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Scientists Explain Why Chairman of House Committee On Science Is Wrong
Lasrick writes "Michael Oppenheimer and Kevin Trenberth take apart Rep. Lamar Smith's (R-Tex.) Washington Post op/ed on climate science saying: 'Contrary to Smith's assertions, there is conclusive evidence that climate change worsened the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. Sea levels in New York City harbors have risen by more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century. Had the storm surge not been riding on higher seas, there would have been less flooding and less damage. Warmer air also allows storms such as Sandy to hold more moisture and dump more rainfall, exacerbating flooding.'"
We have to make poor people pay more for energy, deepening their everyday poverty, so rich people with beachfront houses don't have to worry about quite as much flooding from a storm once every 25 years.
Man, I certainly can't think of any better candidates for the chairmanship of the House Comittee on Science, Space, and Technology than a lawyer without any technical or scientific background, a big fan of SOPA, expanding the DMCA's restrictive elements, and PCIP. Just as icing on the cake, the guy is a Christian Scientist, so he probably has a worse-than-average relationship with medical science.
Honestly, how do we end up with these jokers?
Yeah, the reports from Fox News and climate deniers about those emails was terrible. The emails, not so bad, but the reports on them from certain infotainment outlets was awful. Thank god I don't think for myself or I'd start to smell all the bullshit I was standing in.
Six official investigations have cleared scientists of accusations of wrongdoing.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html
Lamar Smith is to climate change what Antonin Scalia is to gay marriange. Scientists say to Scalia/Lamar: "we have no doubts, we've established X beyond reasonable doubt". Scalia/Smith says to the public: "As everybody knows, there's great controversy among scientists as to whether X is true". Fuck them both.
Ezekiel 23:20
I am not a scientist
Thank you, you could have saved the rest of your comment.
Ezekiel 23:20
I have always had an honest question about the data on global warming that no one can seem to answer so I will try here...
It seems that the past 5 decades or so of accurate satellite and temp data is way to small of a sample. It would be like looking at my speedometer while on the freeway on ramp and extrapolating that 45 minutes down the road I will be going 25,000 MPH not accounting for the fact that I will stop accelerating and maybe even break in that time...How can we know with precision about Earths climate 300 years ago, much less 3,000 or 3,000,000 years ago
I'll quote Feynman on this one, because I couldn't say it any better:
"I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the laymen when you're talking as a scientist. . . . I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, [an integrity] that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen."
... is he still wrong?
This is part of the reason why people are against global warming - when people mention reasons why they don't believe it, or ask real questions about it seeking clearer understanding, all we get is attacked, demeaned and insulted.
One of the things I do remember from high school science class is that when you don't understand something in science, you should ask hose saying it to clarify or explain their position, that is all I am going - I thought that was the scientific process, but apparently in the case of global warming, this doesn't apply because its easier to just insult those who dont clearly understand or would like details.
So you obviously have made up your mind on the argument without looking at any evidence. You willfully accept propaganda and when someone offers you actual evidence you claim it is propaganda. You really should work for Fox News.
Than I have reason to doubt your ability to perform critical thinking.
The "leaks" worst offense was that in some cases scientists' felt pressure to modify the way they presented their facts to the public.
Scientists, just like the rest of us are human. The client researchers' work is constantly under question, misinterpreted and derided by the simpletons on the right.
It is a natural in this situation for people to have to take a "war footing".
Portions of the public have refused accept that the overwhelming majority of facts point to one conclusion. They blow out of proportion that .1% which MAY support ulterior conclusions. As a reaction to that some elements of the informed population realize that some portion of the uniformed population are not capable of making logical and reasoned conclusions.
This results in the unfortunate situation where some of the informed must manipulate the incompetent to move society forward.
people who stand to profit from climate change
If you think that anyone would profit from even the average predicted scenario, you must be living comfortably on another planet. Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?
Ezekiel 23:20
Well, professing your ignorance and parroting a disproved talking point on slashdot is one option if you don't know something. Or you could just fucking google it.
Investigated by whom? people who stand to profit from climate change and / or the laws or restrictions that it brings about?
Before you jump to looking for the hidden agenda, perhaps you should comment on why one should reject what they say, first.
It's pretty obvious many/most of the people here on either side of this argument haven't bothered to educate themselves on the subject - so responding with insults is all they can do.
#DeleteChrome
Am I the only person who initially read this as "Lamar Smith (T-Rex)" ?
It depends on how you ask. Here are two examples:
Q: All you arrogant scientists want us to believe this AGCC nonsense; yeah, well prove it to me!!
A: Go F*** yourself.
Translation: You're a troll. I'm busy doing my work. I don't have time for trolls.
Q; Wow, thousands of scientists have spent decades studying this, and they appear to agree for the most part. Gee, I'd really like to know more about this, can you help me understand?
A: Well, it's really complicated, and I only know part of the science behind it. I can explain what I'm doing, but if you want an overview, perhaps you should start with the IPCC report, and maybe track down the references on the Wikipedia article. After that, I'd be happy to answer questions to the best of my ability. Again, though, I'm a specialist, so I won't be able to answer all your questions
Translation: I understand the sincerity of your question, but this is like asking a biologist to teach you all of biology while you stand on one foot. Really, you need to dive in and get past larval stage before you're in a position to ask meaningful questions.
Note: this is hypothetical, I'm not a climate scientist, nor do I play one on TV.
One foot in one century. Take a timestamp of the quality of life today.
Then reverse time and put in place the necessary quash on industry to stop the warming causing most of the rise.
Now fast forward time and assume, for the sake of argument, it worked. Technology will be somewhat behind where it used to be, with attendant more deaths and lower quality of life.
Net result: More death. Lower quality of life. Fewer inventions.
This effect, which is obvious in places like China or India, in the West 200-100 years ago during the Industrial Revolution, still plays a major role in the advancement of the human condition.
The point is don't assume you will be doing anyone a favor by heaving still another $trillion or twenty of regulation and control on top of the economy.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Unfortunately, nothing of what you said stops people from rating my comment -1 troll ... as expected.
Or if you bothered to read the emails or follow the findings of eight separate panels: The conversations were taken out of context and there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. The other thing is even if the email leaks were true, the issue was with a few scientists. So you are going to discount the work of possibly thousands of other scientists that had nothing to do with the email? That sounds legitimate. That's like saying a few doctors were found to be manipulating data on aspirin, therefore all data on aspirin is not valid.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This is part of the reason why people are against global warming - when people mention reasons why they don't believe it, or ask real questions about it seeking clearer understanding, all we get is attacked, demeaned and insulted.
Frankly, I'd be snarky too, if someone intimated to me that, say, all of computer science back to Turing was all hoo hah because of a few conflicting emails.
One of the things I do remember from high school science class is that when you don't understand something in science, you should ask hose saying it to clarify or explain their position, that is all I am going - I thought that was the scientific process, but apparently in the case of global warming, this doesn't apply because its easier to just insult those who dont clearly understand or would like details.
Here, let me help. You said:
I was 100% on board with global warming until the email leaks of a couple years ago - it seems like someone is not shooting straight here...I am not a scientist but I can tell you I now have some doubts about the validity of the climate science.
So. What was your question?
because the hidden agenda is true. you know how i know? it's a conspiracy and they are always true. eveything the media says is false and everything they hide is true. global warming shmucks have A LOT to gain from the conspiracy. on the other side, the deniers like wattsupwiththat have NOTHING to gain. and phd? Garbage. weatherman = messiah.
bottom line is this: i read it in a chain email. chain emails are always correct. Proof is that i spent a lot of time doing those in the 80s and i'm not dead yet. million others have died. I haven't. truth.
... One of the things I do remember from high school science class is that when you don't understand something in science, you should ask hose saying it to clarify or explain their position, that is all I am going - I thought that was the scientific process, ...
No, you are not asking a question.
You are saying that you have an opinion on things that you admit you don't understand, and that your opinion comes from the email leak. That's why everybody thinks that you are either stupid or a troll; when you will ask a real question I am sure that you will be treated like an adult.
I agree in the belief people aren't pushing false information for profit but you'd have to be foolish to not see that the climate and weather related damage has a market.
Contractors and firms bid for infrastructure before and after as well as clean up. This trickles to increase sales on most equipment they use. It wouldn't be hard to think of more instances.
This is not science class. The people asking the questions are not looking for real answers. The average person is simply not even qualified to ask questions.
Do you ask questions about how nuclear reactors are working to power your home? No. The experts know. If you ask a question of them. If they are nice they could give you some dumbed down version. But you will never really understand without spending YEARS of your life.
There comes a point where you simply have to trust the experts. We are well beyond that..... VERY well beyond that. The people asking questions publicly are simply doing it for political reasons. They are disingenuous and the enemy of scientific understanding.
It is reasonable to ask questions. However if you go around questioning if F=MA is applicable to every day life, your not questioning your a fucking troll.
you didn't do any of those things you stated. you didn't ask a question. all you said was that global warming is false because of the email leaks which didn't disprove anything. you bought the sensationalism that tried to build the story into more than it was to, uh oh, sell ads and make money! Climate scientists aren't the only ones profiting off this. Those perpetuating the email leak disproves global warming myth have lots to gain/lose. The media companies keep you watching the ads and James Inhofe gets votes. basing the validity of science on who has the most to gain is a nonstarter. advocates will make money. contrarians will make money. telling me you don't believe one side because they make money but then support another side that makes money is asinine.
So edited documents are all that is required to convince you of a conspiracy, got it. (just kidding)
I can understand how those emails changed your mind though, but a little research into basic biological systems and ecology should be enough to realize that a dynamic buffered system is not static. And while we currently may not know (I certainly don't) the parameters of all the different buffers, we can track the changes to the system as a whole with a reasonable degree of certainty. By establishing a few base "knowns" we can extrapolate effects, with uncertainty decreasing based on what is know and increasing as it is extrapolated into the future.
With our knowledge of CO2, its degradation cycle, and the differing isotope configuration of CO2 levels we (as a society) can infer how much of what we put in the air stays in said air. Over time we have noticed that the carbon isotopes associated with the burning fossil fuels have risen is relation to non-fossil fuel sources. This indicates an imbalance. CO2 absorbs light in the IR frequencies. If more energy is retained in a system what happens?
a) it heats up
b) it becomes more dynamic as perceived energy activation thresholds are lowered.
We are still in a buffered system. Though it seems to me that we have exceeded the threshold of some of the buffering sub-systems. As with most multi-buffered systems the "soft" buffers (those that produce the least effect) break or reach maximum saturation first and the more violent corrective buffers take longer to overwhelm. But hey you don't have to pay attention to the canaries in the coal mine, the problems occur when you have decided for everyone else in the mine that the canary's death is unrelated to the conditions in the mine.
Maybe you just don't like the fact that not all people working in a given field get along. If that's the case can I work at your company?
Grammar corrections always welcomed, spellin' suggestions will be ignored.
a disproved talking point
Quite the euphemism there. Do you know what for?
Also, I don't even have a problem with saying that CO2 is the primary driver of increased temperatures - but I do have a problem with
a) anything that goes beyond CO2 (that is 1.3K for a doubling) that is pure speculation, consists of poorly researched feedback mechanisms, with the poor state of research in cloud formation being among the worst offenders and most important negative feedbacks that are currently being ignored due to the poor state of knowledge and
b) I do have a problem with the constant one-sided discussion of the effects of increased temperatures. They are always held in the tone of horoscopes and greek oracles to avoid any clear statements that could be easily contradicted. "Extreme weather events" being the worst offender. That's says nothing and is obviously taylored to feed a constant media frenzy. This is combined with a complete lack of reporting on past "extreme weather events". Thus even decidetly average events like hurricanes Katrina or Sandy (in their historical and geographical context!) become "unprecedented monster storms", which is just laughable for anyone who bothered to look into the history of hurricanes on the US south and east coast.
if you don't want to get slurred as a denier you do.
Yeah I read them.
and I see you only read the edited versions, or are incapable of reading (seems unlikely given this forum.)
Ah yes rigging the system. That's awesome, of course its not true but it sure sounds great.
By your thought process there is no science merely differing religions. I'm okay with that are you?
why yes my post is a troll, did you really have to ask?
Grammar corrections always welcomed, spellin' suggestions will be ignored.
But you didn't ask any questions. Your post said
How insightful. What kind of a response do you expect if you haven't even looked into the CRU hacking case?
Now, the two important things we did learn from the CRU emails are that 1) denialists bombard the scientists with information requests, which is a drain on their resources and 2) there wasn't anything weird going on at CRU.
So, can you tell us why these facts made you doubt the existence of AGW?
only if you are a climate change denier. you guys don't know how things work so the only answer you can come up with is that it must not work that way. here's what you guys sound like. i can't get an answer i like to question x therefore x is false. i can see why this mindset is so alluring though. i can't get a good answer to prove god exits therefore he doesn't. man, this works great! you guys are onto something.
Faux Knews is ridiculous. As one study proved that watched recordings of more than a month of their prime time shows, not a single thing they said in the show was true. Not one damn thing. They are proven liars. They even went to court and fought and won for the right to lie constantly. They admitted it under oath in court. They lie. They do nothing but lie. It's the same with you CONservatives.
Actually there are a few companies who do stand to profit from it. Ie companies who own a large fresh water supplies.
The problem with people like Lamar Smith is that they are still putting distortion ahead of science. We've listened to 12 years of distortion and a lot of overstated facts. By now most agree that we are in a warming trend and more now believe it's man-made. What we really need is for a science team dedicated to putting all the facts up for broadcast and distribution with no spin. XL pipelines to bring in more oil no direct impact on climate science. We will burn and eat that oil regardless what it gets pipped in. Burning forests on the other hand are directly related with carbon contribution. So are the effects of hurricanes and rising property insurance. Insurance already have actuarial tables based on real science data. Building codes have been revised in almost all coastal regions and places of high risk of catastrophic damage. Now we just need to get that data honestly to people that can make a difference and not fights on capitol hill.
Not even gonna check who the scientists in question are. This is going to be another disappointment. "Warmer air also allows storms such as Sandy to hold more moisture and dump more rainfall" is such a misleading argument that no one with even a modicum of understanding of science would make it. Warmer air in local vicinity of a specific hurricane can cause the stated effect. Warmer average temperature on the globe would not necessarily cause warmer temperature in the locality of Sandy. This argument is sooooo misleading. They are local vs global effect (temperature increase at particular locality vs average temperature on the planet) and they are mixing hypothetical vs observed effect (warmer air in SOME locality vs warmer air in the locality of the specific hurricane Sandy). Experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weren't talking about impossibility of any hurricane getting worse because of warmer air. They said Sandy. And so did Lamar Smith. Oh vey. Sometimes I just wish I understood less science. Joining pop science pitch forking seems to have become a litmus test for being "nice." Somehow "nice" doesn't include "sane" anymore.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
do they let any Republican into any house committee with science in its name? These are the people who have yet to catch up with high school biology.
