Slashdot Mirror
New Batch of Leaked Climate Emails
New submitter kenboldt writes "Someone going by the alias 'foia' has dropped a link to a zip file containing thousands more emails similar to those released in 2009. There are apparently many more which are locked behind a password, presumably waiting to be released at some time in the future."
The University of East Anglia has released a brief statement indicating that the emails were probably obtained during the 2009 breach and held back until now as "a carefully-timed attempt to reignite controversy."
...just try to stir up some controversy to re-awaken the crazies.
The previous leaked e-mails had two results:
Sham news reporting like Fox News cherry-picked out-of-context blurbs that made it sound like the scientists couldn't agree on anything.
Real news reporting actually read all the conversations and saw the conclusion was that the scientists were unanimous in agreeing that climate change is real.
That they'd do a second leak proves that the leakers are morons who think this offensive sound-bites Fox reports will have some kind of impact, whereas the actual content of the e-mail will reaffirm what everybody already knows. Climate change is real and these upcoming leaked emails won't change anything.
Also I love that Fox sympathizers have to commit a crime (hacking into an institution) just to get ammo which they mistakenly think will bolster their "cause". If they had the brains to actually read the emails themselves, they'd see it hurts them.
If they are so infuriated about the timing they could publish the emails themselves in less sensible times, thus evading some of the shitstorm and gaining back a bit of reliability.
Right, because last time around, it turned out that there was a big conspiracy and lots of people got fired and no one believes in global warming any more.
oh, wait, that's exactly what didn't happen.
FOIA = Freedom Of Information Act
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Are we forgetting that the Koch brothers funded a separate study that pretty much confirmed the results? Crazies will be crazies, but I don't expect reasonable persons to be swayed by this.
Following some bullet-pointed quotes such as "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day" and, "Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels," the message states:
"Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline. This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets. The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning to publicly release the passphrase. We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics."
Listen, I'm all for the publication of the data and methods these scientists are using. But what exactly is releasing internal e-mails supposed to accomplish? Acting all righteous about "hiding the decline" and then you turn around and censor what you release?! That's pretty funny to me. Who do you think climate change is going to hurt the most anyway? My fat American ass shoving honey coated whole wheat pretzels into my gaping maw while surfing the internet? Or the truly poor people? You know that subsistence farmer in Africa or China where a drought, famine or conflict could wipe him out at the drop of a hat? When times get tough, I'll have to give up my XBox Live Gold Account ... what the hell is someone living on less than $2 a day going to do?
It'll probably turn out like the UN anyway where the US pays $362 million and China pays $29 million so that's some pretty flimsy motivation there when the wealthiest nations will most likely be footing the bill.
My work here is dung.
Climate scientists are providing context to the leaked emails here: http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=9931
Americans' Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
And every time there is evidence that it is just a political con game
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/
As the hockey stick was, as the emails demonstrating knowledge of the fraud that was ongoing did you just get the greens closing ranks and hoping if they keep a united front up, the ludites hatred of all things tech, and the political class's willingness to profit from crisis will carry their position forward.
That's a nice article you linked there. Richard Muller? Maybe you bothered to follow up with what he actually found? The rest of Slashdot did and I think you might be interested in it.
My work here is dung.
The only people that think that the last batch of emails demonstrated any kind of fraud are people who have no fucking clue what the fuck the emails actually said.
But don't let little things like facts and observable reality get in the way of your diatribe of made up facts and fabrications.
The laws of probability forbid it!
No, it's just more confirmation that these guys don't know why things are but are far more concerned that the number deliver the right message.
Mister Limbaugh, could you please restate that in English?
The issue is that a set of emails can not counter all the other evidence and research. If I falsify tests on gravity and write some emails about it, does this mean that gravity is not a universal constant? The mentality of people who pounce on these emails as proof that "global warming" isn't real are the same ones that used snow storms as proof. They totally miss the overall picture.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This event helps highlight the difficulty in approaching any non-trivial problem in an unbiased way. The problem is less about the science than it is that the researches were clearly biased and pursuing specific results. The fact that others have claimed to reproduce the results does not lend credibility as long as they fail to acknowledge their bias and operate in a fully transparent way.
Whether you agree or disagree with the question of human affected climate change you really can't deny the fact that these folks are heavily biased toward a specific outcome for their research.
KK4SFV
Unreal how some think "deniers" believe that climate change doesn't exist. The earth's climate has been constantly evolving over billions of years.
