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Don't Worry About Global Warming, Say 16 Scientists in the WSJ
An anonymous reader writes "According to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, there's 'no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy'. From the article: 'The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2. The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.'"
BY FROSTY POSTS
keep the earth cool, get a frosty
FROST POST FOR JESUS
its rather nice having 62 degree days in the last weeks of January when it should be -3, let our children's children figure it out, they need to have something to do anyway as we keep doing it all for them as it is
I thought this global warming denial nonsense was long sense refuted for anyone willing to look at the facts in an objective manner.
No action will be taken anyway.
Or another false flag?
I see your 16, and raise you 16,000.
they just dont want us to see the pyramids on Antarctica
But instead, was published in a right-wing newspaper.
The global-warming deniers obviously have no evidence, because if they did, they'd publish it in a science journal.
What exactly are these right-wingers trying to hide? Their corporate oil-industry donors?
Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.
Actually that's two sentences. The first is the one I would choose as the thesis, and the second one to back it up. I don't know if there is much evidence they are wrong on that point.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
say 16 Doctors*,
"you're just going to die anyways."
*not necessarily medical doctors"
I like microcars
"But global warming is a scam! What if we reduce emissions and make the world a better place for nothing?"
... but the tornado season here in Alabama being expanded into January is rather worrisome...
Apparently living in symbiosis with plants constantly exchanging atmospheric gases is exactly the same as the one-way releasing of gas on a massive scale coupled while reducing the number of plants that live in symbiosis with it.
There is nothing to worry about.
If you want this planet to look like Venus.
CO2 in excess is very bad. The system can't reach equilibrium fast enough. Result: humankind will die out, or be greatly diminished.
Makes you wonder why some people want Earth terraformed to be inhabitable by humans.
The fact that water is not a pollutant. It's a colorless and odorless liquid, consumed and expelled in high volumes by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's lifecycle.
And therefore we should disable all flood and tsunami advanced warning systems.
You will die without it. You will also suffer greatly if you have too much of it. Urine is natural. Do you want to swim in it? Poop is natural. Do you want to live in it?
Lots of things are natural, the concentrations are what matter. I don't need to read the flaming article if the summary is going to quote such moronic and specious reasoning.
It's like the wags who try to get people worked up with some flippant story about Dihydrogen Monoxide being a toxin, only to reveal it's water. Well, la-de-dah, but I happen to live somewhere we spent quite a few millions to stop flooding, so you know what? I'm going to regulate the stuff and be happy with interrupting that part of the natural process.
Think about how much a can of fuel weighs. Think how many of those you put into your car in a year. Think how many cars are out there. How many trucks delivering food. All that weight, all that fuel goes into the air and converts oxygen into CO2 as it goes. That is a lot of mass of CO2 that is being added to the air that was not 100 years.
We know stuff we dump in the environment comes back to us. Lead, Ozone, Mercury, these are chemicals we have dumped into the air in the past and found they were affecting us. So we know our outputs can affect the global condition.
That's how I removed myself from this jackassery.
Personally, I think that the preponderance of the scientific evidence suggests that we ought to be worried about climate change. However, there are people who seem to have a chip on their shoulder about this, and they seem to be centralized in the very states that are going to have it worst if they're wrong. Frankly, I hope they're right and that their already-sun-belt homes don't wind up in the middle of a new desert, and that their kids don't end up with some kind of mutant skin cancer.
But if they do? I don't care. Maine could use an extra degree or two, and it'll be funny to watch all the Red States run around begging the federal government for disaster relief like they do when a river floods or there's a hurricane in the gulf. "Oh, noes! Hotness! Who could have guessed! Please help us, evil socialist elitists. Our kids can't play outside and we're all so THIRSTY!!!! Waaaaaah!"
I'm smiling just thinking about it.
god is just pretend.
Obligatory cartoon
This reads, unfortunately, like a WSJ op-ed, with lots of polemic, and relatively little science. Have the 16 scientists in question written up a more sober whitepaper that I could read? I'd actually be interested in reading their analysis, if there were a version with more data and less rhetoric about "those promoting alarm", drumbeats, and CO2 being colorless.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I never did in the first place. Its all propaganda for having more taxes on everything we do.
I don't have the time, but given how few of them are from fields that are directly relevant to the climate issue, it would be interesting to actually look at how much the remaining few have published on the issue...
"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
The "fact" that CO2 is not a pollutant is actually at best an opinion, at worst a scientific falsehood.
Our bodies expel it precisely because it is a waste product. Whether by a mechanical process of a factory, or a biological process of an organism, aren't waste products the very essence of "pollution?" Sure, the plants don't seem to mind it. Every single, solitary air-breathing member of the animal kingdom, however, does.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
Quote --
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.”
--
I see Allègre in the list of scientists. He is a very competent *geologist*. He has no clue in climatology. That did not stop him from writing a book about the topic in which he *falsified* data to fit his own personal views that are not supported by science. Here is one of several examples http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/04/claude-allegre-the-climate-imposter/ . No need to say that the people who published the original data are horrified by his fraud. So in the end the WSJ publishes crap. Nothing unusual.
Average global temperatures are up 4c in the last century, 2c in the last decade, and it is more severe near the poles. Coastal water levels have risen by a few inches in the last decade.
Average temperatures were quite a bit warmer and changed more dramatically in the middle ages. Greenland was not named sarcastically. Britain once produced wine. Find the connection between politics, power tax and lies.
I recall reading about these sort of opinions before with regard to both climate change and evolution, and the common thread seems to be the amount of attention given by the American news media. Differences of opinion, although common in every field, don't quite seem to get that kind of attention unless someone conveniently benefits from giving them press. Would be interesting to find out years later, if this latest opinion-piece was somehow published in response to the recent interest by the NCSE to start educating people about climate change, also explained further here.
Here are the hottest ten years on record, in the past 130 years, in order: 2005, 2010, 1998, 2003, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2007, 2004, 2001
Notice a pattern? How about the fact that they are all in the past decade.
I notice also that of the 16 scientists, only 2-3 have titles that directly related to the study of climate and atmospheric sciences. The rest are the usual mismash of experts in other subjects who (as "smart" people are won't to do) apparently claim equal expertise in global warming, who are simply doing the classic trick of "donning a labcoat" to look authoritative.
What they are saying is that you will probably live if you don't buy the $3,000 gym membership and eat and exercise sensibly.
The thing that always annoyed be about the global warming fear mongering is that it puts focus on something that, as the article noted, is not ACTUALLY a pollutant. We are far better off if we simply continue efforts at pollution control and reducing other sources of real harm to the environment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Useful reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
Yes, we're currently in an ice age. It's one of the relatively warm bits of an ice age (an interglacial period), but its still an ice age.
The earth's been warmer than this on average - if we're breaking out of the current ice age early, so what? Better than the alternative - the interglacial period ending and the earth slipping back into the main part of an ice age. Most countries can't cope as it is when a bit of snow falls - imagine what they'll be like in an ice age.
Which is the more credible source for scientific analysis: reports written in terms of physics, and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal; or an opinion piece written in terms of politics and economics, and published in the house organ of the financial-commodities-trading industry?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
False flag.
"The lack of warming for more than a decade" is contradicted by e.g.
"An increasing amount of seaborne traffic is moving along a new Siberian coastal route, cutting journey time and boosting trade prospects"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/05/arctic-shipping-trade-routes
The sea north of Siberia is opening up, for the benefit of transport! So, some in the industry are already using the global warming. Russia is planning expanding some of these harbors for summer traffic.
So, even if those WSJ jerks are wrong, there are some beneficial outcomes. Not all parts in the world suffer from droughts or desertification.
Still, the poor people in Nevada, California, Spain, Italy and elsewhere will suffer from an even drier climate.
The winners are the already affluent people in high latitudes, with an already booming industry.
RTFA. Someone actually tried that, then they got fired. Hell, I wouldn't do it if it meant not having a job when there's not an equally good one waiting for me in some other place, and that's in spite of the fact that I don't buy into this global warming stuff.
I don't recall anyone getting fired for conducting an experiment that seemed to show that neutrinos can travel faster than light(which is not something I believe most scientists would have considered possible). But when it comes to global warming, advocate it or lose your job. Firing someone because they disagree with you isn't scientific. There's a human element to this.
One thing I've been trying to do is figure out how much money is spent on each side of the global warming debate. Of course, Exxon has billions in revenue, but they only spend a small portion of that on global warming. But how much is spent on each side?
The best sources I can come up with (things like this and this) suggest that hundreds of millions are spent on one side, and billions on the other.
I'd really like to find better numbers, though. If anyone has any, please let me know.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Sorry, but I'll trust the climatologists, and not the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal.
37k against
And I very much doubt you have 16k, as most scientists were simply quiet as the main ring-leaders of the global warming movement would be able to stop you from being published in scientific journals if you spoke against them.
Sorry, the global warming leaders you cultists follow were never actually engaged in science, but in an international attempt at re-shaping the sociological makeup of the world - driven wholly by politicians, not science.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The same guy who owns the WSJ owns Fox News.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
> You are SERIOUSLY saying that a gallon of fuel goes right into the air? Incredible!
Where else does it go then ? It does not stick to the car in any way.
The amount of energy extracted in the engine is minuscule compared to the mass. E=MC^2. Calculate the energy in 1lb of matter.
1gram of matter has enough energy to power a light bulb for 300 years.
"16 Marketing Managers,HR Directors, and First-Level Help Desk Technicians have decided that routinely testing backups is a waste of effort and not needed at all".
While I agree that carbon dioxide isn't a problem and that climate change has likely been going on since Earth's formation, there are environmental impacts of human activity that should be kept in check for our own benefit (and for future generations), such as CO, SOx and NOx.
Unless environmental considerations are put into the corporate balance sheet somehow (tax, trading scheme, whatever) there will be little incentive for corporations to reduce their environmental impacts.
Things like EPA limits aren't an incentive because corporations will do what they have to to meet those requirements and nothing else. Perhaps more aggressive annual reductions in EPA limits would be a possibility though.
I'm sure there are plenty of ideas out there as to how companies can be more accountable for their environmental impact, and how to reduce the environmental effects of urbanization (prime concern being atmospheric inversion).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)#Consequences_of_a_thermal_inversion
In places where there are no limits or incentives, there is no limit to the damage (including to the health of local populations) that corporations will be quite happy to inflict in the name of profit.
It's a biased op-ed from a right-wing newspaper. To quote Forbes:
But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down. The National Academy of Sciences is the nation’s pre-eminent independent scientific organizations. Its members are among the most respected in the world in their fields. Yet the Journal wouldn’t publish this letter, from more than 15 times as many top scientists. Instead they chose to publish an error-filled and misleading piece on climate because some so-called experts aligned with their bias signed it. This may be good politics for them, but it is bad science and it is bad for the nation.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Quote: "The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle."
Looks like someone found George W. Bush's notes.
I'd like to mention that the IPCC report that won the Nobel Peace Prize had contributions from 2500 scientists. This article had the OPINION of 16 scientists (not data, opinion). This bit of the newspapers giving equal time to both sides of the story is getting ridiculous. If the liberals started a campaign that the earth was round, the next thing you know the WSJ would post an article with the opinion of someone who thought it was flat and call it, "Opinions differ on shape of planet."
I wonder why they signed it? They aren't subject matter experts.
CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest for 450,000 years. There's been a steep rise since the 1950s, from 315ppm to 370ppm (parts per million). And, in case the WSJ has forgotten, we can't breathe CO2. Too little and too much oxygen will kill us. Too much CO2 would eventually lead to too little oxygen, among other things.
Oh well, maybe we'll start burning fossil fuels to create enough energy to split off oxygen from water and sell it in supermarkets, resulting in even less oxygen available. Oh, and we need oxygen to burn fossil fuels, so eventually we all lose...
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
Edward David
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_E._David_Jr.
Roger Cohen
http://www.durangobill.com/RogerCohen.html
Look, the subhuman waste called Rupert Murdoch owns the Journal.
Since the day Murdoch took ownership the WSJ ceased to be a credible
source for any information.
Articles like this insult the intelligence of all who read Slashdot.
Seriously, quit this shit.
Everyone will argue about the harm to climate of atmospheric carbon until we evolve into a new species. The one threat no one is debating is Ocean Acidification. We are facing a dramatic loss of ocean life and yes it's already happening and it's thought to be a large component of coral bleaching. Argue about natural climate cycles all you want but the oceans are still under severe stress from all the excess CO2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
Notice this wasn't published in a science journal
Polls and opinions of scientists have no place in any science journal. If you read the article, there is nothing in there (that I can find) that contradicts what's well known and has been published in scientific journals.
No one has any doubt about what has happened. The entire question is what will happen in the future. These scientists (and most skeptics who are also scientists) have extrapolated from what we have seen in the past, and feel that it indicates we will not see problematic warming in the future as a result of CO2.
The scientists, like James Hansen, who believes there will be a crisis, extrapolate on the basis of possible problems and feedbacks that so far haven't happened yet (but are predicted by computer models).
If we had a dozen earths we could experiment with, and test the effects of increasing CO2, there would be no disagreement among scientists. Obviously we can't do that, so there is disagreement about the unknowns.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
1. Fill an ordinary pot with ice water.
2. Set the pot on a hot stove eye to boil.
3. Monitor the temperature of the pot's contents as the ice melts.
Amazingly, the temperature of the water will not begin to rise until the ice has melted. All the heat applied to the pot goes into melting the ice, not heating the water.
This is called a "phase change" (a reference to the phases of matter), and is a possible explanation for the Earth's not having burst into flames despite humans' venting unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
I suspect once the ice caps melt, the real fireworks will begin.
Trolling karma from right wing nuts to mod up his other shill accounts.
I haven't spent a career studying weather and climate and such, but I do know enough about thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and numerical analysis to be really suspicious of claims of causality for CO2. One cursory look at something like http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/radiative-physics-yes-co2-does-create-warming/, Fig 4, tell me that water, ozone, N2O, etc add up to a hell of a lot more absorption of IR from the earth's surface when you consider that the planet is NOT a uniform sphere at 250 kelvin and when you remember that the concentrations of H2O and the like trump the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 by orders of magnitude.