Both sides can make their claims. But unless someone can do a proper experiment with a control planet, and make that experiment repeatable while you're at it, its all speculation. Not proper science.
And Smith forgot to make an important point about the Keystone Pipeline. Stopping it doesn't mean that carbon stays in the ground. It means the Chinese will burn it. And they will do so with less rigorous emissions standards. But then I can't prove that either. Its all speculation.
Have gnu, will travel.
Who profits from "climate change and / or the laws or restrictions that it brings about"? Scientists? Companies that make solar panels? Vegan bakeries?
Versus billions (with a b) of dollars in profits for oil companies.
Do you even read what you're writing?
Well, you aren't giving it.
True, but incomplete. Sea levels have been rising steadily since long before industrialization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
Therefore, although warming can cause sea level rise and sea levels have risen, there is no conclusive evidence that anthropogenic emissions have contributed significantly to sea level rise.
True, but that could mean anything from totally insignificant to significant increase in damage; nobody knows how much increase there is. Since the sea level rise isn't attributable to human emissions, however, that point is academic.
The actual problem is that people build in flood plains and too close to the ocean, because Congress bails them out with taxpayer money. That problem is much easier to take care of than carbon emissions.
True, but nobody knows whether that is a significant effect (likely not) either or how much of it is due to human emissions.
So, the scientists actually haven't said much factually wrong, but their statements are misleading and full of weasel words, and their policy recommendations are unfounded and ineffective.
Lamar Smith is right: "wait and see" is the right approach for the US. To that I'd add: eliminate federal flood insurance and disaster aid. If millionaires want to live on the beach, they should self-insure and not have the tax payer assume their risks.
I do think that the scientific process will win out in the end (how can it lose?).
when theres no one to practice it cause homo sapiens went extinct cause the planets on fire. ... it could happen!
+14 ... the problem with the common man debating science issues is that neither side knows what they are talking about, and don't have the courage to admit it.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
If you are genuinely skeptical because of the emails leaked from the university of east anglia, then I suggest looking at them again. /Read/ the emails. If you have any basic level of scientific literacy, you'll see through the climategate charade. If you need the cliff notes version, then this and this give pretty damning information on the "scandal" surrounding the leaks.
Then you can read one of numerous official reports on the leaks.
Even with the kindest interpretation of "skeptic" arguments surrounding the emails, I have found it hard to find anything of interest. It is a classic nothing burger.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
How ironic. It's your type that has always gone for the torches and pitchforks.
.I am not a scientist...
I stopped listening after that. And honestly, so should you. I bet you're one of the 99.9% of people who just listened to the blown up media reports on email-gate (*shudder*, I just vomited in my mouth a little from calling it that).
Since they've been leaked you're free to read them yourself. Do it. See what you find. I won't even pre-empt the result with my opinion.
AGW then you are either one of the authors, or you are a fanatic who accepts any act,
You sir, are an ideologue. There is a third option. The person you are denouncing may actually have some scientific literacy. See this entertaining video on skeptics and climategate.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This is a classic tragedy of the commons situation. If everyone pollutes everyone looses. If only you pollute and no one else does.... you win. If you dont pollute and everyone else does... you really loose. If no one pollutes everyone kind wins.
I have no idea why tards on the right who get all huffy about free market economics would not recognize this economics 101 situation. Given a free market situation we will always turn to the WORST possible outcome. Since it is always better for the individual to pollute the Nash equilibrium is achieved when everyone chooses to pollute.
Now how to deal with this flaw in the free market solution is more up to debate. But in general this is the EXACT situation where governmental regulation is needed and will produce the most net surplus. The free marketer solution is that every single potential polluter gets together and negotiates who gets to pollute..... I like to call this solution a "government". But repubs get all pissy about that name for some reason. They think every individual entity should negotiate... They seem to forget there are a thing called transaction costs which make this completely crazy in the real world.
It's just silly when some people call themselves "climate sceptics". Scepticism involves not taking something at face value and going out and finding the evidence. Scepticism is NOT finding the evidence and denying it, then claiming to still be a sceptic.
The science of climate change is well established. The only real quibble now between scientists is the degree of change.
" Vegan bakeries?"
It can't be economica; to ship baked goods across 26 lightyears, and it wouldn't be very fresh by the time it got here.
The emails were bad enough, but the worst part was all of the comments in the source code for the programs used. Shit was just made up out of thin air.
Let's see here...
the University of East Anglia..... But of course if they had decided that they and their people had done wrong, they'd have lost lots of prestige and funding. Nixon declared that Watergate was just a 3rd rate burglary and everybody should just ignore it and move-along too....
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.... yeah and the IRS cannot name any of its employees who have done wrong, and the ATF couldn't not when it investigated its people; there's nothing new in big government agencies being unable to find any wrongdoing in their own people. The IRS cannot currently figure out how much their party in Long Beach cost, nor can they figure-out who signed-off on the costs...
In fact, the very site you linked to which hosted the list is the super-left-leaning UCS... those mental midgets spent the entire cold war trying to convince Westerners that the Cold War could not be won and we ought to just disarm (and essentially surrender). Some people, like the guys at UCS, are proof that if you spend too much time in the ivory tower of academia pursuing a PhD, you'll end up a gullible fool with no remaining common sense and a sheepskin that unambiguously proves you are very good at regurgitating the nonsense that an earlier generation of people who spent too much time in academia spoon-fed you
EVERY SOURCE you rely on for your argument IS AS LINKED TO WHAT THEY INVESTIGATED, and exonerated, AS NIXON was to Watergate but I bet you would not have accepted Nixon's word that there was no wrongdoing. For that matter, I'd bet you would not accept Dick Cheney's word that there was no need for concern over his dealings re Halliburton... Would it be OK if the captain and crew of the Exxon Valdez investigated themselves and produced a bunch of reports in which they exonerated each-other?
I'm guessing Smith believes if we all pray more/harder all these storms will go away. It's either the devil's fault or god is mad at us.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I'll quote Feynman on this one, because I couldn't say it any better:
"I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the laymen when you're talking as a scientist. . . . I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, [an integrity] that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen."
Feynman was absolutely right. The context, of course, is the individual scientist, who should not by lie of omission misrepresent the way that his work may be wrong. To either the public, colleagues, or himself "...you are the easiest to fool."
Now, are you saying that its fair to extrapolate this to the entirety of climatology, and the related disciplines that touch it?
The "leaks" worst offense was that in some cases scientists' felt pressure to modify the way they presented their facts to the public.
I disagree with that. The worst offense was that some of the scientists privately expressed frustration at denialists trolls who play political games, and waste their time. I don't think the emails show that the scientists were modifying how they presented anything to the public. But they do show occasional defensiveness and frustration from scientists.
/should/ provide everything and the kitchen sink to "skeptics" even if you know they are going to be intellectually dishonest with the information. Doesn't matter. Let politics be politics, and science be science.
The smear campaign works by being completely unreasonable, and then demanding to be taken seriously. Whenever people get frustrated, you just claim that they are being unreasonable, and are ideologues. It is classic projection.
So the way I see it, a bunch of trolls pissed off some scientists, and privately expressed defensiveness over the issues. The scientists in question should not be defensive (though it is understandable), and
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Precisely. Those emails were taken out of context.
As a scientist (unrelated to climate in any way), when I come across a manuscript for review that is completely devoid of use of the scientific method, then I get angry. They wasted the editor's time, and my time, with "work" that was not well-motivated, well-interpreted, etc. I then go out of my way to be as brutal as possible.
You see, I review manuscripts to make sure that they are up to basic standards, not whether they are "right." I would much rather be spending my time doing my own well-planned and interpreted research. But, when some crap article appears that it might be accepted to a respected journal, it is my duty to block it. On the other hand, I have reviewed and allowed several articles that actually disagreed with my predictions, but they were were good work, so they were allowed by me and published. My reputation is less valuable that the general endeavor of science.
It is also in my interest to keep charlatans out. If I and others don't, they will get a publication record that numerically (using impact factors) appears to be worthwhile. Then they will get tenure. Then they will teach their students to spam respectable journals until they find a reviewer too busy to actually review articles.
That is, in the long run, the "article spammers" will eventually come dominate the universities and publications, and science as an endeavor will suffer.
Physicians have the boards. Attorneys have the bar. But anyone who tells a reporter "I am a scientist" seems to get a pass, no matter how kooky and unsupported their ideas are.
Back to the climate-scientist emails, this is the type of thing they were discussing––keeping out frauds and fake scientists.
If you're more worried about the money than the science you're doing it wrong. Do you really think that the vast majority of climate scientists from around the world are falsifying science for the sake of money when they're smart enough to know that their falsification will eventually be discovered utterly destroying their scientific reputations? I don't doubt there are a few scientists around who are that venal but not enough in the long run to overcome the vast majority who are honestly seeking to understand our physical world better. To think they're all in on falsifying climate science is to postulate conspiracy on an impossible level.
The science is nearly 200 years old now starting with Fourier who discovered the greenhouse effect in 1824 and it's just been building since then. In the past 20-30 years it's been subject to intense scrutiny yet no one has come up with that magic bullet that explains the current climate change better than the current explanations. If somebody does I'll pay attention.
Also, I don't even have a problem with saying that CO2 is the primary driver of increased temperatures - but I do have a problem with
I would hope not - that it's a greenhouse gas has been well established for about 100 years.
a) anything that goes beyond CO2 (that is 1.3K for a doubling) that is pure speculation,
On what basis is it purely speculation?
consists of poorly researched feedback mechanisms, with the poor state of research in cloud formation being among the worst offenders and most important negative feedbacks that are currently being ignored due to the poor state of knowledge and
What feedbacks, and ignored by whom?
b) I do have a problem with the constant one-sided discussion of the effects of increased temperatures. They are always held in the tone of horoscopes and greek oracles to avoid any clear statements that could be easily contradicted. "Extreme weather events" being the worst offender. That's says nothing and is obviously taylored to feed a constant media frenzy. This is combined with a complete lack of reporting on past "extreme weather events". Thus even decidetly average events like hurricanes Katrina or Sandy (in their historical and geographical context!) become "unprecedented monster storms", which is just laughable for anyone who bothered to look into the history of hurricanes on the US south and east coast.
"precedented monster storms" don't sell papers/eyeballs. Keep in mind who characterizes them in this fashion. Protip: it's not the scientists. Sometimes, one needs to pick up a better news media. Personally, I just go to the weather service web page. As to past weather events, keep in mind that forecasting then used to be axioms such as "red sky at night, sailor's delight...".
... we got a doofus lawyer " without any technical or scientific background" as President who had no experience running anything or employing people or being employed. A guy who cannot speak without a teleprompter, thinks there are at least 57 states, thinks he has the authority to drone-strike any person anywhere on Earth any time he likes (it's MUCH more fun, and civilized, too, turning a human body into a pile of offal than pouring water onto somebody's face, like the Evil Bush-Cheney monster, after-all...)
As for a worse relationship with medical science.... Obama claimed doctors chop off the feet of diabetics because they get paid more to do that than to give-out insulin. He also clearly does not understand why doctors take out tonsils, thinks you will lower the cost of a hip replacement by adding taxes to the artificial hip joint, did not know what Navy medics were, etc. Someday there will be a library of the stupid things this moron has said and it will be at least as big as the equivalent Bush facility... the only reason most people do not know all the crap that this guy has uttered is that you have to see it yourself on video... 90% of the journalists in the US admit to being democrats and they just refuse to be critical of him or to run the sort of over-the-top headlines on his errors the way they do for any Republican or Libertarian
No one had to tell me the fox does not have a news channel. The lying and spin are pretty obvious. The memo to Nixon about a "news channel" based upon the promotion of a political ideology is fairly damning. Propaganda and opinion is not news. All of our mainstream media (including fox) are focused in downplaying the damage that unrestrained corporations (and individuals with massive amounts of money and/or power) are causing and have caused to the world, and to the USA. If you think a news organization own by a corporate conglomerate has any interest in your well being I advise you to look at why the the american colonies rebelled against the United Kingdom.
But hell don't let me get in the way of your diatribe.
Grammar corrections always welcomed, spellin' suggestions will be ignored.
If you don't like the message, attack the messenger is a tradition that goes back thousands of years. I read the emails (what I could find of the originals) and didn't find them that damaging to the "cause". People's opinions are stronger than fact. The UK doctor that has since been discreditted over vaccines, and vaccines are still called unsafe on a regular basis. He was a rallying cry for the haters, but without him, the haters will still go on hating. But a few emails that didn't "prove" anything, all of climate science is discredited. How does that work?
Learn to love Alaska
This article is about one scientist and it is definitely fair to demand this from him, as he obviously did the very opposite.
As for the rest of climatologists, who are a large bunch of individuals, of course it is fair to demand the same from them. There are those among them who see this as natural and do inform people about both the contents and the limits of their knowledge.
Unfortunately, those are few and far between in the public debate and especially in the media, who dislike true scientists exactly for their habit (or should I say second nature?) of making very careful statments with lots of background to make sure their statments can be understood at all and a litany of ifs and buts, necessary to make it clear on what assumptions and which conditions their statements rest.
Hence, the media are filled with so-called-scientists willing to dispense with all scientific standards to the point of leaving the realm of anything resembling nature and giving the press a nice-to-read story instead. Do I think it is fair to extrapolate from TFA to those "scientists"?
Hell yes.
Was there some freak storm somewhere? Let's blame it on global warming. It's the secular equivalent of the Westboro Baptist outfit blaming every single bad thing that happens in America to God hating something about America.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I don't understand gravity, and I don't believe in it. Every scientist who has committed murder has believe in gravity. Hitler believed in gravity. That's proof enough that believers in gravity are bad people, and thus we should all not believe in gravity. But I'm "impartial" because I'm ignorant of science, so I should be listened to more than anyone who can explain gravity, as they are all just apologists.
Learn to love Alaska
TLDR: Only people who agree with me may question me.
(preface i am not the grandparent, just drunk and lazy)
no has ever accused vegans, volgons, organic, or trans-dimensional entities of being either economical or fresh by the time it reaches your dinner plate (okay some claim that for organic, but they generally mean it doesn't have too many carcinogenics laced into the skin/meat of the aforementioned food.
