Slashdot Mirror

When they analyze all the data that exists, that's the opposite of cherry picking. [Geoffrey Landis]

Indeed. I made this same point after Jane/Lonny baselessly accused Layzej of "cherry-picking" when Layzej loaded all the UAH data. Jane/Lonny then suggested cherry-picking at 1998, and keeps insisting that this somehow isn't "cherry-picking".

Ironically, I even gave Jane/Lonny R code which calculates trends and accelerations of global mean sea level (GMSL) data. That graph accounts for autocorrelation- the red lines are 2 sigma uncertainties. The trends and accelerations are calculated over periods which all end at 2009.5. The new significance.zip (backup copies) contains my R statistics folder, including many data sets.

Again, note that this approach avoids cherry-picking by using the entire dataset. Also note that all the best-fit accelerations are positive.

Once again, that's consistent with this NOAA article:

"Sea level is rising at an increasing rate ... There is strong evidence that global sea level is now rising at an increased rate and will continue to rise during this century. While studies show that sea levels changed little from AD 0 until 1900, sea levels began to climb in the 20th century. The two major causes of global sea-level rise are thermal expansion caused by the warming of the oceans (since water expands as it warms) and the loss of land-based ice (such as glaciers and polar ice caps) due to increased melting. Records and research show that sea level has been steadily rising at a rate of 1 to 2.5 millimeters (0.04 to 0.1 inches) per year since 1900. This rate may be increasing. Since 1992, new methods of satellite altimetry (the measurement of elevation or altitude) indicate a rate of rise of 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) per year. This is a significantly larger rate than the sea-level rise averaged over the last several thousand years."

And once again, that's consistent with the 2013 IPCC AR5 SPM:

"Proxy and instrumental sea level data indicate a transition in the late 19th to the early 20th century from relatively low mean rates of rise over the previous two millennia to higher rates of rise (high confidence). It is likely that the rate of global mean sea level rise has continued to increase since the early 20th century."

That's also consistent with the US NAS's statement that "Sea level is rising faster in recent decades".

"Do you really believe that all the 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 (326 quintillion) estimated gallons of water upon the earth came from outerspace?"

Yes I do believe it because *everything* is from outer space. What the Sun is made of, the Earth and Moon, the countless galaxies. The the large number you quoted only accounts for 0.022 percent of the total weight (mass is a better term) of the Earth. The Sun weighs something like 1.989 × 10^30 kg. It contains 99.86% of our solar system's total mass. That all came from space, too. So the large, mind boggling number you quoted is really tiny in the grand scheme of things. And we're talking over millions and billions of years so again, not that hard to believe when you think about it.

Really, not harder to believe that an all-powerful god took 7 days to create everything. I mean, why wasn't it just a snap of the proverbial fingers? Who made God? Who made the one who made God? Why did God destroy his first creation - did this perfect being make a mistake? Too many loose ends for me.

Science isn't always right, but if you look at some of the predictions they make it does an impressive job. Computers and the Internet are built based on our understanding of electricity, signal loss, material science, mathematics, and countless other things built up over the years by a lot of people.

Scientists don't have all the answers on how life formed, but what they do know does a pretty good job of explaining the commonalities between creatures and their DNA and other traits, how the separation of a continent of millennia separated a species into two geographic locations which eventually diverged into different creatures with a common lineage, for example. When they find flaws in their theories, they update them. Think of how science has progressed in the past 100 years. At one time the atom was thought to be the smallest thing. Now science knows there are smaller things inside the atom.

On the comment about "evolution is not science", consider this page which says:

One of the most useful properties of scientific theories is that they can be used to make predictions about natural events or phenomena that have not yet been observed. For example, the theory of gravitation predicted the behavior of objects on the moon and other planets long before the activities of spacecraft and astronauts confirmed them. The evolutionary biologists who discovered Tiktaalik predicted that they would find fossils intermediate between fish and limbed terrestrial animals in sediments that were about 375 million years old. Their discovery confirmed the prediction made on the basis of evolutionary theory. In turn, confirmation of a prediction increases confidence in that theory.

I'll just finish by saying that science isn't always perfect, it bothers me how sometimes things are presented as "fact" before they should be (which could be the individual scientist's or news outlet's fault), how it can be politicized, etc. I don't instantly believe all new theories - I'm not a fool. But still, science is the best framework we have to build upon and increase our understanding of the vast universe we live in. I'm sure much of what we think we know today will be replaced by updated knowledge. That's just the nature of things. Maybe some all-powerful being did set things in motion, who knows, but wouldn't it follow that the universe conforms to an amazing set of rules which makes planet formation, evolution, and other wonders possible? Given the impossibly grand scale of the universe we may never know for sure.

Do you really believe that all the colorful, flavorful, appealing, and amazing fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, spices and meats all

Only about 70% of migratory birds are surviving one annual migration at the moment.

In 2003, wind turbines killed 33,000 birds a year. Glass windows killed 97 million.

The mass extinction of birds is currently on the way.

Due to habitat loss. Wind turbines don't even register on the scale.

Loosing large birds gliding magnificently above a town is the same loss as loosing the trees, bees, rivers, etc.

That's "Losing". To your point: trees are necessary for temperature control and erosion resistance. Bees are necessary to pollinate fruit trees. Rivers power dams and harbors fish. Large birds... they eat small animals, just like foxes, cats, snakes, wolves and bears. They're not necessary.