That's one gut reaction, informed by pictures and not calculations.
The second gut reaction comes from experience trying to predict the future with uncertain models and noisy, incomplete data. Before I believe the global warming alarmists claims, I need to understand the uncertainty propagations in their predictions given the noise statistics of their data collection efforts to date. This is subtle and delicate math that most people don't know how to do, and the certitude with which the alarmists and their cheerleaders make their pronouncements lead me to suspect they don't know how to do it well either. Climategate's "Harry Readme" file furthers that suspicion.
The last and most subjective objection I have is that the people screaming loudest for decarbonization tend to do so in a way that makes it hard for me to distinguish what they are saying from
"blah blah blah Socialism Is Great blah blah blah I get to ride in private jets but you have to ride a bike to work and turn down your thermostat in the winter blah blah blah"
We already know how much warming it can cause because it had already happened before. 250My ago, before all that carbon became fossil fuels, global temperatures were 4-6C higher than today. At least, wikipedia says so. On the other hand, 300My ago temperatures were 2C lower than today, even though there were no fossil fuels yet, so you can't blame CO2 for all of it. One look at that graph makes it pretty obvious where the climate change limits might be, and they are not nearly as catastrophic as the global warming doomsayers scream about.
1998
Slashdot started in September of 1997...
Slashdot started global warming.
Seriously though, it takes a lot of balls not to say something's up. Last year, around this time, NYC was covered in snow.
Now? I can walk outside with out a jacket. Something is seriously fucked here.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Don't worry. The global warming deniers are slowly buying the high ground.
I remember computer models that suggested that housing prices would always go up. Damn, i think i helped build some of those models.
"Don't Worry About Global Warming, Say 16 Scientists in the WSJ"
should be
"What Murdoch wants you to think."
It seems reasonable to guess that, if Murdoch finds a way to make money from curbing CO2 emissions, there will be a new article proposing that.
The Wall Street Journal, never a useful publication, is now just a massive advertisement for Murdoch.
"Never a useful publication"? Did the Wall Street Journal tell us of the plans by the financial community to steal hundreds of billions of dollars? No. The book Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader did, in 1999, with huge amounts of exact detail. Warren Buffett did, in 2003, when he said, Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.
Every time someone, credible or not, speaks out against global warming being caused by CO2, they're shouted down as speaking out in ignorance in order to advance an agenda.
Their argument? Look at temperatures!
Even if the temperature is warmer: that doesn't prove/disprove anything. The argument is causation. Anyone who's been through a high school freshman science course knows correlation != causation.
I'm not even going to pretend to say that I've thought out the science behind this, but I never hear anyone address: maybe things are warmer because there's more hot stuff? Add a bunch of people to a room, and don't change the amount of cooling coming in. I don't have population growth stats in front of me, but we've added like 1 billion people in the last century, in growth. Millions run around every day in vehicles that each warm up to hundreds of degrees in typical operation. There's probably at least a billion large appliances on the planet: the back of your fridge isn't somewhere you'll want to keep your hand for long. Manufacturing puts off heat. Computers put off heat - and we all have at least one.
I might be dumb here, and all those things combined would raise the global temp by nothing, significance wise. However, the CO2 arguments seem to imply that globe is unchanged, heat generation wise, and less heat is getting out due to atmospheric changes. That assumption seems wrong, and should be adjusted appropriately (say, our world should be 0.0001 degrees Celsius warmer than it was 100 years ago, all things being equal)
tl;dr More people and heat generating things increase global temps and CO2 discussions ignore this
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
1998 and 2001 are not in the past decade, just FYI
More shit from Wall Street. Nothing to see, just ultra-capitalist and crazy people dancing naked around a statue of money.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
The problem with this is The Wall Street Journal is now just another rag spewing the opinions of its owner, Rupert Murdoch.
And Rupert Murdoch's climate change skepticism and his willingness to push this agenda through his news empire through conservative fanboys and other stories is long documented. A simple google search on Rupert Murdoch climate change shows just how ridiculous it is to put your faith in any climate change story from a News Corp, News International or News Limited organisation - even if they're right.
In fact Rupert Murdoch's fanboys have done such an excellent job of muddying the waters and inciting mindless division that its almost impossible now to have a constructive debate on the topic. Which was always the intention IMO. Arguments sell newspapers.
"exhaled at high concentrations by each of us" is wrong.
The air that enters a person's lungs is 78% nitrogen 21% oxygen, 1% argon and less than 1% CO2.
The air that leaves a person's lungs during exhalation contains 14% oxygen and 4.4% carbon dioxide.
since when is 4% high concentration ?
The article is trying to hard.
Tell me, if you burn a gallon of gasoline in an engine, where do you think the products of the reaction go?
You have liquid hydrocarbons and oxygen and you react them in a chamber. Then you empty that chamber and fill it with new reactants. Do that repeatedly until you have no gasoline left. Where are the products of this reaction?
Where does all the mass go? I mean, I assume your car doesn't have a waste tank you have to empty every time you fill your car with fuel.
Obviously a conspiracy to stop us from learning of the Stargate program.
I want this account deleted.
in the past 130 years
Wow, a whole 130 years?
Welp, humanity is clearly to blame. All those fucking horses stopped the Delaware from icing up like it used to during the ol' mini ice age. Fucking Americans and their fucking horsefart-caused global warming.
the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections
Ah, yes. Dr. Curry uses an inappropriate statistical model (simple linear regression) to the team's data set, which ends with two unusually cold months. The result is to nearly eliminate the warming trend in the result (end points have unusual weight in a simple linear regression.) Drop those two months and you get about the same warming trend as the models predicted, or add the following two months (which were unusually warm) and again you match the models.
Impressive work, and the WSJ makes the most of it.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
How is 1998 and 2010 "all in the past decade"? You do realize that a decade is 10 years, yes? The decade beginning in 1998 ended in 2007...
[citation needed]
You can wish it really hard, but that doesn't make it so - your first sentence is simply not a fact.
There's also no one in the scientific community trying to say that climate change as a process is not natural, just that it has taken a large artificial turn for the first time, since we are the first species who were able to have a serious impact on it. The data on that is not in doubt.
If it were wrong, it would only have taken one.
It makes a number of key points that have been left out of the public debate.
That's right, climate scientists are generally not keen to study economic effects, which means they are not any more qualified than anyone else to propose economic solutions. Most economists believe eliminating carbon emissions today would be disastrous, well beyond the scale of that climate scientists have predicted.
Even though we've learned a lot about the climate in the last 30 years, we still know next to nothing about it. We shouldn't be accepting the results essentially heuristic computer models as rock solid predictions for the future, and we should still be working to understand the climate better first and foremost.
I would like to add that improving the water infrastructure in most of the world would go a long way toward mitigating the effects of global warming, and that it's something that is badly needed today in any case. So if they wan't to put money into that, that would probably be ok too.
This article just proves that an argument can be made, continuously, given enough money backs it.
Their hypothesis, as noted elsewhere, is that it's not economically feasible to switch away from the 'carbon economy'. The hypothesis ends there, but it should be read "it's not economically feasible, at the moment." The way our economy currently works, the full cost associated with energy generation is not paid by energy supplier nor demander. At some point, those external costs *are* paid, but usually later and by someone other than the people who used/supplied the energy. As long as that continues, there will always be someone making arguments against reality, such as this. This may change with regulation.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Every scientist dreams of publishing in the journal "Wall Street", known for their strict and reputable peer review process. But more importantly, isn't ocean acidification, NOT the warming itself, the most immediate threat to the ecosystem? And this idea that the models don't fit beyond the bounds of the plots shown to the public has been argued and debunked over and over again.
Well, let's look at the sixteen climate scientists who signed this, shall we?
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris: Sounds reasonable, though it looks like the proper name for the "University of Paris" is the "Paris VI University", or "Pierre and Marie Curie University". Unfortunately, it looks like the man is kind of a crank, and he hasn't been the director of that Institute since 1986, which makes it weird that it's the one thing they list about him.
J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting: That's pretty reasonable, but forecasting and climate science aren't exactly the same thing; forecasting is the study of what's going to happen tomorrow or next week in any topic, while climate science is trying to figure out what will happen in the next year or the the next ten years with the weather. Also, Armstrong's professional background seems to be primarily in advertising, not forecasting, and he hasn't actually published any papers on climatology that I can see.
Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University: I'm not exactly sure what he's doing on this list, since presumably it's a list of climate scientists? I mean, just because he's a researcher in one field doesn't automatically qualify him in others; it's like taking your car to ten mechanics and ignoring what they say, then asking your doctor about it and following his advice.
Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society: This dude seems to be a writer for the NY Times, and I can't seem to find anyone by that name on the list of Fellows of the American Physical Society. Maybe he received his fellowship before 1990? In any case, it doesn't signify much in terms of his ability to evaluate any kind of science; those fellowships are kinda prestigious, but they're handed out for all sorts of things.
Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences: What can I say? He's an electrical engineer. Would you trust him to diagnose a heart condition? An expert in one subject is not automatically an expert in all subjects.
William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton: What can I say? Damnit Jim, he's a physicist, not a climatologist! Sure, they're related - but would you trust this guy if he was talking on the way that chemists all over the world are trying to fool us about the mind control properties of fluorine? (as a side note, he's also a Fellow of the American Physical Society - why didn't they mention that?)
Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.: This dude is kinda hard to Google because he shares a name with a fairly famous guitar company and a well-respected journalist (who died in 2003); however, it looks like he's done some pretty awesome work on semi-conductors. Unfortunately, that doesn't have anything to do with climate research.
William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology: Well, for one thing, he hasn't been the head of the ABM since 1998 (this seems to be a theme, you know?); for another, he's trained as a meteorologist, not a climate scientist. Just because they both deal with the weather doesn't necessarily mean that his word carries extra weight, but I do have to admit that he's one of the better signatories of this list.
Ric
they first wrecked the economy so that we are paying for their greed and rapaciousness in lining their own pockets. They are terrified that concerns over climate change will lead to a reduction in consumption of oil, etc, and are willing to sacrifice the long term health of the planet so that they can keep on shovelling wads of cash into their pockets.
thing that always annoyed be about the global warming fear mongering is that it puts focus on something that, as the article noted, is not ACTUALLY a pollutant.
Well, it isn't if you define "pollutant" carefully to exclude substances that aren't directly toxic in small quantities. Sort of like formaldehyde -- it's a natural product of human metabolism and is exhaled with every breath. I don't advise breathing large concentrations of either gas. But even if it's harmless to humans doesn't mean you want to fill up the atmosphere with it (e.g. insecticides.)
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
... since we are incapable of reducing CO2 production.
We're doubling the population every 40 years. If humans are causing global warming with CO2 production, it's just going to get worse, unless we get our breeding under control. That isn't going to happen, as will be proven by the replies to this. There will be variations on:
* The population is actually declining! ... among other things.
* Why do you hate babies?
* Malthus said we'd all be starving by now, but we're just fine, therefore we can make as many people as we want.
* Breeding is a human right!
Maybe we'll we can cut per capita C02 production, but the population growth will overrun it.
Let them convince a big part of the world population that global warming IS a problem. I live in a country where we don't have to walk around with masks because the polution in cities is so bad that we can't breath normal air.
I don't care if the global warming story is exaggerated, I just dont want to walk around in my city wearing a mask! And if this is the way to prevent that I'll play along with this propaganda..
...WSJ toilet paper?
...that all sit around downtown and tell me that I'm going to go to hell if I dont give them my spare change. So far they're wrong too.
If your world is not much older than you, and not too big.
Not like my mama.
No brain, no pain.
The WSJ tells us that global warming is nothing to worry about. What's next? That Republicans are superior to Democrats? That Wall Street doesn't need to be regulated? [/snark]
I think it's been pretty well established that we don't care what happens to people in the 3rd world. That's why it's called the 3rd world.
None of these people have ever studied the climate:
Claude Allegre - b. 1937 age 74
J. Scott Armstrong b. 1937 age 74
Jan Breslow (Medical Doctor) b. 1943 age 68
Roger Cohen - retired engineer from from Exxon.
Edward David, b. 1925 age 86
Michael Kelly, semi-conductor scientist.
William Kininmonth - meteorologist
Burt Rutan - Airplane designer
Harrison H. Schmitt (astronaut) - b. 1935 age 76
Henk Tennekes b. 1936 age 75
Antonio Zichichi b. 1929 age 82
"Don't Worry About Global Warming, Say 16 Scientists"
Subhead:
1. We're Screwed Anyway
2. Do Worry About Global Warming, Say The Rest
3. Exxon, British Petroleum Agree
4. Yes, Gerontologists are Scientists Too
5. Worry About Climate Change Instead
6. Pay No Attention to the Money Behind Our Curtain
7. There Is No Spoon
Hardly changes their point, though, does it?
It sounds like you are you paraphrasing this part of the article:
remember, the threat is the liberal media pushing a liberal agenda
not a murdoch financed opinion piece pushing a corporate funded agenda
right? the threat to you is the liberal media, right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
"But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down."
you are way off base. where do you think it goes?
For the climate change denialists, I wonder which one of these you think isn't so?
So tell me, those of you who deny climate change? The exact extent of it requires complex models, but the fact of it only requires basic chemistry, basic planetary science, and a basic look around you. Which of those do you deny?
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Critters that live in the oceans and are killed by increased acidification resulting from CO2 dissolving in seawater would disagree with the assertion that CO2 is not a pollutant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
The problem is that there isn't anything wrong with global warming science (beyond the kinds of errors you find in all branches of science). But there is something wrong with the rhetoric you find coming from supposedly scientific sources.
This is obviously not a reasoned scientific statement. Yet many people seems to have accepted it as such simply because it was published by the American Physical Society. This statement belongs in a WSJ op-ed, not in a scientific publication. That's what these scientists are saying. And they are rightly saying it in a WSJ op-ed.