Grammar corrections always welcomed, spellin' suggestions will be ignored.
Unfortunately, climate scientists rarely show even that modest degree of scientific care and honesty. Don't believe me? Just RTFA.
Which is precisely the problem. We have a legitimate issue with pollution and climate change, but then we have assholes like Al Gore profiting off the whole mess and turning it into a political issue. Al Gore should have realized that he would turn the debate into a left verses right issue and kept his stupid mouth shut... if he really wanted to make a difference he should have secretly funded some non-profit to get some politically neutral members of the scientific community to spread the word.
You have convinced me that Lamar Smith is a great guy of sterling character with good morals and a great logical mind.
If your measure of what's good is calibrated against a yardstick of mental disorder, perversion, and sexual deviancy, then you're the one with the problem... and your resort to expletives just seals that deal... in any argument, the guy who ends-up swearing or yelling is clearly the one without the facts or logic on his side.
falsifying science for the sake of money when they're smart enough to know that their falsification will eventually be discovered utterly destroying their scientific reputations?
It can and does happen, though usually they expect to get away with it.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
They wouldn't have to be bombarded if they simply made all of the data public to begin with for anybody to look at. If this is something really truly important that we must all make life altering decisions, then why is it such a closely guarded secret? Empirical science depends on peer review. How the hell are you supposed to peer review top secret data?
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
[holding back the expletives I feel] That is the most demeaning and supercilious thing you could possibly say. There are no unqualified questions. There are no stupid questions; only condescending and stupid answers. You better the hell believe questioning F=MA deserves a meaningful answer, and that one is dead simple to illustrate. When the fucking car hits the tree at speed, M times A of the occupant becomes very large, and the resultant F tends to break bones.
Yes, it is HARD and tiresome answering questions, and you can only tutor the questioner so much. But it's not anyone's place to presuppose the questioner doesn't want "real answers". If he rejects the answer, well, at least you tried.
Could you be more specific? TFA looks fine to me, especially how it starts:
The two of us have spent, in total, more than seven decades studying Earth's climate, and we have joined hundreds of top climate scientists to summarize the state of knowledge for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the World Climate Research Program and other science-based bodies. We believe that our views are representative of the 97 percent of climate scientists who agree that global warming is caused by humans. Legions of studies support the view that, left unabated, this warming will produce dangerous effects. (This commentary, like so much of our work, was a collaborative process, with input from leading climate scientists Julia Cole, Robert W. Corell, Jennifer Francis, Michael E. Mann, Jonathan Overpeck, Alan Robock, Richard C.J. Somerville and Ben Santer.)
Please tell me: where, exactly, are you hallucinating this lack of care and honesty?
If by "weird" you cover "improper", HORSE SHIT, you closed-mind partisan.
Scientists != all Scientists
Scientists != climate scientists
Statistics != causality
So the women get 70 cents for a man's dollar is garbage because when the data is analyzed properly it disappears when age and experience are taken into account.
Which is precisely the problem. We have a legitimate issue with pollution and climate change, but then we have assholes like Al Gore profiting off the whole mess and turning it into a political issue. Al Gore should have realized that he would turn the debate into a left verses right issue and kept his stupid mouth shut... if he really wanted to make a difference he should have secretly funded some non-profit to get some politically neutral members of the scientific community to spread the word.
You are correct. The fact that George W. Bush's home was "greener" than Al Gore's shows that this is not a left/right issue. It also shows that Al Gore does not truly believe global warming.
The best way to pull the left/right tension out of the issue would be to stop calling people names and using hyperbole. Capitalist pigs are not out to destroy the world or enslave the masses just as commie-tree-huggers are not out to destroy business (most of them anyway). For example, those who believe that GW is a real problem would make better headway selling money (energy) saving solutions to business rather than force regulations down their throats. Capitalists love money. Use that.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Al Gore's girlfriend flew into London in her own personal G5 executive jet to protest Heathrow getting a new runway. You can see why people regard them as a joke who preach "Do as I say not as I do."
Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t."
It is rather funny to watch the 'AGW IS GONNA KILL US ALL' crowd and their sycophants. They run around claiming that The Science is on their side and label anyone who dares question any aspect of their research as a denier.
There are two simple reasons for this. They are a) not very good scientists and b) they have a belief system that they bought into (The world will end! Unless you listen to US!).
Instead of watching the people on both sides of the issue argue and insult each other, why don't you take a look at the data.
For example, the models aren't any good.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
The models and observations are parting ways, rather quickly. And, to Trenberth's dismay, the observations are what matter, not the models. Notice the mean of the models is .5 higher than observation. That puts the observations outside of the error bars.
The other flaws with the models, the shoddy data handling, the bad math, the lack of source control, etc, have been covered here before.
Woodfortrees.org has the data and analysis tools. Go look. Play with the data and see what it shows you.
Second, the data they are using is mangled all to hell. They 'adjust' the data on a continual basis.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ushcn-adjustments.jpg
When the trend one is looking at only appears after adjusting the data, there is a problem. HadCrut and GISS have continually changed data and it is always the same, the past gets colder and the present gets warmer. One would hope that, at some point, the past remains constant instead of changing all the time.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/12/26/nasa-giss-adjusting-the-adjustments/
Third, the data itself is suspect. The G.A.O. did a survey of the USHCN climate station network. The G.A.O found that 42% of the weather stations did not meet the station sitting requirements. In other words, you can't trust the data. AND THAT IS THE BEST SURFACE TEMP NETWORK WE HAVE. The rest of the worlds surface temp stations are worse.
"According to GAO's survey of weather forecast offices, about 42 percent of the active stations in 2010 did not meet one or more of the siting standards. With regard to management requirements, GAO found that the weather forecast offices had generally but not always met the requirements to conduct annual station inspections and to update station records. NOAA officials told GAO that it is important to annually visit stations and keep records up to date, including siting conditions, so that NOAA and other users of the data know the conditions under which they were recorded."
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-800
The reconstructions also suck. They use very limited data sets and the outcome changes drastically depending on which data is included. Plus they did wonderful things like disappear the Medieval Warming Period even though we have eye witness accounts from people who moved because it got too warm.
Add in things like Glieck and fraud or stating that "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” and pretty soon it is clear that climate science is a mess.
So we have a lot of things we don't know very well, things that people are making up and a whole lot of things we don't know we don't know. Yet jokers like Trenberth want to enact policies that will directly cause hunger and poverty to increase for the poorest parts of the world.
We need to take care of our environment. But we need to actually know what the hell is going on before we can enact rational, useful changes.
Slee
The F=MA part is a nuanced point which you failed to grasp. There are fantastic and interesting reasons to question F=MA. However the average person will never be able to even come close to understanding any of a real response. Short in at least having a masters in a related field. Any answer will simply go over the questioners heads.
Ill put myself in this position. I am not qualified to demand a 100% proof on how my antibiotics work. Its beyond stupid for the average person to even ask that a Dr. tries to explain it to them. Its reasonable to ask. Hey was there a peer reviewed study of this and its effects? If so its time to shut the fuck up and take your medicine
Whoever told you "there is no such thing as a stupid question" is wrong.
people who stand to profit from climate change
If you think that anyone would profit from even the average predicted scenario, you must be living comfortably on another planet. Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?
The people who stand to gain the most from it are in large part the one's profiting from us causing it to begin with. It will take more and more energy just to cope with the effects of our energy production.
Al "The Pope" Gore, who sells dispensations from liberal guilt over the environment has made how many billions off of climate change?
How about all of Obama's "Green Energy" crony capitalists? Yeah, Solyndra went bankrupt after how many Democrat donors cashed in?
I am not a scientist
Well then shut the fuck up, because you don't know enough to doubt anything.
If I loan the money to the farmers to upgrade their farms, lend the money to the populace to buy their houses, cars, gadgets and toys. They pay me interest. The smart ones will pay off the principal too, but many won't be able to. So, in the end, they will not be able to afford the payments, and I will own the land, the houses, the cars, and the gadgets. If the propositions to eliminate bankruptcy, that i have heard about in the US, go through, then I will still be owed all the money as well as owning the properties, and toys. I think that is akin to slavery, but to me, that would be profit. I could afford all the food I can eat, while those arond me strive to survive. The profit is not for the economy, it is for the bankers - those few that own the biggest of the banks. The same ones that got all those bonuses when Obama handed out that big cheque a few years ago.
Yes there are:
Computers are stupid and they make people loose their jobs, can you explain me why do you want people to loose their jobs?
If the "threatening" now-faster-rate of sea level rise is on the order of a 3.3 mm/year, then how is it that the sea levels in NY harbors have "risen more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century (which would be 1900AD.)
1000mm / cm ...we're talking 30 centimeters.
2.54 centimeters / inch
12 inches / foot
Wikipedia (linked above) says the *current rate*, which is *faster* than previous, is 3.3 mm / year. 113 years (since 1900) is 372.9 mm if we count 3.3 mm / year for EVERY year since then. That's a total of 3.72 cm (isn't metric easy?) or between one and two inches.
And actually, Wikipedia reports sea level rise this way: "Between 1870 and 2004, global average sea levels rose 195 mm", which is less than an inch.
So, a foot, how? [grumble]
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
OK, now you are in a position where the burden of proof is on you.
It's legitimate to look at somebody's evidence and say, "it doesn't convince me." It's sometimes *also* legitimate to say "I've seen enough evidence to convince myself beyond a reasonable doubt, so I won't bother thinking about your evidence; otherwise you'd have to take the time to examine the workings of every proposed perpetual motion machine.
What you can't do is say, "I'll dismiss your evidence because there's a possibility you have a conflict of interest." Everyone *always* has a vested interest in any position they've taken in the past. If you go there, if you call a man a liar because he has stated a professional opinion you disagree with, it's *your* responsibility to show evidence that lying has taken place. If you can't, STFU.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If this is something really truly important that we must all make life altering decisions, then why is it such a closely guarded secret?
Yes, democracy requires an informed electorate. You have been deliberately and expertly misinformed, there was no "secret".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
i guess if you're an idiot journo with no clue as to the context of what you're looking at of course you're going to come to the wrong conclusion... which is exactly what happened
scientists often tweak charts to suit the level of understanding of their audience... what they don't weak is their interpretation of those charts
I rest my case.
"There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question." -- Carl Sagan
I hope you don't take it as insulting, but on this matter I'm going to side with the adviser to NASA, PhD in astrophysics, accomplished author of works which made sciencific knowledge accessable to and popular with the public.
Imagine Oppenheimer and Trenberth were surgeons. Then the dialog would go something like this:
OT: You need a costly and risky operation, but we can handle it, trust us.
Patient: What's wrong with me? I don't really feel sick.
OT: You have some kind of tumor, but it's too complicated for you to understand. Just trust us. That cold you had last month, and the headache, and feeling queasy after the Thanksgiving lobster? We can't be 100% sure, but we think they were all probably caused by your disease!
Patient: What's the risk of the operation?
OT: Just trust us that it's less risky to get this expensive operation than not to get it.
Patient: Are there alternative treatments?
OT: None that we recommend. Just trust us, get our operation. We are the experts.
Patient: If I get the operation, how much longer will I live?
OT: Just trust us, you'll live a little longer.
Patient: How much is it going to cost me?
OT: We don't know, but just give us everything you have and we'll see what we can do.
Patient: I'm thinking about getting a second opinion.
OT: Sure, just go down the hall and ask my good friend Dr. Smith about what he thinks about this operation. We are all experts in this disease here and all know this wonderful way of curing it.
Patient: Isn't there some independent doctor I can go to?
OT: No. Everybody who isn't here is a charlatan and you can't trust them. All doctors here agree that this operation is the best thing since sliced bread, even though it's expensive.
Patient: You know, I don't really trust you. I think I'll take my chances and wait a bit longer.
OT: You're obviously in denial. You must be forced to get our operation for your own good. We'll just declare you mentally incompetent, institutionalize you and force you to undergo this procedure. Orderly, put him in a straitjacket.
You don't have to be an expert in a field to conclude that you don't trust someone or their advice.
" Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?"
Insurance. For any company that comes up with an ironclad loophole for denying claims or 'bundling' and reselling the policy.
Oppenheimer and Trenberth are NOT scientists ! They are "Ayatoliahs" of the Carbon Anthropogenic Global Warming sect.
The scientists have no ability to profit from Global Warming, to the contrary, since big business and so many politicians want it to be a fairy tale, or at least ignored, anyone saying it exists and has the data to prove it knowingly puts turns themselves into a target.
Those emails, when reviewed in their entirety, show nothing wrong with the data collection and processing, nor with the conclusions of the climatologists. Of course to those who don't understand the specifics, or worse, do understand but wants to hide it, a half assed deception using partial and out of context quotes can easily manipulate many people. This has been proven time and time again, just look at Fox 'News' viewers.
As to any scientific field wide conspiracy, it'll never happen, and by the very nature of the process of peer review and competition to discover or publish, can't happen. Unlike political parties, the largest group of scientists that can work together to pull one over is a single research group. (Size of research groups vary, but are never very large.) No scientific field is comprised of only one group. And because of this, even if a group tried to fake something, the others would find out and blow the whistle. Happens all the time, though most of them I've heard about with fake research or conclusions have been with Chinese and North Korean claims. For that matter, those charlatans were outed by the rest of the world scientists pretty much immediately. The B.S. detectors worked right off the bat, but it took a week or two for the denouncements to get published because it takes time to write them, have enough research backing it up to prove your point, and getting it published. On the other hand, factless B.S., or baseless B.S. can be spewed out as fast as con man, err, Fox News Anchor can read the teleprompter.
Have you ever heard someone say, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."?
Scientists work, live, and breath that very credo. To violate it is anathema to their entire way of thinking. That's not to say a few don't go nuts for some reason and violate it, but to a scientist that kind of stuff is like a mass murderer. They have to be stopped as quickly as possible, and it's a good thing that such a minuscule percentage of the populace (way less than 1%) ever does such atrocities.
Media Personalities and Politicians rarely if ever follow that credo. They spew lies, misrepresentations, and obfuscations like Niagra Falls does water. So tell me, who are you going to trust on matters of science? Someone that has a vested interest and ethics in being correct, no matter how embarrassing it might be, or someone that could care less about the truth, but wants to manipulate things to gain more power, money, and influence, if not all three.
Also, don't forget, the scientists study their fields for many years. How long do you think politicians, pundits, or other media types study those same fields?
