
Global Cooling
- dr.placebo
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I did not find a single direct cite in the entire Express article. With a bit of digging one could maybe find the original sources, but not in all cases. Most of the items are blind assertions.
I chose the first item because it was first. Many of the others are equally weak. Starting out with an item that commits a basic type error was not encouraging.
The second item was even weaker, in my opinion, comparing roughly a century of human activities with millions of years of geological activity. To what point? It's another meaningless metaphorical lurch. Even if true (and I can't check the numbers, because there are no cites), the contrast in time scales means nothing outside of the context of a reasoned argument.
So, CSS, you then want to claim that carbon isotope analysis is not relevant. But the article I cited, and the papers further cited by that article, make it plain that plant metabolism prefers a particular carbon isotope. If you want to argue against that evidence then you need to cite sources that contradict it. At least you could find someone respectable who supports your position.
Where do you get the 50% absorption rate for neutrinos? Not that it has anything to do with climate change, but that's not what I've been taught. Basic accepted neutrino facts are given in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino.
You say that I ignore "strong cites, individuals, studies, and groups." Not the way I see it. Disagreeing with something is not really the same as ignoring it. And if I concentrate on my strongest arguments it is not an admission of weakness.
Finally, I have to quote from an article, Dana's 50th: Why I Blog:
I chose the first item because it was first. Many of the others are equally weak. Starting out with an item that commits a basic type error was not encouraging.
The second item was even weaker, in my opinion, comparing roughly a century of human activities with millions of years of geological activity. To what point? It's another meaningless metaphorical lurch. Even if true (and I can't check the numbers, because there are no cites), the contrast in time scales means nothing outside of the context of a reasoned argument.
So, CSS, you then want to claim that carbon isotope analysis is not relevant. But the article I cited, and the papers further cited by that article, make it plain that plant metabolism prefers a particular carbon isotope. If you want to argue against that evidence then you need to cite sources that contradict it. At least you could find someone respectable who supports your position.
Where do you get the 50% absorption rate for neutrinos? Not that it has anything to do with climate change, but that's not what I've been taught. Basic accepted neutrino facts are given in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino.
You say that I ignore "strong cites, individuals, studies, and groups." Not the way I see it. Disagreeing with something is not really the same as ignoring it. And if I concentrate on my strongest arguments it is not an admission of weakness.
Finally, I have to quote from an article, Dana's 50th: Why I Blog:
I always come back to the risk assessment and management perspective. Climate change poses one of the greatest potential risks the human race has ever faced. From a risk management standpoint, even if you're personally unconvinced by the scientific evidence, it just makes no sense to risk the future of human society and a great many of the species on Earth on the slim probability that the scientific experts are wrong and you're right. The risks and consequences are just too great.
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Trying to reach a tally of 100 wasn't smart. Listing the weakest cite first was stupid. Foregoing cites in the list was equally weak.
I didn't make any cites on the distribution of the various carbon isotopes because it is common knowledge that the isotopes, especially carbon14, degrade over time. As I pointed out, there is no possible way to calculate aerial CO2 without calculating the age of all the various fuels and their respective isotope balances. Firewood is still used very widely. The isotope balance of firewood is nothing like the isotope balance of coal.
The Wiki cite on Neutrinos is old and incorrect. The warming data is so skewed that there is no reason to trust anything out of the IPCC. The "hockey stick" forgets to mention the "little ice age" or a an equally important warming period.
I don't care if you call it disagreeing or ignoring. You know better than to try to refute much of the info that geekster posted. Your cites are WEAK and you refute nothing.
As far as the "greatest potential risks the human race",,, what a crock of CRAP!
Mankind is his own worst enemy. We're trashing the biosphere as we grow towards 9 billion. BUT, we're worried that mother nature might go through one of her normal cycles and limit our population.
WE spread thousands of tons of vaporized uranium but complain about a bit of radioactive water. We destroy thousands of acres of productive farmland every year and complain the 35,000 kids die every day. The wanton pollution is a bigger danger than any gradual warming.
The Holocene warm period has gone on for an unusually long time. The ice WILL return. Any brief warming period is just a postponement. Fire or ice,, mother nature will get our numbers down quite a bit.
I didn't make any cites on the distribution of the various carbon isotopes because it is common knowledge that the isotopes, especially carbon14, degrade over time. As I pointed out, there is no possible way to calculate aerial CO2 without calculating the age of all the various fuels and their respective isotope balances. Firewood is still used very widely. The isotope balance of firewood is nothing like the isotope balance of coal.
The Wiki cite on Neutrinos is old and incorrect. The warming data is so skewed that there is no reason to trust anything out of the IPCC. The "hockey stick" forgets to mention the "little ice age" or a an equally important warming period.
