Guest post by Warren Meyer
Likely you have heard the sound bite that “97% of climate scientists” accept the global warming “consensus”. Which is what gives global warming advocates the confidence to call climate skeptics “deniers,” hoping to evoke a parallel with “Holocaust Deniers,” a case where most of us would agree that a small group are denying a well-accepted reality. So why do these “deniers” stand athwart of the 97%? Is it just politics? Oil money? Perversity? Ignorance?
We are going to cover a lot of ground, but let me start with a hint.
In the early 1980′s I saw Ayn Rand speak at Northeastern University. In the Q&A period afterwards, a woman asked Ms. Rand, “Why don’t you believe in housewives?” And Ms. Rand responded, “I did not know housewives were a matter of belief.” In this snarky way, Ms. Rand was telling the questioner that she had not been given a valid proposition to which she could agree or disagree. What the questioner likely should have asked was, “Do you believe that being a housewife is a morally valid pursuit for a woman.” That would have been an interesting question (and one that Rand wrote about a number of times).
In a similar way, we need to ask ourselves what actual proposition do the 97% of climate scientists agree with. And, we need to understand what it is, exactly, that the deniers are denying. (I personally have fun echoing Ms. Rand’s answer every time someone calls me a climate denier — is the climate really a matter of belief?)
It turns out that the propositions that are “settled” and the propositions to which some like me are skeptical are NOT the same propositions. Understanding that mismatch will help explain a lot of the climate debate.
Full essay here at Forbes (well worth your time, Anthony)
It is the alarmists who believe that climates do not change, sensible people know they do.
When did the AGW hypothesis become a theory?
Thinking about the idea that all the observations show warming during the last century, and getting really moving in the post-war period, it occurs to me to ask if the UHI effect really took off after the advent of nuclear power?
Probably not nuclear power. per se However, this is a period during which cities grew tremendously and industrialized. Fewer farmers going to bed shortly after sundown, more people staying up later. Streetlamps being put up over larger areas and running all night, more motor vehicles (forget CO2 for a moment… that many engines = radiators dumping heat into the air at a good clip), etc, etc. I personally don’t see how AGW guys can just wave their hands and pretend that all of these heat sources don’t exist.
I am indebted to DirkH for the link to the ‘How the 97% of Scientists…’ was arrived at – surely this link should be sent to the numpties (a UK term, meaning on-message civil servants) at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, in case they are tempted to trot it out once again…
I am reminded of a commercial on British tv which advertises a particular brand of electric toothbrush – which states that (I’m guessing here, because I can’t remember) ‘95% of people prefer an electric toothbrush to an ordinary one..’ Well, of COURSE they do – its a bit like asking: ‘Would you prefer to travel 100 miles by car or on foot..?’
johanna says:
February 9, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Mother Gaia! Praise Her! Oh, the HUMANITY!
/sarc…
Kev-in-UK
February 9, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Re your questions to RGates, did he ever answer them? He seems to have managed to answer a number of points in a vague sort of way but not yours requiring some precise answers, I wonder why?
I would have been interested in the answers had he felt bold enough to put it in writing.
Sandy In Derby(UK)
Johanna:[there you are but the sense of what is in the post isn’t changed by it . . kbmod]
The term “Gaia”, which I never used in my post, is an anthropomorphism, and I don’t especially care for such things. But the more we learn about this universe, the more we see how exceptionally balanced and interconnected things are, right down the the basic forces. And moreover, they seemed to be balanced toward one thing– to bring about planets that flower with life. But we are just on the verge of the true discoveries in this area, so perhaps this is too ” visionary” for you, and you’d rather paint such talk as shamanism and such. But with new planets being discovered around stars everyday, and more and more of these planets in the habitable zones around those stars, I think those with scientific vision can begin to realize that life is what galaxies are all about. It would be an extreme waste of starlight otherwise. Admittedly, there is a mystery most profound here, and if it doesn’t spark and ignite the scientific vision of some, probably nothing will.