Problem is we've been able to accurately measure the minuscule changes in climate for about 50 of 14 billion years. Second problem is we have absolutely no idea what climate changes the earth can sustain and which ones the earth cannot sustain.
Still no definite answers here. Some of this junk research "confirming" that climate change exists adds confusion to those not smart enough to understand this.
I read through all of the highlighted quotes, 90-95% of it is more of the same stuff, climate denialists trying to find hanging material in the lines of innocent men. But there are a few quotes that were worth leaking, particularly under the "religion" and "the cause" sections. It's worrying that so many climate scientists have a professed personal interest in the outcome of their experiments turning out to support the theory of global warming. If any outcome should make them happier, they should be happier to prove themselves wrong, both because that's where the really interesting results (and Nobel prizes) come from, and in this case it would be good news for the human race which is mostly still hemming and hawing over whether to take this carbon emissions thing seriously.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
What we get is every 10 years a new set of predictions and models explaining why the last 20 years models and predictions weren't correct but we are still doomed anyway
In the words of Issac Asimov
The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
I stole this Sig
Could've been worse. Could've been Climategate II: Electric Boogaloo.
Bad Astronomer: Climategate 2: More ado about nothing. Again.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Look moron, there's no grant money for disproving gravity yet there's plenty enough for the other way around. And you gravity believers try to equate us to nazi sympathizers by calling us gravity deniers. We're gravity skeptics, and we're just waiting for conclusive proof to make a decision. Most gravitymongering hype is bullshit and it's all just being pushed by media profiting off fear and politicians profiting off pro-gravity legislation. So until we hear from neutral sources unanimously coming to a consensus, we will rationally remain in doubt.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
No, they aren't, and no, they haven't.
And no, I'm not wasting my time with this because like most intelligent adults I already understand that having doubts is what people who are right do. Having doubts is scientifically valid. It's how science gets done, not religion.
Having no doubts and exuding false confidence is what people who are wrong do all the time.
In other words, shove those fucking emails up your ass. They do not mean what you desperately wish they mean. Global warming is a done discussion. Governments and corporations are already moving to adapt -- except for a few parasites like the Koch brothers (who are funding much of the anti-science "research" that you are lapping up so eagerly), who simply need to be pried off our nation's neck and burned like the blood-ticks that they are.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Stop muddling this argument with verifiable facts. Global Warming activists hate it when you show them facts.
My fat American ass shoving honey coated whole wheat pretzels into my gaping maw while surfing the internet?
This imagery reminds me of the humor style of the guy who does The Oatmeal.
*oh my god, a girl is trying to talk to me on Slashdot, quick, reply with something that will impress her!*
I also snort.
I just snorted milk out my nose!
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
There is no "other side" to the climate debate. There is a widely accepted set of facts, and there are professional doubters employed by the industries who stand to lose money if they are required to behave with even a smidgeon of responsibility towards the communities they are polluting and damaging with their pollutants.
There is no fucking "other side" to this debate. Climate change IS NOW HAPPENING. There is no longer any reason to dispute this subject because the signs are obvious. I grew up in Colorado in the 1970's and 1980's. When I go back there now, it is totally fucking unambiguous to me that on a global scale the temperature is rising. Look up from your feet at some previously snow-capped mountains -- it's not that damn hard.
Large-scale glaciers calving off into icebergs. The polar sea is now navigable for greater and greater periods of the year. If anything the prognostications of climate scientists have been overwhelmingly vindicated well ahead of schedule.
If you think there is another "side" to this, I would like you to produce the science that they are doing. Scientific papers, evidence -- ANY DAMN THING that contradicts the current accepted model.
I submit you will find exactly DICK in that regard. Except for the fictional natterings of Bjorn Lomborg (not a climate scientist in any way shape or form) you are not going to find much.
But if you do, bring it, mofo. Bring it the fuck on.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made. You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
There's no need to falsify info proving global warming if it would be easier to produce evidence DISproving it. Certainly not for financial reasons.
-B-
http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/frozen_planet_freezes_out_clim.php?page=all
They are acting like its because of everyday scheduling concerns, but notice that ALL of the networks which chose to remove an episode singled out THAT particular one. BBC refuses to name the other countries that won't be seeing the AGW episode, but we know that Discovery Channel (e.g. the USA) won't be broadcasting it... surely it would upset advertisers (e.g. US Chamber of Commerce, who have become active denialists) to show that episode.