Nothing here to be concerned about. Even if the population increases to 15 Billion, and most of the specis on the planet are either extinct or on the verge, there nothing to worry about. Our Oceans are polluted, a contenant of plastic trash floats in the pacific, and most of our food is grown with genetically moddified seeds, but there nothing to worry about.
There are far more scientists who say there is no such thing as man-made global warming than there are who say there is.
False, if you're talking about scientists who actually study the climate.
The indisputable fact remains: Earth has warmed in the past, it has also cooled.
True but fairly irrelevant to what humans are doing to the climate now and what its impacts will be.
Climates change. It's normal and there's nothing we can do one way or the other to affect it.
False.
I'll take sides based more on their underlying motives. Those that argue against global warming tend to have an interest in capitalizing on the exploitation of our environment for their own benefit while those who voice their concerns over the impact of industry to the environment tend to have an interest in the welfare of the rest of the planet.
So let's assume that there is substantial and unprecedented global warming going on, that all climate scientists are 100% correct, and mankind is 100% responsible for all current warming... ...Assuming this is all 100% true:
What exactly, the fuck, do we do about it?
Please provide detailed and specific solutions. GO!
"Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2."
There's no crying in baseball, and no embarrassment in science. You propose a consequence based on theory. It happens or it doesn't. If the prediction is wrong, you adjust the theory. To characterize the adjustment as "this embarrassment" exposes the characterizer as _not_ an artful practitioner.
well now, lets see how well you sing after pure O2 for a few hours.
Oh and it makes babies go blind too.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
They need to understand that it does not suggest high amounts of clue when they tell us CO2 is part of nature as if that were some kind of an argument. Proportions are important.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
"we are the first species who were able to have a serious impact on it." You are ignorant of earth history. From the moment the first life forms started converting co2 to oxygen the planet has been a synergy of life and natural processes. Snowball earth was caused by lack of co2, the co2 was scrubbed from the air by life forms.
out of 130 years its nothing, and our Sun isnt a static LED either, its very dynamic, and its the ONLY input energy source to earth.
How about 1000 years of history - or 5000 or 10000. Climate is never STATIC or 100% in a perfect repeated cycle.
But if you really want to reduce C02, just stop cutting down trees in south america and asia. Stop buying solid wood furniture and tables. Stupid dumbass locals, just like african wild life poachers and japanese whalers. Only caring about their next weeks pay packet at the expense of diminishing resources.
It all comes down to perpetual economic growth in a limited size ecosystem. Again, dumbass economists with zero physics lessons which should be a must in an econ degree.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
phone-tapping, right-wing Murdoch. The WSJ has added an element of tabloid trashiness to it's editorial mix. I wonder if the level of Co2 in our atmosphere is higher than it has been? can ice tranches taken from the poles tell us anything?
It is about ~40% co2. The rest is carbon/water/ozone/other... (mostly water ~60%).
The heat from the reaction creates pretty much 2 major by products water and co2. Almost 99% of that ends up in the atmosphere. Some ends up in the filters (you change those every few thousand miles and is negligible). Some just blows right out onto the road (you see it as road grime). Some becomes particulate mater and floats around. But that is really a small percentage of the overall and is contaminates in the gas. For some cars there is even a percentage that comes out as gas. This is gas that did not combust due to lack of oxygen. It goes out the exhaust pipe onto the road usually.
To hear some people talk you would think it is 100% co2.
Presumably this post means that if the WSJ finds a dozen or so loonies who proclaim that Pi should be an even number, Slashdot will publish it?
Trolling? Click farming? What's the deal?
Cap-and-trade carbon limits are definitely a tough topic. It's inevitable that some carbon dioxide will be produced in our energy use, and reducing CO2 emissions is extremely costly and involves a high-stakes game of international poker. Also, CO2 levels would have to be tremendously higher than they are now to cause any negative environmental effects outside of warming. I personally would support some carbon taxes (I think cap-and-trade is too vulnerable to political manipulation esp. of who gets the initial credits), especially if we can get international agreement, but I know the debate won't be settled quickly.
But I'm really irritated that we're letting the debate about carbon consume all the attention and other environmental issues are getting ignored. There are a lot of actions that would come at relatively low costs and have huge positive environmental impacts, both w.r.t. warming and otherwise, but we're spending so much time avoiding doing anything about carbon that we're not getting anything else done either.
As examples, I'll mention three somewhat-related things we ought to take action on without delay. First, methane and particulate pollution are big contributors to global warming but also have tons of other negative effects including direct effects on human health. We could make drastic reductions in these at a much lower cost than cutting carbon emissions.
Second, one of the major sources of methane pollution is the beef industry, and as people in the developing world start to mimic US lifestyles and their meat consumption explodes, the increase in cattle causes tons of other problems as well. We should do more (education, Pigovian taxes, etc) to encourage people to be moderate in meat consumption. All told, cutting meat from your diet for just one day each week does as much for the environment as switching from a gas-guzzler to a Prius.
Third, while people make a big deal about how Brazil has succeeded in reducing the rate of Amazon deforestation, "we're destroying the rainforest more slowly" is not all that great a success. Besides being one of the biggest non-oceanic carbon sinks (which gets turned into a carbon and methane source when cut down, burned, and used for cattle) it's also vital to biodiversity and South American water quality and weather patterns.
Even if global warning turns out to be a pipedream, noone reasonable will dispute that we are burning fossil fuel at rates far higher than they are replenished.
If we want a technological future for humanity we will need to develop reusable energy sources quickly, before we run out of fossil fuel. (If we run out of fossil fuel before we have reusable energy sources it is probably game over for any kind of technological civilization.)
So in essence, it doesn't matter if global warming is happening or not, we need to reduce dependence on fossil fuel ASAP.
i will say with enough money i could hire a gang of scientists to say whatever i wanted them to say
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
... Rupert Murdoch said what?
Sorry, I was too busy listening to someone I trust... what was that? Fuckit... I need some toilet paper, can you hand me that so-called 'journal'?
It's annoying (but not surprising) that the article fails to mention ocean acidification. Excess CO2 in the air is absorbed by the ocean (that's the only reason the atmospheric concentration hasn't gone up far more) where it is converted to carbonic acid. This increased acidity in the ocean has been found to harm shell formation and to alter the behavior of fish.
In short, if you mess with the chemical composition of the *earth's*entire*atmosphere* then you should expect side effects, some of which are difficult to anticipate. If you claim that you know that there won't be any then you are being irrational. Random alterations to our entire globe should be done with extreme caution.
The WSJ is being irresponsible, and short-sighted.
As for dealing with climate change being uneconomical, a recent study found that many options would actually *save* money. But the WSJ would rather waste money than risk cleaning up the environment.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/01/improving-air-quality-will-save-money-and-prevent-climate-change.ars
It doesn't matter if global warming destroys the earth because I'll be living safely at Moon Base Gingrich.
Once upon a time (very long ago) the purpose of the press was to tell us what was going on in the world. Now the purpose of the press is to align us with their goals. It's a sad thing to see. Thank goodness for the Internet where we can get a vast array of biased viewpoints instead of just one.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Somebody never learned ANY chemistry, and posts as SuperKendall. That someone has to be trolling. People able to type on a computer aren't actually this stupid, right?
The WSJ article gave arguments? I see a claim that the world hasn't been warming in the last 10 years (ignoring that the last 10 years have been the hottest on modern record), a claim that CO2 isn't a pollutant because trees need CO2 (and by similar logic I need water, therefor I can't drown), a claim that the evil AGW conspiracy tried to get some guy fired (but he kept his job), comparing AGW consensus to Lysenko, accusations of corruption by grant money (which having been paid by grant money for many years made me laugh, then cry when I thought about my finances), a strawman about AGW conspirators wanting to "decarbonize" the economy, and one mention of one economic study alleging that it's best to do nothing for 50 years as that will maximize the benefit to cost ratios, with the exact nature of the benefits, costs, and how no regulation bests any and all regulation left unexplained. What a pile of crap.
Oh, and that science article written by 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences wasn't a rebuttal. It was published in 2010.
If we follow their advice and they turn up wrong, we're all fucked. What are THEY betting? Do we get to draw and quarter them?
You include both 1998 and 2010. Those are 12 years apart. What amazing definition of decade are you using?
If you have not had the chance to see the movie "An Inconsistent Truth" do so! It reveals why many people want you to believe in Global Warming. Several people will be made very rich by the 'redistribute the wealth' plan. It is another plan to push the 'one world order' agenda. http://aninconsistenttruth.com/ . It is absolute junk science that is designed to make things more expensive at your expense and to benefit a very few others. When it showed in Nashville three theaters had to open to handle the crowd on the first day.
In an unprecedent effort to unify measuring units between all countries, they are trying that countries that use the celcius system have the farenheit degrees. So won't be anymore that mess that "my country average temperature 20C or 67F", now it will be 67C and both measuring units will be united. Is all for peace.
Save 1998. (Damn AC waiting period keeping me from posting a correction...)
2011 was the 11th warmest though, so 10 of 11 aren't just in the past decade. They are the past decade.
Always was a sucker. I'm sure he'll believe this crap too.
16
The only cool solution is to put some shades on earth.
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I ditched it since the WSJ became a propaganda machine owned by Rupert Murdoch.
It used to be a good news source, and the right-wing editorials were distinct from the actual news. But that difference vanished. Its now exactly the same as Faux News.
Honestly I don't give a fuck about editorial articles. I want the news because I can develop my own opinion, I don't need to eat somebody else's shit.
Now the only thing the WSJ is good for is killing trees.
Want decent news? Try the Economist.
The WSJ is a Murdoch-Paper focused on economics. While they might be biased on economics too, it is at least their topic. Earth sciences is definitely not their topic. Honestly, why is that news at all? It is the typical FUD from that side.
Fuck fox news and the wallstreet shit rag.
You can find scientists who believe in jesus too, they're fucking idiots.
It was what in the 70s that Time magazine had this huge article on how a new ice age is coming? And in the 60s/70s scientists new for a fact that nuclear energy would cause an ice age?
What about the fact this planet has been around for billions of years at least and we have only been around for couple thousand or something like that and only in the past 50 have we had science that is actually scientific? The planet has had world wide fires, world wide floods, ice ages planet wide, tectonic disasters that split continents in half, total reversal of the earths poles, bombardments from space of meteors and cosmic energies and so on and yet we come along with our "Scientific evidence" and say that global warming is our doing? How self centered are we to think that something like that is caused by us? Bottom line is this planet has been here for billions of years and undergone countless changes, how do we know this isnt just another natural change in the planet?
Besides saying "global warming" is just a way for people to draw attention to themselves like al gore who no one cared about anymore till he went on his little speach parade. Or saying global warming nets you a few million in research grants which you can basically just repeat what others did and not prove a thing and get to keep 500,000 bucks for yourself.
IF, global warming is real then we cant do anything about it because its just another random phase of the planet.
Just one note for future discussions - when you are trying to make a very good observation/point - be extremely careful it's bullet proof, saying they are all in the past decade is clearly wrong and it allows the naysayers an angle of attack where they can clearly proove you wrong on something that has absolutely no relation to the point you are trying to make, but will absolutely kill your argument.
(This is exactly the same method the police use to get conviction out of innocent people when they can't find the real purp - if there is the slightest error in your statement, it can be used against you.)
umm of all the bad things that come out of the tail pipe of a car CO2 is not even half. You post stated that the only thing coming out is a 1:1 gas to co2 reaction. thats bullshit. its a bunch of many nasty things that aren't all greenhouse gasses even though they are all mostly going to rot you lungs.
Even the ones written by scientists?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
How about weather forecasts?
The national weather service here in Denmark just admitted they have had the worst predictions *ever* because their models simply doesn't match any longer.
There is still a Flat Earth Society too.
Someone did some research down thread about these "scientists", and yeah I'm definitely sticking with the expert in the field. Being a scientist in an unrelated field, doesn't make you an expert on every single scientific topic. For instance, when it comes to particle physics; Do you trust the experts in the field, or what a climatologist has to say about it?
WATER mostly then a bunch of really nasty other stuff. but its mostly water vapor
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
There are plenty of countries more liberal than us: Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. There are plenty of countries more conservative than us: Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.
Fact is, the USA is pretty much center of the road on the worldwide ideological spectrum.
But certain assholes will call the USA hopelessly conservative, and certain other assholes will call the USA hopelessly liberal.
This speaks to me more about the prejudices and intellectual shortcomings of the person speaking, and less about the simple truth of the USA's moderate position on the ideological world stage.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
brought about by mass fluctuations in economics, which in turn can sometimes be caused by mass changes in environment (which affects food supply, the basis of economics)
I would like cleaner air. All electric cars would be nice. I worry about air quality more than warming.
he did not 'dumb down' science to make Cosmos... he made it relevant. he translated a lot of jargon into not only english, but a sort of poetic english intermixed with visuals.
to paraphrase kurt vonnegut , if you cant explain what you are doing to a seven year old, there is a good chance all of your jargon and fancy equations are a bunch of horse shit.
Most climate scientists have tainted their work by accepting government funding. Here's how it works:
Hey, scientist, we're worried about this whole global warming thing. Why don't you research it and see if it's a problem...oh and by the way, if you find that global warming is a problem, we'll give you millions more in grants. But if you find that there isn't a problem, then we won't give you any more money.
See the problem?
I know that it's counter-intuitive, but the mass of CO2 created by burning a kilogram of gasoline is greater than one kilogram. Volume isn't very interesting, because CO2 is a gas and gasoline is a liquid, so it's no surprise that the volume of gas created is greater than the initial volume of gasoline. This fact (that the CO2 is more massy than the gasoline) is counter-intuitive because most people naively apply conservation of mass to the problem, and say most of what is produced is water, so the mass of CO2 must necessarily be less than the mass of gasoline. This is how folks get tripped up: the oxygen has mass, and a lot of it.