As one of the everyday people (with a longstanding interest in the issue of energy and the enviornment going back to when CO2 was the desired benign byproduct of energy production) and someone who observes how 98% of “relevant scientists” are being made to dance on science that is the size of the head of a tiny pin, I have one remaing question:
Why the urgency to come to a conclusion of any kind when you have a greenhouse theory – or is it really an hypothesis – and a bunch of exrapolations? Even if the hypothesis (or is it a set of interrealted hypotheses – all required to be true – postulated from an empricial observation in a lab) that earth’s atmosphere will rise 1 degree with the next doubling of CO2 is elevated to the level of theory, it is an unproven, if not unprovable, frame of reference. Additionally, acceptance of such a theory as theory, does not preclude the fact that such an effect of CO2 is only one of a large number of (potentially more powerful) effects.
I would caution warmists not to dwell too insistently on the theory on the left of their model. Even the left side of the model has a lot of holes in it when it comes to knowing. Given the conentration of warming on land and not in SST or in the atmoshpere, given the recent CO2 sensitivity report here on this site, given the arguments of saturation levels, given observations proving that the troposphere did not behave as theorized, given …,there are holes. There is even another competing theory equally postulated from an empirical result regarding the sun and cosmic rays. Instead, I would hope warmists would take it down to the level of an interesting “what if.” That’s what it is. What if the planet has warmed unusually and, if so, is it significant and is it temporary? What if man-made CO2 is significantly responsible for any recent warming that may have occurred and to what degree? What if all that is true , will it and how will it continue?
When scientists have scientific answers to all of these questions, the politicians can start debating what, if anything, can or should be done while those scientists can be relied on to be objective and accurate. Until then, they’re just activists with degrees.
SandyInDerby says:
February 10, 2012 at 6:24 am
Obviously he cannot, Sandy!
But in truth they were somewhat rhetorical and a bit tongue in cheek as they form (some) of the flaws in the whole CO2 based CAGW alarmism.
The basic premise of some form of equilibrium CO2 concentration is pure poppycock and fantasy. Earths CO2 has never been in equilibrium, per se, and has varied hugely, depending on the life forms upon it.
Similarly, Earths Temperature has never been in equilibrium.
In all parameters one might care to think of, Earth has never been in equilibrium – from hot deserts to ice ages, shallow warm seas to deep cold oceans, from the old archaic continents to hot seething new mountain ranges and volcanoes – the earth has NEVER been and will NEVER be in equilibrium – at least not until the sun dies, and becomes a red giant encompassing the solar system and blowing us all to space dust!
I like to think of the climate as a bit like roller coaster, a kind of continuous loop around a circuit with ups and downs, circular horizontal loops, vertical loop the loops, etc, etc. If we take initial planet earth (after formation of the atmosphere), and current planet earth, we have two points somewhere on that rollercoaster circuit. Does anyone know where the rollercoaster starts and finishes? Where are we ‘now’ relative to the the start and end? Are we at the top of a hill, the bottom of a loop the loop, etc, etc ? No-one knows – and any claims to the contrary are pure bulldust!
Now, using my analogy, we KNOW that no matter what has happened in the climate past, the rollercoaster stayed FULLY on the rails, and came ‘back’ from any ‘tipping’ point, such as snowball earth, raging tectonic upheaval, etc! This simply cannot be disputed because we are still here! (Mother nature is amazing and seems to be able self correct and compensate for any such massive geological and natural upheavals – and seemingly has easily managed to deal with things like several thousand ppm CO2 in the past!)
The reason I call it a rollercoaster is because, as far as can be known, many events are repeated, implying a cyclical trend – which we generally accept is likely, and caused by many external influences, (Milankovic cycles, gravity, comets – blah, blah blah)
So, anybody talking about climate equilibrium in the context of some ‘achievable’ state – is plainly talking out of their rear end. Without detailed plans of the rollercoaster (earths past climate) and detailed data of such periods, we are talking entirely hypothetically. FFS, we cannot even place where we are on the ‘track’ with a poxy 100 years or so of data!!
Perhaps, it would be easier if one imagined riding a rollercoaster wearing a blindfold, whereby you cannot see the next climb or drop. Our current scientific knowledge re the climate is in THAT state, (IMHO). We haven’t been round the circuit enough times, and collected enough data to memorise the circuit and predict where we are in the cyclic ‘system’. Sure, we may know some palaeo data, but we really don’t know where we are in RELATION to that data. For all we know, we could be on the top of a plunge into a natural colder period, or we could be levelling out before the next rise or fall….right now, the way I see it, nobody, but nobody can tell us any different. Even the latest solar predictions mean squat – because all we can do is estimate based on past poor data, we may enter a grand minima or we may not, we may have another LIA or we may not, etc, etc.
