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The Global Warming Heretic
theodp writes "In The Civil Heretic, the NYT Magazine takes a look at how world-renowned scientist Freeman Dyson wound up opposing those who care most about global warming. Since coming out of the closet on global warming, Dyson has found himself described as 'a pompous twit,' 'a blowhard,' and 'a mad scientist.' He argues that climate change has become an obsession for 'a worldwide secular religion' known as environmentalism. Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, calling him climate change's chief propagandist and accusing him of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models and promoting 'lousy science' that's distracting attention from more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet."
Dyson himself wrote about the need for heretics in science not long ago.
I dread the day we stop questioning ourselves
There's big money in pushing global warming, too.
Unfortunately, he also happens to be wrong. He is a lone voice who has never published or conducted any research in Climatology; it is not his field. Those who insult and demean Dyson because of his views engage in abhorrent rhetoric. But the fact that some crazy people engage in abusive conduct does not make Professor Dyson's scientific views on this issue correct. It simply means that some people are assholes.
I'm sorry. There is a strong sentiment among slashdotters that Global Warming is bunk. Which shows just how ignorant the population at slashdot really is (never mind the general public).
No, because 20 years ago Global Cooling was the buzzword :)
While I will wholeheartedly agree that there are dogmatic idiots on both sides of this issue. And while I have no personal experience or knowledge on how, what and why things happen the way they do; I feel that those supporting doing nothing and ignoring any potential problem related to global warming and increased pollution are sticking their heads in the sand.
This isn't just about Environmental Nutters (though there are plenty of those); it's about responsible use of our resources and how to dispose of any waste generated. Continually, and increasingly, dumping chemicals and pumping exhaust from cars and factories into the atmosphere is not a positive thing. Our planet is big, and the problems related to increased pollution builds up over time; but it is absolutely clear in my mind that we can't keep doing what we do; there are simply too many people on the planet for it to magically absorb and breakdown all our waste (especially at the level we now generate and discard it).
Basically my point is that investing and researching more energy efficient ways is a good thing. Cutting down on consumption, and perhaps thinking a bit more about the stability and continuity of our ecosystem is a good thing.
The Long Now Foundation
He hasn't lost his mind, it just ain't particullary rooted in reality. Never was.
His solution should CO2 become a problem? Plant trees.
Forest around the world are being cut down. Where would we plant not just the trees to replace the ones we had last year but the ones we need extra? He doesn't so much deny that CO2 is a potential problem but seems to think planting lots of trees is the answer without apparenly ever having thought about how we are supposed to do that. Great minds are like that, they can think about immense and complex things we can't fathom, but can't quite grasp that the world can't just turn farmland into forests.
"Bio-tech, he writes in his book, Infinite in All Directions (1988), offers us the chance to imitate natures speed and flexibility, and he imagines the furniture and art that people will grow for themselves, the pet dinosaurs they will grow for their children, along with an idiosyncratic menagerie of genetically engineered cousins of the carbon-eating tree: termites to consume derelict automobiles, a potato capable of flourishing on the dry red surfaces of Mars, a collision-avoiding car."
A potato that grown on Mars. How nice. And how do we get there einstein? This is the kind of stuff we read about 20 years ago that would be with us in 20 years. It is flying cars. As well all know, they don't exist and probably never will. Why? Because they are practical.
Enviromentalists like Al Gore have to be practical. They are dealing with the very real effects of ricing sea levels NOW because you can't just build higher dikes when they have been destroyed by a storm. That is for instance the problems in Holland right now. As a country we are more then rich enough to raise the dikes but we need to do it NOW when the danger is years or even decades away because it will take years and even decades to finish and worse, if the predictions are to conservative, then those higher dikes might be needed sooner rather then later. You can't just plant a lot of trees if Dyson is wrong in 30 years. By then it will be to late.
That is the real problem with the supposed climate change. Say we follow Al Gore and there turns out not to be a problem. We would have wasted lots of money. Say we don't follow Al Gore and he is right, then we are in deep shit and it is to late to do anything about it. That is roughly the left and the right. The left want to be save and pay insurance now. The right wants to keep their money and their childeren be damned.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It is one thing to oppose an idea because you dislike it or you distrust it. There is no shortage of people running around claiming global warming to be total FUD.
However, there is a distinct shortage of people who are actually able to provide DATA to support their opposition to it. There is a significant difference between saying "I don't agree with that data" and "I have this data set that shows that data set is wrong". Global warming, by definition, is based on the global mean temperature of the earth. Plenty of people try to go for statements like "it snowed in Atlanta, so global warming must be BS"; though of course a statement like that ignores the global aspect of global warming.