Limiting power consumption via LED lamps,

CFL's, which people already use, are almost as efficient (8-12% vs. 8-15%). Lighting is only 7% of electric usage anyways.

lighter vehicles,

99.85% of cars don't even use electricity.

smaller heated (air-conditioned) areas in houses

Heating is usually natural gas. But even if you include it, residential heating plus air conditioning only accounts for 6% of all energy use.

...could produce more than enough electricity for decades

Yeah no. Not when the world population is set to reach 8 billion by 2025 (a 14% growth).

Here's a hint, the majority of fossil fuels in the USA doesn't come from the Middle East. Almost all coal and natural gas is domestically produced or imported from Canada (lots of military spending there...). Well over half of the oil we use in the US is now domestically produced as well. http://needtoknow.nas.edu/ener...

Also, that exhaust pumped into the atmosphere is mostly CO2 which isn't known to cause any medical problems in concentrations found in the atmosphere. You might have had a point when TEL was still in use.

pouring into the atmosphere at a rate of more than 100x what nature produces

... man, go back to elementary school. That hasn't happened, isn't happening, and isn't going to happen. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-07-31]

Yes it is. As the NAS explains on page 6 here:

"In nature, CO2 is exchanged continually between the atmosphere, plants and animals through photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition, and between the atmosphere and ocean through gas exchange. A very small amount of CO2 (roughly 1% of the emission rate from fossil fuel combustion) is also emitted in volcanic eruptions. This is balanced by an equivalent amount that is removed by chemical weathering of rocks."

So natural CO2 emissions are balanced, and our fossil fuel emissions are roughly 100x faster than volcanic emissions. That's why "actual science" shows that our current CO2 emissions rate is unprecedented over the last 300 million years.

And if you read the rest of that NAS document, you'd discover that "actual science" shows that our unprecedentedly rapid CO2 emissions are a cause for concern.

pouring into the atmosphere at a rate of more than 100x what nature produces

... man, go back to elementary school. That hasn't happened, isn't happening, and isn't going to happen. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-07-31]

Yes it is. As the NAS explains on page 6 here:

"In nature, CO2 is exchanged continually between the atmosphere, plants and animals through photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition, and between the atmosphere and ocean through gas exchange. A very small amount of CO2 (roughly 1% of the emission rate from fossil fuel combustion) is also emitted in volcanic eruptions. This is balanced by an equivalent amount that is removed by chemical weathering of rocks."

So natural CO2 emissions are balanced, and our fossil fuel emissions are roughly 100x faster than volcanic emissions. That's why "actual science" shows that our current CO2 emissions rate is unprecedented over the last 300 million years.

And if you read the rest of that NAS document, you'd discover that "actual science" shows that our unprecedentedly rapid CO2 emissions are a cause for concern.

For another opinion, see report from a committee of the national academy of sciences (but what do they know? clearly this is just a bunch of wackos which do not know any science):

At doses of 100 mSv or less, statistical limitations make it difficult to evaluate cancer risk in humans. A comprehensive review of available biological and bio-physical data led the committee to conclude that the risk would continue in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans. This assumption is termed the "inear-no-threshold"
Source: http://dels.nas.edu/resources/...

... Spencer's experiment stipulated that the outer wall be kept at a constant temperature. Given that it is being given input from interior heat sources, it would take energy (over time, power of course) to maintain that low temperature. This was obviously Spencer's attempt to model the radiation "escaping to space". ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

Again, any power used to maintain that low temperature is simply being moved from some point outside the boundary to another point which is also outside the boundary. Because that power never crosses the boundary, it's irrelevant.

... However, YOU have repeatedly stated that your electrical power input was considered to be maintaining a temperature difference between the heat source and the outer wall. In fact that was the stated basis for many of your arguments about conservation of energy. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

No, the electrical power input is however many watts are sent in through the boundary around the heat source. That's why it's included in the energy conservation equation through that boundary.

... But your input energy was supposed to be constant. So you're either violating the parameters of the experiment, or you are creating energy from nothing. You don't get to have it both ways, and again your "solution" contradicts itself. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

The electrical power input which crosses the boundary around the heat source is constant. Any power which doesn't cross that boundary is irrelevant, because it isn't included in that energy conservation equation.

And again, inserting the standard physics definition of the word "net" into your equation reproduces the energy conservation equation you're still adamantly rejecting. Would it really be so hard to take a few seconds to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms? That's another way to see that you should consider using the standard physics definition of the word "net".

This is really basic physics, Jane. If you're actually this hopelessly confused, maybe you shouldn't be lecturing physicists about physics.

And for your sake I hope you actually are just confused. It's difficult to understand why anyone would deliberately spread misinformation about what the National Academy of Sciences calls "one of the defining issues of our time."

If you have actual, direct evidence, why did you not link to THAT, rather than somebody else's claim? [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-14]

I linked to reviews of actual, direct evidence by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society (U.K.) in their joint publication (PDF), and another review of evidence by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the journal Science.

While Jane is reading those reviews, he should also consider addressing this issue with his basic thermodynamics:

Your own insistence that power in = power out (assuming perfect conversion and no entropic losses) belies this argument. You are arguing against yourself and you refuse to see that. If power in = power out (your own stipulation) ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-14]

I'm not the only one insisting that power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing. Once again, that's a fundamental principle called "conservation of energy". Here are some introductions: example (backup), example (backup), example (backup).

As you can tell, conservation of energy is a fundamental physics principle. Assumptions of "perfect conversion and no entropic losses" aren't applicable, and anyone who mistakenly thinks they are should read through those examples to learn about conservation of energy.