Gasoline is a mix of chemicals, isooctane, butane, and many others, but it's actually pretty close to CH2 in composition. Maybe something like CH2.5. To a first approximation, every carbon atom in gasoline is part of a CO2 molecule after combustion. Some of it is just carbon (soot) and some of it is CO, but the biggest component is CO2. Oxygen is 16 times as massive as hydrogen, so after combustion the mass of CO2 is greater than the mass of gasoline you burned.
here is a reference that describes the situation in greater detail.
Luckily, only floating ice melts when it gets warmer. Ice on land will stay frozen until well above 15C. I know this is the case because we had snow a few days ago, and today it was almost 17C and there is still snow on the ground. QED.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
says who? your favorite radio show personality?
fact is, all media serves some sort of agenda. usually it's the unself-realized agendas of some editors and reporters. you can point to any media and say "see this sentence?" or "why did they report on XYZ and not ABC?" conspiracy! agenda!
but this is illusory. because there is no organizing principle at work here. contrast that with the obvious corporate agenda that buys and pays for the faux news entertainment empire
which you apparently are happy to embrace. just look at your sig
so you are someone who is happy with bad obvious motivations than with motivations you can't easily see. you would rather go with what you can know, regardless of malintent or lack of morality, than be guided by a sense of right and wrong. because right and wrong is cloudy and difficult, see, and you won't have any of that nonsense
thank you for clearly labeling your bad character for us, asshole
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Now? I can walk outside with out a jacket. Something is seriously fucked here.
You must be young, the look on weather.com for the record high for this day in history, was 62 degrees F. It's called weather, it isn't climate.
I certainly would trust a physicist's opinion on heat flow and what may or may not produce a significant drag on heat flow. Just as I would trust an evolutionary biologist's opinion on what how evolutionary trends might interact with uptake or release of CO2. But more importantly, I would trust a group of scientists pointing out that a witch hunt is interfering with scientific method (and that is the main thrust of the editorial).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.'"
With the same logic we can say that "shit" it not a polluant, and therefore we can dump it directly into lakes and rivers.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
While I'm not opposed to reducing emissions in developed countries, I think that special exceptions should be made for 3rd world countries that are simply trying to get their economies above a poverty level. The truth is less developed countries are hurt the most when global treaties are written.
Frist post!
Good for you, luckily for me i don't have to follow what you do. I'll stick to what the experts in climatology are saying. You're free to believe whatever crackpot nonsense you wish.
I don't see why the issue of man caused global warming receives so much attention. A much more pressing issue for humanity is the sustainability (or lack there of) of an oil-based global economy that relies on infinite growth. Man caused global warming, whether or not it's actually real, is one mere symptom of this larger issue.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Who is it expected the planet's temperature can't and won't change? Or even that any change to the whole system won't have dramatic effects on the population centers and surrounding regions that support them? We haven't got another planet handy, and we know better than to never expect a "market correction." One thing that can be observed well, dramatic displacement causes deep ripples with resounding consequences.
Which is the more credible source for scientific analysis: reports written in terms of physics, and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal; or an opinion piece written in terms of politics and economics, and published in the house organ of the financial-commodities-trading industry?
Except that it's dire economic tail-chasing and suicide that most of the It's All Man's Fault And We're Doomed people propose. It's entirely appropriate to mention that the economic wreckage caused by pursuing things the way that the leftist-eviro-axis says we should would torpedo the very prosperity that pays for research and developement of more energy-efficient ways of life. The costs of doing something hideously expensive that likely will make almost no difference whatsoever (especially since countries like India and China, with energy use rates growing at staggering rates, won't play ball) is nonsensical. And there's nothing wrong with talking about that. And there's a reason that physicists don't talk about it.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Good for you. Just as a good Catholic would trust what the Catholic experts say about Catholicism being the one true religion (and publish in their peer-reviewed Catholic philosophical journals). Good for you.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
0.001 kg x (3 x 10^8 m/s)^2 is 9 x 10^13 Joules. A Joules is a watt-second, and a year is about 3 x 10^7 seconds. If we have a 100-watt bulb, we could power it for 9 x 10^11 seconds, which is closer to 30,000 years. A pound of matter would power it for about 13.6 million years (1 lb. = 454 g).
Thats fine, you can pay for it too while leaving the rest of us alone.
If AWG were valid they would be proposing taxes on METHANE a gas that is 15x the greenhouse effect of CO2. But that only taxes a small set of people, so CO2 is needed to take money from a much larger pool of people. Also note, us paying more in taxes does nothing to solve the problem, it just give a corrupt government more money to give to their campaign donors like Solendra.
Gives me an excuse to murder that guy from down the street I'm not exactly fond of. "But he was contributing to global warming, Your Honor!"
My blog
i'm pretty sure the stargate in antarctica was destroyed by the borg
nobody ever got fired for buying microsoft products either
I rarely read anything from the global warming camp that describe it as 'a possible problem'. They describe it as inevitable, certain, and beyond doubt. At least publiclly. It's the private discussions about lack of confirming evidence and why they can't find the expected results that concerns me. They can't admit any flaws in their theories. So much for scientific method. This is not about science, it's about politics. Just that way.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Huh????? Do you have some magical spreadsheet of world temperatures throughout all of history?? You know those Vikings putting thermometers at the North Pole and checking on it regularly to update their Excel spreadsheet to hand over to the next generation...
I'm sick of this elitist crap of this is the warmest decade in ALL of HISTORY. Panic! You will all die! How about you pull that magical spreadsheet of the world temperatures and check temps when the Vikings were around in warmer times. You know those evil Vikings and driving their cars and outsourcing to polluting companies in the Orient for their oars and helmets and stuff.
I believe in climate change because it's normal and happens throughout history. In the 70's, they predicted an Ice Age. I don't believe in this man made crap.
Life went on before computers were born, computer models are only programmed predictions. :)
When I was growing up in Michigan near Grand Rapids we had drifts of five feet and the temp would drop down too –25 degrees. Shoveling 150 feet to get to the drive way you ended throwing snow on drifts and then you had seven foot of snow yikes!
I have been back home many times and mostly in the winter and I was lucky if I saw two feet of snow. Yes climate change is changing, but it was changing before I was born and it will after I am dead. ((Enjoy life))
G&C
Global warming is real.
But there is a lot of arguing about everything that affects it.
Let’s start with the WSJ article which is pretty much a reprint of the same arguments in the 90's.
In the 90's a lot of people with PHD's came out and sited bogus data, and bad assumptions to outline their argument that global warming was a hoax.
A lot of the PHD’s in question did not have any experience in the discipline necessary to come to an educated conclusion.
In fact if I remember correctly the majority of the people with PHD’s were geologists dependent on Oil and natural gas companies for funding.
This was exposed for the crap that it was in the early 2000's.
Now it is back again and it is still crap, and not real science.
And guess what kiddies the WSJ is not a scientific journal.
Now let’s look at the real science behind global warming.
Global warming is caused by many factors but the 2 main factors are: Greenhouse gasses, and solar changes in our sun.
Trying to predict this is still tough because we still don’t have all the data necessary to pin it all down.
So there are still some anomaly’s with the models we use.
What we do know is we can't really do much about the sun at this time, but we can reduce our CO2 output and possibly other greenhouse gasses as well.
There are also natural processes on the earth that produce greenhouse gasses that we can’t at this time control.
But reducing the industrial greenhouse gasses we output is something we can and really should do.
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
"ultra-wealthy SierraClub and PETA members!" ROFLMAO!!!
So wealthy they're pitching tents on Wall Street.
On what planet are there "ultra-wealthy SierraClub and PETA members" ?!?
Good thing this story is just fuel for the pro-business subscription base and doesn't hold any water at all.
In reality, the arguments actually are all valid on their face. Everything there is factual, except the laissez-faire attitude. The problem comes from the writer(s) choosing to strip the context of each point.
I'm literally going to read it now (I chose not to when it popped up on a science blog recently), just to see how quick it is to correct (being written after the fact, it was about an hour):
It starts with Ivar Giaever, who, despite expert work in Quantum Physics and a solid background on Biophysics and coming from the country bordering the one where the discovery of global warming happend...a century ago, has chosen to ignore recorded, glacial, oceanic and tree records to declare, not that global warming is fictional, but his distrust of anthropogenic climate, due to the apparent popularity among physical, atmospheric, oceanic and glacial climatological scientists. Skepticism based on popularity is not uncommon, and you could likely pull up a couple more nominated Nobel Prize winners. His attack on the APS seems to ignore the difference between theoretical physics and real world macroscale examination. I believe it was Planck who said, "Science advances one funeral at a time."
Then there's the COv2 is not a pollutant, even though, as a relative output outside of the natural chemistry of the Earth (the effect of living creatures and other processes) it does count as a deposit which changes the chemistry of the surrounding environment, ergo, pollution.
The now over-used 10 year decrease/steady state analysis ignores the natural wave of environmental change. If you look at the larger source, search for "Global Temperature Anomaly 1880-2010," you would find that there is always a downward period, but taking the total effect of cycles, it average has always increased. Claiming the effect is related to changes in evaporation truly ignores that heating that much ocean to increase the level of evaporation is and incredible amount of energy...we use steam power for electricity...imagine how much electricity it would take to move the increased precipitation as just water from one side of a continent to the other.
To hit on "ClimateGate" is quite humorous within itsown context. As those who know what the supposed terrifying things said were, it's great to poke fun at those attacking it. First, it's a group of people who were amazed that faulty meta-research was actually included in the IPCC assessment; then, the, "mathematical trick," that they used was not only a justifiable, "We know the energy is there since no satellites have shown it disappearing," logic, but that mathematical trick CAME FROM THE PERSON WHO SUBMITTED THE FAULTY META-RESEARCH. It's one of those moments that only look bad out of context, and that's how denialists want the public to see it.
Also, recently explicitly justified: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-029
The IPCC's own projections were, in part, based on the larger than average spike during the 80's, possibly assuming the aforementioned wave-effect might have become reduced. Calling the first set of projections embarrassing is, to say the least, childish, and suggesting it was alarmest ignores how frightening the 80's spike was then perceived. To dismiss extreme weather's effect as a mitigator ignores the point of the previous paragraph.
While I've already covered carbon dioxide as a definition of pollution, the unique mention of a benefit to plants have ignored recent studies that plant have been decreasing their stomataphors in count and opening period in areas of higher COv2 concentrations, thus indicating and upper-bound limit to COv2's usefulness to plants.
Next, skimming past the unidentified fields of study, unidentified quantity, unconfirmable scientists, we have Dr. de Freitas, who is another well recognised name to those aware of the field. He's had some interesting logic. One: Human beings didn't use significant amounts of fossil
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
With regards to gasoline, much of it gets converted into H2O. You visually see this when start the car on a cold morning. For some newer cars, the water vapor condensed is quite drinkable.
Life is not for the lazy.
Regardless of the science, there seems to be little chance of anything, anywhere being done in response.
Assuming it is in fact happening, it seems the only way to stop CO2 induced climate change is to stop industrialisation.
This, I suggest will never happen. Never. Ever.
This does not seem to harmonize with building shareholder value. Not in the US, not in Russia, nor China nor India. Not even in the EU.
There is a long way from science to politics.
Half baked fudges that create local speculative bubbles out of public fear is all we can hope for until this panic induced business fad, too, passes..
Electric cars? Carbon trading? Forestry plantations? Green architecture? Good boost for some in the right industries capitalizing on the latest moral panic.
It is perhaps, worth turning to Keynes when discussing projections of future superbad.
"The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
Oh so science is religion now? Experts aren't to be trusted, unless they're speaking outside their field? Go piss up a rope.
Al would never lie to me !
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Here's the thing: Real scientists don't write or say things like this.
They don't talk about "embarrassment" of those who disagree, nor of anyone's "drumbeat". As I say in the title, these are right-wing dog signals.
Secondly, CO2 has never been called a "pollutant" in the sense these "scientists" want to portray -- they are using tools of propaganda with how they describe CO2 juxtaposed with how real scientists discuss it.
To top it all off, it's always been about _climate change_ -- there was no "shift" from "warming".
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Organic CO2, a natural component of mother earth is full of whole grain goodness... I take it the oil lobby wants us to waste more oil at great cost again?
Has there been no warming over the last ten years?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly_1880-2010_%28Fig.A%29.gif
Gee, certainly looks a clear trend to me, but if I take the spike in the late 90's and draw a straight line to the trough in 2012, I can get a line that points downwards. If I want to cook the numbers I certainly can, and that seems to be what they're up to yet again.
And the opinion piece, anyone who dares say there is a clear trend upwards and that bogus science is a Comrade from the Soviet Union?? No, their nonsense is debunked again and again and they don't like it. It's not communism to say the claim is false, its not communism to point out the scientists work for an oil company trust, which has a direct interest in making false science.
The supreme irony of all of this is that 'global warming' became 'global cooling' became 'climate change' became 'global warming'... and I think we're back to global warming again, on account of the mild Winter throughout most of the US.
This is political and economic system abuse. So-called 'clean' companies use it to push their competitors out of the market; people in power use it to funnel public funds to the pet 'green' project of the year (which they or their friends just happen to have a vested interest in seeing succeed); anti-capitalists use it as a political axe against the so-called 'Establishment' (unless the Establishment just happens to be felating them that given moment).
Look, people: weather systems have been changing (eg. El Nina and El Nino) for as long as we've kept records of such things, and they're not always consistent. The sun has, likewise, been having ebb and flux for as long as we can go back. Climates have been doing the same.
It's pretty straight forward, but people seem to ignore all the independent factors which make "more CO2" a non-problem. So, suppose more CO2 does make it warmer (globally or locally). More warmth (and CO2) means more plant growth season-long. This consumes more CO2, instead of the plants going into dormancy. Additionally, the increased warmth means there is more evaporation, and thus potential for precipitation. More precipitation means that, yes, there may be more flooding and (in combination with increased warmth) more violent storms. It also means that water is going to get to drought-stricken parts of the globe (either directly or indirectly).