This and the emails are part of an effort to keep AGW from becoming a major election issue at a time when it is tangibly starting to hurt Americans.
Look moron, there's no grant money for disproving gravity yet there's plenty enough for the other way around. And you gravity believers try to equate us to nazi sympathizers by calling us gravity deniers. We're gravity skeptics, and we're just waiting for conclusive proof to make a decision. Most gravitymongering hype is bullshit and it's all just being pushed by media profiting off fear and politicians profiting off pro-gravity legislation. So until we hear from neutral sources unanimously coming to a consensus, we will rationally remain in doubt.
Wait, now I'm confused - you are still using 'gravity' as a replacement for 'climate change', right?
Given that there are morons that don't believe in relativity it's not impossible that a thread about climate change has attracted actual gravity deniers.
It's easy: we need to know if our megacorporations are responsible or not. If not, they shouldn't be forced to pay for it, everyone else will. If they are, they need to know so they can declare bankruptcy and turn the planet into a superfund site so they won't pay for it, everyone else will.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
And you just proved his point.
Your source proving the fraud accusation?
Last I checked, Mann had been cleared by not one, not two, at least t-h-r-e-e different boards of inquiry.
Except the oil companies are making a fortune out of 'Global Warming' by increasing their prices and governments are making more from 'Green Taxes'?
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made.
Where?
You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
Oil companies grew to love 'Global Warmnig' when they realised it makes oil more attractive than coal.
After all, that's why Margaret Thatcher pushed it in the first place; it was another stick to beat the coal mining unions with.
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001317verification_of_1990.html
Those are the IPCC predictions from 1990 out to now. Gee for some reason we are well under the temperature they predicted.
Or Hansen's 1988 model
here
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/hansen20.gif
Oops
This is what your climate skeptic had to say
I don't understand, that's not my climate skeptic, you linked to an article from 2004 written by Richard Muller. I merely provided you the results of his research, I didn't even indicate whether or not I sided with him!
So lets just ignore the part that the greens were pushing about the climate skeptic who had a come to god moment.
What the fuck are you talking about? You brought Richard Muller into this conversation -- are you "the greens"? Furthermore, you used an article he wrote seven years ago to summarily discredit everything apparently even somehow validating "the emails demonstrating knowledge of the fraud that was ongoing." What the hell, man?
Lets look at what one his team members had to say about his come to god paper.
"But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped. Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html#ixzz1eTMUgUpc"
When you identify me as a "green" that you "can't talk to" I don't know why I continue to help you but here's another article you might find informative that follows your Daily Mail article by a matter of hours. It's a little more valuable because instead of it being some news organization (WSJ, Daily Mail, whoever) hell bent on making a story and cherry picking comments to make them sound the most inflammatory, it's actually Judith Curry actually telling you how she actually feels. She has reservations and that's good but she opens with:
I had a 90 minute meeting with Richard Muller this evening. I have to say that there isn’t much that we disagree on.
My work here is dung.
I'm sorry, but #1, you had about 20 years to educate yourself on this issue. #2, there are plenty of rational discussions around this that are polite, fact-based and available online. IPCC reports are one. The NOAA studies are another. Those are just two samples out of a good dozen. There's a huge host of information available if you want to learn.
If you are still complaining that you don't understand the topic at at least a basic level, it's because you haven't been trying. And quite frankly, I'm tired of lazy people complaining that they don't know what's going on, and then voting based on sound bites they heard on CBS. You don't know what's going on? STFU and look it up.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I'm tired of the distraction, the ridiculous ploys on all sides to muddle and obfuscate.
To the people doing research, I say stop "believing in" what you do or attaching any "moral justifications or superiority" to your work. The instant you shift your perspective from objective investigator to champion of justice, you lose any ability to have a clear and objective conversation about what's actually happening. Now, more than ever, detached, clear, investigation is essential. No matter how bad the truth is, you'll only make it worse by trying to scare people or force outcomes. Be transparent, publish everything (including the stuff that doesn't fit you expectation) because we live in a powerful and chaotic environment and our theories are incomplete and anything you hide to protect your intellectual fiefdom, will prevent us from resolving the real situation and give the silly gits ammunition to justifiably counter you.
