Debunking a Climate-Change Skeptic

DJRumpy writes "The Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg won fame and fans by arguing that many of the alarms sounded by environmental activists and scientists — that species are going extinct at a dangerous rate, that forests are disappearing, that climate change could be catastrophic — are bogus. A big reason Lomborg was taken seriously is that both of his books, The Skeptical Environmentalist (in 2001) and Cool It (in 2007), have extensive references, giving a seemingly authoritative source for every one of his controversial assertions. So in a display of altruistic masochism that we should all be grateful for (just as we're grateful that some people are willing to be dairy farmers), author Howard Friel has checked every single citation in Cool It. The result is The Lomborg Deception, which is being published by Yale University Press next month. It reveals that Lomborg's work is 'a mirage,' writes biologist Thomas Lovejoy in the foreword. '[I]t is a house of cards. Friel has used real scholarship to reveal the flimsy nature' of Lomborg's work."

Comments

Absence of Evidence

[iluvcapra]

This is, of course, not evidence that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, but that public critics of ACC feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point, since newspapers "report the controversy" instead of doing their own independent work, and most climate change deniers are happy to adopt any useful argument.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

This is, of course, not evidence that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, but that public critics of ACC feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

You know he was WRONG? Based on what?

Maybe Lomborg was wrong, but you didn't read or research Friel's work, you're just assuming it's correct, which is precisely what the AGW folks are complaining about in regard to Lomborg's work.

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Even if Lomborg was dishonest -- and you have no evidence of that -- the AGW side has been dishonest too, so by your own argument, anyone else could say, "grant-receiving scentists pushing AGW feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point."

Re:Absence of Evidence

[mevets]

Damn right! There is a huge lack of respect for the amount of money and effort the petroleum industry has put into setting the story straight. Listen people, there is no story here, go back to burning everything you can lay your hands on, and we'll tell you if there is a problem.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[iluvcapra]

Even if Lomborg was dishonest -- and you have no evidence of that -- the AGW side has been dishonest too, so by your own argument, anyone else could say, "grant-receiving scentists pushing AGW feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point."

Here we speak of Lomborg, and you immediately begin talking about un-cited "other people" who somehow make Lomborg's mistakes disappear in a puff of equivalency.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sonicmerlin]

This is, of course, not evidence that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, but that public critics of ACC feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

You know he was WRONG? Based on what?

Maybe Lomborg was wrong, but you didn't read or research Friel's work, you're just assuming it's correct, which is precisely what the AGW folks are complaining about in regard to Lomborg's work.

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Even if Lomborg was dishonest -- and you have no evidence of that -- the AGW side has been dishonest too, so by your own argument, anyone else could say, "grant-receiving scentists pushing AGW feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point."

So what you're saying is you're not going to read Yale's research that proves Lomborg was wrong, but you will make completely uncited and unfounded accusations that there's "hard proof" the IPCC was wrong. Brilliant. Why does America house so many nutjobs?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[iluvcapra]

You'd have done much better to link to Lomborg's response, than going off on your speculative aura.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[NeutronCowboy]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species.

And yes, I read his crap. It was a massive disappointment, and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was either ignorant beyond belief, or dishonest.

So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.

Feel free to argue otherwise, but to be credible, you're going to have to demonstrate that every single paper arguing for AGW is dishonest. Go ahead.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[TapeCutter]

"You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?"

And I suppose you can point to this HARD PROOF, right?

Anyone with any idea about climate science has known for years that Lomborg's work is an exercise in propoganda. The literary term for the style of writing in his book is called false document, it's the same style used in other fictional works such as "State of Fear" and "The DaVinci Code".

I find it ironic that self proclaimed skeptics consistently fail to spot obvious propoganda even when it is repeatedly pointed out to them.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Ethanol-fueled]

This is reason enough to believe that "climate change" is bullshit. Just like "saving the gay whales" was the issue du jour of the nineties.

I would like to tell you how I like to wipe my ass, but the method is Classified National Security Information. Now hand over your civil liberties, it's snowing again.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[UnknowingFool]

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Out of thousands of independent studies done by thousands of scientists that generally lead to the conclusion that climate change is happening and man is most likely the cause, you would ignore all of that because a few scientists might have been dishonest. Yet you would believe one man who has now been shown that there is some issues with his work. If you are truly skeptical you should throw his work too. That still leads to many, many more scientists who have hard data that climate change is happening.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[JordanL]

One of the things that REALLY bugs me about climate research is seeing LEGITIMATE scientists use the word "SKEPTIC" as a SMEAR.

Scientists are SUPPOSED to be skeptic, and I understand that this is not what the phrase is meant to convey, but the mere idea of labeling a scientists "skeptic" to smear him shows how political scientists in general have become. Remember when they were all about the pursuit of truth and knowledge?

I guess it sounds better than "denier", (which sounds like some McCarthy-era witch-hunt-ism), but why can't scientists keep their professionalism in situations which become politicized?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Capsaicin]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

We are discussing a scholarly work which has shown Loborg's work to be dishonest. Assuming even that this scholarly work is correct "This is, of course, not evidence that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, but that public critics of ACC feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point."

you didn't read or research Friel's work, you're just assuming it's correct

None of us have, have we? So we necessarily need to work on a (rebuttable) presumption.

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Well I for one don't, and I've been following the issue with some interest. Nothing in the selection of emails stolen from CRU could reasonably said to constitute HARD PROOF.

The much more serious issue of including grey literature (regarding Himalayan glaciers) without the requisite warning in the WG2 report comes closest in my mind. But you cannot mean that by "scientists being dishonest in their research." Nonetheless it should, IMO, prompted the resignation of the chair of that working group at least, after all we should be entitled to rely on the IPCC reports as authoritative and even an occasional slip like that needs to be seriously addressed.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Arker]

A CD that was produced in response to a FOIA request which was ultimately denied after a court battle was nonetheless leaked. It is on wikileaks last I checked. Plenty of proof of professional misconduct there, including source code.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[MrNaz]

"Why does America house so many nutjobs?"

Because it produces so many and issues so few passports.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Out of *thousands of *independent studies done by *thousands of *scientists that generally lead to the conclusion that climate change is *happening and man is most likely the cause, you would ignore all of that because a few scientists might have been dishonest. Yet you would believe one man who has now been shown that there is some issues with his work. If you are truly skeptical you should throw his work too. That still leads to many, many more *scientists who have *hard data that climate change is happening.

*cititaion needed otherwise it's just hyperbole

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's a smear only in a very specific context: Lomborg and his ilk are, unfortunately, often identified as "skeptics" in the press. They're no such thing, of course -- "denier" or "denialist" is much more accurate* -- but when you have a bunch of people spouting pseudoscientific garbage who are handed the "skeptic" label as a gift, it's inevitable that those who point out the garbage will appear to be "smearing skeptics." The only answer appears to be to point out as often as possible that they aren't skeptics by any reasonable definition of the word. There is simply no amount of evidence that will ever or could ever convince them. Their ideology trumps any data in their minds.

And not only is this the way they think, they assume that everyone else thinks that way too; thus the constant accusations of quasi-religion ("warmism") leveled against people who actually study the data and try to figure out what's happening to the environment. Arguing with denialists is closely akin to arguing with religious fundamentalists. Anything that is not of (their interpretation of) God must perforce be of the Devil. They just can't acknowledge that there are other worldviews that don't fit into their box.

*Since "denier" is often prefaced with a word beginning with "H," those who get called "deniers" often take refuge behind Godwin. "Denialist" works nicely, and in fact may be the most accurate term since it describes an ideology rather than just an action.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we speak of Lomborg, and you immediately begin talking about un-cited "other people" who somehow make Lomborg's mistakes disappear in a puff of equivalency.

What is sauce for the goose...

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the things that REALLY bugs me about climate research is seeing LEGITIMATE scientists use the word "SKEPTIC" as a SMEAR.

I agree, which is why I think we should never use the word 'skeptic' to refer to denialists.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[TapeCutter]

Sigh...I asked for the alleged "hard proof" and all I get is more hearsay and inuendo. Source code has as much to do with science as Newton's quill.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Arker]

Not at all. Source code shows precisely how calculations were carried out.

When you have an algorithm, for instance, that produces the 'hockey stick' even when fed random numbers, that is positive proof that the numbers have been cooked - manipulated in order to produce the predetermined outcome. That isnt science.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of thousands of independent studies done by thousands of scientists that generally lead to the conclusion that climate change is happening and man is most likely the cause, you would ignore all of that because a few scientists might have been dishonest.

Based on what a few of my conservative friends have said, yes, that's exactly what they want to do. Some of the data is suspect, so (in their minds) it must all be thrown out and all research repeated.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

It is on wikileaks last I checked. Plenty of proof of professional misconduct there, including source code.

No need for wikileaks. The source code that is used on the published models is all in the public domain. Given sufficient computing power you can download and run it yourself. No professional misconduct there.

Some unpublished code replete with bugs was revealed by the theft of emails from CRU. Two things: 1) It was never used for any science in publication; 2) Software bugs are not the moral equivalent of dishonesty.

If you could now tell us why you are so strongly motivated to deny science that you grasp at straws and believe obvious falsehoods such as the one you've just sprouted, maybe we can help you?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[TapeCutter]

"One of the things that REALLY bugs me about climate research is seeing LEGITIMATE scientists use the word "SKEPTIC" as a SMEAR.

Absence of evidence is an ironic title for this bald assertion, no?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Capsaicin]

When you have an algorithm, for instance, that produces the 'hockey stick' even when fed random numbers, that is positive proof that the numbers have been cooked - manipulated in order to produce the predetermined outcome.

Yes but we don't have such algorithms do we? Instead we have models such as GISS-E which you can download and run on your *nix box at home.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[khayman80]

I tend to use the word skeptic (as a gift, for precisely the reasons you say) because I'm tired of dealing with the anger that I often find in the general public. It's an undeserved compliment I give them to avoid headaches, but I think you and the gp are right that this tactic smears the word "skeptic" which (if genuine, of course) is a very good word. I think the word "contrarian" might be better at averting a Godwin defense, and it captures the general attitude I've seen pretty well.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[khayman80]

Why does America house so many nutjobs?

One of the new postdocs in my lab is from the Czech Republic. He says that everything's more advanced in America, including the idiots.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not, nor has it ever been that lunatics with their hand out the window yelling, "it feels fine!" are shouted down or ignored. The problem is that over the past 20 years the understanding has evolved that there is a "correct" result, and anyone working to disprove that result is an enemy to be scrutinized, tied to suspicious parties and ostracized.

By contrast, there are respected scientists in every other field attempting to disprove established theories, and should their work pan out, they would publish without fear of immediate rejection by their peers.

It is the nature of scientific theory that it is tested and attacked. That is why we value a theory limke evolution, which has survived these constat attempts to disprove or reduce its scope for a very long time.

Of what value is a body of theory that can only be confirmed, but which brooks no attempt to disprove?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Capsaicin]

*cititaion [sic] needed otherwise it's just hyperbole

For what, thousands of specialist scientists? Too easy! See Annex II and start counting ...

Re:Absence of Evidence

[h4rm0ny]

There are fortunes being made from the AGW proponents also. The head of the CRC (that group that fudged their data) has made a personal fortune from it and I can tell you that in Universities across the land, academics from every quarter have been jamming AGW elements into their work to claw in grant money. If you are saying that financial interest undermines respect for an argument, then you'd better take a look at both sides. Meanwhile skeptics will continue to sit in the middle saying: "show me".

Re:Absence of Evidence

[drmerope]

There you go again. Conflating "climate change" with whether man is the most likely cause. Its really rather rich. The prime highlight of the IPCCs AR3 was to "forget" the existence of climate change prior to the 19th century. Natural variation over the past thousand years was reduced to quiet gradual downtrend with an abrupt surge upward in the 1800s. In so doing they discarded thousands of studies and work of thousands who previously carefully documented periods of great warming and cooling throughout the history of man.

This can be seen clearly by comparing the IPCC-1990 report, which concisely shows the consensus of an old guard (now largely dead). A very warm, much warmer period during the middle ages (shown in read). The IPCC AR3 and AR4 replaced this with the blue curve. Shown a flat-changeless temperature history with a slight downtrend, suddenly accelerating upward.

But their claim was bespectacled from the start by way of special pleading they had explained away each interruption in warming that occurred during the 20th century, but then after the report was published, yet another unexpected cooling period emerged.

Suddenly the meme switched from being about "Global Warming" to being "Climate Change". The focus shifted from temperatures to sea-levels and hurricanes. Yet this turned out to be an even more tenuous footing. Its already no longer considered reputable among intellectual circles to discuss such extravagances. Eventually the talking point was settled upon: weather is not climate. The recent cooling is just weather.

Indeed, weather is not climate. Climate is the expectation of weather--and so yes, it surely does matter when year after year goes by somewhat cooler than had been predicted by the IPCCs latest report.

Meanwhile, the very people who had steadfastly refused to deny climate-change are now labeled the climate change deniers. This stemmed from an Orwellian campaign to redefine terminology. Suddenly believing in climate-change meant believing in anthropogenic climate change. The language literally twisted to be an embodiment of the "one true belief"--no need for that pesky modifier anthropogenic, and all the better to co-opt what everyone knows: climate changes.

Several very cogent critiques of the AR3 temperature series have been published which eviscerated that graph as a product of flawed statistical methods and bad data. Yet a loud cadre continues to deny any problem exists, and banks on the lack of specialized knowledge among the public and other scientists to trade on their word alone.

And, no, we're saying that there is no contribution from Man. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its effect on temperature depends on poorly understood feedback effects. These effects are in part also responsible for the long history of natural temperature variation that the IPCC otherwise ignores. Ultimately, what it comes down to is this: The IPCC claims a temperature rise of 2C/century. To arrive at this number they assume almost all strong feedbacks are amplifying rather moderating the C02 driven warming. Why does this matter? Much of the impetus for "ACTION NOW!" stems from the notion of a climate tipping point, but if the feedback effects are more moderating than the IPCC claims, this is highly unlikely.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[WegianWarrior]

Going on a tangent, but it just occured to me how so many of the climate change deniers arguments echoes those of creationists. It would be interesting to know what the overlap between the two groups are - they certainly seems to share more than a few traits IMNSHO

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Boronx]

What are you talking about? Climate theory is so primitive right now that it's "disproved" all the time. If climatology were mechanics, we'd be at the "Big rock hurt more than little rock" stage.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[linhares]

Who the hell modded that "funny"? It's either "informative" or "insightful".

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands of independent studies ???
Cite them you ignorant LIB.

Here is a cite:

"100+ scientists call Obama out on his AGW alarmism"
http://agw-heretic.blogspot.com/2009/03/cato-institute-has-published-full-page.html

You putz.

Re: Absence of Evidence

[Black Parrot]

By contrast, there are respected scientists in every other field attempting to disprove established theories, and should their work pan out, they would publish without fear of immediate rejection by their peers.

Assuming their publications applied sound logic to sound evidence. Otherwise they'd be scorned just like other pseudoscientists are.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[tiamatfan]

Parent deserves to be modded-up. It's clearest argument I've read yet on this thread, and it's marked troll presently.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Purist]

That's not true. There is a HUGE hole in the ozone layer, and if you deny it you're a REPUBLICAN! Republicans are BAD PEOPLE...this has been irrefutably proven. I rest my case.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Kanel]

I've met plenty of researchers and engineers in the oil industry and I've read and heard more oil industry upper management than what's healthy. I can assure you that their opinions on climate change are roughly the same as that of the general population. Most of them believe humans are playing a major role.

Some vocal US companies and persons excepted ofcourse. When viewed from a global vantage point, the US is the odd one out in many regards. Oil-people outside the US didn't even like George W. Bush!

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Evtim]

Yep! My observation as another east European making it in the West is "The West is the best! They do everything better here - from pencils and cars to wars and brainwashing "

After all the Communist were A) much less advanced technologically, so most of the spying was from humans to other humans (bad but avoidable if you are careful) and B) much less wise and knowledgeable in sociology and anthropology to able to concoct saleable bullshit ideology. Hell, this guy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays - came to America, the land of opportunity, not to Russia! If you are looking for an arch-devil look no further....

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DiamondGeezer]

Its interesting to note that AGW believers mimic creationists even to the extent of believing that climate was ever stable, that it was destabilized through the sin of Man eating from the Tree of Knowledge called the Industrial Revolution, that the ensuing mess can only be reversed through reverting to enforced poverty and a return to antedeluvian beliefs, that the penalty for not doing so is Apocalypse and the destruction of the Earth, that anyone who does not believe the message of salvation through self-denial is an apostate who is a representative of an evil conspiracy and in Denial of the Truth.

Neo-creationism by any other name.

It's a perfect remapping of Christian Apocalyptic beliefs.

And that would be you.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the arguments are often logically unsound. And, worse, are repeated ad nauseam as though it is unassailable despite being repeatedly assailed.

Like most people, I imagine scientists are just as susceptible to frustration and irritation over being asked to comment on and deal with the same stupid crap over and over. From there, the obvious step is to either work to exclude the opponents entirely or give up and change careers.

The unfortunate casualty here is that there may actually be good counter research being performed but the results are being buried in the tidal wave of bullshit before any attention can fall on it.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it isn't true. Getting a passport is easy.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[timmarhy]

what crack are you smoking. i've never seen any over lap between creationist and AGW skeptics. i demand you show me some evidence of this.

just like you attempted slur of calling skeptics "deniers", all you seem to be capable of is attempts at lumping AGW skeptics in with less desirable groups, as if it makes your narrow view of the world make more sense.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[timmarhy]

no it's not thousands. where did you come up with this number? it's a handful of research centers at best. feel free to prove me wrong with a list of 1000 names though.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

The head of the CRC (that group that fudged their data) has made a personal fortune from it

1. Perhaps you mean CRU (The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit)?
2. Where do you find evidence that they "fudged their data"?
3. Where do you get the idea that Phil Jones (assuming that's who you're talking about) "has made a personal fortune" from being an "AGW proponent" (or anything else - hint: UK universities don't pay enough for people to make personal fortunes)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DiamondGeezer]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species.

Citation please.

And yes, I read his crap. It was a massive disappointment, and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was either ignorant beyond belief, or dishonest.

So a blanket condemnation based on a single unsourced reference.

So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.

Here we get to the rub. You dismiss Lomberg based on a selective quotation of a supposed mistake and then bend over backwards to excuse data manipulation, censorship and interference in peer review, and other forms of scientific misconduct.

Not human and petty - just dishonest.

No-one has ever claimed that EVERY researcher has faked his research. But the ones which are supposed to establish that there is a climate crisis? Very, very dubious indeed.

Feel free to argue otherwise, but to be credible, you're going to have to demonstrate that every single paper arguing for AGW is dishonest. Go ahead.

Why should we, when you argue that every single quote from Bjorn Lomberg is dishonest and 'crap'.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DiamondGeezer]

It's touching how you dance around the hard facts of the code to quote something completely irrelevant. And more than a little sad.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Dobeln]

"Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species."

The horror! "not applicable to the problem and aggregated over different collection methods" (in someones opinion)! This man should obviously be read of out polite society!

"So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research."

Thats not the point - if secrecy, intolerance, conspiracy against dissenters and sheer dishonesty and sloppiness is frequent at the top levels of a discipline, then there is hardly any need for blanket deception for the results coming out of it to be unreliable. Especially when the discipline is largely concerned with the prediction of the distant future.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DiamondGeezer]

Well I for one don't, and I've been following the issue with some interest. Nothing in the selection of emails stolen from CRU could reasonably said to constitute HARD PROOF. No of course not. Especially when you had your eyes tightly shut when you read them.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DiamondGeezer]

Your tin foil hat is slipping. Better add more tin foil.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[daveime]

Please try to get your terminology correct, saves you looking quite so stupid.

I don't think anyone *denies* that climate is changing. What the skeptics think is that the "A" part of AGW does not apply, i.e. is is NOT caused primarily by man.

It has been demonstrated time and time again that in the past the earth was also hotter and contained more carbon dioxide. Who caused that, the bloody dinosaurs ?

Conversely, it has NOT been demonstrated that increased carbon dioxide OR rise in temperature will necessarily be bad for civilization as a whole. Sure, some low lying areas might get flooded, but then again, the Sahara Desert might be green again as it once was.

Are we really going to base billions of dollars in carbon credits, taxes and other bullshit schemes on the basis of "I don't want to move house" ?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Lomborg is most famous for his thought provoking ideas about where we can get most for the money.
It is his provocations that make people stop and think outside the box. I think he does that great, and have somebody open their eyes and look in other directions.

As for global warming, around 280 degrees celcius of it is coming from the sun. If it changes output by 1%, it influences global temperature by 2.8 degrees C.

Personally, I think that mankind has less influence on global warming than we think. We have had big fires, vulcano eruptions etc over the last millions of years. These things means more. And then we have the Sun as the big heat source.

But, I think we should stop polluting the air with particles from gas, diesel, coal and burning of tree. No matter if it influences the global temperature or not, it influences the health of Homo Sapiens.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DiamondGeezer]

Yes, denialist works just as well as a smear, especially if you want to invoke Holocaust denial, but are just to cowardly to come out and say it. Like another jerk just replied to, there's no amount of evidence that will contradict an unreasonable argument.

Yes I'm a denier of the coming Apocalypse.

You may quote me at my trial for Climate Catastrophe Denial.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[indiechild]

It's the Jungian shadow. Where there is great light, there is great darkness.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[daveime]

... and when you've finished counting, subtract all the scientists who asked for their names to be removed due to being misquoted in the summaries and conclusions (written by politicians and influenced by news reports and other media), but that the IPCC chose to include anyway.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

Its interesting to note that AGW believers mimic creationists even to the extent of believing that climate was ever stable,

The man of straw returns.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Cassius Corodes]

Is google down for some people?

I don't think anyone *denies* that climate is changing.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22climate+change+is+a+lie%22

is is NOT caused primarily by man.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=is+climate+change+caused+by+man

in the past the earth was also hotter and contained more carbon dioxide. Who caused that

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=did+earth+have+higher+co2+levels+and+what+cause

And so on...

Turns out you have to actually search for it as it evidence doesn't just appear in your hand. But I assure you its not really that hard. This took me a minute.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

Nobody claimed it was hard. The claim is that most people don't bother. I have no idea whether it's true.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the new postdocs in my lab is from the Czech Republic. He says that everything's more advanced in America, including the idiots.

Hahahaha!

While funny, whenever I hear comments like that, I can't help but remember two personal experiences of just how "advanced" America is:

The first was a cashier at a grocery store in (suburban) Detroit telling us that Australia was 20 years behind the US, while standing behind a sign proudly proclaiming "We now have electronic payment at the register!". At that particular point in time, every grocery store in Australia had had electronic payment for something like 16 years - I've never paid cash for groceries in my adult life, and few people in Oz have chequebooks, due to government taxes on them.

The second was actually on a tour boat on the Thames (that in London, England, for the geographically-challenged). A young American tourist was excitedly describing this wonderful new technology, where they have these stripey squares on stuff, and you just wave it over a light, and the price comes up automatically on the register! Again, this was several decades after barcodes were in common use in Australia. To be completely fair, I should also mention that the tourist's friends were amazed that he didn't know about barcodes already...

My point is, that while there is some amazing technology coming out of the US of A, there are also many, many parts of it that are still living in the 70s & 80s. Some even earlier.

Oh, and I don't think that idiots are more advanced in the US. They just get more air-time...

Believe me, though, we have plenty of idiots over here, too!

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

A CD that was produced in response to a FOIA request which was ultimately denied after a court battle was nonetheless leaked

Could you please be more specific. "A CD", "a FOIA request", "a court battle". What the fuck are you talking about?

If, perchance, you're talking about the CRU emails/files leak then you know very well that the source code shows exactly nothing.

(P.S. What court battle?)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[gtall]

I don't know about the intersection between deniers and creationists, but they do seem to have a similar philosophy. Both seem to want to think that people do not affect their environment very much. If the creationists admit that, then they couldn't ascribe bad things happening to people to a vengeful G-d. That in turn would mean they have no mooring to achieve their political ends of telling everyone else what to do...a bit like progressives and liberals but with the shadow of G-d as the enforcer. Also, they seem to have a steady state notion of the Universe...conveniently forgetting the Universe periodically tries to kill us all dead with an arrant asteroid or comet. If they were to admit that, then they'd have to admit maybe G-d doesn't think they're so special. They also seem to think that the climate change people are part of a general relativity plot where all morals and ethics are relative and not handed down by G-d. Consequently, they feel perfectly at home being scientific relativists where science is all relative.

The Deniers seem split between the constant Earth and the Earth's dynamics are on a trajectory that cannot be changed. Either one is consistent with a G-d who's pulling the strings behind the scenes somehow. I do think there is a large segment of Deniers who deny merely because to change their lifestyle would be too much trouble. These are rather selfish people who just want to live the high life. Then there are the Conservative Deniers who see another nefarious plot by the Liberals to stop economic and scientific development in its tracks. They are the same group who believe scientists are in on a nefarious plot of squeezing the G-d of the Gaps into smaller and smaller gaps.

Both groups believe so many inherently contradictory beliefs that you would think their heads would explode. The reason they do not is easy, they think of contradictory beliefs on different days so they never meet in their heads at the same time. Think of their brains as being timeshared among various intellectual viruses.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

... and when you've finished counting, subtract all the scientists who asked for their names to be removed due to being misquoted

[citation needed] I've never heard of anyone complaining about being cited in the WG1 section if IPCC AR4.

in the summaries and conclusions (written by politicians and influenced by news reports and other media)

Of the people who wrote the WG1 report (which is were the list of references Capsaicin points you to comes from) which ones, according to you, are "politicians"?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

"Of what value is a body of theory that can only be confirmed, but which brooks no attempt to disprove?"

Attempting to disprove something is fine, and not at all the problem here. If a serious researcher in the field has got evidence against AGW, it should be published and the scientific community should change its stance on the issue. But that's only when there is solid evidence and when that has been posted to the scientific community.

What happens here, though, is that someone writes a book saying there is evidence against AGW, even though he mostly made it up, and sells it to the general public, who know nothing about the subject and thus can't tell if it's true or not. Had Lomborg published his claims to the scientific community, his claims would have been found untrue and nobody would have heard of it - and it certainly wouldn't have given a lot of people the feeling there is nothing going on.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[MeNeXT]

but can't seem to predict the changes. Opinions are just that opinions unless we can prove them as facts. I'm not saying that AGW does not exist it's just data for now.

I also have a hard time with "carbon credits". Again if it is serious then we need to reduce carbon output and not just defer the blame with over seas production while we continue with our consumption and we need to stop talking about carbon credits and actually reduce carbon emissions.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Ginger Unicorn]

You should go and visit "uncommon descent" the blog HQ of intelligent design. They're always bringing up AGW skepticism, since the notion of a far-reaching conspiracy of scientific propaganda and elitist repression is the same excuse they use to wave away the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion is in favour of evolution. Throwing their lot in with other denialists "makes their worldview make sense".

Also institute for creation research states:

• Global warming appears to have been occurring for the last 30-50 years.
• This warming may only be a short-term fluctuation but could be a longer-term trend.
• Evidence is still inconclusive whether man is causing the warming.
• No "natural" causes for global warming have been confirmed.
• One possible new theory is that galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) modulated by solar activity affects low-level cloud cover and is causing the warming.

Global warming may affect some parts of our society negatively but would likely benefit others. In fact, the current warming trend may be returning our global climate closer to that prevalent in the Garden of Eden. Compared to climate changes which have occurred in earth history, a temperature rise of a few degrees is a small fluctuation which will not lead to a complete melting of the polar caps or another ice age. Earth has a stable environmental system with many built-in feedback systems to maintain a uniform climate. It was designed by God and has only been dramatically upset by catastrophic events like the Genesis Flood. Catastrophic climate change will occur again in the future, but only by God's intervention in a sudden, violent conflagration of planet Earth in the end times

Answers in genesis cry conspiracy and even cite "The Day After Tomorrow"!

The tactic used by Lomborg (quote mining) is the definitive modus operandi of a denialist. It is the bread and butter of Creationists, and for the person employing it, it is a strong indicator of either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[FourthAge]

There'll be a Great Flood as well, sent by God to wash away all the "denialists" and their multitude of sins.

However I think AGW is more like a fascist cult than an Abrahamic religion, because it is an all-out attack on free minds and free thought: "believe exactly as we do, do not question our authority, or the Earth will be destroyed and it will be your fault".

The thought restrictions go way beyond questions about the science. They also require belief in a government solution, summarised by the claim: "Well, even if it isn't happening, why shouldn't we do something anyway? Our plans will make the world a better place no matter what." I've never seen any evidence for that claim, although I believe that Karl Marx wrote a few books about it.

Forget gas chambers and gulags, "if you are not with us, you are against us" is the very definition of fascism. Here are some more:

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

"It is for the Greater Good."

"The science is settled."

"There is a consensus."

"The debate is over."

I never thought I would see a Slashdot discussion dominated by fascists, but here we are. -1, Free Thinking, and +5, Agrees Totally With Authority.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

have you seen how people treat those who don't believe in evolution??

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

Who knows why this got modded interesting, it's fuckin' dumb.

Let's try a little thought experiment, shall we? Two scenarios:
1) Let's imagine that you are working on the bleeding edge of science and you're investigating a question that no-one knows the answer to, like "why does Nt-acetylation of bulk proteins happen?". You do some clever research, and whaddya know, you come up with an interesting answer: "it's because acetylation can function as a degradation signal". That forces a need to revisit thinking on protein turnover, a larger topic, and may even mean that we need to think again about exactly how homeostasis works. So you write it all up and if you can get the paper past your clever colleagues who do peer review, you might get published in Science and you can be very proud of yourself. Look, it's happened here!
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/327/5968/966
2) Now, let's imagine that you investigate something a bit more fundamental to modern biological science. Say, the idea that DNA encodes genetic information about the shape of proteins. Let's say you invent a clever experiment and the findings are very striking -- they appear to show that DNA doesn't encode that information after all! Now for the thought experiment bit: do you think that the standards and scrutiny that will be applied to your claim will be higher or lower than in scenario 1, given that your results will require the setting aside / reinterpretation of an enormous mass of prior experimental results and accepted scientific theory. Why, that's right! Your results will be subjected to more careful scrutiny. They will have to be replicated, validated, tested etc etc every which way from Sunday, because the inherent balance of probabilities is that your results are wrong or artefactual or explicable within the current framework, and that the prior thinking was right. It's not *impossible* that the opposite holds true, but it *is* extremely unlikely.

People who seek to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is not happening are much closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1. Scientists will quite reasonably say, "just before we chuck out all the accumulated evidence and thinking about how the world works and accept your argument that you've shown it that is, in fact, possible for humans to add net tens of billions of tons of gases such as CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere in the space of decades without it having an impact on climate, do you mind terribly if we take a very long hard look at your evidence and reasoning?"

Re:Absence of Evidence

[tyrione]

It's the Jungian shadow. Where there is great light, there is great darkness.

I'd mod you up if I had points.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[noidentity]

I personally prefer the term "denialitarianist".

Re:Absence of Evidence

[TapeCutter]

What's sad is that useful idiots like you keep dancing around my simple request for evidence. I know the red-herring you are refering to. I can only assume you don't want to post it because it has been debunked to death.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[wintercolby]

I can't say that I believe in AGW in the same way Christians believe in god. I can't say that I've heard arguments in favor of AGW that didn't accept that our climate is constantly changing, either. It would seem that the argument is that the climate is warming more than it would without mankind's influence.

Many people, like myself, who aren't scientists, but accept that there could be some AGW are more interested in solutions to any ensuing apocolypse. Those solutions are often built upon the "Tree of Knowledge called the Industrial Revolution". There could be no mass manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells, electric cars or anything else that we dream up without the foundations of the Industrial Revolution. What we are suggesting is a Green revolution, which as a side affect disenfranchises energy suppliers that make all of their profit from non-renewable sources. It also disenfranchises localities that rely heavily on those non-renewable resources. For decades those same entities have been engaged in practices which we know to disenfranchise their employees and citizens, and which we have reason to believe disenfranchises the rest of the world. There is a big difference between accepting the likelihood of something that is supported by a broad selection of data, and another to believe a book that has no second sources.

What's more, the religious fanatics seem to rejoice in the glee of their apocolyps, as only the sinners get burned. Those of us that consider the merits and logic of scientific research are worried that everyone will get burned.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[TapeCutter]

Have you never heard of inline testing? The section of code in question has the comment "APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION" in capital letters above it and was NOT used in producing the hockey stick.

You call yourself a skeptic yet you apparently believe conspiratorial scientists go around submitting clearly labeled misdeeds to the journal of Nature. To a real skeptic such utter nonesense is "proof positive" you have watched one too many Batman movies.

Again, source code is a tool, it is not science!

Re:Absence of Evidence

[BlueParrot]

and anyone working to disprove that result is an enemy to be scrutinized, tied to suspicious parties and ostracized.

You're misunderstanding how science works. The criticism of theories is ever as much a theory to be scrutinized and subject to criticism as the theory itself. Some people seem to believe they should have a right to publish highly speculative criticism of scientific theories, and then not have their criticism subject to the same scrutiny as the theory they're attacking. It doesn't work that way. If you're going to launch highly speculative allegations of misconduct and corruption against other scientists, then you ought to be well prepared to defend your own conduct and affiliations as they will too be called into question. If you would rather people not discuss your personal integrity then you should not make accusations about the integrity of others.

Or put in a more blunt way: If you're going to make accusations off corruption and incompetence against others, then don't be surprised when you're met with accusations of corruption and incompetence yourself.

You reap what you sow.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[dstar]

The problem is not, nor has it ever been that lunatics with their hand out the window yelling, "it feels fine!" are shouted down or ignored. The problem is that over the past 20 years the understanding has evolved that there is a "correct" result, and anyone working to disprove that result is an enemy to be scrutinized, tied to suspicious parties and ostracized.

By contrast, there are respected scientists in every other field attempting to disprove established theories, and should their work pan out, they would publish without fear of immediate rejection by their peers.

You're absolutely right; that's why people attempting to make perpetual motion machines are respected members of the scientific community.

Oh, wait....

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor

Re:Absence of Evidence

[coaxial]

Plenty of proof of professional misconduct there, including source code.

Nope.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[coaxial]

There you go again. Conflating "climate change" with whether man is the most likely cause. Its really rather rich. The prime highlight of the IPCCs AR3 was to "forget" the existence of climate change prior to the 19th century. Natural variation over the past thousand years was reduced to quiet gradual downtrend with an abrupt surge upward in the 1800s. In so doing they discarded thousands of studies and work of thousands who previously carefully documented periods of great warming and cooling throughout the history of man.

And if the rates of change were analogous, then you might have had something, but their not.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Dobeln]

"Where do you find evidence that they "fudged their data"?"

Fudged is the nice thing to say "deleted" or "lost" seems to be the most widely applicable phenomenon. I.e: (AR4 is the IPCC report)

"From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil
"

The hottest shit right now I guess is their making up of non-existent non-moved Chinese weather stations to "disprove" UHI.

Otherwise, "Hide the decline" offers an interesting case study. Consensus Cultists love to say the quote is "taken out of context", etc. - but this merely confirms that they are indeed... cultists. The more context you get, the more you see that the point was indeed to... fudge the presentation of the proxy record (to prevent any embarrassing... declines).

Re:Absence of Evidence

[coaxial]

The problem is not, nor has it ever been that lunatics with their hand out the window yelling, "it feels fine!" are shouted down or ignored. The problem is that over the past 20 years the understanding has evolved that there is a "correct" result, and anyone workilng to disprove that result is an enemy to be scrutinized, tied to suspicious parties and ostracized.

It is the nature of scientific theory that it is tested and attacked. That is why we value a theory like evolution, which has survived these constant attempts to disprove or reduce its scope for a very long time.

So are you saying that if someone tries to publish a paper denying evolution, that it wouldn't be ostracized?

The fact is that there ARE correct results. Results that have been studied, scrutinized, reproduced, and accepted. Once this is done, the field moves on. If it didn't, we'd still be arguing about the structure of the atom, or whether there's an aether, or better yet if the elements are: air, water, aether, fire, and earth; or wood, metal, water, fire, and earth.

Just because someone revels in being perceived as an iconoclast, doesn't automatically make them valid.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[deoxyribonucleose]

How interesting that you accuse Lomborg 'and his ilk' (no loaded language here, no, siree!) of spouting pseudoscientific garbage and being of a kind with religious fundamentalists. With what spectacles have you read Lomborg? You have read him, surely? Are you perchance confusing those who disagree with scientists as disagreeing with science?

The mere fact that you have trouble convicing someone does not automatically mean that they are wrong.

Your accusations reflect badly on yourself, which is fine, but also on your position, which is worse. The self-righteous certainty of AGW proponents are a much greater threat to the long term management of the Earth's environment than any skeptics, 'denialists', or fundamentalists: you do your cause great disservice. Please take a moment to recite the fundamentals of the scientific process: You may be right and I may be wrong: come, let us reason together.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Vintermann]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

LOMBORG: Out of Europe's 731000000 inhabitants, 14000000 die of cold-related causes every year, so warming is obviously a good thing! (cite: WHO documents so and so)
FRIEL: I checked those WHO documents. They say no such thing as 14 million dying of cold related causes every year, you lying scumbag.
LOMBORG: Hey, I only meant to cite the WHO for the population of Europe part! What is this, some kind of witch hunt? I'm being persecuted!!1!

(freely paraphrased from the Newsweek review of Friel's book)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

Fail.

1. That looks like Fortran to me! [1]
2. You've left out the part of the code where valadj is used.
3. And this code was used for what exactly? Oh, for drawing a pretty picture for a magazine cover. Not used in any published paper.
4. Oh, and back to point 2, the fudge factor wasn't in the version that was used (hint: it's commented out, second hint, it prints the text "Northern Hemisphere MXD corrected for decline" [2]).

So, what was your point, exactly?

[1] It's a joke, I started life as a Fortran programmer, I know the difference between Fortran and IDL. I also know what an IDL comment looks like.

[2] You know, the decline they hid by publishing papers about it?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Attila Dimedici]

Anyone with any idea about climate science has known for years that Lomborg's work is an exercise in propoganda. The literary term for the style of writing in his book is called false document [wikipedia.org], it's the same style used in other fictional works such as "State of Fear" and "The DaVinci Code".

Don't forget that wonderful set of fictional works known as the IPCC reports.

I find it ironic that self proclaimed skeptics consistently fail to spot obvious propoganda even when it is repeatedly pointed out to them.

I find it ironic that AGW believers consistently fail to spot propoganda even when it is repeatedly pointed out to them.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[hey!]

citation please.

OK:

[1] Lomborg, Bjorn. The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Enjoy. I look forward to your comments... after you've read this POS.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Attila Dimedici]

And the even larger amount of money that has been poured into convincing everybody that we need to let governments take over ervery aspect of life to prevent "Global Warming/Climate Change". When one looks at the numbers one discovers that Exxon has given more money to people promoting AGW than to people debunking it.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron.

Of course those of us who follow the science in this debate understand that climate has been variable. From the beginning, following oxygenation fluctuations, recurring ice ages, the whole kit and kaboodle.

Of course we are aware of this. In fact, this awareness helps us to see what is happening.

The current warming trend is different. For example, it disconnects us from the solar cycle. We ought to be cooling, but we aren't.

For cripes sake, man.

Anonymous Because I Gotta Be

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is why the global warming theory will never gain traction again in america,you can pound your fists and kick your feet crying and screaming but it you don't allow others to study the raw data and come to different conclusions you're circumventing the scientific method and invalidating your own theory.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[ArcherB]

"Why does America house so many nutjobs?"

Because it produces so many and issues so few passports.

Says the guy using an American made computer to communicate over an American invention (the Internet) on a forum owned by an American company on computers hosted in America. Yeah, America has nothing to offer the world.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sparhawktn]

Yell louder and use more CaPItAL LEtteRS and people will take you seriously.

The one thing I miss about real science was the the ability for people to develop hypothesis's go out and test them with valid test and have others perform independent tests and everyone go back and look at the results and then if the results don't match the hypothesis you change the hypothesis go back and retest and review , retest and review until the data supports a hypothesis than then can be a theory and more testing and more reviewing. Kinda of crazy notion huh.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

When it the data sets are bad that everyone is using yes I will sling it through the whole pack. Everything is wrong with the global warming theory all the way down to the data collection methods and negating the changing urbanization around the sensors, and moving other sensors around russia. I knew this was a house of cards after my first climatology and hydrology classes and both went through the problem with the temperature stations and the change of conditions around them effecting the readings. It's simple really and something they should not have over looked. You can argue this if you would like but the head of CRU has come out and admitted there has not been any warming in the past 15 years and possibly all the way back to 1975.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Man is just as likely to not be the cause as is. Just like someone said, AGW has all the same symptoms as religion and all the same arguments for or against god can be used to argue one way or the other. What both sides are lacking is evidence. Show me detailed temperature statistics for the past 200000 years and I'll tell you if man has accelerated the warming cycle. Just as you can't prove to me that man is accelerating the warming cycle, a denier can't prove that he isn't.

You'd have to be an idiot to say the climate isn't changing. It's been getting warmer for 20000 years. That's when the glaciers started retreating in north america. It hasn't stopped getting warmer since. You also have to be an idiot to believe a 100 year trend is significant on the scale of a cycle that's been warming for 20000 and lasts 100000's of years. We simply don't have enough data or knowledge to predict anything about the climate.

We can't even predict whether or not it will snow next week, and we're making policy based on predictions for the next 100.

Ridiculous... it's not science, it's hysteria.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Bjørn Lomborg believes that Anthropogenic Climate change is real and very much is not a climate change skeptic. What he is a skeptic of is that it will be catastrophic and we need to take drastic measures to "prevent" it.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[chrb]

Suddenly the meme switched from being about "Global Warming" to being "Climate Change".

The shift was a result of people not understanding that the term "global warming" referred to the mean global termperature. The media, and Joe Sixpack, did not understand that this meant some regions could still cool, and hence the meme that any cooling disproves global warming was born.

The recent cooling is just weather.

By recent cooling, do you mean Climate myths: Global warming stopped in 1998? Or is this another "they can't predict the weather so how can they predict the climate" post? Regardless, these arguments have already been debunked: What's the Difference Between Weather and Climate? and Climate myths: Chaotic systems are not predictable.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

That's about the FOIA requests, not data. It was probably illegal, but has nothing to do with the science.

The hottest shit right now I guess is their making up of non-existent non-moved Chinese weather stations to "disprove" UHI.

And this is rubbish. Noone has ever tried to "disprove" UHI. The paper, "Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land, P. D. Jones, P. Ya. Groisman, M. Coughlan, N. Plummer, W-C. Wang & T. R. Karl, 1990" claimed "The results show that the urbanization influence in two of the most widely used hemispheric data sets is, at most, an order of magnitude less than the warming seen on a century timescale.", i.e. the effect exists but it doesn't explain observe warming.

The data for this paper has been lost, which is pretty sloppy, but do you think that this (published 1990) is the last paper ever published on this subject?

It isn't, In fact Jones himself published a paper in 2008:

Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature records, with an emphasis on China

P. D. Jones (CRU), D. H. Lister (CRU), Q. Li (National Meteorological Information Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China)

Global surface temperature trends, based on land and marine data, show warming of about 0.8C over the last 100 years. This rate of warming is sometimes questioned because of the existence of well-known Urban Heat Islands UHIs). We show examples of the UHIs at London and Vienna, where city center sites are warmer than surrounding rural locations. Both of these UHIs however do not contribute to warming trends over the 20th century because the influences of the cities on surface temperatures have not changed over this time. In the main part of the paper, for China, we compare a new homogenized station data set with gridded temperature products and attempt to assess possible urban influences using sea surface temperature (SST) data sets for the area east of the Chinese mainland. We show that all the land-based data sets for China agree exceptionally well and that their residual warming compared to the SST series since 1951 is relatively small compared to the large-scale warming. Urban-related warming over China is shown to be about 0.1C per decade over the period 1951-2004, with true climatic warming accounting for 0.81C over this period.

Now say why you're going to ignore this study.

Otherwise, "Hide the decline" offers an interesting case study. Consensus Cultists love to say the quote is "taken out of context", etc. - but this merely confirms that they are indeed... cultists. The more context you get, the more you see that the point was indeed to... fudge the presentation of the proxy record (to prevent any embarrassing... declines).

and this proves that you yourself are a troll.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[konekoniku]

Instead of paraphrasing freely, I encourage you to read Lomborg's actual response. He makes a more nuanced (and scholarly) argument than you suggest, and at only 27 pages is well worth the read: http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20reply%20to%20Howard%20Friel.pdf

On page 13 it addresses the point you raised. I've quoted it below for your convenience, but in short the number was calculated directly from a peer-reviewed study, which Friel misunderstood or overlooked in his review of the text.

"The only peer-reviewed study to calculate all extra heat deaths and avoided cold deaths globally shows that the number of avoided cold deaths strongly outweigh the extra heat deaths. This study, (Bosello, Roson, & Tol, 2006), shows that although we are likely to see about 400,000 more heat deaths because of global warming by 2050, we will likely see about 1.8 million fewer cold deaths. Moreover, this effect will persist until at least 2200: 'The first complete survey for the world was published in 2006, and what it shows us very clearly is that climate change will not cause massive disruptions or huge death tolls. Actually, the direct impact of climate change in 2050 will mean fewer dead, and not by a small amount. In total, about 1.4 million people will be saved each year, due to more than 1.7 million fewer deaths from cardiovascular diseases and 365,000 more deaths from respiratory disorders.'"

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Glock27]

Nice post, I completely agree (except I don't think GWB is a fascist lol).

However, you left out another classic:

"If you want to get serious about it, these guys claiming that the snow in Washington disproves climate change are almost unpatriotic."

My jaw dropped when I saw that Nye had said that. It was great seeing Bastardi take him apart. :-)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is this sort of thing is SUPER easy to misunderstand. Which is what I think is going on.

Just taking a simple average and then projecting what the average will be can be misleading. They are using other things but it shows the point quite dramatically.

With 100 values all it takes is 2 aberrant values to move the results by a good margin.

My experiment was 100 values of 100 with a range of -3 to 3 added to them. Then a simple average of that. Just by playing with 2 values I can get the range to move by as much as .2. This isnt even a very complex formula. The median ended up at 99. It took me messing with 5 values to get it to go up by 1. That is it took a 5% error in the values to move the median formula. See how I did that. You do NOT see that in the papers put forth by EITHER group. Did I do something wrong, oh probably. But guess what I am open for that. A proper scientist will accept that he is wrong. And in being wrong might actually learn something else.

The thing is they say they tweak the values and leave some stuff in and out. It does not take much to skew values. By the very nature of what they do they NEED to tell us the range of error. There are well known statistical formulas to tell us what these ranges are. Instead all we get out of them is 'it will be .5C higher in 20 years trust us'. What is the +/- on that? Is it +/-.8 or +_/-0.000002. Hell, a simple rounding error over say 20 years could mess them up.

Both groups are trying to model a system where they cant even get it right 2 days out.

I am not anti global warming or pro global warming. I am a proper scientist and challenge the ideas being put forth. If they can not stand the criticism then perhaps they should get a different profession.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[AmiMoJo]

As someone who believes in man-made climate change I can assure both you and the GP that you are completely wrong about my beliefs.

I don't think we need to give up our modern lives and return to some kind of hippy-farming-commune existence. We just need to develop technology that doesn't pump CO2 into the atmosphere. Sure, that does cost money to develop, but so did drilling for oil or burning coal to generate electricity.

Even if you don't believe in climate change the benefits of not burning coal and oil should be pretty obvious. You can see pollution all around us in the form of the dust and dirt that accumulates on buildings and in my house (which is next to a main road).

Don't think I'm attacking you personally either. We need to change things at government and industrial levels. In the end though there comes a point where we are going to have to force the Chelsea Tractor / Hummer drivers into less polluting cars. I don't see a problem with that - we don't allow people to piss in swimming pools because the majority of people don't want to swim in that. You can't expect to go around spewing crap into the air when there are just as good alternatives that don't do that.

We are not there yet by a long way, but one day we will be and that's all I'm saying:

- We need to develop less polluting technology, if not because of climate change then because of pollution and the finite nature of the oil and coal supplies.

- Eventually technology will get there, but in the mean time I'm still flying long haul and you can still drive your tractor around town. I own a Colt with super-efficient engine, mainly because it's cheaper for me to run. If electric was cheaper I would buy one of these too. Totally selfish and nothing to do with the green lobby.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[VJ42]

Yeah, America has nothing to offer the world.

That's been neither claimed nor implied anywhere in this thread; leave the straw men alone.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

A vengeful G-d? Is that a sanitized version of Goddamn? I think we're all grown up enough to make your self-censorship unnecessary!

Re:Absence of Evidence

[hsthompson69]

You've got it backwards - people who seek to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change IS happening are much closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1. Natural Climate Change deniers/denialists/skeptics are arguing the affirmative in this case, and simply accepting them blindly based on models and anecdotal evidence cherry picked by anyone from GISS to the WWF is a disservice.

We've got a paleoclimate record that shows incredible variation in CO2 and temperature, rates of increase and decrease that overwhelm anything we've seen in modern times, but we're supposed to believe that just because of little old us, and a trace gas measured in parts per million, we're going to suddenly walk outside of the bounds of the negative feedbacks that exist? We've got millions of years of Natural Climate Change, and at most, 150 years of proposed AGW.

Which hypothesis am I supposed to be more critical of again?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[jmac_the_man]

"Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were... aggregated over different collection methods..

Isn't aggregating numbers over different collection methods (in this case, tree ring data and thermometers) the basis of the infamous Nature trick?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

Hey, I've been modded troll by ESR (smells like Fortran to me) or one of his little fanboys!

Re:Absence of Evidence

[ultranova]

Going on a tangent, but it just occured to me how so many of the climate change deniers arguments echoes those of creationists. It would be interesting to know what the overlap between the two groups are - they certainly seems to share more than a few traits IMNSHO

Both are humans and both are faced with something they don't want to believe, so is it really so surprising that both would resort to similar tactics?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[gnalle]

Lomborg does not deny that the green house effect exists. His point is that it is very costly to avoid raising the temperature, and therefore he suggests that we ignore the green house effect and spend our money elsewhere. I think that is fair enough to make such a cost benifit analysis. After all there is lots of evil in this world and somehow we have to choose. The problem is that Lomborg as a person has a bad reputation for cheating with the numbers. Therefore is probably not be the right person to perform this cost benifit analysis.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DerekLyons]

People who seek to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is not happening are much closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1. Scientists will quite reasonably say, "just before we chuck out all the accumulated evidence and thinking about how the world works and accept your argument that you've shown it that is, in fact, possible for humans to add net tens of billions of tons of gases such as CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere in the space of decades without it having an impact on climate, do you mind terribly if we take a very long hard look at your evidence and reasoning?"

Which totally misses the OP's point.
 
Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism. Thus 'skeptic' has become, as used by those scientists (and their political supporters) a pejorative term.
 
Real scientists welcome reviews of their work - but the ones you quote above (and their political supporters) go to great lengths to debunk and marginalize any reviews that don't meet their pre-ordained conclusions.
 
You then go further in accepting the received wisdom of the scientists (and their political supporters) and treating as though it were as well proven as DNA encoding, which it isn't. It has the appearance of so being, but that's because the scientists (and their political supporters) have spent such time and energy loudly insisting they are right and that anyone who claims otherwise is a 'skeptic'.

*Yes, not incorporated into the existing body of work as is usual in science, but debunked.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read an article claiming that LIVING plant mass gives off CO2, while all prior understanding was that only dead or near-dead plants give off a little CO2.

I have yet to hear anyone confirm whether the inter-glacial warming period is 10000 or 20000 years (a minor statistical difference I suppose).

I have yet to hear anyone decide whether water vapor is a positive or negative feedback to global warming.

The scientists working on climate change have (from my understanding) mostly been working off the same sets of data, much of which has been intentionally witheld from the public.

When I see complete violation of the scientific method, massive gaps in understanding, new and contradictory evidence being uncovered frequently, all feeding into a system of secret algorithms with tolerances so small that even minor variations can completely change the outcome, why the hell would I want to be hit with cap-and-trade-tax-me-for-breathing-Gore-enrichening bullcrap?

Yes, we should reduce our dependency on foreign all. Yes, we should user more "renewable" energy sources. Yes we should reduce consumption and waste. Yes, we should continue to look into our effect on the environment. But I would hardly say we are at the scenario 2 claimed above, and there are a lot less economic and political ramifications to DNA than there are to AGW. I also don't recall hearing of any biologists hiding from FOIA requests.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[ultranova]

There'll be a Great Flood as well, sent by God to wash away all the "denialists" and their multitude of sins.

So they are fundamentalists?

However I think AGW is more like a fascist cult than an Abrahamic religion, because it is an all-out attack on free minds and free thought: "believe exactly as we do, do not question our authority, or the Earth will be destroyed and it will be your fault".

And fascists as well.

The thought restrictions go way beyond questions about the science. They also require belief in a government solution, summarised by the claim: "Well, even if it isn't happening, why shouldn't we do something anyway? Our plans will make the world a better place no matter what." I've never seen any evidence for that claim, although I believe that Karl Marx wrote a few books about it.

Oh, they are commies too!

Forget gas chambers and gulags, "if you are not with us, you are against us" is the very definition of fascism. Here are some more:

And now they're are Hitler and Bush.

Those dastardly conspiring climatologists, is there no boogeyman they can't be compared to?

I never thought I would see a Slashdot discussion dominated by fascists, but here we are. -1, Free Thinking, and +5, Agrees Totally With Authority.

Good thing you're here to make well-reasoned arguments from facts rather than suggest that everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi Commie Religious Fundamentalist Neocon in league with Hitler and Bush.