As I don't have a NY Times account, I could not read the article provided. Can anyone tell us, did he actually provide meaningful data, or is he just criticizing the existing data?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
...and human-caused, Dyson has far more credibility with me than Gore does.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Did you make the same argument the 20 years before that ?
No. The hysteria was not at profitable levels 10 years ago.
20 years ago was the hysteria over acid rain.
The world will go on, but humanity might not.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
consensus!=(science || scientific method)
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
[citation needed]
Don't quote wikipedia to prove a point. Quote what it quotes.
Your post above is an excellent example of the Appeal to Authority Fallacy.
Bolster our economy? Hardly. If we do the things many global warming proponents want, it will destroy our economy through insanely high taxes on current energy, likely resort in massive energy shortages (face it, solar / wind / hydro just don't produce the amount of power that coal / oil does), and cause technology to stagnate for who knows how long.
I always recycle, I drive a car that gets close to 40 mpg, don't waste electricity, etc but I'm not going to risk damning our society just because spreading fear is a great way to make money / gain political power and people realised that if they start shouting "the human race will die out / the planet will die if you don't do what we tell you to" that they'll have all the money and power they could ever imagine.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
In the seventies people were just begining to look at the problem. Also, back then aerosols emmitted by diesel engines and coal power plants were affecting climate change more than green house gases. People started to filter the particles when they realized that the particles tend to do things like cause cancer. Once the particles were blocked the earth started warming.
But anyway, what you are saying is that since the quick conclusion that people came up with when the study of climate change was in its infancy were wrong, all of the work and research that the worlds tops scientists did for the next 30+ years must also be wrong as well? I guess that argument makes sense if you don't think about it for more than 15 minutes.
ID isn't science, good or bad.
Why is a person who is aware of and opposed to the large-scale destructive effects and massive alterations we are having on Earth's ecosystems and climate called a "nutter" (translation for US audience: "Crazy wackjob")
whereas
someone who is either ignorant of these problems, incapable of comprehending them and rationally analyzing them, or willfully denying our negative environmental effects in order to selfishly further a comfortable but unethical and unsustainable lifestyle,
is presumeable called a normal sane member of society?
Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Yes, one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century - a greater scientist than Freeman Dyson if one counts Nobel Prizes - and for years he kept banging on about Vitamin C as a cure for cancer. At one time, he even put his wife through the treatment. Vitamin C as a cure for cancer is baloney. Pauling wasn't a nutritionist.
If you dab your toe in a field outside your expertise, you're liable to get it bitten off. I wouldn't take the advice of a Doctor of medicine on writing PERL.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
I wish I had mod points to mod you up. I don't. So instead I'll quote this guy:
I was simply pointing out that if you want to make a scientific point you can't use a consensus argument. Its a political one. There comes a time when the discussion dose become political, and then perhaps a consensus is relevant. But it is still not a scientific argument.
My bone to pick with the whole thing is that its *only* political now. Even when discussing with fellow scientists. Which is a shame really.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
I remember a report in National Geographic about 5 years ago, and documentaries on TV that said Europe with increased global warming would become cold!
We are having the same kind of weather and explanations for it here in America as well.
It goes like this:
When it's hot, it's because of global warming. When it's cold, it's because of global warming.
Let me tell you something that is 100% FACT! The climate is going to change. It always has, and it always will. No matter what happens, there will be people who ignore the fact that the climate has changed since the Earth began to cool and blame whatever changes they see now on the activities of man. It's the height of arrogance!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I can make the argument for you. In 1988 when the global warming alarmism started moving along, it parralelled a push to forgive the third world debt that was largely caused by the oil crisis in the 1970's when OPEC decided to halt sales to the US over it's support for Israel who just kicked their asses.
Anyways, to stay on topic, in 1992, the global warming issue had been hijacked by the third world debt issues and the product of this can be seen by 1994 with the first attempts to draft the Kyoto accords. Of course this was all highly secretive and the US attempted to assemble and international climate panel to prove that global warming was the cause of man (more specifically, first world industrialized nations). The movement to forgive the third world debt started disapearing as the Kyoto accords started nearing release. In 1998 it had almost completely evaporated but by then, they had most of europe convinced it needed to sign on to Kyoto.
Now when we examine Kyoto we find several things. Of the 157 some countries that have signed on to it, only 36-37 (if you count the US) have caps on their Co2 production and a few of those caps were placed at rated higher then they were currently emitting. The numbers I posted may be off by a couple because I'm rambling from memory but they accurately represent the differences and anyone wanting to look can find it easily. Anyways, of the 37 or so countries, they placed limits to 1990 levels of Co2 production but claimed that all man made Co2 was in excess of the natural cycles and causing global warming. Now you can look at this and see right now that the goal of the Kyoto protocol wasn't necessarily to stop global warming because it only addressed a portion of the Co2 coming from some of the richest nations. The same nations BTW that owned the third world debt.
But is gets worse. Knowing, and yes, we have years of data to back this up but knowing that the population generally increases (*with the exception of Germany which is almost a negative population growth rate) you can see that it would be almost impossible to go back 10 years in carbon production while the needs of the people are constantly increasing. If you cut 10 people's carbon footprint by 30% over 20 years and during that 20 years, 3 more people are added to the group, their 70% contribution negates all savings from the 30%reduction. So there was a trigger built in to Kyoto that allowed member nations to offset their Co2 production by buying Carbon credits from the third world nations or to invest into those third world nations by moving industry there. This creates a revenue base that allows the third world nations to pay off their debt but it totally ignores the issue of Co2 production being bad for the environment. In short, it says if the rich industrialized nations want to stay comfortable, they have to pay more and invest in the poorer third world countries. Currently, most of Europe has chosen to use Chine and India to outsource their pollution and help meet their goals and it can be seen by their increased pollution emissions. China has or is about to pass the US in emissions and they have no caps whatsoever at all. The remaining 130 some countries who have started becoming major polluters too, are in line for this type of boost.
So even if global warming is real and it is the threat that it has been claimed, the political solutions have been hijacked from the start for reasons of money. And those reasons are huge. The sums of money involved are well above any oil companies profits or savings you will see from traditional energy compared to the more expensive alternative sources.
People have moved past that redistribution of wealth, greed has kicked in, and you have people like Al Gore selling carbon offsets to himself or people with the potential to make billions from outdated technology (yes, solar was invented in the 1800's, failed to be practical or cost effective in the 50's,60's,70's and 80's, Wind was actually replaced by coal in the 1920's though the 1950's) if they can
> Don't forget the Ozone layer.
Because of early warnings, we were able to halt the destruction of the ozone layer.
> We were all supposed to be long dead from skin cancer by now.
For some people in Australia, this is still true.
> 1970's Smog
People being killed annually by smog are counted by the thousands.
> I wonder why I no longer buy it.
Because you're an idiot?
Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!
Freeman Dyson is neither. Bjorn Lomborg is neither. You shouldn't judge them by the company they keep.
Don't forget the Ozone layer. We were all supposed to be long dead from skin cancer by now.
That makes as much sense as saying "Don't forget about leaded gasoline! We were all supposed to be dead from its emissions by now!"
What an amazing world we live in where:
1) Experts predict disaster if a problem is ignored.
2) Problem is solved rather than ignored.
3) Disaster is averted.
4) Mentally challenged "skeptics" believe the problem never existed in the first place.
I bet you think there was nothing to Y2K either, do you? Or think nothing has changed vis-a-vis smog since the 70s? Or that acid rain isn't a problem?
Hmmm. I wonder why I no longer buy it.
Because you have chosen to do so, and have quite effectively shielded yourself from seeing why you came to the exactly wrong conclusion.
The enemies of Democracy are
The funny thing is that all of the issues you mention are actually worse today.
If you want to see smog, just take a look at all the people who have to wear breathing apparatus in many cities in the Far East. Ozone Layer? Look at the skin cancer rates in Australia. Acid Rain? Check the amount of aluminum in the drinking water in Toronto.
If there hadn't been efforts to combat those first three that started in earnest in the late 70's, there'd probably be three dead Great Lakes.
I'm surprised how many people believe that there is huge money in climate science. They hear about the billions that are being spent by the energy industry to try to convince people there's no harm in burning coal, petroleum and the hundreds of thousands that an environmental reasearcher could possibly receive in a grant and they think: "oh, it's the same thing". Dumb fucks.
It's about 2pm here in Chicago, and I've already read 8 comments from people with UIDs below 999999 who don't seem to know the difference between weather and climate.
You are welcome on my lawn.
He's not a climatologist. He has never done research on global warming. He has absolutely no data of his own. He is not an expert in this field. There is no reason, whatsoever, to listen to his opinions.
You might as well have your car mechanic perform surgery on you. After all, he's a professional, right? Therefore he must be qualified!
If your car mechanic tells you that you need to pay $790 to replace your gizrogyronmeter before you car implodes- when you brought the car in for an oil change- you don't have to be a mechanic to figure out you're being bullshitted and he probably has something else besides your best interests in mind.
If your surgeon is trying to sell you a $32,000 surgery on your feet because of hyspotoxiomosis of the anterior legamoid deltamint, and you came in for a mole removal, you don't have to be a PHD to see he just wants to fund his next vacation.
The fact is that AGW advocates demand 'solutions' involving control and expenditures that are entirely out of whack with their established credibility and perceived integrity.