Now, to the silly gits... I am sick to nauseous of those who blindly follow indefensible belief systems including most organized religions, political systems and social orthodoxies. Wealthy and powerful people have spent billions to ply the nation with pure propaganda as news. These folks are so addicted to their wealth and power, that they will gladly see the world burn down, or the middle class vanish from the earth in a mindless attempt to wrest that last final milligram of worth from the naked earth. Sadly there are vast seas of silly people dancing to the music played by these despots because it agrees with their belief system, no matter that the very air and sky around them screams they are fools. I say to you "WAKE UP" that smell of roasting pork is your ass on fire. Get a clue, hell get two, they're small. Put your beliefs aside. Bother to look for the unadulterated, unvarnished truth. You don't even have to go very far. Look outside and notice that your garden will begin blooming nearly a month earlier than 50 years ago, weeks earlier than even 20 years ago. You think your garden is in on the scientific conspiracy??? Damned garden!
Last year humanity put more greenhouse gas into the environment that ever before in history. Period. You can't argue with that, Its like trying to argue the sun hasn't risen, you just look stupid trying. I get it, really, you're just sticking to your ideological guns. Its just this whole "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" thing doesn't impress the rest of the folks who actually have their eyes open while they're driving, in fact you're scaring us just a little. Loosen up that grip on the shotgun Willy, take a deep cleansing breath, then sit down with a cup of hot tea and talk with one of those whipper snappers with the weather vanes and the Doppler Radar about why he thinks the world is warming up. He'll probably mention all kinds of science stuff like physics, meteorology, biology, ecology, chemistry and archeology. Just be quite for a moment. Let it sink in. Now if you still think the world is flat, go out play, at least you gave reality a fair shot.
By the way. we used to think that humanity couldn't possible impact anything as large as the oceans either. There are now places in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans (and I mean big place, like country big) that you can almost walk on the plastic junk and pollution. This is complicated stuff people, but if you just do the simple math, and have a talk with someone who vaguely understands how the planet works (or at least our best approximation at the moment) you'll understand why the folks who do the research are saying what they're saying. We are in trouble. We also have ways to solve the problem. It means we'll need to take responsibility for what we do. You know, take appropriate actions immediately, come up with inventive new technologies and economies, all around cool stuff. It also demands that we tell the people who are fighting so hard to keep their wealth and power that they should invest in the future instead. That way they'll get to keep their wealth and power and we all won't have to ride the earth into hell like Slim Pickens on the A-Bomb in Dr. Strangelove.
Disagree.
I don't see what one's credibility has to do with the language one uses. Credibility comes from having data that backs one's position, and there's lots of it for climate change, including multiple groups that came up with the same conclusion.
But it is a black and white issue: it either happens or it doesn't. I don't understand what would constitute an acceptable way of putting it in your view.
I won't pretend that his language or his attitude are appropriate or helpful to situation but I can understand the frustration. How long can most of us talk about evolution with a creationist before we start to show how exasperating the whole argument is? How long can we talk about vaccines and autism without losing our cool a little bit? Or about the moon landings being a hoax? Or that electric fans can cause deaths in enclosed spaces.
On the one side there is a body of evidence supporting the theory that doubles every time you look at it, on the other there is... what exactly? Either the doubters chose to believe that tens of thousands of scientists are grossly incompetent or that tens of thousands of scientists are conspiring against the rest of the world.
So yeah, his language is inappropriate, but his message is spot on.
IPCC reports are fact-based? Really?
Like the way lots of movie dramas are "based on actual events", probably.
US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) keeps track of sea levels over time at various harbors. New York's Battery station data goes back to 1857. While I understand that raw sea level change has more inputs than the CO2 cycle, it is interesting to note that the rise is quite linear at the rate of 0.91 feet per hundred years (0.277 meters per hundred years). There are no unusual changes to the rate during or after periods of rapid CO2 increase (WWII or the post-war boom).
http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750%20The%20Battery,%20NY
NON-geek Linux user since 1998
Someone with a high school diploma.
When I go back there now, it is totally fucking unambiguous to me that on a global scale the temperature is rising. Look up from your feet at some previously snow-capped mountains -- it's not that damn hard.
I would, but a) I don't live near any mountains, and b) it's way to cold to go outside right now.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Probably. But I'm honestly growing a bit ambivalent as to how one should approach people about climate change. Normally, I would say civil discussion is the most effective way to reach someone, but considering the seriousness of the matter, when nothing happens at some point you ought to start getting angry.