So if you for some reason think the non-scientists know more about a scientific field than it's scientists, then I would suggest that the next time you need surgery, don't dare go to a surgeon, go find an auto-mechanic or airline host and have them do your surgery, after all, by your reasoning, they must know more than the trained expert.
Also, I don't even have a problem with saying that CO2 is the primary driver of increased temperatures - but I do have a problem with
a) anything that goes beyond CO2 (that is 1.3K for a doubling) that is pure speculation, consists of poorly researched feedback mechanisms, with the poor state of research in cloud formation being among the worst offenders and most important negative feedbacks that are currently being ignored due to the poor state of knowledge...
Bullshit. You're ignoring the decades of research on these topics. You're ignoring the physics, and the simulations built on those physics. Now you may simply be ignorant of this, or you're being willfully deceitful, but either way these are certainly not "poorly understood phenomena".
b) I do have a problem with the constant one-sided discussion of the effects of increased temperatures. They are always held in the tone of horoscopes and greek oracles to avoid any clear statements that could be easily contradicted. "Extreme weather events" being the worst offender. That's says nothing and is obviously taylored to feed a constant media frenzy. This is combined with a complete lack of reporting on past "extreme weather events". Thus even decidetly average events like hurricanes Katrina or Sandy (in their historical and geographical context!) become "unprecedented monster storms", which is just laughable for anyone who bothered to look into the history of hurricanes on the US south and east coast.
That's because you have no idea what you are talking about. And it is people like you which make scientists not even want to bother to try and explain anything. If you don't even understand the most basic research concepts and results, why bother trying to explain something more advanced. You don't want to listen. You don't want to know. And that's perfectly fine. But you have no credibility even with someone who has a passing knowledge of the actual research,
~X~
Strawman much?
It's kind of funny how you almost entirely proved his point by deferring your argument to an authority. Oh, the irony.
You do not understand that a free market is based on property rights. Everybody has a right to reasonably clean air, as part of the property inherent to all humans on earth. People who pollute the air are damaging the property of those who breath it, and should be charged for doing it and prevented from repeating the pollution, as appropriate. Everyone has a right of access to reasonably clean water, whether pumped on your own property, or purchased from a privately owned or municipal water supplier. A polluter of a drinking water supply is damaging the property rights of a person, family, water company or municipality, and should be made to pay for damages and prevented from further pollution. The tragedy of the commons is not a failure of capitalism, it is a lack of capitalism, caused by a failure to identify, codify, and enforce property rights.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Wha? Non sequitur much?
There are people whose drive in life is not to have nice things or lots of money, but to push other people around. Among those the most successful we call "tyrants"; they are the people who "profit" from using the force of arbitrary laws against others.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
That's fair. I can't fault the principle.
Lamar Smith is the same guy who sponsored PIPA.
Not going to shut up until he goes away.
people who stand to profit from climate change
If you think that anyone would profit from even the average predicted scenario, you must be living comfortably on another planet. Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?
So if figured out a way to cool the planet, would everyone benefit? Fewer droughts, fewer floods, food surpluses, fewer heat waves, more predictable weather patterns? Or are we somehow living in the best of all possible worlds? While it is logical to expect global warming would be bad for the majority of the people and other organisms on this planet, it seems implausible that it would negatively impact everyone. Without acknowledgment that there would be winners (even if they would be greatly outnumbered by losers), much of the global warming discussion appears more like a sales pitch than an honest scientific debate.
Canadian farmers stand to do pretty well, for a start.
As I said there are some scientists who would do that but to me it's not believable that thousands of climate scientists around the world are doing that and getting away with it especially if what they're saying is false. Usually when you hear about a scientist doing something like that it's in a pretty obscure area of the science because once others start looking at it they're going to find out it was wrong.
Actually, it'd be more along these lines:
....time passes....
OT: We, and 97% of all the doctors out there agree that you have a sickness. It's so complicated we would never be able to help another person if we explained it completely to every person who's never had any medical training who wants to have it all explained, therefor we say "you have a problem, lets see if we can come up with something to help it out."
Patient: No, i know i've never had any medical training, and i'm scared of doing anything cause Billy-Bo-Bob and his wife/daughter Mary-Beth-Bob said it wun't nothing, so you're wrong because they all got them a 10th grade edukation. I don't want to actually have to take initiative and go learn to read so i can have a chance to understand it.
OT: If we don't try to come up with a solution, you may die.
Patient: You don't know nothing.
Patient: - - - dies - - -
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
This is ridiculous. No one would take a one-time one foot rise in global sea level seriously if it wasn't being construed as a canary in a coal mine with respect to a larger threat. They would just accept the city being built with insufficient surge margin as one of a thousand things done differently one hundred years ago.
Nor would people rush to conclude that a one-time one foot rise in sea level was a high price to pay with what humanity has achieved in the last one hundred years.
Building too close to unpredictable water is an ageless human tradition.
I think it's poppycock to tie an amorphous process such as global warming to any specific counterfactual. There are many environmental carcinogens where we know it doubles the base rate, but we can't point to any one specific person and say "you died because of this".
It's unscientific in attitutude to dupe the public into thinking that science operates in these terms. One does not need a concrete case of cause and effect in order for a process to have real effects. Even if the sea level had declined by a foot, some storm somewhere would have been worse. I've never had much appetite for scientists drawn into PR.
This is part of the reason why people are against global warming - when people mention reasons why they don't believe it, or ask real questions about it seeking clearer understanding, all we get is attacked, demeaned and insulted.
This is definitely a problem that all sciences face, and even any field in academia has issues in this area. I was once interested in working in science/academia, but lost taste for that after seeing how arrogant and stuck up so many seniors in the field can be.
However, GGP's post is 100% bonkers. His claim is that you can't believe in climate science because of whatever this controversy was. And I really have no idea what the controversy is, because it's totally irrelevant. This is not how science works. The facts and evidence overwhelmingly suggest that humans are causing climate change and that the consequences are disastrous. Citing a made-up controversy as a reason to deny all these facts is anti-science and anyone should understand this.
But with respect to your dilemma with asking questions and not getting good responses - I'm afraid I have no good answer. Lots of people who know the answers to these questions simply don't see the importance of sharing them with others. Perhaps the best solution is to research these questions yourself. I quickly searched duckduckgo for "global warming faq" and found this site from NOAA. I hope it'll be enlightening for you.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
but if you want an overview, perhaps you should start with the IPCC report,
That's a good place to start
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You're welcome to go through life viewing yourself as Billy-Bo-Bob and place your life in the hands of "experts" without questioning them. Chances are good it will kill you.
I am a scientist and an engineer, and if a doctor tells me that I'm too stupid to understand what my disease is, the doctor gets a sharp rebuke and loses me as a patient.
There's a difference between expert-level understanding and basic competency (or as you say, a dumbed down version). But that's what every seconday school education is supposed to provide (yes, I know, supposed to, but doesn't actually do).
But in order to make decisions on these matters, everyone needs to have a basic level of understanding. No, you will not be able to build your own nuclear reactor, but you should at least be able to make a reasonably thought out opinion on whether it's safe to have one in your hometown. And you can't simply just trust the experts that it works - look at what happened in Fukushima, for instance.
It's critically important in fact, that people ask these questions. No field was simply dreamt of into existence overnight. I mean, maybe this isn't true if you're an utter fucking genius like Donald Knuth or Alan Turing, but even Albert Einstein had to ask stupid questions like "what would I see if I were traveling at the speed of light?" And quantum mechanics even was slowly formulated into existence by making incremental predictions and observations that took quite a few decades to fully make sense as a basic physical theory.
Yes, I agree that at a point, it becomes futile to understand everything without dedicating several years of schooling and practical work, and I also agree that nobody should be allowed to believe it's not true unless he/she is a scientist with some pretty damn compelling research/theory to say otherwise. But my argument is that these basic levels of understanding are critical for a civilized society to function.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
people who stand to profit from climate change
If you think that anyone would profit from even the average predicted scenario, you must be living comfortably on another planet. Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?
You are kidding right? Regardless or your feelings on AGW, there are a lot of people investing a lot of money in "green" energy making a lot of money. A lot of that money is being spent by governments, so yea, a lot of people have a vested interest in the debate. Including (unfortunately) academics who get grant money based on the way the debate is going.
If AGW is real (not saying it isn't) then grant money flows. If AGW is proven false, or even questionable, then grant money slows/dries up. That is how it should be right? If tomorrow we find evidence that dark matter doesn't exist and someone comes up with a unified theory that works better than the standard model, I would expect dark matter investigations to screech to a halt a short time (maybe few years) later.
To pretend that nobody has a financial stake in the outcome is preposterous.
But isn't that the point.... climate scientists throughout the world have been trying to explain. They haven't told people that they're too stupid... it's the people who WANT to remain stupid who refuse to listen to the explanations, refuse to learn the basic science to understand the explanation, then whine like a little bitches that the bad scientists are calling them stupid.
Remain fucking stupid if you want, but don't blame people who actually have a job to do because they won't hold your hand and teach you things that YOU should take responsibility for and learn; and if you do intentionally remain fucking stupid, don't presume that your uneducated stupid fucking opinion means a damn thing.
Knowledge is power; whining like a little bitch because you're too stupid and lazy to learn, isn't.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I don't know about that. I'm not going to claim I read all the emails, but I spent many hours over a couple days reading a lot of them. The claim that they are taken out of context is misleading. Some of the things in the emails have no context that could possibly put them in a positive light.
It was clear to me from reading the emails that there was clear pressure to suppress dissent. The tone of the emails were those of a politician wanting to squash to opposition, not that of a scientist.
Parent post is flamebait? Really? If so, then here is some more flamebait for everyone. Read about the Long Island Express: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
It's not hidden at all. UN and NGO reps and climate change con artists from all over talk about how they will redistribute TRILLIONS of dollars from "rich countries" to "poor countries" with climate change as the excuse du jour. Of course the people doing the redistributing will latch on to most of that dough, just as they always have.
Profit for an economy - no. Profit for individuals or SECTORS of the economy - HELL YEAH!!! Short selling anyone?
How do you track down the air polluters? Sue everyone who drives by? Film the smoking cars and sue them? Things like NOx are invisible. Same with when there are 10 industries up wind, they enforce their property rights to stop you from entering and measuring pollution on their property so how to figure out who is actually polluting your air? And when it turns out that all 10 are to some degree, how do you enforce your property rights? Sue them?
Same with water, the creak you get drinking water from goes through 10 properties, how do you find the one with a leaky septic field, how to find the ones recklessly using pesticides? How do you afford to measure the e. Coli and pesticides in your drinking water? If everyone has a leaky septic field and recklessly use pesticides, how do you enforce your property rights?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The problem is that we have evolved for a world with low CO2 levels and our civilization has as well. We have the example of our cousins the Neanderthal who evolved for even colder conditions and where they are today.
You are right though, the Earth and life will adapt and after a large die off, rebound back in ways that we can't know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
How? You need water at the right time to farm as well as good soil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Correct, aspirin don't cure jack nor shit! ;-p
As a scientist you probably have the capability to understand if you put enough effort in. But from your description. You have not. Are you going to wait 10 years to get your Md before before you let a Dr take out your spleen and give you some meds to fight infections?
Short of that you are still just giving your Dr blind faith. so your questions are mostly pointless.
For such a important issue, and one where there is near total scientific agreement it is unreasonable to ever hope that a majority of the population understands what is going on.
Its nuts that even after all our scientific understanding that we still have these crazy bastards making a political issue of what should be a scientific issue.
One word:military. :)
But there are MANY MANY issues which require action and requiring some level of understanding to formulate a correct response.
The problem with global warming is those who are truly informed have some sort of general consensus about the problem and needed solution yet people who are not at all "in the know" are actively fighting this consensus without any form of information or understanding.
Land that was under ice sheets during the last Ice Age is still rising. The Gulf of Bothnia may vanish in a few thousand years-- the floor may lift above sea level. For land that was next to an ice sheet but not under it, the opposite is happening. It bulged up when all the ice pressed down the adjacent land, and now that the ice is gone, it is sinking. Much of the Eastern Seaboard, including NYC, is experiencing this. That's how apparent sea level rise is higher at NYC than elsewhere. The sinking of the land in combination with the rising sea levels makes global warming worse for NYC than most other coastal cities.
Other local effects can influence coasts. New Orleans is another coastal city that's in trouble. It's on a river delta, which must be constantly replenished with fresh deposits. Deltas are always eroding and packing down, but most grow because there's enough silt to more than offset those effects. Thanks to our efforts at flood control, not as much silt is reaching the Mississippi delta. But our interference has an upside for New Orleans. The main flow of the Mississippi would have probably shifted to the Atchafalaya by now, leaving New Orleans stuck on a sinking backwater, if we hadn't interfered.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
For someone who probably agrees my stance on pollution, your "counter" argument is a little misplaced and umm not accurate. For starts "Everybody has a right to reasonably clean air, as part of the property inherent to all humans on earth." Is simply not true. I do not see any laws supporting this. Beyond that in economics is entirely separate field than politics and rights and privileges haven o barring on pure economics. Thus your point is just not even relevant to my point.
Even though I'm willing to accept the idea that man probably has caused some of the warming over the last 150 years, any honest scientist will acknowledge that we can't be sure how large of a role man plays when we consider the fact that we were coming out of a little ice age. It's also disputable that we are facing "unprecedented" warming because recent studies (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/11/evidence-for-a-global-medieval-warm-period/) show that there was significant worldwide warming during the medieval warming period.
In general, it's good to let scientific "consensus" drive policy. But when the major scientific organizations try to shut down all discussion and explain "the debate is over" and start drawing firm conclusions on something as complex as climate science, it makes me suspicious. Then when the AGW advocates start blatantly lying about how there is supposedly more incidents of extremely destructive weather and fire, it makes me extremely suspicious. When the UN IPCC knowingly makes up a story about the Himalayas melting in a few decades even though they know it's based on a single *opinion* from an activist making comments in the WWF magazine, it tells me that there is a systemic corruption of science when it comes to the issue of global warming.
And when I see proof that Mann et al is cherry picking data in a nontransparent manner and most of the "concensus" is based on that cherry picked data, this so called "concensus" no longer holds any credibility. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbR0EPWgkEI
If you think that anyone would profit from even the average predicted scenario, you must be living comfortably on another planet. Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?
Sorry to inject facts here; you were really on a roll. Many have already profited mightily from the "climate change" frenzy. Ever heard of Al Gore? But yeah, facts are uncomfortable things.
And soon to be dead as a door nail.