Those water wars and worldwide drought predictions made when I was in grade school in the early 90s, (and how the world's population was going to be 12 trillion by now)? Agriprop at the best; calloused and degenerate misanthropy at its worst. We were fed this nonsense in grade school (and, if my kids' Scholastic News is any indication today) for over 20 years! The crystal ball nuttery continues, but, of course, it has nothing in common with their predictions from years past.
The people who push these things are masturbatory assholes, so full of themselves, their models, and supposed superiority (for seeing 'the truth') that they're little different than crazed witch doctors. Just so we're clear: what they preach isn't science: it's a religion of political change through subterfuge. It's no different than an unethical salesman selling someone something "they need" based on questionable studies.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Oh so science is religion now?
Absolutely not. The point was that you are treating it as such.
Experts aren't to be trusted, unless they're speaking outside their field?
No, experts are to be trusted, or at least considered, if their field has a relation to the question at hand -- not just if they are part of an anointed orthodoxy of experts blessed by those holding the reigns of the field.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Go piss up a rope.
I have an even better suggestion. You gather up a crowd of your fellow lemmings and you try to drown me. If I drown, then I am not a witch. If don't drown, then I am a witch and you feel freely justify to burn me at the stake. Because after all, only a witch would fail to give a 100% fanatical support to the One True Faith.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
"ultra-wealthy SierraClub and PETA members!" ROFLMAO!!!
So wealthy they're pitching tents on Wall Street.
On what planet are there "ultra-wealthy SierraClub and PETA members" ?!?
Good news! You don't have to save up to buy a rocket ship to find out!
Mayor Bloomberg Donates $50 Million To Sierra Club
Sierra Club - Green Home - Advisory Board
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Water is a colorless and odorless liquid, ingested at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.
Just sayin.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
I HATE construction noises, all those people drilling holes in walls and cutting open ceilings for maintenance or some improvements. And those damn fire engines rushing to fires. So much easier to live in a world where a building is put up, some asbestos sheets are put inside and then never touched again until the end of time.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The mechanism is very well understood - hard sharp stuff the body can't break down gets in the lungs, can't get out, and then irritates cells, giving a small chance of cancer with every trapped fibre. Enough trapped fibres and that small chance turns into certainty.
It's also highly reflective and loose fibres drift in the breeze in the sunlight with a sparkling effect that looks very cool until you understand what it is. I've worked in a few power stations while it was being removed.
What we know about asbestos is very well established by scientists despite attempts to muddy the water by Lawyers paid to obstruct.
modern economics does not use 'empiricism'. i.e., they dont care if their theories actually match what happens in the real world. talk to economists, they will tell you there is no such thing as a bubble, speculation doesn't affect the market, etc etc etc. most of academic economics is completely corrupted by wall street.
Really. I don't care if Scientist X believes in climate change or not (although we could argue about how many of the list of 16 are scientists) - but Lysenko? They had the frakking balls to compare what's going on today with Lysenko era genetics? Sorry, their credibility has just dropped to zero in my book. (Here is a clue - there were no billionaire brothers funding opponents to Lysenko. They went to the gulag.)
This is agit-prop, pure are simple. I bet half of the signatories drop out within the week, as I doubt they all agreed to this text.
I gave up on my Climate Change fixing activities after the Copenhagen summit produced absolutely nothing. So I went out and bought a new car that was special ordered, even though my previous car was in operable shape and well maintained. I got AC installed in my townhouse, and don't bother recycling anymore.
But it's still probably helpful.
Better a false positive than a false negative.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
The WSJ has added an element of tabloid trashiness to it's editorial mix.
It's been there since the Carter Administration. Back then, it was the Panama Canal treaty, but it's always something.
It doesn't matter what the truth is. There are clearly many factors to global weather and temperature and it is naive to challenge the issue on only the level of carbon emissions. I'm not saying CO2 isn't a factor, but the sun cycles are likely more of a factor (and water vapor, volcanoes, and idk what else, im not a climatologist), and it wouldn't matter what the effect of reducing carbon emissions would do anyway because there is no way you are going to shutdown industrial china.
What I hate most about the global warming debate is that a lot of the key players don't give a shit about the planet and are simply exploiting the issue for profit.
If we really want to help preserve our planet so it will support human life for a longer period of time, there are more pressing environmental issues that need our attention. Trash island for one, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash_island, scares the shit at me. On top of that with all the oil spills we are looking at completely destroying marine ocean life. Animals eat fish, we eat animals and fish, we are poisoning ourselves. I love science. I love studying science, I love debating, and it's important to debate science, but we don't want it to come to a point where we are debating these issues while not lifting a finger to stop things from crumbling down around us.
You don't get a plumber to give his opinion on your brain tumour even if they are the best plumber on earth.
If you want your pot of water anology, do it correctly and realize that those warm sees around hawaii and the freezing ones at the poles are a milimeter in your pot if you consider the depth of the ocean. And a half degree in the deep ocean will have an effect simply to enormous gigantic mass concerned, rather then your skinny dipping on beach with water 5 degrees higher or lower.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The Koch family has been spending a lot of money to buy influence at colleges and universities, I wonder if this is the payoff? 16 scientists on a Murdoch property.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Which is the more credible source for scientific analysis: reports written in terms of physics, and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal; or an opinion piece written in terms of politics and economics, and published in the house organ of the financial-commodities-trading industry?
Maybe it depends.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Notice this wasn't published in a science journal ... But instead, was published in a right-wing newspaper.
The global-warming deniers obviously have no evidence, because if they did, they'd publish it in a science journal.
What exactly are these right-wingers trying to hide? Their corporate oil-industry donors?
You seem to have missed the obvious fact that they were addressing this to the general public, not publishing a piece of scientific research for scientific review. That is why they published it in the WSJ. Really, is this rocket science?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If i can't live for ever.....no one can.
Uh, I was joking.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ok, this should be a common sense matter. All decaying matter that has had billions of years to form fossil fuels is being used in MASSIVE quantities. We are also cutting down plants that in turn turn co2 into oxygen.......climate change...warming....of course its true.
is that the seasons have become hipsters
We should spend billions to combat "global warming" because a weather station couldn't predict the weather correctly.
Oh noes, how are we going to decide where to go for the weekend?!?!?!?!!
Don't quote me on this.
conservative is a relative term
there is the great moderate middle and all ideological stances must be judged from their point of view, domestically or internationally. as the moderate middle moves over time, so do the outliers and their relative definition
no other point of view is logically valid
because to posit some absolute definition of liberal or conservative over the relative position of a given view as compared to the great moderate middle, is to appeal to a narrow subculture. to say the views of that subculture is the more valid view than that of the common moderate man... on what basis can you say that? no valid basis. not that that will stop you. a lot of evil in this world is committed when a narrow subculture arrogantly asserts that it's point of view and it's definitions supersedes that of the common man, the moderate middle. a military culture, an economic subculture, an academic subculture, whoever does this: they are all the roots of suffering when they do that
the great moderate middle is always right. when those in power are out of touch with the great moderate middle, in any ideological direction, that is when strife and suffering occurs in this world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously. The majority of the earth's greenhouse effect comes from water vapor. If I recall correctly, a doubling of CO2 alone would lead to less than 1C of warming (I got that from reading a past IPCC report though I can't find the specific reference now). This <1C warming causes the atmosphere to hold more water vapor, which warms things up further, which evaporates more water, etc. In the worst scenarios, other positive feedbacks, such as warming oceans holding less dissolved CO2 and methane being released from thawing tundra, kick in and accelerate the process still further.
This actually is my biggest beef with these long term climate models. Their assumptions seem to suggest that the earth's climate is an unstable equilibrium, like a marble balanced precariously on top of an inverted bowl. Push it a little and woosh, a positive feedback loop causes runaway change. We know however that the earth's climate fluctuated pretty significantly in the past with out running away. There must be some negative feedbacks and buffers as well. The anthropic principle suggest's that the Earth's climate must be a stable equilibrium, like a marble in the bottom of an upright bowl: push it a little and it rolls back toward the center. Otherwise the Earth would long ago have run away and become a boiling hot house like Venus and we wouldn't be here.
Of course we should exercise caution in messing around with the atmosphere of the planet upon which we depend for our continued existence. I totally support a carbon tax, just to be safe. But the Earth and its atmosphere are a ridiculously complex system and the accuracy of these models is almost certainly overstated.
And about 14 busybodies with no experience in climate science
Here's the whole list:
So, the score stands at two real climate scientists (of whom Lindzen is one I've heard of before), one dubious former director and 13 jokers in the pack.
Sources
Wouldn't encouraging people to buy poor quality furniture that they need to replace often be better, so as to increase CO2 stored in discarded furniture in landfills?
As you say above, make sure it's treated so it doesn't get eaten or degrade quickly in the landfill.
Poor quality furniture is also more likely to be made out of fast-growing wood like pine, which encourages planting.
You agree with me.
No amount of hand waving changes the fact that they push a political agenda.
Yeah... all truths are socially constructed, there is no difference between education and indoctrination, and no such thing as erudite disinterested investigation.
I happen to be one of those scientists -- and this nonsense about the NAS being political is just a typical ploy a partisan political position that is devoid of content.
This is from Lifton's famous book on thought reform in communist China:
The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.
You have suggested that every organisation is as objective as any other. (It is your opening statement.) This supposedly profound statement makes a mockery of a basic and nuanced continuum between ideologically polarised organisations (e.g.: a political advocacy group) and a loose nit association of professional scientists, using facts to compete for mind-share with their peers.
I'm guessing you are politically right, and opposed to totalitarian socialism. Way to go with the thought-terminating cliché!!!
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
...it's already too late to worry.
CO2 is a wee-tiny-lil problem now compared to methane, not to say that CO2 did not play a part in that.
Chain reaction: CO2 fuels greenhouse effect enough to (amongst other things) cause tundra fires in the northern-north hemisphere, releasing tons and tons of methane, a gas 7 to 72 more potent in global warming potential.
yep, we're fucked.
captcha: agonize
because it's organic!
I don't remember ever reading of The Theory of Climatic Stability. Maybe I was inattentive, but when did it stabilize? I recall the earth has been a hot dry desert and a frozen iceball and that CO2 has changed from 0.02% to 0.2%, and oxygen from nothing to poisoning off all existing life above water. Am I to understand it actually stabilized in ~1800 and any change since then is my bad?
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
My own anecdote is that while this winter has been quite a bit milder than usual, the last two years have seen an entire decade's worth of snow in my part of the Mid-Atlantic, not the result of freak storms either but of several moderate storms, the likes of which would be entirely unremarkable in New England, say. Easy come, easy go.
I think you have that backwards, the WSJ published it because they're trying to convince they're readership that AGW doesn't exist and therefore they should vote for the Republicans that Ruper Murdoch also owns (in addition to the WSJ).
It's all about using his influence over the Republicans to make more money, in the end.
Also Rupert Murdoch hates global warming because it's very existence questions the fundamental core assumptions of laissez-faire economics. I.e. that the market is perfect and can not create a problem that it won't eventually solve. And questioning laissez-faire economics can lead to undesirable outcomes, like regulation of media barons who use their political influence to undermine the democratic process.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
TFA is an embodiement of everything wrong with public global warming debate. There are two generally separate issues.
1. What is the problem?
2. What should be done about it?
You are entitled to have an "opinion" on what should be done about it.
You are not entitled to an opinion with regards to objective reality. You may disagree with models, datasets, methodologies..etc these disagreements must be specific and substantive.
"In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed"
Scientists have no business making such statements in the first place. It is the job of politicians and the public to answer what if anything should be done with the projections and predictions provided by scientists.
This is an issue on both sides of the coin... IPCC et al need to refrain from in any way stating action is needed and just focus on making predictions of possible futures with their confidence in those predictions. Let the reader figure out what is needed based on the evidence provided by scientists.
Injecting political opinion into scientific issues hurts everyone. It makes people mistrust scientists and lowers the threshold for politicians ignoring scientific advice they receive when it is inconvenient for them.
Global warming is not the only issue under the "climate change" umbrella which TFA and most other political opinion pieces attacking global warming summarily ignore.
If you don't want to worry about global warming think of the oceans which >1billion people depend for food... real troubling things going on right now... shelled creatures melting away, 25% of reefs gone, issues with plankton at the very bottom of food chain gone. Evidence directly linking acidification to human produced carbon.
When you said "notice a pattern", I looked at the numbers and thought: "no". Your subject says "in the past decade". Your argument provides good evidence that the past decade has been significantly warmer than other decades in the past 130 years, however it does not support the argument that significant warming has occurred during the past 10 years . I ran a quick regression of those rank order vs year pairs just to check my intuition that they were not noticeably positively related. Indeed, the coefficient was -0.0449. That is, later years on that list tended to have slightly (insignificantly) lower ranks than earlier years.
That inspired me to go the next step. Instead of using the ranks you gave, I grabbed the global temperature deviations for those years off of the Wikipedia instrumental temperature record page. Running another regression I got a coefficient of 0.001201 with a p-value of 0.7046 for an F-test. So, statistically significant warming was not detected in the sample of years you provided.
Actually if we ran 2002-2011 (two very recent years, 2008 and 2011, don't make the top ten list) to check the last decade, we get a negative but insignificant relationship. So it's pretty clear that there has been no global warming in the past decade. The authors were, technically, correct. One could definitely argue that this does not constitute evidence against global warming. But that was not your approach.
Not to be a dick. Just saying.
I've only been alive for over 50 years, but, I can remember temperatures in the 60's well above norm for winter, the 70's, well BELOW norm for winter (they were even talking about another ice age when I was in school!), normal winters in the 80's and on and on. 100 years of climate data DOES NOT prove anything, when you take the earth's age into consideration. Man must really think highly of themselves if they think spewing a little "greenhouse gas" in the air will screw up the world. One good size volcano can do that, plus, if the yellowstone one ever popped, it would be right up there with the end of the dinosaurs. The SUN is what can cause the cycles. This "global warming" nonsense is just something the peacenik/hippie/60's rejects/idiots want you to believe so they can get man off the planet by dying off as a race.
https://autonomousmind.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/co2_ppm.jpg
A useful graphic showing the proportion of naturally-occurring and manmade
Co2 in the atmosphere.