If somebody were pouring gasoline onto my house, and were about to set fire to it while insisting that I have nothing to worry about because surely nothing is going to happen, I wouldn't be very civil with them. We more or less have the same situation right now, only at a much slower pace.
By refusing to accept facts and take responsibility for the situation we have created, millions will be forced from their homes around the world, people will die from starvation and floods, species will become extinct, etc. etc.. How can we in good conscience stand by and be civil about it as others spread lies and misinformation for their own personal gain?
"The oil companies" have been sponsoring AGW research for many years. Don't fall for popular myths, verify facts yourself.
This list is not fully exhaustive, but we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders (in alphabetical order):
British Petroleum, Department of Energy, National Power, Shell, Sultanate of Oman, United States Department of Energy
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
it's in my head
Well I've had a login to this site for more years than I can remember and this is the first time anyone has visited chez moi. Welcome to the 350+ members who clicked the link to my blog in the headline post.
I hope that those who disagree with the actions of the 'whistleblower' or 'hacker' will take a look at the other interesting stuff we discuss at the talkshop rather than judge by the single issue of the climategate emails.
These last few years I've been researching the secret life of the solar system and how the various masses and forces in it interact to cause change of various kinds (including but not limited to the surface temperature of planets), and we've discovered some very interesting things. Some of these things are now being confirmed by recent research by NASA scientists.
Please feel free to look around and hang out for a while if you're interested in the near cosmos and our planet's interaction with it.
Cheers
Rog Tallbloke
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/
The amount of incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation is approximately in balance at all times. In the absence of a greenhouse effect, the Earth would need to be about 255K to produce enough outgoing longwave radiation to remain in balance. Due to the greenhouse effect, not all of the outgoing radiation makes it to space. To maintain the balance, the Earth must be warmer than 255K so that enough outgoing longwave radiation makes it through the atmosphere and into space. That's why average temperature on Earth is actually around 288K. All other things equal, if the greenhouse effect is increased, the Earth must warm to reach a new balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation. This is as close to fact as science can get, and isn't really up for debate.
The only legitimate argument against warming caused by increased greenhouse gases is that negative feedbacks will decrease the incoming solar radiation. That can primarily be accomplished by clouds and aerosols, neither of which are well understood or predicted by models. However, even with the uncertainty about negative feedbacks, it is very likely that increasing greenhouse gases is resulting in a warming of the Earth.
Just because there is poor agreement on the regional impacts of a warmer Earth does not mean the Earth isn't warming. The increase in greenhouse gas concentrations is largely due to human activities. It's a fact that the model human lifestyle produces large amounts of carbon dioxide. The increase in greenhouse gases is very highly correlated to industrialization.
This is an environmental issue. The preponderance of evidence is very strongly favors that humans are mostly responsible for the warming of the Earth that has already occurred in the past decades and that the Earth will warm at a faster pace in the future if current trends continue.
We should be very concerned. The regional climate changes will likely place greater strain in some areas on the availability of essential resources to support the human population. It is not out of the question that the overall impacts of such a warming could place enough strain on resources that the Earth would be unable to support a human population of seven billion people and growing. Nobody really knows what the impacts would be, but those concerns are hardly unfounded.
This is a sober and factual description of the actual state of the science. It also appears that this answer was not plagiarized from any source on the Internet. Well done.
How many thousands of years have whole forests burned due to natural causes? My guess would be enough to release way more greenhouse gas than our burning of fossil fuels.
Your guess would be wrong. The difference being that the carbon is forests is carbon that is already in the carbon cycle. If forests don't burn they eventually decay and release the carbon back into the atmosphere anyway. The carbon from fossil fuels is carbon that has been sequestered from the carbon cycle for in most cases 100's of millions of years or more. So it is carbon that was not in the carbon cycle until we added it back in. The proof of the fact that your guess is wrong is that the CO2 level in the atmosphere has never been above around 300 ppmv for millions of years but since the advent of human burning of fossil fuels it has risen to 390 ppmv in a bit over 200 years. That is unprecedented in the existence of the genus homo.
And it doubles to what end?
So they keep accumulating more and more and more and then what? They want a carbon tax? Sure, that will solve it all.
The best thing AGW folks could do is to start press hard for Nuclear energy. It's here, and it's non-CO2. If they stopped trying to tax people and enforce austerity measures and instead said, hey let's go nuclear, then they would get what they want (low CO2 emissions) and the other side would get what they want (no higher taxes or energy cutbacks). Further, the West could go tell the middle east to go fuck themselves.