They didn't put forward one piece of evidence that human greenhouse gas release is responsible for the increase in co2 in the atmosphere. There has been a significant impact due to other human behavior as well, like desertization or deforestation or forest/oil-well fires, not to mention how we keep our livestock. And I wouldn't be surprised if the amazing amount of plastics floating in the ocean isn't helping either.
But let's focus on greenhouse gas emissions first and foremost? And ignore the rest? Way to polarize people!
...because he is as dumb as a box of hammers.
What? We didn't say we'd tell you _how_ he was wrong, just _why_.
and interestingly this high and mighty witch hunt for dishonest scientists never seems to extend to the carbon cartel which has an extraordinary financial interest to lie through their teeth.
what we're seeing is exactly why they lie. there is absolutely no down side, and muddying the waters is very useful to them.
Absolute statements are never true
If you shipped them ever so slightly faster than the speed of light they would arrive before you baked them. Fresh enough for ya?
The ocean contains most of the heat that drives surface temperatures. 1 unit of ocean holds more than 1000x the heat capacity as 1 unit of atmosphere, hence the huge effect of El Nino and La Nina on surface temp.
Here is a link to the raw NOAA data on ocean heat content. Download the files, and do the linear regression yourself. It is trivial to do.
The "no warming since 1998" canard is based on carefully choosing the start-end years for a surface temperature time series such that the start year is at a record El Nino, and the end year at a La Nina. The p-value for a regression is almost statistically significant warming at p=0.05, even after this blatant cherry picking.
Don't believe me, the DO IT YOURSELF. You can download the time series. You only need year 12 math to do the regression. It is EASY.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
" But every question is a cry to understand the world."
No, a lot of these questions are the asinine yammerings of morons trying to draw attention to themselves. They have no interest in the actual answer.
And THAT, is a stupid question.
Isn't this the nut who said all of this science comes straight from the pit of hell? And is the science committee chairman? He is still is office? and taken seriously?
I'm nearing the end of my rope with this system of ours....
never posted anything before. This is my sample post. Wish me luck.
Yes, it's a (potential) tragedy of the Commons, or an iterated PD, as you anticipate, where even libertarians like me think you can pull in government coercion. The right should acknowledge that honestly. However, there are a couple of additional problems to overcome to make the collective action case:
1) Costs and dynamic pricing; it's not at all clear how damaging CO2 is at various timescales and concentrations.
1a) Modest warming may well be to our advantage. Its hard to believe that pre-industrial temperatures are exactly optimum for human civilisation.
1b) You need a dynamic pricing mechnism, changing with time CO2 levels and future projections, which will require much higher modelling resolution and confidence than we posses at present.
1c) You also need to deduct opportunity costs for the low emission equilibria; how many people will poverty kill? (answer: a lot).
1d) As AGW costs will be uneven, are you going to make side payments to get to the equilibria? How will this enormous slush fund be derived and administered?
2) Deadweight costs. How much does transaction and enforcement cost? Is is more that the collective loss in the first place?
3) Enforcement dilemma Can cheating be detected? Is enforcement against cheating governments/firms credible? (What if China gives you the finger? Or is cheating and you can't prove it? Think about the Chinese hacking situation before you answer!)
You might get 1 and 2, but for me #3 is pretty crushing. Remember the Copenhagen fail? That was predicted, using, as you say Econ 101. So in short, I think you're right, but hopeless. Put your faith in mitigation, advances in solar and nuclear tech, and geo-engineering instead if you think this is a big deal.
Oh, and please drop the 'tards things. At least some of your opponents may be smart. Thanks.
It worked out ok in the end.
The problem with the Climate Change movement is that people like James Hansen, Al Gore and Michael Mann are the most vocal proponents. None of them has ever expressed any caution and seem to always err on the side of their own arguments.
Hansen predicted huge sea level rises which failed to materialize. Mann spliced together a hockey stick which is also not matching reality. Can we at least acknowledge that both of these guys were wrong in these instances? Who exactly is the zealot here? Al Gore is just a profiteer with an extremely large carbon footprint.
The biggest argument in favor of Global Warming was the loss of sea ice. But even there nothing is unprecedented and it remains to be seen if the loss is permanent or just naturally cyclical. The only thing I am sure of is that the science is not settled.
When 1/3 of your population are voting, then there's nobody that people want to vote FOR.
When 9/10 vote, it's either a forced voting block (i.e.a dictatorship) or people don't want SOMEONE ELSE to get in.
The UK has it to some extent, though that's mostly due to the ones still actually voting.
The USA has negative voting (If I don't vote for my side THE OTHER SIDE will get in!!!) in spades.
N/t
I understand the explanations. They are not consistent or coherent, and they do not justify the policies climate scientists propose.
It looks like you are choosing to remain "fucking stupid".
You don't need a full medical education to understand a single disease well and whether to trust your doctor. Most medical studies are easy enough to understand: apply treatment X, measure outcome Y, do a statistical test.
No, it's nuts that with all our high-powered public education, people like you want to place their lives in the hands of "experts" and refuse to learn, understand, or question. With your attitude of helplessness and ignorance, you're setting yourself up to be the victim of every medical and financial fraud that comes along.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/twenty-two-years-of-no-actual-global-warming/
and
www.climatedepot.com
Why do you cretins keep acting as if there is any man made global warming?
You say that as though it's obvious that satisfying the market demand for energy-saving solutions would be sufficient to rectify the problem, much less the optimal course of action.
When there is an outbreak of severe seasonal flu, do we merely meet the market demand for tylenol and cool packs, or do we accept a financial burden to vaccinate people and thereby reduce mortality?
When we discover that simple safety measures can reduce automobile fatilites for the impactor and the impactee, do we sell them as optional extras or do we make them mandatory?
When we discover that the government is spying on us, do we meet the market demand for encryption, or do we demand that they cease?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I like how you conflate the media reporting with the science and then dismiss the whole lot.
You very well know how inaccurate the media is with regard to anything computer related, yet you don't blame yourself for that. Finding excuses smacks of blind denialism.
I also like how you claim a whole bunch of stuff is "ignored". These are scientists, not economists and generally ignoring elephants in the room leads to a lack of getting published.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If the moon had been in a different position when Sandy hit, the tide would have been out. I suggest a pre-emptive assault on the moon with razor mines, acid grenades, and automated laser monkeys.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Great post. I'd like to add that we're going into a solar Grand Minimum, similar to the Dalton and Maunder minima. We'll see how global temperatures fare as time progresses - the warmist alarmists have extremely poor timing. We're looking at somewhere between 20-200 years of lower solar activity. We shall see, but I really doubt things will move to better agreement with the IPCC models.
I expect continuing technological progress and market forces will act to lower CO2 output. I think advanced nuclear generation needs to be vastly expanded for many reasons, including space applications of nuclear. I hope LENR pans out as some at NASA seems to think it will. Finally, endpoint solar generation looks very promising as prices come down and the technology improves. Truly, humanity has a bright future if we don't listen to the Luddite voices of despair.
The United States needs to be a technology leader, not a regressive voice forcing us into some drab reduced future in the name of "Green".
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The Alarmists have made many predictions in the last 20-30 years.
Here are the resulta.
Oh, if you refuse to look because it's from Mr. Watts, then you have no interest in Science; you are nothing but a Face Painting Homer.
Do you really think that the vast majority of climate scientists from around the world are falsifying science for the sake of money
Nope. No one does. That is just a far too simple representation of what is going on. What is going on is subtle and actually quite understandable, and it has hit many scientists over the ages, in virtually any field of science. And not even science: any research is potentially victim of this. Let me explain:
Science is based on so called 'hypotheses'. Generally these hypotheses are proved or disproved based on observations/measurements/math or whatever method is appropriate. This is how science has worked for the past hundreds of years. Under normal circumstances, an unbiased scientist should arrive at the correct concluson for his researched hypothesis. The problem arises when a scientist is no longer unbiased. Once a scientist 'believes' his hypothesis too much, he is willing to look at his data in 'new and innovative' ways to prove he is right. This is good. That's how science works. However, there is a pitfall, best expressed in a saying: "If you torture your data long enough, it will, in the end, confess". This means that there will often be a way to present data in such a way that it LOOKS like the hypothesis is correct, but it really isn't. Of course there are many ways of looking at the same dataset that say otherwise, but when a scientist is biased this is likely to be ignored. The result is a scientific paper that looks solid, but really isn't. It is VERY difficult to verify such a paper, without actually repeating it and especially without access to the raw data (this raw data is suspiciously difficult to come by for climate-science, so it seems. The general tendency seems to be that 'to avoid confusion' the data is not supplied by the scientist, making verficiation of a paper virtually impossible) .
It also is the case that in the media and politically there is some kind of 'concensus' that man-made warming is a indisputable fact. On schools and science institutes young people are indoctriated very early with this 'fact'. Also, it is in many countries professionally very unhealthy to be openly critical on the assumption of man-made warming. Even in the Netherlands, where I live, there have been ample recorded cases where people's careers were hindered by political views of others, ending their job or throttling funds. What all this results into is a very specific type scientist being successfully active in the climate research field: The true 'believers'. It is these very 'believers' that are likely to fall into trap I described above that are currently overly represented in the field. This provides a feedback-loop that will become worse with the years, as we have seen in the past two decades. It will likely take very convincing evidence to make these believers question their faith and restore balance in the field. It will probably happen if temperature starts falling significantly again. Even then they will probably find explanations to prolong their beliefs, as is they way of all true believers ;-)
Now all this isn't new. It can be seen over the ages and even today in many situations, where evidence is hard to come by or difficult to obtain. To name a few:
- Try to prove/disprove the existence of God. Or the creation - evolution debate in which it has resulted.
- Many people have been convicted of crimes they didn't commit because the detective in question was biased and presented skewed evidence. There are many recorded cases of this. Sometimes these people are later aquitted using the SAME evidence as was already available in the first trial, but now presented in an unbiased way.
With all this going on, it is not difficult to imagine some people are sceptical of climate science. I, for myself am one of them. Why? I read some of the papers and find that the evicence presented is either non-conclusive or cannot be easily verified. This is how I went to work (admittedly around 5 years ago): I sk
What feedbacks, and ignored by whom?
Increased reflection of sunlight by clouds and heat radiation from storms particularly small scale weather like thunderstorms.
Bullshit. You're ignoring the decades of research on these topics. You're ignoring the physics, and the simulations built on those physics. Now you may simply be ignorant of this, or you're being willfully deceitful, but either way these are certainly not "poorly understood phenomena".
How come the range on the temperature forcing of CO2 is still a factor of two? A relevant quote from the rebuttal article:
This doubling is expected to cause a warming this century of four to seven degrees Fahrenheit [2 to 4 degrees C].
It's worth noting that a) the actual forcing may be below the "expectation", b) we've already experienced a portion of that temperature rise (it's from preindustrial levels not as the authors imply the beginning of this century), and c) it depends strongly on how much CO2 we actually generate - even laissez faire policies eventually have lower fossil fuel demand due to the exhaustion of some part of those resources.
And then we get to the groupthink you exhibit. Decades of research which still hasn't been able to nail down one of the most significant parameters of AGW theory and a host of "simulations" which are based on poor data (recall that we've been able to measure directly average global temperature only since satellites were available for it) somehow translate into the confidence you project.
And it is people like you which make scientists not even want to bother to try and explain anything.
So what? It's not our job to gullibly swallow whatever someone says. If they don't like it, too bad. Either do it or throw those public funds at someone who will do that job.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of public funding at stake to the tune of tens to hundreds of billions a year. And climatologists are mostly funded by the same parties that would benefit from that public funding.
You don't want to listen. You don't want to know.
Interesting how strong the psychological projection is here.
These are scientists, not economists and generally ignoring elephants in the room leads to a lack of getting published.
One such elephant is who actually funds climate research. Government agencies that will benefit from the increased funding and power of changes in policy.
And how are they falisfying the results of those experiments every time they are repeated, given that these days, the theory can be confirmed by someone with the equipment found in a high school? That must take some mighty sophisticated tech. Fantastic surveillance equipment with some kind of inbuilt pre-cognition? Or are they time travelling back to the scene of each experiment to cook the results and 'heal the wound' as they say?
Which makes me wonder, given the pathetic kind of money that these climate scientists make in their day jobs, why don't they use the time machine directly to make the big bucks? See that? I'm smarter then all them dumb scientists! They didn't think of that one!
It's amazing how people such as you are prepared to spout off without being hindered by lack of knowledge.
If you'd spent any time as a practicing scientist or bothered to resarch "the elephant in the room" you would know that your accusations of bias are completely without merit.
Firstly, the government agencies who will benefit from the changes in policy are not the ones that dish out funding.
Secondly, if you've ever written a research proposal to a government agency you'll know that the proposed research will be into topic X. No one writes a proposal saying "we will prove political point X".
Third, the government agencies don't actually decide who gets the money. They dictate the broad aread, but like all the rest of science, it's sent out for peer review.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is part of the reason why people are against global warming - when people mention reasons why they don't believe it, or ask real questions about it seeking clearer understanding, all we get is attacked, demeaned and insulted.
Did we hurt your feelings? That's a shame.
One of the things I do remember from high school science class is that when you don't understand something in science, you should ask hose saying it to clarify or explain their position, that is all I am going - I thought that was the scientific process, but apparently in the case of global warming, this doesn't apply because its easier to just insult those who dont clearly understand or would like details.
Denialists aren't claiming to not understand the details. That's a stupid thing to say anyway - the basics of the science, (greenhouse gas theory, feedback mechanisms) are easy enough for a child to understand and those details can be found on wikipedia, which a child can navigate. Nobody has the job of bringing you up to speed. No, that is not what Monkton, Watts, Pielke and other high priests of denialism are saying. They say they have a better theory - a theory that can better explain what happened to the heat that should be in the troposphere, owing to the increased concentration of CO2 and other GHGs, whilst simultaneously explaining the coincident heat we see now is actually from another cause, and what that cause is.
They just can't tell us what this better theory actually says - I couldn't tell you why - selective mutism? Legal issues?
I know they have this theory because they say the science is wrong. The only way a sensible, truthful person could make that claim would be if they had a better theory. All that remains is for the proponents of that better theory to describe it to us.
As opposed to corporations that complain of "costly regulations" that would rather skirt them and force tax payers to deal with their mess. *ahem* BP anyone....
Yeah it's not like Exxon mobile doesn't stand to benefit from this mole hill....move to Somalia hippie.