The green dots represent naturally-occurring Co2.
The red dots represent mandmade Co2.
The black dots are other gases and particles.
You may need to expand the image to see everything
Considering that there's probably been a regression in the past decade in confidence and education in science for the average American, I'm inclined to just say "fuck it" and let whatever happens happen and pick up the pieces afterwards. It's clear that the American public are neither educated nor responsible enough to make rational decisions on issues that affect the world as a whole, and that's probably not going to change until the US is upended, either internally by their own actions, or by force from someone else.
Also Rupert Murdoch hates global warming because it's very existence questions the fundamental core assumptions of laissez-faire economics.
I doubt that Rupert Murdoch is stupid enough to believe that he can banish global warming with editorials and opinion pieces any more than he can the rain or tides. The man made his money by seeing opportunities that other people had missed, not by denying reality.
And questioning laissez-faire economics can lead to undesirable outcomes, like regulation of media barons who use their political influence to undermine the democratic process.
You mean like Michael Moore and George Soros?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Even when Murdoch is involved....?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
16 scientists have all retired on the same day. Allegations that each of them has a secret Swiss bank account are completely without merit, they say.
Yes, I'm a chemist. The question was hypothetical, since the parent post was questioning the intelligence of the OP because he said that gasoline turns into gaseous reaction products (at least, the bulk of it).
I didn't post anything of the sort - maybe check the user IDs on the posts before you comment. It's very handy when you log in so you can tell who's posting what.
These bozos are stark staring mad.
There are many signs that the melting of the Polar Ice is going to have a drastic effect on the climate. Maybe not for these guys but for a large proportion of the European Population if the Gulf Stream will lower our temps by some 15-20C (Avarage).
Look at the latitute of London and then look at that of the southern edge of Hudson Bay.
We are kept warm by the Gulf Stream. As is part of the east coast of the North America (from Mass northwards)
I really would like this lot of jokers to explain what is going to happen to the European Climate when the Gulf Stream stops flowing?
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
I know - I'm a chemist. The question was hypothetical, since the parent to my post was questioning the OP's intelligence that gasoline has primarily gaseous reaction products. He seemed incredulous at the idea of "a gallon of gasoline going into the air" when burned.
Even if all emissions stop today, the Earth will continue warming for another half-century, or so.
Certainly anthropogenic is not something to worry about today, much like running out of oil is not something to worry about today. But if you continue to procrastinate, it may come back and bite you in the ass in the long-term.
And anyways, humans are adaptable. I'm much more worried about ocean acidification.
NASA provides an entire website dedicated to showing out of control CO2 levels are measureable and statistically significant over a long period of time.
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
"The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.
The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years."
has you all twisted up. Just an observation...
--
If climate change is happening, I want to believe in climate change.
If climate change is not happening, I want to not believe in climate change.
Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.
We are still going to run out of oil. Isn't anyone worried about that?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Hell, even Kelvins are arbitrary to some extent but the size of the unit based on the gap between frozen and boiling water at "Standard Temperature and Pressure". Celsius doesn't even accurately reflect heat and plenty of smart people who should know better routinely believe that 32C is twice as hot as 16C when it's actually 305.15C to be twice as hot.
Metric system for geometric measurements do have advantages for humans who evolved with 10 fingers and decided to use a number system with base 10. But even then, carpenters tell me that 12 is a much nicer split than 10 because it is divisible four ways while 10 is only divisible in two ways.
We are going to burn up the fussil fuel. All of it. And we will (continue) to fight over the right to do so. There is nothing that can change this. In the best of cases the regulators can make it last a few years extra. Doesn't really effect the outcome at all.
A lot of people are getting rich from emission rights, votes and such things though. Which is what all the fuss is really about. Go figure.
...but people still drown, and devastating floods still occur. This article is silly, tilting at strawmen. They should be ashamed of such poor thinking and writing.
That really depends on where you live. Here, 0 is unbearable, 10 is freezing (people, not water), 15 is cool, 23 is nice, 35 is hot. I'd agree about the boiling point of water though.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
everyone dies...
perhaps every planet dies also?
Take that al gore.
what concerns me is that there are almost certainly multiple 'stable points' in the earth's climate system, with different temperatures, cloud cover, rainfall, air current, sea currents, and so on. At the moment we seem to be 'pushing uphill' from one stable point, and if we stopped, the system would *probably* slip back to the same equilibrium point we find somewhat comfortable. But at some point, we may well reach the top of a hill -- and then we'll still be pushing, only it'll be downhill towards a completely different equilibrium point -- that we are unlikely to find nearly as comfortable. But by the time we arrive, the culprits will be dead and not caring, of course. Getting back *out* of an unpleasant equilibrium will be much harder than letting the system slip back into the one we like.
Burt Rutan replied to a heckler with the following. I won't give a link to the heckler's blog, he doesn't deserve the traffic.
burt rutan, January 28, 2012 at 6:48 pm :
Brian,
In my background of 46 years in aerospace flight testing and design I have seen many examples of data presentation fraud. That is what prompted my interest in seeing how the scientists have processed the climate data, presented it and promoted their theories to policy makers and the media.
What I found shocked me and prompted me to do further research. I researched data presentation fraud in climate science from 1999 to 2010.
I do not have time here to define the details; if interested in my research, a PPT or PDF can be downloaded at:
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
In general, if you as an engineer with normal ethics, study the subject you will conclude that the theory that man’s addition of CO2 to the atmosphere (a trace amount to an already trace gas content) cannot cause the observed warming unless you assume a large positive feedback from water vapor. You will also find that the real feedback is negative, not positive!
Specifically, the theory of CAGW is not supported by any of the climate data and none of the predictions of IPCC since their first report in 1991 have been supported by measured data. The scare is merely a computer modeled theory that has been flawed from the beginning, and in spite of its failure to predict, many of the climate scientists cling to it. They applauded the correlation of surface temperatures with CO2 content from 1960 to 1998 as proof, but fail to admit that the planet has cooled after 1998 in spite of the CO2 content increasing.
The failure of the IPCC machine is especially evident in the use of “models” to justify claims, so it might be worthwhile to just look at modeling and science.
Modeling is more correctly a branch of Engineering and there are some basic rules that have been flouted by CAGW _ CO2 modelers.
Firstly there has to be a problem analysis which identifies relevant factors and the physical, chemical and thermodynamic behaviors of those factors within the system.
Any claim that this has been done in the CO2 warming problem is PREPOSTEROUS.
There are perhaps a thousand PhD topics there waiting to be taken up by researchers.
We could start with work on understanding heat transfer between the main interfaces; eg Core to surface / surface to ocean depths/ ocean depths to ocean surface / ocean surface to atmosphere and so on, not having yet reached the depth of space at just slightly above absolute zero.
To claim that the entire system of atmospheric temperature moderation has been described by
the fluctuations of atmospheric CO2 content while excluding the other obvious factors such as atmospheric water vapour content, solar flux and orbital mechanics is just nonsense.
The whole point of modelling when done correctly is that it links accurately measured input of the main factors and accurately measure target output. Where you have major input factors that are not considered and poor and uncertain measurement of all factors then all you have is a joke or more seriously Public Fraud based on science.
You do not have science.
CO2 is not a pollutant. When the Dinosaurs roamed, the CO2 content was 6 to 9 times current and the planet was green from pole to pole; almost no deserts. If we doubled the atmospheric content of CO2, young pine trees would grow at twice the rate and nearly every crop yield would go up 30 to 40%. We, the animals and all land plant life would be healthier if CO2 content were to increase.
Do the study yourself. Look at how and why the data are manipulated, cherry-picked and promoted. I will bet if you did, you too would be shocked.
The mark of a good theory is its ability to be falsified by new data. The mark of a good scientist is the ability to accept that.
Burt
The Diffe
Although I am sure there is more science to be done in this sphere, what kills me is this effect of CO2 does not get any attention. As I understand it, the correlation between rising CO2 levels and ocean acidification is not really under any dispute. Also as I understand it, above a certain PH level the bottom of the food chain in the ocean starts to die... which the fossil records suggests, upon reaching a tipping point, lead to a cascading mass die off.
Slashdot: Even if we are reducing C02 re: global warming on the assumption that on a balance of probabilities it will occur, does anyone know of a good reason to ignore the effect described above? I am asking as a layman in the world of earth sciences
(disclaimer: I am currently working on renewable Energies, so there may be a bias)
They ask for more funding for analysing weather data. They explicitly say: "we want to understand it better, because we want to control it in a *reasonable* way and prepare for it *as it is needed*". What they say (and that is a point which should have been argued better, taken into account that they ask for more observations....) is: we have roughly 50 years more to change it.
What they don't discuss is that the investment cycles in Energy Technologies are *incredibly long*. There is no energy technology which was ramped up from its invention to its massive use in less than 50 years (lets exclude civil nuclear reactors, which were a side product of building boms).
So my opinion (as a physicist who is convinced that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is a parameter of the system we should not meddle with too much and thinks that these scientist are affected by a bias to get more satellites) is: we wont change it rapidly on the short term anyway. Also there will be no big flood wave coming the next year. Instead of hyping electric/hybrid cars to be the salvation we should take the time (the next 20-30 years) and seriously develop the new (or old) technologies and combine them in the ideal way.
So? Even though I hold a PhD from MIT, it's in an unrelated field and I don't consider myself a climate expert in any way. But I can think for myself, and the WSJ piece pointed out that even if we accept the AGW thesis, in the chain of reasoning from "the climate is warming" to "we must reduce carbon emissions" there are many steps that are economic and political in nature, not within the expertise of climatologists. The real tragedy, to my mind, is that, based on this questionable chain of reasoning, so many people are now true believers that reducing carbon emissions is a vital necessity or mankind, and that anyone who questions that conclusion is as bad as those who deny the Holocaust.
Actually, you don't need to go to the "drown" state -- drink enough water and you'll screw your electrolyte balance by dilution. Look up "hyponatremia."
However, that's not "pollution" in any sense, including "toxicity." Still, enough water in an area is going to really reduce its habitability, so you're right about water even if the example is not the best.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm with Thomas Jefferson on this: the cure for false speech is more speech.
However, it's terrible indictment of our Press that they don't fact-check stuff like this and call out the bullshit.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I read the list of scientists, expecting to not know any of them, but I happen to know the first one : Claude Allegre, famous figure in France. More involved in politics (he was minister of Education) than in science, he has been known these last years for being a very staunch opponent of the theory of global warming. And a nutjob. I mean, I have doubts too about global warming, some "against" arguments are really interesting, but Allegre is not doing science. He is dismissing facts to promote his own view, he keeps using obsolete data as arguments.
If all scientists listed are like him, this is more an argument for global warming than against.
Anyway, it is still interesting that we observed no waming during the last decade (that one is a true fact). It is not necessarily statistically significant but shows that predictions on a century scale may also be wildly inaccurate.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The one with error bars?
Just gonna leave this here:
"According to [Gerbrand Komen, a retired KNMI researche], Tennekes sometimes supported this decision by referring to biblical texts."
I find it really interesting that you have names like. "Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University"
So we havea a US Senator, former Astronaut, an aerospace engineer(and bazillionaire) and a professor of astrophysics, amongst some of the other names on the list. So basically the only people they didn't include are Michael Jordan, and Justin Beiber...
I just found some flowers starting to bloom that I didn't expect to do so until early March.
Probably just 'chance', like a fair number of years in the last decade...
Since the French Revolution in 1789, no Western society has had a center -- a role formerly provided by culture.
As a result, we're always looking for a bad guy. Any of these will do:
1. Hitler/KKK
2. Communists
3. Anarchists
4. Hackers
5. Drug users
6. Satanists
7. Global warming deniers
You don't want to be on that list, do you, Comrade Citizen?
Good.
(On a side note, a thesis that says CO2 is natural and thus we should not worry about its rise is like saying that milk is natural and then drinking 80 gallons of it and dying.)
Futurist Traditionalism
I wonder, are the global warming deniers the same that are rushing to get at the resources in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean and the Northern Passage?
Then, aren't they expecting the pole to freeze over again soon, making the effort pointless?
RTFA. Someone actually tried that, then they got fired.
Then use your stellar google skills and discover that the WSJ lied about what happened.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
The letter in Science was not a rebuttal to this poor attempt at a joke. It was printed in May 2010 as is written at the bottom of the page.
Why didn't the letter in Science give the arguments? Because the letter had the following message "the following things have been established as fact, please move on". Regurgitating the same arguments over and over again helps noone except the self-confidence of denialists, because they can still think that there's a discussion to be had. It would also weaken the message, as it would be diluted within 500 pages of densely printed text.
I'm a physicist. Sometimes I find that colleagues get textbook physics wrong (nobody's perfect, I do to). I have the patience to explain the misunderstandings a few times, but at some point my time is better spent just telling them to read a textbook -- especially if the same people keep repeating the same falsehoods. This is the same thing. Having ongoing discussions about the validity of facts helps noone. Deniallists should at least make an effort to check whether their argument hasn't been rebutted before wasting everybody's time rehashing old arguments.
Please see:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/01/two_incontrovertible_things_an.php?utm_source=combinedfeed&utm_medium=rss
and
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
and
http://blog.ucsusa.org/dismal-science-at-the-wall-street-journal
I'm sure the inferior primates who do not comprehend physics, mathematics, statistics, climatology, oceanography, geology, chemistry, or any of the other topics known to those of us who qualify as homo sapiens will once again display their profound ignorance by declaring that anthropocentric global warming is false. These are the same gibbering baboons that support "creation science" and "holistic medicine" and other idiocy. It's a sad testament to the aggregate stupidity of our society that any of these are given more attention than summary dismissal.
Sheldon.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I give all folks the right to quote, in part or in full, as well as deep link to my grammatically awful but informative post in all social and real world media with no costs so required. If they choose to fix up some spelling and grammar and knock off the slashdot meta-references, I'm cool with that too, so long as the useful information remains.