If indeed AGW is such a threat, such a dire situation, then everyone should be more than willing to set aside their anti-nuke bias and ignorance and embrace it as the one way we can solve this problem.
But if instead they object, then we will all know they've been blowing smoke up our asses.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
First off,
The mentality of people who pounce on these emails as proof that "global warming" isn't real are the same ones that used snow storms as proof. They totally miss the overall picture.
There are idiots asserting that the random weather of the week proves their point on BOTH sides. Look at the people that think that recent hurricanes are caused by global warming. I've even seen accusations in the mainstream media that climate change has caused earthquakes.
The last batch of emails did not do much damage to the science behind climate change. There were maybe some very minor errors exposed, but no smoking gun, at all. If the first batch of emails had no smoking gun, I doubt the second batch does.
But what the emails DID do was show how much the scientists involved were trying to hold the details close to their chest. Not that their conclusions were wrong, but how they really didn't want to show, in detail, how their conclusions followed from their data. They weren't open, and that's a bad thing in science. Hopefully THAT attitude will change, because that's worth criticizing them for.
Why do you think Oil Companies would care?
There literally is no way to reduce the amount of hydrocarbons fuels we burn for the foreseeable future; at best we can slow the rate of increase by bringing things like nuclear power online.
In fact, don't many of the "oil" companies own Solar companies?
http://www.laprogressive.com/the-environment/big-oil-controlled-photovoltaic-industry/
Even T Boone Pickens is a big advocate of Wind energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens
With these guys, its not about oil, its about making money. They're covered no matter which way the wind blows (pardon the pun).
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Start to inquire with the following:
1. Coal plant operators
2. Coal plant builders
3. Coal mining corps
I can vouch that #2 will give you the money if you can convince them that you're not a fraud, for a reason of having observed one do everything to win favor of crappy populist organizations like Greenpeace through buying their local activists dinners to attend their seminars on how less polluting the new coal plants are. Insider info here.
Fact is, big corporations want to make money in the future in addition to now, and that means cleaning the dirty image that is in the people's (and politicians' who decide on new building permits) minds right now. So if you can do a reliable study that global warming isn't man made, then coal industry will be able to reliably shrink it to a small fraction of the current one, and still make the same profits.
We're talking pretty damn big figures here, all up for grabs. Perhaps the fact that no one has yet succeeded in taking that money is one of the best capitalist-style pieces of proof that it really is likely man-made. Because greed really does motivate people.
The proof that the 30% increased in CO2 concentrations is from burning FF's is found in the ratio of C12 to C13 isotopes in the CO2.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Climate scientists don't make much money.
Lying climate change deniers like the Koch brothers and many thousands of their other petrofuel and polluter cronies do make millions.
You are a lying fool.
--
make install -not war
What dirt? Link to some real dirt.
There is none. You are not only a brainwashed ideological climate change denier, you are a denial projector, calling other people exactly what you yourself are.
--
make install -not war
To the degree that scientists actually aren't open, it's explainable by a few non-paranoid things:
1. Climate change deniers intimidate scientists. Most scientists aren't very brave, and aren't interested in conflict, especially with the kind of morons they watched punch nerds in high school.
2. Until they publish, scientists don't want to start rumors or make unsupported conclusions.
3. Scientists want credit for their best work, when they release it.
#2 and 3 are common to all science. Science is a balance between cooperation and competition. Especially more recently, with the commercialization of science, many scientists collaborate only more directly, until they actually publish and get credit they can claim.
You said yourself the emails showed no corruption of the science. That is the only potential interest of those emails. The rest is just the way that science is actually done, by actual people who are actually scientists. You want it different, do something to protect them from the costs and risks of sharing too much too soon. I'd like it, but I don't expect it.
--
make install -not war
If the carbon cycle was worth the paper it takes to write two words, we wouldn't have coal deposits or limestone cliffs. It's too slow. Until we started digging the stuff out of the ground, every carbon based life-form on this planet was carbon negative, and even then, we're still carbon negative in the grand scheme of things. While we might be able to put a large chunk of the carbon back into the atmosphere, we'll never get it all (not that we'd want to, anyway: things might get a little stuffy).