So you accept a rather enormous leap in temperature (i.e 1.3K for doubling) but not the additional increase from positive feedback?
1. Which positive feedbacks are being overstated, and by what amount? What observations back your assertion that these are overstated - cite the paper in which these observations were published.
2. Which negative feedbacks are being ignored? Describe these negative feedbacks in detail and by reference to observations citing their true level of influence on the troposphere. Reference the paper in which your observations were published.
If you think the right to reasonably clean air would come from laws, you are mistaken.
It's accurate and well placed although he could have been clearer. The traditional free market approach to pollution is the tort system. Strict liability does indeed imply everyone has a right to reasonably clean air and any person that pollutes that air is subject to civil penalties. This traditional system was over-ridden with a regulatory regime instead during industrialisation, not to protect the environment, but to protect business investment. And this is still the scheme we use today. The regulators decide what a 'reasonable' amount of pollution for a given business is and as long as that business abides those limit it is immune to being sued for the damages it is doing. A strict liability system like free-market advocates advocate for would amount to much stricter environmental protection than any system of regulation will produce.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Everyone knows Faux News was behind the fox story that Trayvon Martin was stalked and attacked by negrito carpenter.
1) Average Predicted Scenario :D
2) "Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?"
3 ) Canada
4) Profit
No it doesn't. At most, it shows that Al Gore is a hypocrite and like almost everyone else, is willing to enjoy what selfish comforts he can even if it means he personally contributes slightly more to the overall problem than the average peon.
If you accept an increase by 1.3K that's already a BIG increase in temprature.
So: what are you going to do about it? Clearly doing nothing is not an option. And you accept that the cause is CO2. So the solution should be obvious: reduce CO2 emissions now!
Make legal binding agreements to share the cost so that everyone has the same hurdle but also can profit together from the business that will come out of this...
Watch this animation from the NOAA.
It extrapolates backwards using all of the known data (ice cores, etc) and shows that over the past 100, CO2 levels began to rise almost linearly at an unprecedented rate and are now higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years.
Just look at that linear upward trend. If that's not man-made, what the fuck is it?
That's not a convincing argument, for a number of reasons:
(1) If you are in the 3% (or whatever it is) of climate scientists who disagree with the 97%, then your reputation is taking a significant CURRENT hit -- 97% of your colleagues think you're an idiot.
(2) It's easy to hide in numbers: "Yes, I admit I was wrong. But, so were 97% of climate scientists. That's nothing to be embarrassed about."
(3) It's not likely to be outright fraud, as much as "Hmm... This data didn't come out right.... There must have been some problem with how it was collected or... See, if we massage it like THIS, it comes out better.
(4) Recall that we took a similar view with bankers: "Bear Sterns would NEVER invest in something so risky that the company would fold -- that would be hugely embarrassing for everybody involved." Are climate scientists so much less susceptible to the same human foibles that got to the bankers?
[Note: I'm not saying that climate scientists are wrong; I'm just saying to look at their data and results, and not just trust them because they don't want to hurt their own reputations.]
OT: You are developing a serious cancer (shows X-rays, blood values, detailed scans). We think this condition may become lethal in a very short time. This is not an exact science but we estimate between 3 to 6 weeks.
Patient: WHAT? What can I do? Is there any cure?
OT: There is a treatment. It is invasive and may still be lethal but if we perform it now the chances are probably good. Everything depends on how far the condition has evolved. Also we don't know everything yet about this type of cancer. But once the treatment has been succesfully done you should be in a better condition than now.
Patient: But I read about this type of cancer. I read an article on the internet that says that it's all in your head. Maybe I don't need a dangerous operation at all!!
OT: Well, every serious oncologist who has devoted his life on this type of condition is clear about this kind of diagnosis and the evolution of the condition in broad terms. As I said, not everything is known about this type of cancer but enough to tell you with a high level of certainty that the treatment is far less risky than the desease.
Patient: Well, I don't know. It's a hard decision to make...
OT: Well it's your decision of course. As I scientist I feel obliged to tell you that your time is running out. , I'm sorry I have to put it so bluntly.
You didn't answer his question. Ignored by whom?
is'nt because new york is slowly sinking that the water level there is a foot higher? do to all the high density building over the years.
Most people are not qualified to look at and understand the climate scientists arguments and evaluate them. For the average scientifically illiterate Joe it really is better to just rely on the consensus, just as they do for any scientific topic.
Are O & T saying anthropogenic warming started by the turn of the 20th century? (They imply that by using 1900 as the date to start looking at sea level rise.) That is obviously wrong. They should correct that statement.
These climate scientists should be reclassified as political scientists, which, of course, isn't science at all. Just like their profession. It's all about fear mongering, fundraising and social change.
Global warming periods have also always resulted in larger arable landmass (that is, land that is neither too cold nor too dry to farm on)
There wasn't much arable land in the prehistory. That might have something to do with the fact that there was no agriculture (and no humans). A source on that would be nice, since the question of "what portions of land would have been suitable on agriculture if we time-jumped into the Jurassic" is really neat, only I don't recall any monograph having been published on that.
Considering that the most green and bio-diverse period in earths history was when CO2 levels were at 3,500 PPM basically everywhere (as opposed to the current 400 peak PPM in limited areas) and the climate was far warmer
Are you sure about that? First, if I'm not horribly mistaken, the last period where CO2 levels were over 3000 PPM was in the Paleozoic, and Paleozoic hardly seems to be the most biodiverse period in the prehistory
Ezekiel 23:20
What global warming? CO2 has gone up 8-10% over the last 16+ years and temperatures have not. The temps have been flat and actually started declining over the last 5-7 years. So my question for everyone who says that CO2 is driving the climate change or is the control knob on the climate is simple:
How long with flat or falling temperatures and rising CO2 before you admit that your models are WRONG? 20 years? 30? 50? Never?
As to the one foot increase in the last century well there has been a 400 foot increase since the last glacial maximum so what is 1 foot? About 0.25% and the other 399 feet? What caused that? Certainly not human emissions of CO2.
You know the people who collect the data, they couldn't possibly have their own political motivations. All scientists are good honest people.
Minus an atmosphere, and assuming .3 albedo (based on satellite measurements), the Earth would be about -18 degrees C (255 K). The average surface temperature of the Earth is currently around 14.5 degrees C. The atmosphere traps enough heat energy to take the entire globe from deep freeze to balmy. Geothermal and tidal heating account for pretty negligible amounts of heating.
So, two points: one, the amount of energy involved is rather large, and a small percentage change is going to have a huge effect. Secondly, heating the atmosphere changes its content. The atmosphere is more or less saturated with water vapor, and any increase in temperatures increases the amount of water that it can contain. We can't do anything about how much water is on the planet, for reasons that should be obvious. On the other hand, we're really great at making CO2. A naive calculation would indicate that you can increase temperatures almost arbitrarily by adding CO2, in fact.
Oh hey look there's a textbook that has this same objection explained in detail. Apparently your objection was addressed in the 1950s. Whoops.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
The problem , sadly is that once the consensus fronm science touches on a political debate, it will meet people who will bend over backwards to say the sky is maroon and the moon is made of cheese if necessary to advance their agenda.
Such people will take the slightest admission that an unfavorable determination could conceivably be in error as a frank admission that all of science is conspiring against his backers. Such politicians not only know no truth themselves, they actively poison truth wherever they find it.
I agree w/ Feynman when the layman is a common citizen, but I don't think he imagined the toxicity of the modern political process when he said that.
The public has become addicted to sound bites and the discussion of climate modeling and global warming is anything *but* a sound bite. In fact, if you feed the public a steady stream of sound bites you will generate the exact controversy we have today. Most tidbits you find/read/hear that are either in support or against arguments for global warming are usually all "true-ish" but they fail to fully explain the broader context and see the big picture in terms of the long term trends and effects. It's nice to try to explain things in simpler terms but you run the risk of oversimplifying everything and making no sense at all.
Nobody can sit there and deny our society has 0 effect to our environment. Of course we are. You only have to look outside and see some garbage or go to the beach to figure that out. You can argue what kind of effects we create but you can't argue we have affected it. Second, while you can try to claim we're not causing global warming on one hand because the evidence is inconclusive - you can't say that and sit on your behind and then do nothing about it. Once you take that logical path you better be allocating a ton of research to fricken conclude the hell out of it. Sitting there and saying it's inconclusive and then being happy with that answer and doing no additional research is simply ignorant.
A lot of these comments have the implicit assertion that certainty should be required before we act. In life, I act on a lot of 60/40 bets. In fact, I pay to avoid "1 in 100" risks all the time. It depends on the cost of being wrong. To oversimplify, but still tell a lot of truth: If we take action, and it wasn't required, we've lost some money. If we take no action, but action was required, we could lose the planet. No brainer - see Pascal's wager for the original version.
Using science to prove or disprove man made global warming is just abusing a tool that was not meant for the job. How many times has science made a claim only to later retract it due to inadequate data, flawed process, or misinterpretation? Science is good for solving thing that are simple and within our grasp. When it comes to philosophical questions their guess is really as good as anyone else's.
Citation needed.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Gang, it's time to drop the climate change charades, get back to real science, and write some proposals to do little more than rip off the taxpayers...or have you all been on the gravy train too long?
The thing this guy know about climate change is he needs to get inside when it rains.
Like all the rest his only concern is the answer to that one political question that trumps everything.
WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET RE-ELECTED?
The thought he might have to get a real job is frightening!
Whole House Water Filtration Systems
Of course they'll be plenty of jobs on each coast from global warming.......know how to fill a sand bag.
If you'd spent any time as a practicing scientist or bothered to resarch "the elephant in the room" you would know that your accusations of bias are completely without merit.
I have and I stand by the accusation.
Firstly, the government agencies who will benefit from the changes in policy are not the ones that dish out funding.
I would wager, for example, that NASA and the UK's MET would indeed benefit from a stronger case for AGW. They currently fund climatology research. With greater urgency for AGW, they probably would receive more money for such research and perhaps money for other projects.
And those agencies aren't independent, but part of a larger government whole. Other parts would do the regulating. There are also cases where agencies have creeped into a regulatory power. Like how the US Army became responsible for a good portion of the water projects in the US.
Secondly, if you've ever written a research proposal to a government agency you'll know that the proposed research will be into topic X. No one writes a proposal saying "we will prove political point X".
So you're saying that such funders have a minimal amount of subtlety and finesse so as not to tip their hand? One would have to be rather incompetent to openly reveal an ulterior motive.
Third, the government agencies don't actually decide who gets the money. They dictate the broad aread, but like all the rest of science, it's sent out for peer review.
I don't buy that at all. They get to choose the peers and they hold the money. And if one looks at actual government agencies which fund research, they routinely impose other goals and purposes. For example, the NSF back in the late 90s started on a fad of providing multilevel research (that is, funding research involving undergrads through professional researchers). That wasn't imposed by their peer review committee.
What I don't get here is why people think that with a fairly corruptible society and huge stakes, that there isn't such activity. It doesn't have to be planned by a secret and sophisticated cabal, just a huge network of people all seeking their interests which in this case happen to go mostly in one direction towards confirmation of AGW as a problem requiring considerable public spending (especially when they grant there is an opposition with similar issues, namely, the fossil fuel industry).
Just as oil companies are going to push things their way, so will renewable power generators or electric cars. And there are big insurers and financial companies looking at picking up some action, such as in carbon emission credit markets.
Instead of granting that maybe we should be looking carefully at this evidence and research due to the large, existing conflicts of interest, they emphasize the groupthink angle, such as how many scientists (however that is counted) which adhere to the current orthodoxy. This is a profoundly anti-scientific viewpoint.
How about by climate simulations for starters? Keep in mind that the spatial resolution of those simulations tends to be much larger than a thunderstorm.
Agreed. Gravity is a hoax
...
OT: If we don't try to come up with a solution, you may die.
Patient: You don't know nothing.
....time passes....
Everybody: - - - dies - - -
FTFY
It will probably happen if temperature starts falling significantly again. Even then they will probably find explanations to prolong their beliefs, as is they way of all true believers ;-)
How about you, if temperatures continue to rise as expected will you give up on your rationalization and accept maybe they were right?
Raw data is more available today than ever before. I don't know what raw data you're looking for but there are links to a lot of it here.
With all of the eyes that have been on this subject for the past 20-30 years it's hard for me to believe that anyone can get away with hiding anything in the field.
Your view point is like a child's. Constantly yelling "i know better" meanwhile experts all around you are the ones making the world livable for you.
Chances are your life has no value. But people who are actually making important decisions must trust the expertise of others. Time has long since passed the point where someone can be a "jack of all trades" and make significant achievements.
In the big boys league you have to play well with others, The skills that are required to compete at that level require you to be highly specialized.
Its fine if you dont really want to compete in that league but in that case you should at least be aware of your limitations and understand that the important decision makers the majors, require more refined skills than the minors.
Alternately, if you actually read those emails then you should be armed with precise quotes of the "deceptions and manipulations" which you found so powerfully convincing, or at least have some mental construct of their findings to provide us, rather than just a brief handwave in their direction preparatory to an ad hominem slur devoid of substantive content.
As, for instance, these quotes from 7 unrelated investigations which I find convincing:
"even if the data that CRU used were not publicly available—which they mostly are—or the methods not published—which they have been—its published results would still be credible: the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets; in other words, the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified."
-"The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia" http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387i.pdf
"We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal. "
- "Report of the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia to examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit." http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/SAP
"Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community."
- "Final Investigation Report Involving Dr. Michael E. Mann" http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/Final_Investigation_Report.pdf
"On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt. ... In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments."
- "The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review" http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
"Petitioners say that emails disclosed from CRU provide evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate data. The media coverage after the emails were released was based on email statements quoted out of context and on unsubstantiated theories of conspiracy. The CRU emails do not show either that the science is flawed or that the scientific process has been compromised. EPA carefully reviewed the CRU emails and found no indication of improper data manipulation or misrepresentation of results."
- "Myths vs. Facts: Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration of the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act" http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/myths-facts.html
"In our review of the CRU emails, we did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data comprising the GHCN-M dataset or failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures. In addition, we found no evidence to suggest that NOAA was non-compliant with the IQA or the Shelby Amendment. "
- "Examination of issues related to internet posting of emails from Climatic Research Unit" http://www.oig.doc.g
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
If you don't invest the time and effort to do your homework, you're not a critic with worthy opinions, you're a crank denialist full of smug self-absorption. And, just like in high school, whether you've done your homework or not is evident in the questions you ask.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I am not saying "I know better"; I am saying: I'm only going to take an expert's advice and trust him if he can convince me that he is actually trustworthy. Fancy credentials or degrees are not sufficient for that.