Then again, any political issue will inevitable degrade to a mudslinging contest, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me...

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

To feed your paranoia about a fascist conspiracy I will ask you this: Do you question quantum mechanics? How about plate tectonics, cosmological theories, linguistic theories, medical theories, etc? Probably not, because you don't have the scientific knowledge to judge these theories and question them. Then why do you find yourself capable of questioning the theories of climate scientists? They follow a peer review process for their publications and the vast majority of the papers published argue for climate change. The people that disagree with this view are as many as the people that try to invent theories alternative to quantum mechanics, or alternative to the big bang theory. So here is a fascist view for you: Either study climatology deeply enough to have a real opinion, or shut up and listen to the people that did so.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[jc42]

"Why does America house so many nutjobs?"

Because it produces so many and issues so few passports.

Heh. Good concise summary.

A longer explanation that's fairly common is that the American First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, the press, and religion, is a major part of it. This has generally been interpreted as protecting the right of any nutjob to say, publish, and practice any sort of ideas (limited by the usual laws against murder, mayhem, and the like). In addition to the well-known value this has for publishing, research, education, etc., it also has a side effect of enabling the nutjobs to work openly.

It's often recognized that this can be a benefit in the long term. Would you rather have the nutjobs working underground, or would you prefer to have them out in the open where we can keep track of them? In particular, every country has a problem with the nutjobs gaining positions of power, where they can impose their nuttiness on everyone. Religious governments are the best known, of course, but we also have anti-religious nutjob governments like the Communists as examples that have done serious damage to their society without the usual excuse that some god told them to do it. The only effective defense we seem to have against this is to encourage the nutjobs to speak openly, and keep them arguing with each other in public.

The US does have a significant population that is profoundly anti-intellectual, anti-reason, anti-science, etc. Every part of the world has such people. The main difference in the US (and a number of other countries) is that those people tend to be visible, so they can be somewhat dealt with. The fake "controversy" over climate change and human responsibility is a minor example of this. We don't much hear from actual scientists in this controversy. Scientists tend to treat it as yet another pseudo-controversy that excites the media but isn't scientifically interesting, so they mostly don't get involved. They just leave the public controversy to the political and religious nutjobs. They continue to quietly collect their data, work on their hypotheses and theories, and cheer on the occasional fool who's willing to toss some red meat to the participants in the public "debate". When fake "research" is exposed, they just quietly delete it from their list of references and continue their work.

The biggest problem in this case is that it's not just the nutjobs. There's also a significant behind-the-scenes involvement by the "astroturf" crowd, those with financial interest in the problem and the money to support people willing to create the propaganda to continue the status quo.

(Actually, it's not surprising to see a Scandinavian name like Lomborg involved. Scandinavia has laws that produce freedoms similar to the US's First Amendment, and they've had similar experiences with groups of nutjobs who are often backed by the financial fat cats. Watch just about any Bergman movie for treatment of this topic. They have also historically exported many of their nutjobs to North America. ;-)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[NeutronCowboy]

If the collection methods are normalized, it can work. What Lomborg did what take two different methods of accounting for forest cover, argue that they were identical, and that the resulting increase in forest cover was real. What in fact was going on was that the UN organization responsible for the data collection explicitly stated that the two data sets should not be directly compared.

Could he have normalized the data, and then compared the data sets? Sure. But he didn't. And considering that the warning was right there in the data sets that he used, I can only assume one of two things: he can't read, or he is being dishonest.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Fantastic counter argument. Makes it sound just like you have a clue, promise.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[jimbolauski]

There are many questions that have not been addressed or poorly addressed that have a significant factor on Global temperature change. The first is the sun finally GW scientists are conceding that the sun plays a factor it's probably just a coincidence that this happened in a period of cooling. The next thing is the island effect while many have tried to study it, the problem is that weather stations have been moved during the urbanization of that area, so much of that data is inconclusive. Finally is cloud cover which also has not been studied as to the effect it plays this is a significant factor because cloud cover will increase with temperature so finding a CO2 correlation is even more difficult. All these variables remain unsolved yet there is a consensus on manmade GW. Most reasonable people would look at those factors and say that while increases in CO2 levels should cause a rise in global temperature there is not enough evidence to correlate the increase in CO2 levels with temperature change.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[NeutronCowboy]

Here we get to the rub. You dismiss Lomberg based on a selective quotation of a supposed mistake and then bend over backwards to excuse data manipulation, censorship and interference in peer review, and other forms of scientific misconduct.

No. That's not a supposed mistake. Read the book, then come back.

Why should we, when you argue that every single quote from Bjorn Lomberg is dishonest and 'crap'.

Bjorn Lomborg is dishonest. You're doing yourself a massive disservice defending him. It means you don't understand data analysis. Not to mention that when you make a claim that every scientist in support of AGW is dishonest, you better support that claim by showing exactly that. I only have to show that Lomborg is dishonest when claiming that.... Lomborg id dishonest.

There are a number of scientists at least doing actual work to try to put a hole in the theory of AGW. Go to those. The guy who proposed that space radiation increases cloud cover might be wrong or might be right, but at least his stuff is worth looking into and talking about.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

What a pile of rubbish! There are thousands of scientists working in fields that have a bearing on climate change, from geology to biochemistry to atmospheric physics. They publish tens of thousands of articles on topics related to climate change in the peer-reviewed literature. By doing so, they palpably demonstrate that they do not treat their work as above criticism.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[jimbolauski]

What are you talking about? Climate theory is so primitive right now that it's "disproved" all the time. If climatology were mechanics, we'd be at the "Big rock hurt more than little rock" stage.

I would like to disprove your rock theory, a large pumice stone will hurt less then a smaller granite stone when thrown at equal speeds. Now I just need some grad students to test my theory on.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Glock27]

Scientists will quite reasonably say, "just before we chuck out all the accumulated evidence and thinking about how the world works and accept your argument that you've shown it that is, in fact, possible for humans to add net tens of billions of tons of gases such as CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere in the space of decades without it having an impact on climate, do you mind terribly if we take a very long hard look at your evidence and reasoning?"

One of the problems with this debate is that the issue in question is often misstated.

Most of the skeptics agree that additional CO2 has an effect. The debate is over whether the effect is problematic, or even significant. There is also the question as to whether or not proposed mitigating efforts will prove effective, if there is a problem.

I believe that given the current sorry state of "climate science", which has failed to show extraordinary warming and is based on very questionable computer modeling, that a "wait and see" attitude is appropriate. It appears even more so, given that warming has slowed, stopped, or reversed depending on which data you believe. This should be viewed in the light of the undisputed fact that the Earth has been in a net warming trend since the last Ice Age. What we should really be worried about is the inevitable coming big dip into the next one.

The problem with the current brain-dead idea of "Cap and Trade" is that it's inordinately expensive while even its proponents agree that it will produce no noticeable effect on the climate. This is because the United States is no longer the largest "carbon polluter", and China, India and other up-and-coming industrial nations want no part of such an economy-killing proposal.

AGW proponents also steadfastly refuse to consider the benefits of higher CO2 and a warmer planet, such as more arable land and faster plant growth. Humans have generally had a much harder time in cooler conditions. Personally, I have no problem with the concept of humans altering the environment, many species have done so and it's almost unavoidable regardless. Elephants and alligators are two classic examples of species that have substantially altered their native ecosystems.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sarujin]

RTFA

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

1) You might want to provide a citation for your first statement, as I'm having difficulty understanding it. By "giving off C02", do you mean something other than respiration?

2) Where did you get your understanding that the scientists working on climate change are all working off the same datasets? There are thousands of relevant datasets, maybe tens of thousands! And scientists are continually creating new datasets themselves.

3) About FOIA requests. The oil industry has worked harder and with more success to suppress information it doesn't like than the climate scientists ever did.

I love your line beginning "When I see complete violation of the scientific method...." You speak with such authority about knowing that climate science is all tainted crap. Are you able to reach definitive conclusions across all scientific literature? Where does your mastery of the process and the research literature come from? Of course, I'm only accepting the arguments of others instead of doing my thinking all for myself. But I'll mostly trust the scientists on this, just as I do on quantum mechanics and every other scientific endeavour -- not to be right, but to be not too wrong, and to be improving.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[jc42]

The man of straw returns.

Huh? When did he ever leave?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think we need to give up our modern lives and return to some kind of hippy-farming-commune existence. We just need to develop technology that doesn't pump CO2 into the atmosphere. Sure, that does cost money to develop, but so did drilling for oil or burning coal to generate electricity. ...
We need to develop less polluting technology, if not because of climate change then because of pollution and the finite nature of the oil and coal supplies.

Unfortunately, we are late to the game in developing alternative sources of energy. And it's not as simple as just replacing fossil fuels with "something that doesn't pump CO2 into the atmosphere." Any viable replacement requires a huge investment of time, labor and energy to implement - and the energy will only get more costly as years go by.

We've footed the entire growth of our civilization through the 20th century on the foundation of cheap energy. The system is vast, complex, and interdependent. There is no infrastructure in place for anything other than oil/gas and electricity, and everything from our manufacturing and agriculture to our transport and communications depends on oil.

There are really only a few sources of energy on the planet - solar, geothermal, uranium. Fossil fuels are just stored solar energy, and we've been drunk on them so long that we can't imagine what life would be like without them. Unfortunately it won't be long until we won't have to imagine any more. We're like trust fund babies who've been living high on the hog, suddenly staring a pensioner lifestyle in the face.

There will be no overnight transition to any alternative, and weaning ourselves is going to be painful. Of course, everybody thinks "technology will save us" because it always has before, but you might as well say "we just need to develop a perpetual motion machine." Placing all your eggs in that basket is a big gamble. The likely outcome is that we'll be forced to abandon the cities and suburbs and go back to farm-commune existence, like it or not. That's after the horsemen of famine and disease and war reduce our population back to 1800 levels, of course.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[secondbase]

I don't think your analogy is very good, for two reasons. First, the relationship between DNA and protein folding has been under investigation longer, and second, it can be studied under controlled circumstances.

A better analogy would be paleoanthropology. The science is fairly young, and not very amenable to experimentation. From time to time, someone is able to do something like check DNA from a frozen specimen.

But there doesn't seem to be thesame kind of horrified reaction, with cries of "skeptic" or "denier," when someone proposes an alternative theory in this field.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[tthomas48]

No, skeptics are reading everything they can to understand the problem. The people in the middle saying "show me" are actually deniers who don't want to be labeled as such and who will never be convinced. What do we need to "show you"? What is the burden of proof? Can we show you research, or do you need actual water lapping at your front door?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[randomencounter]

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its effect on temperature depends on poorly understood feedback effects.

No. Just no.

CO2 is transparent in visible light and opaque to infrared (heat) light.

When visible sunlight hits a material surface a portion of it is absorbed and converted to heat.

CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't let all of that heat re-radiate back out to space, resulting in a net energy gain for the systerm.

The more CO2 is in the atmosphere, the less heat can escape, and the warmer things get.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that nobody else does.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[HeckRuler]

I thought the reason the new term came about was because politicians who wanted to stay the hell away from the politically hot topic of global warming but still wanted to talk about it. It also let them agree that global warming was probably legit, but disbelieve climate change.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

1. Oops! You used the wrong word there -- you said there are *rates* of increase / decrease that overwhelm anything we've seen in modern times. I'm aware that the *total change* was much larger, but not that the *change per unit of time* was much larger. Rate is important, as faster rates reduce the time for species to adapt.
2. What is this rubbish about little old us? There are more than 6 billion of us on the planet. Why wouldn't a very large number of resource-using large mammals be able to affect the planet? We can and do change physical geography on an ongoing basis -- there's virtually no square inch of England that isn't different from its "natural" state due to active management by humans. We can and do deplete resources or poison environments so that they are uninhabitable.
3. What is this rubbish about "trace gas" and "parts per million"? What is inherently implausible about changes in the quantum of trace gases (it's not just CO2, y'know) having real effects on physical systems?
4. Overall, you've missed the point: there's a ton of physical evidence that climate change is happening (and quite a bit for it having an impact on ecosystems too), plus well-worked through theory with good evidence for how ("the greenhouse effect"). *That's* what will need reconciliation with an assertion that there is no climate change.
In the end, there are two arguments to be discussed:
1) Is it happening?
2) What do we do? -- ranging from nothing to something.

I assure you that I'm quite as attached to home comforts as you -- I just happen to believe that the answers are pretty clear:
1) Yes, it is
2) Doing something is more likely to preserve more of my comforts (and fellow human beings) than doing nothing. You clearly take the opposite view.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

un-cited "other people"

I thought it was obvious I was referring to the people at East Anglia who, literally, and undeniably, covered up their research, and lied about it. They even talked about shredding their work rather than turning it over as the law required, and making sure they didn't tell anyone that they had any legal obligation to turn it over. It was undeniable dishonesty.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

So what you're saying is you're not going to read Yale's research that proves Lomborg was wrong, but you will make completely uncited and unfounded accusations that there's "hard proof" the IPCC was wrong.

No, I never said there was hard proof the IPCC was wrong. Read much?

I said there was hard proof that the East Anglia scientists were dishonest, and, further, that the IPCC relied on their research for its conclusions. This is not, in any way, saying, that the IPCC was wrong in its conclusions.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

My analogy's not great, but yours is worse. Paleoanthropology is a narrow field. Alternative theories don't typically require revisiting most of the other sciences.

Climate science is a broad field. You need to find alternative mechanisms to explain thousands of physical pieces of evidence, from sea levels and temperatures, through to basics like greenhouse gases.

Re horror. Undoubtedly some of the horror comes from the fact that it is mostly working scientists being challenged by either non-scientists or scientists from completely unrelated disciplines. If you or I, as non-paleoanthropologists, read a scholarly article in the field and suggested an alternative theory based on our reading of the facts, those working in the field would not be particularly inclined to spend much time considering it -- and that's quite reasonable, given that they've devoted years of intense study to the science, understand the limits of the knowledge, and we haven't. From time to time, that'll be the wrong call, but it's pretty damned rare.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

You'd have done much better to link to Lomborg's response, than going off on your speculative aura.

I didn't speculate. Perhaps you don't know what "speculate" means?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sounds]

I believe that the answer to your closing question is twofold:

First, scientists are nearly all educated in government-run schools, where the political nature of the organization affects who gets hired to teach, and therefore affects the political leanings of those who graduate. As government focus moves away from science, so too do the educational institutions and their product - the students.

Second, massive government funding of so-called "scientific" research has had a massive effect by attracting politicized "scientists" to the field rather than true scientists. I worry that real science will be dwarfed by politically infused pseudo-science due to the sheer amount of money being allocated by non-scientists (i.e. politicians). Within the range of possible answers, politicians get the results that they want to hear because they're paying.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[randomencounter]

The one that makes you comfortable.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[jvillain]

Both are humans and both are faced with something they don't want to believe, so is it really so surprising that both would resort to similar tactics?

Non sense. I don't believe in gods at all. Period. I believe the climate is changing as it has done since this planet first formed. Are you denying that the climate has always been in flux? I believe that man has probably had a very minor effect on the earth's temperature in the order of less than one degree and it won't ever bee more than one degree. I believe that because the the science around CO2 trapping heat is pretty solid and it says that warming due to this amount of CO2 increase will be on that order. I also believe that sea levels have changed for as long as there has been water on this planet as has snow cover, ice cover, tidal patterns, wind patterns etc. Link

What I don't believe is the the storey that the earth has stayed the exact same for the last 1,000 years as climatologists have told us. Why because those same scientists are now starting to admit that they were wrong. I believe the vast majority of the data they want to base their theories on doesn't pass muster for scientific research because they are now starting to admit that it doesn't and are asking for a do over. link BTW if they want us to believe they need to release the code as well. It is going to be pretty hard to sell the idea that programmers are infallible on /.

I don't believe in the hockey stick because the scientists now admit that the proxy data doesn't match the reality of the last 50 years. But rather than admit that their method may be flawed they are looking for new ways to try and make the data match the theory rather than find a theory that matches the data. link . I believe that William Ockham would have a thought or two on this new theory. From wikipedia this line seems so spot on.The term razor refers to the act of shaving away unnecessary assumptions to get to the simplest explanation. What is simpler that new undiscovered scientific principals are at work or that the methodology is wrong? I also believe in the hockey stick because it has been fraudulently presented.

I also don't believe that the stories of the "end of days" as a result of climate change that climate scientists are schlocking. Why, because they are all so easily proven wrong. I won't even bother making a list because there are so many. Also because they depend on positive feed backs would make the world far to unstable to have lasted in a habbitable for up to this point. Every volcanic eruption would be an extinction event if we were to believe some of he feed back theories being pushed by climate scientists.

If environmentalists want to start making believers of people then they have to change some things about their methods. First stop relating people who question their infallibility to the tobacco industry, oil companies, various religions etc. People who don't have evidence fall back on name calling and insults. Next you need to follow standard accepted scientific methods. That includes providing your raw data. Providing the reasons and methods including formulas of how the data has been manipulated. As well document what are assumptions and what is proven fact. Finally publish and do not scheme to prevent alternative views from being presented.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

Most of the skeptics on this slashdot thread certainly don't think that additional CO2 has an effect. See above!

Re mitigation -- cap-and-trade is one of a large number of policy levers being discussed. Have a look at a carbon cost-curve.

I just don't buy that AGW proponents "steadfastly refuse to consider the benefits of higher CO2 and a warmer planet". Where are the sound scientific articles that were written on this topic and then rejected? Studies into the effects of C02 on human mortality, for example, will review *all* the likely impacts, both positive and negative, and try to come to a view on the net effect.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Draek]

Indeed, weather is not climate. Climate is the expectation of weather

Wrong. With apologies to Stalin: "One day is weather. A million is climate". It's been that way since ever in the scientific world, that the ignorant masses took both terms as equivalent (much like they take "theory" to mean "hypothesis") has no bearing on that fact.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

Based on the fact ...

If you want to talk facts, fine. I was not defending Lomborg's research or conclusions, I was simply attacking that poster for blanketly assuming Lomborg was wrong, apparently based on the as-yet unpublished words of another author, and without citing any facts to back up the claim.

As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research.

Incorrect. They conspired to cover up their research: this is dishonesty, no matter how you slice it. (Note: I did not imply they faked their research, only that they were dishonest about it, which isn't the same thing. I think they may have faked it, but I didn't care enough to spend the time to really investigate it, and so I won't make such an assertion.)

That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.

And I never implied it was EVERY researcher, I only said, and meant, that it was a few that were dishonest. Which is undeniably true.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sexconker]

While funny, whenever I hear comments like that, I can't help but remember two personal experiences of just how "advanced" America is:

The first was a cashier at a grocery store in (suburban) Detroit telling us that Australia was 20 years behind the US, while standing behind a sign proudly proclaiming "We now have electronic payment at the register!". At that particular point in time, every grocery store in Australia had had electronic payment for something like 16 years - I've never paid cash for groceries in my adult life, and few people in Oz have chequebooks, due to government taxes on them.

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but cash is the preferred payment method if you want control over your assets, value privacy, want it to always work, don't want someone to steal it by pointing a reader at your ass, etc.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[locallyunscene]

If you're trying to argue the money point you really don't have a leg to stand on. The oil industry has orders of magnitude more money flowing through it. If scientists were going to corrupt themselves for money that's the direction they would go in.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sexconker]

Some unpublished code replete with bugs was revealed by the theft of emails from CRU. Two things: 1) It was never used for any science in publication; 2) Software bugs are not the moral equivalent of dishonesty.

1) Yes it was.
2) Comments in the code itself indicate the first real case of "it's not a bug - it's a feature".

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

And I suppose you can point to this HARD PROOF, right?

Yep. Google "East Anglia" and "Climategate." I (obviously inappropriately) assumed everyone would know what I was referring to. You will find the letters where those scientists explicitly assert they will cover up their research, and reject requests to turn it over (including one "scientist" who said he would destroy his research rather than turn it over). This is dishonesty, by any measure.

Anyone with any idea about climate science has known for years that Lomborg's work is an exercise in propoganda.

Riiiiiight.

The Latin term for that style of assertion is the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

I find it ironic that self proclaimed skeptics consistently fail to spot obvious propoganda even when it is repeatedly pointed out to them.

No one pointed it out here. That's my point. It was merely asserted. And that's all you did, too: merely assert it.

If you want to provide arguments (even links to arguments), great. I am not defending Lomborg's research, conclusions, etc. I am just saying, if you're going to make that charge -- in a discussion about an as-yet unpublished book that supposedly documents the evidence for that charge -- then perhaps you should provide evidence backing it up.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[secondbase]

Perhaps, although climate change science suffers the same problem.

While it's perfectly valid for ecologists to weigh in on what effect climate change will have on species in various environments, it's unfortunate that the ecologists get lumped into the "all scientists" who agree on the climate trends and the source of the problem, when in fact there are just a very few climate scientists who study those areas.

This problem occurs on both sides, of course: everyone feels a right to an opinion.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

Out of thousands of independent studies done by thousands of scientists that generally lead to the conclusion that climate change is happening and man is most likely the cause, you would ignore all of that because a few scientists might have been dishonest

a. They undeniably WERE dishonest. They conspired to keep their research from public view and said they would destroy it rather than turn it over.

b. You are misrepresenting me. I never said I would ignore anything. I was simply contrasting the notion that one skeptic was dishonest, to the fact that some proponents were dishonest. Now, I am all for not throwing out an argument, such as Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory, just because one of its believers is dishonest; but that means, of course, that if Lomborg was dishonest, you can't throw out the skeptics' claims based on his dishonesty, either.

If you are truly skeptical you should throw his work too.

Why? I've not seen any argument against his work (which is the point of my post: I was asking for actual evidence!).

That still leads to many, many more scientists who have hard data that climate change is happening.

Yes, just like most scientists believed the Earth was flat, and was at the center of the universe. Yawn. I am interested in truth, not what most people think truth is.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

What a troll. The Wikipedia article that links to the plot you quote says this about that plot (in the 1995 report): "Recent studies have re-evaluated the interval commonly known as the MWP... the available evidence is limited (geographically) and is equivocal."

In other words, the very scientists who came up with that plot in 1990 thought it was wrong by 1995. It's been acknowledged to be wrong for more than 15 years, and you're still using it as a reference? Talk about cherry-picking data...

Re:Absence of Evidence

[operagost]

Well, we know that the earth was much warmer in the Middle Ages, and maybe even warmer in the 1940s than today, but supposedly knowledgeable people keep telling us that we're going to have oceanfront property in Utah in 100 years.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

We are discussing a scholarly work which has shown Loborg's work to be dishonest.

Yes, exactly. And since it has not yet been published, and since the poster asserted, as fact, that Lomborg was dishonest ... I asked how the poster KNEW that Lomborg was dishonest.

Isn't that reasonable? To ask for a citation?

Assuming even that this scholarly work is correct

That's the problem: the poster apparently DID assume it was correct (or made the claim based on some other information, which also was not provided).

None of us have, have we? So we necessarily need to work on a (rebuttable) presumption.

I don't. I work from a lack of presumption. But that's me: if someone wants to work from the presumption that Lomborg is dishonest, fine, they should therefore be prepared to answer the question, "based on what?"

Well I for one don't, and I've been following the issue with some interest. Nothing in the selection of emails stolen from CRU could reasonably said to constitute HARD PROOF.

Incorrect. We have emails that clearly demonstrate these "scientists" covering up their research and threatening to destroy it rather than turn it over, even though they are required to by law. This is clear, and undeniable, dishonesty.

an occasional slip like that needs to be seriously addressed

Yes, except for where you call it an "occasional slip." It was a dishonest and malicious attempt to hide research that the whole world is relying on in its collective attempt to arrive at conclusions about this issue.

I draw no conclusions about the research itself, I am simply referring to their behavior.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, not a one world government conspiracy, I believe "Climate Change" reference has to do with broader C02 changes to environment than just warming... such as carbonised ocean acidification and side effects such as stronger hurricane seasons, etc, etc...etc.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

Yell louder and use more CaPItAL LEtteRS and people will take you seriously.

I didn't yell. Capital letters are for emphasis, not yelling, per se. I could use bold, but I am lazy.

Ad hominem much?

The one thing I miss about real science was the the ability for people to develop hypothesis's go out and test them with valid test and have others perform independent tests and everyone go back and look at the results and then if the results don't match the hypothesis you change the hypothesis go back and retest and review , retest and review until the data supports a hypothesis than then can be a theory and more testing and more reviewing.

Exactly the problem I have with this whole thing: AGW doesn't follow this. The work of AGW scientists does not follow the scientific method.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

Ummmm.

I read the article. Maybe you should? The article says that there is an as-yet unpublished book that asserts that Lomborg was wrong. But we don't have the evidence, just an assertion. Further, there's no assertion in the article at all that he was dishonest, only wrong. (Perhaps the use of "deception" and "flimsy" and so on is meant to imply dishonesty, but another explanation is incompetence, so I don't assume an implication of dishonesty).

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DavidTC]

Sigh.

I knew someone was going to mention 'hide the decline'.

Here is the story:

For the past thousand years or so, we can guess global temperature based on tree rings. They match very well to know global temperature until 1980 or so.

After that, they go insane.

Please note this isn't some argument over facts...we know what the temperature was in 1994. It isn't some debatable thing. We know tree rings from 1994 don't match. We know the tree rings vary widely since 1980, not matching anything at all. We don't know why, but we know they do not match.

And hence, when graphing average temps, you have to do stop using tree rings around 1980.

You're standing there like an idiot arguing that not using data we know is factually wrong is a bad thing. We had damn thermometers in the 1980s! We don't need to guess the temperature with tree rings!

And everyone except apparently you morons have known scientists were doing this for decades. There are specific papers written as to why they have to stop doing this. All estimates as to average temp mention this.

Now, you could, if you were intellectually honest, remind people that tree rings are a bit iffy to use in the first place, considering they've gone haywire and no one can come up with a reason why, so we shouldn't be using them to tell use the average temperature 600 years ago, either...for all we know, they were haywire then, also. If you want to poke holes in this theory based on this new stuff you just discovered (Which all serious people knew the entire time and wasn't secret at all.), that would be a valid claim to make: Tree rings have weird problems in the present, hence might also have had weird problems in the past, so estimates using them are invalid.

Of course, that doesn't really get you very far, considering that tree rings match other temperature indicators we have, like ice cores, so throwing them out results in basically the same estimates. Also, it would require you being 'honest' and 'intellectual', so I guess that's out.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

Two things: 1) It was never used for any science in publication;

1) Yes it was.

Where? You claim it was used in a published paper then give a citation, don't just make unsupported allegations.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Ok, I feel silly. I had CO2 on the brain. I meant to say CH4 (methane). The article is in Scientific American (Current Issues in Biology, Vol 5) and is by Frank Keppler and Thomas Rockmann. It is fair to note that the authors are in no way implying that this invalidates any AGW arguments, and they are still clearly believers. My point was simply that this study suggests a new, contradictory finding that could change existing models.

2) I was talking specifically about temperature data. From http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

3) As a good /.er I am assuming you know all about logical fallacies and are just testing me. The actions of the oil companies are irrelevant in this discussion, and do nothing to prove or disprove the actions of the scientists. Besides, it is clear to me why oil companies would be incented to do this, but why would scientists?

I am not speaking with authority about anything, and don't think the scient is all crap. I think knowledge about climate is still in a very early stage and there is still a lot to learn and refine. I also think that making global changes to a system without understanding it can have unintended consequences, potentially worse than the problem we are trying to avert. And yes, being secretive, hiding from FOIA requests, and denouncing those who do not believe as you do is a violation of the scientific method. Maybe that is a small percentage of the total scientific body working on this issue, but it is a group large enough to be integral and influencial in how policy is written.

Anything else?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Blakey Rat]

Lomborg doesn't deny ACC. He's not a critic of its existence, he's a critic of policies enacted to combat it. He supports, and heavily relies on, much of the data from the IPCC report.

I really wish people would bother to look into this issue more rather than immediately knee-jerk Lomborg as a "denier" based on the Slashdot summary.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DerekLyons]

What a pile of rubbish!

How fortuitous, that's exactly what your reply is. Utter rubbish.
 

There are thousands of scientists working in fields that have a bearing on climate change, from geology to biochemistry to atmospheric physics. They publish tens of thousands of articles on topics related to climate change in the peer-reviewed literature. By doing so, they palpably demonstrate that they do not treat their work as above criticism.

Yes, the rejection and marginalization of any results which don't accord with the politically correct and foreordained results is happening. Thus, that papers agreeing with the politically correct and foreordained results are being published means those papers are being accepted - not that they are open to criticism.
 
After all, Creation Scientists publish papers in journals all the time. But they don't accept criticism do they?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Paltin]

... - if secrecy, intolerance, conspiracy against dissenters and sheer dishonesty and sloppiness is frequent at the top levels of a discipline,....

A half dozen emails in 10 years of correspondence is frequent?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

I do. I don't have to speculate, though, I know you're fucking stupid - I read your comments.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[FourthAge]

Ha ha. I actually thought this was really funny. Good stuff.

But I do think the AGW "nut jobs" are fascist. Really, honestly. It's not so much the climatologists, who have at least studied this stuff, but the ordinary people who have jumped on the bandwagon and formed a sort of online lynch mob, seeking out any dissent. There also seems to be a crowd of far-left wackos who see AGW as a golden opportunity to get *their* ideas implemented while nobody is thinking critically.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Danse]

Nice post, I completely agree (except I don't think GWB is a fascist lol).

So you don't really agree with him then? You just make exceptions for people whose policies you agree with?

"If you want to get serious about it, these guys claiming that the snow in Washington disproves climate change are almost unpatriotic."

My jaw dropped when I saw that Nye had said that. It was great seeing Bastardi take him apart. :-)

How was he wrong? The people claiming that current weather proves anything about climate are idiots and are just adding confusion to the discussion.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[FourthAge]

If only all AGW proponents were this reasonable. Unfortunately, many are not. My thanks to you.

Of course I agree that it is important to minimise pollution as far as we can. Although I am not much of a "tree hugger", I hate waste and try to recycle everything I can. These are self-evidently good ideas. But I am also very suspicious of government, and particularly the "crisis mentality" that inflames the mob and justifies the removal of liberty and the imposition of additional regulations and taxes.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Danse]

but the ordinary people who have jumped on the bandwagon and formed a sort of online lynch mob, seeking out any dissent.

Welcome to modern political discourse. We see this on both sides, and there seems to be very little middle these days.

There also seems to be a crowd of far-left wackos who see AGW as a golden opportunity to get *their* ideas implemented while nobody is thinking critically.

Yes, and they function much the same as far-right whackos in this respect, but are less organized.

The problem is that the science beyond a basic outline is too complicated to explain to people without a background in it. I don't understand most of it, and unless I want to go spend a few years in school learning this stuff, I'm not going to understand it either. So, we have to rely on those who do understand it. Right now there is no scientific body of national or international standing that is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.

I just can't see how taking the word of others (e.g. politicians, businessmen) that don't understand the science any better than I do is better than accepting the consensus of the scientific organizations of the world.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sac13]

The funniest thing about the whole debate to me is those that "believe in" AGW demean those that don't "believe" by calling them "skeptics."

I must have completely misunderstood the explanation of the scientific method when I was in school. My understanding was that the ENTIRE POINT of science is to be a skeptic. But, apparently, the point is to "believe in" and not be a "denialist".

Either science is really religion, or climate science isn't really science.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sac13]

Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species.

From what I can tell about the climate "research" that does support AGW (that which isn't hid away and only shared with other "believers"), you could say exactly the same thing. Data is being mashed up all over the place with no clear indication of what "normalizing" is being done to it.

And yes, I read his crap. It was a massive disappointment, and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was either ignorant beyond belief, or dishonest.

So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.

And, once again, you can say that about the "skeptics." Of course, back in my day, skeptic was another word for scientist.

Feel free to argue otherwise, but to be credible, you're going to have to demonstrate that every single paper arguing for AGW is dishonest. Go ahead.

That's a two-way street, you know...

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Danse]

I believe the vast majority of the data they want to base their theories on doesn't pass muster for scientific research because they are now starting to admit that it doesn't and are asking for a do over. link BTW if they want us to believe they need to release the code as well. It is going to be pretty hard to sell the idea that programmers are infallible on /.

Your link seems to be broken.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[dcw3]

The tactic used by Lomborg (quote mining) is the definitive modus operandi of a denialist. It is the bread and butter of Creationists, and for the person employing it, it is a strong indicator of either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.

The tactic of linking one issue and a nonrelated issue, and trying to make a connection that doesn't exist is either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Draek]

Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism.

Prove it, particularly the latter part.

Real scientists welcome reviews of their work - but the ones you quote above (and their political supporters) go to great lengths to debunk and marginalize any reviews that don't meet their pre-ordained conclusions.

As they should. If it can be debunked it should be debunked, and if it has been debunked it deserves to be marginalized, as it has little value for everybody else.

*Yes, not incorporated into the existing body of work as is usual in science, but debunked.

Wrong. Science is all about putting theories and hypothesis out there, waiting to be debunked. They don't become accepted and incorporated into the existing body of work until they've sustained for *years* such 'attacks' (we call them "peer review" though). If anybody's crazy little hypothesis would become accepted as soon as they're published, the world of science would be far more chaotic than it already is, and so far the denialists' studies haven't gone any farther than that.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree. I just spent a week and a half back and forth in a Facebook thread with 3 or 4 or these people. In face many of them ARE religious fundamentalists. They says it's impossible for man to destroy the world and so they won't believe it's true. Some of them even told me that they don't care what the facts are, they refuse to believe it and will not no matter what. These people do not care what so ever about the truth. They only care for what their religious dogma says.

To make things even worse the people I was talking to and I are both Christians, but because I believe in AGW they publicly questioned my faith. When someone of your own religion will question your faith simply because your interpretation is very slightly different than theirs, that's pretty bad. Reminds me of the shia's and suuni's or even worse.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sac13]

The reason it was modded insightful is because when this subject comes up for discussion, there seem to be a large number of participants joining in that have no knowledge of the scientific method. Science doesn't PROVE anything. It just says that we haven't disproven it... YET.

Regardless of the probabilities of disproving something, scientists have the responsibility to seek EVERY possible explanation and theory to disprove a hypothesis. And regardless of how "settled" you think the science might be with AGW, there's plenty of alternative hypotheses that are possible explanations for our observations that have not had much exploration.

And don't think "science" has all the answers just because someone told you so. We still don't know how gravity relates to the nuclear and electromagnetic forces. That's a very fundamental thing that we don't have an answer for.

This whole thing has devolved into a religious discussion. There's too many people using terms like believe and denier when this subject arises. Those terms don't belong in a scientific discussion. Scientists, the real kind, are not believers. They are skeptics.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DerekLyons]

Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism.

Prove it, particularly the latter part.

Read any debate of climate science - heck, read the comments right here in this Slashdot article. The effect is clearly visible.
 

Real scientists welcome reviews of their work - but the ones you quote above (and their political supporters) go to great lengths to debunk and marginalize any reviews that don't meet their pre-ordained conclusions.

As they should. If it can be debunked it should be debunked, and if it has been debunked it deserves to be marginalized, as it has little value for everybody else.

Except science doesn't work by debunking - it works by incorporating criticism. Or, in other and less kind words, you prove my point. AGW has become a religion, and like all religions resists criticism - to the point where it's supporters are no longer cognizant of how science works.
 

*Yes, not incorporated into the existing body of work as is usual in science, but debunked.

Wrong. Science is all about putting theories and hypothesis out there, waiting to be debunked. They don't become accepted and incorporated into the existing body of work until they've sustained for *years* such 'attacks' (we call them "peer review" though).

Yet AGW has become gospel *without* resisting 'attacks' (your words, not mine) for years. It remains gospel and goes out of its way to marginalize any criticism rather than to examine the evidence on it's own merits.
 

If anybody's crazy little hypothesis would become accepted as soon as they're published, the world of science would be far more chaotic than it already is, and so far the denialists' studies haven't gone any farther than that.

Yet, when another hypothesis 'proves' AGW it is accepted as soon as it is published. When criticism arises, it's attacked and supported refuse to review it. (And your use of 'denialist' just further proves my point. You aren't interested in science, you're a follower of a religion.)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[GameboyRMH]

American-made computer? Most are made in Asia. I know all my personal computers are (primarily), and I'd bet this Dell on my office desk was too...

Just popped the side, I'm seeing a lot of "Made in China"s, DVD drive says "Made in Philippines," Keyboard and mouse are China, monitors - China. Also the GP could have made the same comment on heise.de.

Saying America has nothing to offer the world is quite stupid (oh wait, that was actually a strawman you made up? Well my point stands) but your Team America skit is no better.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[memnock]

this adds some context to the accusations made against the East Anglia staff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg

Re:Absence of Evidence

[GameboyRMH]

Don't forget the highly respected field of Flat Earth Theory which presents sound alternate models of the shape of our planet and the workings of the universe, including basic forces such as gravity.

Oh wait....

Re:Absence of Evidence

[phantomfive]

You know, wouldn't it have been great if climate leaders had gathered together to begin some kind of great scientific technology endeavor to find a way to replace oil and coal? Something like viable electric cars. It would have been like the flight to the moon, except all nations would have been involved. It would have been a unifying experience for the whole world.

Instead they got together and talked about how much money the developed world is going to pay the developing world for the costs of global warming. That is so pathetic in comparison.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[GameboyRMH]

I was just going to reply to the GP that we should not participate in the denialists' silly cat-and-mouse word games, because they'll slowly sully any word used to describe deniers, denialists, whatever. And here you are.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudgetest]

Shrug. None of the video had anything to do with what I said. The video is about fraud, which is something I said nothing about (except to say that I said nothing about it). My claim is regarding the fact that they covered up their research: refused to release it, conspired to defy legal requests to release it, threatened to destroy the research rather than release it.

The video is unrelated to what I said.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[phantomfive]

And your tactic is the scientific equivalent of Godwin's law. You say, "This is something creationists do" therefore implying that it must be wrong. In fact deniers use the same stupid tactic against warmers, of trying to compare them to creationists.

You have one rational paragraph in your entire post, and that is when you say Lomborg is quote mining. But you would be much better off if you actually gave examples, instead of going wild about creationists. We're talking about global warming here, not evolution.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[robinjo]

What would you label us European skeptics then? Surely not Conservative deniers. Or creationists, as that seems to be predominately a US phenomenon. Maybe a tobacco scientist or a flat earther?

You have a small Slashdot id, which tells me that you're not a trolling activist. But you're here labeling people because they happen to disagree with you. Why are you doing that?

I disagree about AGW because the science behind it is not solid. There's a horrible lack of quality control in the temperature sets. Read HARRY_READ_ME.txt to see for yourself. And every cover up and huge mistake in IPCC reports make me even more skeptic.

Is AGW true? I don't know. I'd love to know but the current climate scientists have done their work so badly, that we don't have a single reliable temperature set for the last 150 years. That is depressing and it's a disgrace considering all the money that has been thrown at it.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[h4rm0ny]

CO2 is transparent in visible light and opaque to infrared (heat) light.
When visible sunlight hits a material surface a portion of it is absorbed and converted to heat.
CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't let all of that heat re-radiate back out to space, resulting in a net energy gain for the systerm.

How do you know that CO2 in the upper atmosphere absorbing infrared radiation doesn't more easily re-radiate it back out into space rather than letting it otherwise descend lower if the CO2 wasn't there, to lead to a greater degree of cooling? After all, if CO2 in the upper atmosphere wasn't absorbing infrared, that same radiation would be striking the Earth's land and (more so) oceans, heating them up. In either case, heat is absorbed by the total system, but it seems likely that (a) heat more easily escapes back into space from the upper atmosphere than down at ground level, and (b) that atmospheric CO2 has less capacity to absorb heat before radiating it back out than does the world's oceans.

Now maybe there are answers to these. If so, I'm interested to hear them. But I think the questions themselves show that your casual assertion that CO2 absorbs infrared therefore more CO2 must lead to global warming, is unwise.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

1) I hate to break it to ya, but whatever this Slashdot debate is, it's not the scientific peer review process at work. Where is the evidence of even an appreciable fraction of the scientists working on climate change saying that their work must be above criticism? Provide some links: put some evidence on the table to bolster your assertions.

2) Science selectively incorporates criticism. It looks at both assertion and critique to say "is this valid?". If yes, then incorporate; if not, then no. I can criticise gravitational field theory as much as I like, but the relevant scientists would be failing in their duty if they took any notice, given that I know fuck all about it and my criticisms are made up. Similarly, if I criticise a scientific paper, saying that it is wrong in its claim that polar bear numbers are falling, but provide no credible evidence for my critique, my criticisms will not be incorporated into the scientific knowledge base. Particularly if I'm an economist who hasn't actually made the study of polar bears a significant part of my life's work, in contrast to the people who wrote and reviewed the original paper.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sexconker]

Why not? AC did.
And if you had paid attention when the news broke, you would have known of (some of) the publications that had graphs and data that were the output of the code in question.

Demanding citations is the internets "nuh-uh, PROVE IT!". Do some research of your own if you care about the topic. If you aren't familiar with the topic at hand then don't discuss it as if you are.

Every single fuck on the internet who demands a citation is the same fuck who just searches Google for sources that support their established view and cites those sources as authoritive.

There are no fucking sides in science - just truth. Look for it yourself if you actually care.
Fuck off if you've just picked a side and want to internet fight about it. (So fuck off.)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Draek]

Read any debate of climate science - heck, read the comments right here in this Slashdot article. The effect is clearly visible.

I've yet to see any comment by somebody claiming to be a climate researched stating that his research is flawless. Again, prove your statement.

Except science doesn't work by debunking - it works by incorporating criticism. Or, in other and less kind words, you prove my point. AGW has become a religion, and like all religions resists criticism - to the point where it's supporters are no longer cognizant of how science works.

Only if the criticism is, itself, valid. Which hasn't happened with the 'skeptics' so far, everytime they've tried to put something out for peer-review it gets debunked so there's no reason to address them further.

Yet, when another hypothesis 'proves' AGW it is accepted as soon as it is published. When criticism arises, it's attacked and supported refuse to review it.

Prove it.

(And your use of 'denialist' just further proves my point. You aren't interested in science, you're a follower of a religion.)

Your use of 'follower' just furthers my point. You aren't interested in science, you're merely a denialist clinging to any excuse not to have their toys taken away. And that's why 'ad hominem' are considered a logical fallacy.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[styrotech]

I don't think anyone *denies* that climate is changing. What the skeptics think is that the "A" part of AGW does not apply, i.e. is is NOT caused primarily by man.

It has been demonstrated time and time again that in the past the earth was also hotter and contained more carbon dioxide. Who caused that, the bloody dinosaurs ?

Well duh.

Where did all that carbon go in the meantime? And where are WE putting it now?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it is that known to be a complete fucking moron Pudge. He's a troll from wayback. dont feed him!

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

1) That clears it up for me, but I'm not sure I understand its relevance, even after you've explained the relevance as you see it.
2) It's bad stuff. But the whole of climate science is not built around that one dataset. Not even close.
3) Rhetorical flourish. My apologies.

I'm struck by your choice of words in your final paragraph: " I also think that making global changes to a system without understanding it can have unintended consequences, potentially worse than the problem we are trying to avert." Do you not see? Pouring gigatonnes of CO2, CH4 into the atmosphere each year is a perfect example of "making global changes to a system without understanding it". The unintended consequences are the effects of climate change on us. And the problem we were trying to avert was an inability to easily heat and transport ourselves, manufacture goods etc etc. We did it to move ourselves away from the misery of pre-industrial life. Now we need to hang on to our hats and do our damndest to make sure that the species doesn't end up with something *worse* than pre-industrial life.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[styrotech]

Good question.

I'll add another variable to consider when pondering this question: the upper atmosphere is way thinner than the lower atmosphere, so would it's capacity to absorb IR radiation be a lot less than the lower atmosphere?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

Huh?

Who's been complaining that they've written strong papers that have been turned down for publication unfairly because of the view they promote? Name names -- it shouldn't be difficult, they're presumably shouting from the rooftops about it. Do they number in the dozens, hundreds or thousands? Did they put their work up on the web so that it could be read anyway?

Are you really saying that tens of thousands of scientists are all politically correct and producing only the results that support AGW? What about the rest of their output -- most of these scientists will be working on topics that are from time to time relevant to AGW, but oftentimes are not (like ursine ecology, for example, or fluid dynamics, or biochemistry, etc etc) -- is all that output also just politically correct rubbish? How much of science needs to be chucked out? And, Sir, Can You Help? We need a Hero, and it sounds like that could be You.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[holmstar]

The numbers he cites cannot be used to make his conclusion: "that climate change will not cause massive disruptions or huge death tolls. " While a higher temp might be good for Europe, (for the sake of argument, lets assume it is) you can't make the leap that it will be fine for the population of the planet as a whole. Just guessing now, but it might make monsoons much more severe for east Asia, more than offsetting the reduction in cold related deaths in Europe.

While that may or may not be true, what one can say is that more research is needed before one can come to any sort of conclusion.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

no it's not thousands. where did you come up with this number? it's a handful of research centers at best. feel free to prove me wrong with a list of 1000 names though.

It's quite a bit more than a handful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Statements_by_organisations

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

They will have to be replicated, validated, tested etc etc every which way from Sunday,

Where is my whole earth that I can experiment on to confirm that, yes, the combined effect of 6 billion people in an industrial society leads to a melting of the polar ice caps? I promise to also run the control case where I show that a planet without those 6 million people has ice caps that don't melt!

I don't know what this whole debate is, but science seems like more of an innocent bystander than a tool being used by either side.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[randomencounter]

Heating of the atmosphere by direct solar irradiation is not the greenhouse effect, and as you note it should be neutral in impact due to the re-radiation of the heat to space.

Re-read the text you quoted, it says why your assertion is irrelevant.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Danse]

And your tactic is the scientific equivalent of Godwin's law. You say, "This is something creationists do" therefore implying that it must be wrong. In fact deniers use the same stupid tactic against warmers, of trying to compare them to creationists.

In his defense, the poster he was responding to had demanded to see proof of overlap between AGW deniers and creationists. I'd say he provided that quite clearly.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Capsaicin]

.. and when you've finished counting, subtract all the scientists who asked for their names to be removed

Please provide a list of scientists who fall into that category. Is it larger than 3? Given there are somewhere around 3000 on the list, do you believe that subtracting these names will leave less than "thousands" of scientists on the list?

due to being misquoted in the summaries and conclusions (written by politicians and influenced by news reports and other media)

The "summary for policy makers" was written for politicians , not by them.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

There's another reason besides pollution to find alternatives to coal and oil: they're finite resources and in the case of oil the supply is expected to start declining in the next few decades. We will HAVE to get more efficient and find an alternative at that point. It will be profoundly economically damaging if we don't.

On one hand this is a good thing -- the CO2 problem kind of solves itself if there is less to burn. On the other hand a forced transition could be pretty tough and if we switch to coal it will become worse (CO2 output per unit energy). It makes a lot of sense to stretch out the supply of fossil fuels we have as much as possible. This is doubly the case for strategic reasons in countries which import more than they produce domestically.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Capsaicin]

It's touching how you dance around the hard facts of the code

Show me this code.

to quote something completely irrelevant

Why do you think that the code that is actually used, and publicly available, is irrelevant? You are not making sense.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[ralphbecket]

I have read his book, but I wonder whether you have. I've seen much emotional criticism of The Skeptical Environmentalist, but nothing of substance. At most a few trivial errors have been pointed out which Lomborg has acknowledged and corrected.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Capsaicin]

And if you had paid attention when the news broke, you would have known of (some of) the publications that had graphs and data that were the output of the code in question.

You paid attention to the wrong sources. Or you failed to pay attention after the news broke. In any case you are not able to provide a source for "some of" because in fact there is none. The code in question has only been published subsequently to its theft.

Demanding citations is the internets "nuh-uh, PROVE IT!". Do some research of your own if you care about the topic.

I agree it's overused, but since you are saying there exists >1 publication using this code, and since it's common knowledge that that is a lie, you really do need to put up or shut up. I've done the research. The research says, that morsel of code was never used in the published literature. The only reason I'm not asking you for a citation is that it's unkind to ask the impossible.

There are no fucking sides in science - just truth.

Exactly!

Fuck off if you've just picked a side and want to internet fight about it. (So fuck off.)

Have you just picked a side, or were you genuinely taken in by that disinformation? You need to exercise a little more skepticism.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Capsaicin]

The funniest thing about the whole debate to me is those that "believe in" AGW demean those that don't "believe" by calling them "skeptics."

Nonsense it's the anti-science guys who call themselves "skeptics." Scientists call the climate science deniers, "denialists." The denialists then get all huffy and demand to be called "skeptics."

But really given all the crazy pseudo-scientific arguments which AGW denialists accept without the least bit of skepticism, how can you call them that? At least without using inverted commas. If you were a true skeptic you would be highly skeptical of the arguments of Global Warming "Skeptics."

Do you "believe in" electricity?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sysrammer]

"http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22climate+change+is+a+lie%22" ???

Climate is changing. Nothing is static. News at 11.

sr

Re:Absence of Evidence

[drmerope]

Uh, no. You're wrong to say that I'm wrong. Expectation is a statistical term which you'd do well to understand before criticizing my remark.

What is wrong is to say "weather is not climate" therefore the recent temperature means nothing. This is false, and its false because climate is related to weather: climate is the expectation of weather. Therefore a few months of data mean a little something--although not very much. That is, with only a few months data we cannot statistically falsify the IPCC claim that the trend-rate of warming is 2C/century. Nonetheless, with the past 10, 15, 20, etc years of data, we can falsify the IPCC claim, but just barely.

Such analysis is easy to do yourself. You can also find people who have posted their own number-crunching. See for instance this from Lucia Liljegren

Re:Absence of Evidence

[drmerope]

You're wrong in saying "no, just no". Yes, CO2 does act that way; however, a doubling of CO2 would produce only 1 degree C of warming solely on the basis you described. The IPCC claims several degrees of warming. The difference between the simple CO2 only calculation and the IPCC claim stems from the latters incorporation of feedback effects.

That is, they argue CO2 causes changes in the hydrological cycle. This means a change in humidity and cloud cover. Ipso facto, the climate sensitivity from a doubling of CO2 is more than would be suggested by a simple black-body radiation calculation.

This is not just a small part of their argument. Its a significant factor, and yet while black-body radiation is a universally accepted idea; the magnitude (and sign!) of the feedback effects is poorly understood.

Thus my remark was dead-on accurate. You might want to review this from Dr Roy Spencer, one the scientists who does satellite based temperature monitoring.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[randomencounter]

You said "CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its effect on temperature depends on poorly understood feedback effects."

CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas, but it's direct contribution to temperature rise is a direct result of principles taught in undergraduate physics and astronomy classes.

That there are other feedback effects is relevant to predicting with precision how the system as a whole will respond, but the gross signals of increased heat in the system (global average sea temperatures, sea level rise due to water temperature rise, sea level rise due to ice melt) are giving consistent results with global aggregate temperature increase.

But you are right, panic is an inappropriate response. Panic shuts down thought at a time when we would seem to need clear thinking to plan for what may be very serious dislocation of populations combined with changes in agricultural conditions.

It won't be "The Day After Tomorrow" with an immediate global catastrophe, it will be the death of a thousand pinpricks, until we stop feeling them anymore...

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Lunzo]

Insightful? More like [Citation needed]. Unsubstantiated claims aren't insightful (in b4 you must be new here).

Re:Absence of Evidence

[h4rm0ny]

Re-read the text you quoted, it says why your assertion is irrelevant.

I'm not quite seeing it. You're saying that CO2 keeps heat in by stopping it escaping through absorbtion and re-radiation back in toward the Earth. But you agree that CO2 in the upper atmosphere cuts down on the infrared radiation reaching the earth in the first place. How do you know that the former effect exceeds the latter, and not the other way around. I never said that heating of the atmosphere should be "neutral in impact" which you say I did. I never asserted anything like that. How do you know that an increase in CO2 should have no effect on warming of the Earth from the Sun. Maybe it increases it by trapping heat below, maybe it decreases it by catching infrared radiation before it reaches the Earth and re-radiates it back out into Space, maybe the effect of either of these is negligible in comparison to other varying factors.

You tell me to re-read the text and see why my assertion is irrelevant. If you re-read mine you'll find that I asserted nothing, merely asked questions. Your post was a scornful-sounding "of course CO2 causes warming - it absorbs IR" and "just because you don't understand this, doesn't mean nobody else does." I think my questions have illustrated that this response is unjustified. The possible impact of increased CO2 in the upper atmosphere is complicated and you have yet to actually answer my questions, just stated that an assertion which I did not make "is irrelevant."

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sonicmerlin]

Um...yes they do? Do you even know what the scientific method is?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

what crack are you smoking. i've never seen any over lap between creationist and AGW skeptics.

Yeah, Sarah Palin doesn't exist. Thank you for your post getting rid of her.

Anyway, there is a clear overlap between AGW skeptics and e.g. Ozone Hole skeptics http://ludinthemist.blogspot.com/2009/10/fired-by-vice-president-al-gore.html The same people, the same arguments, the same mistakes.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[h4rm0ny]

Sorry - I now see what you were saying. Visible light gets absorbed and re-emitted as infrared which the CO2 absorbs. That's a good point. How do we know that it isn't balanced by increased CO2 in the upper atmosphere reflecting more infrared radiation back into Space? These aren't simple issues and your condemnation of another poster for not seeing it as simple is inappropriate.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[mcvos]

This is, of course, not evidence that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, but that public critics of ACC feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

How about TFA?

Maybe Lomborg was wrong, but you didn't read or research Friel's work, you're just assuming it's correct, which is precisely what the AGW folks are complaining about in regard to Lomborg's work.