That's the best I can do to avoid obscurity.
F~3 those scientists.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
The pattern that I notice is a plateau, as in, warming has stopped increasing.
Little things like the melting point of water probably determine whether a planet supports life or not - and its enormous specific heat of both melting and boiling have a huge effect on climate, acting as a thermal store that tends to ensure that there is liquid water around for a long time after the temperature drops below the freezing point, and that pools of water do not disappear almost instantly when the sun shines on them. Celsius was right.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
This is so so hopeless. So incredibly hopeless.
A rational response to global climate change denyers: give them 1 chance to discuss privately their real concerns, tell them why they cannot continue to put humanity at risk by misusing the public sphere to advance their personal or corporate agendas. Insist they publicly recant their statements, stating their real motives. if they refuse, execute them, after trial, as perpetrators of a clear and present danger. This is not a debate, its a war, probably the first (and last) real war since world war II (aside from the war of rich against poor, which its really a subset of). you dont argue with criminals and sociopaths.
Anyone really believe anything that comes out of such a biased source?
"The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas"
Oh, that's all right then. I'll just go leave the car running in the closed garage - carbon monoxide is a colorless odorless gas, so it must be safe!
And cut the gas lines in the kitchen - natural gas is colorless and odorless, so it must be safe!
And fill the house with Radon - nevermind that its the second-largest cause of lung cancer in the US, its colorless and odorless gas, so it must be safe!
Just how bad are the clocks you are using when recording temperature readings?
So yeah, if CO2 was just being recycled by all of us as part of the biosphere, that would be fine. Except that's not the case.
Every gallon of gas we consume ADDS moles upon moles of CO2 to that cycle, carbon that was previously sequestered away underground and undersea in crude oil and other hydrocarbons.
It's basically like someone who is getting fat being told that "it's not the food you're eating that's making you fat; that's a natural part of your metabolic process".
Good list of denier arguments and the scientific response:
http://planetsave.com/2010/08/13/119-one-liners-to-respond-to-climate-science-myths/
Has anybody noticed, that in the list of "scientists", not one of them is a true climatologist? Check out the list! "Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva." There is a chemist, a couple of engineers, a couple of frauds, a physicists and other specialties that have no relation to climatology. If 16 climatologists had signed this bogus opinion piece I might have believed them.
Considering the well documented trend over the past 200 years, give or take a few years hardly makes a difference, except to those who like to cherry-pick the data.
And rockets don't work in space because they have nothing to push against, there.
And travel over 16mph in a horseless carriage will kill or maim the passengers through sucking away their air, or by trepidation of the nerves.
And heavier-than-air flight is mathematically impossible.
As is insect flight.
And there are no rocks in the sky, so they cannot fall from there. Claims to the contrary are fraud, or very rarely the result of volcanic eruptions or exceptional waterspouts.
And heavier objects in circular motion will tend to external positions. Ergo, earth, and most celestial bodies, must percforce be hollow.
Claims to the contrary ar necessarily fantasious, or maliciously fraudulent. Off from the lawn with 'ye now. C'mon. Off!
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths
The Norse settlements were never covered by glaciers. What you probably meant to say is that Norse Greenlandic graves, as well as plant roots, have been found in permafrost layers. Of course, these finds were done in the 1920s, nearer the beginning of the climatic impact of the Industrial Revolution, and very soon after the end of the "Little Ice Age", a well-documented period of relative cold which in this part of the world lasted roughly from the fourteenth century to the nineteenth. Indeed, this climatic downturn seems to have played a key role in the demise of the Norse settlements in Greenland. I don't know the state of the soil at the Norse settlements today, but I suspect the permafrost levels of the 1920s no longer hold. Summaries of some of the 1920s reports may be found here and here.
Amen. The only part of climate change worthy of belief is belief in the process of Science, the finest intellectual achievement of mankind for determining objective reality. One should neither believe nor disbelieve in climate change; it's not an article of faith. A rational person, however, cannot help but accept the reality of climate change and the strong probability that a large proportion of warming is anthropogenic, based on the overwhelming weight of data and peer-reviewed publications. Leave faith to the science deniers. After all, it's all they have.
what does he care about global warming, he'll be dead soon anyway having sex with women 40 years younger than he is.
You'll trust scientists with policy analysis? You might as well as politicians about scientific matters...
Perhaps the not so fast riase in tempture is because the oceans are acidfying while absorbing it.
Should that be the case we might actually all be doomed.
Another fact: When I was a child, it was uphill to school both ways, and the snow was three feet deep from late November through early March.
And another fact that proves global warming, which I discovered while camping a couple years ago: the ground was much softer to sleep on when I was a kid. (And no, it can't have anything to do with the fact that I'm 61, because 60 is the new 50. So there!)
The chemistry of the Earth's natural cycles and environs are identifiably altered under increased carbon dioxide uptake. Carbon dioxide forms acids with constituent components of the atmosphere, soil and water. Water is chemically neutral and oxygen readily balances out to the available reactions, contributing nothing to net chemical cycles on the Earth outside of return carbon that has been out of the cycles for thousands and millions of years (see Cretaceous Period vs the logic of biofuels and green chemistry).
However, I could be fair and ignore science and the world we currently live in, on the off chance your logic needs to be looked at for those circumstances. Actually, we don't have to, as if either of those were a current issue with similar consequences (and some of the conversation regarding the hydrogen economy suggests water could become some class of risk), we actually WOULD be having that conversation. That ISN'T our actual problem right now. Anything that had a similar long term consequence would cause the scientific community the SAME CONCERN.
Unlike you, however, I've actually thrown in some genuine, peer reviewed research. Feel free to add and any ACTUAL research you might have. None of that meta-research by people with readily confirmed biases. After all, my research sources come from a variety of institutions and have been around long enough to go past peer review and enter into the realm of confirmability.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.1998.00164.x/full
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985cca..proc..546B
http://wwwzb.fz-juelich.de/contentenrichment/inhaltsverzeichnisse/bis2009/ISBN-0-471-72017-8.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2000GB001278.shtml
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2004.00864.x/full
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/03-5055
ftp://ftp.imarpe.pe/Curso_Modelos/Biblio%20Arnaud%202/MEPS2008-Acidification.pdf%23page=5
http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/QwPqRGcRzQM5ffhPjAdT/full/10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163834
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/3/414.short
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
As long as global warming kills all humans, I'm all for it.
This whole issue of climate change seems to be a red herring to distract from the real issue; Pollution and air quality.
The fact is that it's very hard to prove a proposition where we don't understand the domain; we cant even predict the weather for next week!
Based on our observations and a bit of common sense though, it's not hard to see that something is awry, even if we can't prove it, yet.
It will probably take another 50 years to prove the science; are we really going to just wait and see?
Or just move the pollution generating industry to another country, out of sight, out of mind; Problem on earth is, everywhere is downwind eventually, and those "other" countries, have essentially non-existent pollution laws.
One thing that we should all be concerned about is air quality, funny thing is, its really easy to prove, and an excellent basis for defining our global environmental policy; so why are we so fascinated by the irrelevance issue of climate change, when the real and tangible issue of air quality is starting us directly in the face.
Water dissolves a great many compounds. Oxygen forms oxides and other compounds (in general, the more readily the higher the concentration).
See what you're doing there? You just quoted me saying, "The chemistry of the Earth's natural cycles and environs are identifiably altered under increased carbon dioxide uptake," and skimmed over the point that started it, "Then there's the COv2 is not a pollutant, even though, as a relative output outside of the natural chemistry of the Earth (the effect of living creatures and other processes) it does count as a deposit which changes the chemistry of the surrounding environment, ergo, pollution."
All I am saying is that CO2 is a "pollutant" in the sense that water and oxygen are "poisons".
You didn't say that at all; in fact, your changing the context of the claim. What you said was, "You could say exactly the same, with the same logic and sincerity, about oxygen and water." You didn't say anything about poisons here. That was a claim another person under this article has discussed, but you didn't say that; it hasn't been a part of this thread, and it's not relevant to the what qualifies as a pollutant.
Carbon dioxide is rightfully singled out as a pollutant of significant risk. Other pollutants can hold more heat and/or change the chemistry of an environ more radically, but proportional to the actual output and chemical half-life, COv2 is the most dangerous among these pollutants.
You do not know who I am, nor do I care to tell you.
It doesn't matter who you are. I see you as another string of characters on website, an avatar for the logic you present. As I've said recently regarding ad hominem attack on Richard Stallman sometime in the past couple of months on slashdot, it doesn't matter who the person is. That's point of an idea in its purest: Regardless of the philosophy, intelligence, social awareness or persona, an idea is independent. It can be looked at, reviewed, tested and expounded upon.
You did nothing to actually contribute to the conversation. You haven't shown a weakness of logic on my part that didn't require altering the context, and even becoming more blatant about it in your follow up. Whether feeding trolls for entertainment or getting into a real debate (oddly, this seems to be a strange combination of both), I will include references if someone has implied the need for further information. Adding an unrelated context to weak counter-argument (which, as I pointed out, still ignored the point that started this) doesn't really add to a debate, it detracts. When you failed to put any further logic on your claim, you can't expect me to believe you had ANY intent of supporting point.
It was your latest closing statements that makes it clear which of us was in the mindset of a genuine debate. If you felt my response to your apparent incredulity was bragging, you may as well become a seventeenth concerned scientist, and avoid ongoing dialogues.
Have you ever listened to "Science Fridays" on NPR? Often, when a caller wants to throw some anti-established science talking point at a guest (or often, the host), Ira often asks a question along the lines of, "Is there any amount of research or explanation of physics that would allow you to reconsider your opinion?" The responses range from turning the question around (ignoring that the majority of researchers decide their next project based on testing shifts in data, http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 ), changing the context (the I-think-that's-more-of-a-[political, philosophical, religious, moral]-question callers), or they often suggest that the information would have to be so over-whelming, it would be the equivalent of making their preferred reality a mere mist drop settling into an ocean.
As you've backed away from the context of the original debate, I guess you think your argument is more of a troll question?
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Gen 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
You probably know the difference.
You didn't make an analogy, and you haven't presented pollutants. An analogy involves comparing two things to demonstrate their similarities. Not only did you include nothing to identify some form of pollutants vs poisons analogy in your original comment, as you neither mentioned toxicity effects or any condition that would suggest you were describing oxygen or water as something other than a pollutant, but you didn't give any other relative context for the phrase, "You could say exactly the same, with the same logic and sincerity, about oxygen and water."
My definition of a pollutant is relatively scientific within an ecological context, even though it wouldn't be used beyond a press release; however, if I were to place it in a white paper, it would read something far closer to, "A substance or condition in the form of a deposit, absorption, or adsorption of radioactive material, or of biological or chemical agents on or by structures, areas, personnel, or objects so acting upon, within, around or throughout the air, water, soil, flora or fauna that occur in concentrations which are disruptive, damaging, deteriorating or destructive within the collective factors of the biotic and abiotic vectors that act on part or in total on the collective value of organisms, populations or total ecological communities which, otherwise, sustain a definable and identifiable shared relationship of development within a consistent state of cycles over time."
I had actually spent some time breaking things down, so as not to seem unfairly exclusive. Truth be told, I'm not as happy with it, and normally, such a thing would be passed around for review among peers, but I'm going to consider this sufficiently definitive for our purposes.
I would like to add, if you don't want to talk about yourself, don't. I don't care about how much you don't want to talk about yourself, I just want you to clearly state your argument. I felt I had sufficiently implied that from the beginning, but as you keep inferring a personal attack, I'm telling you now, just don't even feel the need to mention you any further. This logic isn't about the individuals, which you seem to agree with. As for your inferring that you somehow represent anything other than your arguments, I have not intentionally implied it in the slightest. You ARE the collection of your arguments.
So, if I'm incapable of understanding, let me just check, since I must be incompetent of interpreting your literary and rhetorical depth, does, "In that context, things other than carbon dioxide -- things that in other contexts we might not consider to be pollutants -- can ALSO be considered pollutants," mean you have actual examples as pollutants that in either my original, collective or most recently sufficiently defined example (any or all, in the sense of posts not components as you had done in that paragraph) would prove your point, you know, in that context, under those definitions? After all, I apparently lack the ability to follow your metaphors, so, please, indulge me with your explicit and literal examples.
This is now the THIRD time I've asked you explicitly to support your claim. No metaphors, analogy, time wasted on you, just support your claim. I've made that as clear as I can. I have not used any detracting literary devices in this post; so, surely, you must understand that I am clearly stating that you list, "Things other than carbon dioxide -- things that in other contexts we might not consider to be pollutants -- can ALSO be considered pollutants.[...] Using the very context you used, I can define pretty much anything I want to be a pollutant." I honestly feel I've been very clear what constitutes a pollutant, even though, in that quote, you had chosen to include only a small fraction of the definition at that point, but I'm sure if your point is so valid and my whole point/definition was so weak, you must possess the capacity to clearly and explicitly state your pollutants.
Finally, I will append the definitions I have used to save yo
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
So, the figure in your link (that is, this one) is precisely the kind of thing that bothers me about this "debate". In particular, note that when the "skeptic" piecewise fit fades out and is replaced by the "realist" fit, the last two(?) data points (one of which is well below all the others) disappear. Seriously, what the fuck? If you're trying to convince me of your statistical education, and impress upon me that your opponents are just cherry picking, maybe you should take care not to do really fucking suspicious shit like drop a clearly inconvenient data point from the plot.
Of course, I can't say how much of an effect that point has on the fit, because we're of course not even bothering about goodness-of-fit here. Chi^2 value for that fit, guys? Anyone? As much as the "skeptic" fit presented is indeed a complete joke and insulting to the intelligence, the "realist" fit is completely "chi-by-eye" -- which is to say, it looks like that straight line fits nicely, but who the hell knows if it's statistically significant or not??