Photosynthetic life has been committing slow suicide by depleting its primary "food" source, and then dumping its results "on the ground" to rot. Sure, that releases some carbon into the atmosphere, but methane isn't particularly useful to most life, and the rest winds up turning into coal.
Similar story for those life-forms that use carbon dioxide as building material (crustaceans). They dump their used product on the sea floor and it becomes limestone.
Here's something to consider. Some billion years ago (I don't know the exact numbers, might be just hundreds of millions), the entire world was desert (mostly barren rock, maybe some sand), but plants spread out and converted the world to lichen covered rocks, grassy plains and forests. Now, we have spreading deserts. Why? Sure, we may have started some (maybe even all) of them by cutting down too many trees (and other agricultural practices), but considering what plants did in the past, that should not be the case. For some reason, the plants are unable to overtake the deserts. There are two major differences that hamper plant growth: there's a lot more sand now (shifting sand can bury plants), and there's a lot less carbon dioxide in the air. The plants can't get enough food to grow quickly enough to encroach on the deserts.
We are part of the carbon cycle. Originally, we were on the same "side" as everything else, sucking carbon out of the atmosphere (net, otherwise we wouldn't grow), but now we are on the other "side", pushing it back in.
If carbon dioxide causes (or contributes) to global warming (and that's still an "if") and causes sea levels to rise, so be it (and my butt is maybe 4m above sea level). Sure, rising sea levels will mean less arable land, but higher carbon dioxide levels will mean better growing conditions, so the net might be more arable land.
If the carbon was worth anything, we wouldn't have this discussion because humans wouldn't be able to find enough carbon to put into the atmosphere for anyone to notice. Probably wouldn't have the Internet, either.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Have you been cleared of beating your wife?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I thought nuclear was good? Aside from the meltdowns and failures, anyway.
At least, does nuclear not use any hydrocarbons?
.
Jones and his fellow geography lecturers are on thin ice (sic) and they know it.
Feel free to support your claims.
James Hansen, Shell Oil UK ($10,000), London, 2009
(from a link posted elsewhere in this thread on the millions of dollars Hansen apparently made from his activism while on the public payroll)
it's in my head
I'm doing A but fantasizing about B because I'm tired of the enviro-extremists telling me that the science is settled and denying, or even questioning, their (sometimes) ridiculous assertions is tantamount to being a Nazi.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Yes, global warming is happening. But nobody has convinced me that it is a bad thing, however. Human civilization has coped with far bigger climate change than even the worst case scenarios projected by the IPCC. Large parts of the Mediterranean have turned to desert, for example, yet we don't exactly think of Italy as a disaster area. People cope with climate change through migration and adaptation, and they cope with it well. We've never really had a stable climate, and it's foolish to think that we can engineer one.
Furthermore, historically, humans have coped with warming much better than with cooling; even a slight drop in temperatures is a major disaster. And even if we could reduce CO2 emissions, the costs are staggering, since most of our economy is energy limited. Food production itself is energy intensive and produces a lot of CO2. If you cut CO2 emissions in half, you put a serious dent into the world economy for the foreseeable future, and that will "force millions from their homes and people will die from starvation".
All this handwringing over climate change seems like middle class angst to me. It's an attempt to control the uncontrollable, a longing for a stability that has never existed and will never exist.
Pretty much everything you said is either factually incorrect or misleading (and recognizable as silly right-wing memes). I don't think you really care though, you just want to badmouth "Der Libruls".
/. and let the adults talk until you can be bothered to look up any iota of information on the subject that doesn't come from the members section of Rush Limbaugh's website. You are literally the equivalent of someone trying to disprove the theory of gravity by noting you can jump up several inches away from Earth, so those science eggheads must have it all wrong. That's the level of ignorance we're dealing with. Go away.
Hint: Climate scientists are aware of past environmental changes. This is not new information. You are not unusually well-informed. You are not the lone voice of sanity in the wilderness, you are just a loudmouth idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, repeating nonsense spewed by other, more cynical loudmouth idiots. Your post shows such fundamental misunderstandings of the data and issues involved that it would be best to leave
short term energy storage is a way easier challenge to solve than hundreds of years of guarding dangerous nuclear material. Shit, I can store all the energy needed to heat or cool a house for a day in a tank of water that would easily fit in most homes. have excess energy, charge up your store.
electric cars will have these things called "batteries" that happen to store energy.
smart meters exist now. the internet exists now. energy management software exists... wait for it... now.
and, solar just reached parity with grid power in the northeast. woot! before incentives, even.
repeat after me: by the time you finished building a fancy reactor, you'd be able to utilize renewables more cheaply. good luck finding non-guaranteed private capital getting that reactor built too.
ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show "ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published 'misleading and inaccurate information' about climate change."
And that article is just the tip of the iceberg. There's also Exxon's funding of the infamous Heartland Institute, a "libertarian" anti-science denial shop. Heartland used to deny smoking caused cancer but unsurprisingly switched to denying global warming when their sponsorship changed. Exxon used to fund Heartland directly, but now funds them indirectly through conservative groups like the Scaife and Olin foundations.
It's hard for me to imagine how an educated person in 2011 could have ever been ignorant of how oil companies fund global warming denialism, but now there's no excuse.
The problem isn't to demonstrate GW, or even AGW, everyone that is reasonable agrees both exist, the issue is HOW MUCH, and there, nobody agrees. If AGW is responsible for 0.01% of GW (with the rest of driven let's say by the sun), then there's nothing we can do and we shall adapt to the change. If it's 99%, we should do something.
And that's where the CRU emails are important. They show the danger of cooking the data used for the decision making process, delete points from the curves to show what you want, and escape FOIA requests, if you are working on the side of demonstrating the 99%. I don't mind if you are on one side or another, but please don't tell that it "is trivial" or that it "was easy", because if it was, there would be no debate.
Fast and loose with the evidence and you quote THAT crap? Fuck me.
Lets see, how many citations do ya want?
This...
Scientists from other universities have been threatened as well. One scientist told The Canberra Times, ''If you want to find me, it's impossible unless you make an appointment, sign in with some form of photo identification, and are personally escorted to my door That's directly as a result of threats made against me.''
One researcher told the paper of an instance where her photo appeared in an article promoting a community tree-planting day -- she then received threats of sexual assault and violence against her children. Another scientist received death threats and was advised by police to install a ''panic button'' in his office.
or this, where the fucking threat is on video?
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/another_day_another_death_thre_1.php
Anger against scientists involved in the climate debate is reaching dangerous levels and it's only a matter of time before one is murdered, says leading German physicist Hans Schellnhuber. ...
While he was opening a recent climate conference in Melbourne, a man in the front row waved a noose at him. "I was confronted with a death threat when I gave my public lecture," Professor Schellnhuber said.
"Somebody got to his feet and showed me a rope with a noose.
"He showed me this hangman's rope and he said: 'Mr Schellnhuber, welcome to Australia'.
http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-06-12-death-threats-for-australian-climate-scientists
A quick search reveals much more evidence than one denialist blog.
Are you really as inane as you come across with such rubbish?
Show me any death threats made by those who believe the science agaist those that dont,
Try and cite something vaugely credible.....
Where?
Are your really that naive? The oil industry has acted so brazenly in its disinformation campaign, and funding of astroturf and denialist "research". The paper trail is there for everyone to see. "Merchants of Doubt" is a recent history book the chronicles just how perfectly the wool has been pulled over your eyes -- in plain sight!
There's something interesting about the human condition there -- and you are being played by people who understand you better then you know yourself. Of course, this just makes you mad, and you want to say that *I* am the one who doesn't understand. This is called projection.
There is something interesting about the human condition there.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The "oil companies" have also been engaged in a denialists disinformation campaign. The conspiracy is actually larger than just Exxon; however, and includes a powerful block of neoliberal elites. There is a history book called "Merchants of Doubt" that shows the paper trail quite clearly.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I'm sorry but you just made all that up, didn't you?
Deserts are deserts because they are arid. That means they lack water. Why? Because it doesn't rain enough to sustain a high level of plant growth.
On a grand scale, deserts come and go because the rain patterns change. For instance, a mountain range may pop up and block the wet air so it releases the rain before reaching a spot in the mainland.
If you doubt this is true, grab a book on biology and read up on it yourself, I did that recently, very interesting stuff (my field is computer science).
Tell you what - you link to something actually backing up the claims you're obviously holding as a preconceived conclusion, to entice me to actually wade through yet another batch of office chatter among some scientists. Why would I take the word of someone telegraphing that you deny climate change, despite actual scientists practically all agreeing it's real? You people would have me wasting every hour of every day chasing some boogeyman that exists only in your minds.
Give me some evidence that there's some there there. Or shut up already.
--
make install -not war