Why even read Friel's work? Sounds like Sharon Begley already did that for us. Whether you believe Lomborg, Friel, Begley, or even Albert Einstein, you're always relying on someone's authority, rather than doing your own research. And you have to, because you can't possibly recheck every bit of research that everybody ever did. I never checked for myself that F=m*a, nor that E=mc^2. But enough people did that I'm inclined to believe them.

As I understand this issue, nobody ever checked on Lomborg's claimed facts. His book seemed very well researched, so everybody blindly assumed that it was. Friel discovered that some of Lomborg's facts aren't supported at all by his cited sources, and sometimes even completely contradicted. Begley checked whether (a sample of) Friel's claims is correct, and apparently it is. Of course it's possible that both Friel and Begley are lying, but for the time being, I'm inclined to believe them. I hope that more people will check the real facts here more thoroughly, because this kind of academic dishonesty does need to be exposed.

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Do you realise that the IPCC report that contained those recently exposed mistakes was from a non-scientific "news" workgroup from the IPCC? Yes, it's very sloppy, but it's sloppy journalism rather than dishonest science.

Even if Lomborg was dishonest -- and you have no evidence of that

How do we not have evidence of that?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

It sounds like you think CO2 is intercepting incoming solar radiation. CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't absorb much incoming solar radiation because it's mostly in the visible band where CO2 is transparent. The surface absorbs some of that incoming visible radiation and reradiates it mostly in the infra-red where CO2 has several absorption bands.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

"Indeed, weather is not climate. Climate is the expectation of weather-"

I think a good definition is that climate defines the bounds that weather is free to be chaotic in.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

For an erudite discussion of the challenges of applying the scientific method to historical sciences, I suggest you read Stephen Jay Gould's wonderful book "Wonderful life".

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Ginger Unicorn]

It is the logical fallacy of "poisoning the well", and I don't think that just because creationists don't like AGW that it must be real. I was merely answering the post immediately above me, which demanded evidence of an overlap between AGW deniers and creationists, so I gave it.

Also, falling into fallacious thinking doesn't require severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying - all humans do it every day. So had I been using the disapproval of creationists as evidence for AGW, I could have done so quite innocently, simply by not thinking my argument through rigourously.

Compiling a lengthy list of quotes that have been carefully obfuscated requires deliberate intent. Hence, the person doing it is either happy to lie, or able to employ heavy cognitive dissonance to allow themselves to believe that what they are doing is not lying. This is the point I was making. The fact that creationists do it is irrelevant, and unnecessary to the point being made, which stands on its own.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Ginger Unicorn]

As has been pointed out, I was responding to the previous poster's demand for links. The approval or disapproval of creationists is neither here nor there, and I certainly wasn't trying to make the case that it mattered. The only point I was personally making was about the quote mining, which would of course still be an indication of dishonesty irrespective of whether creationists employed the tactic.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Ginger Unicorn]

It's a semantic smokescreen induced by the fact that AGW denialists insist on referring to themselves as "skeptics", and so does the mass media, who use the common usage of the term rather then the rigourous scientific term. It's awkward because if you refer to someone as a denialist you come across as strident and closed-minded, so you fall back on the common term of "skeptic" because the only other option would be to invent a new term. Perhaps a new term is needed.

The current consensus on the existence of AGW has been arrived at by the process of scientific skepticism. The fact that a group of people who don't like the results of the research have decided to misappropriate the term "skeptic" for a campaign of denialism, bears no reflection on the quality of skepticism employed in the original research. Denialism requires sowing confusion and FUD - misappropriating the meaning of words is a highly effective method.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[memnock]

that was pretty funny. thanks for the laugh.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudgetest]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

How about TFA?

The article contained no evidence that Lomborg was dishonest, so ... nope. It doesn't even contain any serious evidence that Lomborg was WRONG, let alone DISHONEST.

Why even read Friel's work? Sounds like Sharon Begley already did that for us.

So if ONE PERSON asserts that something someone else says is true, we should therefore believe it? That makes no sense.

Whether you believe Lomborg, Friel, Begley, or even Albert Einstein, you're always relying on someone's authority, rather than doing your own research.

First, you're conflating two different things: authority, and relying on research. I can rely on someone's RESEARCH without relying on their AUTHORITY. So, say, if East Anglia does some research, I can demand to SEE the research (even if they say they want to illegally resist this request), and rely on that research, without trusting what they have to SAY about their research. That's how science works.

Second, no real research was presented in the article. It's all very high-level and undetailed. This is my point: we have people, without giving any REASON why from any actual EVIDENCE, saying Lomborg was dishonest.

I never checked for myself that F=m*a, nor that E=mc^2.

I did. In the case of F=ma, I repeated experiments that demonstrated it. In the case of E=mc^2, I checked it not by repeating experiments, but by looking at the results and proving it to myself, because, frankly, I was a bit skeptical.

And while many people think I am sometimes silly for questioning such established formulas, the people who -- like me -- love science never begrudge my search.

But enough people did that I'm inclined to believe them.

You have that right. But in science, we demand evidence. None was provided.

Friel discovered that some of Lomborg's facts aren't supported at all by his cited sources, and sometimes even completely contradicted

He CLAIMED he discovered this, yes. And I asked for evidence that he's correct. That is how science works.

Of course it's possible that both Friel and Begley are lying ...

Or it's possible they are both just WRONG. Why jump to "lying"? And further, of course, it's possible that Friel is lying, and Begley is merely wrong.

for the time being, I'm inclined to believe them

OK.

Based on what?

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Do you realise that the IPCC report that contained those recently exposed mistakes was from a non-scientific "news" workgroup from the IPCC?

No, I am referring to the rampant dishonesty by East Anglia (which I referenced earlier in this comment).

Yes, it's very sloppy, but it's sloppy journalism rather than dishonest science.

I hope you're not trying to blame the journalists, rather -- or more -- than the IPCC, for the Himalayan error. I am not claiming dishonesty, as I just said, but clearly, and unequivocally, this is extremely sloppy science, much more than sloppy journalism. To rely on mere unsubstantiated journalist accounts for scientific claims is about the worst kind of science you can do (other than actual dishonesty).

Even if Lomborg was dishonest -- and you have no evidence of that

How do we not have evidence of that?

How DO you? None has been provided, and in your whole post, you didn't reference any such evidence. And out of the dozens of responses to me, no one else has, either.

That's fairly telling.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudgetest]

The work of AGW scientists does not follow the scientific method.

Um...yes they do?

In a micro sense, yes. But in the sense of drawing conclusions about global warming, no, they do not.

Do you even know what the scientific method is?

Yes. Let's go through it, since you're not understanding.

1. Characterizations. Observations, measurements, and so on. Check.
2. Hypotheses. Coming up with explanations for the observations. Check.
3. Predictions. Reasoning and logic and statements about what will happen based on those hypotheses, characterizations, and future experiments. Check.
4. Experiments. Demonstrating that the hypotheses are true or false based on the predictions and characterizations.

This last one is where we run into problems. We really don't have them. We cannot falsify the claims in any serious sense. Most egregiously, we cannot test (on a macro scale) what happens if we take away, or significantly diminish, manmade CO2. We're just guessing.

Instead of actually testing the hypotheses -- which, admittedly, is hard, if not impossible -- we substitute a lack of imagination for actual experimentation. We say, "well, our data and correct predictions mostly, up to around 80-90 percent, fit our hypotheses. Therefore the hypotheses must be correct."

But that is not how the scientific method works. If you don't experiment properly, you could be missing something you haven't accounted for. You could be looking at correlation, rather than causation ... or you could be looking at causation in the reverse direction.

We just don't know, and as long as scientists cannot admit that fact, they are ignoring a primary component of the scientific method.

It's not a crime against science to be incapable of demonstrating through experimentation. It is a crime against science, however, to pretend that you can reach conclusions without having done that demonstration.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

Um.

So you are contending that hiding research from the public, especially when the claims made based on that research are widely used for public policy around the world, is NOT dishonest?

Wow.

The hatred of science around here runs deeper than I thought.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[mcvos]

First, you're conflating two different things: authority, and relying on research. I can rely on someone's RESEARCH without relying on their AUTHORITY. So, say, if East Anglia does some research, I can demand to SEE the research (even if they say they want to illegally resist this request), and rely on that research, without trusting what they have to SAY about their research. That's how science works.

I have no idea what East Anglia has to do with this. Sticking to the subject at hand, Lomborg was believed on his AUTHORITY, because he made it appear as if he'd properly RESEARCHED his subject. Friel pointed out that this was not true.

Friel discovered that some of Lomborg's facts aren't supported at all by his cited sources, and sometimes even completely contradicted

He CLAIMED he discovered this, yes. And I asked for evidence that he's correct. That is how science works.

You can do that yourself by checking Lomborg's sources. Just like Begley did.

Of course it's possible that both Friel and Begley are lying ...

Or it's possible they are both just WRONG. Why jump to "lying"? And further, of course, it's possible that Friel is lying, and Begley is merely wrong.

Begley checked Friel's work. How can she be wrong about that without lying?

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Do you realise that the IPCC report that contained those recently exposed mistakes was from a non-scientific "news" workgroup from the IPCC?

No, I am referring to the rampant dishonesty by East Anglia (which I referenced earlier in this comment).

Then I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't live in East Anglia, and I have no idea how their dishonesty can possibly prove anything about any dishonesty of climate scientists.

I hope you're not trying to blame the journalists, rather -- or more -- than the IPCC, for the Himalayan error.

I'm blaming the news workgroup of the IPCC.

I am not claiming dishonesty, as I just said, but clearly, and unequivocally, this is extremely sloppy science, much more than sloppy journalism.

What exactly is sloppy science? The Himalayan error? Where was ever any science involved in that?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sparhawktn]

This last one is where we run into problems. We really don't have them.

Well not really the numbers are made up and there is plenty of evidence from the emails that those so called scientist wanted the numbers to reflect what Al Gore and his hippies wanted to say.

In case you don't understand it is a pure political cause. Marxist/fascist wanting to rule the world with fear and terror.

If you go in with bad data you can make anything possible. Since there has been more than one real scientist to say the data does not make their observations it makes the whole of the climate argument false. Period. Full stop.

We have no evidence that what is happening isn't supposed to happen changes in the Sun's helo sphere, Earth's orbit, forest fires, volcanoes there is a lot going on on this great big blue marble.

Humanity is a pretty important part of life on this planet but honestly people are pretty insignificant, I point to the idiots screaming the sky is falling.. errr global warming as examples

Re:Absence of Evidence

[phantomfive]

Ah, my apologies

Re:Absence of Evidence

[sac13]

Perhaps a new term is needed.

I just consider myself a conscientious objector.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

One minor nit. I thought it was around 1960 when the tree ring proxies started going crazy.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

If your message is a troll it's an insightful troll.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

How about pseudoskeptic?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[khayman80]

Hmm... I like it, but it sounds very similar to "pseudoscientist" which I think is more common. Also, I'm not clear on the precise difference between the two terms.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism.

Show me a quote where a climate scientist has said their work is above criticism. Responding to unscientific criticism is a waste of their time though so the mostly ignore it. If the debunking is scientific then it's valid. When McIntyre found some errors in the temperature records the climate scientists corrected them. It didn't change much though.

One the the CRU controversies involves a 2003 paper by Soon & Baliunas published in the journal Climate Research. The scientific criticism was that the paper "had conflated precipitation proxies and temperature proxies and that regional temperature changes were taken as global changes. Other objections included the allegation that SB03 reconstructed past temperatures from proxy evidence not capable of resolving decadal trends. If the criticisms are true then the paper should never have been published without major revisions to correct the errors. When the publisher wouldn't allow the chief editor to publish an editorial apologizing for the editorial failure he and several other editors resigned rather than be associated with a journal that would publish bad science. Some of the messages in the CRU hack were scientists questioning whether they want to be associated with such a journal either.

Yet the deniers spin it into "The scientists are suppressing the publishing of contrary science." Of course they ignore the fact the famous scientific skeptics like Spencer and Lindtzen do get papers published.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

... and China, India and other up-and-coming industrial nations want no part of such an economy-killing proposal.

China is spending more than the USA on renewable energy and green technology. They recently committed to spending $400 billion over a period of years on the issue.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[riverat1]

grin

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Doggabone]

Who the hell modded that "funny"? It's either "informative" or "insightful".

The funniest stuff is both.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[VanessaE]

You are not the first to make this comparison, and while the source is still the seventh commandment, it is a reference to the Jewish interpretation of it.

You are not supposed to use His name in a nefarious manner such as claiming some violent event was His will, or that you are going to kill someone "in G*d's name", etc. In Jewish tradition, this is extended such that you are also not supposed to write out the four letter Yod-Hay-Vov-Hay if the media you are writing on is readily defaced. These days, it is applied to all words used as names of G*d. [1] In prayer books, this is usually abbreviated as two Yods and read as Adonai.

Most observant Jews abbreviate His name in some manner or another, with a hyphen being the most common. I use an asterisk, for the sole purpose of avoiding the comparison with "Goddamn".

[1] Except for a scribe making an exact copy of the Torah, or when you are teaching something where spelling His name out is helpful or necessary. Technically, it should also not apply to a website such as Slashdot, which is not readily defaced.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Ginger Unicorn]

Objector is a good one - if you prefix it with "conscientious" though the people who accept AGW won't want to use it as it implies they aren't conscientious. Accepters and Objectors seem like the most neutral, succinct and unambiguous terms. You can then go on to argue about whether or not Accepters are conscientious without any bickering about labels.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DavidTC]

Yeah, whatever, I was working off memory. :)

But, anyway, it's just amazing how morons think 'hide the decline' is evidence of anything except 'tree rings started screwing up recently'. The damn email explained that, it's a known thing that scientists have been doing for decades, it's mentioned in all the footnotes, but this requires AGW-deniers to have some actual grasp of the research instead of just parroting talking point.

If people don't understand what's going on: It's like to tracking someone miles through the woods. You've got their footprints (tree rings), and broken branches (ice cores), and other stuff(There's a lot of ways to guess a temperature in the past), and you've followed them a very long way. In the last hundred feet, for some reason, they've apparently had a squaredance or something, you don't know what, but their footprints are a mess. Of course, for the past half mile, you've had a damn GPS tracker(Those devices we possess to actually measure temperature called 'thermometers'.) on them, and you know they didn't have a square dance, so you just start ignoring their footprints and following their actual measured position. (Possibly some other animal mated on their footprints, which might be a concern to the 'footprint scientists', but you couldn't care less about. You're just keeping track of the location of the person you're tracking.)

As I said, the only scientific debate you can have about this (As we factually know the temperature recently, we don't need to guess.) is to assert that maybe tree rings were wrong in the past, too.

It's a valid argument to make. But, as I said, a somewhat pointless argument to make, too, as the older tree rings pretty well match the other data we have, and removing them doesn't shift temps one way or another.

The whole 'haywire' thing is very noticeable, with temps jumping up and down randomly, so it really doesn't look like they were doing this in the past, but as the temps matches anyway, no one cares if AGW deniers want to argue the data without tree rings. It doesn't actually change anything.

Of course, AGW deniers weren't arguing this, because, as I said, they have almost no idea how any of these scientists actually make claims or what the claims says or what research has been done, and they think it's just some scientists literally just measuring a trend and extrapolating from there, and the way to disprove it is to point to how the trend isn't perfect.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[ArcherB]

American-made computer? Most are made in Asia. I know all my personal computers are (primarily), and I'd bet this Dell on my office desk was too...

Just popped the side, I'm seeing a lot of "Made in China"s, DVD drive says "Made in Philippines," Keyboard and mouse are China, monitors - China. Also the GP could have made the same comment on heise.de.

Saying America has nothing to offer the world is quite stupid (oh wait, that was actually a strawman you made up? Well my point stands) but your Team America skit is no better.

The chips that run the computer were designed in America by an American company (AMD, IBM, Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments and so on). That is what I meant by American made. Maybe I should have said "designed" or "invented", although the abacus was around long before the Phenom.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[khayman80]

Thanks for that comment. It inspired me to post a snippet of a similar conversation I had months ago, with your links and some others added:

Is it right, however, to lump together those who are skeptical of evolution with those who are skeptical of AGW, particularly CO2-driven AGW ?

Creationists confuse religious faith with falsifiable science. Among the general public, climate-change contrarians (and your average Greenpeace/PETA loony) confuse political affiliation with falsifiable science. In both cases, scientists are much less likely to agree with either claim, and that likelihood decreases with increasing relevance of the scientist's field. That's probably why both groups tend to accuse the scientific community of conspiracy and/or widespread incompetence.

At my blog, the following statement is both legible and has popup titles describing why that link was chosen. Here it is without the links first: "And, in my experience there's a significant overlap between the two groups. Most of their arguments seem to be at similar intellectual and educational levels."

And, in my experience there's a significant overlap between the two groups. Most of their arguments seem to be at similar intellectual and educational lev els.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[hsthompson69]

1) I used the right word here - the *rates* of increase and decrease in historical times dwarf what we've experienced over the last 150 years. And you're right, rate is important.

2) Quick question - could you fit 6 billion humans on the island of Oahu? Although it may seem like a big number to you, we're really just a fraction of the biomass of the insect kingdom - why wouldn't the even larger number of resource using insects be more damaging to the planet?

3) CO2 is measured in the atmosphere in parts per million. CO2 is a trace gas. Even natural global climate change deniers accept these two facts.

4) Having a "ton of physical evidence" doesn't mean anything for a theory. Having ZERO contradictory evidence does (and note, the natural global climate change deniers have worked hard to keep the contradictory evidence from coming to light as seen in ClimateGate). What global warming promoters need to do is come up with a theory that is falsifiable, not one that is simply supported by arbitrary cherry picked data.

So to answer your two questions:

1) It is happening, and it's natural
2) There is nothing we can do except work towards improving the standards of living of people so they can better adapt to changing conditions.

Seriously though, how does tripe like shilly's get modded +5?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

yeast (sacchromyces cerevisiae) is not bacteria.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The arguments on both sides are right. The climate is changing and the earth is warming. That much is true. However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming. This is also true.

So we should be studying ways to mitigate the impact of climate change, not trying to find ways to reverse the irreversible.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe someone should call them "yeasties". In another thread, some slashdotter pointed out that yeast bacteria are perfectly content to ferment and ferment and ferment until alcohol kills off their whole colony. I wonder if, in their short life, some of the more "successful" bacteria scorn the ones who suggest that a different approach would be wiser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast

Bacteria? You are trying to correct someone on science and you cannot even keep bacteria straight from fungi?

What's worse, this fungi is responsible for alcohol.. and you still can't keep it straight?

Yes, we should trust your view of science; failed highschool biology!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[a whoabot]

What if an ignorant yeast called you a bacteria, wouldn't you be offended? Fungi have feelings too!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Garble Snarky]

Honest question, can you tell me off the top of your head what the difference is between bacteria and fungi?

Lomborg has a response

[ralphbecket]

I'm sure everybody here will be interested in reading Lomborg's response before forming an opinion.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Anonymous Coward]

Very cool Thanks!

Re:Lomborg has a response

[rmushkatblat]

I might even buy the book to see if his debunking of the debunking is correct. Frankly, I don't think he would risk sinking his career (further) by publishing more inaccurate statements.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[sonicmerlin]

I might even buy the book to see if his debunking of the debunking is correct. Frankly, I don't think he would risk sinking his career (further) by publishing more inaccurate statements.

Lomborg doesn't have a career. No real scientist takes him seriously. This is why he submitted his "research" in the form of a book instead of to peer review. The whole thing was one massive fabrication, a lie to mislead the public. The scope of his deception is quite stunning. He must have been paid quite handsomely by his leash-holders.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

If lomborg had any faith in the veracity of his "science" he would publish it in peer-reviewed journals. As it stands his solitary journal publication was in a sociology journal.

Considering the mountain of propoganda surrounding the issue of AGW (on both sides) any sane spectator will quite rightly continue to ignore his rants until he has the balls to submit them to formal scientific scrutiny.

This is not to say that your link is not informative in the current context and IMHO should be modded as such, just that it's contents are not worth the electrons they are written with.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[bloodhawk]

So one can also conclude that as friel is publishing his as a book that his is also one huge fabrication and should not be taken seriously?

From a quick reading of some reviews and lomborgs response it sounds most likely that they are both just publicity Whores with very little credibility.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[benjamindees]

If lomborg had any faith in the veracity of his "science" he would publish it in peer-reviewed journals.

You mean like the peer-reviewed journals that were systematically fixed by pro-AGW scientists in order to exclude dissenting researchers?

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Puff_Of_Hot_Air]

But he hasn't done any science. Or is that your point? His book has collated a whole bunch of other peoples research to make the argument "Yeah climate change is real and human made and largly negative, BUT, our attempts at reversing it are a fools errand". I mean, this is the sort of thing you do when you write a book. He hasn't done any original research, so what is there to submit to a journal? Your creating a crazy argument "You have to submit your research to peer-review!" "But I haven't done any research..." "AHA!".

Re:Lomborg has a response

[iluvcapra]

Conspiracy!

Re:Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

I agree that both authors have not subjected their work to scientific scrutiny. The difference is that Lomborg is passing fiction off as science, Friel is pointing that out. If Lomborg subjected his work to peer-review then you might have a point, you might also have a point if you can you tell me which scientific journal would be interested in publishing a paper about the faults in a work of fiction?

Re:Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

Not sure who the "he" is that you are refering to, neither have done any climate science but Lomborg claims he has and that his rants should be included in the IPCC reports.

Lomborg paints himself a persecuted DaVinci, a lone voice of scientific genius against the harsh dogma of the establishment. Basically Friel has published a detailed book review debunking that picture, the journal of nature also reviews books and like Friel they do not claim them to be anything more than researched opinion.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[h4rm0ny]

Not conspiracy, proven fact. From this email by Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit (very influential leader of AGW hypothesis):

I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !
Cheers
Phil

There you go - one of the most influential and powerful AGW proponents using his influence to keep journals from printing papers that contradicted some of the basis for his work. Even if he has to "redefine what peer-reviewed literature is!"

There is even more supression in the mainstream media.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Gadget_Guy]

You mean like the peer-reviewed journals that were systematically fixed by pro-AGW scientists in order to exclude dissenting researchers?

Do they really try to exclude dissenting researchers, or just ones who use bad science (or misleading citations that do not match what is being argued in the paper)? If somebody does use bad science to make outrageous claims and they then get rejected by the journals, they will claim that they were rejected because of bias or a conspiracy. And unfortunately, people will believe them.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[Black Parrot]

If lomborg had any faith in the veracity of his "science" he would publish it in peer-reviewed journals.

You mean like the peer-reviewed journals that were systematically fixed by pro-AGW scientists in order to exclude dissenting researchers?

How many examples of that can you adduce? ...The global warming deniers act exactly like creationists do.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[bheer]

Question: Is "The Lomborg Deception" peer-reviewed?

Re: Lomborg has a response

[JackieBrown]

The global warming deniers act exactly like creationists do.

Really? I would have thought the opposite.

Care to explain how they act the same?

The global warming group is the ones saying that we should not question and waste time debating whether global warming was true or not even after their more outrageous claims were disproven.

Or do you mean that conservatives tend to be pro-creation and anti-climate change and liberals tend to be anti-creationism and pro-climate change? If so, how very open minded of you.

It reminds me of a history teacher that I once had that said he hated it when someone voted for someone based solely on them being pro-life. When I asked if he hated it when people would not vote for someone solely because they were pro-life, he said that was "different" because people that are pro-choice are automatically not close minded.

I got the same type of argument when I went to middle school in San Antonio. My brother and I would get beat up daily for being the only white kids in the school (the rest were predominately Hispanic.) When a teacher complained about how racist the kids were acting, they immediately responded and said it was impossible for them to be racist since they were not white.

The point is, it is easy to see your side as correct with no need to defend since anyone who disagrees must be irredeemably ignorant. Just because you believe it, though, does not mean your side is right.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Neoprofin]

Continue to mod parent up. Whether you agree with Lomborg or not his response is extremely level headed and informative. If the passages he responds to are any indicator of the quality of this "debunking" it's nothing more than another log of rhetoric on the fire that does nothing to serve either side of the argument.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[DiamondGeezer]

So Friel is submitting his book after peer-review? Of course not.

So your argument is plucked out of the orifice that your proctologist knows so well.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Eunuchswear]

There you go - one of the most influential and powerful AGW proponents using his influence to keep journals from printing papers that contradicted some of the basis for his work. Even if he has to "redefine what peer-reviewed literature is!"

Miss.

1. This isn't about whether the papers be published or not - they were, it's about whether they be cited in the IPCC report or not.
2. Jones's conspiratorial powers were so great that the papers were cited by the report ("McKitrick, R., and P.J. Michaels, 2004: A test of corrections for extraneous signals in gridded surface temperature data. Clim. Res., 26, 159-173." and "Kalnay, E., and M. Cai, 2003: Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate. Nature, 423, 528-531.").
3. It turns out that the papers are crap, as Jones was pointing out in this email. If skeptics wanted to point to bad science in the IPCC reports these are some of the things they would be shouting about the loudest,

Re: Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

"The global warming group is the ones saying that we should not question and waste time debating whether global warming was true or not"

Strawman.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[Rennt]

Care to explain how they act the same?

Come now, you haven't noticed the striking similarity?

Both argue that overwhelming scientific consensus is wrong, and established working models are "just a theory".

They then point out that theory by definition can not be proven, so dismiss it without bothering to disprove anything.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[perp]

There you go - one of the most influential and powerful AGW proponents using his influence to keep journals from printing papers that contradicted some of the basis for his work. Even if he has to "redefine what peer-reviewed literature is!" There is even more supression in the mainstream media.

Were these papers actually repressed or was "peer review" redefined by the IPCC? I remember reading that they they were indeed published despite Phil Jones' dramatic email, but I can't find the citation right now.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Anonymous Coward]

This appears to be referring to draft manuscripts that will be sent for peer review. The email refers to the inclusion in the IPCC report. Ignoring poor quality papers in the IPCC report does not affect whether those manuscripts fail peer review via the journals they are submitted to.

So your claim is completely bogus. Simply put - these are unpublished data and papers. They have not been blocked from being accepted into journals. The email just states that they are not likely to be included in the IPCC report (and they likely wouldn't be unless they were eventually published in a journal anyway).

Again, your claim of "proven fact" is wrong, and you don't understand what the email states. Publishing in one of the myriad journals out there is independent of referencing those papers in the IPCC report. (And it sounds like one of those papers was of such poor quality that it would not pass independent peer review anyway).

As a professional researcher (PhD in a biomedical field), it saddens me when people who don't understand the basics of scientific fields attempt to find conspiracies where there are none. I assume you are a programmer from your userpage. How would you like it if I started making wild claims that completely contradict the basics of your field? (Not that I would - I've also trained in computer science).

Please control your impulses towards conspiracy theories and try to learn a little about this before you jump to conclusions. I suggest RealClimate.org in your case. It might do you some good.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Anonymous Coward]

That is just an enthusiastic response by a "believer" on one journal. It doesn't mean that dissenting researchers won't get to publish anywhere. And in this case the papers *were* cited, so it does not support your case anyway.

Science magazine:

A second message relates to a chapter in the 2007 IPCC report that Jones edited. In 2004, he suggested that two recent papers on temperature trends didn’t deserve to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” he wrote Mann. “Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is.” But Trenberth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, says the papers were indeed considered. Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, an official reviewer for the chapter, says the IPCC’s peerreview procedures “were sacrosanct.” Both papers wound up being cited.

from http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/05/cato-institute-patrick-michaels-falsehood-stolen-emails-climategate-michael-mann-peer-review/

Re:Lomborg has a response

[ath1901]

Not conspiracy, proven fact.

The only "fact" you've shown is the existance of an email with some statements and opinions.

There is nothing showing that any manipulation or redefinition of peer review literature has actually taken place (or ever will).

I think you over estimate the power and influence this "Phil Jones" has.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[mykdavies]

Unfortunately for your case, both papers made it in, so it's actually a disproven fact.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Dobeln]

"Not sure who the "he" is that you are refering to, neither have done any climate science but Lomborg claims he has and that his rants should be included in the IPCC reports."

Could you please link to what you consider is a Lomborg "rant". It would be very enlightening as to your judgement. Or perhaps you can just quote some really ranty rantyness straight up for us?

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Anonymous Coward]

This is trolling.

He says he will keep them out of the IPCC report, even if he needs to set stricter rules on what to cite.
He has no power whatsoever to keep them out of all indexed journals.

Anyway, of course you know better..I am just a scientist...

Re:Lomborg has a response

[coaxial]

Damn science!

Re:Lomborg has a response

[CoccoBill]

From George Monbiot's response to the CRU leak:

It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often – as I documented in my book Heat – use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause.

Taken out of context some of the emails may look bad, but all he is saying is that they want to stop publications that have been proven faulty from appearing in a report that's used pretty much as a definitive guideline for how to deal with climate change. They're having a hard time convincing world leaders to act as it is, they don't need any additional distractions. Unethical/unprofessional? Somewhat. Condemning or making anything related to their research questionable? Hardly. I bet if granted access to anyone's private emails over a number of years, _any_ kind of conspiracy or federal offense could be "proven".

Re:Lomborg has a response

[1u3hr]

So Friel is submitting his book after peer-review? Of course not.

He's submitting his book as a peer review of Lomborg. Hel;s not making new arguments, rehashinhg the case for climate change, he's examining and critiquing Lombard's.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[DarenN]

First of all, linking to realclimate.org without providing context is wasting everyone's time. Realclimate is a project run by Gavin Schmidt of GISS, and is very heavily moderated. That's his bag, but it can hardly be considered an unbiased source (particularly as the response to any questions or requests for clarification is sneering). They don't acknowledge that they're working in a complex multidisciplinary field and that people with expertise in methods that they use can have valid criticisms of techniques used. To be a climate scientist you would need expertise in biology, meteorology, solar physics, physics, chemistry, statistics and data analysis, oceanography and geology, amongst others. That's an impressive list, and I submit that the list of people who could rightly claim to be experts in half of them is very, very small. Yet the climate change community seems to react to questions over methods and conclusions by experts in these various fields angrily and defensively, rather than constructively. Some of those studying in the field are not happy about this, such as Prof Atte Korhola, who has some interesting comments on the state of climate science at the moment.

The problem with getting anthropogenic climate change accepted by the general public is we know how bloody complicated the field is, so there will always be problems in the details, and therefore opportunities for questioning. Answering those questions is the whole reason the field exists, no? Climate is a complex system with many, many inputs. Many of these inputs have effects that are under question, or are poorly understood.

The predictions in the IPCC report were largely based off computer models that have questionable predictive power, and are based off data that is assumed to be global but in reality is taken from local data points. We all know that climate is not weather, as weather is a local phenomenon, and these data points are measuring localities. Okay, so we use more. But some of the data points reliabilities are under question, such as the tree-ring data that depends on the assumption that trees are good thermometers, which is, frankly, not supported particularly well by the evidence.

Lomborg does not deny climate change is happening. He even goes further and states that there is an anthropogenic component (which is the real point of contention). His discussion in his books is "What should we do about it". He reckons economists should decide. His response is actually a good read. This seems relatively non-controversial to me. Is the problem that he used the work "skeptical" and "cool" in his book titles?

Re:Lomborg has a response

[sorak]

Jones's conspiratorial powers were so great that the papers were cited by the report

Ah ha! That's part of his plan. The mark of a great conspiracy is that everything that helps the conspirator is evidence of their plan, and everything that hurts them is evidence of their cover-up.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Stupid McStupidson]

Hell, Lomborg fucked her!

Re:Lomborg has a response

[dcam]

Lomborg is popular because he tells people: keep doing what you are doing, nothing is wrong. That is an attractive message. People want to believe it even before they have heard any of the evidence.

Equally there are also people who are more predisposed to believe doom and gloom predictions, regardless of the evidence.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

"First of all, linking to realclimate.org without providing context is wasting everyone's time."

What the fuck are you talking about? The quote provides the context, the title of the RC article demonstrates it's a strawman.

You like impressive lists? - Here's one...

Gavin Schmidt's publications. ( includes 5 Nature, 2 Science, 7 Geophys. Res. Lett).

All his 50 odd papers are on climate science, M.Mann who founded RC has an even more impresive publication record. You can blather on about what you think is the definition of a climate scientist but Mann and Schmidt are both internationally recognised climate scientists regardless of what you think.

Lomborg's list is a tad less impressive, it consists of a sole publication in a sociology journal. I have no objection to him speculating about "what to do", I have a problem with him distorting science to fit his predefined answer of "do nothing".

While on the subject of "what to do", please point to any RC article that ADVOCATES any particular political solution for reducing emmissions. I've been reading the site for several years and have yet to see one.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[mcvos]

The global warming deniers act exactly like creationists do.

Really? I would have thought the opposite.

Care to explain how they act the same?

They both focus on minor gaps in the evidence supporting the theory, and claim it disproves the theory as a whole.

In other words: the fact that a (nonscientific) report contains a big error doesn't disprove the theory (that doesn't even rely on that report) any more than the lack of a fossil of a particular missing link proves that the theory of evolution is wrong. If you want to disprove it, you need to attack the basics, not the details.

Also, both groups have a tendency to pull data from the distant past out of context and reshape it to support their own ideas. Like humans and dinosaurs living at the same time, or high temperatures in the past proving that all temperature increase must be natural (ignoring issues like solar activity and the like).

Re: Lomborg has a response

[DarenN]

Sure Gavin Schmidt's publication list is impressive, but the tone of the realclimate.org blog is not. Discussion is not encouraged, and god help you if you ask a question that runs in any way counter to the prevailing opinion. Just like the rest of the internet, really.

My "blathering on" was to make it clear that no one person can have the expertise to review the entire field, but the multidisciplinary nature of the field is largely unacknowledged and contributions from outside the "internationally recognised" climate scientists, or those working in internationally recognised climate research centres are discouraged.

And you didn't provide context. From the quoted article:

The existence of the greenhouse effect, the increase in CO2 (and other GHGs) over the last hundred years and its human cause, and the fact the planet warmed significantly over the 20th Century are not much in doubt. IPCC described these factors as ‘virtually certain’ or ‘unequivocal’

Indeed, these are facts, supported by measurements.

he attribution of the warming over the last 50 years to human activity is also pretty well established – that is ‘highly likely’ and the anticipation that further warming will continue as CO2 levels continue to rise is a well supported conclusion.

This, however, is not a fact. It's a theory, based largely on an assumption of a positive feedback loop in the models.

Whatever Lomborgs background, I find it hilarious that you accuse him of a "do nothing" position. Your own link (the second one) is about geo-fucking-engineering. That is, attempting to modify the planetary climate artificially, in case you don't understand. Hardly "do nothing". He also advocates a cost/benefit analysis of any attempted solution. Makes sense, no? And perhaps his real crime. He's an optimist who thinks we can engineer our way out of the problem.

Did I accuse RC of advocating political solutions? I re-read my post several times and didn't spot it.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

"My "blathering on" was to make it clear that no one person can have the expertise to review the entire field"

The same is true of any field, no?

"And you didn't provide context."

The quote is another way of wording the old cannard that climate scientists claim the "science is settled", is that clear enough for you?

"Highly likely" - has a technical definition in the IPCC reprots it's a specific confidence level.

Lomborg advocates "doing nothing" listen to his TED talk. Anyone with half a brain knows that spraying massive quantities of S02 into the stratosphere is a cure that's worse than the disease, he is just being his ingenious self when he bounces between ludicrous and suicdal options.

Just the fact that Lomborg strongly associates himself with the American Enterprise Institute, The Hearland institute, CEI and similar climate/tabacoo anti-scientists should be enough to tell any genuine skeptic all they need to know.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[DarenN]

"My "blathering on" was to make it clear that no one person can have the expertise to review the entire field"

The same is true of any field, no?

Of course, but you're sidestepping the point, which is that experts from outside climate science as a field have been discouraged by hostile receptions when they've asked questions or made criticisms. This point is anyway tangential to the discussion.

The quote is another way of wording the old cannard that climate scientists claim the "science is settled", is that clear enough for you?

Heh, the disagreement here is that I simply read "the climate change group" as the lobby, which isn't the same as the scientific community, although there is overlap. And some of those have said that the science is settled.

"Highly likely" - has a technical definition in the IPCC reprots it's a specific confidence level.

Indeed it IS a technical term. And it refers to a confidence interval. What I'm saying is that confidence interval is based on literature published on existing climate models, and these models imply that there will be a positive feedback loop once temperature and CO2 levels get above a certain point (the 'tipping point'). That the feedback will be positive is not at all clear, and the evidence that CO2 is a cause and not a symptom is not as clear as the "highly likely" confidence interval implies.

I want it to be clear that I think we do need to reduce CO2 emissions, as I've said elsewhere in this article, although my primary reason for this is that increasing acidification of the ocean will have devastating effects.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually from my reading he is making plenty of new claims, his premise is that lomborg is a liar and has pushed that claim far more than just arguing the facts and as such should most definitely have undergone peer review, especially as he seems to make many false claims himself with misrepresented facts.

Re: Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

"and the evidence that CO2 is a cause and not a symptom is not as clear as the "highly likely" confidence interval implies."

RF=5.35*ln(c2/c1) - Fourier 1824.
T = (3/3.71)*5.35*ln(387.5/280) = 1.41 deg C.

The 1.4 degC due to the increase in CO2 concntrations is more than "highly likey", it's virtually certain and is as robust as any of Newton's laws. Arguing that CO2 is not a forcing is voodoo science that throws out a large chunk of modern physics including quantum mechanics.

You can argue that negative feedback will counter that 1.4degC increase but first you have to demonstrate where that negative feedback will come from. Positive feedbacks such as melting ice (aldebo), melting permafrost (increased CO2) and rising water vapour (GHG) have all been observed both in the modern world and the geological record.

My charity work here is done, I suggest you look up the basics of climate science on wikipedia before agruing that Lomborg is one of the good guy's.

Yawn

[jav1231]

So now we have a celebrity science pissing-match on our hands. This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science! Until then, no I'm not taking you seriously.

Re:Yawn

[sonicmerlin]

So now we have a celebrity science pissing-match on our hands. This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science! Until then, no I'm not taking you seriously.

That's absurd. Your sweeping generalization ignores the decades of research poured into the topic by research groups from all over the world. There is ongoing research continually improving upon current models with updated and refined data. You can go take a look at the thousands upon thousands of journal articles written by these scientists, assuming you can even understand the jargon.

Re:Yawn

[eloki]

The science will always be intertwined with politics though, because it's about people's lifestyles and the environmental framework we live in.

It's not about someone doing science to just to increase the bit density on hard disk platters.

The problem is that serious science in this field is still questionable depending on which data sources you believe to be reliable, which extrapolations are considered reliable. There will never be any more consensus than there already is, without actual climate catastrophe happening. If it doesn't happen then the naysayers will feel vindicated, and the believers will simply adjust their models and timeframes.

Re:Yawn

[iluvcapra]

Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science!

1950 called, it wants its appropriate response to AGW back.

Re:Yawn

[DerekLyons]

So now we have a celebrity science pissing-match on our hands. This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science! Until then, no I'm not taking you seriously.

That's absurd. Your sweeping generalization ignores the decades of research poured into the topic by research groups from all over the world.

No, he's ignoring the handful of years of increasingly politically motivated conclusions based on those decades of research.
 
 

There is ongoing research continually improving upon current models with updated and refined data.

The problem of course being that the models output no result but 'this is because of AGW'. Scientists predict a string of strong hurricane seasons 'because of AGW', and when they don't happen they update the model and 'discover' they didn't happen 'because of AGW'. Warm winter? AGW. Cold winter? AGW.
 
When the models keep being modified and produce the same output regardless of input - then something is up.
 
 

You can go take a look at the thousands upon thousands of journal articles written by these scientists, assuming you can even understand the jargon.

I can find thousands of articles on N-rays and luminiferous aether too.

Re:Yawn

[Blakey Rat]

What people don't get is that Lomborg doesn't disagree with the IPCC at all (except for the stuff that's obviously crap, like the 2035 glacier claim.)

His argument isn't that climate change isn't happening, or that it's not caused by humans.

His argument is that spending money combating climate change isn't worthwhile, compared to other things we could be spending money on. See his example in the rebuttal about the farmers living at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, who would be much better served by a program to buy seed or combat the spread of STDs than any program designed to combat climate change.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[hexghost]

However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming.

Incorrect, it has: Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

Already knew

[Tibia1]

Anyone who says global warming is false doesn't need to have a book written about them to know they're full of it. Also, I'll be willing to wait 20 years for nanobots to fix the environment. No point in worrying for another second about the environment.

Re:Already knew

[Anonymous Coward]

But the environment is so big and nanobots so small... We could make big nanobots! Huge ones, like a house! Then they'd be powered by combustion engines and roll on caterpillars, armed with gatling guns and flamethrowers to remove obstacles and protesters. And.. wait. uhh

Still an "Environmentalist"

[Anonymous Coward]

He may be skeptical, but he still is an environmentalist suffering mental malady...

Yet Again

[sonicmerlin]

In every thread about global warming I see the same nutjob denialist theories debunked over and over again, yet with no change in the opinions of the hardcore denialists.

Here we have yet another denialist conspiracy to mislead the public debunked by actual science. Previously we had the "smoking gun" theory debunked by a blogger.

How many times do these theories need to be debunked before denialist nutjobs give up their crusade against rational science? It's like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics.

Re:Yet Again

[mevets]

such is life. Some look for truth; some for excuses. If your focus is truth, don't be dismayed by the bleating; smile and move on. If you can't help yourself, leave a sarcastic comment and move on. Those that need to justify themselves will do so, no matter the cost.

Re:Yet Again

[mjwx]

In every thread about global warming I see the same nutjob denialist theories debunked over and over again, yet with no change in the opinions of the hardcore denialists.

But still we must debunk and continue to debunk. There are a fair few people who just dont know how accurate the science is, a common question I get is "How can we measure air (CO2) from thousands of years ago", I point them towards the Wikipedia page on Ice Cores and say "because it's been trapped there all this time".

A denialist wont listen, they are just looking to confirm their bias (and tabloids have made an industry out of doing this) but you'll occasionally find a rational person who will listen. We aren't trying to change denialists, it's the genuine sceptics we want to reach. The ignorant never hold any real power.

Re:Yet Again

[Capsaicin]

How many times do these theories need to be debunked before denialist nutjobs give up their crusade against rational science? It's like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics.

The problem is that people are trying to use climate science to debunk the denialists. That's obviously not the appropriate discipline to consult on such matters. Psychology and psychiatry are.

And yes, it's exactly like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics.

Re:Yet Again

[symbolset]

I found your problem: "nutjob denialist conspiracy crusade Creationist lunatics". You have a labelling problem. Try labelling them "the unconvinced" and go from there. Labelling people nutjobs does not win friends and influence people. If that doesn't work, try posting some graphs. I hear people have good respect for graphs.

Re:Yet Again

[Beelzebud]

It's not different than arguing with creationists, Richard Hoagland, 9/11 truthers, or holocaust deniers. They've made up their minds, the facts be damned.

Re:Yet Again

[brazilofmux]

I guess after you finish labeling them with nutjob, denialist, hardcore, conspiracist, un- or non-scientific, crusaders (I particularly like that one), and lunatics, and after you associate them them creationists, there's nothing left to talk about? Well, count me convinced. I don't know why I didn't see it sooner.

Re:Yet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why I didn't see it sooner.

Probably because you've been infected by one of them. Better report to a re-education camp immediately.

Re:Yet Again

[Gadget_Guy]

Try labelling them "the unconvinced" and go from there.

That would be inaccurate. When have you ever seen one of these "unconvinced" actually get convinced. When they have their questions answered with science they either disappear or counter with more completely unrelated arguments as if that is some sort of rebuttal. That is why the science community gets so frustrated. They cannot win merely by giving a rational response.

I have NEVER seen someone make a decision based on these debates. A real skeptic or unconvinced person would be willing to accept the evidence once enough has been presented. That is why I think they are definitely denialists.

Re:Yet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

If that doesn't work, try posting some graphs. I hear people have good respect for graphs.

Oh, I've seen those doctored graphs showing that the world existed for millions (as if!) of years before creation. Didn't fool me none!

Re:Yet Again

[TapeCutter]

"It's like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics."

Creationists, pro-tabacoo and anti-AGW groups fund and work for the same think tanks that produce the red-herring theories. It may be obvious propoganda but their marketing efforts are nothing short of outstanding. I started debunking denialist on slashdot almost a decade ago, back then almost every one of my posts was modded down, nowadays I get much better treatment from the mods.

It's not the hard core nutjobs that need to be convinced, an impossible task. It's the moderate but disinterested observer who has been befudled by clever marketing. As with educating people about tabacoo and evolution, it's a slow process but a necassary one.

Re:Yet Again

[CptNerd]

"It's like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics." Creationists, pro-tabacoo and anti-AGW groups fund and work for the same think tanks that produce the red-herring theories. It may be obvious propoganda but their marketing efforts are nothing short of outstanding. I started debunking denialist on slashdot almost a decade ago, back then almost every one of my posts was modded down, nowadays I get much better treatment from the mods. It's not the hard core nutjobs that need to be convinced, an impossible task. It's the moderate but disinterested observer who has been befudled by clever marketing. As with educating people about tabacoo and evolution, it's a slow process but a necassary one.

Conspiracy!

Re:Yet Again

[rastoboy29]

Part of the problem is the use of words like "denialists".

Listen to yourself.

They feel like they're being attacked as irrationally as their own attacks in the first place.

It's maddening.  I have good friends who are "denialists", and they point to this word as evidence of scientists politicization etc.

There really is no reasoning with these people.  They understand *nothing* about science and they are not listening.

Probably best to stop trying so hard.

Re:Yet Again

[TapeCutter]

Conspiracy! - No, just a small group of well organised, well funded lobbyists who have managed to get a large number of usefull idiots to follow them. The same organizations did exactly the same thing with "tabacoo science" and used exactly the same methods of obfuscation and propoganda. They are not interested in science they are interested in delaying regulation for as long as possible. I expect to be watching "coal trials" sometime this decade that will mirror the "tabacoo trails" of a couple of decades ago.

Re:Yet Again

[linhares]

You had me at make a sarcarstic comment. This whole thing is about feeding the trolls. I think the only appropriate response to some denier is to 4chan the f*ck out of them.

"AGW has been proven to be bogus!1!!1!!" Response: Fuck yeah, and the moon landing was a hoax; 9/11 was executed by Cheney; the holocaust is a fraud; and the sun is a motherfucka charriot of fire.

When you enter in 4chan-land, you should respond appropriately

Anything remotely serious is just feeding the trools.

Re: Yet Again

[Black Parrot]

It's not the hard core nutjobs that need to be convinced, an impossible task. It's the moderate but disinterested observer who has been befudled by clever marketing.

Also, whenever someone announces that they've discovered that global warming is a big hoax it gets covered in the media and talked about for weeks. But when someone points out that that "discovery" is itself a hoax, the masses never hear about it.

Re:Yet Again

[phantomfive]

People rightly don't understand how accurate the science is, because it is not. We can't break the earth's temperature into its components, for example, because we can't estimate the reflectivity of the earth to within 5 degrees, and that is before we start dealing with complexities of the atmosphere. We can't measure things accurately enough to say a . degree difference is significant.

John Christy, who did a lot of work on the satellite temperature record (and was a lead author of the 2001 IPCC report) summarizes it like this:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase due to the undisputed benefits that carbon-based energy brings to humanity. This increase will have some climate impact through CO2's radiation properties.

However, fundamental knowledge is meagre here, and our own research indicates that alarming changes in the key observations are not occurring.

The best advice regarding scientific knowledge, which certainly applies to climate, came to me from Mr Mallory, my high school physics teacher.

He proposed that we should always begin our scientific pronouncements with this statement: "At our present level of ignorance, we think we know..."

Re:Yet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

So... you're saying that you accepted the AGW claims without having to be convinced? How remarkably short-sighted of you.

Re:Yet Again

[phantomfive]

Whoops, slashcode ate my number, should read "We can't measure things accurately enough to say a .2 degree difference per decade is significant."

Re:Yet Again

[Gadget_Guy]

So... you're saying that you accepted the AGW claims without having to be convinced? How remarkably short-sighted of you.

And where exactly did I say that? Nowhere. You don't have an argument for what I am saying, so you decide to claim that I said something else. How remarkably creative of you.

Re:Yet Again

[Neoprofin]

The "unconvinced" aren't the ones arguing with you, they're the ones who lurk, and wonder why if the climate change issue is so cut and dried both sides are so emotional and frequently irrational in their discussion of it. The science may be there, but if the attitude of those wielding it is pompous, arrogant, rude, or in many cases childish or threatening it does little to lend credence to an opinion in either case.

Re:Yet Again

[ThaReetLad]

I think what really winds up the AGW proponents is that the denialists are (with some success) managing to get the media to portray the AGW, IPCC etc as the ones who are "religious" about their beliefs, while the deniers sound very reasonable and plausable saying "the case is not proven", and "there is still some doubt here". They manage to sound like scientists, while the real scientists might as well be standing on street corners shouting "The end is neigh!"

Re:Yet Again

[sien]

Here is what climate scientist Edward Cook wrote regarding the accuracy of dendroclimatology:

Without trying to prejudice this work, but also because of what I
almost think I know to be the case, the results of this study will
show that we can probably say a fair bit about 100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know
with certainty that we know fuck-all).

From the climategate emails

Here is what Phil Jones said in his BBC interview regarding the Medieval Warm Period:

There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?

There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.

We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.

So Phil Jones is unsure if the MWP was global in extent and Edward Cook thinks we have very little idea at all. Perhaps the certainty in wikipedia is overstated.

Re:Yet Again

[Eunuchswear]

and the sun is a motherfucka charriot of fire.

This is, in fact, a real argument used by denialists:

Earth's Heat Source - The Sun (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 131-144, January 2009)
- Oliver K. Manuel

Taken from the 500 peer reviewed papers supporting skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming"

The "paper" argues that the sun is made of iron, which explains why global warming is not caused by man.

ABSTRACT
The Sun encompasses planet Earth, supplies the heat that warms it, and even
shakes it. The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) assumed that solar influence on Earth's climate is limited to changes in
solar irradiance and adopted the consensus opinion of a hydrogen-filled Sun--the
Standard Solar Model (SSM). They did not consider the alternative solar model
and instead adopted another consensus opinion: Anthropogenic greenhouse gases
play a dominant role in climate change. The SSM fails to explain the solar wind,
solar cycles, and the empirical link of solar surface activity with Earth's changing
climate. The alternative solar model--molded from an embarrassingly large
number of unexpected observations that space-age measurements revealed since
1959--explains not only these puzzles but also how closely linked interactions
between the Sun and its planets and other celestial bodies induce turbulent cycles
of secondary solar characteristics that significantly affect Earth's climate.

Re:Yet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

The ignorant never hold any real power.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. at least, an ignorant person's vote counts just as much as yours, and the fear is that the ignorant outnumber us.

Re:Yet Again

[MeNeXT]

Publish the data. Publish the code. Show the results. Let a discussion begin.

Stop carbon credits. Set the carbon footprint to follow the product sold. Set labels to show cost to the environment. DO NOT GIVE ANY INCENTIVES TO MOVE CO2 AROUND....

We do have a problem. I don't believe it's as bad as some of the statements made. Offer real solutions to the problem. Reduce consumption.........

STOP labeling people as pro or against. It's not about what you believe. It's about what is.

Re:Yet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

In every thread about global warming I see the same nutjob pro-GW theories debunked over and over again, yet with no change in the opinions of the hardcore "environmentalists".

Here we have yet another pro-GW conspiracy to mislead the public debunked by actual science.

How many times do these theories need to be debunked before these nutjobs give up their crusade against rational science? It's like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics.

Re:Yet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, you repeated this four times, so it's not a typo, but I'm curious...

What the fuck is "Tabacoo"? Is it a misspelling of Tobacco, or is it some stupid joke I'm not getting?

Re:Yet Again

[sorak]

Sorry for being pedantic, but could you please not refer to it as a theory? To be a theory, a notion has to be supported by evidence. (Something more than "if you read this sentence fragment, squint just right, and assume the author is evil, you'll see what I mean" )

Re:Yet Again

[khallow]

Here we have yet another denialist conspiracy to mislead the public debunked by actual science. Previously we had the "smoking gun" theory debunked by a blogger.

Here we have another Slashdot idiot, completely unable to see the irony of their words. These words drip with ignorance and bias, like their supposed rivals, the "denialist nutjobs".

How many times do these theories need to be debunked before denialist nutjobs give up their crusade against rational science? It's like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics.

You know what the difference is? Creationists are ignoring centuries of solid science in staking out their beliefs. "Denialist nutjobs" are not (ok, there really are some nutjobs in there who are, but it's not true of the whole group). Even now, we don't know the extent of anthropogenic effects on climate or whether it is better to mitigate such effects or let them run out. "Cure or ignore?" Remember a lot of the current problem comes from pushing through solutions to global warming when we don't know whether the problems are severe enough to warrant considering remedy, whether the proposed solutions will help, or even what the consequences are.

Every claim of the theory of evolution is backed up with copious solid evidence easily accessible to anyone who wants to understand the science and observations backing the theory up. It's not true for climatology. A great degree of effort is devoted to tasks that are far from accessible to the layman. For example, aggregating data from thousands of data sources in order to generate coherent estimates of global temperature over hundreds of thousands of years with the problem that none of the data sources cover the full period of time. Computer models that estimate future climate are far from accessible to the layman. I can verify the claims of evolutionists fairly easily. I can't so easily verify that climatologists have been constructing temperature estimates in a sensible manner. That means making claims that people who disagree with whatever you believe in (let's call it "irrational environmentalist religious beliefs" to be a little feisty and accurate), aren't on the same level as creationists.

Ever hear of the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? I have.