I don't care if you call it disagreeing or ignoring. You know better than to try to refute much of the info that geekster posted. Your cites are WEAK and you refute nothing.
As far as the "greatest potential risks the human race",,, what a crock of CRAP!
Mankind is his own worst enemy. We're trashing the biosphere as we grow towards 9 billion. BUT, we're worried that mother nature might go through one of her normal cycles and limit our population.
WE spread thousands of tons of vaporized uranium but complain about a bit of radioactive water. We destroy thousands of acres of productive farmland every year and complain the 35,000 kids die every day. The wanton pollution is a bigger danger than any gradual warming.
The Holocene warm period has gone on for an unusually long time. The ice WILL return. Any brief warming period is just a postponement. Fire or ice,, mother nature will get our numbers down quite a bit.
I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.
- dr.placebo
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First, the isotope ratios in the article I cited were for C12 and C13, both of which are stable. Plants take in a bit more C12 than C13, so the C12/C13 ratio is a fingerprint for plant carbon, and that ratio makes its way into fossil fuel. C14 is not useful for geological dating because the half life is not long enough, but that is not relevant to the C12/C13 ratio because C14 decays to N14 through beta decay. Just to be clear, the observed C12/C13 ratios are evidence that is consistent with climate change, not proof.
You don't like my neutrino cite? I could be out of date, although I am current with the neutrino oscillation effect, which is fairly recent. So, what are your sources?
I don't always completely analyze every argument that comes up. So, if you think that I've ignored something important, bring up your best evidence. If you want to bring up a few of the items from the Express article, fine. But having some connection to evidence based on measurements would strengthen your case.
I don't disagree with you about the poor quality of risk assessment that is present for both the media and the general public. Nor do I disagree about trashing the biosphere.
I don't think that we are likely to end all human life or all multicellular life with what we are doing, even allowing for the still real potential for nuclear war. I do think that there are several real threats to human civilization over the next century or two, and among them I include anthropogenic climate change.
The end of the Holocene is significant, of course, but we will have to survive the next 100-200 years to get there.
You don't like my neutrino cite? I could be out of date, although I am current with the neutrino oscillation effect, which is fairly recent. So, what are your sources?
I don't always completely analyze every argument that comes up. So, if you think that I've ignored something important, bring up your best evidence. If you want to bring up a few of the items from the Express article, fine. But having some connection to evidence based on measurements would strengthen your case.
I don't disagree with you about the poor quality of risk assessment that is present for both the media and the general public. Nor do I disagree about trashing the biosphere.
I don't think that we are likely to end all human life or all multicellular life with what we are doing, even allowing for the still real potential for nuclear war. I do think that there are several real threats to human civilization over the next century or two, and among them I include anthropogenic climate change.
The end of the Holocene is significant, of course, but we will have to survive the next 100-200 years to get there.
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can't sit still
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Well, we've nicely arrived at an impasse. That is what keeps a thread going. My very first post should have been decisive in some kind of way. It's possible that the Senate sub-committee on the enviornment has some kind of bias. Who knows?
We have reams of conflicting information.
There is no doubt that the IPCC is compromised. Besides that, they don't gain any credibility for adjusting their models to fit unexpected events.
The fact that GOV has cut out the majority of collecting stations leads me to toss out ALL of their claims. Their is far too little integrity in many of the researchers.
You can't deny the various claims are very conflicted.
It's obvious that East Anglia lied when the facts didn't line up.
I'm still arguing item # 17
There is not adequate credibility in either camp. Without credibility, the conclusions are worthless.
We have reams of conflicting information.
There is no doubt that the IPCC is compromised. Besides that, they don't gain any credibility for adjusting their models to fit unexpected events.
The fact that GOV has cut out the majority of collecting stations leads me to toss out ALL of their claims. Their is far too little integrity in many of the researchers.
You can't deny the various claims are very conflicted.
It's obvious that East Anglia lied when the facts didn't line up.
I'm still arguing item # 17
There is not adequate credibility in either camp. Without credibility, the conclusions are worthless.
I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.
- dr.placebo
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I think that there is considerable doubt that the IPCC is compromised, in the sense that it does not accurately reflect the science as of the date of the reports that the IPCC issues. Note that the IPCC does not do research, but that it aggregates climate research results from the scientific literature. The IPCC report (AR4 - issued 2007) has some errors, but recent evidence implies that the IPCC estimates are too conservative in some areas (e.g., no estimates of methane contribution from thawing tundra, underestimating arctic ice loss).
It is not obvious that East Anglia (the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU)) lied. They've been officially cleared by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee. Not that CRU is perfect, and I've not agreed with their practice in all areas, but the more important question about whether their results have been compromised has been answered to my satisfaction.