If power in = power out (your own stipulation), and the only NET power INTO a defined spherical region is electrical, and the only NET power OUT of that region is radiative, then net radiative power out at steady-state must therefore be equal to the net electrical power consumed. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-14]

Jane seems to be saying that at steady-state:

net electrical power consumed = net radiative power out

But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:

net electrical power consumed = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in"

However, this new equation doesn't match Jane's earlier equation:

My energy conservation equation is this: electrical power in = (epsilon * sigma) * T^4 * area = radiant power out [Jane Q. Public, 2014-10-08]

Notice that Jane's earlier equation doesn't describe net radiative power out, which is why it violates conservation of energy. Is Jane retracting his earlier incorrect equation, or does Jane dispute the definition of the word "net"?

I'm getting plain fed up with all these cockamamie "CO2-based disaster" predictions. It's nothing but speculation run amok, and all the more baneful because it's politically- and money-driven. Fact: we have no real, objective evidence that CO2 is going to cause us any real problems. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-14]

Really? Then why did over a dozen national science academies say with one voice that "the need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable"?

The scientific evidence has been stacking up against the idea for at least 10 years. It isn't happening, it isn't going to happen. And even if it did, it would probably benefit us more than hurt us. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-14]

Even if CO2 causes us real problems, it would probably benefit us more than hurt us? Really? In 2014, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society (U.K.) wrote a joint publication (PDF).

Here's another 2014 publication by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the journal Science.

Those scientific reports don't agree with Jane, nor do statements made by all these large scientific societies.

The problem with this is that climate changes, whether or not humanity is involved. [Anonymous Coward, 2014-12-11]

Once again, I've tried to point out that the scientific community who's warning about human-caused climate change is the same scientific community who discovered and named many of these modes of natural variability.

I've tried to point out that NASA's been measuring the Sun's brightness (etc.) for decades and concluded that natural variation can't explain the warming since 1950.

I've tried to point out that if the natural climate hadn't changed before, that would imply that it hadn't ever changed so we couldn't possibly change it now.

I've tried to point out that 420 million years of natural climate change support the idea that we are changing the climate, precisely because it has varied before.

I've tried to point out that some of the closest natural analogues to modern human-caused climate change, like the PETM and end-Permian, just reinforce my concern about treating the atmosphere like a free sewer.

I've repeatedly failed to communicate, and considering the stakes involved the weight of all these failures is becoming unbearable. I wish I could effectively counter the asymmetric strategies of the merchants of doubt.

The article you linked is now 5 years old, the cited studies even older, and I've been told by meteorologists that work for NOAA that some of these are tending in the opposite direction now. [Anonymous Coward, 2014-12-11]

Oh, some anonymous NOAA meteorologists told an anonymous coward that "some of those are tending in the opposite direction now"? Even if we humor this vague unverifiable anecdote, how could we figure out if it paints the whole picture accurately?

One way would be to skip the anonymous anecdotes, and see what NOAA actually says. NOAA runs www.climate.gov which has a number of educational resources for topics like the greenhouse effect and causes of climate change. Anyone who learns science from these NOAA resources will understand that the globe is warming, and humans are primarily responsible. And, of course, dozens of large scientific societies agree. That seems like a more accurate way of painting the whole picture.

But what about even more recent publications? In 2014, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society (U.K.) wrote a joint publication (PDF). Anyone who learns science from this NAS/Royal Society publication will understand that the globe is warming, and humans are primarily responsible.

You can appear to “prove” almost anything you want if you restrict your study to relatively isolated phenomena, and ignore the bigger picture. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-05-12]

I know my argument is anecdotal vs. Yours which has very nicely laid out citations, but my overall point is simply this: you can get these studies to show just about anything you want if you work the numbe

I wouldn't mind paying the net metering fee, IF the subsidies for fossil fuels were removed as well.

An article at Forbes reports that coal increases health care costs by 19 to 45 cents a kwh. Oil increases the costs by 8 to 19 c/kwh, and natural gas by 1 to 2 c/kwh. Then there's the estimated cost of climate change, assuming we beat it. (Yes, I trust a near-unanimous group of subject matter experts. Heck, I bet those 97% would really like to be wrong, so we wouldn't need to do something about the issue.)

Summing up, I'd rather pay $168 a year for a connection, as opposed to paying an extra $1000/year for fossil fuel electricity. (5000 kwh * 20 cents/kwh). Actually, aren't we already paying that extra $1000/year in extra health care costs, property insurance, and natural disaster relief?

I agree with using renewables first. It bypasses the "subsidies" that the fossil fuel industry receive.

An article at Forbes reports that coal increases health care costs by 19 to 45 cents a kwh. Oil increases the costs by 8 to 19 c/kwh, and natural gas by 1 to 2 c/kwh. Mercury in fish is getting bad enough that Consumer Reports had an article on it last month. I'm pretty sure fish aren't mining mercury. Then there's the climate change issue.

Any one of those reasons, from three different sources, is good enough for me to prefer renewables over fossil fuels. For nuclear, I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning in the direction of it being sold at the same time as renewable, not after all renewable supply is consumed.

Here's what the US National Academies have to say: "One might think that airplanes, trains, and buses would consume most of the energy used in this sector but, in fact, their percentages are relatively small--about 9% for aircraft and about 3% for trains and buses. Personal vehicles, on the other hand, consume more than 60% of the energy used for transportation."

Completely eliminating emissions from buses would make only a small difference in the big energy picture.

That said, electric buses might not be such a bad thing. I'm driving an electric car these days and it is awesome (even if it isn't a Tesla).