No, I'm afraid your viewpoint is like a child's: you place blind trust in people because of their position and credentials. Evaluating the credibility of experts in areas one doesn't know is something adults constantly have to do in real life, and people who can't do that suffer the consequences.
The "consensus" of climate scientists is documented in the IPCC report. That report presents a range of choices and outcomes, and qualifies predictions with uncertainties. It is the job of politicians and voters, not climate scientists, to decide what actions to take based on that scientific input.
By analogy, a doctor can tell me whether chemotherapy has a chance of extending my life by a few months, but it is my choice, and only my choice, whether I actually undergo chemotherapy or not. The doctor has no right to tell me what I should do, and it would be unprofessional if he even tried to influence my choice based on his personal preferences.
I've looked at the IPCC report (i.e., "the consensus"), and even if I take all the predictions in that report at face value, I still don't want action taken on climate change for the time being. Many other people apparently have come to the same conclusion. I'm sorry if you have a tough time accepting that, but you will have to live with it.
Well, ok, fair enough. Obviously no public information has ever been given about this before. I find that surprising, but you say that when you ask all that happens is that you get attacked, demeaned and insulted, so I'll help you out.
See, there's this thing called the greenhouse effect. Basically the atmosphere acts as an insulating layer and the conditions in the atmosphere alter how well that insulation works. If you've ever camped out in a hot desert with extremely dry, clear air and noticed how cold it can get at night, you may have personal experience that helps you understand this better. Water vapor is a greenhouse agent. and it reflects back heat that would otherwise escape into space. The same is true of gases like carbon dioxide and methane. Increased concentration of these gases in the atmosphere means more trapped heat. CO2 levels are steadily climbing in the atmosphere, therefore more heat is being trapped. There are some feedback mechanisms that work against this, such as accelerated plant growth, but clearly if that's slowing the increase in CO2, it's not doing so enough. As a result of increasing temperatures, ice in various places, such as the poles and various glaciers around the world melts. This melting cools the Earth back down but, since the average temperature seems to be on the rise, it's obviously not doing it enough. Not to mention the fact that the melting ice raises the sea-level. Since a large percentage of human infrastructure is right by the ocean, this can be a problem. Even quite small increases in sea level can cause major problems when storms come in. Also the meltwater affects ocean currents which can have important long-term effects on climate. Another issue involves human activities like farming, not to mention construction of all kinds. Humans build all kinds of things based on an (often naive) idea of stability. We look at things like average rainfall and 100-year flood levels. The problem is that global climate change from human greenhouse gases (and other causes) alters such things. The results can be that what was once a good place to farm can become an unsuitable wasteland, or that what was once a good place to build becomes a disaster area. Frankly, we don't need global-warming to make the idea of 100-year flood levels a joke. Any structural engineer will spend a lot of effort working on drainage for any particular project they're working on, but the consequences of all that drainage seem to constantly come as a surprise. The consequences are, of course, that floods in any built up area come faster and reach higher than they naturally would. That's without global warming of course, I just mention it because most people think of floods as natural disasters when most floods are actually, if not all man made, certainly enhanced by human activity. The point is that humans really can influence these natural processes. Our influence really can affect things on a global scale.
Now, there are a lot of things that we certainly don't know for sure about how these processes affect the Earth. Climate is a big, complex system that's impossible to completely get a handle on. The people who have actually devoted their lives to studying these things have, essentially universally, come to the conclusion that we are altering the climate. I wish I could get all of the complexity into one post, but I'm not an expert, plus I don't have a year or two to write it and you probably don't have a year or two to read it.
I'm imagining something more like this:
OT: You need to quit smoking. Constantly inhaling smoke and tar into your lungs is almost certainly going to make you sick. If you can't quit, at least try to cut back a bit. At the very least, you'll save a boatload of money. PS, the tobacco industry and the politics surround it is causing massive amounts of strife worldwide. That's not related to your health, but we thought we'd throw that out there.
Patient: I don't think anything is wrong with me? I don't really feel sick.
OT: Well, all research, not to mention common sense seems to indicate that smoking is unhealthy for people. Also, I saw you have a ten-minute coughing jag in the waiting room. You may think that everything is fine, but what you're experiencing isn't actually normal, you've just convinced yourself it is because you have a short memory and you're in denial.
Patient: What's the risk of quitting?
OT: Just trust us that quitting is what's best for you. We have plenty of literature on the thousands of studies that have been done that we can point you to.
Patient: Are there alternative treatments?
OT: Alternatives to quitting? I don't know. Voodoo magic to revive you as a zombie afterwards maybe?
Patient: If I quit, how much longer will I live?
OT: Just trust us, you'll probably live longer. I mean, you could be hit by a bus as soon as you step out of the office. I'm going to be completely honest here, some of the experts actually think it's too late for you. You've been smoking so long you might already be a walking dead man. Still, if the choice is between inhaling poison into your lungs or not, my medical opinion is that you'll probably live longer if you don't
Patient: How much is it going to cost me?
OT: Well, quitting smoking will actually save you money, since it's just an analogy for quitting oil, however, we can't say for sure. In the long run it should save you money too.
Patient: I'm thinking about getting a second opinion.
OT: Sure, just go down the hall and ask my good friend Dr. Smith about what he thinks about quitting smoking. We're all experts on human health here, what with being medical doctors and all. Heck, go to pretty much any doctor who didn't get their degree from a cereal box top. Even if they're a smoker themselves they will probably tell you to quit. Doctors are human too, of course, and there are some who are just in denial. Then there's the guys who are on the payroll of Phillip Morris. I wouldn't recommend one of them.
Patient: Isn't there some independent doctor I can go to?
OT: Independent of the medical profession and basic common sense you mean? Everybody who thinks smoking isn't bad for you is a charlatan and you can't trust them. All competent doctors agree that smoking isn't healthy.
Patient: You know, I don't really trust you. I think I'll take my chances and wait a bit longer.
OT: You're obviously in denial. I really wish you'd reconsider. At least please stop smoking in a closed room with your month old infant. I wish there were a way to force you to do that.
You don't have to be an expert in a field to conclude that you don't trust someone or their advice.
Sure, but you also don't have to be an expert in a field to see when someone is being an idiot for ignoring good advice. Incidentally, the mother of my child has chronic bronchitis. It was a gift from her father who staunchly believed that there was absolutely no health risk to smoking and would smoke like a chimneystack in a closed room with her from when she was a tiny, defenseless baby with undeveloped lungs. If you want to be a denialist, fine. Go find something to deny that only affects you. When the rest of us are in the same boat, don't go denying that we're sinking and preventing us from bailing out the water.
That report presents a range of choices and outcomes, and qualifies predictions with uncertainties.
Of course they qualify their predictions with uncertainties. This isn't easy stuff, but it is the people who are the best at this particular subject doing their best to understand it. If we ignore all the science altogether and decide that the future is completely opaque and uncertain, all we're left with is the basic advice to choose the side of caution. Instead we seem to be beset by reckless morons screaming to err on the side of reckless abandon.
My father has had that discussion with his doctor.
Doctor: You need to quit smoking. Constantly inhaling smoke and tar into your lungs is almost certainly going to make you sick.
Patient: I know. I don't care. Anything else?
At that point, the doctor has to shut up.
But the advice isn't good, and climatologists aren't qualified to give it. All they say is "if you keep emitting like this, and everything else stays the same, then there will probably be a significant cost to everybody due to global warming". It is up to politicians and economists to decide how to deal with that. Many people believe that the best way of dealing with it is to help nations develop rapidly, through free trade and free markets. Just because many climatologists politically prefer government regulation and market interference doesn't make that the best policy choice. And even the last couple of decades show that the US has done better than many countries that have adopted stronger regulations.
People aren't "ignoring the science", they are are "ignoring the scientist's policy preferences". Scientists aren't any more qualified than the rest of us to decide what to do with the predictions they make.
"We don't care about the costs imposed on people 100 years from now" or "we think technological and economic progress is going to solve the problem by itself" are rational and valid positions.
It's a little naive that you think they would need the resolution of a thunderstorm to factor thunderstorms into their equations. (you appear to think they are doing meteorology rather than climatology). The IPCC report indicates they already factor in uncertainties about clouds etc.
Err, where are you quoting "ignoring the science from"? I didn't write it in my post. Scientists are also clearly more qualified to figure out what to do than people whose idea of rationality is complete selfish apathy and wishing on future technological progress. The economic progress thing doesn't really make much sense, but technological progress might be the deus ex machina that saves us. Of course, technological progress comes chiefly from the discoveries of scientists. Deriding scientists and expressing faith in them to save us in the same breath seems a little ridiculous.
CO2 will produce 1.2 +/- 0.1C warming per doubling.
And nowhere is there in that idiotic posting of yours assertion that the values are not known enough to make valid conclusions.
Yes, you did.
Are you an expert on economics? If not, then frankly your opinion is irrelevant.
Ok, so your father (or is it the imaginary analogy patient, I can't quite tell) is an idiot. Fair enough. As long as he at least goes outside to smoke (and hopefully doesn't hang around in entrances so that everyone coming in and out has to walk through his foul cloud) and doesn't smoke around small children he can kill himself all he wants. It's a pity that, one way or another, I will probably end up paying a portion of his expensive medical care, but those are the breaks. If he chooses to share his risk and smokes around small children, all I can do is hope that he goes quickly and soon.
At that point, the doctor has to shut up.
Actually, at that point the doctor is quite free to tell him what a moron he is. Your father/the analogy patient is then free to go and find some moron who thinks smoking is just fine to treat him. When your father/the patient dies, the doctor is free to dance on his grave. Unfortunately, if we're still doing the analogy, the life of the doctor is tied to the health of the patient.
But the advice isn't good, and climatologists aren't qualified to give it.
Do everything you can to reduce the extraction and burning of fossil fuel is is good advice for a plethora of reasons. Some of those reasons are climate concerns, so climatologists are very qualified to give it.
It is up to politicians and economists to decide how to deal with that.
But politicians and economists are almost universally either morons or so tied up in self-referential, narcissistic (frankly, pretty much masturbatory) systems that they're completely out of touch with the real world. I don't mean the "real world" of economics or politics either. I mean the real, physical world. They almost universally make selfish, short-term choices with either no comprehension, or simply no care for the future, or even the present if it doesn't directly touch their interests.
Many people believe that the best way of dealing with it is to help nations develop rapidly, through free trade and free markets.
Rapid development can work if the results are planned to be future-proof and sustainable. If "rapid development" just means "exploit all of your local non-renewable resources until nothing is left", then it doesn't work so well. Just ask the people of Nauru. They were the wealthiest per capita nation on the planet for a while there. not so much any longer. So called "free markets" can work well for some things, but they're completely blind to the future. I can see why economists in some of the semi-religious disciplines might not understand that, but anyone with basic common sense should.
And even the last couple of decades show that the US has done better than many countries that have adopted stronger regulations.
A for example might be nice here. The rate of increase of the severity of the problem is slowing in the US, but the severity of the problem is still increasing. I'm guessing that your comparison is to some developing nation, but maybe you can surprise me.
More like...
Ever been in a greenhouse and noticed it was pretty warm in there? Some gasses have a greenhouse effect in our atmosphere, including carbon dioxide. Scientists have figured for more than a century that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to warming the planet. Since 1850, CO2 in the atmosphere has gone from about 280 parts per million to about 400 ppm, while we've been burning fossil fuels. The carbon in fossil fuels has a somewhat different isotopic configuration than the carbon already floating around, and so it looks like the increase is due to our fossil fuels. In the meantime, Earth is warming. There's lots of data out there. There's a lot of problems with it, but careful analysis shows the planet is warming up. It isn't warming up everywhere, since climate is complicated and causes a lot of variation by place, but on the whole it is. Nowadays, there's considerably more high temperature records broken than cold. So, almost all climate scientists agree that the planet is warming up and it's because we're burning lots of coal, oil, and natural gas.
This is similar to what I've been told about my assorted ailments, including my anterior basement membrane dystrophy (which was translated to me as my left cornea delaminating, and that's no fun). There's plenty of room for questions there. Some of them are going to have to be answered something like "It'll take you four years of graduate-level studying to understand that", but that's the case in all complicated fields. Some are going to be fairly simple. "Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas also?" "Sure, but the amount in the atmosphere stays pretty much the same. When there's too much, it rains. Carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere and stays there for a very long time." A layperson could ask questions about what "isotopic configuration" is, what's likely to happen (and that's hard to figure in any detail), whether there are other possible reasons, that sort of thing.
The only people who are trying to make it seem horribly complicated are those with a non-scientific agenda.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, he simply has different objectives and preferences. Maximizing lifespan is not what life is about.
Really? What does "do everything" mean? The death penalty for using fossil fuels? 10000% taxes on a gallon of gasoline? Where do you draw the line?
Furthermore, the tricky thing about government regulations and taxes is that people usually evade them altogether if they become too onerous, so not only do they end up being ineffective, you also lose any influence and promote lawlessness.
In different words, you want to subvert democracy and the rule of law because you don't like the decisions that politicians are actually making.
It has worked well for the past 2000 years, if not longer. Humans have always lived with change and never lived sustainably. Running out of resources is what drives progress.
Except you fail to understand the lesson in this: the free market had nothing to do with Nauru's failures. Quite to the contrary, government attempts to plan for the future were the cause. After independence, the Nauru government created a government-owned and run corporation to extract mineral wealth and provide for the long term future of the people of Nauru. What happened? They handed out vast amounts of money to the people of Nauru in order to buy votes, and then the government employees had a party with what was left over. That is the predictable consequence when you hand over long term financial planning to politicians and government employees. If phosphate mining had been a large number of competitive small enterprises, many would have screwed up their finances anyway, but some would have used their revenues wisely to plan for the future.
US carbon emissions fall to lowest levels since 1994
That's obviously not the case in Germany.
Europe's cap-and-trade system has not only been ineffective, it has simply resulted in increased prices to consumers and increased profits to corporations.
Perhaps Al Gore was actually paid by the Oil Companies! Stranger things have happened...
No, he simply has different objectives and preferences. Maximizing lifespan is not what life is about.
He's entitled to his objectives and preferences as long as he's only harming himself. Likewise, I'm entitled to my opinion, and my opinion is that he's an idiot if he actually prefers that. Maximizing lifespan isn't what life is about, but neither is feeding pointless addictions.