Going back to the original story, we have Lomborg making a ton of claims about things. Now someone has made with considerable effort a rebuttal. What does the article chose to call this? A "debunking". I've seen this sort of spurious logic before. It's like some sort of martial arts video game where special attacks can be countered by special blocks. Here, Lomborg is "blocked" because there is a rebuttal, a debunking. There's no consideration of the relative correctness of the arguments made by either side. The Lomborg swirling death scissor kick has been countered. Game over.

In a serious debate, we'd go over the facts as presented by each person. We wouldn't preemptively call someone a "denialist", "nutjob", or label their arguments "deception" or "irrational environmentalist religious beliefs". We wouldn't unfairly compare opponents to creationists.

Re:Yet Again

[khallow]

When have you ever seen one of these "unconvinced" actually get convinced.

Were you born convinced? Was everyone else born with the certainty that AGW exists and needs to be dealt with? I think a simple explanation here is that you haven't been paying attention.

Also, I find it a bit odd that you consider the state of "unconvinced" to be one that can and should be reversed, but not the state of "convinced". That second state is the one people should naturally snap into.

I have NEVER seen someone make a decision based on these debates. A real skeptic or unconvinced person would be willing to accept the evidence once enough has been presented. That is why I think they are definitely denialists.

The obvious rebuttal is that not enough evidence has been presented. And I suppose it's not useful to note that there seems to be a heavy funding and peer review bias in the climatology community towards researchers that interpret their findings in a way that favor AGW.

Re:Yet Again

[Gadget_Guy]

Were you born convinced? Was everyone else born with the certainty that AGW exists and needs to be dealt with? I think a simple explanation here is that you haven't been paying attention.

What does any of that have to do with what we have been saying in this thread? I suggest that it is you who needs to pay attention to the preceding messages. I never said that unconvinced people do not exist. My point was that someone who could be (unhelpfully) labelled "nutjob denialist conspiracy crusade Creationist lunatics" could not be called "the unconvinced" (as suggested by symbolset) because they have obviously already made up their minds. People who are genuinely unconvinced do not appear to be nutjobs to anyone.

If you want to call yourself unconvinced then surely you should be willing to be convinced. You have to be willing to accept that either side might be correct. If not, then don't claim that your the moderate, disinterested party. You are simply a denialist.

The obvious rebuttal is that not enough evidence has been presented.

There are thousands of papers published on this subject - including the 3000 page IPCC report. If you want to completely disregard all of this because there have been a handful of errors found, then at some point you have to concede that no amount of evidence will ever sway you.

And I suppose it's not useful to note that there seems to be a heavy funding and peer review bias in the climatology community towards researchers that interpret their findings in a way that favor AGW.

People keep claiming this, but THEY don't provide the evidence to support it. And no, Phil Jones not wanting some papers to be included in the IPCC report doesn't count, especially as the reports were included anyway. And as I said in another message, anyone who has their paper rejected because it is not scientificly base is going to go around telling everyone it is because they are being censored.

And seriously, where is the evidence that ANYONE has changed their public opinion on this subject just so they can get some funding. Where is the evidence that there is no money to be found for those people who want to publish against the scientific consensus - especially considering that both governments and business alike would absolutely love to get their hands on that evidence, as it would mean that they don't have to spend billions to mend their ways.

Re:Yet Again

[Glock27]

There are a fair few people who just dont know how accurate the science is, a common question I get is "How can we measure air (CO2) from thousands of years ago", I point them towards the Wikipedia page on Ice Cores and say "because it's been trapped there all this time".

I find your citation of ice core data amusing, because in general it doesn't support the AGW thesis. Two major results have been the confirmation of ancient warm periods, and the fact that higher CO2 concentrations have lagged behind times of higher temperature, not the other way around.

It's really rather ironic that the AGW proponents, who have clearly not been objective regarding the science, have the nerve to paint the skeptics as fanatics. Any truly objective person who reads the leaked CRU emails and source code will see a group committed to furthering its agenda at any cost, certainly to include lost scientific objectivity.

The frightening thing is that if natural climate variability had cooperated, we might be wasting trillions of dollars to no good purpose, since "the science is settled". Crazily, the EPA is still parroting that nonsense, but clearly the tide is turning. I think in the end good science will prevail, saving us from the extremist environmentalist agenda.

Re:Yet Again

[DavidShor]

Uncertainty works in favor of climate action. Even if there's a 1% chance of the world warming by more then 6 degrees, then from an expected value point of view, the cost of reducing CO2 emissions would be far lower then the cost of dealing with it later.

.

Due to rather basic physics, we know that global warming is almost certainly not going to make the earth's temperature decrease, so if you argue that there is uncertainty, that just raises the probability of catostrophic global warming, strengthening the case for drastic action. It's really rather basic probability theory (95% confidence intervals grow wider with increases in variance...).

The "denier" point of view only makes sense if one is very very sure that temperatures are not going to rise. Oddly, deniers don't make these arguments much...

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/12/say_a_little_pr.html is a great article on this.

Re:Yet Again

[DavidShor]

Already on the drawing board - http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/08/chamber-of-commerce-wants-to-put-evolution-on-trial.php

Re:Yet Again

[phantomfive]

The chances of catastrophic natural events in the next hundred years is closer to 99% than it is to 1%. We would be far better off preparing to deal with such events than we would be trying to prevent some hypothetical event that is based in shaky science.

I mean, think of the scale of what people are worried about here. Ocean rise? The oceans are predicted to continue rising at 3mm a year. That can sound a little scary cumulatively, until you realize that tectonic plates move around 64mm a year. That's 20 times more. You need to keep this in perspective.

Re:Yet Again

[dcw3]

When you've been told by authorities that:
  1. Eggs are bad for you...oh, nevermind
  2. The world is flat...oh, nevermind
  3. Iraq has WMD...oh, nevermind
  4. Peptic ulcers are caused by stress and spicy food...oh nevermind.
There are countless other examples.

So when I hear arguements on both sides, I'm just looking for someone to show me evidence that the average Joe can understand (hey, Steven Hawking explained relativity to me, surely someone can do a decent job on GW). I'm sick of fanatics on both sides, and I'm not gonna believe something just because some "authority" says so...show me evidence, or shut the hell up.

Re:Yet Again

[phantomfive]

I started debunking denialist on slashdot almost a decade ago, back then almost every one of my posts was modded down, nowadays I get much better treatment from the mods.

I'm going to suggest you've also become a better writer since then.

Re:Yet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn right. No matter how many factual holes we punch into the so-called facts of the Pro-Global Warming arguments, they continue to hold to their position without even bothering to look at the facts. What a bunch of nut jobs.

Here is one for ya:
What happens between ice ages? When did the last Ice Age end? (hint, when was the USA created)

Re:Yet Again

[Beelzebud]

Too dumb to be a good troll.

Re:Yet Again

[Herr_Skymarshall]

It's not different than arguing with creationists, Richard Hoagland, 9/11 truthers, or holocaust deniers. They've made up their minds, the facts be damned.

Are you talking about the supporters or the opponents of global warming?

Re:Yet Again

[mjwx]

I find your citation of ice core data amusing, because in general it doesn't support the AGW thesis.

A common misconception that you need to stop spreading.

try reading this. The link between the rate CO2 increases and the rate temperature increases is clear from the Vostock and other ice cores.

Re:Yet Again

[PrinceOfStorms]

So what you're saying is that they've been claiming the fifth horseman is global warming?

Re:Yet Again

[khallow]

What does any of that have to do with what we have been saying in this thread?

I see no difference between an "unconvinced" person and a "denialist". Both are labels for someone who currently disagrees with you.

There are thousands of papers published on this subject - including the 3000 page IPCC report. If you want to completely disregard all of this because there have been a handful of errors found, then at some point you have to concede that no amount of evidence will ever sway you.

Shouldn't you first tell me what these papers are saying? Can't say whether I agree or disagree with your characterization of thousands of papers until I know what you think they are saying. It's also worth noting that nobody ever does a dependence study of the literature. My impression is that just like many other fields, a number of consensus beliefs and assumptions are based on a small number of sources. If those sources are wrong, then the entire field is wrong about the belief in question. That doesn't mean that there is a problem, but the argument about thousands of papers ignores that important suppositions may be based on a very small fraction of those papers.

And I suppose it's not useful to note that there seems to be a heavy funding and peer review bias in the climatology community towards researchers that interpret their findings in a way that favor AGW.

People keep claiming this, but THEY don't provide the evidence to support it. And no, Phil Jones not wanting some papers to be included in the IPCC report doesn't count, especially as the reports were included anyway. And as I said in another message, anyone who has their paper rejected because it is not scientificly base is going to go around telling everyone it is because they are being censored.

Was Jones joking when he said he'd block a couple of papers from appearing in the IPCC? Doesn't look like it to me. There's plenty of evidence of his very unscientific attitude throughout the emails. So how does someone like that get to be in charge of the CRU? That's almost as mysterious as James Hansen's current gig as head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Here's my take of UK climatology. For around 10 years, the Labour Party has been running the UK, first under Tony Blair then Gordon Brown. Both prime ministers have a stake in seeing AGW played up. My view is that the CRU prostituted itself to the powers that be. The CRU gets money and the politicians get the evidence for man-made global warming. My bet is that a bunch of countries (including the US and James Hansen) have similar arrangements. There's a lot of money and power in AGW, after all.

I tell you right now. I don't know to what degree AGW exists or whether we should do anything about it. What I do see though is an organized effort to stack the deck in favor of AGW and reduction of economic activity in the developed world. That's unacceptable. It doesn't matter whether they are right or not. That's not how you do science.

Re:Yet Again

[Beelzebud]

Considering I was responding to a post that referred to "nutjob denialist theories", I think it's pretty clear who I'm talking about.

Re:Yet Again

[sonicmerlin]

There are thousands upon thousands of studies conducted on global warming to support the theory of AGW. I see anti-AGW claims debunked over and over again, yet repeated even after they're debunked. If you still believe AGW is a lie and some massive conspiracy, you obviously have a bias in selecting information that fits your world-view.

Re:Yet Again

[ThaReetLad]

No need. Pestilence, War, Famine and Death would all be the consequence of Global Warming, if it happens.

I must admit, I find it hard to decide whether or not it's real, and I studied atmospheric physics at uni. I'm not sure whether the data we have now can really show us whether the warming trend is part of a long term warming on a scale of millenia with shorter cycles overlaid, or whether there is genuine AGW going on. Certainly the weather over the last decade is not statistically significant enough to declare warming over, and a couple of cold winters does nothing to undermine the AGW theory, particularly as global warming could easily mean local cooling or increased snowfall in some areas.
My fear is that by the time we get the required data it may be too late to do anything about it, if it's not already.

Re:Yet Again

[khallow]

There are thousands upon thousands of studies conducted on global warming to support the theory of AGW.

I doubt it. Most science is very limited in scale. Most of the papers you mention probably focused on some small niche of climatology (like tree ring data from a few trees in a part of Siberia). Further, the overall conclusions of this body of work are dependent on a few key players, for example, the CRU people and their aggregate estimates of temperature over hundreds of thousands of years. I have yet to find an independent estimate backing the Mann-Jones estimate.

Moving on, I made it clear in my post that AGW wasn't the problem. There probably is some degree of man-caused global warming and it probably will get worse over time. What I see as the problem are demands to "do something" when we don't know the costs and benefits. The AGW crowd has yet to justify carbon dioxide emission reduction.

Re:Yet Again

[Gadget_Guy]

I see no difference between an "unconvinced" person and a "denialist". Both are labels for someone who currently disagrees with you.

How does an unconvinced person disagree with me or anyone? They haven't formed an opinion yet!

Shouldn't you first tell me what these papers are saying?

Well why don't you go and read the one report that I did mention that summarizes all the other relevant reports. I'm an certainly not going to post a 3000 page document on slashdot. And if you really don't know what the papers are saying then surely you can't make an educated decision about climate change.

My impression is that just like many other fields, a number of consensus beliefs and assumptions are based on a small number of sources. If those sources are wrong, then the entire field is wrong about the belief in question. That doesn't mean that there is a problem, but the argument about thousands of papers ignores that important suppositions may be based on a very small fraction of those papers.

So basically you don't know what might be wrong, and you don't know if it is wrong. I'm not sure why we are having this conversation then.

None of the highly publicized mistakes found in papers about this matter have been about the core science of global warming. They have all been peripheral matters, mostly about specific regional impact estimations (like the speed of glaciers melting). People HAVE tried to claim that the science is completely wrong. For example, they claim it is actually cooling down, but the measurements still show that we have just had the hottest decade on record. Until somebody can show that some fundamental principle of climate change is actually wrong, then it is not enough to climate science is on shakey ground merely because something COULD be wrong.

Was Jones joking when he said he'd block a couple of papers from appearing in the IPCC? Doesn't look like it to me. There's plenty of evidence of his very unscientific attitude throughout the emails.

I specifically said that Phil Jones didn't count in light of the papers actually being accepted. Please choose another example - preferably one where we can see the paper in question so we can judge its merit. It also seems a bit hypocritical for you to call him unscientific for wanting to block some papers that HE thinks was unscientific.

Here's my take of UK climatology. For around 10 years, the Labour Party has been running the UK, first under Tony Blair then Gordon Brown. Both prime ministers have a stake in seeing AGW played up.

Why would they want this? It is going to cost a lot of money to fix AGW and it has proven to be controversial. Surely that is two things that politicians shy away from.

What evidence do you have of this conspiracy? It is all very well to make the claim, but like everyone keeps telling the climate scientists, show us the data! Why do scientists in countries with conservative governments agree with the corrupt UK scientists?

You say there is money and power in AGW? How is that any different from the money and power in keeping the status quo?

Re:Yet Again

[riverat1]

Yet 3mm of ocean rise may lead to 64mm or more of horizontal spread of the water surface on flat beaches.

Re:Yet Again

[phantomfive]

Once again, people who live too close to the ocean are going to have problems, global warming or no. Most beaches I've been to have oceans that shift by more than 64mm every 3 or 4 seconds. Of course this will increase the maximum distance inland the ocean goes during a storm at high tide, but people in Hawaii and such who live close enough to the ocean to worry about that already often build their houses on stilts to avoid such floods.

Re:Yet Again

[khayman80]

Two weeks later:

... I have yet to find an independent estimate backing the Mann-Jones estimate. ...

The futility of these conversations is depressing and frustrating.

Even if there's no global warming...

[Black Gold Alchemist]

...the flame war here will ensure there is.

tldr

[mevets]

but, he does seem to admit in the first page that they are both engaging in "selective or incomplete quotation, misrepresentation of
source material, and even outright fabrication". That is nice. Pages 0.5 through 27 may contain more interesting information, but the foam dripping from the authors mouth makes it a bit hard to read. Maybe he should have considered peer review BEFORE publishing, rather than frothing after critique.....

Re:tldr

[NeutronCowboy]

If he'd be interested in critique, he'd have published a paper rather than a book. This is par for the course for Lomborg. He's been pretty much laughed out of the room by any scientist. I haven't even seen the skeptics refer to his work in a long time.

Re:tldr

[iluvcapra]

but, he does seem to admit in the first page that they are both engaging in "selective or incomplete quotation, misrepresentation of source material, and even outright fabrication"

That's not what he says:

Unfortunately, it is obvious that Friel has no interest in fair-minded criticism or honest disagreement. Rather, he seems determined to portray me as devious, deceptive, and intellectually dishonest. Ironically, in his zeal to do so, he repeatedly commits the very sins he accuses me of—selective or incomplete quotation, misrepresentation of source material, and even outright fabrication. Rather than engaging with my books on their own terms, he caricatures my work and then attacks it.

Re:tldr

[rmushkatblat]

In your haste, you misread the first paragraph and proved yourself an idiot. Congratulations.

Re:tldr

[Swanktastic]

It's been a while, but I read 'Cool It' and recall that the premise was (generally) "Scientists have proven climate change is real. It's now up to ECONOMISTS to determine which would be worse for humanity- to allow the climate to continue changing or to restructure our economy to prevent climate change."

IIRC, his general premise is that the ball shouldn't be in the court of climate scientists any more. That is indeed a scary thought for folks who earn their livings studying climate change. If we all bought into Lomborg's work, they'd have a bit tougher time getting grant money.

Whether it's an accurate argument or not, I can't imagine any climate scientist out there agreeing that their research is no longer valuable.

Re:tldr

[Anonymous Coward]

If those who assert AGW are permitted to publish books when having no scientific background and based on hyperbole and poorly founded claims, and this is not an indictment about the quality of their character, why should those who deny AGW not be able to do the same, or experience that it's interpreted as such an indictment?

I anticipate a selective reading here, so I want to point out that I'm not saying that is what Lomborg's book _is_. The 27-page refutation which some people describe as "frothing at the mouth" seems extremely sensible, calm and methodical to me, so I can't really imagine why someone would ascribe a "frothing" image to it. I just wonder why those that make the claim that it IS poor science go on to say that this reflects on how bad a person he is, when those who write pro-AGW poor science are not labelled similarly.

Re:tldr

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than engaging with my books on their own terms, he caricatures my work and then attacks it.

:'(

Re:tldr

[NeutronCowboy]

I don't know if I even agree with that premise. Arguing that there is no more work to be done in a scientific area is like saying in the late 19th century that we understood all there was about Physics, and that we only needed to fill in the details. There is ALWAYS more work to be done to improve the models. Just how much is determined by who thinks there are some interesting questions out there, not by the start of a political process.

This is how it works: scientists produce the data and create the models, economists and politicians figure out a way how to incorporate that data and those models into our society. Just because one starts working doesn't mean that the other stops.

Every time I hear or read something new from Lomborg, I find him to be exactly as I remember him: either outright misleading or an idiot. Heck, I have more respect for Monckton, who at least manages to come up with some credible math.

Re:tldr

[lennier]

"Scientists have proven climate change is real. It's now up to ECONOMISTS to determine which would be worse for humanity- to allow the climate to continue changing or to restructure our economy to prevent climate change."

These would be the same economists who brought us the banking meltdown?

Thanks, but no thanks.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sonicmerlin]

Right, let's just accept that we're doomed and billions of people will have to suffer. Yay!

I usually just point out

[mjwx]

That their argument centres around a tabloid. 90% of the "sceptics" I have dealt with get their information from places like the Daily Mail (centre of the climategate non-troversy). For extra sarcastic effect I post a screenshot of the Mail's home page with giant red circles around the trashy celebrity stories (takes a few minutes, the Mail's homepage should be full of them). Also these tabloids have a long history of libel suits. If they refuse to be sceptical of their own information sources and blindly trust a tabloid, they fail basic scepticism and are just looking for confirmation bias.

How to talk to a climate sceptic is a good site which has plenty of information, I've used this a few times with good effect but it helps to have an understanding of the subject matter (high school level of science education (Australian High School)). Above all else remain rational, point out their straw-mans and thought-terminating clichés rather then engaging in them yourself, however tempting it may be.

Many sceptics are not ignorant, many just don't know or understand the science. I've met a few people that did not understand we literally test air from 1000's of years ago that's been frozen in ice cores, nor that this is backed up with geological or palaeobotanical evidence.

Re:I usually just point out

[Anonymous Coward]

This website is hilarious. If you really need a collection of what are essentially blog posts to try to refute opposing arguments, it might just be that your own argument is terrible. The fact that you actually suggest it as a tool for use in defending global warming makes a mockery of everyone who actually uses real arguments backed up by evidence to defend it.

Re:I usually just point out

[rmushkatblat]

I've never heard of the Daily Mail, much less read it. Please read Lomborg's (relatively short) rebuttal.

Re:I usually just point out

[mjwx]

I've never heard of the Daily Mail, much less read it.

Then there may yet be hope for you, it's the UK's version of Fox news combined with the E! channel.

Please read Lomborg's (relatively short) rebuttal.

I assume you mean this one, I got to the third paragraph and realised it was just a foaming at the mouth attack on his critics.

If he was interested in a rational argument he would have published it as a paper, not a book.

Re:I usually just point out

[symbolset]

Many sceptics are not ignorant, many just don't know or understand the science.

Yeah, and some of us have downloaded the numbers and crunched them. Some of us who used to assume AGW based on reportage and graphs have become interested. We've become interested not because we care, but because the AGW supporters are such pricks. And now we're sceptical because the story doesn't hold water. That piques our interest even more because few intellectual pursuits are as rewarding as slapping a "scientist" in the face with some "inconvenient truth"s.

And when you crunch the numbers raw they don't add up to AGW. When you look at the written history it doesn't agree with the models. Any model you can use to mold actual observations into AGW will yield the same result when fed random noise as input, or Britney Spears' latest album properly scaled. That's not proof. When you look farther back in the climatic record, you find evidence of ages of ice, and before those then periods where the Earth was warmer even than now and gave rise to.. us. That's a history of Genesis, not Apocalypse.

And the closer we look at the evidence for AGW, the more it falls apart. But we need not even look so close because the alarmists have gone off the deep end - claiming an escape to climate infinity in 2007, evaporating Himalayan glaciers, SuperHurricanes and, well, every tin-foil hat climate theory you can think of. That's a situation ripe for parody we can milk for a few decades.

The climate is warming. Congratulations! You've observed that we're in an interglacial age. Now tell us something we didn't know 100 years ago.

Re:I usually just point out

[mjwx]

Yeah, and some of us have downloaded the numbers and crunched them

Citation needed.

Until then you have no way to compete with NASA GISS, MET and BOM.

Now tell us something we didn't know 100 years ago.

Just did, 100+ years of temperature measurements, the measurements do not seem to support your theories which are pretty much unsupported anyway. Your entire post is one giant bare assertion fallacy after another.

Re:I usually just point out

[rmushkatblat]

I don't watch Fox News either, as they're about as credible as MSNBC and CNN. If you aren't even going to read it, then I can't discuss it with you. I don't have any preconceived notions about either Lomborg or the critic, but it seems as if he's just another political figure, regardless of which side he's on.

Re:I usually just point out

[symbolset]

From your own link:

The current analysis uses surface air temperatures measurements from the following data sets: the unadjusted data of the Global Historical Climatology Network (Peterson and Vose, 1997 and 1998), United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data, and SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) data from Antarctic stations. The basic analysis method is described by Hansen et al. (1999), with several modifications described by Hansen et al. (2001) also included.

Do you know why Alice in Wonderland is so oft cited as a reference? It's because it's so oft applicable.

Re:I usually just point out

[mjwx]

If you aren't even going to read it, then I can't discuss it with you.

And why not? If I am wrong and it is not just a thinly veiled attack on his detractors then please post the relevant sections. It seems more like I don't share your views thus am not worth talking to.

Several investigations found his publications (newspaper articles)to be dishonest, whether it's deliberately so is still a matter of contention. As I and others have said, if he was interested in a proper scientific evaluation of his theory he would have submitted it as a paper for peer review (nothing stops him from making it into a publishing later regardless of whether peer review rips it to shreds or not.)

but it seems as if he's just another political figure

Then why are you taking scientific cues from him?

Re:I usually just point out

[mjwx]

Yes, they are doing what you are not, citing their sources and methodology.

I don't see what relevance it has. You fail to prove any of your own points. Do you know what a non-sequitur is, because you just posted one.

Re:I usually just point out

[Anonymous Coward]

get their information from places like the the Daily Mail

As if most public AGW support comes from learned scholarly study and not the recurring Daily Show with Al Gore... Whatever. Since you've resorted to anecdote I'll mention that in my personal experience I've found warmists to be gullible plebs desperately seeking a way to rationalize the self-loathing they've been trained to suffer from birth.

The 'story' is climate-bait. Clicky clicky boys and girls.

Re:I usually just point out

[symbolset]

If you fail to see the relevance, let me recommend that you read the book. The good Reverend Dodgson knew his climate science, and his math.

... and their sources are the same circular references that got us into this mess. I'm sure that didn't escape you. If you want to show us something, don't be shy: show us what you've got.

Otherwise I'm going to stick with "Algae eat CO2. Crisis averted."

Re:I usually just point out

[rmushkatblat]

You seem to have serious problems reading. Right below the original investigation:

MSTI review On February 13, 2003, Lomborg filed a complaint against the DCSD's decision, with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MSTI), which has oversight over the DCSD. On December 17, 2003, the Ministry annulled the decision made by DCSD. In doing so, MSTI cited several procedural errors, including: * The DCSD did not use a precise standard for deciding "good scientific practice" in the social sciences;[citation needed] * The DCSD's definition of "objective scientific dishonesty" was not clear about whether "distortion of statistical data" had to be deliberate or not;[citation needed] * The DCSD had not properly documented that The Skeptical Environmentalist was a scientific publication on which they had the right to intervene in the first place; * The DCSD did not provide specific statements on actual errors. On this point the MSTI stated "the DCSD has not documented where [Dr. Lomborg] has allegedly been biased in his choice of data and in his argumentation, and ... the ruling is completely void of argumentation for why the DCSD find that the complainants are right in their criticisms of [his] working methods. It is not sufficient that the criticisms of a researcher's working methods exist; the DCSD must consider the criticisms and take a position on whether or not the criticisms are justified, and why."[4] The Ministry remitted the case to the DCSD. In doing so the Ministry indicated that it regarded the DCSD's previous findings of scientific dishonesty in regard to the book as invalid.[5][6] The Ministry also instructed the DCSD to decide whether to reinvestigate.

Re:I usually just point out

[Neoprofin]

Several investigations found his publications (newspaper articles)to be dishonest

From your link:

The DCSD did not provide specific statements on actual errors. On this point the MSTI stated "the DCSD has not documented where [Dr. Lomborg] has allegedly been biased in his choice of data and in his argumentation, and ... the ruling is completely void of argumentation for why the DCSD find that the complainants are right in their criticisms of [his] working methods. It is not sufficient that the criticisms of a researcher's working methods exist; the DCSD must consider the criticisms and take a position on whether or not the criticisms are justified, and why.

A Dutch think tank, HAN, Heidelberg Appeal the Netherlands, published a report in which they claimed 25 out of 27 accusations against Lomborg to be unsubstantiated or not to the point.[13] A group of scientists with relation to this think tank also published an article in 2005 in the Journal of Information Ethics,[14] in which they concluded that most criticism against Lomborg was unjustified, and that the scientific community misused their authority to suppress Lomborg.

I assume you've read it and know that there are still plenty of other criticisms (like this new book) but as for peer-review and open dialogue I think it's hard to say that Lomborg hasn't had his work examined and even harder to say that he hasn't been forthcoming in responding to detractors in a far more transparent way than any journal I've ever read. I've never read TSE but I can't say that I understand where you get the "frothing" part of his response. Maybe you should imagine it being read by a calm voice, whether you agree with it or not.

Re:I usually just point out

[mjwx]

I assume you've read it and know that there are still plenty of other criticisms (like this new book) but as for peer-review and open dialogue I think it's hard to say that Lomborg hasn't had his work examined and even harder to say that he hasn't been forthcoming in responding to detractors in a far more transparent way than any journal I've ever read. I've never read TSE but I can't say that I understand where you get the "frothing" part of his response. Maybe you should imagine it being read by a calm voice, whether you agree with it or not.

This is a good response, a rational response, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.

Lomborg's attitude towards his critics is indicative of his attitude towards his work, he has passion I don't doubt that but his work lacks rigour, without rigour his passion is unguided and ultimately futile. From my perspective, Lomborg spends too much time and effort trying to prove he's right rather then trying to prove what is right, this becomes a problem when what one believes is right and what is right are on a tangent from each other.

Nice to see not all the mod points on this thread are being wasted on censorship. I've insisted before and will insist again, -1 overrated should be replaced with -1 uncomfortable truth.

Re:I usually just point out

[mjwx]

If you fail to see the relevance, let me recommend that you read the book.

I've read Alice in wonderland and don't see the relevance. A complete non sequitur which makes no sense what so ever.

Otherwise I'm going to stick with "Algae eat CO2. Crisis averted."

Then you'd be wrong.

The majority of the CO2 produced by the planet goes into the ocean and is leached out via in the subduction zones. It makes sense seeing as most of the CO2 put into the air naturally is by volcano's, it's a cycle you see. Now the problem with a high amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is it traps heat (this may take a while in the same way putting on a jacket takes a few minutes to make your skin warm from your heat source (internal, in you're body's case, it's external in the Earths case)). When Ocean's heat up they adsorb CO2 better but this means there is more CO2 mixing with the oceans, this changes the chemical composition of the ocean into a weak carbonic acid (CO2 + H2O = H2CO3) which will kill off most of the shellfish and coral reefs (eventually the fish but that will take a lot). So putting more carbon into the atmosphere will cause Sea Surface Temperatures to rise faster then land or atmospheric temperatures, which is exactly what we are observing (especially more frequent and powerful ENSO events).

Tiny bit of basic Chemistry and Geology for you.

Re:I usually just point out

[DarenN]

You should read the reply. Consider the first page an introduction - it's actually structured like many scientific publications. Lomborg proceeds to a rebuttal of what he felt were the most important points made by Friel's book. I've checked a few of them (about five) and he has been right each time.

Re:I usually just point out

[DarenN]

Now the problem with a high amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is it traps heat (this may take a while in the same way putting on a jacket takes a few minutes to make your skin warm from your heat source (internal, in you're body's case, it's external in the Earths case))

Except that all the data says that CO2 lags temperature. The AGW model requires positive feedback. Historically, the feedbacks have been negative. Why assume a positive feedback loop will occur now?

Incidentally, the increasing acidification of the oceans is, to my mind, the best reason to cut back on CO2 emissions generally. It's more important that just about any other consequence, and doesn't require runaway warming to occur.

Re:I usually just point out

[mjwx]

Except that all the data says that CO2 lags temperature. The AGW model requires positive feedback. Historically, the feedbacks have been negative. Why assume a positive feedback loop will occur now?

This is a common misunderstanding. I suggest reading this article on the subject. CO2 is an amplifier (insulator), which is one of the biggest reasons that humans dumping CO2 into the atmosphere is causing acceleration in warming.

In other words, CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway. From model estimates, CO2 (along with other greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O) causes about half of the full glacial-to-interglacial warming.

For the vast majority of the time CO2 and temperature rise together (as is expected when acting as an insulator), only during initial warming does this trend not follow, which is not sufficient to debunk the rest of the warming period. CO2 may not be the trigger but it is the greatest influencing factor over the rate of temperature change.

CO2 levels and other greenhouse gases very tightly correlates with temperatures when examined over the last 400,000 years.

Re:I usually just point out

[DarenN]

The graph cited shows a much tighter correlation between temperature and methane. I realise this is a tangent, but I wonder why? Glacial or ice pack melting releasing stores of the gas, or biological processes? Cause or effect?

Actually, that cause or effect question is relevant to CO2 and temperature too. Now that I think of it that's really the core of the whole proponent vs skeptic disagreement (I disregard the fanatics, surely there's room for reasonable debate on causes and effects).

Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a “feedback”, much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.

So some unknown process starts the warming, and then CO2 acts as an amplifier above a certain level. The inital lag is as long as 800 years, according to ice-cores, which seem reasonable data sources. At what point, however, does the crossover occur?

I mean, according to that graph, we're only 3C off the previous interglacial maximums, and due for a dip! I'm not sure runaway warming is the concern here!
Joking aside, the time scale of the graph makes it difficult for to see anything other than there is a relationship between temperature, methane, and CO2. That is, or should be, non-controversial.

From model estimates, CO2 (along with other greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O) causes about half of the full glacial-to-interglacial warming.

If that's true then we're boned since we're already beyong the halfway point in the interglacial warming period, both in time and temperature. If CO2 leads to a positive feedback loop then the planet should be Venusian by now from a previous interglacial peak leading to runaway warming. The global temperatures today should have risen in line with the modelled estimates and in line with CO2 increases, which they haven't (although this last point is over a 10 year period, waaaaaay too short to draw any conclusions from).

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ls671]

I am sure Bjørn Lomborg is paid by oil companies...

I am kidding of course. I watched the following video presentation the other day. It seemed credible and in line with what you are saying, the guy doesn't deny climate is warming:

http://www.mininova.org/search/?search=Catastrophe+Denied&cat=0

Anybody cares to give background on the author ?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

(not the above AC)

I can do so, but I fail to see your argument. The point under contention here is the accuracy of a critical post. This forum isn't Jeopardy. There is no time limit, so you really do have the option to look up everything in your post if you want.

Does it matter that it exists or not?

[codepunk]

Does it really matter if we are warming the planet or not?

Even if we are how are we going to fix it? Limit CO2 emissions by something like cap and trade? Great concept but India, China etc are not going to play in
a game that is detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries. Or perhaps we create green energy solutions, problem is none of those solutions are cost
effective to be self sustaining. If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Does it really matter if we are warming the planet or not?

Yes.

Even if we are how are we going to fix it? Limit CO2 emissions by something like cap and trade? Great concept but India, China etc are not going to play in
a game that is detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries.

Depending on how fast the planet is warming, I would think the massive flooding would be detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries.

Or perhaps we create green energy solutions, problem is none of those solutions are cost effective to be self sustaining.

Sure they are, even on a small scale. You can buy a windmill for your house, and easily calculate how much you'll save selling that energy back to the grid.

If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

That's why we run simulations and such, which tend to show that the amount of water locked away in ice is sufficient to cause massive flooding. That's ignoring predictions of storms and such... I'm not up on the latest developments, but it's clear you aren't, either.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[sonicmerlin]

Does it really matter if we are warming the planet or not?

Even if we are how are we going to fix it? Limit CO2 emissions by something like cap and trade? Great concept but India, China etc are not going to play in a game that is detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries. Or perhaps we create green energy solutions, problem is none of those solutions are cost effective to be self sustaining. If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

I see this argument rather often, and I think it fails to see the point. The US has the largest GDP in the world BY FAR. It has the biggest and most robust economy by an order of magnitude, and nearly all gigantic leaps in technological innovation occur here because of the vast consumer market and potential profits (at least when Republicans aren't stymying innovation by giving away money to the rich). If the US creates a cap and trade system that rewards innovators and penalizes fossil fuel users, there is no doubt an explosion of innovation will arrive in the field. Companies like nanosolar would be only the tip of the iceberg.

Most European and Asian countries already have gas prices more than twice as high as ours. Just imagine the massive shift in capital to innovative startups that would have occurred over the last two decades had the US taxed gasoline appropriately. Imagine the massive private expenditures into developing consumer-grade alternative energy products. It's just mind-boggling to think what the US could do if it were as forward thinking as some other countries are.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Kierthos]

If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

Penguins, polar bears, people living in Alaska, Tuvaluans (the entire country is at most 4.5 meters above sea levels), anyone else living really close to a coastline....

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[TheSync]

Depending on how fast the planet is warming, I would think the massive flooding would be detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries.

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report predicts sea level rises of 7 inches to 23 inches over the next 90 years depending on scenario. The truth is that while it is possible that there could be increases in hurricane activity, "massive flooding" is unlikely to have a significant effect on industrial production. An industrialized country like China can build up a seawall one inch per year, or move factories away from coasts.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[M8e]

Not only coastal areas can be flooded. Think about what an unusualy big spring flood could do "inside" the country and what would happens to old dams not designed for that. In those cases we are talking about changes in meters from one day to another, not centimeters per year.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[SpinyNorman]

Build up a seawall an inch a year eh? And end up with a large part of the coastal area below sea level but protected by the seawall?

Kind of brings to mind a certain US city that was below water level protected by a retaining wall.

That "inch a year" of protection is all very well until you get a storm, surge or worse.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[chickenarise]

Actually, what the average American pays for oil is quite similar to how much Europeans pay. Oil is subsidized in various ways in the US, which means that Americans don't just pay for gas at the pump, but also in their taxes.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[linhares]

If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

Everybody knew there was a housing bubble. Very few expected the... wait for it...

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[linhares]

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report predicts sea level rises of 7 inches to 23 inches over the next 90 years depending on scenario. The truth is that while it is possible that there could be increases in hurricane activity, "massive flooding" is unlikely to have a significant effect on industrial production. An industrialized country like China can build up a seawall one inch per year, or move factories away from coasts.

Isn't that GLOBAL? If you think Texas is big, take a little look at the Pacific Ocean. 7 to 23 inches is a major change. And by the way, even a tiny minor event like destruction of the Panama Canal can wreak total havoc with this little monkeysphere.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Massive flooding isn't just a problem of rising sea levels. Rising sea temperatures increase the amount of evaporation from ocean surfaces (and not in a linear way, though I don't recall if it is more or less than linear with temperature; and remember that is effectively measured in C, not K - 100C is 100% evaporation). All that water has to go somewhere. It falls as rain and floods rivers and waterlogs the ground, increasing vulnerability to flash floods.

That, by the way, is the same answer to give to the 'if we have Global Warming, why is there so much snow?' Because it's not yet warmed enough to prevent places getting cold enough to snow in winter, but when it does, there is massively more water waiting to fall.

I'm not a climate scientist (just a lowly lapsed physicist), but perhaps someone can tell me what effect increased atmospheric water will have on absorption of solar radiation and reflected/re-emitted radiation from Earth?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[The_mad_linguist]

Pour several billion dollars into a hundred different fusion projects done by independent groups of researchers.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Neoprofin]

Why don't we just give all Americans incurable diseases while we're at it to stimulate the medical industry properly? Snarky sounding, but perhaps you're right, the US has shown a fairly strong track record for solving problems that it can actually be motivated to deal with.

It's worth pointing out though that the high cost of gasoline outside of the US has been pushing large numbers of people to CNG, which although less less polluting is still not a long term solution to the problem, simply a delaying effort that very well may be immediately offset by increased use. In India it costs half as much but releases 2/3rds the CO2 for equivalent usage. These systems can however sometimes run on landfill waste products at which point we simply have a logistical problem.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[SirWinston]

>Most European and Asian countries already have gas
>prices more than twice as high as ours. Just
>imagine the massive shift in capital to innovative
>startups that would have occurred over the last
>two decades had the US taxed gasoline appropriately.

I see this argument frequently, but it ignores the simple reality that unlike in Europe and Asia, the American economy is based on a highly mobile workforce able to commute great distances by automobile. The middle class, in particular, is enabled by and enriched by the automobile and cheap gasoline--the wealthier can live in expensive neighborhoods close to work, and the poor live wherever they can while commuting as little as possible; but, the middle class often work in areas where they could either not afford nearby housing which caters to the more affluent, or where nearby housing caters to the poor.

That's not always the case, of course, but it often is and the middle class has thrived on the ability to live in cheaper yet comfortable neighborhoods further from job centers--i.e., living in the suburbs while commuting to the city, or living in the country and commuting to the burbs. There's also a greater mobility and variety of jobs available to the middle class thanks to cheap gas: where I live, many commute to Washington, D.C., many others to Richmond, and a few to Charlottesville--meaning the job markets of 2.5 major cities are effectively local. Tax gas at a high rate, and people will have less employment mobility, fewer competitive opportunities, and lower overall wages due to the lowered competition among employers in formerly-neighboring employment centers. Additionally, with permanently expensive gas making long commutes cost-prohibitive for the middle class, there would be a huge migration out of the burbs and into more urban areas--where are all the urban poor going to move when whole cities are gentrified almost overnight? Into deserted suburbs with few native local job opportunities?

Tax gas at a high rate, and the mobile workforce and all the competitive advantages it bestows evaporates; the middle class would be eviscerated, and the poor would be displaced. Like it or not, there is no viable public and/or mass transit in most of the U.S.--we haven't needed it thanks to cheap gas, nor has it been as practical as in Europe thanks to our sprawling landmass.

So, do we heavily invest in public/mass transit now in a crash program, to the tune of trillions of dollars almost all at once, so we can end our reliance on cheap gas? No, that's impractical, too expensive, and no one has either the political will or political capital. Do we just levy those high gas taxes, and see if the dire predictions are false? No, because even if it wouldn't destroy the middle class, it would destroy so many political careers that no one is dumb enough to try it--remember that when oil stayed above $100/barrel for a record number of weeks not long ago and U.S. gas prices stayed at record levels, populist anger boiled so hot that Congress was subpoenaing oil executives and threatening to tax their profits and repeal gas taxes and doing ANYTHING to keep a lid on popular sentiments that threatened to derail every incumbent in their wake.

So no, there will not be high gas taxes in this country, nor should there be. What there should be is a plan to phase out gasoline, not through punitive taxes aimed at the working classes but through taxes and legislative pressures on automakers to phase in certain percentages of electric or hybrid vehicles by target dates. We mandate automakers to include lots of once-expensive tech which has since come down in manufacturing cost; why not, in the name of national security as well as the environment, mandate targeted percentages of electric offerings? If prices of new cars do rise in the short term while early adopters bear the brunt, so be it--the more financially challenged can stick with their old cars for a few years more until costs come down. It may seem unrealistic to exp

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, but looks like you think that the rest of the world is waiting for you to follow....
If you had traveled outside the States you will see the rest of the world already did it while you where happily burning oil.
You only have to look at American cars compared to the rest. And you are also behind in solar and wind technologies, well, in a lot of areas more.
In fact, when I go to the states and walk on the streets looks like i traveled back in time 20 years. You keep saying the you are ahead in technology, but I don't see it anywere. Even NASA gadgets already look so 80's.
I really think EEUU have been a long time looking at his own belly, you don't really see how different it's the world outside.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you just spout nonsense that comes off the top of your head? Or do you actually believe the crap that you write?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[mdarksbane]

Yes, because Europe is incapable of innovation to solve these problems? Mostly the high oil prices in Europe have resulted in a few high mpg cars that are actually fun to drive - good, but not earth-shaking. Mostly their climate change actions are just subsidizing solar panels that will never recoup their cost and using cap and trade as a smokescreen for massive industrial subsidies.

I'm not saying the US *couldn't* implement a cap and trade scheme that wasn't rife with loopholes and corporate rent-seeking, I'll just be very surprised if they do given their role model.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

See this is not science. Sea level isn't going to rise that fast, and that far, that quickly.
Warming produces moisture in the air, moisture in the air produce clouds, clouds cool the planet.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[SirWinston]

> Does it really matter if we are warming the planet or not?

No, no it doesn't:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/123218/stossel-thu-dec-10-2009

I'm all for switching from fossil fuels to renewables as quickly as is practicable. I can hardly wait for the day when I can go into a dealership and buy an affordable electric car, and can charge it on a nuclear-fed electric grid instead of the coal-based grid I'm on now. I want solar panels on every roof where they'd do any good and wind turbines wherever they'd be useful. BUT, we don't have to risk our economy to get there. We don't have to be taken in by lies and exaggerations to get there.

Climate change is a fact. How much of it is anthropogenic is far from certain. What we should do about it is, basically, the same thing we should do regardless--cleaner, renewable energy is the logical future in any event. But the AGW alarmists would have us cripple our economies with carbon taxes and gas taxes and all sorts of boondoggles to try to make the change quicker, whereas the reality is, as is pointed out in the video discussion linked above, we should be slow and steady and reasonable about changing our economy to rely less on fossil fuels. Being too hasty and redirecting too many resources will end up killing millions more through aid cuts than will be killed by climate change.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

however, there are plenty of places on this planet that do not lie directly in the path of a major huricane-route.

Us Dutchies have been living below sea-level quite comfortably for centuries

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

codepunks whole argument is that it isn't forward thinking. If there's no point in doing it, why would you have a whole argument around how you can do it?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the Democrats stymying innovation by giving company profits to fat babymakers.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[corbettw]

Most European and Asian countries already have gas prices more than twice as high as ours. Just imagine the massive shift in capital to innovative startups that would have occurred over the last two decades had the US taxed gasoline appropriately. Imagine the massive private expenditures into developing consumer-grade alternative energy products. It's just mind-boggling to think what the US could do if it were as forward thinking as some other countries are.

Earlier in your post, you admitted that the US economy is stronger than all others. In fact, according to the CIA World Factbook, it's greater than the next three countries combined and is nearly as great as the entire continent of Europe combined. We're an economic powerhouse, there's no simply no disputing that.

However, after you acknowledge that fact, you then suggest we hobble our economy by introducing measures used in Europe. Tell me, if those measures are so wonderful, why is their GDP not higher than it is? Going by PPP, the GDP of the EU is a mere $270 billion more than the US, or roughly 1.89%, even though the EU has 62% more population than the US. If excessive taxation and rationing of gasoline were such a wonderful idea I would expect to see a greater disparity between the GDP of the US and the EU.

You can't expect the US to copy the economic systems of nations that simply can't compete with ours. That's just foolishness. If anything, Europe needs to copy our system if they want to compete successfully.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Remus Shepherd]

...and of course, only the threat to industrial production is important. The millions of poor people who will be drowned or left homeless never enters into the equation. The trillions of dollars of real estate lost...well, that's what insurance is for. And if the insurers go belly up, they can always get a bailout from the taxpayers.

I'm glad that you're sanguine about massive social liability. It shows real dedication to the free market when one is able to focus on economical costs and neglect damage done to society and human lives.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most European and Asian countries already have gas prices more than twice as high as ours. Just imagine the massive shift in capital to innovative startups that would have occurred over the last two decades had the US taxed gasoline appropriately. Imagine the massive private expenditures into developing consumer-grade alternative energy products. It's just mind-boggling to think what the US could do if it were as forward thinking as some other countries are.

Imagine building communities with higher densities, where public transit was an option. Where you could ride a bicycle (or walk) to work and school, and thus get some exercise--thus improving your health and lowering health care costs (and budgets). Where housing was closer together so it'd be worth it for ISPs to string fibre at speeds like Japan and South Korea. Where air quality and smog weren't a problem, and asthma was a thing of the past.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

you overstate your case way too much. Gasoline is not the major expense its made out to be. Its less than food. Its less than healthcare. Its less than housing. Its only a fraction of the disposable income the American consumer mindlessly burned up through a few years ago. Doubling the gas tax would not 'eviscerate' anyone and if you're truly worried about the low income (not middle class) being adversely affected, then make a progrerssive system with tax rebates based on income. Ooo tricky.

On the contrary, if Ronald Reagan didn't destroy our country by ignoring the energy problem, incremental changes would have us today using 1/3 the gas for our autos and our economy could support much higher prices, like Europe.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[codepunk]

There are ways that have not even been brought forward to curb energy usage that have not even been exploited yet. How many
of us travel to work every day and there is really no need for us to physically be there, hell the numbers are probably almost
a third of the work force at any given company. What if a huge tax break was given for telecommute workers, if effective it
would greatly reduce the consumption of fuel. Not only would you save fuel in commutes but also in the maintenance of facilities etc.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not the inch height per year , its the thousands of miles width.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

That prediction is based on the "Constrains on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change" paper, published on July 26th, 2009, right? The same paper that has been retracted on February 21st, 2010?

Granted, that is less a fact against you; rather, it's more against the "massive flooding" of the grandparent. It's bad science, and it's looking more and more like bad politics.

The retraction statement can be found here.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[doconnor]

Raising gas taxes would both pressure car companies to build more efficient cars and encourage people to live closer to work, probably sacrificing living space.

In the end it would be up to the individual to decide, rather then have the decision made by the government.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[khallow]

If the US creates a cap and trade system that rewards innovators and penalizes fossil fuel users, there is no doubt an explosion of innovation will arrive in the field.

If all people with only one head are beheaded at the age of 40, there will no doubt be an explosion of innovation. Is the innovation worth the cost imposed on society?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[intheshelter]

I have nothing of substance to rebut you with, so I'll just say USA! USA! USA!

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[cvd6262]

Not a skeptic; just want to know.

Was that the IPCC sea-level claim that was based on a paper that was retracted this week?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[DavidShor]

That's actually the controversy. Greenhouse effect from CO2 raises temperature which causes water to evaporate. The water vapor forms clouds which affect albedo. Clouds are white, so more sunlight is reflected back to space, lowering temperature. The whole water vapor thing is the main negative feedback.

.

The extent to which the second effect counteracts the first one depends on things like ocean currents, and that's where the need for complicated climate models begin to come in. But other then vapor, pretty much every other feedback effect is positive (Heat causes permafrost to melt, causing for CO2 to be released into the atmosphere. That sort of thing).

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/MT/mt-search.fcgi?blog_id=1&tag=global%20warming&limit=20 is a really great introduction to the details of everything.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[ElectricTurtle]

Because you know of course those animals evolved in mere thousands of years, otherwise how could they have survived the far warmer holocene climate optimum? Oh right, that would be impossible, therefore we know that those species have survived far warmer temperatures before. Oh, but now we have all sorts of people to get emotional about it! That's progress.

And people have never had to migrate because of changing environmental conditions, no sir, how could they possibly be expected to do that now?

Absurd.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Dragoness Eclectic]

And which politician is going to vote to lower his constituents standard of living? No one who wants to be re-elected. Hell, no one who wants any kind of legacy, because anything that affects the bulk of the citizenry as badly as over $3 / gallon gas did the other year will be promptly repealed by the politicians still in office who want to stay in office--or not be lynched.

As eloquently explained in one of the above posts, major increases in the cost of gasoline would wreak havoc on the economy and the middle-class. I disagree with the poster that the middle-class would be hardest hit--2008's insane gas prices hurt the so-called "blue-collar" class the worst. Those were the guys who were just making ends meet, and whose jobs often depending on driving: truckers, cabbies, deliverymen, etc.

In addition, the higher cost of a necessity, gasoline, means less money to spend on anything else, so luxuries go by the wayside. What happens to the economy when people stop spending on anything except absolute necessities? If you answer, "the stock market crash and recession that started in 2008 and is still going on", you, sir, are a winner! (Yes, mismanagement by the big banks and insurance companies who apparently didn't plan for the possibility of an economic downturn exacerbated the crash, but there would have been no crash without that economic downturn).

In an ironic twist, when our gasoline prices approached those of Europe's, it clobbered Europe's economy as well. Seems like people just weren't buying European imports and taking European vacations any more...

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[phantomfive]

A further interesting observation is that tectonic plates move an order of magnitude faster than the oceans rise. We have more to fear from moving continents than rising oceans.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[doconnor]

If Americans (and Europeans) don't change there ways, it is likely millions of people will die and the economy will suffer even more in the long run.

Perhaps the human race is incapable of long term collective planning, but that should stop us from trying.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[khayman80]

Cool, that's an awesome website! I especially liked the graphic here. I think the "Phil current" curve describes me well. I agree with Phil that the IPCC's error bars seem a little narrow, but not by much.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[TheSync]

The millions of poor people who will be drowned or left homeless never enters into the equation.

This is true. Poor people cannot drive in their cars away from a storm. Poor countries cannot afford solid seawalls. The poor are often driven into marginal land that may be flooded due to climate change.

The only solution to poverty is to encourage countries to no longer have policies that cause poverty. China dumped much of its communist-era limits on free markets, and has brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. India is on the path of reducing government barriers against the free market as well, if moving ahead slower. Now we need sub-Saharan Africa to reform.

The big question is how to balance the cost of CO2/methane emission reductions, climate change, and the ability of the poor to leave poverty. If the costs (in terms of lower economic growth) of avoiding climate change are too high, the poor may suffer more than if we did nothing, they became rich, yet the climate changes more.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[TheSync]

as that the IPCC sea-level claim that was based on a paper that was retracted this week?

Yes, but unfortunately other predictions based on studies that have not been retracted are slightly more pessimistic:

"For future global temperature scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report, the relationship projects a sea-level rise ranging from 75 to 190 cm for the period 1990-2100."

A 2m rise is pretty high. But there are plenty of places in the Netherlands at 5m or deeper below sea level...

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bad science, and it's looking more and more like bad politics.

I would have thought that a paper is retracted is rather a sign of good science and indicative that some criterion other than mere politics is being applied.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[ekhben]

Clouds cool the planet by the exact same amount as it's being warmed?

How extraordinary. Almost... implausibly extraordinary, one might say.

Also, quibble time, warming produces water vapour in the air, water vapour absorbs and re-emits infra-red radiation thus further contributing to warming, and water vapour also forms clouds that reflect infra-red radiation, thus mitigating some warming effects. The uncertainty in how much water vapour contributes to warming, and how much to the prevention of warming, is why the IPCC report has such a large range of possible temperature changes. I'm pretty sure that *is* science.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[sonicmerlin]

Don't you mean the wealthy live in expensive places far away from work?

Anyway your estimation of gasoline costs on our lives is ridiculous. The idea that we can't adapt our lifestyle is just stupid and arrogant.

More than that, once alternative energy technology becomes more advanced, there's no reason to believe it will not *continue its advancement*. Who's to say in 20 years we won't have super low-cost 60% efficient solar panels? In another 20 maybe 80%?

Who's to say we won't be able to build batteries with 100 times the density of those today, enabling an even more mobile society than what we currently have? Who's to say we'll never bring the next-generation of rocket propulsion technology to the consumer market, thus increasing international mobility?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[sonicmerlin]

Um, that's because Europe's gas prices approached $11/gallon. That was far too crippling of a price. But it certainly was a boon for awareness of alternative energy technologies. So were the rising gas prices in America.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[mcvos]

Build up a seawall an inch a year eh? And end up with a large part of the coastal area below sea level but protected by the seawall?

Kind of brings to mind a certain US city that was below water level protected by a retaining wall.

That "inch a year" of protection is all very well until you get a storm, surge or worse.

Those walls had been neglected, despite warnings that a major hurricane could flood New Orleans.

Much of Netherland also lies below sea level, but over the past decades, we invested in flood defenses that ought to reduce the risk to one major flood every 10,000 years.

Of course that doesn't take rising sea levels into account. From what I understand, increased defenses should be able to deal with a meter of sea level rise, but with more than that, I'm afraid large parts of the country may have to be evacuated.

China and India aren't nearly as vulnerable, though. They don't seem to have much reason to worry about flooding that may happen 2 or 3 centuries from now. Especially considering the damage that flooding rivers already do.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[mcvos]

If the US creates a cap and trade system that rewards innovators and penalizes fossil fuel users, there is no doubt an explosion of innovation will arrive in the field. Companies like nanosolar would be only the tip of the iceberg.