And if it is only supposed to be suggestive, and not actually statistically significant, then how about fucken say that? Because otherwise you're just trying to impress scientifically illiterate types with fancy plots that don't mean a damn thing statistically, which more than a little ironic given the context in which it appears.
"You argued that the letter's claim that CO2 is not a pollutant is false. But your argument depends entirely on YOU shifting the context away from the one that was obviously being used in the original letter. " Wow! I don't think I would have gotten that from your arguments until that explicit definition. Would you please use your quotes in context and explain how I was supposed to get that?
Are you the author of that letter? I ask only because they write with the same twisted analogies you use. For example, one might say that where the letter explicitly says, "The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant," appears to imply the exact opposite of your explanation, "[I] argued that the letter's claim that CO2 is not a pollutant is false." This is made more confusing by the simple fact that, after a THIRD time, you have yet to show the explicitly in context examples for pollutants by the original definition I used that you are basing the ENTIRETY of this exchange on.
I DIDN'T change the context. Not at all. Here's the logical breakdown:
1) The letter explicitly says, "The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant."
2) It's legal status states it is a pollutant, period.
3) I said, "A relative output outside of the natural chemistry of the Earth (the effect of living creatures and other processes) it does count as a deposit which changes the chemistry of the surrounding environment." Something I most recently referred to as the, "press-release," definition.
There is NO CHANGE in context. None. I can't see the change, and since I'm the one with the literary impairment, as made clear by the many misspellings, grammatical errors and word choices, you will have to explain the inferred change of context, as you're not explaining it enough for me.
The whole of the argument begins when you said, "You could say exactly the same, with the same logic and sincerity, about oxygen and water," which was some undefined analogy about poisons that I lack the ability to infer from your terse comment. In another follow up, you went on to say, "In that context, things other than carbon dioxide -- things that in other contexts we might not consider to be pollutants -- can ALSO be considered pollutants," which I, apparently mistakenly, believed meant you could, in fact, supply examples. You'll note, I had been asking for them since before you explicitly maintained a context of pollutants (you can see why someone with limitations may have inferred that; heck, I'm still asking for it for the fourth time).
So, since you can't supply examples, as, apparently, I massively misunderstood your side of the conversation, I refer to my original point, "Would you please use your quotes in context and explain how I was supposed to get that?" However, do so to explain your whole-side of this conversation. I'm sure it wouldn't take you too long, just copy and paste your quotes like a normal discussion, following each point with an explanation, like Eric Raymond does with The Halloween Documents.
You know, if you'd like, I'd be happy to explain how I've been interpreting this conversation thus far. I'm guessing, given your rich skill set in literary and rhetorical comprehension, you might have guessed it. Which is amazing that you haven't been able to explain things in such a way that I could understand it, but I'm sure if you cover how a more apt individual, such as yourself, would have been able to correlate your communiqués thus far with what you had intended to explain, I might be capable of following it in future conversations. Afterall, slashdot has something good almost every day, and therefore, it's not unrealistic that we will both end up the same thread, perhaps even by way of control+F from time to time. If I can understand how it is you intend to be interpreted, I'm sure we can avoid all sorts of strange and bizarre back and forths such as this.
I appreciate how patient you have been with such an intellectually inhibited individual, such as myself. It's just that, from my limited ab
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Sounds like a fair enough ideas.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Wish we could send all the people peddling this nonsense to Venus, then they'd see how 'harmless' CO2 is...
The sad part of this was, when I originally looked at it, I didn't even realize it was 2012 and a full 14 years after 1998... 10 years +/- 20% doesn't sound as bad 10 years +/- 40% ;)
Not to mention the bizarre feeling that 1998 wasn't all that long ago, surely a decade can't have passed yet can it? Dude, that was just like yesterday when I.. meh.
when did you nerds forget that correlation does not imply causation?
There are medications available for what you're suffering from.
Posting another piece published by people with the same self-serving agenda doesn't exactly prove their point.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
See, I bought a snowblower this year after hurting my back from last year's shoveling. So obviously, no snow. I apologize for screwing up the weather this winter.
Pollutant is a scientifically defined term. They haven't DEFINED, "pollution," or, "pollutant." They defined COv2. That's it. Very simple. No context can be changed if they haven't defined it otherwise.
Otherwise, your logic is anything that isn't exhaled by each of us, isn't a colorless and odorless gas or isn't used by plants, or any combination of your choice, is a pollutant; ergo, diamonds are pollutants. See, I came up with an example. I can do that. You're still welcome to, for the fifth time.
Since they didn't define pollutant (you may re-read it if you hadn't noticed that), I'm left to assume either a recognized definition, or what you're using to define as an apparent contextual definition.
Is this why you said Oxygen and Water!? You thought that was a definition of something that wasn't a pollutant, wasn't it? You came into this with that as your definition of, "not a pollutant!?"
Didn't you know you exhale most of what's in the air and plants can use large number of things? Sulfurous oxides, for example, which are a principle component in acid rain at higher concentrations (anything about three to four times the pre-industrial output, coincidentally, induces an effective level of acidification), are exhaled by you (mostly from oral biofilms), but are a necessary part of providing sulfur to plants when the resultant soil reactions deposit the sulfur in the soil?
I'm interpreting this bizarre definition as what you're using, as it's the only thing that provides any logical point to your own first comment. Again, I provided another pollutant example, because I can do that.
Let's see if I've got this logic worked out over this exchange, because I think I've finally seen it. In chronological order:
2009:
The EPA declares CO2 a pollutant (fitting in with 100 years of climatological research)
You might note, by the way, a strawman argument would be superficially and artificially structured. This, however, is an actual point, that predates the letter, and that the EPA would be the US authority for defining a pollutant. As the US actually lagged behind other nations, you'll find many other agencies around the world had already included it as a pollutant.
2012:
The letter, instead of defining a pollutant, attempts, instead, to define what CO2 is:
"The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle."
I, before actually getting there, already knowing where the logic is going next, hammered out a quick definition for pollution/pollutant for comparative purposes before I even reached that specific paragraph (you'll note the paragraph order). I defined it as:
"A relative output outside of the natural chemistry of the Earth (the effect of living creatures and other processes) it does count as a deposit which changes the chemistry of the surrounding environment, ergo, pollution."
That definition takes into account the collective exhalations, forest fires and even volcanic activities within its parenthetical.
Then you, for some reason, take their definition of CO2 as a definition of what can't be a pollutant, resulting in your first exchange:
"You could say exactly the same, with the same logic and sincerity, about oxygen and water."
You had also mention reductio ad absurdum, which, ironically, I demonstrated with my SxOx example.
I, believing you were talking about my example, as, again, it is the only definition for a pollutant thus far, went into detail as to why COv2 is a pollutant. I then went on to say that, had water or oxygen had the same effective harm as COv2, you would notice the scientific community worried about them as well. I invited you to enter some of your research (the first request for any such type of example) to identify why you would make the claim you had. I, feeling it would only be fair to identify the logic that my post was using, included a number of example re
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Ignoring the definitions of smell and odor, there are a multitude of theoretical causes that allow for smell; so, making such an assumption is presenting a view of ignorance.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
You have to be more specific, and I will extricate the research you have difficulty locating.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
It was immediately followed by the link, or was there somewhere that phrase appears?
As I noticed following the link, it became pretty clear how that line relates to the paragraph regarding not being able to locate where (or more to it, what) the heat not leaving the Earth was doing. Ironically, it ties in with the production of formic acid, which relates to the methane release from warmer oceans that other denialist blogs are trying to claim is a completely unrelated to Global Warming. Formic acid, as you know, must be released through volcanic actions that the geological surveys around the world aren't detecting, and not the breakdown of the methane plumes diffusing through the warmer oceans that released them from their trapped and indirectly frozen states, like the rhythmic patterns of the dancing at a luau.
Spot the ironic statement; hint, it starts with F and ends with U.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.
Haha. That almost seems like a logical argument on its face, but it doesn't pass the reductio ad absurdum test, because you could say exactly the same, with the same logic and sincerity, about oxygen and water.
Try again.
A text analysis shows the article consists of over 90% fallacy. Check out this color-coded annotation complete with in-context links to definitions of the fallacies employed: http://rationalrants.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/wall-street-journal-sinks-to-a-new-low/
WSJ has now published a letter from climate scientists challenging this op-ed (Quoting first 3 pars): "Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations. You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science. Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter."
Perhaps, as if by magic, you missed THE WHOLE POINT of my original post. Context wasn't changed. I didn't even "[approach] it from the context of UNnatural...processes." Pollution, within the ecological definition, either of mine here, doesn't require anthropogenic processes to be involved. You inferred that out of your association with COv2. They merely defined COv2, not a pollutant. My providing a definition doesn't change context, as the whole letter is about ecological balances at its very core.
As you are willing to use some basic and common fallacy references, you might want to check on "Masked man fallacy," or "Affirming a disjunct," as well as anything syllogical. In an actual debate between the letter and my original post, I removed the dependence on the fallacy by defining the term within the same context. In scored or competitive debates, that would have been defining the context, or thoroughing; this would not be changing the context. Global warming is an ecological debate. The definition is an ecological definition. The debater used the term in such a way that it could not be removed from the ecological context without defining it; ergo, my defining it within that context does nothing to shift it.
Claiming that defining CO2 creates a "not-a-pollutant" definition involves making an inference that would be readily shot down in an actual debate simply by defining or expanding on any number of things outside of the intended range, which avoids confronting the actual point. If you went in a debate and raised your reductio ad absurdum point, you would have allowed the other side to waste time on expounding on your examples and even claiming you're proving their point for them. THEN, if they really wanted to put you in your place for wasting 2+ minutes of time, they would use non-ecological definitions of pollution and contamination making any number of unsound parallels, i.e. "We have a statute limiting times and volumes for noise, to avoid, 'noise pollution,' but if I hold the loudest rock concert of all time in my backyard (presuming North America, and not above fatal decibel levels), no one in Australia is going to be calling my local police. Noise, like CO2, is something already in the air," yada-yada-yada.
My article was about adding the context the facts are taken from. It's only by stripping away context, just like not actually defining a pollutant, does the logic appear legitimate. The definition I provided, which fits the actual ecological context, fits within the whole concept of providing context. If you were in a competitive debate and wasted time like you had suggested, you wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective. They could, as you attempted, to call it a shift, but a judge would insist that they define a pollutant, or provide evidence the definition was inaccurate. If X != Y, defining X does not define Y.
When you made your initial post, I asked you for example to show the flaw of my definition, because A) it was the only explicit definition, B) you had just quoted it, and C) that is what you actually do in a debate. No one who was in a competitive debate would have chosen to waste time on the "not-a-pollutant' definition, since it wasn't intended to be one. It was merely meant to look like one. You can waste the time getting them to define one in hopes of making them look like they disproved their own point, but they will always be capable of claiming that it's technical, or the fact that you're discussing it shows it's up for debate, which provides the opportunity, should you later define it, to say that your point is the one that's up for debate.
If you think I changed the context, try bringing the letter and my original post to someone who's more familiar with traditional debates; That is, someone whose experience doesn't involve political debates, as, apparently, all of reality is up for debate between politicians. Solipsistically speaking, I don't know why I let them do that, but neither do they.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
As a relative output
The result of a process
Outside of the natural chemistry of the Earth (the effect of living creatures and other processes)
That result which stands separate of the naturally continuing and constituting processes, both of biological and non-biological nature, given the scope of the planet
[This is a breaking up of the definition of a pollutant or pollution (as stated), to recall the reason it as been put forward. This break is justified as to define the conditions and boundary before the introduction of a variation.]
It does count
Carbon dioxide (implied from the pronoun's precedent), given when placed within this context, would and is objectively considered
[Now, we return to the definition to see the effects of a variation]
As a deposit
In the form of a definable addition
Which changes the chemistry
An alteration (outside of the conditions/boundary), to the cumulative molecular cycles in thermodynamic equilibrium [the difference between mere laws and actual theories]
Of the surrounding environment
An immediate and identifiable area.
-----
I defined a pollutant that took an aside to include CO2. No context is changed. You can say it over and over again, but in the end. no one who understands debates and the very words and phrases you have been using, would define the context as changed. If you don't understand why the context isn't changed because they merely defined CO2 would show your lack of comprehension of why they chose to do it in the first place. That is logic targeted at people who would say I did change the context to my favor, regardless of whether or not you agree with them in the first place. My total definition neither requires human activity or ignores that something that exists as part of the boundaries before the variation of that definition may also be counted as pollution -- This is why I demonstrated that effect in my first response to you with actual research. Not only can COv2 be increased from natural sources to change the chemistry of an area, but it would be an entirely natural cause, i.e. volcanic fumes, large fires and the thawing of methane hydrate near a continental shelf.
"They very clearly described NATURAL processes. You, on the other hand, approached it from the context of UNnatural (industrial or at least man-caused) processes," directly contradicts your claim of, "I neither missed your point, or inferred as you claim." In that first pair sentences, you did both. Remember how I kept asking for examples of your claim? Well, I was able to give an example that supports my definition and counters your assumptions. That's what people do in debates. But, let us be honest, this hasn't really been a debate. You should have just quoted their logic of defining CO2 as not a pollutant, made your observation, and, quite frankly, probably have done so under your own thread, unless you wanted to know why I didn't waste time on their technique of avoiding an actual definition.
Every time you insist that the context was changed, you're falling for the very reason they did what they did that. They didn't define a pollutant. They can't do so unless they can explicitly include terminology that would insure that nothing that happens naturally can constitute as pollution. I just demonstrated here (and SxOx mentioned in another post) that naturally occurring chemistry, under naturally occurring circumstances, would count within Ecological studies as pollution. And again, that's also a reminder that Ecology, which is the general science under which Climatology, Oceanography, Soil sciences and Global Warming would be studied, is the definition to use. not Materials sciences, not Organic Chemistry, not Medicine, not Social and Cultural Studies, not Electronic and Electrical Engineering, but the definition that could be applied in the Ecological context.
Just because something isn't explicitly stated doesn't mean it isn't part of the context. Science is dependent up
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum