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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.
In fairness it will only keep on not happening until the day it does happen.
AKA, it's not a matter of "if."
I'm sure this discussion will be flooded with global warming deniers, but if you actually read Dyson's opinions, he believes that global warming IS happening and we ARE to blame.
His only complaint with the science is that he feels that some of the computer models are fudged to make the results look worse than they might actually be.
Of course, his opinion on this seems utterly pointless to me. The man is a physicist, specializing in solid-state and quantum physics. He's no more qualified to analyze the science behind climate change than an electrical engineer is to build a bridge.
Funny, I found two results pretty quickly.
For a different search, how surprising. Not two mention to hits to somone's comments on Digg, don't count as an actual source for a quote of that nature. Looks like a bloody lie.
Actually this is quite a bit of the problem.
Let me give you an example. I have been living here in Europe since 1994. In the past five years here in Switzerland we have been getting Canadian seasons. Yes the summers are warmer as well, but the winters are colder and more snow.
The media hypes the summers because they are hotter, but does not hype on the winter. They say, "oh this can be expected and normal". That bothers me completely because anybody who researches climate knows Europe is being kept warm by the Atlantic conveyor. If the Atlantic conveyor turns around further south then as paradoxical as it sounds with increased global warming Europe gets colder! The UK had its first snowfall in October in 74 YEARS!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3278378/Snow-covers-parts-of-England-as-winter-weather-sets-in.html
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! The reason was the Atlantic conveyor. What was scary about this is that research has shown that the conveyor can shut down in a matter of a decade, but requires thousands upon thousands of years to restore itself.
I think it is happening! Though do you read about this in the media? NOOOOO because we all associate climate change with warming not change! It is much easier to sell deserts, no water, etc than people freezing their butts... Mentally we associate deserts = death, but cold as just being something we need to deal with...
Though look at the latitude of North Europe... It is freaken Labrador! Definitely not a place I want to live in... (due to its weather...)
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
This is what Kuhn was saying in the Structure of Scientific Revolution. Paradigms, as defined and used in the book, not in the modern sense corrupted by brain dead executives, are created by an elite group of scientists and these paradigms are mistaken for truth. It is a priori truth instead of a posteriori truth, but if we are actively searching for the ultimate nature of the divine, and not just the static representation, then truth is of no use.
History has shown that our static representations of the truth are always incomplete. In An Incomplete Guide to the Art of Discovery Oliver asserts that such incompleteness can be the basis of science. By finding the one verifiable phenomena that does not seem to fit perfectly, we can do science, either by showing an error in the measurement or interpretation of the phenomena or showing that the theory used to describe the phenomena is incomplete.
Which is to say we should really think about what we are talking about. For the most part when scientists argue about this stuff, they are fighting over old and new paradigms. It is often not about whether humans are impacting the climate, which is a conclusion, but often how we go about collecting data and developing the processes used to quantify those changes. Because the average person only cares about conclusions, they really don't see the subtle difference, and they just see a person who says that people they disagree are wrong. But it is not about right or wrong. It is not about really about whether the earth is 10,000 years old or 10,000,000,000. It is about whether we are being honest and developing ideas that reflect the observations we make, and not just what we are raised to believe.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
They keep propagating this nonsense with statements just like yours. "If I say it is so it is" is not fact it is vapor.
I am all for cleaning up the air and environment and have been for 30 years but this global warming nonsense is a huge power and wealth grab and nothing else.
"A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes â" all under the supervision of the world body."
I have some first-hand experience in the field of climate science.
I got tired of fighting with trolls on forums, because people somehow think that their gut feeling is better than real science.
The current warming trend is NOT a natural cycle, its parameters are all wrong.
FauxPasIII... once again, you prove how much closer the green movement is to religion than to science.
You basically have paraphrased "Pascal's Wager". Which is basically "If you believe in God and are wrong, you loose nothing (and maybe gain some things) -- but if you DO NOT believe in God and are incorrect, fire and pain, etc... Therefore being an atheist is illogical".
If you replace "God" with "Global Warming" and "atheist" with "global warming doubter"... got got your argument.
There are a couple reasons why Pascal's Wager (and by extension your argument) is incorrect. Let me answer your questions...
"if we follow the consensus and it turns out they're wrong, the consequences of that are what?"
- The lack of study on real issues, the lack of honest and directness can decay science as a whole. We could have global cooling, or some other major issue going on -- that we choose to overlook because of our obsession with follow a consensus rather than fact. I believe there are many dangers in this.
"We've dramatically cleaned up our environment,"
- Possible a real benefit
" achieved energy independence,"
- Maybe, with a massive investment in nuclear power, but I think if you look at the fundamentals of most of the other energy streams, you will be sadly disappointed. Look into how much energy it takes to MAKE a solar cell, look at how much energy it takes to TRANSMIT wind power... etc, etc.