The best way to do this is not through cap-and-trade, but by taxing CO2 emissions and using that money directly to get that same amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere (through planting forests, stimulating algae growth in sea, capturing CO2 and storing it underground, whatever you like). The tax should definitely not disappear into government budgets, and preferably be directly related to the cost of capturing that CO2.

This will stimulate companies to reduce their CO2 emissions, but it will also stimulate and entirely new industry that finds new and effective ways to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. And best of all, this system will almost immediately significantly reduce the net CO2 emissions. (Though it might be best to introduce it gradually, giving industries time to adjust.)

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[mcvos]

However, after you acknowledge that fact, you then suggest we hobble our economy by introducing measures used in Europe. Tell me, if those measures are so wonderful, why is their GDP not higher than it is? Going by PPP, the GDP of the EU is a mere $270 billion more than the US, or roughly 1.89%, even though the EU has 62% more population than the US. If excessive taxation and rationing of gasoline were such a wonderful idea I would expect to see a greater disparity between the GDP of the US and the EU.

Keep in mind that the EU includes a lot of recovering formerly-Soviet economies. It might be more fair to compare the US economy to western Europe or to the older EU nations only. I have no idea how that comparison would look, though.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[mcvos]

Tuvaluans (the entire country is at most 4.5 meters above sea levels),

Ha! They have it easy. The Maldives are at most 1.6 meters above sea level. That country is really at risk of disappearing completely over the next century.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[mcvos]

Pour several billion dollars into a hundred different fusion projects done by independent groups of researchers.

Hasn't that already been tried for several decades? Perhaps it's time to pour that money into solar and tidal projects instead.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand that in Europe mobility does not have to be by car. Most europeans do not even own a car or, if they do, it's to go shopping every other week or to go see the family. The daily commute can be 100 miles each way and it's done entirely over public transport for pennies. Your model of driving everywhere is nonsensical and quite expensive [when you have good metro, buses and trains and you are not mugged at 22:00 if you are there alone].

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[corbettw]

Germany's per capita GDP (PPP) is $35,539. France's is $33,744. The UK is $35,400, Italy is $30,631, and Spain is $30,588. No other european nation is in the top ten of GDP worldwide. The EU as a whole is $30,513, not much less than Spain and Italy on their own.

By comparison, the US' GDP (PPP) is a healthy $47,440, 33% greater than Germany's.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[riverat1]

Recent research has suggested that clouds may actually be a slight positive feedback. Have you ever noticed how it doesn't get as cold on a cloudy night. That's because clouds prevent radiation from the surface from escaping the planet. Water vapor itself is of course a positive feedback.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[riverat1]

I'm going to quibble a bit with your quibble. What clouds mostly reflect is visible light and the incoming radiative energy from the Sun is also mostly in the visible band. The energy doesn't get converted to infrared until it is absorbed by the surface for the most part.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[riverat1]

Maybe so but we tend to take changes in the vertical plane more seriously than in the horizontal. I can walk a mile on flat ground in 15 or 20 minutes. To go up a mile in elevation would take a lot longer even if I'm going vertically up a ladder.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[ekhben]

Sorry. I think the general message doesn't change though, even if I'm clearly NOT a climatologist :-)

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[riverat1]

No, I could have been clearer. I wasn't arguing with your general message at all, just providing a little tidbit of science knowledge.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Debunking a Climate-Change Skeptic" eh.

"Debunking" = "causing to adhere to orthodoxy". Otherwise this would be "Challenging a Climate-Change Skeptic" or "Debating a Climate-Change Skeptic".

Dune coons.

Ah, the old footnote trick

[snowwrestler]

It's well established that most people don't actually check footnotes[1]. Thus you can construct an original argument, footnote a few contained facts [2], and the presence of the footnotes lends an air of support to the entire argument [3].

Without reading both books, I can't take sides on the merits. But I will say some of the stuff in TFA sets off my alarms--like spending a footnote on a WHO report just to cite the population of Europe.

1

2

3

Re:Ah, the old footnote trick

[bennomatic]

Without reading both books, I can't take sides on the merits.

Can't and shouldn't are two very different things. I say you can take whatever sides you wish!

faster than intended?

[Jorgandar]

This statement concerns me: "But its chairman, Josef Fendt, said later that the track was far faster than its designers ever intended it to be." How could designers NOT be aware of how fast a person would be flying down the track? Do they not have rudimentary knowledge of physics?

Re:faster than intended?

[Jorgandar]

Sorry slashdot, i plead temporary stupidity. I posted this response to the wrong story!!

Re:faster than intended?

[brazilofmux]

And, yet, still strangely appropriate.

Re:faster than intended?

[Tsunamio]

"It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see."

I for one am sick of every open medium being censored in the hopes of keeping kids from learning about the naughty bits. Couldn't they just keep these in a separate, awesome part of the app store?

Re:faster than intended?

[SpottedKuh]

I posted this response to the wrong story!!

...yet got modded insightful. Kudos, sir!

Lets steal their lunchmoney!

[Anonymous Coward]

If ever a pair of nerds were in need of a knuckle sandwich, here is a pair.

Its All About Power and Money

[RudyHartmann]

Greenland was colonized during a period of global warmth. That it is why it was named that way. When the solar cycle became colder, Greenland lost population due to global cooling. The climate was not influenced then by Scandinavians driving gas guzzling, CO2 belching SUV's. Man is not powerful enough to change the earth's climate to any "significant" degree. But that big thermonuclear ball in the sky is. A billion petrochemical fueled cars will not influence the sun. But, I still think we should find better sources of energy. Petrochemicals can be very dirty. I think we should only use them for a feedstock for plastics and use Thorium reactors to make our energy. Thorium reactors could even be used to get rid of the deadly nuclear waste from Uranium/Plutonium reactors. http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/12/01/how-a-liquid-fluoride-thorium-reactor-lftr-works/ Scientists are men that can be influenced by propaganda just like any man can be. I think the climate change scare is just another way for politicians to steal our hard earned money. BTW, I also love this video from George Carlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[Black Gold Alchemist]

We don't need to replace the cars. Just use those nuclear reactors to electrolyse water, react the hydrogen with CO2, and make the oil that's needed for everything.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[TapeCutter]

Greenland? -. Is there no limit to people rumaging through the dustbin of science?

You should listen more carefully to Carlin - "The planet is fine, the people are fucked"

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[Arker]

Greenland was colonized during a period of global warmth. That it is why it was named that way.

Medieval warm period wasnt necessarily a period of global warmth. It may have been a period of north-atlantic warmth. Other areas were cooler. This is one of the many areas where the situation is just flat out more complicated than any popular treatment would lead one to believe. Very often one area will be cooler and another hotter and it's bugger-all difficult to properly sort it out and demonstrate a *global* trend without going to a very long time-scale.

And it wasnt named that because it was actually green - it wasnt. It was named that because Ericsson had previously found it very difficult to attract settlers for his previous development, Iceland, because even though it was in fact quite green at the time, it just sounded cold and barren. So he chose a more attractive name for his second development in the interest of marketing.

The climate was not influenced then by Scandinavians driving gas guzzling, CO2 belching SUV's.

Certainly true.

Man is not powerful enough to change the earth's climate to any "significant" degree.

Whether or not this is true is far from a settled question. Mans actions influence the environment and vice versa and always have. How much is "significant?" There is some very interesting research that indicates even the tens of thousands of years of farming prior to the industrial revolution may have altered global climate significantly enough to be detected. However in the broader picture, of course, the natural forces that have driven climate change since long before humans evolved are still at work and dwarf anything we can do or likely will be able to do anytime soon.

I think the climate change scare is just another way for politicians to steal our hard earned money.

I think there is a grain of truth in that, but you drastically oversimplify.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[Gadget_Guy]

Greenland was colonized during a period of global warmth. That it is why it was named that way.

According to the Reverend J. Sephton in his book Eirik the Red's Saga, Greenland was named as a marketing ploy by Eirik: "Because," said he, "men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name."

Yes, it would have been warmer and greener than it was now, but if there was subterfuge in the naming of the country then I don't imagine that it was a tropical paradise. It also doesn't mean that it was as consistantly warmer across the globe as it is now.

But it is also a distraction. Do you deny that being shot by a gun could kill you, merely because other people have died without being shot. Just because it got warmer then doesn't mean that we are not causing it to get warmer now. It is getting hotter, faster and more globally than it did back then.

Man is not powerful enough to change the earth's climate to any "significant" degree. But that big thermonuclear ball in the sky is. A billion petrochemical fueled cars will not influence the sun.

Nobody has every claimed that we are making the sun hotter. This demonstrates that you really don't understand the problem. The problem is that the heat from the sun is being trapped here. As an analogy, my house stays pretty cool even on hot days without the need for air conditioning. As long as it gets cooler at night, it stays pleasant during the day. But if it stays hot at night, it doesn't get a chance to lose the build-up of heat from the previous day and it gets more unpleasant as after day. The days are not necessarily hotter, but the accumulated heat energy means that each successive day has a larger affect.

Scientists are men that can be influenced by propaganda just like any man can be. I think the climate change scare is just another way for politicians to steal our hard earned money.

The climate change "scare" as you call it was instigated by the scientists, not the politicions. They don't just watch the news and think "yeah, I had better parrot that line too". They just follow their data, and all get to the same place. It is either a giant conspiracy or the truth. Which seems the most likely.

However, if you can come up with ANY evidence to back up the claim that it is the politicians that are leading our scientists around then please present it. Oh, have a look at all those CRU emails that were released. They should be able to tell you the names of the politicians who are giving the orders (if there are any). Come back and let us know.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[HertzaHaeon]

Classical denialist argumentation from ignorance. If very small amounts of something aren't danegrous, you wouldn't mind drinking a glass containing the same concentration of nerve toxin as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, would you?

There's so much evidence of our ability to affect the climate that it's just silly to ignore it. To get you started, read up on the haze of brown smog hanging over Asia. People are actually changing the climate by simply burning wood. Now imagine what a billion cars can do.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[gkai]

If very small amounts of something aren't dangerous, you wouldn't mind drinking a glass containing the same INCREASE IN concentration of nerve toxin as the INCREASE IN concentration of CO2 from pre-industrial atmosphere, would you?

There, fixed your analogy for you.

I, for one, would accept to drink 1.5 times the amount of nerve toxin you drink, if you are fine after drinking it, and still fine after a few day. Sure, I will take a risk, but it will be small and not mainly linked to the increase in nerve toxin absorbed, but more to the fact that I may be more sensitive to this particular toxin than you are.

Now that I have fixed your analogy, maybe you want to try again and find another one?

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[Anonymous Coward]

"It a giant conspiracy or the truth. Which seems the most likely."

Oh, oh - I know this. No don't tell me I can get there.

1. Politicians
2. Mainstream media
3. The Internet

I knew it. It's a giant conspiracy.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[PybusJ]

Man is not powerful enough to change the earth's climate to any "significant" degree. But that big thermonuclear ball in the sky is.

Quite separate from the question of whether our previous actions *have* driven climate change as a side effect, we as a species certainly have the technology to bugger up the earth's climate if we actively tried. Large scale nuclear war, or any process which put enough dust into the atmosphere would significantly alter our planet's albedo and cause climatic effects which would last for far longer than our current civilisations.

Scientists are men that can be influenced by propaganda just like any man can be. I think the climate change scare is just another way for politicians to steal our hard earned money.

You're right that scientists are human (look carefully though, you'll find not all are men) and susceptible to various influences. You won't find perfect logic, behaviour or motives behind every scientist's action on both sides of any large scientific debate, but over time (and this issue had been studied for decades before the conclusions became front-line political questions) consensus tends to emerge, possibly to be overthrown later as new facts come to light. It's frustrating, but the best process we have. Certainly far better than listening to the voices of the lobby groups of those industries benefiting from the status quo.

I understand your mistrust of government by politicians, but I don't think they're behind this one. Really, it's just not a good sell "we need tax money to spend on mitigation for 3rd world countries and large scale, changes which may effect you lifestyle", surely if you want to get some extra tax dollars it's just so much easier to start a war.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[nedlohs]

Greenland was colonized during a period of global warmth. That it is why it was named that way.

I take it you also believe that North Korea is a democracy. That is why is named the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" after all.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[LuxMaker]

Nobody has every claimed that we are making the sun hotter. This demonstrates that you really don't understand the problem. The problem is that the heat from the sun is being trapped here. As an analogy, my house stays pretty cool even on hot days without the need for air conditioning. As long as it gets cooler at night, it stays pleasant during the day. But if it stays hot at night, it doesn't get a chance to lose the build-up of heat from the previous day and it gets more unpleasant as after day. The days are not necessarily hotter, but the accumulated heat energy means that each successive day has a larger affect.

Some people say the problem is that the heat from the sun is being trapped here while others say there is no human solvable problem as there is a natural cycle of climate change due to sunspots and that no amount of human activity is going to change that. Documentary reference is here on this very subject.

Of course this documentary goes into detail that water is an even greater greenhouse gas than CO2.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have an actual reference, like a journal entry, or just some video?

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[Anonymous Coward]

The climate change "scare" as you call it was instigated by the scientists, not the politicions

Hmmmm.... I never knew Al Gore was a scientist....

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[AnObfuscator]

There is some very interesting research that indicates even the tens of thousands of years of farming prior to the industrial revolution may have altered global climate significantly enough to be detected.

Interesting, I have not heard of this. I'm not denying your claim, I'd genuinely like to see this research. Could you point me to some sources (or at least relevant search terms)?

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[ElectricTurtle]

Yes, it would have been warmer and greener than it was now, but if there was subterfuge in the naming of the country then I don't imagine that it was a tropical paradise

Why it's our old friend, Mr. Strawman! I like how you concede that the GP's statement is probably true (the first, not the second, which I agree is known false), BUT don't think that it's some wild extreme that was never posited. Way to go, killer.

It also doesn't mean that it was as consistantly warmer across the globe as it is now.It also doesn't mean that it was as consistantly warmer across the globe as it is now.

It also doesn't mean that it wasn't. No assumption made here in either direction should be construed as proven (and even Phil Jones says this point is unprovable at this time).

Do you deny that being shot by a gun could kill you, merely because other people have died without being shot. Just because it got warmer then doesn't mean that we are not causing it to get warmer now. It is getting hotter, faster and more globally than it did back then.

This is confusing causes with effects and with a pessimistic bias to boot. (Warming must be bad, the only question is how bad!) In the first place, warming trends in the planet's history have frequently been positive for speciation and population, and even if some warming trends have had negative impacts, that would simply demonstrate that warming by itself is either not a catalyst for speciation and population, or that it is only part of a multi-faceted paradigm that could go one way or another based on other factors.

In the second place, if man is the primary cause, and it's happening hard and fast, so what? Photosythetic life changed the planet's atmosphere completely during the Siderian, causing the Oxygen Crisis that led to mass extinction of anaerobic life, as well as making all current animal life possible where it otherwise would not. Would you like to go back in time and undo that? Mankind is so conceited that he thinks the biosphere he has come to know in the last few centuries of biology is the ONE PERFECT BIOSPHERE that must be FROZEN IN TIME at all costs, because change is bad and scary! Who knows how many cuddly animals might cease to be viable, just as over 99% of all species in the planet's history already did. Never mind new species coming on to the field, that can't possibly be relevant or natural, right?

Nobody has every claimed that we are making the sun hotter.

Do you imagine that the solar output is fixed and unchanging? Of course we're not causing it to change, but it DOES change, and temperature records do more closely correlate with solar output than CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

The climate change "scare" as you call it was instigated by the scientists, not the politicions.

Yeah, Margaret Thatcher never latched onto it in attempt to undermine the power of coal miners' unions and commissioned original research to try to buttress it. I just imagined that. More contemporary examples exist, but that one goes back before most people in either the scientific or lay community knew or cared anything about the issue.

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[ibsteve2u]

I quit paying attention to the arguments that invoke the settling of Greenland when I noted that although they used that short-cycle migration as proof that global warming would be a piece of cake to survive, they never scale it up into terms that accommodate global population growth.

Without the appropriate scaling, using the Greenland migration as an analogy for the impact of global warming is the equivalent of saying that since it is easy to evacuate a ranch house that has no elevators in the event of an earthquake, it will be easy to evacuate a 1000-story office building that has no elevators in the event of an earthquake, too.

Chamberlain versus Damon

[unitron]

So The Lomborg Deception isn't about some spy novelist's later works being heavily ghostwritten?

Friel has a poor record in the realm of neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1880831147?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1880831147&adid=0C788Y6PAJ4WTVVQ3K5T&

Edited by Friel.

The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

It only makes sense to take precautions so as to avoid any chance of eliminating your own species. If you're wrong, you spent some money unnecessarily. Just like when you pay for homeowner's insurance, and your house fails to do you the courtesy of burning itself down before you die.

The question is really whether the human race is willing to its potentially infinite future to satiate the greed of a few during their comparatively insignificant lifespans.

Who are you, when compared to humanity?

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

lolll...how I could attempt to invoke the gamble involved, and forget the word "risk" is beyond me. Make that:

The question is really whether the human race is willing to risk its potentially infinite future to satiate the greed of a few during their comparatively insignificant lifespans.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[Lars512]

It only makes sense to take precautions so as to avoid any chance of eliminating your own species. If you're wrong, you spent some money unnecessarily.

Despite catastrophic consequences, I sincerely doubt that humanity would perish if global warming continues unabated. I wouldn't want to live in that world though, and surely a lot of people would suffer or die. However, reducing emissions doesn't come for free either. The cost of being wrong, aside from setting society back a few decades, is to keep another generation or two of third worlders in severe poverty. That's hardly free, so it's good that the science gets appropriately debated. Now I just wish that politics would hurry up and iterate towards the same level of consensus as is there in the science.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[daver00]

Why is it so dire? Can you give me any credible source of research that says we face utter extinction if we do not stop the CO2 emissions? And what is it with the resources FUD? Where are they going? are we shooting all our resources out into space or something? Matter more or less never changes in any way other than configuration, our mass is going more or less nowhere.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

The cost of being wrong, aside from setting society back a few decades, is to keep another generation or two of third worlders in severe poverty.

Given the difficulty that a lot of third-worlders have in feeding themselves now I suspect that a climatic shift, rather than keep them in poverty, would move them into the next world. Even if not, one conclusion is inescapable: The consequences of such a climatic shift upon what are today marginally arable lands would give great power to those nations that still had arable land. Or, perhaps, to those multinationals who controlled food?

Not that they would require climatic change to bring that about; it seems that nations often trade their self-sufficiency - their ability to feed themselves - for industrialization.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

When nations have nuclear weapons, any credible large-scale threat to a nation's population - such as the disappearance of all of its remaining arable land due to climatic shift - carries with it the threat of mass extinction. What limits would bind you, if the choice was death by starvation, or conquering the arable lands of others? History says that all-out war is not just within the realm of possibility, but a veritable certainty.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[timmarhy]

the path the environmental lobby is demanding we take is in the trillions of dollars. so i can only assume you are being misleading on purpose when you say "some money". would you care to re word that as "a fuck load of money"?

you also attempt to make the case that spending trillions on cutting CO2 is only going to cost money, when it could in fact result in other environmental problems. what if we destroy millions of HA's of forest to plant bio crops only to find out AGW is fake?

this is the real world with grown up decisions to be made, and they shouldn't be made lightly.

oh and to suggest the human race won't survive global warming.... fuck you watch too many hollywood movies son.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[Attila Dimedici]

Except that third worlders are, on average, better fed today than at any point since the concept of "third-world" was first developed.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are we? We are human beings, and like every creature on the planet, we have been engineered by evolution to be selfish, either individually, or for our species.

Even if we could get nations or the whole world to agree to reduce energy usage, do you really think people inside communist regimes, for instance, would actually go along? Or would they ignore their pledge while telling everyone else that they were honoring it?

People, and in particular the alpha's who run the show, do not have the foresight to cut back their energy usage to circa 1900 levels on some vague chance that our own species might somehow be destroyed way down the road. That is too abstract for 99.9% of people (and 100% of political leaders) to grasp. Same for "spending some money unnecesarily". Ain't gonna happen. That money is much better spent buying votes for politicians.

I hope you aren't pinning too much hope on humanity's future...

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[izomiac]

With the amount of money that would need to be spent, people will die if the money is spent. So the question is what will minimize the loss of life, whether it be slow people living on coastal areas, or poor people who suddenly can't afford the things they need because the economy is messed up.

Extinction of the species isn't realistic. Humans can live in any climate and can eat about anything.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[MaWeiTao]

Well, I think the core issue here about whether or not climate change is anthropogenic is whether or not humans can actually do anything to stop it. We're looking at proposals which could dramatically disrupt people's way of life and there's no evidence any of it will be effective. Further aggravating the issue is the fact that climate has always been changing and there's countless evidence to support this.

A couple of years ago I read about archeological finds on the Japanese islands from a time when the climate was much warmer and the seas were much higher. I recall reading 8ft higher, but don't quote me on that. The human population there thrived during this period and dwindled when the climate cooled. So that brings up another matter, why is global warming inherently bad? I might be a great thing for a huge portion of humanity although certainly it will likely be a very bad thing for some parts of the world. The real issue is that we've got more people living in more places around the world meaning that the consequences of climate change may be much more profound.

But again, I return to the original question, if the climate has always been changing is there anything we can realistically do to stop this? And if we can make that kind of impact, what about unintended consequences? Certainly we should move away from fossil fuels and do all we can to stop pollution. But these actions have more immediate and quantifiable benefits to humanity. While everyone's concerned about greenhouse gas emissions in China and India everyone is overlooking the more serious acts of pollution.

Recently in China there was a case of extensive lead poisoning in a town near a lead smelter. When people began falling ill the government initially dismissed it as an example of mass hysteria. Ultimately, what was the China's answer? Move the town and keep the factory open. Instead people are stupidly concerned with more abstract threats.

I wont be surprised in the least if we spend untold trillions trying to fight climate change and the climate changes in a way we don't want regardless. So I'd argue money should be going towards ensuring survivability and being able to copy with mass migrations if things go wrong. Perhaps it's time to start considering how to move or outright abandon cities sitting to close to coastlines at risk. It's safe to say climate change is going to happen whether we like it or not.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[radtea]

It only makes sense to take precautions so as to avoid any chance of eliminating your own species.

Unfortunately, you are carefully innumerate here. You seem to be suggesting for some reason that the cost of "precautions" is necessarily small. One of Lomberg's main points is that what has been suggested so far is expensive and ineffective, and that much of the money spent could be deployed more effectively fighting problems that are unequivocal: malaria, poor water supply infrastructure, etc.

Who are you, when compared to humanity?

One might reasonably surmise that I am part of humanity, and therefore due the same dignity and consideration as every individual. "Humanity" after all is nothing but the sum total of all human individuals, so you would have to be insane or evil--probably both if the history of the 20th century is any indication--to even suggest that any individual should ever be sacrified for the good of "humanity."

I think the thing that pisses people off about Lomberg is that he is bringing rational, real-world, pragmatic considerations into something that power-hungry assholes want to be an ideological crusade. He is pointing out that there is no particular justification for making global climate change the dominant policy driver of the 21st century, as opposed to, say, malaria erradication.

Eliminating malaria would save far more lives with much greater certainty than any amount of speculative insurance against AGW, although there are other reasons to invest in clean power--notably that oil is running out and coal has enough environmental problems to fill a strip-mine.

But eliminating malaria doesn't give power-hungry assholes any excuse to claim that only they can save "humanity" while stomping on the faces of individuals, forever. So boring, practical, rational policy does not get made, and Lomberg is pointing that out. Power-hungry assholes--who want to sacrifice individual rights and well-being for the sake of "humanity" and who ask arrogant rhetorical questions like, "Who are you when compared to humanity?"--hate that.

I am humanity. So are you. So is everyone else. Attempting to put individual humans in opposition to abstract humanity is the rhetorical tool of petty tyrants, and is in that respect quite useful, because as soon as someone does it you know they do not care about human life or well-being, but only about their own rapacious quest for power.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

Attempting to put individual humans in opposition to abstract humanity is the rhetorical tool of petty tyrants, and is in that respect quite useful, because as soon as someone does it you know they do not care about human life or well-being, but only about their own rapacious quest for power.

Interesting argument to use when attempting to justify the individual's quest not for survival, but for wealth.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

Glad to see I got marked troll. If I hadn't, I would have suspected that the Oil boyz had diverted all of their own troll dollars towards advertising for the upcoming 2010 U.S. elections, both leaving a not insignificant number of slashdotters unemployed and guaranteeing mediocre TV interspersed with horrendous lies on all seven dozen or so of my channels for the foreseeable future. API's efforts are burgeoning, as it is, and those are nasty enough.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

An interesting thought exercise is picturing the third world - the entire world, for that matter - should global warming be real and its negative effects upon the growing of food intensify about the same time as the downward slope of peak oil picks up speed.

And then throw in the fact that any factory can be repurposed (as was well and thoroughly demonstrated in WWII), the fact that the apparent goal is to ensure that everybody has plenty of factories, the fact that another goal appears to be increasing global human population to a density that at least matches the planet's carrying capacity under ideal conditions, and the fact that the archaeological record is littered with the evidence of populations transforming themselves into mobile armies when resource scarcity drives them to that point.

Yet people still insist on their individual right to maximize their individual wealth in the here and now, even if there is significant evidence that their pursuit of wealth and their insistence that they are entitled to take a "least cost" approach to wealth accumulation will cause the redefinition of both "ideal conditions" and "carrying capacity"?

Those who have read Aesop's fables should recognize the grasshopper in those who refuse to take reasonable, rational precautions in the area of global warming. Aesop was a smart guy, but I'm afraid that he never thought of a situation where individual grasshoppers could jeopardize themselves as well as all other grasshoppers - and the ants, too.

Something that endlessly amuses me is the global warming skeptics who effectively say "So some areas become uninhabitable or can no longer grow crops. Other areas will obviously get warmer..." as if those other areas would suddenly become as fecund as the abandoned areas had been.

As if eons of planet forming by volcanic action, glaciers, wind, and water had not built soil from rock in some places and moved soil from some areas to put it into regions now known as "bread baskets" for their fecundity...as if, in fact, all areas of the planet have the same depth and richness of soil, all just awaiting the right climatic conditions to burst into bloom...

Either that, or the very people who claim that global warming cannot be anthropogenic in nature because the systems in play are just too big to be affected by puny little man are assuming that if they are wrong mankind can replicate the geological forces of natural terraforming and will have and can expend both the time and the energy required to move trillions of cubic miles of soil to areas now favored by massive climatic shift driven by global warming...

They're funny, in a deadly kind of way.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[Attila Dimedici]

Yet people still insist on their individual right to maximize their individual wealth in the here and now, even if there is significant evidence that their pursuit of wealth and their insistence that they are entitled to take a "least cost" approach to wealth accumulation will cause the redefinition of both "ideal conditions" and "carrying capacity"?

And you propose a solution whereby only the government elites get to maximize their individual wealth, at the expense of the productive members of society. Or at least that is the one being proposed by all of the legislation and treaties being proposed.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

And you propose a solution whereby only the government elites get to maximize their individual wealth, at the expense of the productive members of society.

To the contrary...I think that if you look at the inequality curve of any nation, you will see that the elites who control government (an important difference in the phrasing) are in fact accumulating wealth at a rate never before seen in history because they have exported the lie that national self-sufficiency is passé and all must have the wealth that accompanies industrialization, and that they attempt to spread the story you just emitted to ensure that rate of wealth accumulation is not affected by the peoples of individual nations looking to the survival of themselves and their descendants.

The problem as I see it is that heavy industrialization consumes too much of the planet's finite reserves of resources too quickly, and additionally is putting an incredible tonnage of pollutants into the air, land, and sea - again at a rate that has never been seen before in human history.

Do you think that this planet can long provide resources at even current consumption rates, when ever more nations are striving to outproduce - to out consume - each other? Do you think the planet can absorb the soaring amounts of pollution being emitted? So much pollution that it is coming back to haunt even those nations whose elites are exploiting the cheap labor of the evolving "third world"?

Whether you die tilling a field or surrounded by cell phones, computers, and big screen TVs, you're still dead. The question is why hasten that event - for everybody, to include your own? What is wealth, without life?

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[Attila Dimedici]

Your solution to the elites that control the government having too much power is to give them more power? If that is not your solution, how do you propose reducing CO2 emissions without increasing government power and decreasing individual rights?
BTW, only countries whose average per capita income exceeds a certain base amount (I believe it is $5,000 a year, but I'm not going to take the time right now to look it up) reduce their destruction of the environment.

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[ibsteve2u]

We are of opposite positions, I see...

The elites that control governments - in my opinion - want the developing nations to industrialize rapidly - and without any profit-inhibiting regulations involving the environment and worker or consumer safety. They do so from afar, away from the immediate risks of rampant pollution and dangerous production techniques, and care not if local populations see their cancer rates spiral upwards - which they will - and life expectancy spiral downwards - which they will.

You seem to think that my stance is that I want the elites to block the developing world from industrialization. That is not true.

What I don't want is the profit motive killing local populations and, since the planet is a closed system, eventually me and mine. What I don't want is the world's resources - to include energy - used up rapidly and wastefully, to the later detriment of billions of future humans.

Pollution, you see, is usually a sign of waste. Compounds that could be used safely and productively elsewhere are vented into the land, sea, and air because it is cheaper to let that happen rather than to reclaim them for later use. And when humans are exposed to those compounds, they are often toxic: Carcinogens, mutagens, and outright poisons.

Is trading the future away for a little more today a wise investment? And sometimes that bleak future is not so far off...remember Bhopal?

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[Attila Dimedici]

What I don't want is the profit motive killing local populations and, since the planet is a closed system, eventually me and mine. What I don't want is the world's resources - to include energy - used up rapidly and wastefully, to the later detriment of billions of future humans.

And how do you propose enforcing this?

Re:The whole argument is tedious...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to destroy anything to plant bio crops. Most of the better ones grow in places where we wouldn't grow other things anyway. No forests need to die for that, and destroying forests is counter-productive for combating CO2 anyway.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I'm sure you know all about how the Earth's Milankovitch Cycle plays into past Earth cooling/warming cycles. And how because of this CO2 historically lags global temperature. Not to mention how we are defiantly in an interglacial because of our placement in a Milankovitch Cycle so it would be very odd if temperature was not increasing like we are seeing.

This is like the Bigfoot argument

[Anonymous Coward]

By that I mean there will be people that believe what they want no matter what the evidence. To be clear I mean there's zero solid evidence of Bigfoot yet some will always believe in it. I find it bizarre that people refuse to accept we are having an impact on the environment. The evidence is everywhere. I'm not talking global warming both sides of that argument are bordering on religion I'm talking how much the world has changed. Look at common resources. Ever watch any of the logging shows? What they are cutting now are so small no one would have bothered with them 20 or 30 years ago but in many areas it's all that's left and it's so bad that when they do find old growth trees the lumber mills aren't even set up for them. They are simply too rare to bother with. Look at swordfish. They said 200 years ago you could all but walk across the Grand Banks because of all the fish. Now the swordfish they take are virtually all immature fish that have yet to reproduce. Most fisheries have collapsed, a fact. When was the last time you saw a butterfly? How many and how often? When I was growing up you'd see them by the hundreds virtually any summer day. Now I see a few a year. Same with frogs. Most great apes are down to a few percent of their original populations. It'd take a good sneeze to wipe them out and they are our closest relatives. People say the snow storms proved global warming was a hoax. Well guess what I live in central Maine and we have already lost most of our snow and it's getting up into the 50s. This is supposed to be the worst time of year for snow and cold. Don't believe anyone or any study if you want. Trust your eyes. I see radical change everywhere I look. What people still can't get through their heads is the warming is overall and we are experiencing both extreme hot and cold days. It's the average that is towards warming. The real point is we are headed for more extreme weather and that is very bad. With species extinction people need to understand it took hundreds of millions of years to create this much diversity and it will take that long to restore it. Even if it came back in a few million years look at it this way we've been around for 200,000. That means no human will ever see it this diverse again. We will have evolved into something else by then. Don't care? Well guess what, no one knows how many species we can loose before we face a general collapse of the environment. We are in the middle of one of the worst extinction events in Earth's history and we are the cause and there's no debate about that one. Most species are dying from habitat loss, we call them cities. Most of the rest either from exploitation or things like pollution and invasive species we are importing. Most of us will live to see fish a luxury for the rich and the last wild tigers and gorillas dead. The population is projected to max out at 50% more than it is now so it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Re:This is like the Bigfoot argument

[azaris]

By that I mean there will be people that believe what they want no matter what the evidence. To be clear I mean there's zero solid evidence of Bigfoot yet some will always believe in it.

I think you got your analogies screwed up. Or do you compare AGW to Bigfoot?

I find it bizarre that people refuse to accept we are having an impact on the environment. The evidence is everywhere. I'm not talking global warming both sides of that argument are bordering on religion I'm talking how much the world has changed. Look at common resources. Ever watch any of the logging shows? What they are cutting now are so small no one would have bothered with them 20 or 30 years ago but in many areas it's all that's left and it's so bad that when they do find old growth trees the lumber mills aren't even set up for them. They are simply too rare to bother with.

Deforestation and overlogging are problems that do not depend on the AGW hypothesis. You're making the green fallacy of equating any and all negative changes in the environment to CO2.

Look at swordfish. They said 200 years ago you could all but walk across the Grand Banks because of all the fish. Now the swordfish they take are virtually all immature fish that have yet to reproduce. Most fisheries have collapsed, a fact. When was the last time you saw a butterfly? How many and how often? When I was growing up you'd see them by the hundreds virtually any summer day. Now I see a few a year. Same with frogs.

Speak for yourself. There might be variations in local spiecies populations due to human actions. That has nothing to do with whether CO2 is causing global changes.

Most great apes are down to a few percent of their original populations. It'd take a good sneeze to wipe them out and they are our closest relatives.

Again, caused by deforestation and expanding human land use, not CO2.

People say the snow storms proved global warming was a hoax. Well guess what I live in central Maine and we have already lost most of our snow and it's getting up into the 50s. This is supposed to be the worst time of year for snow and cold. Don't believe anyone or any study if you want.

Individual weather phenomena are never evidence for, or against, AGW.

Trust your eyes. I see radical change everywhere I look.

It's surprising how much "evidence" you can see proving something you've already made your mind up about being real. The same way only deeply religious people ever seem to find evidence by God.

What people still can't get through their heads is the warming is overall and we are experiencing both extreme hot and cold days. It's the average that is towards warming.

No one is really disputing the warming. What is being disputed is how much of it is due to CO2 and what will be the effect in the future.

The real point is we are headed for more extreme weather and that is very bad.

The claim that AGW causes extreme weather is highly disputed even among genuine climatologists.

With species extinction people need to understand it took hundreds of millions of years to create this much diversity and it will take that long to restore it. Even if it came back in a few million years look at it this way we've been around for 200,000. That means no human will ever see it this diverse again.

Statements without evidence based on hubris.

We are in the middle of one of the worst extinction events in Earth's history and we are the cause and there's no debate about that one.

Blatant lie wrapped up in an assertion of absolute truth.

Most species are dying from habitat loss, we call them cities.

Do you even know how many species there exist in the entire world?

Re:This is like the Bigfoot argument

[shilly]

What on earth are you talking about?

He says "I find it bizarre that people refuse to accept we are having an impact on the environment. The evidence is everywhere. ***I'm not talking global warming***" [my highlight]

And you take him to task 3 times for talking about environmental problems that are not to do with AGW. *That's what he said he was going to do* Dumbass.

Re:This is like the Bigfoot argument

[Paltin]

We are in the middle of one of the worst extinction events in Earth's history and we are the cause and there's no debate about that one.

Blatant lie wrapped up in an assertion of absolute truth.

The Holocene mass extinction is actually well documented, with rates estimated at 100x background. While it hasn't reached the levels of say, the End Permian extinction, this one isn't over yet. While the OP's statement is a bit strong--- it's closer to reality then what you offered.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[TapeCutter]

I feel ripped off, where's the bad analogy?

"However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming"

RF = 5.35 * ln(c2/c1) - Fourier 1824.

when you meet a "round earth skeptic"

[Anonymous Coward]

well, the person is only a skeptic because they're willfully ignoring the facts.

There is nothing to see here, move along

[Puff_Of_Hot_Air]

Reading that very lengthy rebuttal, one thing becomes clear. Howard Friel does not deserve our time or thought. If you are going to criticize someone's work, you need to be doubly careful that the things you take issue with are valid. Here it appears that the criticism is far less solid than the material it critisizes. This does not make the original material correct as a result, but truely; there is nothing to see here, move along.

Re:There is nothing to see here, move along

[rta]

The defense in the rebuttal seems pretty strong, though i haven't read the original works or, of course, the unreleased critique discussed in the OP.

It certainly doesn't seem that Friel is acting in good faith here. For example, Lomberg points out that Friel chose to critique the shorter American version of "Cool It" instead of the more heavily footnoted British version ("The full 354 pages version with 59 graphs and about 50% more text" ) even though the British version is apparently MENTIONED in the American version. ( see .http://www.lomborg.com/cool_it/uk-version_354_pages/ )

It's also unfortunate for Friel that he apparently makes some arguments using the now retracted 2035 date for the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers to counter Lomberg's moderate claims that said glaciers will at least last out this century.

Tone wise Friel comes off as shrill and snarky and wheras Lomberg seems cool and collected. As to the claims, at least the tens of such claims rebutted by Lomberg, don't seem to hold up in the least.

Politics, Politics, Politics

[Dthief]

If you read through the article you realize that both sides are whiney little children. As a scientist I'm offended by all of this.

He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[brucmack]

I haven't read his books, but I live in Denmark so Lomborg gets quite a bit of press here, especially under the climate change conference in December. In interviews he's always come across as a pragmatist more than a skeptic.

He has two main arguments:

1) Think about the return on investment.

Let's say we can cool the earth one degree by spending a trillion dollars. Is it worth the investment? What do we really get out of it? How many other problems could have been fixed with that money?

2) The current approach to fighting climate change is wrong.

UN treaties and money aren't going to stop the developing world from using fossil fuels. The only surefire way to get off of coal is to develop something that is cheaper. Instead of giving money to developing countries to bribe them not to pollute, we should invest the money in new technology, so that in 10, 20, 30 years we can say "here, this is cheaper than coal and doesn't pollute".

I think both of his points are important to consider, though I don't agree with him completely. There are risks to his solution - what if our investments don't bear fruit, and coal is still the cheapest energy source in 30 years? What if climate change causes political destabilization so we don't have enough time to get finished?

I don't think anybody has a perfect solution, but I do think that Lomborg contributes positively to the debate.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[10101001 10101001]

1) Think about the return on investment.

Let's say we can cool the earth one degree by spending a trillion dollars. Is it worth the investment? What do we really get out of it? How many other problems could have been fixed with that money?

If it were a mere one trillion dollars for the whole world, it'd really be a drop in the bucket and well worth the investment. Aside from the issue of ROI, one has to consider the externalities of not spending the trillion dollars. Look at the mostly current financial/economic crisis. How much do you think that cost countries? How much do you think will be the cost of long-term shifting weather patterns? I'd imagine it might trivially be a lot more than most people would care to stomach compared to doing something now.

2) The current approach to fighting climate change is wrong.

UN treaties and money aren't going to stop the developing world from using fossil fuels. The only surefire way to get off of coal is to develop something that is cheaper. Instead of giving money to developing countries to bribe them not to pollute, we should invest the money in new technology, so that in 10, 20, 30 years we can say "here, this is cheaper than coal and doesn't pollute".

Funny, but that's the main reason cap and trade is such a good idea. It causes developed countries to start polluting significantly less, raises the current costs of coal/oil/etc (inherently making long-term investments in other energy sources possibly viable), allows for the collected taxes to be pushed into new energy technology, and hopefully the result will be energy that effectively is cheaper than the coal/oil/etc's original price. Even if the whole energy technology step doesn't work to produce something cheaper than coal/oil/etc, the system will both have proven that you can still be a developed country using massively less amounts of coal/oil/etc per capita (meaning developed countries, mimicking developed countries, need not believe they'll tank for what might others seem a reckless course of action) and almost certainly have higher efficiency technology to export to other countries so they'll inherently use less coal/oil/etc (since the efficiency technology will have been created in a [mostly] market based system and should be generally economical sound anywhere).

What if climate change causes political destabilization so we don't have enough time to get finished?

We're going to see that anyways. China has already taken some pretty bold steps about securing oil supplies for its developing economy. That's a major reason for the great increase in the price of oil; that is, if China hadn't been securing and using those oil wells, other western powers would have for their still increasing oil consumption. You can only pump so much oil out of the ground at one time, and so at some point Americans and Chinese will no longer be able to simply expand through more oil extraction. At that point, increasing the efficiency of technology will be necessary. In the interim, both China and America's economy will suffer rather badly (the US needs ~2.5% economic growth yearly just to maintain itself and China needs something close to ~10%) as oil prices will skyrocket.

We need to be developing alternative energies and efficiency technology now and not wait until "the market" takes care of things. "The market" doesn't take into consideration that while it might work hypothetically in a perfect world given enough time, in the real world a drastic short-term change in supply or demand can result in the sort of political instability that results in a lot of "force" upon a lot of people. And that can be very unpleasant for everyone involved.

Re: He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[Black Parrot]

Let's say we can cool the earth one degree by spending a trillion dollars. Is it worth the investment? What do we really get out of it? How many other problems could have been fixed with that money?

OTOH, how much is it going to cost to move all the world's coastal cities to higher ground?

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[Anonymous Coward]

In interviews he's always come across as a pragmatist more than a skeptic.

I do not see any major government proposing zero emissions. All aim at reduced use of fossil fuel. My prediction is that all the fossil fuel that can be used will be. I don't know if it makes much difference to the climate if we were to burn it all in the next 5 years or take 100 years. (Admission of lack of knowledge, not a statement of scepticism.)

So to those who do the science, work out how much fossil fuel there is and what effect it would have if it was all used, then plan for that because that is what is going to happen.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say we can cool the earth one degree by spending a trillion dollars. Is it worth the investment?

Don't you think we should spend *more* than a trillion dollars? A trillion dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[s-whs]

1) Think about the return on investment. Let's say we can cool the earth one degree by spending a trillion dollars. Is it worth the investment? What do we really get out of it? How many other problems could have been fixed with that money?

Anyone who talks of return on investment if one of the possible outcomes is a huge impact on the environment that no money can ever fix, is crazy.

I have not read his books and have no intention. The experience I have with similar Dutch types (from groups such as groene rekenkamer) is that they too talk about the money involved and their conclusions (naturally) are that it's pointless until you're sure. Which is moronic since something needs to be done ASAP as real scientists all agree on. You can't gamble with the environment as you only have one! Note that I have examined many of their claims (from those Dutch groups I mean) and found them to be bullshit. These people are pseudo-scientists and amateurs with no understanding of reasoning nor logic and their 'material' should be avoided like the plague as it results in only one thing: A waste of time (well, for me it was nice to debunk their arguments, which I did on my website. I quite enjoyed making them look like the fools they are...).

People who are complaining about the cost seem to think pumping out tons of junk into the atmosphere is ok. But, cleaning up your act, besides being beneficial to the environment, will improve your technology. There's a saying: It's an ill wind that blows no one any good. In other words, deal with it!

I can go on with reasons, but usually it just takes examining one or two claims from such pseudo-skeptics to see how stupid they are (note: Scientists are skeptics, these people are actually just non-believers with no good arguments to do so). If that's the case with Lomborg, I don't know, and I'm not really interested either as I've only seen moronic arguments from non-believers and am not inclined to waste my time on this stuff any more.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[sorak]

I would add that, here in the US, we like to claim that we cannot say what China or India does. Sure we can. We can make treaties demanding things we consider important (human rights and the environment, just like we did with ACTA, unfortunately), and we can bring most of the world with us (if we wished to do so). As for China, all we have to do is create a tax on products created by countries that do not agree to these treaties.

Is it such a terrible thing to say "if you want to sell in our country, you have to follow our laws"?

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[robinjo]

Oh catch a breath and calm down. Rants like these show, that you have done absolutely no background checking. There are a lot of scientists, who disagree about AGW and they do it for a good reason. If you really believe, that IPCC is doing a good job and that science is settled, you really have to open your eyes.

OTOH, if you think that it's a good idea to slander people and force feed the green agenda based on faulty data and faulty science, you're doing a great disservice to the environment you claim to care about.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[Anonymous Coward]

You can only pump so much oil out of the ground at one time

without collapsing the price.

What, you think OPEC is a charity?

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[10101001 10101001]

You can only pump so much oil out of the ground at one time

without collapsing the price.

What, you think OPEC is a charity?

It is in the best interest of OPEC to keep the price of oil at or around the oligarchy price (the oligarchy analogy of the monopoly price). If the price goes enough above that price, people will use enough less oil that they'll be worse off (consider that OPEC doesn't simply charge $1 million/barrel of oil...even if there were no threat of invasion). More importantly, currently, the price of oil is high enough (above ~$50/barrel, IIRC) that tar sands and oil shales are price competitive against normal oil wells. With the amount of oil available in tar sands and oil shales, such a situation significantly reduces OPEC's strength as an oligarchy.

In short, OPEC might very well try to keep the price at $49/barrel, but at $80/barrel a lot of people are buying tar sand oil instead of their oil.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[khayman80]

I've never heard of him before today, but your summary makes him sound like someone I could agree with. That's mainly because I think most of the "green" movement is irrational, and one manifestation is that they've blocked the advancement of nuclear power for decades. Their myopic naivete kept us dependent on coal, and even today continues to sour public sentiment regarding the best practical solution.

I completely agree with these comments when they say that the article demonstrates that Friel doesn't do a very good job. I also mostly agree with this sentiment regarding the shrill nature of these debates.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[sonicmerlin]

What the HECK are you talking about? There are very few scientists who "disagree" with AGW and provide peer-reviewed evidence as to why they disagree. The vast majoirty of deniers are idiots who use propaganda and no science to convince people they're right and all the scientists are wrong.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[khayman80]

Also, gkai and I agree with this sentiment.

Re: He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[Anonymous Coward]

Over the next century, when temperatures will slightly increase? I imagine it would cost about the same as it did last century, when temperatures also rose about the same. It's not even remotely close to the amount of money that Al Gore would have you waste on policies that have almost no impact whatsoever.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[bennomatic]

Thanks!

[Citation Needed]

[Anonymous Coward]

In the wise words of our wikipedia overlords: Citation Needed!!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fourier is one of my heroes. Weierstrass, and many others, put his work on a solid mathematical foundation. Then again, the paper you're describing is a simple paper in large scale approximations of gas behavior. Falsifiable, implied by real physics (so that falsifying his hypothesis would undermine a large fragment of physics as a whole), and confirmed to a high degree.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[bennomatic]

Thanks. This is why I trust peer-reviewed science.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[bennomatic]

Touche. My bad, absolutely. But whatever; I was clearly trolling. I didn't feel a huge need to be totally accurate. For all the responses I got about yeast being a fungus, I guess Tinactin probably sells pretty well among the /. set.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[bennomatic]

Yeah, I could, too. It was my bad. Fungi are a step up, closer to plants, much more complex organisms. Thanks for apparently jumping in on my behalf, but save your karma. I was just trolling.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[bennomatic]

Note: the above post was made as an AC so nobody can point out the (probable) volumes of hypocrisy in the poster's own history.

Re:Friel has a poor record in the realm of neutral

[Anonymous Coward]

No actually, I checked a bit more: Edited and published by Friel by his one-man publishing company.

Tit for tat

[WinstonWolfIT]

Any intelligent person can debunk another with convincing arguments. Myself, I believe that when in doubt, assume the truth is somewhere in the middle.

another IPCC 'fact' bites the dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the ocean rise report cited by the IPCC has been retracted to go along with the bogus North Africa food shortage, increased natural disaster frequency and intensity, Brazilian rain forest depletion, and Himalaya glacier claims. Then there's East Anglia and Mr. Jones conceding that there'd been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years. I have always respected the healthy skepticism seen on slashdot, but unfortunately when AGW comes up often it seems that the game changes for many contributors and the 'science' is all of a sudden 'settled'. What's going on?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[vtcodger]

***because of our placement in a Milankovitch Cycle so it would be very odd if temperature was not increasing like we are seeing.***

Sigh ... Milankovitch cycles are real. They clearly affect climate at any given location. Plenty of evidence to support that. They do NOT affect total energy received from the sun over the course of the year which remains constant. Further, there is no agreement whatsoever amongst those who believe that the cycles nonetheless affect planetary temperature on exactly what the affect of Milankovitch changes are or where we are headed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Present_and_future_conditions

   

-1 - -1 = 1 ?

[Aerosiecki]

If you debunk a debunker, don't you just get back to the net-zero result?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part is that even on that very page, if you match up the time-lines you can see that the temperature and CO2 graphs don't line up, and that the temperature starts to spike before CO2 amount does.

Unfortunately, there's no -1 misinformative mod.

We'll run out of oil first

[Colin Smith]

I suspect the oil execs are quite aware of that.
 

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Indeed, they are well aware. Shell fined $500 million for over-reporting gas reserves. If they were to report their real reserves and the rate at which new reserves were being found, their stock would nose-dive and our world's economy would collapse. We now consume close to 30 billion barrels of oil per year but find less than 4 billion per year. Our economy is completely dependent on oil. Think about how crucial the shipping industry is for our economy. How will it survive when it no longer has oil? How will we transport uranium, coal, natural gas, wind mills, and solar panels?

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

Well it's not like one day oil will cost 50 dollars a barrel and the next it'll all be gone.

As the reserves run dry there will be years during which the price climbs and climbs and people will switch to other fuels.
Ships that run on oil getting too costly to run?
well then some smart buggers will build some more nuclear powered ships or ships which are more efficient or ships which are powered by fuel cells or any other method and they'll make a lot of money because they'll be offering to transport goods far more cheaply than the companies who's ships run on oil.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Well it's not like one day oil will cost 50 dollars a barrel and the next it'll all be gone.

You're right that we won't go from having affordable oil to no oil overnight. However, we can go from having affordable oil to unaffordable oil overnight. That is pretty much what I meant by "economic collapse". You mention ships, but ironically ships play the smallest role in the shipping industry. A ridiculous amount of the earth's population is dependent on airplanes and trucks for their supplies (even harbor cities need trucks to ship from the docks) and those run strictly on oil derivatives.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

Then the price people offer to transport goods goes up, some of the less profitable things don't get shipped.
The low volume high value stuff still has little or no problem getting around and given that many companies keep reserves or have solid contracts for the near future guaranteeing them a known price.

If you really truly think this is going to happen in the very near future then you can both be greedy and be part of the solution!
Invest all your money in shipping companies which use alternative energy sources!
If you're right and the oil price does go crazy overnight then you'll be able to get stinking rich when the company you've invested in makes a killing on transporting goods which can no longer be transported by companies which bet their future on infinite oil!

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

I left out a bit:

given that many companies keep reserves or have solid contracts for the near future guaranteeing them a known price then there will be some lag of months or years.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Heh, they don't just go up, they skyrocket. In fact, it becomes irrelevant how high the price becomes because no one can pay it. If the price of fuel was really represented simply by supply and demand, we would have seen this steady rise in price for a while now. Instead, fuel is the price the oil companies set it to be to support what our economy depends on. They manipulate the market by over-reporting their oil reserves, just like the link I provided earlier. They know damn well what would happen if they reported their real numbers. If what I suggest is correct, the REAL BIG problem we will have is going from an economy supported by 30 billion barrels of oil a year to 0. That is a stupidly big amount of energy that we need to compensate for. So no, investing in alt energy won't do me any good because money will be worthless by then. Furthermore, alt energy is primarily developed by oil companies, so investing in them is still investing in companies that I believe will collapse. And to make matters worse, all of our alt energy is HIGHLY dependent on oil to research, develop, and produce. Uranium, coal, and other such fuels must be mined (oil powered machinery) and shipped to be converted into energy. Solar panels and wind mills use exotic materials that must also be mined and shipped, and as we run out of those materials the same problem arises in regard to energy return on investment. Hydro is pretty good but that alone certainly can't mitigate the energy discrepancy.

If you want a really good example of what happens when oil demand outstrips oil supply, take a look at how the US won the Cold War. Basically, we made the USSR's economy collapse by making their oil peak. The US got into an arms race with the USSR which was fueled by oil on both sides. The US kept ramping up production and the Soviets kept in step. However, the US had a larger supply of oil and eventually the USSR had too high of a demand for oil for their supply to support. Then their economy collapsed.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Basically, my argument is that the economy will collapse. Contracts are meaningless in a collapsed economy. Feel free to argue against this hypothesis, I have some good answers for a lot of questions. Just remember to take into account the collapsed economy in any "aftermath" arguments.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

So you seriously think that the rich and greedy aren't thinking about this too?
If that's really that's going to happen then there's a great many people who's reaction is that there's money to be made.
If you're an investor and if you think the price of oil is about to skyrocket then you're going to invest in oil, drive up the price and then sell when you think you can make the most profit from it.

it becomes irrelevant how high the price becomes because no one can pay it

Now that's just silly.
The price is not set by god.
The price is set by what people are willing to pay so by definition somebody will be buying it and using it for something.

we would have seen this steady rise in price for a while now.

What?
you mean like this?
http://priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/oil_prices.png

They manipulate the market by over-reporting their oil reserves, just like the link I provided earlier.

And if so then other people will be taking advantage of this to milk money out of them.

If what I suggest is correct, the REAL BIG problem we will have is going from an economy supported by 30 billion barrels of oil a year to 0.

Which is totally unrealistic.
you think every oil company in the world is going to turn around a few years from now and say, right we ran out of oil today, no we didn't charge you through the nose for the last 5 years because we're retarded and not greedy at all and the wells didn't gradually dry up, they all stopped producing oil at the same moment.

