Slashdot Mirror
Doubling of CO2 Not So Tragic After All?
carvalhao writes "The Register reports on a study from NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that claims that new climate models that account for the effects of increased CO2 levels on plant growth result on a 1.64 C increase for a doubling of CO2 concentrations, a far less gloomy scenario than previously considered."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification stop calling the huge change taking place "global warming" that make it sounds like nice cozy sauna. The effects are much more complicated.
Hopefully reports like this are taken as good news not fuel for the skeptics and deniers.
Doublethink detected!
So the deniers are always wrong? Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?
Skepticism, I'd argue, is inherently good. Being environmentally conscientious should be a result of good science to be meaningful, not of being on the populist "team green". The moment we take a critical eye off our own views is the moment that our causes lose meaning.
/* MAGIC THEATRE
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
MADMEN ONLY */
Yah! Finally! Some is asking the right question. Here are the wrong questions:
1) Is the climate warming or cooling?
2) Are humans responsible?
Here are the right questions:
3) What's going to happen that's so bad we have to "do something about" now?
4) When is that going to happen?
Maybe you need to answer the first two questions to answer the last two but if no-one is asking the last two then we're likely to run off half-cocked and implement political policy that does more harm than good. (see, for example, cap and trade).
How we know is more important than what we know.
Err... you mean the models the conspiracy theorists like to believe exist, which would link solar activity to global warming? The ones that would've predicted a decline in the warming trend over the last solar minimum. A decline that, well, didn't happen?
*Those* models?
Without ideology we wouldn't have the scientific method.
I find it strange that people think the scientific method is based on a philosophy or ideology. What scientists do is no different from what us common folk do when we debug a program or try to fix a mechanical system: you notice something funny (program gives wrong result, car won't start, water rising in basement) so you or the called-in expert speculates on the cause and then proceed on the basis of that speculation. If the facts don't bear it out, you pause, scratch your head and come up with a new speculation. Repeat as needed.
AFAICT even the most uneducated of us operate the same way in whatever we do. I suspect it's instinct, or at least such a basic result of the exercise of intelligence that no intelligent species could avoid operating that way.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I've got a better idea. If an economy of trillions of dollars is threatened by something which has not been proven, then those doing the threatening should bear the burden of proof.
(Or, as a famous environmentalist once said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.")
You can't keep guessing at a thousand different outcomes and then claim success when one of those guesses comes true.
I guess my question for you is, why is it so important to you that the factions be in lockstep and monolithic thinkers? The science is not settled, and I don't think ANYBODY would argue that we have an even remotely complete understanding of environment/climate. Not all the "deniers" as you choose to call them believe the same thing. This is pretty standard for any academic field...and what's wrong with that? Furthermore, of your propositions, are any of them mutually exclusive?
For instance, nobody at all argues that human industry has not emitted CO2 over the last 200 years... but how much compared to natural sources? Some people argue that point. Is that mutually exclusive with CO2 not impacting temperature as a causal factor? Are either of those in opposition to CO2 levels responding to global temperature changes? Obviously if those are your arguments, they're not inconsistent with each other.
I read "skeptic" blogs and "established science" blogs on climate change, and frankly I don't know enough to judge much of any of the science, math, or methodology on the merits. I do see a lot of behavior that makes me skeptical about members on both sides. Climate Audit I think has jumped the shark, but the blog's purpose--to get scientists to open up their data, code, and methodology seems perfectly reasonable, and objections (or, the way SOME scientists have responded) to those things do make me question motivations, etc.
Not only that, but there is absolutely no evidence for the involvement of CO2 in 'it.'
Wrong. There is plenty of evidence, you just disregard it and consider it invalid.
correlation does not imply causation, it implies connection.
Right. Only we have a lot more than correlation.
Let's look at four steps for demonstrating causality:
1. Temporal ordering? Check. CO2 increase came before temperatures started exceeding their normal variance.
2. Correlation? Check. Temperatures continued to increase, as predicted, with minor variation and regression towards the mean, but that mean continually increased with corresponding CO2 (actually, GHG) increases.
3. Causal Mechanism? Check. Radiative forcing is firmly established, as is the physics and other interactions that back this theory up. We have a lot of very solid work in this area, and our observations match our predictions. If anything, our predictions are overly conservative because our assumptions are so conservative.
4. Eliminate Confounding Variables? Check. We've eliminated every other theory/hypothesis to explain temperature rise. We know the current temperature rises are abnormal and differ from previous changes. We know it's not due to solar variation or (heresy) a decrease in pirates. There may be another confounding variable out there, but nobody has found it or made a serious scientific case in its favor.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Did you read the article? It said exactly that increased levels of CO2 will be mitigated by increased growth of green plant life, and that the current models are too aggressive in their estimations of negative effects. And this report was not from the oil industry, but from NASA and NOAA, both of whom have been vocal supporters of existing global warming models. Why did you immediately dismiss this new report in favor of scientists who lived one hundred years ago?