Claiming "you can't understand it, it's too complex" in the face of the legitimate questions about the intent, integrity, and aims of Global Warming's high priests and salesmen is an evasion of the issue.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
The problem with that example is that clearly, most of those that are "experts" in economics are also so ignorant of economics that it is laughable.
Because the scientific method is universal? Because the ability to methodically apply reasoned skepticism is not the privileged domain of hermetic specialists?
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Free-market advocates don't claim that "the economy" will fix itself. What they point out is that each individual, in response to a recession, begins to change his or her economic behavior: this includes investors, business owners, managers, skilled workers, unskilled workers, and individuals spending their money on consumer goods. In this way, people, working individually, redirect their economic activity away from bad investments to good investments. In each case, the actions of each exist within a larger context: namely, the actions of other individuals. This context coordinates economic activity; and as each individual seeks gains rather than losses, the end result will be a reorganization of economic activity that will end the recession.
In other words, the economy doesn't fix itself; the individuals, each working within their own sphere, fix the economy. This activity will still attempt go on whether the government does anything or not. What free-market advocates argue is that government can only hinder this activity and, in doing so, the recovery.
So, yes, unless government manages to completely destroy the economy, when things start improving, free-market advocates will claim that the recovery would have happened anyway; and it is completely consistent with their understanding of economics to do so. It will not have been government that fixed the economy, but those elements of the free-market that remained unhampered by government.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
"However, a climate scientists doesn't need to be a stupid idiot in order to be wrong. Much of what we were taught in school concerning fundamentals of physics were "wrong" (e.g. 4 phases of matter; 3 spatial dimensions + 1 temporal dimension; proton is the smallest fundamental particle, etc)."
And guess what, they taught you RIGHT. Because all these facts are quite true, they just do not hold at some extreme conditions. In other words, all our theories are incomplete.
But good theories have predictive power within their domain. This is quite true about 3 stages of matter in 'common' life, for example.
"I personally don't care if it's true or not. If you really believe it, then there are solutions to solving it that don't require control of others. Let's go nuclear. Let's seed the oceans with iron (which also has the added side effect of increasing fish populations). Let's put up the solar shades. Let's move the earth to a wider orbit. Let's sequester the CO2 on Mars."
Let's ask a wood fairy to fix all that's wrong...
I was there in the 70s, and I remember Global Cooling as well. The revisionist claims that there was no such panic are part of my reason for being extremely distrustful of the global warming cabal..err, "consensus".
I've read a number of "I was there! I remember the panic!" posts over the years on slashdot, and yet I've still never seen any of them who were able to point to any significant body of actual scientific research that supports it. Media distortion of scientific research is easy to find. Can you point to actual scientists (preferably peer-reviewed) who were suggesting this was a serious danger?
Since the claim is evidently that there was a "panic" about the whole thing, realistically to support it you'd need a fairly broad citation list, at least several papers (or a couple papers that cite several others)... but I'd be interested to see if there was more than one, or even one paper, that both (1) shows evidence that global temperatures are cooling, and (2) makes any kind of prediction that this trend will continue in such a way as to pose a serious danger (not necessarily an absolute doomsday prediction, a serious suggestion would suffice, but it should be a serious suggestion and not just "we should probably study this some more to see if..." -- otherwise it in no way compares to the level of widespread confidence among climatologists today on global warming).
Pointing to old media articles is not a substitute for this kind of evidence, nor is "I was there and I remember" good enough unless there is some additional evidence that what you "remember" is scientific consensus and not media alarmism.
I am the man with no sig!
No. Deregulation is what we need more of. What we need less of -- in fact, none of -- is government favoring some businesses (notably, huge quasi-governmental businesses) over others, and government fiddling with the money supply by promoting so-called "easy money" policies.
We're in this mess because government created two huge entities, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac, subsidized them with all kinds of tax breaks and anti-competitive advantages, fueled them with tons of inflationary credit, and then encouraged irresponsibility and certain, eventual loss by directing them to make bad loans to people with poor credit, all the while winking to investors all over the world that they never need worry about these banks failing because the US government would write any checks necessary to keep them solvent.
This was the beginning of the speculation in housing, which led to the secondary speculation in mortgage instruments. What hurt was not deregulation, but government favoritism and a policy of socializing losses.
Pro-capitalist is not the same as "pro-business," when pro-business has come to mean Washington gets in bed with big business and writes laws to favor their buddies. That's cronyism. Capitalism means government stays out of the economy completely.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The fact that climate change now has a great deal of non-scientists talking and writing about it basically means the following have been invoked:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. —Clarke's first law
When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion—the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right. —Asimov's corollary to Clarke's first law
Basically, this means that as more of the general public state that global warming is fact, it is more likely that the scientists who state that more study is needed are actually correct.