That is a stupidly big amount of energy that we need to compensate for.

and some people will make a stupidly big amount of money building things

So no, investing in alt energy won't do me any good because money will be worthless by then.

You seem very certain that overnight every oil company will turn around and admit they have zero oil left and that somehow that will bring down civilisation.
Given that our electricity generation systems are pretty much based on coal right now the lights won't all suddenly go out.
The price of oil is already going up so lots and lots of people are investing in alternates, food won't stop being shipped though it will cost more to ship it and as such food may get a little more expensive and some poor countries will probably have problems while in others people will invest in more local food production.

And to make matters worse, all of our alt energy is HIGHLY dependent on oil to research, develop, and produce. Uranium, coal, and other such fuels must be mined (oil powered machinery) and shipped to be converted into energy.

Oh come on.
Enough uranium to run a plant for a year trivial.
you could carry it by pack mule and still it wouldn't be a problem (ok it's heavy but I hope you get the point).
Small/dense extremely high value items and commodities are not going to be a problem to transport.
As for the mining far more often the equipment is electric powered and you can get that electricity wherever you want.

If you want a really good example of what happens when oil demand outstrips oil supply, take a look at how the US won the Cold War. Basically, we made the USSR's economy collapse by making their oil peak. The US got into an arms race with the USSR which was fueled by oil on both sides. The US kept ramping up production and the Soviets kept in step. However, the US had a larger supply of oil and eventually the USSR had too high of a demand for oil for their supply to support.

No.
Just no.
The USSR had pleanty of oil
they had enough oil to swim in.
they had oil to spare.
What hurt them was that they were pissing money away on weapons and then the price of oil DROPPED.
They were SELLING oil.

Their economy was heavily based on selling that oil.
It wasn't expensive oil that hurt them it was cheap oil.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

that's kinda a big assumption given that our energy needs are mostly met by coal rather than by oil.
The USSR's economy collapsed because they were selling oil and the price was going down.(plus they were trying for that whole planned economy thing)
rising prices are much easier to deal with.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

The rich and greedy that know about this are certainly thinking about it. However, you still aren't getting my point about economic collapse. Post-collapse money is worthless, but assets are not. People will be unwilling to sell oil because of how useful it is for surviving and because they know they won't be able to get more later. Hoarding mentality. For those who hoarded more than enough to support themselves, yes they will barter with their surplus oil and most likely acquire some very nice assets. But it seriously won't take long for those with surplus to run out of surplus. And it certainly won't be easy to barter when most of the world is fighting for food and water.

Oh man, that graph is funny. You totally leave out the part where in 2009 a barrel of oil cost about $50. Not to mention the 20 years prior where some roller-coasters happened. The fact that oil went from $50 in '07 to $100 in '08 and back to $50 in '09 is a great indicator of how volatile the oil market is becoming.

You say going from 30 bill barrels to 0 is unrealistic, but I think what you are really saying is "our economy won't collapse." Which is fine, just argue that instead. I don't see what's so unrealistic about it IF the economy collapses. Now, when I say 0, I don't literally mean 0, I was being slightly hyperbolic. However, in regard to the average person, 0 is a pretty good estimate. At the point of permanent scarcity, I believe the military will most likely be in control of the remaining oil supplies.

Yes, we have enough uranium to meet our current demands for another 20 years or so, but we sure as hell don't have enough power plants. Consider the fact that it takes about 10 years to make a plant (don't forget to factor in the oil cost of BUILDING a plant), but our economy will have collapsed before that time. We would need 10,000 of the largest nukes to mitigate the energy discrepancy. Do you think we can build 10,000 nukes in under 10 years?

Nice, you really do know your history, that is exactly why the USSR collapsed. I admit that I simplified it, but in general what I said is true. The price of oil dropped because the US convinced the Middle East to flood the market with cheap oil. So cheap that USSR was pumping oil as fast as they could and soon after their production peaked. The CIA declassified this whole story so you can read all about it here

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Coal, brought to you by...oil. If you don't use oil to transport it, then you don't get to burn it at the current rates. If you transport it via pack mule, then you certainly burn less in a year. Don't forget the oil cost that went into building that plant...lots of parts getting shipped from all over the place.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[virg_mattes]

Yes, we have enough uranium to meet our current demands for another 20 years or so, but we sure as hell don't have enough power plants. Consider the fact that it takes about 10 years to make a plant (don't forget to factor in the oil cost of BUILDING a plant), but our economy will have collapsed before that time. We would need 10,000 of the largest nukes to mitigate the energy discrepancy. Do you think we can build 10,000 nukes in under 10 years?

I'll let HungryHobo continue with the rest, but I wanted to interject on this. It currently takes ten years to build a nuclear power plant because of all of the safety regulations (design analysis, slow-start testing, extreme sefaty monitoring, security). If the economy was in imminent danger of collapse, it would happen a whole lot faster because the public would be much more willing to tolerate increased risk. If the red tape is cut down, the actual building of a nuclear power plant wouldn't take longer than building a coal-fired plant. It would still take longer to start, because a lot of the slow-start testing isn't avoidable, but it would definitely not take a decade if the alternative for the area was not having any electricity.

Virg

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

if you don't use oil to transport it you use..... coal, gas, electricity or any of the other fuels.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Considering that the CIA has known about the problem of peak oil for over 30 years, yet we haven't built a nuke in 30 years suggests that the government doesn't work on the logic you employed. The only time the public would be willing to tolerate such risks is if they KNEW the economy was in imminent danger of collapse. However, the crux of the problem is that when the public becomes aware of the danger, that's when the economy collapses. I'm sure you've seen a microcosm of this effect, like when a snowstorm is predicted to hit and everyone buys out the local stores for food and generators. Imagine that on a world-wide scale. Hoarding mentality is what makes economies collapse.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

And our infrastructure for such transportation methods that you suggest? Piddling in comparison to the oil infrastructure. It takes time for such transportation methods to ramp up to the level that oil is at. Time that we once had, but not anymore. How many electric powered shipping trucks do we have now? How many can we seriously expect to have in 5 years? Doesn't the fact that our oil consumption is still increasing even though our reserves are rapidly depleting suggest we are fucked? It would seem that the logical thing to do would be to use the oil however we wanted at first, then as we started to see limits to our supply we would start conserving and focus on developing alternative energy sources. Then, by the time oil reached permanent scarcity we would have phased out our dependence on it entirely.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

Crude oil isn't all that useful for surviving.
You seem to have started with the assumption that the moment people have to pay twice as much to fill their tanks they'll start smashing in the heads of everyone around them in order to feast on the grey matter within.

The fact that oil went from $50 in '07 to $100 in '08 and back to $50 in '09 is a great indicator of how volatile the oil market is becoming.

I'd say it's more that people thought what you were predicting was almost here, they gambled wrong and lost a lot of money.

(don't forget to factor in the oil cost of BUILDING a plant),

You keep talking in terms of oil cost.
it's energy cost not oil cost.
If oil price went through the roof people would use natural gas.
If oil and gas both go through the roof people start cracking coal for gas.
etc etc.
economies take time to collapse and oil takes time to run out.
The poeple who'll own it and who drive up the prices are comodities traders who won't actually have it in their possession and as such won't be able to trade it for sex in the road warrior style future you predict.

if the US economy was based on exporting oil then high oil prices would be good for the US.
Since the US imports more oil than it exports and has large reserves of it's own which it can tap in case of emergency if the price goes very high then suddenly it's economic to invest in other resources.

how fast can companies tap "crappy" oil reserves?
If the price goes skyward then you can be sure companies will be going nuts trying to pull oil out of the less profitable places, if it costs 100 dollars to pull it out of the ground and you can only sell it for 80 then you're going to leave it there.
if you can sell it for 200 then you'll pull it out and sell it.

I'm just not seeing how we're going to wake up one day and suddenly money will be worthless, nobody will do anything for a profit and oil companies will magically not be greedy.
And all with not even a days warning.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

My problem is that all your theories either assume that nobody sees what you see (and we can be sure that the oil company execs know very well how big the reserves really are) or that they are, for some strange and unknown reasn not being greedy.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Crude oil isn't all that useful for surviving.

Allright, well I thought this was obvious, but yes crude oil is not what normal people will hoard. Gasoline is.

You seem to have started with the assumption that the moment people have to pay twice as much to fill their tanks they'll start smashing in the heads of everyone around them in order to feast on the grey matter within.

No this isn't my assumption. My hypothesis is that once the market crashes and oil becomes unaffordable (as in it costs more to travel to work than your job pays) things will go to hell. It's really not that unreasonable, if the market crashes. Remember the first stock market collapse? That was one of these overnight catastrophes.

I'd say it's more that people thought what you were predicting was almost here, they gambled wrong and lost a lot of money.

Fine, but don't show me some bullshit 10 year snapshot graph to argue that oil prices have been steadily rising when they haven't. Especially when that graph cuts off the pertinent data that disproves your argument.

You keep talking in terms of oil cost. it's energy cost not oil cost.

And we currently use 30 billion barrels (and rising) of oil a year as energy. Do all the hundreds of million ICEs that power the world magically turn into coal/natural gas/uranium engines when oil becomes unaffordable?

If oil price went through the roof people would use natural gas. If oil and gas both go through the roof people start cracking coal for gas. etc etc.

Only if the infrastructure was in place to make the easy switch. Let's stay in reality here.

economies take time to collapse and oil takes time to run out.

What are you talking about? Economies can be shattered extremely quickly. Black Thursday? Good point about the oil taking time to run out. It's been a hundred years and our consumption rate is still increasing.

The poeple who'll own it and who drive up the prices are comodities traders who won't actually have it in their possession and as such won't be able to trade it for sex in the road warrior style future you predict.

Exactly the reason people who know about peak oil don't invest in such ways. If you invest in oil commodities without having tangible access to them, what good is a piece of paper from the bank going to do you when the economy collapses?

If the price goes skyward then you can be sure companies will be going nuts trying to pull oil out of the less profitable places, if it costs 100 dollars to pull it out of the ground and you can only sell it for 80 then you're going to leave it there. if you can sell it for 200 then you'll pull it out and sell it.

Not how it works. If it takes more energy to produce the oil than the amount of energy you get out of that oil, you do not make money, period. The flaw with your reasoning is that you think the cost of mining the oil stays constant. If it costs $100 to mine $80 worth of oil now, then when that oil is worth $200 it will cost more than $200 to retrieve it. The cost of retrieval is entirely dependent on the price of energy.

I'm just not seeing how we're going to wake up one day and suddenly money will be worthless,

It is definitely hard to believe, since the world economy has never had collapse of this magnitude. Nevertheless, I believe the evidence points to it.

nobody will do anything for a profit

Man...I never said that, why you gotta do dat? All I said was that people will start having a hoarding mentality. There will definitely be crime for profit and bartering for profit. However, things like food, water, and energy in general will be in such high demand that people will naturally hoard these resources.

and oil companie

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

But they are being greedy. They know that if they release their real numbers a very simple analysis will show that there is cause for some real concern. All you have to look at is how much economically feasible (aka, oil that doesn't net a loss in energy to produce) oil we have left, how much we expect to find by looking at oil deposit discovery trends, and how much oil we have been consuming recently. I'm confident this analysis would show that we only have a few years of oil left, and thus a public panic would ensue. The oil companies want to delay this panic as long as possible to ensure that they can live off of their wealth in the meantime, whilst also preparing for the coming meltdown.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

Ah, I forgot to respond to your first statement. "My theory" didn't just pop itself into my head. Just google "peak oil" and you will find a ridiculous amount of information that explains this theory. So no, my theory does not assume that nobody sees what I see, because I didn't even know about the theory until very recently. Granted, there aren't many people who know about it, but there are definitely a lot more than "nobody".

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[holmstar]

It doesn't matter if you have a contact for fuel at x rate for a year, when the going rate for that fuel is four times the original amount at the end of the contract. The last oil bubble came close to killing the airline industry. If it had persisted for another six months, many major airlines would have gone bankrupt. This is coming from someone that works for a major airline.

I remember a memo that stated that each penny increase in the cost of jet fuel cost the company something like 14 million dollars per year. At the peak that would have been a difference in fuel cost of around 107 BILLION dollars per year. And that is just for my company.

If there is another rapid increase in fuel costs, many industries will just plain fail. 6 months to a year of contract pricing will not help much at all. Those companies will just fail a little later than their competitors.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

No this isn't my assumption. My hypothesis is that once the market crashes and oil becomes unaffordable (as in it costs more to travel to work than your job pays) things will go to hell. It's really not that unreasonable, if the market crashes. Remember the first stock market collapse? That was one of these overnight catastrophes.

You're using circular logic-

Why won't the traders/companies/oil companies/ everyone else take into account the fact that oil will run out and invest/plan accordingly?
-because there's no point since once the market collapses all the money they could make by taking that into account will be useless.

Why will the market collapse and money become useless?
-because nobody will take into account in any way the fact that oil will run out.

Only if the infrastructure was in place to make the easy switch. Let's stay in reality here.

Have a look at the UK during the second world war.
They were pretty dependent on oil even then and yet when the military was grabbing all they could and the germans were sinking the ships carrying the rest you know what happened?
Food still got transported, things got a little more scarce, oil cost more, oil got rationed, people came up with alternative means of transport.
It didn't all grind to a halt overnight.

Now what you're talking about is far less traumatic, no uboats for one thing.

What are you talking about? Economies can be shattered extremely quickly. Black Thursday? Good point about the oil taking time to run out. It's been a hundred years and our consumption rate is still increasing.

And after black Thursday all the contracts were void?
no.

Do all the hundreds of million ICEs that power the world magically turn into coal/natural gas/uranium engines when oil becomes unaffordable?

No.
they just get gradually more and more expensive to run. as they get more and more expensive to run more and more people switch to other types of engine.
(oh sure, they wouldn't do that since the economy will collapse and hence there's no point in investing in plants to produce electric engines or in companies which build nuclear plants)

Exactly the reason people who know about peak oil don't invest in such ways.

"peak oil" just means that supply will gradually decrease and the price will increase.
every investor in the field knows that that's going to happen.

Only if the infrastructure was in place to make the easy switch. Let's stay in reality here.

*goes round and round in the circular logic*
Which of course nobody will build because there's no point since the economy will collapse and all the money they'd make would be useless.

f it takes more energy to produce the oil than the amount of energy you get out of that oil, you do not make money, period. The flaw with your reasoning is that you think the cost of mining the oil stays constant. If it costs $100 to mine $80 worth of oil now, then when that oil is worth $200 it will cost more than $200 to retrieve it. The cost of retrieval is entirely dependent on the price of energy.

Actually no.
Completely wrong but intuitively it sounds right.
Oil is used for things other than power(industry, lubricant etc).

Lets say we have a nice big area of tar sands somewhere where electricity is cheap, like near a nuclear power plant.
You use twice as many BTUs of energy than there is in a barrel of oil to get one barrel of oil out of the ground.
That electricity costs you 100 dollars.

Meanwhile all the people with old ICE's which they don't want to replace with electric engines are still looking to buy oil as are the rail companies who are shipping the coal to the power plants and haven't finished upgrading their trains to electricetc etc.
This pushes the cost per barrel to 200 dollars.

WOW! yo

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

last but got cut off.
It may even cause a recession of some kind and food riots in poor countries.

I see no possible reason for a sudden decent into a Road Warrior style future.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

or.... and this may be a way way out there idea.... they know very well.
They've evaluated the risks and they don't expect it to happen 6 months from now.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[chickenarise]

You're using circular logic-

Let me be perfectly clear. Step 1: Oil companies go bankrupt when investors becomes aware of declining production rates (why the fuck would you invest in something that is guaranteed to produce less and less). Step 2: The market crashes, since almost everything is dependent on oil. Step 3: General public panic and things go to hell.

Why won't the traders/companies/oil companies/ everyone else take into account the fact that oil will run out and invest/plan accordingly? -because there's no point since once the market collapses all the money they could make by taking that into account will be useless.

Lol no. Most people are like you, and don't have any reason to believe the market will collapse. Most people think we have much more accessible oil than we really do.

Why will the market collapse and money become useless? -because nobody will take into account in any way the fact that oil will run out.

Our consumption rate of oil is going up. Our dependency is GROWING. Our supply is dwindling. No one is ready for oil's price to skyrocket.

Have a look at the UK during the second world war. They were pretty dependent on oil even then and yet when the military was grabbing all they could and the germans were sinking the ships carrying the rest you know what happened? Food still got transported, things got a little more scarce, oil cost more, oil got rationed, people came up with alternative means of transport. It didn't all grind to a halt overnight.

Now what you're talking about is far less traumatic, no uboats for one thing.

Baaahahahaha! You are seriously comparing 1940s to now??? If they were "pretty dependent" in 1940, then now they are "super mother fucking ridiculously dependent". In 1940 the world was consuming 5 million barrels a day, compared to now where we consume over 80 million barrels a day. Back then ICE powered transportation was new and expensive, so there were plenty of other kinds of transportation methods. In 1940 the world population was about 2.3 billion compared to our current 6.9 billion. In 1940 the average person consumed .8 barrels a year, and now they consume 4.2 barrels a year. So yes, it's going to hurt a lot worse than it did in 1940.

And after black Thursday all the contracts were void? no.

Well, after the banks were tapped people couldn't get their money anymore. I believe that a world with a lot more people in it will tap the banks much faster.

No. they just get gradually more and more expensive to run. as they get more and more expensive to run more and more people switch to other types of engine. (oh sure, they wouldn't do that since the economy will collapse and hence there's no point in investing in plants to produce electric engines or in companies which build nuclear plants)

WTF. I start with the assumption that oil price will skyrocket and go on to explain how all the ICEs become useless after such an event. Then you think it's relevant to point out that the ICEs don't become useless because the oil price won't skyrocket. Way to contribute nothing there.

"peak oil" just means that supply will gradually decrease and the price will increase. every investor in the field knows that that's going to happen.

So I'm guessing you didn't ever google "peak oil". Because it is an elaborate theory worth at least reading and given critical thought. Dismissing it for no reason doesn't do you any good, at least exercise your brain before dismissing it.

Me: Only if the infrastructure was in place to make the easy switch. Let's stay in reality here.

HungryHobo: *goes round and round in the circular logic* Which of course nobody will build because there's no point since the economy will collapse and all the money they'd make would be useless.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

(why the fuck would you invest in something that is guaranteed to produce less and less)

You mean why would anyone invest in a company which controls the last few remaining reserves of a resource which will be worth more and more?

Lol no. Most people are like you, and don't have any reason to believe the market will collapse. Most people think we have much more accessible oil than we really do.

The way you put it it's the people who assume that money will be worthless and don't even try to invest in alternatives who would be doing the least good and greedy traders who assume that the economy will survive and invest accordingly who'd do the most to compensate for oil running out.

Our consumption rate of oil is going up. Our dependency is GROWING. Our supply is dwindling. No one is ready for oil's price to skyrocket.

HAND WAVE !!!!HAND WAVE !!!HAND WAVE!!

So what if our consumption is still going up?

Baaahahahaha! You are seriously comparing 1940s to now??? If they were "pretty dependent" in 1940, then now they are "super mother fucking ridiculously dependent".

HAND WAVE !!!!HAND WAVE !!!HAND WAVE!!

.

Well, after the banks were tapped people couldn't get their money anymore. I believe that a world with a lot more people in it will tap the banks much faster.

There's also more banks and better PR departments.

WTF. I start with the assumption that oil price will skyrocket and go on to explain how all the ICEs become useless after such an event. Then you think it's relevant to point out that the ICEs don't become useless because the oil price won't skyrocket. Way to contribute nothing there.

You've set a date in your head and marked it as *oil becomes useless here*.
Not "oil doubles in price on this day" or even "oil costs 50 times more on this day" it's all about it becoming useless.

How is this hard to understand: the day oil becomes twice as expensive to buy the usage also drops off as millions of people go "wow, that plane journey is far more expensive than it's worth for me" while other people who are doing more important things, transporting more valuable goods or just have more money to throw at the problem keep using oil just the same. and as such the usage drops to meet supply. It might be painful and poorer countries will be hit harder but that's just what happens.
it's not that hard to understand.
Usage is not set in stone by god. it's set by millions of people making economic decisions.
It's basic basic economics.

So I'm guessing you didn't ever google "peak oil". Because it is an elaborate theory worth at least reading and given critical thought. Dismissing it for no reason doesn't do you any good, at least exercise your brain before dismissing it.

I read it long ago.
I've been familiar with the concept far longer than you have.
It's not exactly a new idea.
It sounds like you saw a youtube video with someone shouting about how the end is nigh and then checked out the wiki.
It's not a new idea to me.
It's not a new idea to investment bankers.
It's not a new idea to many people at all.

I have no problem with the idea of peak oil.
it's quite a straight forward idea.

The problem is between the lines of "oil will suddenly get more expensive and this will probably cause a recession" and "we'll all feast on the brains of our neighbors while killing for gas" .

You are really good at not reading what I write! I never said the majority of people know how screwed we are.

And you seem to be having problems with the idea that lots of people know about this. Lots of people know that oil will get far more expensive in the foreseeable future.

Even if we were running on nukes, we would run into peak ura

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this hard to understand: the day oil becomes twice as expensive to buy the usage also drops off as millions of people go "wow, that plane journey is far more expensive than it's worth for me" while other people who are doing more important things, transporting more valuable goods or just have more money to throw at the problem keep using oil just the same. and as such the usage drops to meet supply. It might be painful and poorer countries will be hit harder but that's just what happens. it's not that hard to understand. Usage is not set in stone by god. it's set by millions of people making economic decisions. It's basic basic economics.

You have no idea how huge this problem is. Fossil fuels are:

Millions of people driving to work from homes in the suburbs
Millions of air travelers flying for business and pleasure
Millions of tons of ships, tanks, and planes defending our borders and interests abroad
Millions of buildings requiring heat and/or air conditioning
Millions of buildings requiring electric lighting, security, computers and elevators
Millions of ships and planes bringing cheap imported goods manufactured overseas
Millions of tons of plastic wares produced every year
Millions of acres fertilized with petroleum-based fertilizers
Millions of trucks and trains transporting ore and lumber and grain

Skyrocketing oil prices mean losing the means to keep our economy alive, keeping people employed, clothed, fed, and sheltered; keeping cheap goods flowing in and agricultural produce flowing out; keeping our communications and data systems running. There is only so much usage that can "drop off" before we are severely and permanently crippled.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

And the price can only go up so much before it's economic to extract it from more places.
Even if the energy cost of getting it out is above the energy in the oil oil isn't valuable just for having energy in it. Oil is valuable because it's so energy dense and easily transportable.

But no. because you used the word "millions" a lot you're right.
I'm sure you'll be prepared for the future where the strong eat the brains of the weak.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[Anonymous Coward]

> And the price can only go up so much before it's economic to extract it from more places.

I see, and how does this affect the "peak oil" problem of new production not being able to make up for declining production on existing fields?

Oh, that's right, it doesn't. Production will continue to decline EVEN IF the price makes it worth keeping existing fields pumping.

It's obvious that you don't understand the nature of the problem; there is no technology that can sustain production at current demand, let alone future demand.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

oh for gods sake.
I'm not talking about just keeping existing fields pumping. the existance of tar sands or the econimcs of them becoming economic to extract oil from does not do anything to existing fields.
I'm refering to massive quantities of lower quality sources of oil like tar sands.
It costs more to extract the oil but there's a lot more oil there.

A lot of things which were economic to run while oil was cheaper become less and less economic to run and usage drops off.

A child could understand this.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[Anonymous Coward]

oh for gods sake. I'm not talking about just keeping existing fields pumping. the existance of tar sands or the econimcs of them becoming economic to extract oil from does not do anything to existing fields. I'm refering to massive quantities of lower quality sources of oil like tar sands. It costs more to extract the oil but there's a lot more oil there.

A lot of things which were economic to run while oil was cheaper become less and less economic to run and usage drops off.

A child could understand this.

You should educate yourself better then, because tar sands will not be a viable option any time soon.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2915

They will never deliver more than about 3 million barrels a day, and certainly would not reach that capacity within the next 10-20 years. To refresh your memory, current world demand is about 80 million barrels a day, and climbing. In the meantime, production on existing fields is FALLING, which means that the total supply will fall even if new discoveries are made every day--which they are not.

Even if demand drops, that does mean prices will go up, but there is NOTHING out there that can take the place of the "easy" oil we're currently dependent upon. And I don't think you realize what "demand falling" means--it has to do with those "millions" of things in my previous post. It means most of the world will have to adjust to NOT HAVING OIL, while those who can afford it will find it harder and harder to come by. We can't do most of the things we're doing now if oil is not plentiful and cheap, that's the point.

If you're putting your faith in solutions like tar sands, you're in pretty deep denial.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

You seem to have this idea that just because we use a lot of internal combustion engines now that somehow we're stuck with them.
double, tripple, quadruple the price of oil and within a short time there's going to be a lot less internal combustion engines and a lot more electric motors.

We can't do most of the things we're doing now if oil is not plentiful and cheap, that's the point.

Ok lets run through the list:

Generate power?
The power grid doesn't give a fuck about oil. oil is 1% of the power grid.
Sure some of the trains which carry some of the coal are run on oil products but electric powered rail isn't exactly a new idea and we have a great deal of options for how to transport such things.

General transportation?
Yep, this one will be hit hard by expensive oil, america will have to follow after japan with electric powered cars and smaller vehicles.
Jet travel is gonna get a lot more expensive.
Shipping is going to have to go a lot more nuclear.

And this is the utterly central point you are missing:

There is enough money to be had to satisfy even the wildest dreams of every investment banker and fund manager if they invest in the right things before peak oil.
The problems you predict are all based on everyone wandering blindly forward and nobody being capitalist and investing lots of money in nuclear power, factories which produce electric engines, shipping companies which use alternative fuels and local producers of goods.

The entire doomsday scenario is based on people failing to be greedy.
It's based on them intentionally pissing money down the drain in some "dr evil" style plot to destroy the world rather than being capitalist and putting there money wherever it will get the best return.
And you can't seem to understand this.

If you know that the oil companies are over reporting their oil reserves then so do fund managers and commodity traders(getting the scoop on this kind of info and making a financial killing as a result is their entire job).
You have no secret info.

But sure.
The world is about to end.
You know if you short the stock of the oil companies just before everyone realizes that you were right all along and their stock nose dives you could make an absolute killing.
You could then cash in that money quickly before everyone realizes that money is worthless and in the few days that are left buy all the supplies you'd need to outfit your bunker/fortress and set yourself up as a king in the future wasteland.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a doomsday scenario advocate, all I'm saying is you are seriously underestimating the disruption this will cause.

You're looking at it from a traditional economist's standpoint, in which investors can simply spend their way out of the hole. Most of the global economy's growth for the last 100 years has been possible due to cheap energy, and without it, you rely on the other resources you pointed out - but they are all small-scale and locally-oriented. Mass production overseas will have to give out to local manufacturing again, which we should be preparing for NOW but aren't.

Our power grid relies mostly on coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric. Of these, only hydro is sustainable because we rely on petroleum power to obtain and refine coal, gas, and uranium. Electric-powered cars and trains are more efficient than the ones we're using now, but there will only be so much electricity to go around. Transferring demand to electricity will outpace the infrastructure we have to generate and deliver it.

There is plenty of money to invest in the technologies to get us through this bind, as you say, but that faces several problems. For one, none of these investors will be lining up to lose money on this stuff. If it's not profitable, it won't get built. Second is the growing debt problem which is leading us toward hyperinflation. Third is the lack of cheap petroleum to actually build these facilities - or do you think we'll have electric backhoes and cranes by 2020?

I recommend reading Jeff Rubin's Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller to understand why the traditional economic arguments are misleading. Also check out Kunstler's The Long Emergency and World Made By Hand, Campbell's The Coming Oil Crisis, and Sharon Astyk's Depeltion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

Of these, only hydro is sustainable because we rely on petroleum power to obtain and refine coal, gas, and uranium.

Sure some of the others have a point but this is simply untrue particularly for uranium.
Even if every ICE dissapeared overnight we'd have years before the uranium in the reactors even needed replacing and decades before the current reserves of uranium ran out.
Uranium mining is not inherently dependent on oil and it's slow rate of consumption in the reactors and ease of stockpiling nuclear fuel means that it's at the very least on a par with hydro given that the generators in dams do need the occasional servicing and replacement part.

Personally I'd love to see those hyperion guys stamping out thousands of those mini reactors.
If you can't get 1 shipping container into a region every 5 years without oil then your problems are bigger than lack of oil.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[Anonymous Coward]

Uranium mining is not inherently dependent on oil and it's slow rate of consumption in the reactors and ease of stockpiling nuclear fuel means that it's at the very least on a par with hydro given that the generators in dams do need the occasional servicing and replacement part.

Uranium mining is heavily dependent on oil. Even a cursory look at Wikipedia reveals this:

"As uranium ore is mostly present at relatively low concentrations, most uranium mining is very volume-intensive, and thus tends to be undertaken as open-pit mining."

You're not going to be extracting that ore without the use of fossil fuels. Even if it could be done solely with electric-powered vehicles and equipment, they don't exist yet and we haven't even begun making plans for producing them. This will take many years, and will be much harder if the fuel to manufacture and ship the goods is unavailable.

"It is also undertaken in only a small number of countries of the world, as the resource is rare."

Trading of the mineral would cease without cheap fossil fuels making it economical to transport it.

"As of 2008, known uranium ore resources which can be mined at about current costs are estimated to be sufficient to produce fuel for about a century, based on current consumption rates."

That's assuming it can be obtained at current costs based on current consumption rates. Both costs and consumption would climb, making uranium more profitable but harder to get.

Right now we have about 100 nuclear reactors producing less than 20% of our power. We are building one new one. Now tell me how nuclear can fill our electricity needs when its capacity will need to double or triple, we don't have the plants to provide it, and without the fossil fuels to construct them? It doesn't matter how much uranium we have if there's no way to exploit it.

You may also have noticed that nuclear power has something of an image problem in the US as well - ramping up nuclear cannot be done quickly, easily or cheaply. If we're going to do it, we'd better get moving now.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

Do more research.
All the big uranium mines in the USA use In situ leaching
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-situ_leaching

You're not going to be extracting that ore without the use of fossil fuels

That's a very absolute and unsupported statement.

Even if it could be done solely with electric-powered vehicles and equipment, they don't exist yet and we haven't even begun making plans for producing them.

Again, a very absolute and unsupported claim.
There's plenty of companies building heavy electric equipment if only because it's getting more economic.
10 seconds googling:
http://www.phmining.com/PHMining/Mining-Equipment/Electric-Shovels.htm
But let me guess, some element of the equipment also currently uses oil in it's production and hence when oil price goes infinite everyone will stop using their brains and all production of it will grind to a halt.

Trading of the mineral would cease without cheap fossil fuels making it economical to transport it.

I think you're failing to take into account how valuable uranium is per ton.
Transporting things which are worth 50K per ton will not be a problem.

Enterprising individuals could carry it in sail boats, large canoes or swim with chunks of it clutched in their teeth and it could still be economic to run power plants on it .
Again.
You've just assumed that transporting things over oceans will suddenly cost infinite dollars rather than costing twice , three times or 10 times as much.

That's assuming it can be obtained at current costs based on current consumption rates. Both costs and consumption would climb, making uranium more profitable but harder to get.

Not this crap again.
Double, yes double the price of uranium and you raise the cost of the power generated from it by 7%.

Triple the current prices and you get close to the point where it's economic to extract it from seawater.

Now tell me how nuclear can fill our electricity needs when its capacity will need to double or triple, we don't have the plants to provide it, and without the fossil fuels to construct them? It doesn't matter how much uranium we have if there's no way to exploit it.

If we're going to play this game, what's your plan?
nuclear is the most practical and realistic option by a long shot.

Solar? if people are too inept to transport a few tons of uranium every 5 years they're certainly going to fail utterly at transporting a few thousand tons of solar panels every 20 years.
Wind? Why all that steel mining uses oil!!!!
hydro? well the generators in the dam require spare parts which if you're too inept to come up with substitutes take oil to mine and shape!

Applying your arguments against nuclear to absolutely everything else leaves us with the conclusion that nothing at all can work.

If we're going to do it, we'd better get moving now.

I agree.
Even without peak oil that would be the smart thing to do.
The current coal power generation is bad in almost every way I can think of.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cannot trace (or there is big disagreement about) the contribution of phenomenon X to measured data of global warming, how can you trace the contribution of phenomenons Y and Z? Isn't this a logical impossibility?

Population.. er.. climate control

[Anonymous Coward]

can only be sold to you if you demand it. Great job everyone.

We will see

[Anonymous Coward]

BL strikes me as being far more reasonable and less hysterical then his critics. His theseis is that there are far better things to spend our money on from a human point-of-view than a massive and potentially economy-wrecking war on on CO2. Is that such a terrible thing to assert?
I would guess that people, species and planet wil turn out to be far more adaptable than the Gore-alarmists would have us believe. And seeing how fast things are actually changing (not that fast) we will undoubtably find out who is right.
And all this reminds me a lot of the "Waldsterben" panic in the 80's when the Germans were convinced all their forests were dying and would all be gone by 2000 if we didn't ... well, they never really figured it out. There is now slightly more forest than there was then and it looks pretty similar to me too.

Seriously plagiarized post

[Dahamma]

Sort of ironic that the submission is about an exhaustive check of sources when he completely copies the original story in his summary without even mentioning the source (beyond a very vague link that IMO is NOT sufficient when pulling whole sentences from the original article...)

The unconvinced

[symbolset]

Perhaps it were better if rather than trying to persuade the unconvinced to our way of thinking, we rounded them all up and killed them, or conscripted them into forced labor. That would solve that problem, wouldn't it? Would that make you happy?

Re:The unconvinced

[Gadget_Guy]

Would that make you happy?

No, that would be a stupid suggestion. You originally said that you wanted to be called "the unconvinced" rather than "nutjob denialist conspiracy crusade Creationist lunatics", but advocating killing people that do not agree with you tends to give credence to the nutjob, crusade and lunatic parts of that phrase.

This whole problem should be discussed with level heads and without preconcived ideas. Don't just assume that scientists are wrong and the government is out to get you. Sure, look around at the alternative theories, but subject those to the same skepticism as you give AGW theories. Only then can you find the truth.

Re:The unconvinced

[linhares]

yes

dairy farmers

[michalk0]

why the fuck should I be grateful for someone being a dairy farmer, my monetary votes for his produce are all the grace he needs

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Cassius Corodes]

Do you honestly think that scientists have not spotted that? Or that they though nobody else was going to spot that? If this was the Achilles heel of their argument - don't you think being the conspiracy theory world-wide crew they would have not shown it? Or maybe they were using reverse physiology?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Darinbob]

But if the cause isn't man made, then we can say "don't blame me!" when disaster strikes.

Imagine if this thinking was applied to other areas. Hurricanes aren't man made, so we don't need to get out of the way. Floods aren't man made so I can build my house on the river bank. Lightning is a natural phenomena so I can keep golfing in the rain.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[fractoid]

While you make a compelling point that someone somewhere must have spotted this, you don't seem to have any explanations of the phenomenon under discussion.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[fractoid]

If you replace 'suffer' with 'LIVE IN HOUSEBOATS' then global warming becomes AWESOME! :D

Lomborg's response

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20reply%20to%20Howard%20Friel.pdf

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[w0mprat]

However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming. This is also true.

True? That has been shown over and over, infact if you want a 'smoking gun' you could look at some simple measurements: Mankind has increased greenhouse gas 40% over pre industrial levels. This issue is convenient ignored, because this is kind of a damning direct epirical measurement. The real question is how much it is going to warm up or more specifically is a given ammount of warming a minor issue or a epic fucktastrophe.

Now, I don't know if you would call that a smoking gun, but to me that really smokes.

To be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Just fly over any developing country, look out the window and ask yourself why large tracts of virgin and natural environments have suddenly become clay

Dairy farming - for public good or for money

[Anonymous Coward]

just as we're grateful that some people are willing to be dairy farmers

That's the strangest thing to say. Do you know they actually make money from it? I don't think they would do it otherwise.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

You spend too much time on the web and devoid of personal contact if you need to type out your sighs.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[TapeCutter]

Exactly, when people call AGW a hoax what they are really saying is that a large chunk of fundemental physics is a hoax.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

Though I agree that humans are a significant contributor to climate change arguing the point is a waste of effort. Once the window is broken it really doesn't matter whether it was Billy or Jane who was the culprit, the most important thing is to replace the glass to prevent the basement from flooding.

Lomborg Intellegence Test

[w0mprat]

The book was in fact an intelligence test. It seems a page explaining it's purpose was left out. An intelligent (enough) person such as myself reading this kind of book will spot the holes, misinterpretations, distortions and glaring factual inaccuracy (also known as outright lies). Your score is higher if you stop reading sooner once you note the particular writing style and go do something useful with your day.

Burden of proof

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that somehow in all of this that the burden of proof has switched from the people proposing the theory to the ones disputing it. I'm fairly sure this is bad science. The burden of proof always lies with the people in the affirmative, not the negative. If the affirmative cannot construct a logical argument disputing a retort by the negative, then the theory is disproven. It is insufficient to say "but we have many more other arguments in the affirmative". It may be cruel, but it only takes one win for the negative to disprove.

Furthermore, I'm fairly sure most of the people posting in this thread are not climate scientists, therefore do not understand the science being spoken about by either side, therefore should remain truly skeptical, taking neither side, until an argument is made you are capable of understanding, or you research and learn enough to understand the original argument. Until then, it's all smoke which only hints at answer, but does not prove one.

Who cares either way?

[strangemachinex]

I don't really believe in global warming, only because I see so many companies using it as a scare tactic to make money. I can't take it seriously. Every commercial break is a barrage of "go green" propaganda. But I'll be the first to admit I've read nothing scientific about climate change. I honestly don't care either way. I'm not interested at all in "saving the earth maaaaan." I'd rather just go about my life. As far as I'm concerned, the world can go up in flames the second I die. Sorry if I sound like a troll, I really don't intend to. Just wondering if there are others out there who feel the same as me.

Re: Who cares either way?

[Zorque]

Just because a company uses a situation to make money means it doesn't exist? I guess all those flag-makers taking advantage of 9/11 must mean the Trade Center is still standing.

Re: Who cares either way?

[strangemachinex]

No, but if companies started airing commercials around the clock stating I needed to buy such and such product in order to prevent terrorism it would make me wonder how much danger I was actually in.

Re:Who cares either way?

[Dunbal]

LOL - modded troll because, er, someone disagrees with you. How DARE YOU not believe in global warming? Hehehe

Re:Who cares either way?

[DavidShor]

It's not about "saving the eath maaaaan", climate change has a significant chance of killing millions and shunting hundreds of millions more into dire poverty. In Bangledesh alone, over 40 million people are set to be displaced from their homes in the coming decades because of rising sea levels.

.

It's one thing if you're willing to dispute those findings after careful consideration and research. But if you unwilling to devote more thought to the issue then anti-consumerist bullshit, because you don't care...I have no kind words...

Most of what you need to know

[Anonymous Coward]

about both sides of the climate change debate, courtesy of Dr. Feynman, 1974 http://www.gorgorat.com/#54

Potential maximum annual removals

[emilper]

Nice fine article ... except they did not check their own sources ... "It found that bear populations are indeed declining where the Arctic is warming.", while their source attributes the decline to hunting, and even uses "Potential maximum annual removals" that are almost double than "Historical annual removals (5 yr mean)" to predict population declines ...

I stopped reading at that point ... Newsweek editors must think their subscribers are morons if they publish something like that ... good thing I am not a subscriber ....

Re:Potential maximum annual removals

[SCVirus]

This issue has escaped the realm of scientific debate. The debate is now political, tribal and psychological.

Enjoy your distraction, human fools.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[DiamondGeezer]

Unfortunately the 5.35 part is an order of magnitude too high. That's what happens when you have no knowledge of quantum physics.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Cassius Corodes]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=temperatures+spike+before+co2+levels

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[DiamondGeezer]

Unfortunately correlation is not causation. The ice cores show no forcing of temperatures as a result of carbon dioxide rise.

No

[The Creator]

To debunk a debunker, the debunker you debunked, first had to have something to debunk(in order to be a debunker),
and since you debunked his debunkings, whatever he debunked got rebunked and hence still stands, so the net result is 1.

1 - 1 -(-1) = 1

Rabies

[Dobeln]

The above poster illustrates something very important:

Part of the reason one should be very skeptical of AGW alarmists is their rabies-like demeanor and aggression against all that they perceive as even the slightest heresy against their little modern day apocalypse cult.

Wider implication: Never trust the results in any discipline that is subject to a reputation cascade. (I.e, disciplines where even mild dissenters are ostracized)

Re:Rabies

[WeatherGod]

Wider implication: Never trust the results in any discipline that is subject to a reputation cascade. (I.e, disciplines where even mild dissenters are ostracized)

There is a logical fallacy here. While the above statement is absolutely true, and I have personally railed against this in my own works, you assume that this is the case in the field of climate studies. This is simply not the case. I have seen very healthy discussions in journals. One of the best things you can do in science is to realize an error in a previously held perception and improve the knowledge.

Yes, there is "politics" in science and sometimes one wants to be careful how you phrase things because some people get upset easily (or want to avoid possiblly upsetting others), but that's politics and not science.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sictransitgloriacfa]

I can, and IANAB, just a science geek. Bacteria are prokaryotic: their DNA is distributed throughout a relatively small cell. Fungi are eukaryotic; their DNA is in a cell nucleus. This is Chapter-1-of-the-textbook stuff.

The tip of the iceberg

[Dobeln]

You do not "debunk", you ostracize. The main modus of debate of AGW proponents from day one has been moralistic, not empirical.

Hence the conversion of "skeptic" from badge of honor to a mark of shame, and the introduction of the "denier" label to further amp up the hysteric persecution of those who dont go with the program.

This also explains the skepticism of the general public. Joe Blow doesnt know his tree rings from his ice cores, but he sure knows what fanaticism looks like.

After all, how can one trust a science where "skepticism" is career death? The answer is simple: One cant. And as the tip of the iceberg is now visible for all to see - the remaining question is how much is hidden by the sea...

Re:The tip of the iceberg

[chrb]

The main modus of debate of AGW proponents from day one has been moralistic, not empirical.

Really? Svante Arrhenius was just being moralistic when, in 1896, he predicted that the release of CO2 into the atmosphere by human activities would cause warming? The experiments and measurements of CO2 by Langley and Högbom in the 1800s were not empirical, but driven by morality?

Re:The tip of the iceberg

[sorak]

You do not "debunk", you ostracize. The main modus of debate of AGW proponents from day one has been moralistic, not empirical.

AGW deniers are ostracized in the same way that creationists and holocaust deniers have been ostracized. But there is a difference. If AGW deniers produced good science, every oil company on Earth would be throwing money at them to prove to the public that they can have their cake and eat it too. Don't you think that would dry up every last bit of support GW scientists have?

Hence the conversion of "skeptic" from badge of honor to a mark of shame, and the introduction of the "denier" label to further amp up the hysteric persecution of those who dont go with the program.

I still consider myself a skeptic. The problem is that "denier" is more accurate for GW deniers. If the evidence supports the other side, and you still stick to your guns, you are not a skeptic.

This also explains the skepticism of the general public. Joe Blow doesnt know his tree rings from his ice cores, but he sure knows what fanaticism looks like.

Is this the same Joe Blow that spent the last 8 years wetting his pants and throwing his money and freedom out the window every time a politician said the word "terrorist"? You, yourself, admitted that this hypothetical "Joe Blow" doesn't know anything about the evidence. So, why would your trust him over the vast majority of the world's scientists? That doesn't sound very skeptical to me.

After all, how can one trust a science where "skepticism" is career death? The answer is simple: One cant.

That's right. If only the people who use the word "skeptic" really were skeptics...

Re:The tip of the iceberg

[WeatherGod]

You do not "debunk", you ostracize.

I don't know who has been talking to you, but every skeptic I have encountered I have treated with respect and have had fruitful discussions with them. Most people I have talked to haven't made up their minds and are merely curious. Others have their minds made up, but at least our discussions do eliminate some of the more obvious misconceptions.

And I *gasp* enjoy these discussions!

Re:The tip of the iceberg

[Sarius64]

If I were on a steering committee assigned to recommend funding I would most assuredly appreciate your insightful distinction and ability to use pant wetting as empirical proof of opinion. /sarcasm Maybe you should use less ritalin, mate.

cut the crap

[SlashDread]

Jump of a cliff. No really.

If you hit the floor real hard you die. That much is true. If you are near heavy objects, it pulls you to it. This is also true. However we have no clue whatsoever what is causing this "pull".

So we should study ways to mitigate the impact of "Jumping of a cliff", not try to find ways to reverse the "pull".

Idiot. Science is NOT about "proof" or "show humans are the cause".

Its simply a matter of theories, and the best one sticks. Now if you try to counter with: "it could be vulcanos/solarflares/natural cycle". Then yes. it could.

Theoratically. In theory you can also jump of that cliff, and land intact.

Re:cut the crap

[Anonymous Coward]

On the cliff analogy, I would also add that there is undisputed evidence that things have been forced off the cliff in mass quantities in the past before people ever started jumping. Now the question becomes, do you try to stop people from jumping or do you find a way to adapt? Because history shows that sooner or later, people will be forced off the cliff regardless of whether or not they jump. You could stop the jumping 100% and still be faced with the need to adapt.

Re:cut the crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. Science is NOT about "proof" or "show humans are the cause".

Science is all about "proof" if you are trying to mitigate a problem. For instance, why impose a carbon tax if it can't be clearly demonstrated that it will have any impact on global warming?

The Friel Emergency Literacy Fund

[Dobeln]

After reading about half of Lomborgs rebuttal, I think the more pertinent issue is "can Friel read"? Perhaps we can set up a literacy fund to help the good man get some remedial ed?

As for your assertion that "Lomborg paints himself a persecuted DaVinci":

1. As far as I know, he has never compared himself to DaVinci. I.e, you are making shit up.

and

2. He has had the pleasure of being convicted (and then aquitted) of the novel thought-crime of "unintentional dishonesty". Gotta love those cultists - they are at least an inventive bunch.

Re:The Friel Emergency Literacy Fund

[TapeCutter]

Actually I meant to say Lomborg paints himself as galileo of course like anyone trained in the art of propoganda (he is a qualified political scientist), he is not so stupid as to directly draw that comparison himself.

Re:The Friel Emergency Literacy Fund

[Anonymous Coward]

In the fashion of our venerable "Skeptics" I shall perform my "skepticism" on your +3,Insightful.

After reading about half of Lomborgs rebuttal, I think the more pertinent issue is "can Friel read"? Perhaps we can set up a literacy fund to help the good man get some remedial ed?

Sitation needed.

As for your assertion that "Lomborg paints himself a persecuted DaVinci":

1. As far as I know, he has never compared himself to DaVinci. I.e, you are making shit up.

Sitation needed!!

and

2. He has had the pleasure of being convicted (and then aquitted) of the novel thought-crime of "unintentional dishonesty". Gotta love those cultists - they are at least an inventive bunch.

SITATION NEEDED!

Re:The Friel Emergency Literacy Fund

[chrb]

"can Friel read"? Perhaps we can set up a literacy fund to help the good man get some remedial ed?

If he is as illiterate as you suggest, why would Yale University be publishing his book? Are they part of the conspiracy too?

Re:The Friel Emergency Literacy Fund

[Blakey Rat]

I'm not through the rebuttal yet, but Lomborg is doing very, very well so far.

My only issue is with this section:

Friel's problem with context

Friel also has a tendency to take quotes out of context. For example, when he criticizes
me for using what he apparently regards as unduly upbeat statistics about illiteracy in the
Third World, here's how he presents his case:

Lomborg...wrote that "women still do not have the same access to
education, and this is also reflected in the higher illiteracy rate, which at
21 percent is almost double that of men at 12 percent." Lomborg supports
this assertion by referencing it to a 1998 UNESCO document--"Gender-
Sensitive Education Statistics and Indicators"--that cannot be found
using the Lomborg-provided URL or document title. However, a 1997
UNESCO document with a nearly identical title--"Gender Sensitive
Education Statistics and Indicators: A Practical Guide"--reports that the
illiteracy rate in the developing world in 1995 was 38 percent among
women and 21 percent among men, not the 21 percent among women and
12 percent among men that Lomborg reported. [p. 55]

It is, of course, a general problem of the Internet that some web pages eventually
become unavailable. But the real problem here is that Friel has plucked the quote he
attacks out of context. Here it is along with the sentence that immediately precedes it.
(TSE, p. 81, emphasis added): ...illiteracy in the developing world has fallen from about 75
percent for the people born in the early part of the 1900s to below 20
percent among the young of today. However, women still do not have the
same access to education, and this is also reflected in the higher
illiteracy rate, which at 21 percent is almost double that of men at 12
percent.

Clearly, I am talking here about young people, whose illiteracy rate is much lower
than the population as a whole, while Friel is quoting estimates for the average
population. Of course the figures don't match up.

It wasn't clear to me that he was talking about young people based on the excerpt from the book. I mean, it's clear the preceding sentence was referring to young people, but not the next one.

Every other point in the rebuttal I think is beyond doubt.

For full disclosure: I've read much of The Skeptical Environmentalist, but I didn't get all the way through the book because (frankly) it's so dry and boring. I have no doubt of Lomborg's ability, though, and in this case I think he's clearly in the right.

Re:The Friel Emergency Literacy Fund

[ralphbecket]

TapeCutter, do feel free to jump into the discussion any time you have a substantive point to make.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[TapeCutter]

Unfortunately you are wrong. I honestly wish you were correct but wishfull thinking and ad-homs will get you nowhere.

RF = 5.35*ln(C2/C1) = 3.71 W/M^2 for a doubling of CO2
T = (3/3.71)*5.35*ln(387.5/280) = 1.41 deg C. For the observed change in CO2 concentrations.

Perils

[Dobeln]

""AGW has been proven to be bogus!1!!1!!" Response: Fuck yeah, and the moon landing was a hoax; 9/11 was executed by Cheney; the holocaust is a fraud; and the sun is a motherfucka charriot of fire."

This illustrates the perils of arguing using allegories.

The color of money

[Dobeln]

Of course the amount of money poured into climate research and carbon trading schemes - fields completely reliant on the steady production of ever scarier doomsday scenarios - receive far more cash than "Skeptics" will ever dream of seeing from Exxon.

Hell, the nemesis of the CRU boys is a Canadian retiree.

Re:The color of money

[randomencounter]

But how much money does Exxon stand to gain by delaying things another year or two?

The businessmen will always find a way to make money, climate change scientists aren't likely to be getting rich by selling carbon credits.

Nice, but wrong attitude

[Dobeln]

If ones argument is strong relative to public perception, one benefits from an open and honest argument.

If ones argument is weak relative to public perception, well... "Denialist conspiracy crusade lunatics" it is.

In short: The whole AGW hysteria is entirely reliant on the reputation cascade for operating. If they let up on the ostracism of dissenters, Gaia knows what will happen.

Alternate reality

[Dobeln]

That someone perceives Lomborg as "Frothing" tells you quite a lot - they inhabit a dream world, parallel to ours. But such is the way of the Cult.

Discussing a specific case: Hot and cold

[Dobeln]

http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20reply%20to%20Howard%20Friel.pdf

"Without reading both books, I can't take sides on the merits. But I will say some of the stuff in TFA sets off my alarms--like spending a footnote on a WHO report just to cite the population of Europe."

When doing math, statistical sources matter. But here we have something substantial to discuss. Is Lomborg dishonest in this case? Read along for the answer!

Friel: "But Lomborg's only source for these figures—a chart in the statistical annex of a 2004 World Health Organization report—contains
no data on human mortality due to excess heat or cold. In fact, the words "excess heat" and "excess cold" make no appearance in the WHO document; neither does the word "heat," and the word "cold" appears only once in a reference unrelated to death due to excess cold.

Lomborg's reference to the WHO document, which allegedly supports his claim that two hundred thousand people die each year in Europe from excess heat, reads in its entirety: "207,000, based on a simple average of the available cold and heat deaths per million, cautiously excluding London and using WHO’s estimate for Europe’s population of 878 million (WHO, 2004a:121).”

However, page 121 of the 2004 WHO report—The World Health Report 2004: Changing History— which is what this source references, lists no data on cold- and heatrelated deaths per million, or for cold- and heat-related deaths in any context.

  Likewise, Lomborg's very next reference-to support his claim that 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold - reads in its entirety: "1.48 million, estimated in the same way as total heat deaths."

Thus, Lomborg's references indicate that page 121 of the 2004 WHO report is the source of his estimates of annual heat- and cold-related deaths in Europe; however, this page in the WHO report lists no statistics for either cold- or heat-related deaths. Consequently, there is no apparent basis here or elsewhere in Cool It for Lomborg's claim that 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold. [LD, p. 86, emphasis added]

Lomborg: "In fact, the text and first endnote in this section make it very clear where the figures are sourced from: “Based on the summary of the biggest European heat and cold study (Keatinge, et al., 2000, p. 672).” (p. 170).

In the UK edition of the book, there is even a figure with the numbers, with the further explanation: “estimated in the text, using Keatinge et al., 2000:672.” (p. 233, CIUK) Friel’s claim that I relied on a WHO document that does not support my case is astonishing and profoundly disingenuous.

I clearly used the WHO report solely to provide an estimate of Europe’s population (because WHO uses the standard geographical definition of Europe to the Ural Mountains).This is evident in the text that Friel himself quoted: “and using WHO’s estimate for Europe’s population of 878 million (WHO, 2004a:121).”

Finding this study on Google Scholar took me all of two seconds using the reference provided by Lomborg (in his book).