Now as to #17: "The science of what determines the earth’s temperature is in fact far from settled or understood."
Science is never settled. It's not supposed to be. Nor is the climate process completely understood. It cannot be, given current technology. But the real question is whether we understand enough to place our bets. Clearly one side of the bet is that we have to spend resources to mitigate global warming. The other side is that we continue current practice, betting that nothing all that bad will happen. I clearly believe that we do understand enough to place the bet, and to take action now to reduce fossil fuel usage. As this thread has demonstrated, not everyone agrees with this position.
It is not obvious that East Anglia (the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU)) lied. They've been officially cleared by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee. Not that CRU is perfect, and I've not agreed with their practice in all areas, but the more important question about whether their results have been compromised has been answered to my satisfaction.
Now as to #17: "The science of what determines the earth’s temperature is in fact far from settled or understood."
Science is never settled. It's not supposed to be. Nor is the climate process completely understood. It cannot be, given current technology. But the real question is whether we understand enough to place our bets. Clearly one side of the bet is that we have to spend resources to mitigate global warming. The other side is that we continue current practice, betting that nothing all that bad will happen. I clearly believe that we do understand enough to place the bet, and to take action now to reduce fossil fuel usage. As this thread has demonstrated, not everyone agrees with this position.
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can't sit still
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Hmmm, seems that the Wharton school has weighed in on AGW;
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/266474
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/266474
I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.
- Simon of the Playa
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i wont get mad...i'm just going to pick apart your bullshit agenda piece by piece...
the source you cite goes back to the heartland institute, a 'Think Tank" dedicated to debunking global warming theory AND second hand smoke etc etc, because they are funded in large by the Tobacco Industry
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... nd_tobacco
just sayin'...
check your sources CSS, your copy paste mania is showing.
the source you cite goes back to the heartland institute, a 'Think Tank" dedicated to debunking global warming theory AND second hand smoke etc etc, because they are funded in large by the Tobacco Industry
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... nd_tobacco
just sayin'...
check your sources CSS, your copy paste mania is showing.
Frida Be You & Me
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There are VERY few things worth getting mad about. While the Heartland institute may have published the results, the CVs for the researchers are very impressive.
http://jscottarmstrong.com/
http://www.kestencgreen.com/
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/archive/pr0310.html
This is an investigation and a debate. Nobody has all the answers;
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/1000 ... rticle.txt
If anyone thinks that the science is settled, they're very mistaken. Researchers keep coming up with new variables that were unknown or unexpected or both;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... warns.html
If you can refute the studies done by these three accomplished scientists, go ahead. None of us have the resources to this.
I posted the link as a bit of info. i never claimed that it proved anything. The science is NOT settled.
http://jscottarmstrong.com/
http://www.kestencgreen.com/
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/archive/pr0310.html
This is an investigation and a debate. Nobody has all the answers;
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/1000 ... rticle.txt
If anyone thinks that the science is settled, they're very mistaken. Researchers keep coming up with new variables that were unknown or unexpected or both;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... warns.html
If you can refute the studies done by these three accomplished scientists, go ahead. None of us have the resources to this.
I posted the link as a bit of info. i never claimed that it proved anything. The science is NOT settled.
I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.
- Simon of the Playa
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- Simon of the Playa
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- dr.placebo
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The lead of the Digital Journal article says:
It's true that I don't have the resources to refute the study by Armstrong. But I did read "Effects of the global warming alarm: A forecasting project using the structured analogies method" by K.C.Green and J.S.Armstrong (Dec 7, 2009), and I was not favorably impressed. It makes unsupported claims, and deliberately chooses the wrong cases. In particular, the way that they handle the so-called IPCC "forecast" is incorrect and profoundly dishonest. They take the 1992 supplemental report, extract an overly simplified single number (0.3 C per decade), apply it to a overly broad time span (1851 through 2008), and conclude that "no change" is a better predictor than the IPCC forecast. The IPCC forecast made in the 2007 AR4 report (section 3.2) is nuanced and conditional, reflecting what is known about the science, and gives a range of numbers. But using the better numbers from the more recent (and more correct) report would not serve as a good enough straw man.
Why do they do this? To quote from Green and Armstrong, 2009:
Be a real skeptic, CSS. Take a good look at who is funding this work, and why they are doing it. It's not patriotism, and it's not because they care about the truth.
Yet if I read CSS, he says that the science is far from settled. Then he lauds someone who advocates cutting research. I have to disagree with the eminent professor of marketing. One should do research when there are important questions to be answered.In testimony yesterday before the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Committee on Science, Space and Technology, forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania called on Congress to cease funding global warming research, programs, and advocacy organizations.