It follows, if one is logical, that any decision of future policy is potentially completely futile and indeed could be exactly the opposite of what is required.
just my lowly geologists view, you understand!
Kev
Kev-in-UK says:
February 9, 2012 at 3:53 pm
1) Where, when and why and for how long has CO2 ever been in ‘equilibrium’ during earths history – (who says what ‘value’ equilibrium is?) and just for the heck of it, give us a ppm value at the same time – and since you are obviously hand waving, why not give us the corresponding/correlating temp as well!! ANSWER: First, it is not an issue of CO2 being in equilibrium, but rather, the climate response to various levels of CO2. Certainly the climate and CO2 are constantly changing, but during interglacial periods, the levels and the climate are far more stable than during glacials and during times of transitions into and out of glacials. During most of the Holocene, CO2 had been in a range of about 270 to 280 ppm, and the rather docile weather that human civilization enjoyed was a direct result. In fact, in looking at back at the ice core data, we see similar kinds of rather mild weather periods during most interglacials, when temperatures and CO2 levels are roughly the same as what had been experienced during the Holocene. True, some interglacials were slightly warmer or slightly cooler (and CO2 levels slightly higher or lower accordingly), but the average rather docile global climate human civilization has enjoyed during the Holocene could be said to be the equilibrium response to CO2 in the range of 270-280 ppm. Some might say, “but look at the Little Ice Age, you call that docile?”. In fact, the cooler temps of the Little Ice Age barely register as a small blip when compared to the kinds of climate changes that happen when CO2 levels and temperatures swing wildly inside of glacial periods and when entering and exiting from glacials. The Holocene and 270-280 ppm have been good to us.
2) Who will say when equilibrium (an imaginery figure, any sensible person will agree, but we will let that slide for now) is reached, and how will we know? How do we know that equilibrium (an imaginery state as I already suggest) has not technically ‘occurred’ – no warming for some years despite increasing CO2. Mind you, I could accept that we are seeing CO2 rises as a result of temp increases 800 years ago! ANSWER: We need to look at the full range of fast and slow (earth system feedbacks) to answer this question. The slow feedbacks, such as cryosphere and biosphere responses take many decades and even up to centuries to fully complete once an external forcing such as the addition of CO2 by human activities is. If, for example, we could lock CO2 at around 390 ppm, then we would know that any forcing from this has been completed when there is no underlying signal in the climate once natural variations have been removed (i.e. solar, ENSO, volcanic activity). So if some regression analysis is done, you would find a flat-line underlying signal over a period of decades. Then you’d know all the slow feedbacks had been completed and a new climate equilibrium had been reached.
3) There is still no certainty that the NET effect of increased CO2 is indeed positive (despite IPCC protestations) – it is entirely feasible that the sum of all the supposed changes within the climate will be a negative feedback effect. (Personally, I consider this to be the most likely scenario, as Earth has ALWAYS come back from past climate extremes and with much higher CO2 values!) ANSWER: I find it highly unlikely that the sum total of all feedbacks, fast and slow, to increasing CO2 will be negative. Nothing in the paleoclimate record would indicate this, and when looking at the paleorecord, it is most appropriate to look at the most recent period in which CO2 levels were at or above where they are now, as the further back you go, the more other variables changed, such as solar output, position of continents, etc. This takes us to the Pliocene, about 3 mya, and even into the Miocene. In looking at the paleoclimate data from these periods, it would show that higher temps are in order, and the 3C in temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm is quite a reasonable estimate as a final equilibrium temperature, assuming of course that CO2 stopped at 560 ppm.
Gates says:
“During most of the Holocene, CO2 had been in a range of about 270 to 280 ppm, and the rather docile weather that human civilization enjoyed was a direct result.”
Admit it. You just made that last part up.
Smokey says:
February 10, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Gates says:
“During most of the Holocene, CO2 had been in a range of about 270 to 280 ppm, and the rather docile weather that human civilization enjoyed was a direct result.”
Admit it. You just made that up.
_____
I suppose you wish I made it up, and likewise you wish the ice core record and our own human history of the Holocene did not corroborate it.
R. Gates said: “ANSWER: I find it highly unlikely that the sum total of all feedbacks, fast and slow, to increasing CO2 will be negative. Nothing in the paleoclimate record would indicate this, and when looking at the paleorecord, it is most appropriate to look at the most recent period in which CO2 levels were at or above where they are now, as the further back you go, the more other variables changed, such as solar output, position of continents, etc. This takes us to the Pliocene, about 3 mya, and even into the Miocene.”
The paleo record shows no evidence of temperature equilibrium with CO2 . In all the interglacials the warming from other factors triggered greenhouse gas amplification. What stopped the amplification process and determined the temperature peak is the geography, the ultimate solar peak, the earth’s tilt and a myriad of other exogenous (non amplifying) factors. GHG amplification is not a driving factor, it has to be driven, otherwise each interglacial would reach GHG saturation.
Mr Gates, Sir,
To be fair, you havent really given any answers:
I’ll add another question first, as you clearly missed my point,
A) what is the definition of equilibrium CO2 value (I’ll let you google this, or whatever else you do)
and now to return to the the original questions;
1) What is the equilibrium CO2 value?
2) What is the equilibrium Temp value?
3) On what basis are such equilibrium values defined – i.,e. relative to what, exactly? etc
But, I am indeed being unfair in my taunting, in that you, even as a warmist, MUST accept that there are no such values available. Even taking the RANGE of CO2 values over the last million years or so,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_CO2_with_glaciers_cycles.gif.
what do we see??
Well, lets say a minimum CO2 value of 190ppm, and a high CO2 value of 290ppm – In very round figures, the CO2 variability is what, 30 to 50%, depending on what you use as ‘normal’ value! – Curiously, what is the current claim for anthropogenic caused CO2 rise? Oh, that’s right its about 30%!! well fancy that! BTW, how do you KNOW that a large proportion of it isn’t natural??
Now, what if we went to the Neogene, supposedly, mean CO2 values were 500ppm – over say, 40 million years! Hmm, wouldn’t that be a better selection for a mean equilibrium value, 40 million years is an awful lot longer than the last 50 years, wouldn’t you say?? I mean, it is supposed to be the time when mammals first exploded on the scene, so it must have been pretty good growing and feeding weather too?
Or maybe that’s not good enough for you? – Well,. how about we go back to the Cretaceous – at that time, for around 65 million years, the mean temps was suposed to be 4deg C warmer than today Co2 value is supposed to have been around 1700ppm (6 times todays value!)!! (There’s a direct comparison in there with the IPCC values for Co2 doubling I’m sure too! but I’m just PMSL) Wowser, the seas were boiling (metaphorically speaking) too with some deeper ocean temps being much warmer than today!
Isn’t it absolutely amazing how the planet managed to survive!
Are you getting the picture yet???
Now, I know I am being facetious, and I really do not mean to be obtuse, but until someone can come up with reasonable explanations and useable data where we can make direct and sensible correlations, we are simply peacing in the wind……
regards
Kev
Eric (skeptic) says:
February 10, 2012 at 1:45 pm
The paleo record shows no evidence of temperature equilibrium with CO2 . In all the interglacials the warming from other factors triggered greenhouse gas amplification. What stopped the amplification process and determined the temperature peak is the geography, the ultimate solar peak, the earth’s tilt and a myriad of other exogenous (non amplifying) factors. GHG amplification is not a driving factor, it has to be driven, otherwise each interglacial would reach GHG saturation.
____
You seem to suffer from that common myopic disease of thinking that CO2’s rise and fall through the history of the planet always has the same causes. In reality, CO2 has risen and fallen through many different causes, but one thing is absolutely certain: CO2 is a greenhouse gas that will act as a positive forcing on the climate. The strength of other forcings acting on the climate at any given time will determine weather or not a rise in CO2 will translate to a rise in temperatures.
Some causes of CO2 rises:
1) Warmer oceans leading to more outgassing of CO2
2) Lower fertilization of phytoplankton leading to less uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere
3) Slow down in the rock weathering cycle leading to less uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere
4) Volcanic activity
5) Forest Fires
6) Burning of fossil fuels by humans
7) Ocean circulation patterns causing less CO2 to be sequestered into the deeper ocean
The inverse of many of these would naturally lead to a reduction in CO2.
Most of these, by the way, work slowly on very long time scales. The exceptions are number 4, 5, & 6, which can potentially cause rapid (geologically speaking) changes in CO2 levels. The anthropogenic addition of CO2 to the atmosphere in particular is something the planet has not seen before, and the rise from 280 ppm to 390 ppm has not been seen before. The greenhouse warming from this rise can certainly be seen has a driving factor in climate, unparalleled in Earth’s history. Exactly how the Earth might respond to this is unknown, but the climate will try to find a new equilibrium point to adjust to the new higher energy balance from the additional CO2 greenhouse forcing.
R. Gates says:
February 10, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Oh dear: R Gates has fallen for his own propaganda:
quote”The anthropogenic addition of CO2 to the atmosphere in particular is something the planet has not seen before, and the rise from 280 ppm to 390 ppm has not been seen before…”
and
“The greenhouse warming from this rise can certainly be seen has a driving factor in climate, unparalleled in Earth’s history”……I have to resort to teenage internetspeak and simply say OMFG!! LOL
WTF? Hey Man, I respect you trying to take a particular stance, but get your basic knowledge and facts right! C’mon, accept it – your ass is burned, baby! LOL
I think a serious retraction is in order! (Mods, I suggest you save him the embarassment and snip it for him!) ROFPMSL
R. Gates says:
“I suppose you wish I made it up, and likewise you wish the ice core record and our own human history of the Holocene did not corroborate it.”
Gates had stated:
“During most of the Holocene, CO2 had been in a range of about 270 to 280 ppm, and the rather docile weather that human civilization enjoyed was a direct result.”
I responded: “Admit it, you just made that up.” I was referring to Gates’ fantastic assertion that the weather over the past 10,700 years was a direct result of CO2 levels.
Gates, me boi, if you believe that, you’re losin’ it.
All this discussion of CO2 levels below 280 ppm is purely academic, The biosphere would show incotrovertible massdieoof effects if CO2 had dipped that low. Widespread Flora and hence Fauna failure would have occurred. 280 ppm in ice cores merely represent a failed proxy that does not include the conversion of Co2 to hydrates with as litle as 5 atmospheres of pressure of overbearing ice.. The former IPCC chariman of the subgroup concernedwith ice cores constantly noted that and was constantly ignored about applying a hydrate qualification before his death.
I suspect that George Becks’ recall of laboratory measurements of some 93,000 measurements conducted by 18th and 19th century scientists including the works of at least four Nobelists, are more accurate than these hydrated ice cores proxies. Theyy show that the CO2 levels in the atmsophere, are not appreciably different from those of 200 years ago,differing by only less than 40 ppmon average but withother measurement sin response ot the Tambora super erruption showing elevations of up to 440 ppm for a few years.
Why would the majority of scientists agree that CO2 causes warming? Maybe the earth’s warming (from something other than CO2 – like the big hot white thing we see sometimes in the sky) caused the increase in CO2?
R. Gates says:
February 10, 2012 at 6:43 am
Johanna:[there you are but the sense of what is in the post isn’t changed by it . . kbmod]
The term “Gaia”, which I never used in my post, is an anthropomorphism, and I don’t especially care for such things. But the more we learn about this universe, the more we see how exceptionally balanced and interconnected things are, right down the the basic forces. And moreover, they seemed to be balanced toward one thing– to bring about planets that flower with life. But we are just on the verge of the true discoveries in this area, so perhaps this is too ” visionary” for you, and you’d rather paint such talk as shamanism and such. But with new planets being discovered around stars everyday, and more and more of these planets in the habitable zones around those stars, I think those with scientific vision can begin to realize that life is what galaxies are all about.
———————————————————-
Honestly, R. Gates, it is almost redundant to point out the silliness of some of your posts.
“Exceptionally balanced and interconnected” – um, either things are balanced or interconnected, or they aren’t. No middle ground there. Which brings me to:
“moreover, they seemed to be balanced toward one thing– to bring about planets that flower with life.” Please explain how anything can be ‘balanced’ in a particular direction? And, if bringing about planets that ‘flower with life’ is the bias of the balance (my brain is hurting, but I persevere) the project is not working out very well so far. There may well be other planets that ‘flower with life’, but to the best of our knowledge, ours is the only one so far. Every other planet we know anything about is failing to respond to the ‘balance’ in favour of ‘flowering with life’ that you claim is at the heart of the cosmos.
Mr Meyer, thank you for such a detached and reasoned article. However, I’m not sure about the importance of the media’s laziness and scientific illiteracy. To their credit, they know what sells…it’s not science. People are not interested in DLW photon behavior, it doesn’t matter to them if the little buggers heat up the surface or just delay the radiative cooling process by increasing the optical path. It’s best to sell the carbon tax to combat climate doom as the money will go to the various government treasuries and help finance the monetary needs of the West…debt, health, education, infastructure, etc. So don’t worry….be happy.
correction to above coment, instead of “by increasing the optical path” it should be “from the increase of the optical path”. So what? Nobody is listening…the advocacy, or those who suggest a CO2 link currently dominate the media. They are respected.
R Gates said “You seem to suffer from that common myopic disease of thinking that CO2′s rise and fall through the history of the planet always has the same causes. In reality, CO2 has risen and fallen through many different causes, but one thing is absolutely certain: CO2 is a greenhouse gas that will act as a positive forcing on the climate. The strength of other forcings acting on the climate at any given time will determine weather or not a rise in CO2 will translate to a rise in temperatures.”
The point that you are missing is that the equilibrium temperature is not determined just by “forcings” but by weather patterns which control heat transfer from low to high altitude and low to high latitude. The main effect of CO2 in our current climate is to increase the lapse rate (see http://www.john-daly.com/forcing/forcing.htm) which causes increased convection and latent heat transfer (a negative feedback).
The primary effect of CO2 in cold climates is to amplify swings in other forcings (via fast and slow feedbacks and forcings from your list). The amplifying role of CO2 is strongest during transition from glacial to interglacial (along with albedo decreases). That’s mainly because the glacial atmosphere has much less water vapor on average so other GHG are more important for determining equilibrium.
Your contention that the burning of fossil fuels is a unique and profound change would be relevant if we were in the depths of the ice age. Your side would be correctly pointing out that the rise in sea levels of several hundred feet will flood the English channel etc, etc. Some ice age cave man would counter with the benefits of a warmer world which you would scoff at and talk about how the polar bears, no longer able to walk from England to France, would become extinct.
johanna says:
February 10, 2012 at 10:25 pm
R. Gates says:
February 10, 2012 at 6:43 am
Johanna:[there you are but the sense of what is in the post isn’t changed by it . . kbmod]
The term “Gaia”, which I never used in my post, is an anthropomorphism, and I don’t especially care for such things. But the more we learn about this universe, the more we see how exceptionally balanced and interconnected things are, right down the the basic forces. And moreover, they seemed to be balanced toward one thing– to bring about planets that flower with life. But we are just on the verge of the true discoveries in this area, so perhaps this is too ” visionary” for you, and you’d rather paint such talk as shamanism and such. But with new planets being discovered around stars everyday, and more and more of these planets in the habitable zones around those stars, I think those with scientific vision can begin to realize that life is what galaxies are all about.
———————————————————-
Honestly, R. Gates, it is almost redundant to point out the silliness of some of your posts.
“Exceptionally balanced and interconnected” – um, either things are balanced or interconnected, or they aren’t. No middle ground there. Which brings me to:
“moreover, they seemed to be balanced toward one thing– to bring about planets that flower with life.” Please explain how anything can be ‘balanced’ in a particular direction? And, if bringing about planets that ‘flower with life’ is the bias of the balance (my brain is hurting, but I persevere) the project is not working out very well so far. There may well be other planets that ‘flower with life’, but to the best of our knowledge, ours is the only one so far. Every other planet we know anything about is failing to respond to the ‘balance’ in favour of ‘flowering with life’ that you claim is at the heart of the cosmos.
—————
It appears you are not familiar with particle physics and the exceptionally fine balance between the basic forces that exists to even have a universe at all. And yes, there are degrees of balance and connectedness, as these are not all or none propositions. But I don’t want to cause your “brain to be hurting” anymore than it is. The amazing revelations brought forth by the Kepler mission (http://kepler.nasa.gov/) appear to be lost on your scientific vision. There likely are billions of habitable planets in this galaxy alone. But that’s probably too challenging a concept for some even now. It means Earth is just one of billions and life is the spread everywhere. Intuitively, many have guessed this must be the case, as it would be such a waste of space and starlight otherwise, but now missions like Kepler are giving us the first scientific evidence. Our grandchildren will find it quaint that anyone in our era could have doubted the galaxy was filled with life sustaining planets.
R. Gates said “It appears you are not familiar with particle physics and the exceptionally fine balance between the basic forces that exists to even have a universe at all”
A tautology. Or maybe just angels dancing on the head of a pin.