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/321/7262/670

The quote is confirmed by Google Books:

http://books.google.se/books?q=estimated+in+the+text,+using+Keatinge+et+al.,+2000:672&btnG=S%C3%B6k+i+b%C3%B6cker

In short, from this example, picked by you - not me, it plainly evident that is Friels honesty or literacy that should be in question, not Lomborgs. This is likely to be representative of the "debunking" in its entirety, going from what I have read of the rebuttal so far.

Re:Discussing a specific case: Hot and cold

[snowwrestler]

I did not pick that example, the reporter did. As I said, I have not read either book so I am going on TFA. If you're intent on debunking the debunking, go for it, but don't mistake me as the author. My point is to call attention to a footnote trick which, as someone who works in public policy, I can assure you is widely deployed.

Re:Discussing a specific case: Hot and cold

[NeutronCowboy]

I would strongly suggest to you to take neither Friel nor Lomborg at his work, and read Lomborg's book first, then cross-reference the claims. While from my perspective, I do it because I don't trust Lomborg to tell me accurately whether the sun is shining, I would do it in your place because Friel might be subject to the same problem - and quoting Lomborg in his defense isn't very thorough when the claim is that Lomborg flat-out lies.

Re:Discussing a specific case: Hot and cold

[WeatherGod]

Seems to me that Lomborg should have cite two sources, one for the WHO estimate of the population of Europe and then another for the source how to estimate the number of heat/cold deaths. When one does references, you typically don't want to rely upon a citation of a citation.

Your example shows Friel is a lying bastard

[Dobeln]

http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20reply%20to%20Howard%20Friel.pdf

"Without reading both books, I can't take sides on the merits. But I will say some of the stuff in TFA sets off my alarms--like spending a footnote on a WHO report just to cite the population of Europe."

When doing math, statistical sources matter. But here we have something substantial to discuss. Is Lomborg dishonest in this case? Read along for the answer!

Friel: "But Lomborg's only source for these figures—a chart in the statistical annex of a 2004 World Health Organization report—contains
no data on human mortality due to excess heat or cold. In fact, the words "excess heat" and "excess cold" make no appearance in the WHO document; neither does the word "heat," and the word "cold" appears only once in a reference unrelated to death due to excess cold.

Lomborg's reference to the WHO document, which allegedly supports his claim that two hundred thousand people die each year in Europe from excess heat, reads in its entirety: "207,000, based on a simple average of the available cold and heat deaths per million, cautiously excluding London and using WHO’s estimate for Europe’s population of 878 million (WHO, 2004a:121).”

However, page 121 of the 2004 WHO report—The World Health Report 2004: Changing History— which is what this source references, lists no data on cold- and heatrelated deaths per million, or for cold- and heat-related deaths in any context.

  Likewise, Lomborg's very next reference-to support his claim that 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold - reads in its entirety: "1.48 million, estimated in the same way as total heat deaths."

Thus, Lomborg's references indicate that page 121 of the 2004 WHO report is the source of his estimates of annual heat- and cold-related deaths in Europe; however, this page in the WHO report lists no statistics for either cold- or heat-related deaths. Consequently, there is no apparent basis here or elsewhere in Cool It for Lomborg's claim that 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold. [LD, p. 86, emphasis added]

Lomborg: "In fact, the text and first endnote in this section make it very clear where the figures are sourced from: “Based on the summary of the biggest European heat and cold study (Keatinge, et al., 2000, p. 672).” (p. 170).

In the UK edition of the book, there is even a figure with the numbers, with the further explanation: “estimated in the text, using Keatinge et al., 2000:672.” (p. 233, CIUK) Friel’s claim that I relied on a WHO document that does not support my case is astonishing and profoundly disingenuous.

I clearly used the WHO report solely to provide an estimate of Europe’s population (because WHO uses the standard geographical definition of Europe to the Ural Mountains).This is evident in the text that Friel himself quoted: “and using WHO’s estimate for Europe’s population of 878 million (WHO, 2004a:121).”

Finding this study on Google Scholar took me all of two seconds using the reference provided by Lomborg (in his book).

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/321/7262/670

The quote is confirmed by Google Books:

http://books.google.se/books?q=estimated+in+the+text,+using+Keatinge+et+al.,+2000:672&btnG=S%C3%B6k+i+b%C3%B6cker

In short, from this example, picked by you - not me, it plainly evident that is Friels honesty or literacy that should be in question, not Lomborgs. This is likely to be representative of the "debunking" in its entirety, going from what I have read of the rebuttal so far.

Give and take?

[meburke]

Having read Lomberg's response to the criticism, I'm more comfortable with his conclusions than I am with Friel's. However, the last word probably hasn't been written/spoken on the subject. Both sides of the argument fall short of absolute proof, but Lomberg seems to be a better mathematician.

I am basing my opinion on incomplete information (as are all the posters on this topic) since, a. Friel's complete book is is not completely available to us and, b. it's a lot of dang work to analyze the books side-by-side in any case. Despite the lack of sufficient info, people will go out and vote (some of them anyway) and the minority of the voters and the general citizenry will be stuck with the results.

The information at hand doesn't support a conclusion of immediate emergency, so I'm holding out against any hasty drastic actions that mostly serve to make Al Gore richer. The urgency is for more research done a manner that we can all trust, untainted by political considerations, BEFORE it becomes a real emergency. Legitimate scientists will examine all sides of the problem before recommending any long-term solutions.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[arpad1]

Were the yeast scientists studying alcohol caught producing fraudulent data, suppressing the work of other yeast scientists whose results didn't agree with the lurid predictions of alcohol increase and colluding on how to cover up their fraud?

This ship has sailed. The CRU, and now the IPCC, are revealed as scientific frauds unworthy of the credence extended to them. As that credence has crumbled so have the claims made and supported by those organizations and carefully ignoring those facts isn't going to help the agenda of global warming believers.

You know what the real pisser is? There's some possibility that the warmies are right although determining whether human activity actually has an effect on the global climate will now have to wait until the debris from the collapse of the CRU and the IPCC is cleared away by real science.

Friel deliciously biting his own glacial ass

[Dobeln]

Friel, denouncing Lomborg on glaciers:

"Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is Page 18 of 27 very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005). [IPCC, 2007c, p. 493]"

How is that "settled science" working out for you Frielyboy?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[MartinSchou]

Well, once you start living in houseboats, you need to move all your prisoners to prison boats. This will in turn just create more pirates, and as we all know, pirates combat global warming!

Cultism

[Dobeln]

"If you are going to criticize someone's work, you need to be doubly careful that the things you take issue with are valid. Here it appears that the criticism is far less solid than the material it criticizes"

You only need to be "doubly careful" provided one is doing science-related things. Now, in bolstering the doomsday cult of your choice, however...

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[biryokumaru]

Once the window is broken it really doesn't matter whether it was Billy or Jane who was the culprit...

Unless you want to stop Jane from bashing in any more windows. It's not like we're going to stop contributing to global warming if we ignore the question of whether we're contributing to it.

The most important virtue of Lomborg...

[Dobeln]

... is not his actual arguments (important as they may be), but rather that the attacks on him - in their viscousness, dishonesty and general rage-inducing pompousness - highlight how venal large swathes of the "scientific establishment" have become.

missing the point.

[mmjcon147]

Who cares if this guy is telling the truth or not. Neither side has any credibility.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[wintercolby]

Bacteria typically reproduce asexually, they are single celled organisms that divide. Fungi reproduce sexually, and are multi-celled organisms. That is the most basic difference that I can come up with off the top of my head. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to wiki it for you.

One reason that this is pretty basic stuff is that most scientists see sexual reproduction as one of the driving factors of evolution. If you went to a highschool that taught creationism instead, I feel sorry for you.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, once you start living in houseboats, you need to move all your prisoners to prison boats. This will in turn just create more pirates, and as we all know, pirates combat global warming!

This is why we never can have nice things.

More of a problem for the US

[Kupfernigk]

You are right and I wish my mod points had not expired yesterday. The Republicans shouting "Drill, baby, drill" did not seem to understand that for Alaskan oil to work, the oil price would need to be much higher than it is now. They do not understand the increasing marginalisation of reserves.

Compared to Europe and the Far East, oil consumption is very high. It takes about twice as much oil to transport an American a mile as a European or a Japanese. It takes twice as much oil to heat or cool large American houses, per occupant. US health care is two or more times as expensive per head as it is in Europe. These are real competitive disadvantages which increasingly affect the attractiveness of the US life style. It is no good having large houses if you cannot afford to heat them in winter or cool them in summer, and cannot afford the long commute to them. Whereas outside the Eastern seaboard and San Francisco, most US cities are not very pleasant to live in. The Chinese have a similar problem with the vast spaces of their interior.

It's worth considering that Lomborg is a European economist, and in many ways his arguments are valid for Europe. They may appeal to many Americans, but adopting his approach could be very bad for the US in the long term. Perhaps that's his intention.

Re:More of a problem for the US

[NeutronCowboy]

Correction: Lomborg is a statistician, and a bad one at that.

That's why he's so hated

[Sycraft-fu]

He's not just saying "Nope, this isn't a problem, ignore it, don't worry, etc, etc." A person like that is much easier to dismiss. What he's saying is "Yes, this is a problem, but not a big one, and certainly not one worth all the money and effort being proposed to fix it. Instead, we should spend that on other things that would have a much bigger impact on quality of life." More or less he's not disagreeing with the fundamental premise or conclusion, he's disagreeing with the policies being proposed because of that.

This drives the global warming proponents totally mad. Most of them seem to be of the opinion that what they have to do is convince people that global warming is real, and caused by humans. Once that is done, people should be willing to accept whatever policies they say are necessary. No questioning of the costs or the utility, they've proven the problem and now whatever they say needs to happen should happen without further question.

So Lomborg has become one of their top enemies because he doesn't fundamentally disagree on the idea that the world is warming, just that it is worth while to try and solve when there are so many other problems to human life. For that, they hate him.

That is one of the things that makes me question motives in this whole thing. I can understand exasperation with people who believe your research is incorrect/false/made up if your truly believe it is right. You think you've got it correct, done a lot of work in that regard, you get mad when people say "Nuh uh!". However, when someone is disagreeing not with that, but with the policies you demand and you get even more angry at them, well that makes me wonder: Is the research really what's important to you, or are you using it just to try and drive policies that you want, regardless of their use? It would seem to me that how to deal with the problem would be open for discussion, yet discussion of that generates the most backlash. Makes you wonder.

Re:That's why he's so hated

[shilly]

Absolute horseshit and twattery. What Lomborg does is nothing like a rigorous analysis of abatement policies. If it were, it wouldn't be a book with disingenuous footnotes, it would be a cost curve. Like the ones that these guys have done:
http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/Costcurves.asp

Like any cost-curve, it includes lots of actions that are net cash positive -- like home insulation. And yes, they've thought about fucking bounce-back effects too.

Sheesh, people, get a fucking grip.

Re:That's why he's so hated

[gkai]

Wow, just wow....

This is a very insightfull remark imho, something that should makes all sides pause and re-assert where they stand in the objective scientist - activist scale.

pity i am not a moderator now...

Re:That's why he's so hated

[Peter La Casse]

What Lomborg does is nothing like a rigorous analysis of abatement policies. If it were, it wouldn't be a book with disingenuous footnotes

How do you know that it's a book with disingenuous footnotes? Lomborg's rebuttal to Friel's book seems quite convincing.

Re:That's why he's so hated

[drsmack1]

People who are in the right welcome debate. It seems that you are not a fan of introducing contrary ideas so as to have a more fully developed dialog.

Is your argument: "he is bad bad bad; don't listen to him!"

I assume you have read his response? Because if you haven't; then your passion exceeds your knowledge. That is the definition of a fool.

Re:That's why he's so hated

[pipingguy]

Thank you, Sycraft-fu, for your words of sanity.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

Perhaps, but if you obsess on stopping Jane from throwing balls your just wasting your time. Far better would to be focus your efforts on preventing the ball from hitting the window instead.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

The best part is that even on that very page, if you match up the time-lines you can see that the temperature and CO2 graphs don't line up, and that the temperature starts to spike before CO2 amount does.

Unfortunately, there's no -1 misinformative mod.

That is to be expected. Normally, temperature starts to rise due to e.g. distance to the sun decreasing slightly, which leads to increased CO2 which enhances the effect of the warming, causing further CO2 to be released until a new balance is achieved (essentially that the energy absorbed from the sun equals the earths black-body radiation). CO2 increase with temperature because CO2 is less soluble in warm (sea)-water, and a number of other effects (Tundra melting is often mentioned as a big one, though I don't personally know.). Now, into this system we (the humans) release enough CO2 to increase the concentration by what, 30%? What do *you* think will happen?

That CO2 must warm the earth can also be concluded directly by looking at the absorbtion bands of CO2. You could even calculate the approximate effect (though not the feedback loops) from this, the atmospheric and distribution of CO2 and from the distribution of the electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere.

But of course, you knew all this. What pisses me off about all this that while the above is well-known science and has been for a long time, the economic aspects are far from clear to me. Is it worth it to curtail the warming? How much will it cost to adapt vs. prevention? Those are the interesting questions, but few discusses this :/

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[biryokumaru]

Wait, now I'm lost. How do we stop CO2 emissions from creating a greenhouse effect?

people with their heads buried don't hear well

[hort_wort]

"Professor, we would like for you to calculate if a nuclear weapon would ignite the oxygen in the atmosphere and destroy the planet. Take your time, we want to be --"
"No, it's fine."
"... What? Have you already done the calculation?!"
"No. It's just that if I'm wrong, who'd know?"

Luckily, he guessed correctly. Gotta love that Konopinski.

Citations

[Dobeln]

So far, these are my own writeups:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1559622&cid=31242704

Thirty seconds and two Googlings confirm Lomborg is right (on an issue raised in TFA) and Friel is a liar.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1559622&cid=31242742

Friel biting his own glacial ass. Delicious.

For the whole shebang, do take the time to read:

http://www.lomborg.com/dyn/files/basic_items/118-file/BL%20reply%20to%20Howard%20Friel.pdf

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Xabraxas]

Oh how naive you are of the American mind. None of that matters. It snowed heavily in DC this winter so of course global warming is a hoax. One day is all we need to erase years of data.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

Sequester the CO2, absorb the CO2, utilize the CO2? Many smarter people than me who aren't obsessed with penalizing over cure can probably provide even better solution paths than I. If a car analogy is needed think air bags over removing driving privileges.

Unintentional dishonesty

[Dobeln]

So, he paints himself that way without saying it, which is proven by... others saying it?

It should be noted the allegory was brought on by his conviction of "dishonesty" by the Danish DCSD in a fact-free decision that was later rescinded. If you can find the decision, do read it, for a look at what a true scientific embarrassment looks like.

(It also offers interesting insight into the mentality of The Cult)

Re:Unintentional dishonesty

[TapeCutter]

Yeah, I can read wikipedia too.

Re:Unintentional dishonesty

[Dobeln]

Funny, I didnt consult wikipedia. And you didnt make a point.

I knew I remembered that guy's name from somewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote about him back in 2002, and called his prescriptions "Microsoft Environmental Policy":

"Get users hooked on crappy technology, and then keep them locked into a system in which the only realistically "affordable" improvements are a series of costly upgrades and retrofits. We shouldn't be focused on providing the consumer with a better technology today; instead, we should get them using our existing technology as soon as possible, in as large a quantity as possible, and the let the inevitable economic improvements drive environmental policy later."

He's a nutter fo sho. Not suprised that he's still around, though.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Xabraxas]

You know what the real pisser is? There's some possibility that the warmies are right although determining whether human activity actually has an effect on the global climate will now have to wait until the debris from the collapse of the CRU and the IPCC is cleared away by real science.

What about NASA? It's more than a little disingenuous to attempt to debunk climate change based on a few emails at one climate research facility. The data is there, it has been there, and it isn't going away. Humans caused climate change and we're the only ones who can fix it.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[biryokumaru]

So like artificial trees to replace the windows faster than they break?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[cupantae]

Teabaggers? You mean people should put their scrotum in Bjørn Lomborg's face? Why yes, I believe that's a marvellous idea!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[hrimhari]

The only problem is that while people don't believe Billy is breaking windows so to make him stop, he will continue to break them over and over, at a faster rate than they can be repaired.

Teabag is soooo yesterday...

[Dobeln]

This new trend of political affiliations and sexual practices being merrily intertwined in public discourse is interesting. Now, the Teabaggers (TM) have blazed the trail, so public acceptance (at least amongst MSNBC Countdown viewers) should be high.

So, I am trying to come up with something good for you little commies out there:

-Buttfucking Bolshevists?
-Assreaming Al Qaeda fans?
-Creampie Commies?
-Radical Rimjobs?

Tell me if you see something that you like.

Re:Teabag is soooo yesterday...

[jc42]

Hey, you got insightful+troll mods! Congratulations!

(And welcome to the club. I got that mod several years ago, and also funny+troll. I'm now working on getting all three for a single comment. But with a starting score of 2 and a limit of 5, it's very difficult. ;-)

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[nospam007]

"Sequester the CO2, absorb the CO2, utilize the CO2?"

Piece of cake, Coca Cola has been doing it for ages.

this is the reality of science

[Anonymous Coward]

as a scientists, earned phd, poor speller, 10+ peer reviewed papers (including papers in high profile journals with 50+ citations) the reality of science is that it is a dirty, competitive game, and the sort of things going on here are typical.
Academics have this big thing about honesty and openess, and so forth, but underneath you see all sorts of nasty stuff.
specifically, many posters have commented on how pro warming scientists used control of peer review to keep papers from being published

to my personal knolwedge, this is common in molecular biology, and I am sure it occurs all th time in all branches of science because publication in science is money, power, status and jobs.
people are more then willing to fight dirty over having a job or not
quite literally, getting a paper published, espically in a high profile journal, can mean the difference between a comfortable middleclass existence and poverty.

the real story here is that to become succesful in science, you need a lot of drive and competitivenes - science is as competitive as big league sports, and there is just as much dirty stuff going on; we just have a fairy tale vision of th scientist as this ivory tower person

normally I would login, but I forgot, and /. has this bug where after login you don't get returned to where you were, so I'm to lazy to login
cinnamon colbert

They see the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

and see their big buck research grants slipping away.... Time to get shrill.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[hrimhari]

You forgot the "oh wait". I mean, who said it isn't? People keep doing that kind of stuff all the time, then crying out their misfortune when mother nature strikes... Except for those that intentionally seek to be struck by lightning so they can become The Flash. But that's Natural Selection on its best : )

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Machtyn]

The problem is it was neither Billy nor Jane who was the culprit. The problem with the global warming / climate change people is that all they are doing is arguing for a massive redistribution of wealth. The issue is a human behavior problem not a take the money from the rich and throw it to some despot nation somewhere else. The other problem with the whole climate change thing is that, yes, the climate does change. Oversimplifying, yes, but the earth was really hot, then it got really cold, then it heated up again. Trying to make the climate stop changing would be like trying to stop the magnetic field's progression toward a flip.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anpheus]

You can't prove god didn't do it so why don't we throw his hat into the ring of "possible causes for global warming."

citation please???

[Anonymous Coward]

citation please??? Have a look at the freaking thread topic. THERE is your citation.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Vintermann]

You deserve upmods. It seemingly cannot be stated enough, because the "skeptics" don't get it: of COURSE temperature leads CO2 levels. What would a sudden, pre-temperature rise of CO2 levels come from? There wasn't much coal burned in the ice ages.

When no CO2 is added to the system, it merely works as a feedback for temperature changes, magnifying them. Oceans get warmer, reducing their capacity to dissolve gases, releasing more CO2. Rotting vegetation trapped in ice melts, releases methane and CO2. Fortunately, the additional CO2 released from warming is not enough to cause more warming than what released it, so it doesn't run away, it stabilizes at a new, higher temperature.

But when CO2 is added to the system from outside (fossil fuels trapped in the earth for ages), it's not just a feedback. It's a forcing, something that drives temperature change.

So, that CO2 followed temperature rises during the end of the ice ages is not evidence against global warming. It's what you would expect to happen when there are no humans around to burn gigatons of coal, if current theories of carbon feedback are correct.

Let's be honest

[dreamchaser]

Come on now, how about a little intellectual honesty? The falsification and other shenanigans by the pro-AGW crowd have been all over the news in recent months. That doesn't make any disingenousness or innacuracy by Lombard excusable and GP didn't say it was.

The whole GW issue has become more about money (grants and taxes) and power/prestige than real science, on BOTH sides.

AGW is not a proven fact, and the shenanigans of both skeptics and supporters of the theory are doing science an injustice.

Re:Let's be honest

[MikeBabcock]

There are an awful lot of unintellectual crackpots on both sides of every debate who like to froth at the mouth without knowing a thing about what they're talking about. Very few of them are interested in actually learning, or being open-minded or realizing there are a lot of egos floating about in science on both sides of any camp.

The vast majority of scientists "agreeing" with climate change also aren't climate scientists but rather colleagues in one way or another.

To all the GW crowd, a lot of AGW people aren't yelling conspiracy, they're just sick of empty rhetoric when the facts appear to swing both ways if you pay attention.

Re:Let's be honest

[randomencounter]

Somebody needs to learn how to recognize patterns and outlyers.

The pattern of anti-AGW "research" is ignorant and/or dishonest.

A few dishonest scientists sexing-up their research to try to get more grant money doesn't invalidate the data collected by others.

Re:Let's be honest

[mcvos]

AGW is not a proven fact, and the shenanigans of both skeptics and supporters of the theory are doing science an injustice.

I agree with that last part, but the greenhouse effect and global warming were already quite well-supported before the IPCC ever got into it.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ArcherB]

They do NOT affect total energy received from the sun over the course of the year which remains constant.

Small nitpick here. While the sun is extremely stable when compared to its interstellar cousins, it is by no means constant. For example, there is an 11-year sunspot cycle that varies the amount of solar radiation we receive by about .1%, which is much greater than the amount of change caused by the amount of C02 man has put into the atmosphere. Of course, there are longer cycles as well that may affect climate over a much longer range, but we have not had the instruments to make measurements that far back to nail down the exact effect on the climate.

And while you did say, "over the course of of the year", the orbit of the Earth itself is elliptical enough to vary the amount of energy we receive from the sun.

 

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Nesa2]

Everyone will always talk about research to prove the global warming, but no one really knows exactly what this research is. Watching ice melt on Google earth is not research. Saying CO2 in atmosphere contributes to green house effect warming earth is not research. And all the "research" companies funded by governments have yet to reveal their research and prove it. This is why it was a big deal when hackers released information from one of those research firms that actually questions all of their research on global warming.

I will not believe it until there is a research paper that 90% of scientists can agree on. I don't take anyone's word for any of this. Either show me proof or get out of my face. And I don't want to see proof of global warming as YOU see it, I want it as 90% of scientific community sees it. Such research is yet to be published and agreed on.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

Despite being one who would be labeled as a socialist by the likes of Limbaugh and O'Reilly, I do agree with you. Punishing humans for being human is really quite absurd. Religious nuts have been trying to do so for millennia and have yet to keep people from fornicating. Yes, the climate will change and no, penalizing people will not stop it from happening.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Vintermann]

Technically correct, they show a feedback from CO2, not a forcing, which is what you would expect. There were no things at the end of the ice ages to release CO2 in large amounts, except higher temperatures themselves (which in turn was caused by Milankovitch cycles). As the earth warmed, CO2 was released from oceans and frozen vegetation, causing further warming.

Without the feedback from CO2, the Milankovitch cycles would only cause a very modest change in temperature - not nearly sufficient to cause the ice age/interglacial cycles we know.

Before humans, temperature was driving the change, and CO2 caused the feedback.

Now, CO2 is driving the change (cause we have coal power plants now), and temperature causes the feedback (because warming up the oceans still reduces their capacity to hold CO2)

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[tbannist]

Of course they don't. Normally CO2 is released as temperatures rise. We're forcing the temperature rise by releasing greenhouse gases. Now pretend you're smart and what do you think is going to happen when we prematurely force the temperature to rise?

Maybe the CO2 levels will rise even higher and we'll get a hotter than normal peak temperature? One which may cause problems for the areas where we grow our food? Because there's two really big problems that may be caused by a warmer global climate: massive flooding and widespread starvation.

That's why people are a little concerned.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[indifferent children]

> Well, once you start living in houseboats, you need to move all your prisoners to prison boats.

You must not be familiar with "Compassionate Conservatism(tm)". We don't have to move prisoners to prison boats. This is called, "solving a problem with a problem."

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

I see you think like I do, so obviously you are not smarter than I me. Hopefully those who are are focusing their time on the cure, not the cause.

Lomborg is not a climate change skeptic

[XNormal]

I challenge anyone to find a quote from Lomborg suggesting that he questions climate change or its anthropogenic origin.
He does, however, make a pretty convincing case that focusing on it diverts resources and attention away from some other very serious issues. But I guess it's easier to vilify him than to actually LISTEN to him.

Unfortunately, climate science, isn't science

[Colin Smith]

None of it is falsifiable. It's not testable. Individual components are based on science, but as a whole, it's nothing more than weather forecasting.

 

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[tbannist]

That's unfortunately because the article proves that the "climate skeptics" are frauds too, they've lied and mislead and deceived people for their own benefit which, of course, according to your own standard means they are wrong and can't be believed.

So there, the world must be colder because it's can't be getting warmer because the scientists and the CRU are mean, the non-scientists and IPCC made a mistake in a 400 page report, and the so-called skeptics are continuously and repeated proven wrong over and over again. That's the only possible conclusion. Right? Right?

Wait. Maybe science doesn't work like that.

My understand of Bjorn's position was

[NotSoHeavyD3]

that he didn't deny climate change was happening. He was of the opinion that there was nowhere near the evidence for the standard Gore-esque position of "Oh my god we're all gonna die. We need to stop doing everything right now and drastically cut back on everything right now." Admittedly that comes from an episode of BullShit!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ArcherB]

But if the cause isn't man made, then we can say "don't blame me!" when disaster strikes.

Imagine if this thinking was applied to other areas. Hurricanes aren't man made, so we don't need to get out of the way. Floods aren't man made so I can build my house on the river bank. Lightning is a natural phenomena so I can keep golfing in the rain.

And that was kinda Bjorn's point. It doesn't really matter so much as to WHY the climate is getting warmer and there is little we can do about it. Sure, we can do some things like make more efficient cars and power our homes with nuclear/wind/solar/hydro power, but with the massive amounts of cash we are throwing at the problem could be better spent preparing for global warming than fighting it. For example, rather than spend trillions of dollars to get third world countries to not build their economies, we could spend billions feeding or moving the people that may or may not be affected by GW.

As to Bjorn's sources being debunked or whatever, this conclusion that I've mentioned above is clearly sited by common sense. No more citation is required.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ArcherB]

Mankind has increased greenhouse gas 40% over pre industrial levels

Sadly, not true. Not even close.

First of all, the greatest greenhouse gas is naturally produced water vapor. It makes up about 95% of the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Industrialization has not changed this much, certainly not by 40%. More like 0.0001%. From HERE

When greenhouse contributions are listed by source, the relative overwhelming component of the natural greenhouse effect, is readily apparent.

From Table 4a, both natural and man-made greenhouse contributions are illustrated in this chart, in gray and green, respectively. For clarity only the man-made (anthropogenic) contributions are labeled on the chart.

  Water vapor, responsible for 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect, is 99.999% natural (some argue, 100%). Even if we wanted to we can do nothing to change this.

  Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth's greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!

  Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources, the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor).

However, if you are just talking about CO2, then you're still not close. I believe the number you are looking for can be found here:

To finish with the math, by calculating the product of the adjusted CO2 contribution to greenhouse gases (3.618%) and % of CO2 concentration from anthropogenic (man-made) sources (3.225%), we see that only (0.03618 X 0.03225) or 0.117% of the greenhouse effect is due to atmospheric CO2 from human activity. The other greenhouse gases are similarly calculated and are summarized below.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[JasterBobaMereel]

Is climate change happening ... yes - Undoubtedly without question ....proven and case closed

Are we causing it ..... probably

But it does not matter if we are causing it or not...if climate continues to change, and there is nothing in anyone's evidence to say it won't (the rate of change is arguable) then it will affect us (possibly greatly) and we need to do something about it ...

The known causes are
      Distance from the sun - We can't change this
      Output of the sun - We can't change this
      Albedo of the earth - We can only change this to a limited extent ...
      Amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - We can lower this

2008?

[Das Auge]

From the article, "Some makes its way back to the earth's surface. Hence we expect to find more infrared radiation heading downwards. Surface measurements from 1973 to 2008 find an increasing trend of infrared radiation returning to earth (Wang 2009)."

This only goes to 2008. Isn't that when things started to cool down and cause trouble for human-caused global warming? Isn't that one of the reasons why it's now called "climate change"?

Re:2008?

[riverat1]

By GISS data 2009 was tied for the 2nd warmest year on record and baring a major volcanic eruption 2010 is poised to become the warmest year on record due to the El Nino we're in right now and the solar cycle ramping up on top of the global warming carrier signal.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ArcherB]

However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming.

No, not the Bush bullshit all over again. I understand you Americans don't give a fuck about droughts in Africa and floods in Bangladesh but haven't you have enough of hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires, desertification, droughts, etc. etc. etc.? Global warming affects you too, and BIG TIME!

Take your head out of your ass, it's about time.

You mean there were no "hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires, desertification, droughts, etc. etc. etc." before industrialization? Who knew all these things were man made? Would you explain how much of N. America was once covered under 4 KM of ice? Better yet, explain what happened to all that ice since there were no coal fired power plants or SUV's to cause global warming that got rid of it all.

Correct

[Dobeln]

A: Correct. It is about manipulating the IPCC, not the peer review literature itself. I dont really know if that strengthens your case, however. For more extensive discussion, head over to the CRU nemesis himself: http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/17/climategatekeeping-2/

B: But here you go for some cut n paste - how to deep six a "dangerous" paper or journal editor in some easy steps (as far as I know it has not been published so far):

From: Phil Jones

To: rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, "Michael E. Mann" ,tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: Soon & Baliunas
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:49:22 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,jto@u.arizona.edu,drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, keith.alverson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more
to do with it until they
rid themselves of this troublesome editor. A CRU person is on the
editorial board, but papers
get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.

Cheers
Phil

Dear all,
Tim Osborn has just come across this. Best to ignore probably, so
don't let it spoil your
day. I've not looked at it yet. It results from this journal having a
number of editors. The
responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few
papers through by
Michaels and Gray in the past. I've had words with Hans von Storch about
this, but got nowhere.
Another thing to discuss in Nice !

Cheers
Phil

"From: Keith Briffa
To: Edward Cook
Subject: Re: Review- confidential REALLY URGENT
Date: Wed Jun 4 13:42:54 2003
I am really sorry but I have to nag about that review – Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting - to support Dave Stahle’s and really as soon as you can. Please
Keith"

Hi Keith,
Okay, today. Promise! Now something to ask from you. Actually somewhat important too. I
got a paper to review (submitted to the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and
Environmental Sciences), written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims
that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression)
is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc. They use your Tornetrask recon as the main
whipping boy. I have a file that you gave me in 1993 that comes from your 1992 paper.
Below is part of that file. Is this the right one? Also, is it possible to resurrect the
column headings? I would like to play with it in an effort to refute their claims.
If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to
review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It
won't be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically,
but it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies,
without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a
practical sense. So they do lots of monte carlo stuff that shows the superiority of
their method and the deficiencies of our way of doing things, but NEVER actually show
how their method would change the Tornetrask reconstruction from what you produced.
Your assistance here is greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will let Tornetrask sink into
the melting permafrost of northern Sweden (just kidding of course).
Cheers,

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it
wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either
appears
I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Cheers
Phil

And another one:

Thanks a bunch Phil,
Along lines as my other email, would it be (?) for me to forward this to the chair of our commitee confidentially, and for his internal purposes only, to help bolster the case against MM?? let me know
t

Re:Correct

[Eunuchswear]

A: Correct. It is about manipulating the IPCC, not the peer review literature itself.

How could it be about manipulation if the so called fudged graph was never used.

And then you change the subject, showing some peer review in progress.

Don't worry, the papers will be published in Energy & Environment and you'll be happy.

Re:Correct

[Eunuchswear]

Damn, sorry, thought you were replying to my other post.

God I'm tired of this crap.

Re:Correct

[Eunuchswear]

A: Correct. It is about manipulating the IPCC, not the peer review literature itself.

And the conspiricy is so powerful that the "manipulation" (of a report Jones partly wrote) didn't work. The (now discredited) papers were cited in the IPCC report. The so called "manipulation" consisted of trying to keep bad science out of the report!

B: But here you go for some cut n paste

Oh, fuck no, here we go again.

how to deep six a "dangerous" paper or journal editor in some easy steps (as far as I know it has not been published so far):

Yup, peer review in action. Pretty isn't it. If the paper is any good it'll get fixed and submitted again ending up in the trash heap of E&E if noone wants it. After all:

it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a practical sense. So they do lots of monte carlo stuff that shows the superiority of their method and the deficiencies of our way of doing things, but NEVER actually show how their method would change the Tornetrask reconstruction from what you produced.

Re:Correct

[NeutronCowboy]

Final step that's missing in your demonstration: that the paper was actually worth publishing. Otherwise, it's just scientists in a petty squabble.

Ummhave you read the emails

[bonkeydcow]

You may want to read the emails out of East Anglia, you know the primary site for the study of AGW? You know the people who admit there has been no warming for 15 years! If we listen to the AGW extremists we should have all burned up by now. Science and politics have ugly babies!

Re:Ummhave you read the emails

[riverat1]

Phil Jones of East Anglia did not say there has been no warming for 15 years. What he said was the observed warming was just under the level of statistical significance. Statistical significance in this case means 95% confidence that the observed warming could not be due to randomness. So instead maybe their confidence is only 93%. On the other hand when you look at the NASA/GISS dataset the observed warming has been statistically significant, in other words 95% or better. The difference between the two datasets is the GISS covers the polar regions better than the CRU data.

I'm from Canada

[DarthVain]

Global Warming makes a larger portion of my Country livable! (excluding the bit underwater around the coast)

It also would open up vast natural resources in our North to be shared between Russia, Canada, USA, and Denmark respectively.

The only downside is perhaps a flood of refugees, our current method of getting to the north using "ice roads" might have to be made a bit more permanent, and variable weather conditions effecting farming in the Prairies (though this may be countered by more arable land being made available).

So while on the world as a whole, it is a very bad thing, tell me why this is such a bad thing for me specifically? Before you mention unrest in certain parts of the world, I would say that there currently is that already, has been for decades, and I don't see any change in the foreseeable future.

I am saying all of this half in jest mind you, but there is a small kernel of truth there.

Fail

[ridgecritter]

This does not exclude CO2 as a warming cause. At most, it shows that something else (unidentified) can cause warming as well.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ccarson]

Global warming is caused by the Sun. We as a species (human beings) need to thwart this insane solar activity and bring balance to the out of control capitalist system. Ice cubes could be thrown at the Sun to cool it down. The only way to beat free markets is to legislate it into oblivion under the auspices of global warming.

Back in line comrade!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sonnejw0]

Climate Change Argument Summary:
1) Straw man, 2) Defer to expert opinion, 3) ad hominem, 4) ad hominem, 5) red herring, 6) straw man, 7) misinterpretation, 8) ad hominem ... 9) ??? (form political action committee?) ... 10) PROFIT!!!

Simply, there's no data. It's all correlative, and "green" energy (i.e. nuclear) are better for the economy and national security so we should be utilizing them anyway.

Except that none of what you said is true

[chrb]

It's interesting to note that none of what you said is true. In fact, the "No Warming" believers have more in common with creationists:

• Believe that there is a vast scientific conspiracy against them
• Believe that there is a vast political conspiracy against them
• Are led by a small number of disciples (Watts, McIntyre etc.) who proclaim that they know the truth and the rest of the world is wrong
• Refuse to accept any alternative to their position regardless of how rational it is
• Dismiss evidence (ice cores, shortened winters, instrumental temperature data etc.) out of hand if it doesn't fit their view of the world
• Repeat confused and illogical ideas that have been repeatedly debunked ("but it's cold outside", "but they can't predict the weather!", "it's the sun, dummy!", "mars and pluto are warming too!", "there is no warming", "there is warming but we have no idea why", "it's Milankovitch cycles", "the co2 molecule has never been shown to trap heat", "the ice cores data is faked", "they don't account for badly sited temperature measuring stations", "they fix the numbers by accounting for poor temperature measuring stations", etc.)

I have *some* skeptcism...

[Monty Worm]

I have several problems with Climate Change science as it's seen in the popular press and addressed by politicians.

• Carbon dioxide is *not* Carbon. Carbon includes coal, graphite, diamond. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. There are others, methane for example, that some studies think has more effect than CO2
• Carbon-offsets are bullshit. Worried about CO2? Use less, don't try to buy a penance from someone else (who is no doubt making a profit)
• Cutting down on oil dependency is a good idea, even without climate considerations - there simply isn't an unlimited supply.
• By definition, we're still in an ice age (ie permanent year round ice exists). I'm not trying to claim it isn't shrinking, or that we aren't accelerating that shrinkage, but this is a long term process that we shouldn't take all the credit for.
• Habitats are shrinking. Species are going extinct. But to be honest, we don't even know all we have yet. And having watched the local transport people clear and bulldoze areas beside train tracks, I feel that even micro-habitats might help. Looking untidy doesn't mean it doesn't help.
• Evidence exists that at times in the recent (ie 500-1000 years) past that the climate *was* several degrees hotter.

Be totally honest here - slight (5-10 celcius) changes won't result in the end of humanity - civilisation maybe - but humans are more adaptive than that.

The reason I don't speak out on it more as that the idiots are doing at least partially the right things, albeit for the wrong reasons.

Maybe he's a ...

[goose-incarnated]

... Bjørn again christian?

(Thanks, I'll be here all week - don't forget to tip your waitress:-)

Evolution

[chrb]

The problem is that over the past 20 years the understanding has evolved that there is a "correct" result

Like evolution?

By contrast, there are respected scientists in every other field attempting to disprove established theories

Like evolution?

Some people will believe whatever they want to believe. There is no serious scientific movement attempting to discredit evolution. Likewise, there is no serious scientific movement attempting to discredit global warming. However, there are plenty of unscientific movements seeking to discredit both evolution and global warming.

Re:Evolution

[spydum]

Movements do not reflect "science" in it's politicized state.
Movements only reflect popular ideas in the community.

The lack of research in one particular direction is merely an observation without merit.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[blackraven14250]

So the new severity in punishment will be determined by how warm the part of the ocean you get dropped into is?

Lomborg

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps I'm wrong but I've read Lomborg's articles and the never said AGW wasn't true, they said the fearmongering was overblown and money could better be used elsewhere. He is actually an economist first and foremost and admits as much. He became known and hated by the folk that believe in AGW because his arguments gained traction and were hard to refute because they didn't actually attack or even seriously attempt to attack the science but instead look at things from another angle.

Proof vs. Headlines

[Halotron1]

The biggest problem I see is that when the latest news comes out about global warming or climate change, people rarely actually read the full details of any report.
They get what I would call the "Google News" version, just that main headline without clicking into the full article (who does?), and then go about their day feeling like they know what's going on with the world.

When the international panel for climate change came out with their research claims that global warming was real, how many people actually went out and read the report?
Most people just said "See! I knew it was real!" or "That's all BS, they totally faked that"

When the hackers released those emails about global warming information being falsely reported, who actually read the full article about what was falsely reported and what was not?
Most people just said "See! I knew it was all fake!" or "That's all BS, the information is still accurate just a few people screwed up!"

And now that this guy is coming out to debunk Lomborg, very few people will read Lomborg's initial research or even the debunking.
They'll just see the Google News headline and say "See! I knew it was real!" or "That's all BS, that guy is lying about Lomborg!"

I see both sides digging in

[wurp]

I think the whole thing has become so politicized that an honest viewpoint from either side is rare. The global warming believers think it's such a big impact if it's true that they feel they can't honestly present counter-evidence, and the unbelievers think the cost is so high that it can't be paid without incontrovertible evidence.

Unfortunately, climate science doesn't have a great record (the planetary ecosystem and climate are pretty goddam complicated). At the same time, we will never have evidence that the average idiot will understand and accept for anything as complex as a checking account.

Most people, myself included, have no real basis on which to make a decision, so we pick the side with the people we trust.

Personally, I trust scientists much more than businessmen. Good scientists are trained to be brutally honest with themselves, and to use methods that expose rather than hide flaws in their own reasoning.

Businessmen are trained to be confident in their abilities and conclusions regardless of reality.

This means that when businessmen look at the objective opinions of good scientists, with their "given this" and "see chart X for exceptions", they blow them off. Then they spend millions pointing out how the scientists can't even make up their mind.

For me, it's an easy choice. That doesn't mean that I am immune to arguments either way, just that I tend to listen with my own slant, and I recognize it.

I personally wish we would just give respected climate scientists some money and some peace for a couple of years to fight it out among themselves without worrying about the viewpoint of uninformed idiots, but I know it's not going to happen.

Re:I see both sides digging in

[Shotgun]

Personally, I trust scientists much more than businessmen. Good scientists are trained to be brutally honest with themselves, and to use methods that expose rather than hide flaws in their own reasoning.

I've personally known enough scientist and engineers to know that this is pollyanish thinking at best. Scientists will put their names on an idea, and then become entrenched. They will make technically stupid decisions, because those decisions will be more lucrative for them. You qualify your mindset with "good scientist", but good scientist aren't necessarily the ones getting the grants.

Businessmen are trained to be confident in their abilities and conclusions regardless of reality.

Again, a skewed bias in your outlook. Businessmen that disregard reality are not in business for long. Good businessmen are very keen to listen to their engineers, their customers, and any regulatory regimes that they operate within.

The scientist deserve no more trust than the businessmen.

Re:I see both sides digging in

[spells]

Personally, I trust scientists much more than businessmen. Good scientists are trained to be brutally honest with themselves, and to use methods that expose rather than hide flaws in their own reasoning.
Businessmen are trained to be confident in their abilities and conclusions regardless of reality.
This means that when businessmen look at the objective opinions of good scientists, with their "given this" and "see chart X for exceptions", they blow them off. Then they spend millions pointing out how the scientists can't even make up their mind.
For me, it's an easy choice.

Wow. So in your over-generalized world, scientists are smart and good and businessmen are evil and stupid. I'm shocked that you choose to side with the scientists.

Re:I see both sides digging in

[Anonymous Coward]

I go with this rationale:

- We are involved in wars and political manipulations in very volatile regions of the globe over oil rights. Such machinations encourage terrorism, weaken our national security and spend vast sums of taxpayer dollars.
- Along with the point above, our soldiers are dying. I was a US Army Ranger for 6 years, my step brother is serving in Afghanistan right now. There isn't enough oil in the world to repay the loss of life on either side of these conflicts.
- We are shoveling out vast sums of money from a fragile economy to the oil rich states of the Middle East, when we could be spending that money on jobs creating renewable sources of energy right here at home.
- We are about to reach peak oil, if we haven't already.

I couldn't really care less about this war between deniers and proponents. I really couldn't care less who is right. The only people not benefiting from breaking us from our dependency on fossil fuels are the fossil fuel suppliers. Good enough for me. Let's spend the billions it takes to get this monkey off our backs.

Re:I see both sides digging in

[phantomfive]

Then listen to John Christy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081331.stm In my opinion he takes a rational view. He is not a denier or a warmer. He's been studying climate science a long time: he was a lead author to one IPCC report and a contributing author to all the others. Here is the summary of what he says:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase due to the undisputed benefits that carbon-based energy brings to humanity. This increase will have some climate impact through CO2's radiation properties.

However, fundamental knowledge is meagre here, and our own research indicates that alarming changes in the key observations are not occurring.

The best advice regarding scientific knowledge, which certainly applies to climate, came to me from Mr Mallory, my high school physics teacher.

He proposed that we should always begin our scientific pronouncements with this statement: "At our present level of ignorance, we think we know..."

Re:I see both sides digging in

[sysrammer]

"Personally, I trust scientists much more than businessmen."

"I personally wish we would just give respected climate scientists some money ..." ...and then the scientists become businessmen.

sr

Re:I see both sides digging in

[wurp]

Thanks much for the link. It's nice to hear that there is someone out there trying hard to do actual climate science.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[silverbax]

I agree, wish I had upmod points, the only commercial reason to promote the 'do nothing' concept is to protect market share for existing companies. I don't understand why oil companies aren't making a 'land grab' for the green technologies.

Yawn right back at ya

[misanthrope101]

This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science!

Unfortunately, the science has been done, by climatologists. However, they said a bunch of stuff that some of us didn't want to hear, which by definition makes it controversial, so we pretend that the science is still murky. Throwing out Gore's movie or the entire IPCC doesn't change the bare fact that about 97 out of a hundred climatologists will tell you that humans are exacerbating global warming.

Re:Yawn right back at ya

[acoustix]

Unfortunately, the science has been done, by climatologists. However, they said a bunch of stuff that some of us didn't want to hear, which by definition makes it controversial, so we pretend that the science is still murky. Throwing out Gore's movie or the entire IPCC doesn't change the bare fact that about 97 out of a hundred climatologists will tell you that humans are exacerbating global warming.

You're missing the fact that a vast majority of the climatologists used the corrupt data from IPCC. The IPCC wasn't just some small, rogue facility. the IPCC was THE premier center for climate research. Their data was used by practically all climatologists at some point.

Re:Yawn right back at ya

[misanthrope101]

You're missing the point that the IPCC's data was just one of the sources. There have been thousands of studies, papers, etc, and the entire field of AGW does not hinge on the IPCC. All science, and all human activity for that matter, will have bad data points. The ~97% of climatologists who accept AGW did not do so solely because the IPCC said so. The field is huge, with dozens of organizations and universities, thousands of scientists, etc. Aside from that, exactly what percentage of the IPCC's data is suspect? Or are you assuming that we have to ignore everything they ever published or concluded, based on a couple of errors? Is that the plan?

Medical science has been wrong before. No question. Does that mean we reject all medicine, until we have absolute certitude? Science does not offer theological certitude. The finding and correcting of error is PART of science. I'm very accustomed to conservative attempts to use any and all errors in science to discredit evolution, stem cell research, medical marijuana, the HPV vaccine, and AGW. I'm also very familiar with conservative attempts to portray themselves as the defenders of "real" science, independent thought, etc, meaning only that they have implicit trust in anyone in any field who rejects AGW, evolution, the efficacy of sex ed, etc. I will continue to get my info on AGW from climatologists, not from right-wing pundits like Glen Beck or whoever.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how some with mod points label something 'Troll' when they disagree with it. So lame :)

I *did* learn something useful from Lomborg

[Kiliani]

Say what you want about Lomborg's books (and there is lot to say, no doubt), but there is at least one point he makes that is worth thinking about more carefully:

Wether we know or not how global warming really works, to me the bigger issue is that we are rapidly depleting resources and polluting/screwing up our planet - on so many levels that it is not funny. We have been doing so much crap at such a rapid pace that Lomborg is probably right when he says that we simply won't be able to pay our way out of this mess. And that includes all nations, not just the rich and/or polluting ones.

As a result, you have to do two things: reduce doing crap (again, on many levels), and pay for those solutions to reduce/reverse bad developments that make the most impact. And solutions making the most impact may not necessarily be the "feel good" solutions.

Even though this may seem wrong to many, adding some economic common sense to the whole debate (as Lomborg proposes) makes sense to me, if done right.

Frankly, I don't really care whether humankind is capable of changing the climate and generally screwing things up, because on a fundamental level I believe we simply should not. If we think/know that we are, we should get our act together and try the most effective ways of counteracting those developments. It will be hard. But we certainly know how not pollute etc., if we really wanted to.

Beyond that, the religious wars of who is right when and where really just bore me. All it does is giving people a reason not to do something sensible and productive. Such is humankind, I suppose ...

I really don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that there was deception on both sides causes us to have to look at motive. The fact that the AAC crowd used deception for financial gain and to try and dig into the pockets of everyone on the planet is far of a concern for me than someone using deception to say the AAC crowd is wrong.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[randomencounter]

Some religious movements stopped people from fornicating.

They died out...

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[spun]

You aren't helping your cause with your paranoid rantings. Accusing your foes of being communists trying to destroy the free market is so last millennium. Questioning other people's motives makes them question yours as well: are you on the payroll of some big polluter or something? Why else would you be spreading anti government propaganda? It couldn't be that you actually believe what you are saying and trying to do the right thing, nah, you must have ulterior motives just like the 'communists' who want to destroy the free markets by legislating against global warming.

A technical issue

[Corson]

The climate change theory is "unscientific" for the same reasons why claiming that HIV causes AIDS, or the theories of dinosaur extinction are "unscientific": science requires reproducibility of the experiment and none of the above can be reproduced by different teams.

That being said, let's keep in mind that Earth underwent major upheavels in the past, including several ice ages, when there was no human-generated polution. The presumed current climate changes are slow, therefore humans and animals should have enough time to slowly adapt to them; Sahara was a fertile land a few thousand years ago.

Perhaps rather that sweat climate change scientists and politicians should focus on how to deal with the risk of a large meteorite impact, which happened in the past, is very likely to happen again, and could wipe out the human species in a blink.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[scorp1us]

There are several flaws in your argument.

First you say "by 30%". This is often misunderstood. While accurate, it makes it seem that what is being increased in relation to the total. This is not the case as there is no fixed number of molecules in the atmosphere. What you have to realize is CO2 makes up 338 out of every 1,000,000 molecules (today). A 30% increase adds ~100 more molecules for 438 out of 1,000,000 molecules. It still remains a trace element.

Another problem is you assume CO2 is well-mixed, as the IPCC does. The data from the NASA AIRS satellite and subsequent validation by plane measurements, shows it is not well-mixed and that the northern and southern hemispheres have separate carbon cycles. (Due to land mass vs ocean, and land mass distribution)

Another problem is that you assume the forcing is linear, or worse. There is quite a bit of data that suggests it is logarithmic. The observation that CO2 "warms" is done in a closed laboratory environment. (a 1L bottle of 100% CO2)

Another problem is that while you concede temperature rises first, you fail to account for water vapor forcings, which is a much worse GHG, which we can't control. What if we could dehumidify the atmosphere at a fraction of the cost of controlling CO2? Why would that not be a more appropriate avenue?

Bravo, Bravi!

[drainbramage]

Beautifully put.
Extra points if you can extend this to the Rapture.
Be sure to show your work, I know that will be difficult since so much was 'lost' by the AGW'ers.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part is that even on that very page, if you match up the time-lines you can see that the temperature and CO2 graphs don't line up

Ohh? There is no temperature graph on that very page. One more on your list of bogus references, Mr. Lomborg.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[cvd6262]

I'd mod you up, but I already commented.

The original poster fully supports Lomborg''s position. Oddly, none of the mainstream environmentalists (that I've seem - please correct me if I'm wrong) are pushing adaptation.

On another note, Lomborg also compares the cost of fighting global warming to the cost of other efforts. He claims that we could get almost everyone clean drinking water and eradicate malaria for less than cap-and-trade would cost.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[azgard]

And where are we going to get the energy to do that without burning additional CO2 in the process? I have never seen a sequestration or absorption method for CO2 that would be more efficient (together with fossil fuel burning) than to just use clean energy in the first place.

What did 'Scientific American' do about Lomborg?

[drainbramage]

As I recall after The Skeptical Environmentalist was published 'Scientific American' offered $$ for articles debunking Lomborg.
NOTE: Not asking for analysis. Money and publishing only for anti Lomborg articles.
Sort of an abuse to call that process scientific.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sexconker]

They do NOT affect total energy received from the sun over the course of the year which remains constant.

LOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOL

Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. That's because I'm YELLING.

Explanation Needed

[afrazkhan]

Without starting a giant flame war (too late?), could someone please explain the following data from two ice-core samples:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2475.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2453.html

This data is referenced in the following article, which claims global warming cannot be man-made:
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553

I would love for someone to explain either; why the data is wrong, or how it could be misconstrued.

Please please please, no name calling. I'm uninterested in shouting matches, and am only after logical argument.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like fuck it is. I work on the simulations. There is a lot more hand waving than you clearly realize. Did you know that with "accepted" parameters, you can get a snow ball earth from some of these models in 200 years. We just pretend that didn't happen since... well that's clearly unphysical... but our models are still good right?

The confidence in predictions and models is way way oversold. Its going to bite science hard when this hits the fan.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

And you probably never will when pushing for policies that are designed to punish those with the resources to develop such technologies instead of rewarding them for researching solutions.

Look, I know I should give up when I'm behind...but does it really make sense to inhibit those who have the infrastructure in place to tackle such problems in favor of allowing those who are behind to catch up?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[dtjohnson]

Normally, temperature starts to rise due to e.g. distance to the sun decreasing slightly, which leads to increased CO2 which enhances the effect of the warming, causing further CO2 to be released until a new balance is achieved (essentially that the energy absorbed from the sun equals the earths black-body radiation). CO2 increase with temperature because CO2 is less soluble in warm (sea)-water, and a number of other effects (Tundra melting is often mentioned as a big one, though I don't personally know.). Now, into this system we (the humans) release enough CO2 to increase the concentration by what, 30%? What do *you* think will happen?

You have such a simple-minded view of the planetary climate...that is...unfortunately...wrong. Planetary temperatures are not correlated with (in the order you mention them) 1)short-term earth-solar distance, 2)CO2 increases, 3)solar absorbtion-black body radiation 'balance', 4)warming sea water CO2 solubility decrease (also bad chemistry as carbonate chemistry is far more complex than just 'CO2 solubility') or 5) tundra melting.

That CO2 must warm the earth can also be concluded directly by looking at the absorbtion bands of CO2. You could even calculate the approximate effect (though not the feedback loops) from this, the atmospheric and distribution of CO2 and from the distribution of the electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere.