You mean like the overall long-term increase in Antarctic ice mass, despite breakups in the Western sheet?

False. Antarctic land ice mass is decreasing, and reliable estimates of Antarctic sea ice volume (or mass) aren't available.

Even if you meant to refer to Antarctic sea ice extent (not mass), you already ignored me when I told you that this is consistent with Manabe et al. 1991 page 811: " sea surface temperature hardly changes and sea ice slightly increases near the Antarctic Continent in response to the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide."

But maybe you'll listen to the National Academy of Sciences, if you honestly don't think the National Academy of Sciences is "alarmist". Again, their recent report is educational. They address Antarctic sea ice in question 12.

The gradual, long-term non-warming that has occurred over the last 15-17 years, depending on who you ask?

Jane and Lonny Eacus have repeatedly ignored me whenever I've told you that there's been no statistically significant change in the surface warming rate. But if you honestly doesn't think the NAS is alarmist, you might learn something from their answers to questions 9 and 10. This point is particularly relevant: "More than 90% of the heat added to Earth is absorbed by the oceans and penetrates only slowly into deep water. A faster rate of heat penetration into the deeper ocean will slow the warming seen at the surface and in the atmosphere, but by itself will not change the long-term warming that will occur from a given amount of CO2."

I agree: science is a wonderful thing. You can appear to "prove" almost anything you want if you restrict your study to relatively isolated phenomena, and ignore the bigger picture.

No, that's not science the way it's practiced by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the American Statistical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of American Scientists, the American Quaternary Association, the American Society of Agronomy, the

You mean like the overall long-term increase in Antarctic ice mass, despite breakups in the Western sheet?

False. Antarctic land ice mass is decreasing, and reliable estimates of Antarctic sea ice volume (or mass) aren't available.

Even if you meant to refer to Antarctic sea ice extent (not mass), you already ignored me when I told you that this is consistent with Manabe et al. 1991 page 811: " sea surface temperature hardly changes and sea ice slightly increases near the Antarctic Continent in response to the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide."

But maybe you'll listen to the National Academy of Sciences, if you honestly don't think the National Academy of Sciences is "alarmist". Again, their recent report is educational. They address Antarctic sea ice in question 12.

The gradual, long-term non-warming that has occurred over the last 15-17 years, depending on who you ask?

Jane and Lonny Eacus have repeatedly ignored me whenever I've told you that there's been no statistically significant change in the surface warming rate. But if you honestly doesn't think the NAS is alarmist, you might learn something from their answers to questions 9 and 10. This point is particularly relevant: "More than 90% of the heat added to Earth is absorbed by the oceans and penetrates only slowly into deep water. A faster rate of heat penetration into the deeper ocean will slow the warming seen at the surface and in the atmosphere, but by itself will not change the long-term warming that will occur from a given amount of CO2."

I agree: science is a wonderful thing. You can appear to "prove" almost anything you want if you restrict your study to relatively isolated phenomena, and ignore the bigger picture.

No, that's not science the way it's practiced by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the American Statistical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of American Scientists, the American Quaternary Association, the American Society of Agronomy, the

Also not the same as the prestigious and perhaps more familiar National Academies, which consists of The National Academy of Science, The National Academy of Engineering, The Institute of Medicine, and The National Research Council.

TFA doesn't even link to where the actual report can be found (shame on you Chemical & Engineering News)

The actual report is behind a paywall, but has some summary points Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels (2012)

If you look at the link that I included in the article, you'll notice that it links to that very article you describe. I even took the extra minute to search for the link in order to include it in the article :)

Too many links in a summary confuse me!

TFA doesn't even link to where the actual report can be found (shame on you Chemical & Engineering News)

The actual report is behind a paywall, but has some summary points Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels (2012)

If you look at the link that I included in the article, you'll notice that it links to that very article you describe. I even took the extra minute to search for the link in order to include it in the article :)

TFA doesn't even link to where the actual report can be found (shame on you Chemical & Engineering News)

The actual report is behind a paywall, but has some summary points Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels (2012)

I don't know why you're taking medical advice from a physicist though.

Because I'm not arguing that children that live closer to power lines don't have higher likelyhoods of developing leukemia. I'm arguing that EMF is not the cause, and physicists are infinitely more qualified to speak on that matter.

As stated here, "there is no biological mechanism to explain the higher risk". Correlation does not imply causation, and in this case there is a very very notible absense of scientifically sound proposed mechanisms for causation.

If you want to play this just by references, then here you go. Courtesy of the paper I previously linked to you, I'd suggest actually reading it instead of dismissing it for being writting by a physicist (what could a physicist possibly know about EMF after all?). I think this trumps some article in Times..., have fun:

1. Wertheimer N, Leeper E. Electrical wiring configurations and childhood cancer. American Journal of Epidemiology 109:273-284, 1979.
2. Brodeur P. Currents of Death: Power Lines, Computer Terminals, and the Attempt to Cover Up the Threat to Your Health. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.
3. Brodeur P. The Great Power Line Cover-Up: How the Utilities and Government Are Trying to Hide the Cancer Hazard Posed by Electromagnetic Fields. (Little-Brown, 1993, hardback). There is also a 1995 paperback edition.
4. PBS Frontline. Currents of Fear. Program #1319, originally aired June 13, 1995.
5. Davis JG and others. Health Effects of Low-Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields. Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 1992.
6. Park RL. Review panel exonerates low frequency electromagnetic fields. What's New, Nov. 20, 1992.
7. American Physical Society, Executive Council Statement, April 23, 1995.
8. National Research Council Committee on the Possible Effects of Electromagnetic Fields on Biologic Systems. Possible Health Effects of Exposure to Residential Electric and Magnetic Fields. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997. [Press release] [Complete book]
9. Linet MS and others. Residential exposure to magnetic fields and acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children. New England Journal of Medicine 337:1-7, 1997.
10. Campion EW. Power lines, cancer, and fear. New England Journal of Medicine 337:44-46, 1997.
11. Day N. Exposure to power-frequency magnetic fields and the risk of childhood cancer. Lancet 354:1925-1931, 1999.
12. Adair RK. Constraints on biological effects of weak extremely-low-frequency electromagnetic fields. Physics Review A43:1039-1048, 1991.
13. Savitz DA and others. Case-control study of childhood cancer and exposure to 60-Hz magnetic fields. American Journal of Epidemiology 128, 21-38, 1988.
14. Gurney JG and others. Childhood cancer occurrence in relation to power line configurations: A study of potential selection bias in cas

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences disagrees with you. The American Association for the Advancement of Science disagrees with you. The American Geophysical Union disagrees with you. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disagrees with you. There are many more, but the point is that the scientists actually studying it are generally convinced. Do you have any scientific organizations that agree with you that the greenhouse gas aspect of it is still up in the air?

At this point, I think that climate deniers are very close to creationists. In both cases, there are people and organizations that disagree with the science. They can talk a good talk, but fail in the actual doing of the science. They can ask more questions than can be answered currently, can take quotes (and emails) out of context, they can use the human failures of people involved in the science against them, and any screw ups (and they certainly exist in both cases) are taken as evidence that the entire science is incorrect. But, they are ignoring the basic science as a whole, discarding what we do understand, and blowing the uncertainties way out of proportion, in order to promote an unscientific point of view.

If it's a pipe dream, then why do so many researchers and physicians regard iPSCs as a holy grail? Probably it's because stem cell therapy has *already* repaired damaged tissue and restored function to a variety of tissues in mammals and humans, including the spinal cord.

In case your tragic state of perplexity becomes too much to live with:

Stem Cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

Stem Cell Basics
http://dels.nas.edu/bls/stemcells/booklet.shtml

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_Pluripotent_Stem_Cell

Video: What Are Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8370692532177471184&hl=en

Stem Cell Therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_therapy

        Randy

NAS testimony to the energy commitee (pdf).
NAS climate homepage
As you say "other people following this discussion might be curious", even if you are not.

What this country needs is for some fact and common sense to be injected into this debate. A few things we all need to remember:

Evolution is a theory. I won't go into the scientific definition of theory here; that's covered quite well in this document that was previously talked about on Slashdot. Evolution is not a fact (at least, not according to science) because it is untestable at this time. The mechanics behind evolution--adaptation and natural selection--are testable, and can generally be accepted as fact by all involved. Evolution, like all theories, takes observable, testable facts and presents a model based on those facts for the purpose of explaining observations.

We look at biodiversity, we look at the fossil record, we look at millions upon millions of scientific observations and we see what appear to be patterns. Science looks at those patterns and attempts to explain them. The result is the ever-changing theory of evolution.

What's more, there are two brands of evolution. There's the evolutionary mechanism, that is the process by which speciation can occur between two isolated populations of the same species. Then there's the evolutionary history, which attempts to create an ancestry for life based on fossil records and observations of current species. The former is almost undeniable; there exists little if any scientific data that contradicts our current model of evolutionary mechanics. The latter changes frequently and is perfectly questionable, and should be treated as such.

There should be no conflict with the idea of evolution and religion. There is simply no need for them to be at odds. Now, if one should choose to disbelieve specific evolutionary histories, that's really no big deal...the truth is, there are huge gaps in the fossil records and those "family trees" can never be 100% accurate. They just do the best with the data they have.

So maybe public schools should just skip teaching the lineage of any give creature and stick to the mechanisms that drive evolution and the general concept of it.

The article was taken from a National Academies press release. Here's the full report, parts of which (maybe the whole thing? I didn't check) can be previewed as a pdf if you don't want to purchase the book.

Oh, and here's a brief (4-page summary) of the report.

Woulda been nice to have the source info in the summary...

The importance of this effort was underlined by the fact that Walt Kelly's "Pogo" sent it up. Since the event was a "year" of 18 months, Pogo suggested naming the extra months after foods -- Octoberry, Novemberry etc.

In a side note, the US response to Sputnik included a science payload named Nora-Alice 1, beacon transmitter for Discoverer satellite, which took it's name from a poem Pogo wrote in honour of the IGY. http://www.ece.uiuc.edu/about/history/reminiscence /space.html/ has a picture and a small quote down the column a bit.

So as you can see, drilling a hole in the Earth past the crust to the mantle inspired some of the first orbital satellites. Remarkable! Oh, and then there was LAGEOS, of course, but I'll let you look that one up.

...on page 2 of the report.

More significant, I think, than the current temperature compared to previous temperature levels is the trend over the last 100-200 years. Sharp, and accelerating increase.

Read the actual paper, and you'll find that, instead of all the very firm statements in the Yahoo article, there are lots of caveats, and the note that temperature reconstructions back further than 400 years are very chancy.

As to the greenhouse gas hypothesis, there are a couple of real problems with it:

about 60 percent of the temperature increase happened between 1500 and 1900. The notion that there was a lot of unusual greenhouse gases in that interval is questionable at best.

(2) there is significant data suggesting "global warming" of similar order of magnitude on Mars and other planets.

most of the argument that greenhouse gases are causing the warming are based, first and foremost, on the assumption that there is unusual warming, which is not a very strong conclusion, as noted by the report.

Reasoning from "there has been global warming" to "there is an anthropogenic reason for global warming" to "anthropogenic causes for global warming are proven by the global warming" is circular.

The reason the vikings were so active from Norway was that they had mild temperatures up there, *warmer than now*.

None of the reconstructions indicates that temperatures were warmer during medieval times than during the past few decades, the committee added.

It was this hot 400 years ago?

No, I don't think you understand. It was almost certainly not this hot any time in the last 400 years, and there are indications that support the belief that it was not this hot any time in the last 2,000 years, though indicators of temperature more than 400 years ago, and especially prior to A.D. 900, are pretty sketchy.

The report itself says this (emphasis added):

It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies.

Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from A.D. 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. The uncertainties associated with reconstructing hemispheric mean or global mean temperatures from these data increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified.

.
.
.
The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years. Not all individual proxy records indicate that the recent warmth is unprecedented, although a larger fraction of geographically diverse sites experienced exceptional warmth during the late 20th century than during any other extended period from A.D. 900 onward.

The supposed "link" between the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine and autism, based on the notion that the mercury in MMR causes autism, has been studied over and over again. NO credible studies have turned up any links. The one famous study in the Lancet that *did* allege a link turned out to have falsified data. Do the reading here, here, and here.

Despite the clear research, my wife gets several patients per year whose parents have been "educated" by reading anti-vaccine junk on the Web. As a result, they refuse to vaccinate their kids. That's nutty. I'm all in favor of reducing environmental risks, but avoiding vaccines is not an effective route to doing so. The diseases that vaccines protect against are far more likely to be dangerous to a child than any supposed benefit obtained by avoiding vaccines.

Since I don't actually have all day to reply, here is a quick selection of 'reputable' links and a few recent (05) peer-reviewed journal article abstracts concerning global warming.

I wasn't implying that you should take MY word for it...just that I have experience in this topic and that my (informed) opinion is that GW is underway. Denying global warming is about as futile as denying evolution (I'm also a paleontologist). As I mentioned in the previous post, however, the causes of global warming are still up in the air (although I personally suspect that greenhouse gas emissions play a role in accelerating warming). Of course Fairbanks (Nature 342/89) demonstrated that there was a two meter per century rise in sea level around 14000 years ago, so rapid change can occur even without human influence.

Here are a few references:

Fairbanks, R.G., 1989, A 17,000-year glacio-eustatic sea level record; influence of glacial melting rates on the Younger Dryas event and deep-ocean circulation: Nature, v. 342, no. 6250, p. 637-642.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Aerosols/
http://www.aims.gov.au/pages/research/coral-bleach ing/scr2000/scr-00gcrmn-report.html
http://www4.nas.edu/onpi/webextra.nsf/44bf87db3095 63a0852566f2006d63bb/e4dcc6e935831fc885256a8400588 146?OpenDocument
http://climatechange.gc.ca/english/default.asp
____
From: Analysis of mean, maximum, and minimum temperature in Athens from 1897 to 2001 with emphasis on the last decade, trends, warm events, and cold events, Extreme climatic events

The 105-year (1897-2001) surface air temperature record of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) has been analyzed to determine indications of significant deviations from long-term average features in the city of Athens. The analysis of the whole record reveals a tendency towards warmer years, with significantly warmer summer and spring periods and slightly warmer winters (an increase of 1.23 and 0.34 degrees C has been observed in the mean summer and mean winter temperature, respectively). The tendency is more pronounced for the summer and spring maximum temperature, but marginal for the minimum temperature of the cold season. On a monthly basis, a statistically significant (at the 95th confidence level) warming trend has been observed in the average maximum temperature of May and June. The trend analysis for the last decade of the record (1992-2001) revealed a significant increase for both warm and cold seasons, yet maximum and minimum temperature. Extreme temperatures (high/low temperatures above/below a certain threshold value) and extreme events (prolonged extreme temperatures) have also been studied. The number of hot days as well as the frequency of occurrence and duration of warm events have significantly increased during the last decade, while a negative trend is observed in the frequency of low temperatures and the duration of cold events especially after 1960.
_____
From: Recent trends from Canadian permafrost thermal monitoring network sites, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, vol.16, no.1, pp.19-30, Mar 2005

The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), in collaboration with other government partners, has been developing and maintaining a network of active-layer and permafrost thermal monitoring sites which contribute to the Canadian Permafrost Monitoring Network and the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost. Recent results from the thermal monitoring sites maintained by the GSC and other federal government agencies are presented. These results indicate that the response of permafrost temperature to rec

While the links at the site mentioned are all biased against this legislation, and many of those links provide only knee-jerk, "the sky is falling", "keep your hands off my facts" reactions (e.g. Phyllis Schlafly's) so typical to slashdot responses found here, there is at least one lucid presentation of the situation. Anyone really interested in this topic should at least read William A. Wulf's testimony. He summarizes the problem well. Here's my summary of the problem (not the testimony).

1. NOBODY is trying to COPYRIGHT ANYTHING! NOBODY is trying to OWN FACTS! (Please repeat this to yourself three times before continuing to read anything anywhere)
2. Big database companies (like West) are worried that other companies can slurp up large parts of their data and turn around and sell it. Everyone agrees this is unfair and shouldn't be allowed.
3. Big companies now KNOW that COPYRIGHT DOES NOT PROTECT THEM from situation 2 above because of Feist. (Google it with copyright).
4. Big companies want some law to point to when situation 2 actually happens.

The real problem(s):

a. Situation 2 may not be a real problem. No one has shown that this is actually happening.
b. Big companies (like West) like to sue honest competitors to gain any advantage they can. That's their job. (Google West and Lexis)
c. The new legislation may be addressing a non-problem while facilitating expensive, unnecessary lawsuits designed to harass competition.
d. (The big one for me) The new legislation may chill the activities of companies like Google who might inadvertently become liable.


Hey man, can I bum a sig?

While the poster said (paraphrasing) "The vast majority of scientists believe that there is global warming and that human activity IS a major factor",this report you cite is actually somewhat equivocal:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global warming in the last 50 years is likely the result of increases in greenhouse gases, which accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community, the committee said. However, it also cautioned that uncertainties about this conclusion remain because of the level of natural variability inherent in the climate on time scales from decades to centuries, the questionable ability of models to simulate natural variability on such long time scales, and the degree of confidence that can be placed on estimates of temperatures going back thousands of years based on evidence from tree rings or ice cores.

• These are the top guys in their fields, and they make good statements based on real evidence, as opposed to the average /. posting...

The only policy recommendation you hear from the "average /. reader" is an immediate adherence to the Kyoto Treaty. A Treaty that will not do anything to decrease the CO2 surplus for the foreseeable future, but will certainly damage the economies of the industrialized nations.

Even more interesting, to me, is that when the National Research Council, at the request of president Bush, included major global warming skeptics on the council, upon reviewing the body of evidence, they changed their minds about it (see the last two paragraphs of the link).

These are the top guys in their fields, and they make good statements based on real evidence, as opposed to the average /. posting :-)

Go read the National Academy of Sciences Report from their working group on climate change. Keep in mind that any politically sensitive report written by a committee of scientists is going to be very, very cautious in any conclusions. Scientists in general are loath to make any definitive statements, because it is in the nature of our training to always expect that we might be wrong (Certainty is for the religions). That being said, the mere fact that many scientists are saying in (for them) pretty strong terms that this is real and that this is a problem should make clear to you how serious this is. As for "overwhelming", well, what do you want - a personal note from God? Go educate yourself and keep an open mind. Learn the physics of radiative transfer and climate models. Understand the scientific method. Don't listen to either Green peace or Fox News but try to determine the truth for yourself. Read the primary litterature, but remember that science at that level is a debate, with people taking both sides. Things like the IPCC and the NAS report are the result of those debates, and it's pretty clear that the majority of scientists are coming down on the side of "global warming is real, mostly caused by us, and will be a problem".

I take it from your choice of words that you at least acknowledge that it is happening. That's a pretty big step that a lot of "skeptics" refuse to take. As for "why"; if there is one thing that we actually do understand very well, it is the effect of CO2 and other greenhouse gases on the transport of radiation (heat) in the atmosphere. There is incontrovertible data (google "keeling curve") evidence for increasing levels of CO2 in our atmosphere. You would have to concoct some pretty unlikely scenarios for why such an increase wouldn't result in an increase in temperatures. The fact that we do see the temperature increase coincident with the CO2 increase is a strong indication that they are linked.

Now, "normal". We do know that current levels of CO2 (and temperature) have not occurred at least in the past 400,000 years (scroll down). There was an interesting review in Science magazine about 3 years ago that showed even more data - but I'm afraid I can't find a WWW link. In any case, we do know that current CO2 levels are not "normal" to the current climate regime, and that the CO2 increase is entirely due to human sources.

Now for "bad"; we are talking major climate shifts at a rate that we have never before seen in climatological data (ice cores, tree rings, sediment layers), with the possible exception of certain mass-extinction periods (KT, PT etc), where the rates may have been as fast, though it is hard to tell. We're taking a rather delicate, metastable system and giving one helluva horse-kick. This is where there is uncertainty; it might merely be the end of places like Bangladesh, while Canadian farming does ok. Or you might see the Gulf stream shut down and the West Antarctic ice sheet melt. Those are sort of the end-ranges of probable outcomes under the current assumption of a doubling in CO2. Note that if we keep burning coal into the 2100's we are talking about much more than a doubling of CO2. At that point most indications are for very bad things to happen (sea level rise on the order of 10-50 meters) etc. The models, like any work of science, admit uncertainties. But that normal "hedging" is misused by people with a political agenda to try and undermine the science. The fact is that basically all the models show warming; the question is just how much, and

Oh, where to start on this one... let's see. Best estimates talk about oil lasting another 40-80 years at most. Given how basic oil is to our economy, and how long it takes to replace the oil infrastructure, it's necessary to start well in advance of when we actually run out. It takes TIME to develop fuel cells, fusion, hydrogen, or pig-shit based energy sources. The fact of the matter is that current market mechanisms do not do a good job of accounting for the future. They do not accurately price things ten, twenty or 40 years into the future. There is simply too much uncertainty for small companies to accurately gauge the value of investment in the very long term. That's one point.

A related point: people say "leave it to the market". Some invisible hand will reach out and save things and we don't have to do anything. I got news for ya folks. The markets are not ideal or perfect. They fail to account for costs, they do not predict future events, they can be manipulated. So don't put your future in blind trust of the market.

Next point. Global warming. It is real. Half the scientists in my department work on that area, and they all pretty much say "don't buy seafront property". I'll take the word of the National Academy of Sciences over your say-so any day.

Final point, in response to both your post and the parent posts. Don't belive the ultra-libertarian crap. There is a time and place for government intervention. It's when you have a chicken-and-egg problem: private investment won't happen until there is a reliable demand. Demand won't happen until there has been private investement. There are plenty of examples where government intervention and subsidies have worked very well. The interstate highway system. Rural electrification. Nuclear power. The airline industry (how it got started). The Internet.

Umm, no.

The Polygraph and Lie Detection Juicy quote: "Polygraph testing now rests on weak scientific underpinnings despite nearly a century of study, the committee said. And much of the available evidence for judging its validity lacks scientific rigor."

There's never been a study that conclusively shows that lie detectors work. Never.

Increases in the average annual exposure to radiation were indeed very slight, but not zero.

The total global dose commitment for each individual from all nuclear explosions carried out before 1976 ranges from about 100 mrad (in the gonads) to about 200 mrad (in the bone-lining cells). In the northern temperate zone the values are about 50 percent higher, and in the southern temperate zone about 50 percent lower than these estimates.

"Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation", UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, Report to the General Assembly, nos. 90-91, 1977.

Recent analysis of fallout data suggest that roughly eleven thousand excess thyroid cancer deaths in the United States may be attributed to aboveground nuclear tests.

All that said, I agree with you--there's no real danger associated with launching a cold uranium-fuelled nuclear reactor. Uranium fuel pellets are really relatively safe to handle. I suppose such a reactor could do some serious damage if it fell on someone's head....

Visit the Einstein Memorial in Washington, DC at the National Academy of Sciences. Not real easy to see from the road. Most people don't know it's there.

Stop by the Albert Einstein Memorial Statue and sit in his lap!

What, you mean old age?

Researchers are working on cures for heart disease, alzheimers, and cancer using stem cell techniques, which therapeutic cloning is an important component of, yes.

you mean starvation and malnutrition, right

There is more than enough food for everyone on the planet, the problem is a political one of distribution, not a technological one of production.

And if we didn't, well, either we'd have to stop having kids or this planet is going to get VERY crowded and very dead.

There is plenty of room for trillions of people in the solar system, there is no reason to turn away from longer & healthier lives to save space.

What, you mean old age?

Researchers are working on cures for heart disease, alzheimers, and cancer using stem cell techniques, which therapeutic cloning is an important component of, yes.

you mean starvation and malnutrition, right

There is more than enough food for everyone on the planet, the problem is a political one of distribution, not a technological one of production.

And if we didn't, well, either we'd have to stop having kids or this planet is going to get VERY crowded and very dead.

There is plenty of room for trillions of people in the solar system, there is no reason to turn away from longer & healthier lives to save space.

An excellent overview of minimum-gene-set research is here...

The minimum number of genes required for an organism to survive has been a topic of interest for several years. An excellent semi-technical overview of this effort was produced by The National Academy of Sciences...

Are you an assron or a mohole?

(What does Andrija Mohorovicic has to do with "mohole"? Well, read this).

For evidence try a report from the EPA, thisfrom a committee of the National Research Council which included "11 of the nation's top climate scientists, including seven members of the National Academy of Sciences", and a page written by a NASA scdientist.

Atomic clocks on ISS are a trivial test of relativity compared to Gravity Probe B, hopefully to be launched soon after DECADES of development. A one-pager "GPB for Dummies" is here. GPB tests not for alterations in time but another phenomenon known as "frame dragging" which has never been directly measured. There's been lots of criticism about GPB as being too ambitious, so there's been lots of independent reviews.

Refuting global warming
You provide evidence that global tropospheric temperatures are decreasing. However, these measurements are actually further evidence of global warming. If the greenhouse effect is trapping heat in the lower atmosphere, less heat makes it back into the upper atmosphere as measured by satellites. Check out this article from the NOAA, especially paragraph 3 (although the whole thing is pretty interesting). Also note the results of a NAS study that examines the data you referenced. They conclude that global surface warming is definitely real and that the satellite data does not invalidate these measurements.

Refuting importance of CO2 compared to H2O in global warming
Your source states that water vapor is a greenhouse gas and that it exists in much greater concentrations than CO2 in the atmosphere. Therefore, global warming should be closely related to an increase in atmospheric water vapor, with the effect of CO2 being negligible. However, if we grant that global surface temperatures are increasing, were are left wondering why atmospheric water vapor is increasing. This document from the WMO explains how CO2 emissions affect the climate by increasing the amount of water vapor in the air. Basically, the CO2 traps a bit of heat near the surface. The warmer air holds more water, and this additional water in turn leads to more warming. The "push" from the CO2 basically changes the planet's water distribution, with more water in the air and less elsewhere. You can consider the CO2 an indirect cause, but it definitely leads to warming. On a related note, here's an interesting article from NASA which suggests that an increasingly moist atmosphere may harm the ozone layer as well. Note the quote in paragraph 7.

Refuting rising sea levels
This article was by far the most entertaining source you provided. I love the part in paragraph 10 where Lord Bumpershoot (or whatever his name was) complains about convicts vandalizing his test equipment. According to your source, the sea level measurements in this area seem to be decreasing. However, consider the observations from the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite, which uses a radar altimeter to map global sea levels. There appears to be a clear upward trend of about 3 mm/year. Judging from the data, it's apparent that the global mean sea level is increasing.

On a final note, I noticed from your previous posts that you seem to be a Bush supporter. It looks like the Bush administration has reversed its position on the existence of global warming. I'm totally shocked. Are you? :)