, the same experts recommended for vaccines to replace the lockdowns when the vaccines became available, because they were more effective and less costly.

The same experts who insisted we all mask up?

Again, since the roles of masks against covid was demonstrated this is a perfectly justified measure, it is recommended even now that the season brings back covid and other respiratory diseases.

The same experts who told us to "trust the science" when the so-called science was plucked from thin air

The scientific community of the world agrees that isolation was necessary, vaccines and masks effective and covid an important risk that required control. None of these conclusions come "from thin air", as easily as you are unable to prove any of these claims. You just repeat them as if that supported them, it does not.

The experts of the world are still a hugely much more reliable source for information of their field of expertise than anonymous people claiming without evidence the experts must be wrong, just because.

Yeah, I (unvaxxed) had Omicron a while back

N-1 uncontrolled, unqualifed, badly characterized study do nothing against the best evidence available (as in millions of cases well characterized, described, controlled) that say the opposite.

And when you get multiple "boosters", we also have to consider the production IgG4 antibodies.

Yet boosted people do better than those that do not, epidemiological evidence clearly supports the value of vaccines, making up reasons why the vaccines should not work is not important when they have demonstrated to work, and reduce the risk for those who are vaccinated and boosted.

But they also have demonstrated risks that outweigh any alleged benefit

No, they have not, which is why the experts still recommend them, pretending the medical community of the world (as in every country) is is some kind of global conspiracy just because the available evidence disproves this claim you like to push is not an argument, is an excuse for not having the evidence you require to prove your claim.

 is relevant because the pharmaceutical industry and government (their pals) have bankrolled the studies and research through their grants. 

Unless you can prove this accusation it is still valueless and empty. A global conspiracy where everybody is willing to supposedly sacrifice their health, and the health of their families and friends for money is not even remotely believable, the only people that consider this outrageous conspiracy possible are those that would do that if the option was offered, for the rational people this makes absolutely no sense.

 It is literally as easy as editing Excel spreadsheets

If you think this is possible that only means you don't understand scientific publications and post publication peer review, the simple fact that countless studies "proving" vaccines are not safe have been debunked as soon as somebody looks closely to the data should make it easy to see why "editing excel spreadsheets" is not an argument to say this is enough to hide the supposed conspiracy.

If you want to be the last person on Earth defending mRNA shots

The medical and scientific communities of the world are the ones that can prove the vaccines have been hugely successful, you claiming every expert of the world is inept or willing to sacrifice their families is not enough to prove your claims are not mistaken after all.

 No evidence given (from what I could see); just theories.

Theories are not "just" there, a theory is an explanation. What evidence do you think is necessary for the explanation that mental health problems increase when disasters become more frequent and deadly? or with damaged infrastructure and loss of agricultural products? the reasons listed are obviously related to the mental health of populations and are being affected by climate change. So, what arguments do you have to say this is not the case and the article needs to provide evidence of these effects on mental health?