It's true that I don't have the resources to refute the study by Armstrong. But I did read "Effects of the global warming alarm: A forecasting project using the structured analogies method" by K.C.Green and J.S.Armstrong (Dec 7, 2009), and I was not favorably impressed. It makes unsupported claims, and deliberately chooses the wrong cases. In particular, the way that they handle the so-called IPCC "forecast" is incorrect and profoundly dishonest. They take the 1992 supplemental report, extract an overly simplified single number (0.3 C per decade), apply it to a overly broad time span (1851 through 2008), and conclude that "no change" is a better predictor than the IPCC forecast. The IPCC forecast made in the 2007 AR4 report (section 3.2) is nuanced and conditional, reflecting what is known about the science, and gives a range of numbers. But using the better numbers from the more recent (and more correct) report would not serve as a good enough straw man.
Why do they do this? To quote from Green and Armstrong, 2009:
This slanders quite a large number of scientists. Of course, that's the name of the game, isn't it? Make people doubt the word and judgment of scientists who have spent decades on trying to make sense out of the world. Then the door is open for the real manipulators, the Heartland Institute kind of disinformation, the Koch brothers kind of lying for profit. And all so that nothing threatens their profits while the oil runs dry and the pollution accumulates.Given the lack of scientific forecasts and lack of interest in scientific forecasting procedures among global warming alarmists and the evidence from opinion polls, we have concluded that it is essentially a liberal, left wing, or Utopianist movement in the U.S. (Pew Research Center 2008) and elsewhere (Klaus 2009).
Be a real skeptic, CSS. Take a good look at who is funding this work, and why they are doing it. It's not patriotism, and it's not because they care about the truth.
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Now, THAT'S a post. While I agree that the research shouldn't be stopped, I also don't believe that the models are complete or trustworthy. I don't believe that incomplete models can distinguish between GW and AGW, Too many anomalies.
Dr.Placebo, what do you have to say about Geekster's graphs showing the culling of high latitude and high altitude data collection stations?
As far as the Koch Bros lying for profit, that is a very muddy scenario. There is plenty of money involved in "carbon credits" also. Everywhere that you look, there are profit motives.
Getting away from a myopic viewpoint, I'm not at all worried about wild species. They've all been through both warming and cooling. They survived. If they die out,,, they die out. Most species have eventually died out. We don't cry over the sauropods.
Man has developed from a more-or-less symbiosis to an uber-parasitism. Our socio-economic systems are trashing the bio-sphere. We're already starting to see "blowback". Our species is in for a crash anyway. Nature abhors a mono-culture and always finds a pathogen to exploit it. The advanced countries are making progress at defeating pathogens but, that leaves out billions of people;
http://www.recombinomics.com/paradigm_shift.html
So the oceans rise. So our species dies off a bit,,, So what? From what point of view is that bad? Soil and water problems will soon cause the same effect. Increased background radiation will cut our numbers down.
http://www1.american.edu/ted/arctic.htm
Chemtrails are cutting our numbers down.
Man has tried to make the entire earth his biological niche. He can only justify that while looking in a mirror.
Dr.Placebo, what do you have to say about Geekster's graphs showing the culling of high latitude and high altitude data collection stations?
As far as the Koch Bros lying for profit, that is a very muddy scenario. There is plenty of money involved in "carbon credits" also. Everywhere that you look, there are profit motives.
Getting away from a myopic viewpoint, I'm not at all worried about wild species. They've all been through both warming and cooling. They survived. If they die out,,, they die out. Most species have eventually died out. We don't cry over the sauropods.
Man has developed from a more-or-less symbiosis to an uber-parasitism. Our socio-economic systems are trashing the bio-sphere. We're already starting to see "blowback". Our species is in for a crash anyway. Nature abhors a mono-culture and always finds a pathogen to exploit it. The advanced countries are making progress at defeating pathogens but, that leaves out billions of people;
http://www.recombinomics.com/paradigm_shift.html
So the oceans rise. So our species dies off a bit,,, So what? From what point of view is that bad? Soil and water problems will soon cause the same effect. Increased background radiation will cut our numbers down.
http://www1.american.edu/ted/arctic.htm
Chemtrails are cutting our numbers down.
Man has tried to make the entire earth his biological niche. He can only justify that while looking in a mirror.
I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.
- Simon of the Playa
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- dr.placebo
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First, I gave a brief scan over recent pages and I've not found the cites from geekster about culling of weather stations. I'm willing to take it up, but it's rather easy in this sea of posts to miss something. Could you repeat the cite?
That the Koch brothers are funding various media campaigns is at this point fairly common knowledge, despite the fact that they are far from transparent in their dealings. I'm not against letting them have their say, but I find their message and methods to be dishonest.
On a separate note, I do not have a lot of respect for carbon credits or cap-and-trade as a solution. The European experience with them shows how easy they are to manipulate. I do prefer a straight carbon tax, because I think that it is simpler to implement and more transparent. Really we've been paying a carbon tax for many years, although it tends to get phrased as being tax cuts for fossil fuel and large chunks of the military budget. And yes, I would use it to kick start renewable energy. I'm not even against nuclear, although the current designs have too little safety and too much waste.
I also think that sometimes we emphasize the survival of niche species too much. But if one thinks of them as indicators rather than essential parts of the ecosystem then it makes a lot of sense to study the reasons for species rise and decline, and to even try to mitigate some of the causes where feasible. And some species (like bees) provide a lot more benefits to humans than many people realize, so it's important to be aware that the importance of a species is not always widely recognized.
As to whether the climate models are complete, I've already said that they are not. People who do this for a living also agree that they are not complete. It's an essential feature of a model that it simplifies part of a complex system. Whether a model is to be trusted to make accurate predictions is whether it is physically based (not some statistical tricks) and on how well it works when compared against the real world. There I think that the models are doing reasonably well, although there is plenty of reason to continue research in the area to be able to build better models.
That the Koch brothers are funding various media campaigns is at this point fairly common knowledge, despite the fact that they are far from transparent in their dealings. I'm not against letting them have their say, but I find their message and methods to be dishonest.
On a separate note, I do not have a lot of respect for carbon credits or cap-and-trade as a solution. The European experience with them shows how easy they are to manipulate. I do prefer a straight carbon tax, because I think that it is simpler to implement and more transparent. Really we've been paying a carbon tax for many years, although it tends to get phrased as being tax cuts for fossil fuel and large chunks of the military budget. And yes, I would use it to kick start renewable energy. I'm not even against nuclear, although the current designs have too little safety and too much waste.
I also think that sometimes we emphasize the survival of niche species too much. But if one thinks of them as indicators rather than essential parts of the ecosystem then it makes a lot of sense to study the reasons for species rise and decline, and to even try to mitigate some of the causes where feasible. And some species (like bees) provide a lot more benefits to humans than many people realize, so it's important to be aware that the importance of a species is not always widely recognized.
As to whether the climate models are complete, I've already said that they are not. People who do this for a living also agree that they are not complete. It's an essential feature of a model that it simplifies part of a complex system. Whether a model is to be trusted to make accurate predictions is whether it is physically based (not some statistical tricks) and on how well it works when compared against the real world. There I think that the models are doing reasonably well, although there is plenty of reason to continue research in the area to be able to build better models.
At what point does wheel spinning become nothing more than an exercise in myopic, cerebral masturbatory frothing at the mouth?
Doc, I think you've made a grand effort at laying your argumentative cards on the table with every necessary citation and thoughtful rebuttal possible. But I have to ask at what point do you back away from a foil who persistently insists on buttressing their 'scientific' counter-argument(s) on sources that have been readily dismisse or are of questionable scientific merit?
Your attempts to spear the dragon remind me a lot of a thread on another board in which the person advocating a creationist ideology of the universe continually tries to slip past arguments using the mud and poo of shoddy science.
I guess what I'm asking is when does one eventually tire of wrestling in the mud with the pig?
Doc, I think you've made a grand effort at laying your argumentative cards on the table with every necessary citation and thoughtful rebuttal possible. But I have to ask at what point do you back away from a foil who persistently insists on buttressing their 'scientific' counter-argument(s) on sources that have been readily dismisse or are of questionable scientific merit?
Your attempts to spear the dragon remind me a lot of a thread on another board in which the person advocating a creationist ideology of the universe continually tries to slip past arguments using the mud and poo of shoddy science.
I guess what I'm asking is when does one eventually tire of wrestling in the mud with the pig?
- dr.placebo
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Iso, it's a fair question. I think that there are several reasons.
1. It gives me a lot of practice investigating the arguments pro and con. As a very welcome side effect I now know the literature on the subject much better than I did before. And it has convinced me that the data is far more solid that I initially suspected.
2. I don't think that I'll convince CSS or geekster. So it is just as well that I'm not attached to it. I do hope that any interested folks are getting a bit of an education here. I know that I am.
3. Although I'm sometimes guilty of snark (hey, I'm posting on ePlaya), I'm trying to give an example of how one might conduct a dialog on a contentious subject using facts and logic. I'm not a very good ranter, so I'll stick with my academic side. I also try to present my opinions honestly.
I'm not sure that the above reasons are sufficient, but they are what I have at the moment.
1. It gives me a lot of practice investigating the arguments pro and con. As a very welcome side effect I now know the literature on the subject much better than I did before. And it has convinced me that the data is far more solid that I initially suspected.
2. I don't think that I'll convince CSS or geekster. So it is just as well that I'm not attached to it. I do hope that any interested folks are getting a bit of an education here. I know that I am.
3. Although I'm sometimes guilty of snark (hey, I'm posting on ePlaya), I'm trying to give an example of how one might conduct a dialog on a contentious subject using facts and logic. I'm not a very good ranter, so I'll stick with my academic side. I also try to present my opinions honestly.
I'm not sure that the above reasons are sufficient, but they are what I have at the moment.
- Simon of the Playa
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thunderdome.
only solution.
loser shuts the fuck up, for a year.
The Challenge has been Laid at the feet of CSS...do you ACCEPT? or do what i think you're going to do...
puss out....
i would say according to my sources which are totally credible so i won't cite them, that the odds of CSS taking this course are .000000000001%
these figures are accurate and have been double checked by the firm of price waterhouse, and have been kept secret until now.
only solution.
loser shuts the fuck up, for a year.
The Challenge has been Laid at the feet of CSS...do you ACCEPT? or do what i think you're going to do...
puss out....
i would say according to my sources which are totally credible so i won't cite them, that the odds of CSS taking this course are .000000000001%
these figures are accurate and have been double checked by the firm of price waterhouse, and have been kept secret until now.
Frida Be You & Me
Actually, all three are quite noble reasons. I appreciate the response.1. It gives me a lot of practice investigating the arguments pro and con. As a very welcome side effect I now know the literature on the subject much better than I did before. And it has convinced me that the data is far more solid that I initially suspected.
- theCryptofishist
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I appreciate his doing so. It's difficult to know if responding only gives it legitmacy or if thoughtful rebuttals keep the disease from spreading, but I tend to go for the second.
The Lady with a Lamprey
"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.
Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri
"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.
Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri
- ygmir
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yeah, but, I enjoy a two sided debate.
and, I've enjoyed reading both sides here.
It's been pretty dang civil, IMHO.
and, lots of good info, give and take, even some apologies and changes in thinking.
CSS started this, and made the statement that he does not necessarily agree with info he posts, but, see it as worthy of investigation and discussion.
In that, I think it's been great.
I have neither the intellect nor time to glean and digest the info, Doc, CSS, and others, have contributed.
I'd say both sides have been quite civil, in that they seem very diametrically opposed, yet, listen and discuss, using the tools at hand.
and, it's been rare, someone pops in with vitriolic messages or dialog.
That, to me, is nice.
So, yeah, I've learned a lot.
Still not sure where I stand on the facts and science, since, it seems very murky both directions.
but, thanks to CSS and Doc (mostly those two), I'm learning and forming opinions.
respectfully submitted:
Ygmir
and, I've enjoyed reading both sides here.
It's been pretty dang civil, IMHO.
and, lots of good info, give and take, even some apologies and changes in thinking.
CSS started this, and made the statement that he does not necessarily agree with info he posts, but, see it as worthy of investigation and discussion.
In that, I think it's been great.
I have neither the intellect nor time to glean and digest the info, Doc, CSS, and others, have contributed.
I'd say both sides have been quite civil, in that they seem very diametrically opposed, yet, listen and discuss, using the tools at hand.
and, it's been rare, someone pops in with vitriolic messages or dialog.
That, to me, is nice.
So, yeah, I've learned a lot.
Still not sure where I stand on the facts and science, since, it seems very murky both directions.
but, thanks to CSS and Doc (mostly those two), I'm learning and forming opinions.
respectfully submitted:
Ygmir
YGMIR
Unabashed Nordic
Pagan
Unabashed Nordic
Pagan
I can get on board with that. At times it just sucks seeing people like Doc having to play catch up with all the bullshit that flies around particular subjects. Global climate change, evolution and other hot button issues usually take the brunt of misinformation/interpretation. Often enough a lie (or fallacy) is running half way around the world before truth can get its socks on.It's difficult to know if responding only gives it legitmacy or if thoughtful rebuttals keep the disease from spreading, but I tend to go for the second.
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can't sit still
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Here's another interesting report. “The risk of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming appears to be so low that it is not currently worth doing anything to try to control it, including geoengineering.â€
I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.
- Simon of the Playa
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sources...
In what has become an annual non-event, the Heartland Institute will gather the who's-who of the global warming denial network together in Chicago this weekend for the fourth International Conference on Climate Change.