Why is it that when someone questions evidence of human caused global warming, he's labeled a "denier" (a term which was intentionally chosen to evoke images of Holocost Denial, by the way) but when someone questions evidence that it's not as bad as previously though, he's not just doing the right thing?
The bottom line is that we don't really know what's going on. Ignoring evidence that doesn't support your claims is just bad science.
The climate change thing is sold as a whole package, a "You believe all of this or you are a DENIER!" kind of thing. However it is really a series of arguments, and at each level someone might have questions. Even some of the basics there can be some questions about. I mean the most basic is "The Earth is getting warmer, outside of any currently known cycles and over a longer period of time." Ok, pretty strong evidence here, but still there is things to look in to. The temperature recording stations have not been controlled and monitored the way we might hope, the record is not as accurate as we would like. Probably nothing that affects any results but in good science you don't write shit off just because it might be inconvenient. That doesn't mean "Look we found a potential inaccuracy, throw it all out!" but it also doesn't mean that questions shouldn't be looked in to.
A bigger things to question would be all the dire predictions, that a couple degrees in temperature rise leads to massive problems, massive loss of life and so on. This really doesn't have any good evidence and is pretty close to fear mongering. Yes I'm aware there are computer models, appreciate that means nothing. You can make a computer model to say whatever you want, a model is only good if it accurately models things, if it has proven predictive power. There is a lot to question in the "Warming means our DOOM," part of the argument.
An even bigger question would be that in the case that is correct, that cutting emissions is the thing to do. The reason is best as we can tell the Earth has been much warmer, and colder, in the past than it is now. So real good chance that happens again, to think that we are in some magic time of stability where all variation has stopped would be extremely silly. Thus sooner or later, no matter what we do, the temperature will almost certainly shift multiple degrees. If that is truly going to be deadly to us, then the concentration needs to not be on what is causing this change, but how to survive such a change. It does no good to make drastic cuts to emissions and stop this change (presuming that it would indeed stop this change) only to then get hit with a change that humans DIDN'T cause and thus can't stop.
You can very well accept many of the fundamental ideas (like that the Earth is getting warmer) and yet still question the conclusions and policy propositions. This idea that it is part and parcel, that you have to accept EVERYTHING, all the premises, all the conclusions and all the policy without question or your are a DENIER is false. It also leads one to question what the hell is going on. A student of human behaviour immediately recognizes that tactic: That of a con man. That is how people peddling fake crap, religions, and other things that don't stand up to scrutiny do it. They present their show and shout down anyone who questions it at all. They attack people who question because they know their argument does not stand up to questioning. Only blind acceptance of the entire package is acceptable, anything else draws hostility.
As such one may wonder why this is done with regards to climate change. It makes some of us nervous.
The science has been overcome by the politics. Let's take anthropogenic global warming as fact. What next? Obviously the offending anthropogenic behavior must be controlled. This leads to an increase in wealth and power for a select few; the natural evolution of institutions.
At this point I don't care about the science. The politics must be stopped.
When big government and big science collude, we all get screwed.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
I've got a better idea. If an economy of trillions of dollars is threatened by something which has not been proven, then those doing the threatening should bear the burden of proof.
(Or, as a famous environmentalist once said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.")
By the same token, it's not proven that an economy of trillions is threatened by reducing CO2 emissions. The notion that the economy is "threatened" by climate change or by attempting to cut emissions is a vague form of economic model. Economic models of what might happen if we try to reduce emissions have less rigor than climate models. It can be argued with just as much or perhaps more justification that developing energy efficiency and reducing emissions would have a positive effect on the economy.
There's a few problems with your statement:
1) "Climate change" isn't a slogan, it's the name of the problem. A slogan would be "More cars, less land".
2) While the climate does change naturally, it changes naturally on a much slower time scale than we are currently experiencing. That's why scientists usually talk about Anthropogenic Climate Change.
3) There are political movements spawned to fix many different problems, and all of them provide "solutions" for the expected ills of the problem. It wouldn't be a political movement if it didn't propose solutions to the problem. This is expected.
4) Skepticism is good, and thus many people like to think or pretend that they're skeptics. It's usually pretty easy to spot the people who only claim to be skeptics because they do not critically examine their own evidence only the evidence of others.
5) At some point debate has to end, there is literally no benefit to having to argue every day over whether 2+2=4 and whether gravity will continue working tomorrow.
6) Ham-handed political solutions always spawn unknown and unintended consequences. The benefits of taking action have to weighed against the risks.
Most of the world would rather be talking about the benefits and drawbacks of different solutions to the problems posed by climate change, however, as long as the so-called debate over whether the problem actually exists it's difficult to have a rational discussion about what to do about the problem. Upton Sinclair wrote in one of his books: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!", and the debate over climate change has certainly demonstrated the profoundity of that statement. At some point, the debate has to end, regardless of how many people would rather that it continue until after they have retired and their salaries are no longer dependent on the problem not being addressed. There will always be a question of how much evidence is enough.
That's something you might need to ask yourself. What would actually convince you that climate change represents a danger to the lives of millions, possibly billions of people?
Fanatically anti-fanatical