"freed ourselves from the political constraints of fossil fuels"
- I assume this is a reference to 'no blood for oil' and similar chants. I will just gloss over it, as it is more politics.
"and massively bolstered our economy with a whole new class of green businesses." ... it isn't based on any facts.
- This isn't a fact, it isn't even a logical follow-on, this is hope. You "hope" a green economy will explode creating new jobs. Read some of the old clippings about nuclear power and you will do the time warp again! My point is, this is blind hope / faith -- like believing in a fancy place in the clouds waiting for you
"Explain again why you're so against this?"
- Because, I want science to be driven by truth... even when that truth is unpopular, even when that truth is frustrating, even when that truth goes AGAINST political causes. I want science to be unburdened by such things.
Not exactly news. Ray Bradbury said all sorts of horrible things about Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 911 and was a huge supporter of the Bush wars. Issac Newton believed in alchemy and conducted all sorts of pseudo-scientific experiments in nonsense. Edison spent the last years of his life working on a spook phone to talk to the dead. Orson Scott Card is a Mormon and says bad things about gay people. George Lucas went from Beloved Creator of Star Wars to the Beard, Defiler of the Films.
People start saying and believing stupid shit when they pass their prime. They'll also mistake specialist expertise in one field for generalist expertise in everything.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
1970's smog: Pollution laws changed car emissions drastically
1980's Ozone layer: Pollution laws got rid of CFCs
1990's Acid rain: Pollution laws put scrubbers in factory exaust pipes
2000's Global Warming? remains to be seen where this goes. Dyson seems to be a very bright guy, and he is doing good service to science by being skeptical. He's not denying the global warming issue outright, he's saying there is not enough data to conclude either way, and that he's doubtful.
The article states he was also against the Hubble telescope, arguing against the cost. There's no question that Hubble has advanced the science of astronomy greatly, it's his judgment that the money could have been spent on more important things, which is also his concern on expensive solutions to the global warming issue.
It doesn't mean that Dyson is standing up for the antienvironmentalists who don't want to be held responsible for their own actions.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
The last figure is from ice-core samples in Antarctica. And it's very misleading.
Look at the scale. One pixel on this diagram is about one _thousand_ years, and it takes tens of thousands of years for significant changes.
Yet we see MUCH more rapid changes. As in 100x more rapid than the changes on your graph.
The cycles on this graph are very well known, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles - they were first derived by purely mathematical methods.
PS: Do you REALLY think that all climate scientists are stupid idiots and/or parts of global conspiracy?
I scanned through and didn't see it mentioned anywhere, but has anyone else heard about this problem? The entire global warming problem is contingent on the concept that an increase in CO2 leads to higher temperatures, and this is based on the data compiled into the nice chart that Al Gore displays and comments, "They look like the belong together." Or something like that. The problem is that CO2 amounts don't precede the increase in temperature, they actually lag behind the temperature changes by about 800 years. This can be explained by the idea that as the world heats up, the oceans heat as well. As the oceans heat, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Of course this leaves the question, "Why does the planet heat up?" to be answered, and while the data is much more limited, there seems to be a very strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature. Has anyone else come across this line of research? Or have anything that builds on or refutes this?
IANACS, but I read the reason that the destruction and (after the Montreal Protocol) current rebuilding of the ozone layer is so fast, is because not much of the CFC's were needed to alter it: radiation split a halogen atom off of them, forming free radicals, and these reacted with the O3 forming oxygen and the same free radical again, ready to do the same reaction again (linky).
The greenhouse effect of CO2, on the other hand, is related to how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere (I think the bulk of the effect is due to how CO2 strongly absorbs infrared light, as discovered in 1896. So, the effect of the CO2 is not as strong and you need more of it (which we do in fact).
However, what I think is not really taken into account much yet is possible positive and negative feedback effects that might become more noticeable at higher CO2 concentrations.
Freeman Dyson mentioned a negative feedback effect: that trees would be happy to absorb more CO2 (esp. his idea of genetically engineered CO2 eating trees). This might be a good mitigating idea, especially combined with "bio-charring" them to put a bit of the sequestered carbon in the ground, out of the biological cycle.
<speculative_rant>
What worries me more is *positive* feedback effects. When the arctic cap melts, the sea underneath is probably darker than the white ice we have currently, so the albedo of the planet might change a little bit and reflect less of the sunlight. When or maybe if the methane clathrates at some places of the seabottom burp up and the Siberian permafrost melts, large amounts of methane get in the atmosphere, and they'd either add to the greenhouse effect (stronger than an equivalent amount of CO2) or if there's enough methane maybe they'd even burn, warming the tundra up even more (and who knows how long it takes to put that out, if a large area is on fire fueled by deposits of long-frozen rotten stuff; e.g. coal mine fires can last long)
</speculative_rant>
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?