Competitive Enterprise Institute...cited in article has very close ties to heartland institute, a source you have been called out on before, a few times.
they are a shill for big tobacco and climate change denial, the koch brothers of anti-green.
still putting out crap for people to call crap huh...brilliant teaching method, socrates..
In what has become an annual non-event, the Heartland Institute will gather the who's-who of the global warming denial network together in Chicago this weekend for the fourth International Conference on Climate Change.
Competitive Enterprise Institute...cited in article has very close ties to heartland institute, a source you have been called out on before, a few times.
they are a shill for big tobacco and climate change denial, the koch brothers of anti-green.
still putting out crap for people to call crap huh...brilliant teaching method, socrates..
Frida Be You & Me
- dr.placebo
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When one has very little reliable data to go on it becomes difficult to distinguish between whistleblower and loose cannon. The cited article about Dr. Alan Carlin, now retired, makes it very difficult to determine what are the writer's opinions, what are Dr. Carlin's opinions and what are the EPA's opinions. Further, the studies that contradict the assertions are given no voice at all. In other words, another piece of tripe from a biased source.
Now, I downloaded the PDF for Carlin's paper, which brings us closer to the source. First, he's an economist, not a climate scientist, so while one might choose to grant him some weight when talking about economics, one is not obliged to grant him authority about climate. Here, from his abstract (I've added the numbers):
R1. Climate sensitivity estimates range all over the place, but they center around 3 degrees C for a doubling of CO2. Most recent estimates of feedback are strongly positive, not negative. In fact, negative feedbacks are strongly contradicted by the paleoclimate proxies. See this link for details. Also, this argument about climate sensitivity is essentially that of Richard Lindzen, a noted climate outlier, and here's a link that argues that he's wrong (again).
R2. The costs of CO2 emissions reductions are controversial, and far less well established than the climate measurements. I find it odd that someone who does not trust climate modelling does trust economic modelling, but that may just be my bias. Anyway, here's a rebuttal.
R3. If one thinks that the costs of mitigation through carbon reduction are too high, then why bother to examine geoengineering? And the part about "change global temperatures with far greater assurance of success" fills me with unease. It is lunacy to argue that the majority of climate scientists don't understand the climate well enough to predict it, yet engineers altering the climate have a greater chance of success. Yet that is what this paper does!
R4. There is an assertion about the benefits of carbon reduction being much too low to justify the cost. I won't repeat the link from R2, but it is still applicable.
R5. Let's rule out catastrophe. Does a realistic cost-benefit analysis of carbon reduction justify it? For Carlin, it does not, but he rules out a lot of accepted climate science (see R1 for an example). Using consensus numbers gives a very different result, per the IPCC estimates.
In sum, I don't think very highly of his economic estimates because I don't think very highly of his assumptions about climate science.
Now, I downloaded the PDF for Carlin's paper, which brings us closer to the source. First, he's an economist, not a climate scientist, so while one might choose to grant him some weight when talking about economics, one is not obliged to grant him authority about climate. Here, from his abstract (I've added the numbers):
Most of these points are recycled talking points from those who disagree with AGW. My responses:1. The economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less than those estimated by most economists because the climate sensitivity factor (CSF) is much lower than assumed by the United Nations because feedback is negative rather than positive and the effects of CO2 emissions reductions on atmospheric CO2 appear to be short rather than long lasting.
2. The costs of CO2 emissions reductions are very much higher than usually estimated because of technological and implementation problems recently identified.
3. Geoengineering such as solar radiation management is a controversial alternative to CO2 emissions reductions that offers opportunities to greatly decrease these large costs, change global temperatures with far greater assurance of success, and eliminate the possibility of low probability, high consequence risks of rising temperatures, but has been largely ignored by economists.
4. CO2 emissions reductions are economically unattractive since the very modest benefits remaining after the corrections for the above effects are quite unlikely to economically justify the much higher costs unless much lower cost geoengineering is used.
5. The risk of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming appears to be so low that it is not currently worth doing anything to try to control it, including geoengineering.
R1. Climate sensitivity estimates range all over the place, but they center around 3 degrees C for a doubling of CO2. Most recent estimates of feedback are strongly positive, not negative. In fact, negative feedbacks are strongly contradicted by the paleoclimate proxies. See this link for details. Also, this argument about climate sensitivity is essentially that of Richard Lindzen, a noted climate outlier, and here's a link that argues that he's wrong (again).
R2. The costs of CO2 emissions reductions are controversial, and far less well established than the climate measurements. I find it odd that someone who does not trust climate modelling does trust economic modelling, but that may just be my bias. Anyway, here's a rebuttal.
R3. If one thinks that the costs of mitigation through carbon reduction are too high, then why bother to examine geoengineering? And the part about "change global temperatures with far greater assurance of success" fills me with unease. It is lunacy to argue that the majority of climate scientists don't understand the climate well enough to predict it, yet engineers altering the climate have a greater chance of success. Yet that is what this paper does!
R4. There is an assertion about the benefits of carbon reduction being much too low to justify the cost. I won't repeat the link from R2, but it is still applicable.
R5. Let's rule out catastrophe. Does a realistic cost-benefit analysis of carbon reduction justify it? For Carlin, it does not, but he rules out a lot of accepted climate science (see R1 for an example). Using consensus numbers gives a very different result, per the IPCC estimates.
In sum, I don't think very highly of his economic estimates because I don't think very highly of his assumptions about climate science.
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can't sit still
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GOOD post, Dr Placebo.
We are in climate change. First ever snow in Lahore. lots of other extreme events. Impossible to average out. I believe that it is the sun. I wish that I had the time to find the reports quoted in this article;
http://crisisboom.com/2011/04/04/nasa-a ... ed-by-sun/
Have you read anything from Kukla?
"During a lengthy interview with Gelf Magazine, Kukla explained: “What is happening is very similar to the time 115,000 years ago, when the last glaciation started."
"On the contrary, Kukla and his colleagues expected a warming blip and it occurred like clockwork."
Read more: http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2011/03/p ... z1LuN3gY16
"That exceptional solar minimum cycle is expected to start in 2014, perhaps earlier."
"In the cores were clear imprints of Milankovic's proposed cycles. In his paper he wrote, "We are certain now that changes in the Earth's orbital geometry caused the ice ages. The evidence is so strong that other explanations must now be discarded or modified."
The guy has done some impressive work.
The upcoming solar-minimum seems to be baked in the cake. If it is as extreme as forecast, I can't see a justification for a warming trend.. Watts per Meter square trumps any trapping.
We are in climate change. First ever snow in Lahore. lots of other extreme events. Impossible to average out. I believe that it is the sun. I wish that I had the time to find the reports quoted in this article;
http://crisisboom.com/2011/04/04/nasa-a ... ed-by-sun/
Have you read anything from Kukla?
"During a lengthy interview with Gelf Magazine, Kukla explained: “What is happening is very similar to the time 115,000 years ago, when the last glaciation started."
"On the contrary, Kukla and his colleagues expected a warming blip and it occurred like clockwork."
Read more: http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2011/03/p ... z1LuN3gY16
"That exceptional solar minimum cycle is expected to start in 2014, perhaps earlier."
"In the cores were clear imprints of Milankovic's proposed cycles. In his paper he wrote, "We are certain now that changes in the Earth's orbital geometry caused the ice ages. The evidence is so strong that other explanations must now be discarded or modified."
The guy has done some impressive work.
The upcoming solar-minimum seems to be baked in the cake. If it is as extreme as forecast, I can't see a justification for a warming trend.. Watts per Meter square trumps any trapping.
I don't post things because I believe that they are the absolute truth. I post them because I believe that they should be considered.
- dr.placebo
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There is clearly a connection between solar activity and climate, and it shows up when one compares temperature records and solar activity over the last 400 years (even longer if you trust the proxies). Since 1975, though, solar activity is flat (or even decreasing a little), but each decade sets a new temperature record. That argues that another effect has started to dominate.
We have had an unusually long recent solar minimum, although nowhere close to some classic minima (like the Maunder minimum). I'm pretty sure that by convention a cycle starts at the minimum, since we are now 2 years into Cycle 24 (see link). The prediction is for a reduced maximum to occur somewhere in July 2013, with the maximum being the smallest in almost 200 years. But the recent long minimum was not predicted very well, so it's entirely possible that the maximum will fool us.
Now, Kukla may be right about the last glaciation. The danger in using that record is that the glacial cycles don't really look all that similar, at least not on a scale that would predict the next 1000 years. Also, we have a much higher CO2 level now, the highest in millions of years. See Ice Age? and Maunder Minimum for some details.

About snow in Lahore: one prediction that climate scientists have been making fairly consistently is that the climate will be more chaotic. I've argued previously that this is a natural result of dumping more heat into a heat engine. A single bizarre weather event can't be blamed on any single cause. A pattern of such events does begin to seem suspicious, though. Here's a link for the 2010 weather, and I must say that the 2011 weather is looking kinda grim as well.
It remains possible that the climate scientists are wrong. It is possible that the sun will do something really weird and that it will dominate anything we can do. There could be some massive volcanic activity (e.g. Yellowstone). A lot of potential events remain on the table. It's just that business-as-usual with respect to fossil fuels is itself a bet, and a very risky one given the evidence I've seen so far.
- Simon of the Playa
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- dr.placebo
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