Apparently you have never actually looked at the absorption bands for CO2. There is already more than sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all of the IR radiation that is capable of being absorbed by CO2, within the first few hundred meters of the atmosphere above the surface. Once absorbed, the energy is not trapped but is immediately re-emitted. The wavelength of the reemitted thermal radiation is a probability distribution depending ONLY on temperature that can be predicted with Planck's law and it is NOT concentrated within the narrow CO2 absorption band so almost all of that re-emitted raditation is free to radiate out into space untouched any further by your nemesis CO2.

But of course, you knew all this. What pisses me off about all this that while the above is well-known science and has been for a long time, the economic aspects are far from clear to me.

It's precisely all of that 'well-known science' that is giving you so much difficulty.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so nice of you to *try* to explain it, but the simple fact of the matter is that when it actually comes down to it, even the "experts" don't really know how it works. No one does. I've read their "explanations" on why CO2 must affect global temperatures, even though it follows it. It basically goes like this:

"Well, CO2 doesn't initiate global temperature increases (they have to admit that, because it's obvious) but it still has to affect them."

Why?

"Well, because greenhouse gases make our planet hotter than it would be without them, therefore MORE of them HAS to make it MORE hotter!!"

Oh really? Why?

"Because there's definite correlation between rising temperatures and rising CO2! When the temperature was higher, the CO2 was higher!"

Um... correlation is not causation. How do you actually know the increased CO2 contributed significantly to increased temperatures?

"Well, we don't really know that, but it HAS to!!"

And so it goes.

It HAS to, because it HAS to. Nevermind that none of this is relevant to the ultimate question: does it really MATTER if it gets somewhat hotter, considering that fact that we still have quite a ways to go before we get to the warmest it's ever been, even in human history.

Really, when it comes down to it, there's no such thing as an "expert" on climate science. NO ONE is an expert on the subject. Collectively, we simply don't know enough for anyone to really understand it. Much like there were no medical experts even as recently as two or three hundred years ago. They were using leeches to drain our blood to heal us FFS. They didn't even know germs existed until about 150 years ago.

The only thing we have empirical evidence for (as pertains to current global climate) right now is that it's somewhat warmer than it was a couple hundred years ago. Everything else at this point is conjecture and hypothesis.

And frankly, when you clear aside all the smoke and mirrors, the most logical explanation based on the evidence we do have is that the warming trend is natural, and is entirely a result of increased sun activity.

I'm not against being responsible environmentally. Having more forests is a good thing. Less pollution is a good thing. Less trash is a good thing. More species surviving is a good thing. But there's no real proof that increased CO2 affects any of these goals in a bad way. If anything, increased CO2 will help the regrowing of forests, which I see as being the biggest thing we as humans can do to help repair the damage we've done environmentally at this point.

Proponents vs. scientists

[snowwrestler]

The main modus of debate of AGW proponents from day one has been moralistic, not empirical.

I agree that's true for some AGW proponents, including some people here on Slashdot. I'd say that a good example argument from this point of view is something like "who cares if AGW is real, we shouldn't be polluting the Earth anyway." Not exactly a scientific argument.

But the scientists actually performing research are empirical, and let's face it, the online flamewars often gravitate to discussions of the science rather than the tactics (ironically I'd put this story in the tactics column since it's writer vs. writer).

When it comes around to the science, I agree with the GP--it is exhausting to see the same arguments over and over and over again, like these old tropes: "Maybe these scientists forgot about the sun." "How do we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas?" "The greenhouse effect of CO2 doesn't matter compared to water vapor." "The earth was warmer in the past." "Volcanoes put out way more CO2 than mankind." "Other planets are warming just like Earth." "Mankind's activities are not big enough to change the climate." "It's just a natural cycle." Etc., etc. There are answers to each of these that are very easy to find with open mind and search bar.

"Skeptic" is a term that is self-applied by people who raise questions like these. When the rest of us use that term to group them, we are simply using the label they chose for themselves. Real skepticism though, I would point out, is not endless. Real skepticism is open to proof and adjusts its understanding accordingly. That sort of approach is the hallmark the scientific process, but let's face it, few people look beyond the flamewars anymore, including you apparently. I would encourage you not to confuse the enviros shouting slogans on the corner with Ph.D. scientists publishing in professional journals.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[jc42]

I don't understand why oil companies aren't making a 'land grab' for the green technologies.

The most likely reason is the oft-observed shortsightedness of corporate management. In most companies, managers are judged on their department's profitability over time spans of the current quarter and the past year. In such organizations, planning past the current year entails a serious risk of loss of your position. Until "green" energy technologies become unequivocably profitable in the current year, a manager would be a fool to push for them. As new technologies become profitable, we can expect a flurry of corporate buyouts to take control of them.

There is a history of big corporations missing out on such things, though. A lot has been written about the move of solid-state manufacturing to Asia back in the 1980s and 1990s. Asian leaders talked openly about the gamble they were taking. It was based on the estimate that building a solid-state manufacturing facility cost around 1 billion (in US $), and took about ten years to reach profitability. The Asian leaders argued that American corporations were no longer willing or able to make such investments, so anyone who would do so would end up owning the industry. They were pretty much right. American manufacturers read about this, but were unable to overcome their own unwillingness to invest past the current fiscal year, and the industry migrated to where such investments were possible. Much of the basic electronics research still happens in the US, but the manufacturering is mostly outsourced to companies able to make long-term investments.

The same sort of thing could easily happen with "green" energy technologies. There's lots of research going on in North America and Europe. But it's not obvious that American or European corporations will invest in it seriously until it's far too late.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[budgenator]

Sorry,I read the linked page and I couldn't find where they were addressing the points made by BadAnalogyGuy. How about this if anthropgenic CO2 is responsible for significant global warming, then why after the CO2 levels have still been rising, there has been No Significant Global Warming for 15 years?

Meta-Science..

[WittyName]

Is still science IMO..

Just saying.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Blakey Rat]

Eat Smeat!

http://smeat.net/sightings/waterworld3.jpg

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sac13]

It seemingly cannot be stated enough, because the "skeptics" don't get it: of COURSE temperature leads CO2 levels. What would a sudden, pre-temperature rise of CO2 levels come from?

Ok. Just to play devils advocate, I have a couple of questions.

1. Why all the hysteria about increasing CO2 causing an increase in temperature if the actual relationship is inverse? Sounds too much like doublespeak for people to easily believe.
2. If a temperature increase precedes a CO2 increase, why is it that the coldest period in the last half billion years had CO2 levels 10 times what we have today?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sac13]

Before humans, temperature was driving the change, and CO2 caused the feedback.

Now, CO2 is driving the change (cause we have coal power plants now), and temperature causes the feedback (because warming up the oceans still reduces their capacity to hold CO2)

So the existence humans changed the laws of physics?

The coldest period in the last half billion years had atmospheric CO2 levels 10 times what we have today. Why wasn't the CO2 driving the change then? It certainly wasn't the temperature.

Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.

I understand why they don't, though. It would be like MS opening up the Windows source code. People would feel very ripped off about what they've been paying for.

If you hide your data AND your entire methodology from ANYONE that would seek to replicate and evaluate your results, you're not practicing science. And until that is all publicly available for consumption (which it IS NOT), I can't consider AGW to be science.

When I hear someone talking out of both sides of their mouth explaining exception after exception to their mythical model that has all the answers, I assume I am dealing with a charlatan. Science is ENTIRELY about being a skeptic. The AGW crowd demean skeptics. Thus, the AGW crowd must not be scientists.

No need for trust

[GameboyRMH]

You don't need to "side with who you trust." If that's how you decide "where to stand," your stance on the issue is no better founded than the deniers'.

I'm assuming you already have a basic understanding of climate science and global warming / climate change / whatever you like to call it. Now take it to the next level.

Look at the AGW denier's claims (denier sites and message boards are a good source), and try to look for an answer for each and every one of them (most deniers have never done this, BTW). You'll find that there are many "denier FAQ" pages out there that thoroughly disprove their more common arguments.

You'll soon realize that the deniers' arguments don't go very deep at all, and once you break through this thin crust of willful ignorance you find the real motivations of the AGW denier - someone who just doesn't want to believe it, because they "don't agree with those dirty hippies" or "know those elitist scientists have something up their sleeve" or "think the whole thing is just an attempt to convert the world to socialism."

So now you have a mountain of scientific evidence on the "global warming is real and human activity played a significant role" side, and a handful of disproven arguments, fallen strawmen and conspiracy theories on the "it's a scam I tells ya! Look at $invalid_claim, this exposes the whole thing!" side.

Climate science is complicated, but AGW deniers aren't.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[jc42]

You mean there were no "hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires, desertification, droughts, etc. etc. etc." before industrialization? Who knew all these things were man made?

Actually, there's pretty good evidence that some of those things in the ancient world were in good part due to human activity. Probably not the hurricanes, snowstorms or tornadoes. But humans are known to have been involved in at least some of the others.

The case of wildfires is obvious. In several parts of the world, prairie-like ecosystems covered around twice their natural area, and a major factor in all of them was the fires started by humans. This was generally done intentionally, to limit the growth of trees, because a prairie system puts more energy into growing greenery and supports a much higher animal population than most forests. But it only works in dry areas; you can't convert a rain forest to a prairie with fires. And yes, a controlled burn isn't a "wildfire". But controlled fires did frequently get out of control and burn more than was intended, and lightning did start some of those fires. The archaeological evidence supporting all this has only been understood for a few decades, but it is in the literature.

The situation with desertification is also fairly well documented. Thus, historians say they have evidence that the problem of under-irrigation leading to salinification was well understood in the "Fertile Crescent" at least 3000 years ago. But the people chose short-term profit in the form of maximum crops this year, knowing full well what it would do to the land that their grandchildren would inherit. You can see the results in any news videos of the Iraq countryside.

This is much more widespread than just Mesopotamia+Levant. There was a series of experiments back in the 1970s, in which areas across the southwest-Asian arid zone (Syria to Pakistan) in chunks of 2-5 square km were surrounded by goat-proof fences to keep out grazers, and left fallow. In all of them, a year later they were covered with grasses and other forbs. Conclusion: The "desert" in this area is unnatural, and is a consequence of overgrazing. There aren't very many wild grazing critters in this area now; the grazers are almost all domesticated animals. If they could be removed for a year or two, the area would revert to grassland. The land would then support a much larger grazer population than is there now, as long as the grazing were limited so that the bare ground isn't exposed. But humans won't do this; they'll always maximize their grazing animals, until the grasses are killed, and then move on, complaining about how they're mistreated by their gods (or corporations or governments or whatever).

There's evidence that this applies to deserts in other areas, in the form of similar land control development. If you google for "bocage" plus other desert-related keywords, you can find some information about it. (Warning: As you might guess from the term, it's mostly in French. ;-) This term refers to a plot of land surrounded by a goat-proof fence and usually some dikes to catch storm runoff. They have been built in various parts of the "Sahel". By limiting grazers and catching water, people have converted their chunks of dry land to greenery. Of course these are widely considered "pilot studies", and aren't taking seriously by the political system or the people who believe that climate is too big to be effected by humans. Some of the aerial photos of these plots of land are impressive. And this can't much be done in areas where fighting is going on.

This story was covered in a lot of "discussion" sections of various scientific journals back in the 1970s and 80s. The consensus was that the political system probably couldn't be made aware of the implications, and the documented spreading of the Sahara would continue due to overpopulation and overgrazing. But the information has been around, available to people who are interested and apolitical enough to look for it (

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[budgenator]

Are you sure they aren't? What your calling Oil companies, think of themselves as Energy Companies, if they can supply our energy needs with economically viable renewables and save the petrolium crude for high profit boutique chemicals they'd do it in a heart beat.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[azgard]

So what should we finance? Show me any technology that burns carbon and sequesters CO2 (i.e. is carbon neutral) and taken together manages to at least theoretically to come on par with EROI of solar or wind. *Then* we can talk.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[coolsnowmen]

I really didn't like the answers people gave, so here is mine from a lecture I gave to a 5th grade science class-
-=-
Bacteria are from he Monera kingdom and have no nucleus, DNA is in a ring, and no organelles (specialized internal structures) Most have a cell wall and move with flagella
-=-
Fungae live by absorbing energy around them (none make their own [detritovores]), while associated with plants they are more evolutionarily related to animals.
-Made up of a different material than plants (chitin, not cellulose) reproduce by spores
-Common Examples are: yeast, mushrooms

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[WinPimp2K]

So, you would "double down" on consensus science?
I am in agreement with you in general principle, but I expect that your "scientists" will still be comprised of mostly people. People have a distressing tendency to alter their interpetation of reality when money/power/celebrity is shoveled on them. I expect that far too many scientists have been corrupted (to either side) to ever achieve your 90% target.

But, I offer an alternative methodology to your blind trust in scientists:

Let one or more scientists develop a theory to explain the overall planetary climate:
1> This theory must not only predict what the climate is going to do, but must explain how it deals with the all the data used in reaching their conclusion. This includes any data that might suggest different outcomes.
2> The theory must be able to predict how a proposed change in the environment will affect their outcome.(ie reduce human GHG output by 10%, hold it steady, or triple it).
3> all data involved must be made available - anything excluded must be noted as such and why.
4> the theory must be capable of accounting for past climate changes as well. (able to "predict" the Medieval Warming Period for example)
5> The limits to the theory must be explained as well (interaction with other GHGs limit the maximum effect of CO2 on temperatures at "X" concentration)
6> The theory must be written in language that can be followed by a reader of the National Enquirer - or at least a reasonably educated fifth grader with an IQ of 100. (skipping past the actual equations, but there must be a clear and detailed prose explanation of what the equations show)That means that our non-scienttist reader will still be able to ask informed questions if they have developed the ability to engage in rational thought.
   

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Under the scientific method, proof requires that all alternative possibilities be disproven. In other words, if there are two possibilities that can not be disproven then you have no proof that one is correct.

SCIENTIFICALLY we have only proven that the temperature is rising. Our MOST LIKELY cause is CO2 emissions by humans. As responsible people we should act on the best information we have to correct what we believe to be the case.

HOWEVER that does not mean it is proven. There are several possibilities that can not be disproven, among them is the possibility that we are experiencing a natural high temperature cycle that is un-affected by man. Because there exists these other possibilities that can not be disproven, this particular theory is not scientifically proven.

Often it is necessary to act before all the data is collected and analyzed. You have to work with what you have at the time. Right now the most sensible course is to change the way we have been using energy and the environment to preserve options for future generations. This would still be the most sensible case regardless of the issue of global warming.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

That CO2 must warm the earth can also be concluded directly by looking at the absorbtion bands of CO2.

So have you looked? Ever? CO2 does not absorb or reflect any significant portion of what the Earth radiates. If you look at a diagram of all of the energy radiated into space, and overlay it with the amount blocked by so-called greenhouse gasses, you would see one teeny-tiny little line of CO2, surrounded by loads and loads of H2O. Methane doesn't even show up.

Here's something else to consider. Take a look at the data presented when this demented theory was first presented back in the last century. If the effects of CO2 were anywhere near what you claim it is, we would all be dead by now.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

What if we could dehumidify the atmosphere at a fraction of the cost of controlling CO2? Why would that not be a more appropriate avenue?

One problem with that approach is that it does nothing to address the problem of ocean acidification which could end up being a bigger problem than actual global warming in the long run.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[phantomfive]

Nuclear energy isn't really better for national security since we get most of our coal from the US. Electric cars, definitely better for national security, because it moves us away from oil (which I believe is why Bush finally supported AGW, it's so convenient), but nuclear doesn't really make a difference.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

I thought you guys didn't trust anything that came out of Phil Jones mouth. Now all of a sudden when one of his statements can be misinterpreted to support your views he's right all of a sudden?

For the record what he said is that the observed warming of the past 15 years is just under the level of statistical significance which means a 95% confidence level. He also said that shorter periods (15 year) are less likely to reach the level of statistical significance than longer periods.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

RF diverges for C1 = 0 or C2 = 0. Are we missing higher order terms and how important are they?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Taevin]

Except you're not talking about a cure.

How to do we stop cold symptoms from inconveniencing us?

Suppress the cough, stop the runny nose? ...

The CO2 is caused by burning fossil fuels, just like the cold symptoms are caused by a rhinovirus. What you call "penalizing" is an attempt at a cure (i.e. kill the rhinovirus/fossil fuel burning industry). What you're suggesting is treating the symptoms.

You didn't get it right in your car analogy, either. Motor vehicle collisions are (mostly) a symptom of a poorly designed transportation system. Better public transportation, stricter licensing procedures, and better driver education (as off-putting as all of those are to Americans) would all be attempts at a cure for the underlying problem. Stuffing a car with air bags is treating the symptom.

Of course, there's always money to be made in treating symptoms so I can't say I'm surprised (though the bigger issue in my mind is fear of change).

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

Adaption will be forced on us whether we like it or not by the effects of global warming that are already in the pipeline. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do all we can to stop making the problem worse.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[cvd6262]

If it costs $10^12 to *attempt* to prevent it and $10^8 to adapt, plus we can bring about a bunch of good with the rest of the funds, it's a no-brainer to me. Admittedly, I pulled those numbers out of mid-air, but it's just an illustration of the options we should consider.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.

I doubt you would be able to really understand it but their methodologies are available in the peer reviewed literature they have published and more data and code than you could probably analyze in your life is available from the many links on this page.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Taevin]

He was most likely referring to CO2, which you pretended to address but then ignored.

Each year since global measurements of CO2 began, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased. Scientific measurements of levels of CO2 contained in cylinders of ice, called ice cores, indicate that the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was 278 ppm. That level did not vary more than 7 ppm during the 800 years between 1000 and 1800 A.D. Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from about 315 ppm in 1958 to 378 ppm at the end of 2004, which means human activities have increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm or 36 percent.

--http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2412.htm

Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth's greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!

Yeah! It's a small number so it has to be of small significance! My maths learnin' proves it!

The average swimming pool holds 20,000 gallons of water. A full human bladder only holds 500 mL of urine, or 0.132 gallons. That means me peeing in a pool will only result in a urine concentration of 0.00066%! That's so low that it must be a-oh-kay!

blah

[evil9000]

I cant believe /. will publish any article that seems critical of a Climate change skeptic yet wont publish similar articles that are critical of Climate Change Alarmists.

Talk about selective publication and being unbiased.

Thanks /. for being on the side of cooking the science, subverting the law and fraud!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

The last IPCC report was in 3 sections. The Working Group 1 section examined the science of global warming, IOW why it is happening. The WG2 section examined the effects we may see expressed as a result of global warming and the WG3 section examined what we can do about it. So far the errors found have been in the WG2 section which by their nature are somewhat speculative because we have no past history to know everything that might happen. If you want to debunk global warming you need to find some major errors in the WG1 section of the IPCC report.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[mhelander]

Thank you for your interesting post. I have often wondered what the explanation for CO2 lagging temperatures was.

However, am I mistaken in thinking that in this case, we couldn't say that the CO2 / temp graphs actually _demonstrate_ the hypothesis that CO2 significantly enhances warming, only that such a hypothesis is consistent with the graph? In other words, _could_ the graph also be consistent with the hypothesis that CO2 did _not_ significantly enhance warming (for example in the case that no discernible signal telling us one way or the other could be found in the data)? Please note that I am asking this, not asserting anything.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching ice melt on Google earth is not research.

...
I guess you're not really well informed, but a lot of research is incredibly tedious. Trek out to some remote location, take measurements, record measurements, move to other remote location, etc. Do this every day/week, for weeks, months, or even years. All that before you can even begin looking at the data to see if it means anything.

Saying CO2 in atmosphere contributes to green house effect warming earth is not research.

......

And all the "research" companies funded by governments have yet to reveal their research and prove it.

.........
Seriously, stop watching Fox News/listening to conservative radio. It's really bad for your brain.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[scorp1us]

Ocean acidification is not a threat. Its been exaggerated by global warming alarmists.

The facts are our oceans have been far more acidic in the past, and we still have corals and shellfish. In fact, these are some of the oldest multi-cellular organisms on the planet, and they have survived.

The recent cold-snap in FL has shown that just a few weeks ago a few days of extreme cold (~59deg F) was enough to kill off millions of corals.

Meanwhile, shellfish are doing fine in higher CO2
lets not forget that the oceans have a pH of 8.1 (alkaline). It needs to be at 7.0 to be neutral, and less than that to be acidic.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[The Spoonman]

The coldest period in the last half billion years had atmospheric CO2 levels 10 times what we have today. Why wasn't the CO2 driving the change then? It certainly wasn't the temperature.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm

Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.

Possibly, but I doubt it. There's a wealth of information available to you now (the above article alone cites 5 different studies), yet you continue to focus on "motive" as a reason to disbelieve the science. As was evidenced by the ClimateGate scandal, when the general public is given free access to data, they misinterpret it. In all of the information that was released to the public, not once is there a single e-mail or reference that says "our AWG conspiracy is on track...muwahahah!" Instead, you have statisticians talking about "tricks" as "proof" of AGW fraud. My wife showed me a "trick" this weekend for making better pancakes, the result was still pancakes.

that would seek to replicate and evaluate your results, you're not practicing science.

But, as stated, that's not what happens. What happens is you get deniers nitpicking over irrelevant details (the Himalayan glaciers thing of the last few weeks springs immediately to mind). They don't attempt to replicate the experiments or studies, they simply denigrate them without any empirical evidence to back it up. It turns into...well, the situation we have today...

When I hear someone talking out of both sides of their mouth explaining exception after exception to their mythical model that has all the answers, I assume I am dealing with a charlatan.

Who is explaining exceptions? What I see is false claims being raised and then disproven with actual evidence.

Science is ENTIRELY about being a skeptic. The AGW crowd demean skeptics. Thus, the AGW crowd must not be scientists.

Not true, we demean deniers, completely different. Simply playing John Cleese' role in the Argument Sketch does not make one a skeptic. Simply denying everything as true does not make one a skeptic.

How you choose to view my comment will determine in which camp you reside. If you choose, for example, to peruse the site I've linked to a couple of times and review the cited studies to construct one view of the argument and then find contradictory studies to construct the other side and then build a reasonable stance from that...you're a skeptic. If, however, you choose to continue to worry about things like "hiding methodologies" and "who called whom what"...you're a denier. It really is that simple. The only evidence that counts to a skeptic is evidence. Ad hominems tu quoque (Ad hominem tu quoques? Hmmm...) are not.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, we demean deniers, completely different.

Of course, everyone who disagrees with AGW now is a "denier". It doesn't matter what their viewpoint is, it doesn't matter exactly what part of the AGW mishmash they disagree with, only that they disagree. Take Lombort for example here. He's not a climate scientist, nor does he claim to be. He doesn't deny global warming. Hell, he doesn't even deny anthropogenic global warming. All he's in disagreement about is the potential severity of it, and what the best course of action is to deal with it. And yet, that's enough to generate all sorts of hate from people frothing at the mouth.

So let me fix your post for you:

Not true, we demean unbelievers, completely different.

Whether it uses good science or not is completely irrelevant when debating any part of it with a zealot like yourself, because disagreement with any part of it amounts to heresy. You believe in it as blindly as ever a fanatic, zealot, or cultist held to his religion.

Go ahead, deny it. Do you really want to be a denier?

THERE IS NO MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

THERE IS NO MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING!!!

There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming, There is no man made global warming,

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what a stupid analogy. Did you even think about it before you posted?

If you want to make a swimming pool analogy, the analogy is that you're dumping about 500mL more water in the pool, and claiming the extra weight is going to cause it to crack the pool, or some such crap.

No one's denying that dumping toxic gases in the atmosphere is a bad thing. CO2 in the atmosphere is not a toxin.

supercilious bastards

[epine]

Lomborg paints himself a persecuted DaVinci, a lone voice of scientific genius against the harsh dogma of the establishment. Basically Friel has published a detailed book review debunking that picture, the journal of nature also reviews books and like Friel they do not claim them to be anything more than researched opinion.

Lomborg was persecuted, by Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty.

From FAQ - Bjørn Lomborg (emphasis mine):

[The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation] found the DCSD verdict "dissatisfactory", "deserving [of] criticism" and "emotional." Most importantly, the Ministry found "that the DCSD has not documented where [Lomborg] has allegedly been biased in his choice of data and in his argumentation, and that the [DCSD] ruling is completely void of argumentation."

To buy off the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty, he'd need to be de Medici (which makes more sense for an economist to begin with), not DaVinci. Where did you come up with that? Instead of opening up an artery of purple prose, you might with more creativity have cited him for posing as Robert Hooke, a man who looked at the same phenomena as every other scientist, but actually saw what he was seeing. It would still exaggerate Lomborg's conceit, but at least it would edify and amuse.

If Lomborg's fraud was so blatant and egregious, how could DCSD have managed to so badly bungle their cause? Is DCSD a lighthouse of incompetence among an otherwise irreproachable system of peer review? Personally, I neither find Lomborg singular, nor the incompetence of his detractors singular. Where there's mass funding at stake, I find the peer review system no less vulnerable to bubbles of human ambition than the banking system.

As for being the "lone voice", you might wish to confer with The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty concerning his isolation as a pariah. A man willing to go as much against the grain as he has is going to have either a thicker skin or more ego blubber than your average man. Newton chose to alienate Leibniz rather than embracing and engaging in dialog with perhaps the only man alive who could fully appreciate Newton's achievements. What evidence do you have that Lomborg would rather be the sole beacon of his cause rather than embrace his natural allies? Is his solitude selective, or generously bequeathed?

Lomborg does not claim to do science. He's an economist exposing leaps of faith from scientific mechanism to speculation about the probable future effects, to even wilder speculation about costs and outcomes in mitigating those effects. Most scientists are excellent at step one, identifying the scientific mechanism. Few scientists have any training at all in steps two or three. I agree with Lomborg that the discipline of economics has a stronger and better substantiated tradition in assessing cost-benefit of radical intervention. Scientists wade into the dismal science with no apparent concern for all the corpses buried there. To my eye, they look like fools.

What gives scientists the amazing hubris to cross this boundary of fact to speculation unmarked? The peer review process keeps them honest about the mechanism. Most of their contact with step three (cost benefit of mitigation) is a paragraph tacked on to their funding applications about the amazing benefits to humanity that will accrue if their research project is approved. These vapid claims are not subject to peer review. They are instead subject to fiscal reward, an extremely poor substitute for claiming moral high ground in the debate.

I find the obeisance to peer review in popular culture fascinating. Like hazing in the military, it's such an obnoxious process, you have to grow to love it, or lose your sanity. Like military culture, it seems to achieve its stated purpose, and has for hundreds of years.

I love this comment from Lesli

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow looks like this chain has been hit with the I Disagree = Troll/Flaimbait, etc moderators

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to make a swimming pool analogy, the analogy is that you're dumping about 500mL more water in the pool, and claiming the extra weight is going to cause it to crack the pool, or some such crap.
No one's denying that dumping toxic gases in the atmosphere is a bad thing. CO2 in the atmosphere is not a toxin.

A better analogy would be, you were previously dumping about 500mL into the pool per year, but now you're dumping in 500mL per minute.

It's not the amount of anthropogenic CO2 added to date that's the problem; it's the ever-increasing rate.

biddy charisma

[epine]

As much as I hate posting twice on the same thread, I couldn't resist adding this to a thread concerning the persecution of lone voices. This old gal tops the charts in biddy charisma.

Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes

If nothing else, it opens the window for some clear thinking about the surprisingly thin line between peer review and culthood.

Makes me wonder if the prevailing savannah hypothesis was stitched together in much the same way as the original anomalocaris.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ralphbecket]

I wonder why this post was modded down?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[budgenator]

One day is all we need to erase years of data.

Any data that was erased was done accidentally or thinking there was a non-existent backup, and it happened over a considerable length of time. More of it was corrupted by computer programs that were written by post-grads that sort of knew how to program that were riddled with logic errors and hard-coded results. Right now if anybody really wants to know what's going it would be easier to start over from scratch than it would be to fix the mess they have now. Dr.Spencer at the University of Alabama is basicaly doing that now using the Aqua satellite AMSU window channels and “dirty-window” channels and comparing that data to NOAA-merged International Surface Hourly (ISH) dataset.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[BadAnalogyGuy]

So like artificial trees to replace the windows faster than they break?

This thread makes me very happy.

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

[sysrammer]

Yeah, fun stuff, but what does this have to do with the subject? I did a search of warm, cool, & global and found nothing pertinent.

Is the point simply that if Feynman was alive, he'd tell a few stories to put thing into perspective and everyone would then go about their business?

sr

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

Ocean acidification means that the oceans are getting less base, not that they actually will have a pH less than 7. If the pH of the ocean ever gets even close to 7 we're toast.

The ocean food chain is highly dependent on phytoplankton and zooplankton. If acidification even causes a 5% drop in production it will send shockwaves through the food chain.

It's an area where we don't have a lot of information about what will happen but to just blithely say is won't be a problem is not justified either.

Effects are obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one inescapable conclusion regarding this debate:

The continued increase in atmospheric CO2 generates more heat than light in politics.

The figures clearly show that even a linear increase in debatogenic gas will exponentially increase the number of assholes shouting at each other!

The quesion is correlation vs. causation, are these assholes heating up the debate with hot air + factual methane or vice versa?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Lunzo]

Sort of correct. Coca Cola isn't getting their CO2 from cars or power plants - the two biggest sources of pollution.

http://www.letsgettogether.co.uk/DetailQuestionAnswer/QuestionID=7495

Death of the Scientific Process

[iterativeDesign]

Seems to be nothing more than a bickering citation debate over AGW.

The real tragedy is painful and distorted abuse the scientific process has taken with all this AGW 'science' floating around from self proclaimed and cohort sponsoring experts. I'm almost sick calling it a science, even calling it semi-science, quasi-science or even postulate sickens my stomach. The process generically is as follows:

"A linearized, pragmatic scheme of the four points above is sometimes offered as a guideline for proceeding:[35]

1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

The iterative cycle inherent in this step-by-step methodology goes from point 3 to 6 back to 3 again." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_process

The key it is an iterative process and will weed out incorrect hypothesis. Now granted the scale of the "experiment" renders a significant challenge to objectively interpret results, this debate we are having for pro-AGW and anti-AGW is a portion of that interpreting of data, what results we come to, is to be determined.


Personal Opinions and Examples:
I am an engineer and a fervent believer in a strict, regimented analysis to arrive at conclusive solutions. I also have yet to mention, that I'm a HVAC&R (Heating, Ventilation, Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration) engineer, I see the business side of the climate debate and what policies are 'actually' doing to our business, economy, and as a citizen, our society. I having attempted first-hand to apply some of the government sponsored mathematics to validate credits for green building certification, and can say that on a macro scale their units don't match. I and anyone who has a LEED v3.0 code book has proof in their hands (check the units for EAc4 aka Enhanced Refrigerant Credit 4). Short of the creators of this book throwing in couple unspecified coefficients ("global warming potential" or "ozone depletion potential"), they cannot make their units match up. It is near laughable for anyone who has taken calculus II or above, even to look at how the equations are written; as if by a two year old who doesn't know what subscripts are. In short, I have yet to see proof that AGW exists and see only a global scandal fueled by misinterpretation of data and the scientific process.

The AGW process:
1) Create an mandated industry
2) Regulate and control the industry
3) Own the industry
4) Gain further control of associated industries (construction, manufacturing, transportation...etc.)

IngSoc here we come.

dirty laundry

[epine]

This is now my second self-response, having since slogged through a fairly close reading of Lomborg's 27 page rebuttal to The Deception and 30 page rebuttal to Scientific American from late 2001, as well as snippets of rebuttal rebuttal.

From Holden's Response to Lomborg's Response to My Critique of His Energy Chapter:

It must be added that the space allotted for reviews is always limited, as it was in this instance in Scientific American, making it impossible to mention, never mind to explain, every mistake that has been noticed. It should also be understood that, even if space were not limited, few reviewers would consider it their responsibility to explain every error that a deeply flawed work contains, once they have explained enough of them to establish beyond doubt that the author is not competent in the subjects he is addressing.

Did he did state "my objective is to brush aside an irritating gnat" in eminencese, or do my ears deceive me?

And this (emphasis mine):

This means resources of tar sands and oil shale that would be economically exploitable only at prices around $30 per barrel are in fact more expensive than oil has been for nearly all of the last century. They could be considered "reserves" material that is exploitable with current technology at current prices only in circumstances under which the price of conventional oil had risen to well above what has been usual for the past century, which was exactly my point.

Talk about missing the forest for seeing the trees. Holdren seems to completely miss the point that Lomborg is attacking the litany of the apocalypse, the unfounded extrapolations of doom that surround whatever ecological facts gain sway in the moment. Lomborg must lie awake at night sweating over his misguided use of $30/barrel to represent a viable future price of oil. The first chart I pulled up suggests that light sweet crude hasn't seen the underside of $30 since 2004 and might never see it again.

Minus one point to Lomborg for poor scholarship, plus one hundred points to Lomborg for having chosen a credible lower bound on the near-term future price despite the century of contrary pricing which so infatuates Holdren to no useful purpose.

Of the four SA critics, it was Holdren whose initial statement I found most persuasive:

What environmentalists mainly say on this topic is not that we are running out of energy but that we are running out of environment--that is, running out of the capacity of air, water, soil and biota to absorb, without intolerable consequences for human well-being, the effects of energy extraction, transport, transformation and use.

Lomborg understands this, but makes light of the risk by putting too much faith in price trends. There's a lot of political incentive to keep the price of oil within relatively narrow bounds. One of the degrees of freedom to accomplish this is shifting the burden onto the environment, for example, the Bush administration lifting the drilling ban in Alaska. At some point the domino game of shifting the burden is doomed to fail, and then the price might suddenly spike upwards, like an uncontrolled housing bubble.

There was much reference to the IPCC in Lomborg's rebuttal. His critics were engaging in much finger wagging, while putting forth little additional data. How could they? They are eminent and political. The precise wording of IPCC reports is wrangled for years. They don't want to stick their necks out why gnat swatting. Makes me wonder if the end result of IPCC politics is on par with the report on the Challenger explosion that might have resulted without Feynman involved.

I would dearly love to see an incisive mind, such as Feynman's, write a review of Lomborg's tracts. Do you think Feynman would have carped over $30/barrel as an estimated futu

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Thank you for your interesting post. I have often wondered what the explanation for CO2 lagging temperatures was.

However, am I mistaken in thinking that in this case, we couldn't say that the CO2 / temp graphs actually _demonstrate_ the hypothesis that CO2 significantly enhances warming, only that such a hypothesis is consistent with the graph? In other words, _could_ the graph also be consistent with the hypothesis that CO2 did _not_ significantly enhance warming (for example in the case that no discernible signal telling us one way or the other could be found in the data)? Please note that I am asking this, not asserting anything.

Please note that my first language is not English, so some nuance might be lost. Going by wikipedia, demonstration is an experiment meant to teach, rather than to prove. So going by that, the graph does "demonstrate" that the theory of CO2 enhancing warming is correct. However, if you meant "demonstrating" as in proving, it is not proof, the correlation might be just be incidental. It is, as you say, just consistent with the theory (or hypothesis, as you say, I have never been fond of that division of terms).

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

You have such a simple-minded view of the planetary climate...that is...unfortunately...wrong. Planetary temperatures are not correlated with (in the order you mention them) 1)short-term earth-solar distance, 2)CO2 increases, 3)solar absorbtion-black body radiation 'balance', 4)warming sea water CO2 solubility decrease (also bad chemistry as carbonate chemistry is far more complex than just 'CO2 solubility') or 5) tundra melting.

It is a simplified explanation, suitable for slashdot. I note you do not offer an alternative mechanism that explains the curves mentioned. Normally, I'd gladly enter into a real scientific debate, but the slashdot comment system is really not suited for this.

That CO2 must warm the earth can also be concluded directly by looking at the absorbtion bands of CO2. You could even calculate the approximate effect (though not the feedback loops) from this, the atmospheric and distribution of CO2 and from the distribution of the electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere.

Apparently you have never actually looked at the absorption bands for CO2. There is already more than sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all of the IR radiation that is capable of being absorbed by CO2, within the first few hundred meters of the atmosphere above the surface. Once absorbed, the energy is not trapped but is immediately re-emitted. The wavelength of the reemitted thermal radiation is a probability distribution depending ONLY on temperature that can be predicted with Planck's law and it is NOT concentrated within the narrow CO2 absorption band so almost all of that re-emitted raditation is free to radiate out into space untouched any further by your nemesis CO2.

Really? I think you must re-study your physics. CO2 does indeed reemit the infrared radiation, and the energy is (mostly) not related to temperature, but rather to the energy levels of the molecular frequncy in the CO_O bond (especially the frequency where the gap between the two oxygen atoms increase/decreases --- I think this is called "scissoring", but don't quote me on that). The frequency emitted is the frequency absorbed, more or less; I think you have blackbody light emitted confused with light emission cause by decay (Not sure about this word, "henfald" is the correct Danish word). Now, yes, actually, the temperature matters a bit, since the perceived emitted light is red-shifted (or blue-shifted) according to the entire molecule's speed. The direction is completely random, as I recall. It's been a while since I studied Raman spectroscopy, but I believe I have all the major points correct.

Not that you do not reveal yourself as a parrot-sceptic with words like "Nemesis". Frankly, I do not believe I, or my country, will be significantly affected by GW before 2100, so I will not really cry if nothing is done about it. However, this does not change the science.

As a thought experiment, consider how the world would really look if all IR radiation were blocked at a distance of 100 meters or so. For crying out loud, there is a spectacle in my country because a city is doing IR filming from the air to track down houses with bad insulation. Wouldn't that be a bit hard if all (loosely speaking, since it is a exponential decay sort of thing) the IR radiation was trapped in 100m?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

There are several flaws in your argument.

First you say "by 30%". This is often misunderstood. While accurate, it makes it seem that what is being increased in relation to the total. This is not the case as there is no fixed number of molecules in the atmosphere. What you have to realize is CO2 makes up 338 out of every 1,000,000 molecules (today). A 30% increase adds ~100 more molecules for 438 out of 1,000,000 molecules. It still remains a trace element.

Noone would understand a 30% increase as anything but what you say there. At least, noone able to attend whatever basic schooling is available in any civilized country. If a company states that its revenue is increased by 30%, do you really think people would go "oh, now they have 30% of the worlds revenue"?

Another problem is you assume CO2 is well-mixed, as the IPCC does. The data from the NASA AIRS satellite and subsequent validation by plane measurements, shows it is not well-mixed and that the northern and southern hemispheres have separate carbon cycles. (Due to land mass vs ocean, and land mass distribution)

I have never heard anyone assumes this, except as a simplification. I am no expert, but I would be very surprised if it moved anything qualitative. It might change a few decimals here and there, that's all.

Another problem is that you assume the forcing is linear, or worse.

Huh? Where the heck did I write that?

There is quite a bit of data that suggests it is logarithmic. The observation that CO2 "warms" is done in a closed laboratory environment. (a 1L bottle of 100% CO2)

I feel like crying now. The absorbtion mechanism, it's exponential law is well understood and is part of basic science teaching all over the world. The absortion follows Beer-Lambert's law and is propertional to the concentration of the absorbant in the mixture.

Another problem is that while you concede temperature rises first, you fail to account for water vapor forcings, which is a much worse GHG, which we can't control. What if we could dehumidify the atmosphere at a fraction of the cost of controlling CO2? Why would that not be a more appropriate avenue?

Did I say it was not? Did I in any way suggest we do something about the CO2 emissions at all? In *general*, I would be wary of terraforming on the only planet we live on. Also, considering the wast amount of oceans that we enjoy, I doubt dehumidifying would be simpler than building windmills and nuclear power plants, IF we want to go that route. Personally, I would want to focus on replacing oil and gas, since those two are predominately from countries I do not wish to be forced to deal with on their terms, but I only have one vote in one small country.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[GameboyRMH]

In other news, three days ago I started running a fire hose on full blast into the artificial lake behind my house. Overall the water level has risen considerably, but over the last 1.5 minutes the water level has not increased significantly. Clearly the scientific models concerning the compressibility of water are seriously flawed.

This is a what a denier looks like

[GameboyRMH]

Difference between a denier and a skeptic, exhibit A: Here you see a denier who hasn't done even a few seconds of Googling to try to answer his own question. A skeptic would have done this, since skeptics are generally interested in finding the truth and not looking like total idiots, while deniers are generally interested in burying their heads in the sand (or up their ass, if you prefer).

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[GameboyRMH]

Here's some source code for you:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/

If you have any trouble finding methodologies or raw data (right now it seems like you're using the "I DON'T SEE IT LINKED FROM THIS NEWS ARTICLE SO IT MUST BE A DARK SECRET" research method), try contacting the researchers - they'll probably be happy to send it to you.

Cracking this whole global conspiracy wide open could be just a few phone calls and emails away! You could be the one to do it, you'd get your name in the history books, your likeness in statues honoring your groundbreaking work! So what are you waiting for? Get going!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ebvwfbw]

That CO2 must warm the earth can also be concluded directly by looking at the absorbtion bands of CO2. You could even calculate the approximate effect (though not the feedback loops) from this, the atmospheric and distribution of CO2 and from the distribution of the electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere.

You seem to know what you are talking about. Can you point to a demonstration that shows CO2 increases temperature? Simple experiment will do.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[mhelander]

English is not my first language either, thank you for taking the time to figure out what I meant, because you indeed answer exactly what I was wondering about. (I meant "demonstrate" as "proof"). Big thanks!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

You seem to know what you are talking about. Can you point to a demonstration that shows CO2 increases temperature? Simple experiment will do.

I think there is a slight misunderstanding here. CO2 doesn't warm as such, it is more like a blanket that traps heat, keeping the earth from loosing heat. The heat itself comes from the sun (mostly) and a bit from radioactive decay in the earth itself. I suppose there is a tiny contribution from cosmic rays.

As for an experiment, try this (alternative link: here. Sorry for the snarky links :o)

Even Lomborg doesn't believe Lomborg anymore

[baxissimo]

Interestingly, Lomborg recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times where he spouts many views about what we need to do to fix the CO2 problem, seemingly forgetting entirely that he used to claim that it wasn't a problem that needed to be solved. Seems even Lomborg is skeptical of his own former skeptical self these days.

Re:What did 'Scientific American' do about Lomborg

[baxissimo]

As far as I know, Scientific American is not a peer-reviewed publication. It is a non-fiction entertainment magazine aimed at a well-educated, scientifically literate audience. What their editors want to do is up to them. But I suspect some of the editors felt that Lomborg's research was fishy, and so they were interested in finding some well researched and documented rebuttals to Lomborg's claims.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[dtjohnson]

I think you must re-study your physics. CO2 does indeed reemit the infrared radiation, and the energy is (mostly) not related to temperature, but rather to the energy levels of the molecular frequncy in the CO_O bond (especially the frequency where the gap between the two oxygen atoms increase/decreases --- I think this is called "scissoring", but don't quote me on that). The frequency emitted is the frequency absorbed, more or less;

The reemitted electromagnetic radiation is distributed over a wide distribution of wavelengths that are a function of the temperature of the emitting body. This is a fundamental relationship of Physics that we call "Planck's Law." The very narrow wavelength(s) at which the CO2 molecule absorbs energy IS determined by the nature of its C-O bonds which vibrate in several different modes including the 'scissoring' you allude to as well as torsional, axial, and cross-equatorial. Once it has absorbed energy, the CO2 molecule temperature increases whereupon it comes to instant temperature equivalence with its neighboring molecules (mostly O2 and N2). All of the molecules together radiate black body radiation over a wavelength distribution based on their temperature. The frequency of the reemitted radiation is most definitely NOT the frequency absorbed or words such as 'optical pyrometry' would have no meaning and Max Planck would have labored all of those years in vain.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sac13]

I doubt you would be able to really understand it but their methodologies are available in the peer reviewed literature they have published and more data and code than you could probably analyze in your life is available from the many links on this page.

Which is all the more reason to not be jumping to conclusions... And a good indicator of how little anyONE, especially the hysterics on BOTH sides lurking around slashdot, actually understands what the "true facts" (I use that term because we're discussing a political issue here) are.

It doesn't really matter anyway. Assume that the worst case AGW scenarios are true. What the hell are we going to do? The nations of the world are in a prisoners dilemma that will only result in no action being taken no matter how dire any purports the consequences to be because the short term costs are not politically worth the long term gains from making any change.

So, it doesn't really matter what the "true facts" are, anyway. Until Washington DC and all the other world political capitals are completely submerged under water, there's not going to be any progress on any real issue... much less one that clearly has two politically strong sides.

So, if it makes you feel better to worry about all of the changing, knock yourself out. I just try to be adaptable myself. Climate has always changed regardless of cause. And the rate of change has been much greater in the past than it has recently. If there's anything to learn from the dinosaurs, it's that you better be ready to adapt or die.

You can only control so much.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EsbenMoseHansen]

There is no such thing as instant in physics. For the temperature equivalance to occur, the CO2 has to collide with it's surrounding molecules, probably several times. Well before that happens, the excited state might decay remitted the (almost exact) same wavelength, where the almost is a function of the speed of the CO2 due to redshift. You know, it seems to be a fundamental property that anything that can absorb a photon can emit a photon at the same wavelength. This is all in correspondance with Planck's law, which is about black body radiation.

Lomborg's reply..

[jcr]

I found it here.

I do not find Friel convincing.

-jcr

Re:Lomborg's reply..

[pudge]

Yeah, Lomborg does a very good job of smacking Friel around.

I don't have the time or desire to figure out both sides, so I'll remain, as per usual, undecided.

Some people think, "if I can't figure it out, I'll just believe the group of people I like better or otherwise agree with more." I do not understand such thinking. What's so hard or wrong with just saying "I don't know"?

In the end it's a game of trust anyway.

[Hurricane78]

Because, of course every “debunking” can be bullshit itself. In an endless succession of calling each other wrong, and relying on “facts”.

In the end you have two choices:
1. Find all the arguments, connect them by all their connections, and thereby find the base paradigms made. Then find if the base paradigms are correct by working back until you get to quantum physics and the big bang (or the closest point in time where nothing could have influenced it anymore). And if they hold, you can find any flaws in the logic of the arguments/connections.
2. Somewhere on that way, give up. Since you would have to devote your whole life to it.

Unfortunately, most people go a third, invalid (but useful) way:
3. They just listen until they give up, and then just look if it fits their very own inner model of the world. Regardless if it has anything to do with physical reality. (Most of the time, it doesn’t, even for very important points. Since we’re not perfect.) And then they call it bullshit if it doesn’t fit, or accept it into their model and from then on defend it as a “fact”, if it fits. (Note how this has nothing to do with actual physical facts.)

Luckily, in this case, it’s quite easy. Since it’s not that hard, to check if those gases we pump into the atmosphere reflect heat when coming from earth (but not when coming from the sun). And if they do that, the heat is trapped. Hence we have a greenhouse effect. Which obviously results in global warming. (Relative to a state without those gases.)

So what we need, is a simple experiment that everyone can do at home, to prove that those gases reflect sunlight when coming from earth (but not when coming from the sun).
Does anyone have something like this? That would be really cool!

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sac13]

Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.

Possibly, but I doubt it. There's a wealth of information available to you now (the above article alone cites 5 different studies), yet you continue to focus on "motive" as a reason to disbelieve the science. As was evidenced by the ClimateGate scandal, when the general public is given free access to data, they misinterpret it. In all of the information that was released to the public, not once is there a single e-mail or reference that says "our AWG conspiracy is on track...muwahahah!" Instead, you have statisticians talking about "tricks" as "proof" of AGW fraud. My wife showed me a "trick" this weekend for making better pancakes, the result was still pancakes.

I think that what "Climategate" shows us is that if you have a position on either side of this issue that holds there's no possibility that the other side MIGHT be right and thus completely unacceptable to investigate the possibilities, you're an idiot. Do the "deniers" monkey with their data? I have no doubt. Do the "warmers" monkey with their data? We have "peer reviewed" evidence of that.

We're not discussing science. We're discussing politics. This is a holy war. I'm just a conscientious objector.

that would seek to replicate and evaluate your results, you're not practicing science.

But, as stated, that's not what happens. What happens is you get deniers nitpicking over irrelevant details (the Himalayan glaciers thing of the last few weeks springs immediately to mind). They don't attempt to replicate the experiments or studies, they simply denigrate them without any empirical evidence to back it up. It turns into...well, the situation we have today...

Do you think hiding data and methodologies so that people can't look at it has less of a negative impact to your cause than being transparent and dealing with legitimate criticisms in the open?

If there's anything we should learn from human history, it's to not trust people when they are hiding things from us... and certainly not when they're doing it in "our best interest." Keeping it hidden makes people inherently suspicious. It's much better to give them something they can't understand than to give them the boogeyman their imagination will create to fight against.

When I hear someone talking out of both sides of their mouth explaining exception after exception to their mythical model that has all the answers, I assume I am dealing with a charlatan.

Who is explaining exceptions? What I see is false claims being raised and then disproven with actual evidence.

Who's evidence? There's so much made up shit all over the Internet, I wonder if anyone here really knows. Everyone has their position and the data to back it up. I hear about it every time this subject comes up. There's dogma all over the place on this issue.

Science is ENTIRELY about being a skeptic. The AGW crowd demean skeptics. Thus, the AGW crowd must not be scientists.

Not true, we demean deniers, completely different. Simply playing John Cleese' role in the Argument Sketch does not make one a skeptic. Simply denying everything as true does not make one a skeptic.

The only thing I'm denying is myself the duty of joining either cult. I want to be right. But, I don't have to be the source of that answer.

How you choose to view my comment will determine in which camp you reside. If you choose, for example, to peruse the site I've linked to a couple of times and review the cited studies to construct one view of the argument and then find contradictory studies to construct the oth

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

No, the rate of change has not been greater in the past, except maybe during the occasional catastrophic event such as a large asteroid hitting the Earth. We are seeing changes in 200 years now that normally took 2000-10000 years in the past, at least the past several million years. That places a severe strain on the biosphere.

The science of climate change is not a political issue. The physical world is the way it is (including the various human caused changes) and all we can do is try to understand it. What we are going to do about it is a political issue but if those political discussions are not based on reality they are unlikely to come up with a viable answer to the problem. In the past the world was able to come together to combat the threat of ozone depletion by banning CFC's. No reason it can't happen in this case either.

BTW, did you know that China is spending more on renewable energy and green technologies than the USA. Delaying our response the the issue puts the USA at a competitive disadvantage.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

1. The actual relationship in not inverse, it is complex and CO2 can be both a feedback and a forcing. I guess it's just to complicated for simple minds.

2. Please provide a reference for this. But some factors may include that fact that the Sun was cooler in the past than it is now and the arrangements of the continents was different as well.

The so-called "Lomborg Deception

[thesquire]

The climate change fanatics are jumping with glee over revelations that Lomborg may have either been deceptive or over-stated his case, however, this takes nothing away from the revelations of fraud and deceit revealed by the Climategate email disclosures, the false claims of Himalyan glacier meltdowns and other non-scientific and purely political chicaneries of the fanatics, revealing their house of cards and the lack of scientific reliability of their claims. It is time for a sober and non-partisan examination of the warming and climate questions and the taking of appropriate action not based on hysteria and chicanery and not leading to economic bankruptcy and major economic disruptions and dislocations that would flow from the false cures offered by the hysterics and fanatics. Wake up, all.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Xabraxas]

Are you sure they aren't? What your calling Oil companies, think of themselves as Energy Companies, if they can supply our energy needs with economically viable renewables and save the petrolium crude for high profit boutique chemicals they'd do it in a heart beat.

Bull. Oil companies are heavily invested in oil. It takes a lot of infrastructure and equipment to extract, transport, and refine oil. They are not just going to throw all that away, and at the same time spend even more money on new technology. Also the last time I looked almost all vehicles on the road today are still using refined oil as a primary fuel and no company is just going to pass up that revenue stream.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Xabraxas]

I'm pretty sure you missed my point which was that some people here in the US are using one day of snow in DC to try to disprove climate change. Of course anyone with a brain knows that local weather != global climate.

Lomborg was ruled incompetent, not dishonest

[textureglitch]

Friel's book may or may not be a valid critique of Bjørn Lomborg's work, but that doesn't change the fact that when it came out, Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" was investigated by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty and found to be scientifically dishonest, but that Lomborg was not guilty of gross negligence because of his lack of expertise in the field.

In other words, he was deemed incompetent, not dishonest.

However, in his subsequent work over the years, I think it's safe to say he's not only dishonest, but forcefully dishonest with his repeated, controversial stances against climate science and his willfull misinterpretations.
Lomborg has a Ph.D. in political science. He has no training in climatology, meteorology, biology, physical sciences, or anything that would allow him to actually understand the science of the issues he's publically talking about.

What Lomborg is doing is "meta-science" where he's selectively collecting other people's research without understanding any of it, and massaging it to fit his agenda. This sort of research aggregation is the most error-prone of all and quickly deteriorates into pure statistics based on numbers of which you have no understanding. The results are absolutely meaningless because you're no longer finding the statistic significance of facts, you're finding the statistic significance of research papers.

The investigative committee cited of "the skeptical environmentalist":
      1. Fabrication of data;
      2. Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
      3. Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
      4. Distorted interpretation of conclusions;
      5. Plagiarism;
      6. Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.

The original biologist who submitted a complaint to the committee still maintains a website listing all the errors of Lomborg's work.

Bjørn Lomborg is no better than all the other nutcases on anti-climate blogs claiming they've found discrepancies in the scientific literature, when in fact the issue is that reading a lot of these scientific climatology papers requires at least a graduate-level understanding of statistics, biology, oceanography, etc, etc.

You wouldn't expect a meaningful result if you had a bunch of old ladies from the local knitting club review the specifications for the latest CERN particle accelerators. I don't know why people think climate science is any different.