Really? What does "do everything" mean? The death penalty for using fossil fuels? 10000% taxes on a gallon of gasoline? Where do you draw the line?
Hard to say. Honestly, we're probably too late already, so maybe we should descend into frivolous waste and excess in search of short-term enjoyment as you recommend. Still I, for one, would like to at least try. In this context "do everything" mainly means ceasing to be absolute and total morons when it comes to fossil fuels. It's not just that we're using them, we're squandering them. Have you looked at satellite photos of natural gas fields at night? They're lit up like cities from all the flaring. That's not just bad for the environment, that's terrible stewardship of scarce natural resources. Obviously you have to draw the line somewhere. A good place to draw it would depend on careful evaluation of the real costs of the fossil fuel industry. It's pretty obvious to many people that the real cost of fossil fuels is not simply what we get charged at the pump.
Furthermore, the tricky thing about government regulations and taxes is that people usually evade them altogether if they become too onerous, so not only do they end up being ineffective, you also lose any influence and promote lawlessness.
Well, not too many people are going to wildcat their own oil well or coal mine in their back yard. The whole industry essentially relies on centralization. Makes it a bit easier to regulate provided you don't have corrupt politicians easily influenced by all that concentrated money and power. Of course, that would probably require an exchange program with some parallel universe.
In different words, you want to subvert democracy and the rule of law because you don't like the decisions that politicians are actually making.
No, I want democracy and the rule of law to actually function instead of the sad farce we're stuck with.
It has worked well for the past 2000 years, if not longer. Humans have always lived with change and never lived sustainably. Running out of resources is what drives progress.
You must be really, really bad with both history and math. If we can't live sustainably, we can't live, period. Not in the numbers we have now. The historical solutions to exponential population growth and resource decline are far from pretty. You clearly embrace a philosophy of not caring as long as you can personally dodge the consequences. It makes me wonder why you even bother being part of the discussion.
Except you fail to understand the lesson in this: the free market had nothing to do with Nauru's failures.
I didn't say that any sort of free market caused Nauru's problems. The point about Nauru was the inherent problem in rapid, unsustainable development using up limited resources while placing blind faith in future technological and/or economic advances to sustain you in the future. The point about free markets was really a separate point and I should have put it in its own paragraph to be more clear.
Nauru's problems with the modern economy probably began way back when it was annexed by the Germans who set up local monarchies. For the first 70 years or so of phosphate mining, no government of Nauru that legitimately represented its people had any real control over the mining. For about thirty years they actually did have control and the profits went directly to the people of Nauru or into trust, then the easily mine-able phosphate ran out. The money that was put int
Yes, you did.
Nope. I didn't say that people were "ignoring the science" I was saying that, for the sake of argument we can "ignore the science" and we're still left with a core of good advice, which is to, if you must err, err on the side of caution. I don't think we should actually ignore the science and I wasn't saying that people were ignoring it. Rather than ignoring it, most of the so-called "skeptics" seem to be vilifying it.
The economic progress thing doesn't really make much sense, but technological progress might be the deus ex machina that saves us.
Are you an expert on economics? If not, then frankly your opinion is irrelevant.
The economic progress thing was from when you said:
"We don't care about the costs imposed on people 100 years from now" or "we think technological and economic progress is going to solve the problem by itself" are rational and valid positions.
So, you don't have to be an expert on economics to recognize that "economic progress" can't fix diddly when your problem is global warming and using up a limited resource until it's all gone. That is, unless your definition of "economic progress" is something like: "we all go and live in caves and 95% of us die". I do know enough about economics that, without being an expert, I can recognize that economics mostly just follows what happens and observes it. It's great for creating bizarre feedback loops when people try to follow the advice of economists, but it doesn't really fix much. It certainly doesn't create solutions for real-world problems outside its domain.
But what alternative did they have? Any "sustainable" option would have meant not mining the phosphate, since it is a finite resource. Without mining the phosphate, they'd be a bunch of uneducated nepotistic savages sitting on a pile of shit, which is no better than their current situation of being a bunch of uneducated nepotistic savages sitting on bare rock. Sustainabilitiy wouldn't have improved their lot at all. Mining the phosphate slowly wouldn't have helped either because a small trickle of money wouldn't have helped them develop. The people of Nauru correctly concluded that their best option was to mine the phosphate and use the money to improve their lot. Their error was in how they went about it.
But it isn't a separate point. The problem with Nauru wasn't that the people exploited their resources unsustainably, it's that they failed to use the money to innovate. And they failed to do that because they left exploitation to a government monopoly.
The Nauru example shows that the right way of dealing with finite resources is to leave their exploitation to the free market: it ensures that they are exploited quickly and efficiently, and the people doing it are going to invest the proceeds in a way that ensures economic returns after the resources are gone.
That's what you think you want, but you are actually arguing transferring decision making responsibility to credentialed scientists. That's not democracy, and it leads to disaster. Germany didn't decide to kill all the Jews because they were having a bad day, it was mainstream scientific dogma at the time that some races were superior and others were inferior; Germany tried to improve its society and ensure its long term survival according to what the majority of its highly credentialed scientists agreed on at the time. Any scientist who disagreed lost their job and was sent packing. And the USSR didn't ruin its economy out of scientific illiteracy, is built its entire economy on "scientific socialism", one of (at the time) mainstream expert opinions on how to organize production for the benefit of humanity. Again, any scientist who disagreed lost their job, was reeducated, or worse.
So, we agree then that neither politicians, nor economists, nor climatologists give a f*ck or are capable of managing people's long term affairs, because they all misuse their positions of power and influence to advance their own self interest.
But there is one group of people who passionately cares about the future, namely the individuals who care about their own future. And to harness that passion, we have free markets, which reward people who make good decisions about the future and punish people who make bad decisions about the future. So, a democracy with free markets and a laissez-faire approach to economics avoids the inevitable disasters that result when you transfer decision making to either politicians or scientists. It also happens to be the most democratic choice.
And the Nauru example illustrates what the market would and should do: it would use up the finite resource (whether it's fossil fuel or carbon capacity) relatively quickly and individuals would invest
But what alternative did they have? Any "sustainable" option would have meant not mining the phosphate, since it is a finite resource. Without mining the phosphate, they'd be a bunch of uneducated nepotistic savages sitting on a pile of shit, which is no better than their current situation of being a bunch of uneducated nepotistic savages sitting on bare rock. Sustainabilitiy wouldn't have improved their lot at all. Mining the phosphate slowly wouldn't have helped either because a small trickle of money wouldn't have helped them develop. The people of Nauru correctly concluded that their best option was to mine the phosphate and use the money to improve their lot. Their error was in how they went about it.
Ok, listen, I'm not going to put up with outright racism. We're talking about people here. They're not uneducated savages. They had a more or less sustainable lifestyle before they were forcibly annexed. It's hard to compare it to how things are today. As it stands, their population has increased enough, and the survival skills of the populace have probably dwindled enough that going back is impractical. Ultimately, their position as an isolated island is pretty intractable. You see this on islands all over the Pacific. Unless they can manage to draw in tourists, they don't have the means to reliably interface with the global economy. The point is that rapid growth and rapid development of high expectations has left them in a potentially untenable position.
Also, they didn't "correctly concluded that their best option was to mine the phosphate and use the money to improve their lot". That was forced on them by imperialism, then they couldn't quit cold turkey.
But it isn't a separate point. The problem with Nauru wasn't that the people exploited their resources unsustainably, it's that they failed to use the money to innovate. And they failed to do that because they left exploitation to a government monopoly.
Oh brother. No magical free market fairies could have fixed this. Also, we're talking about a small pacific island. Everyone has rights to the land. You can call it a government monopoly, or just everyone getting together and deciding what to do with their land. The point is, there is no choice that doesn't somehow involve a government monopoly.
The Nauru example shows that the right way of dealing with finite resources is to leave their exploitation to the free market: it ensures that they are exploited quickly and efficiently, and the people doing it are going to invest the proceeds in a way that ensures economic returns after the resources are gone.
That's delusional on a number of levels. First, can you even describe what a "free market" approach to this would have looked like? Then, can you explain why the free market approach would mean that the people doing it would invest in a way that ensures economic returns?
That's what you think you want, but you are actually arguing transferring decision making responsibility to credentialed scientists.
I'm arguing that the people doing the decision making should at least listen to rational advice from people who actually know what they're talking about and whose interest in the matter isn't corrupted by greed.
That's not democracy, and it leads to disaster.
Sure.
Germany didn't decide to kill all the Jews because they were having a bad day, it was mainstream scientific dogma at the time that some races were superior and others were inferior; Germany tried to improve its society and ensure its long term survival according to what the majority of its highly credentialed scientists agreed on at the time. Any scientist who disagreed lost their job and was sent packing. And the USSR didn't ruin its economy out of scientific illiteracy, is built its entire economy on "scientific socialism", one of (at the time) mainstream expert opinions on how
you appear to think they are doing meteorology rather than climatology
No, the problem here is that ephemeral, small spatial scale meteorological activity that can't be modeled by current climate models have an effect on the climate.
The IPCC report indicates they already factor in uncertainties about clouds etc.
The IPCC says a lot of things. It's already known to exaggerate the certainty and extent of existing research and to put special interests in charge of IPCC gatekeeping.
I think in the future when people are doing psychological studies of the developed world "climate change" hysteria, a lot of that research will center on the role that the IPCC played in building an artificially strong consensus and providing an official voice for a bunch of Chicken Little scenarios.
If you think that anyone would profit from even the average predicted scenario, you must be living comfortably on another planet. Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?
Devil's Advocate time! See, you are assuming that climate change is real, and that all those things will definitely happen. To understand him, you have to think like a conservative.
The conservative climate change denier/skeptic brings up the money to be made argument because he strongly believes:
1) That climate change is a fraud from people who have vested interests, and thus all of that drought/heat/economies destroyed stuff won't happen.
2) He sees agreements like the Kyoto accord, which is clearly intended to transfer wealth from the developed countries to the third world and developing countries. Now, if climate change is real, it makes sense for 1st-world polluters to clean up and assist the third world in skipping their ultra-messy coal/carbon phase of industrialization. If climate change is BS, then it's wealthy countries just paying for infrastructure to advance less wealthy countries at our expense. And unless we were the ones who bombed that country into the ground, it's something we tend not to do.
3) In tandem with #2, he will see it as unwelcome and unnecessary government control and intrusion. In particular, he'll see solar companies and wind and other "green" energy sources receive government funds and he'll start mumbling something about how the government shouldn't "pick winners and losers."
Sure, if the ecosystem collapses, we're all screwed. But if that won't happen, if rising temperatures don't seem as severe and we don't get the food shortages and floods and extreme weather, then there really is a lot of money to be made by those who are preparing for that event or seeking to prevent it.
There is no technological advancement needed, since there is no law of nature that every barren rock needs people on it. Nauru has always been a marginal habitat, and its original settlers were likely people who didn't have a choice because their original islands were facing overpopulation. The obvious thing to do is for the 9000 inhabitants to simply leave unless they can come up with a better strategy.
(Of course, the obvious strategy of turning Nauru into a tax haven and free trading zone doesn't work because the US and Europe aren't willing to let that happen.)
Well, that's what happens when everything is owned communally and decisions are made by voting instead of markets. It's what happens when politician make "investments in the future".
I don't have a doomsday scenario at all: if we simply don't do anything about global warming. Even under the worst case scenarios of the IPCC and assuming no progress at all, we may lose 1-2% of global economic output to climate change; hardly a "doomsday scenario".
The doomsday scenario is if people succeed in sabotaging the global economy through unwise attempts to achieve sustainability through government action. That would both fail to achieve its goals, and it would preclude addressing the issues through economic development and technology.
Perhaps I'm letting my stereotyping get the better of me, but why on earth would we let a Republican from Texas be the Chair of the Science Committee? That particular combination seems intuitively like the worst possible combination for that positionn.
There is no technological advancement needed, since there is no law of nature that every barren rock needs people on it. Nauru has always been a marginal habitat, and its original settlers were likely people who didn't have a choice because their original islands were facing overpopulation. The obvious thing to do is for the 9000 inhabitants to simply leave unless they can come up with a better strategy.
Nauru has not always been a marginal habitat nor a "barren rock". It's pretty ecologically devastated now from the mining but is has never had a lack of, for example, fertilizer. There was ample available food from the sea, from aquaculture, and from the birds. The ecological devastation has changed some of that, but the other thing that has changed is the comforts and conveniences of the modern world. A few hundred years ago, someone living on Nauru could live about as well, with pretty much all the same comforts as 99% of the rest of the human population. Now there's all kinds of medicines, foods, technologies, etc. that just can't be produced locally.
Well, that's what happens when everything is owned communally and decisions are made by voting instead of markets. It's what happens when politician make "investments in the future".
It happens all the time in capitalistic "free market" corporations too. Practically the first thing any doomed business does when it gets its first influx of venture capital is get expensive, fancy office space with overpriced office furniture.
I don't have a doomsday scenario at all: if we simply don't do anything about global warming. Even under the worst case scenarios of the IPCC and assuming no progress at all, we may lose 1-2% of global economic output to climate change; hardly a "doomsday scenario".
You said that: "Sustainable fossil fuel use would mean no fossil fuel use, and it would result in a collapse of the world economy, after which we have no resources to develop the technologies we need for a post-fossil fuel future." Sounds like you have a doomsday scenario to me.
Yes, it has always been marginal; most of the Pacific islands are. People don't make such dangerous voyages and settle on isolated rocks for fun, they do it because they don't have a choice.
In different words, their standard of living hasn't changed much, but they want what others have, but they want it delivered to their remote island. Good luck with that. Anyway, if you look at Nauru's per capita GDP, it's still better than many other nations, including India, Vietnam, and Pakistan.
That's the whole point of capitalism: you vote with your money; if you make good decisions, you get rewarded, if you make bad decisions, you get punished. With governments, that mechanism doesn't exist: if 51% of the population makes bad decisions, the other 49% of the population have to suffer the consequences as much as everybody else. The 51% will never even figure out that it was their fault because they don't suffer any more than the others. Bush voters didn't get preferentially punished for Bush's screwups, and Obama voters aren't getting preferentially punished for Obama's screw-ups.
You proposed we adopt sustainability, which will invariably lead to economic collapse. I and many others are proposing to do nothing about climate change and deal with the consequences later, which at most leads to a small reduction in economic output many decades from now.
It's an argument you can't win, because any serious move towards sustainability has such grave economic consequences that any politician attempting it would be kicked out of office right away. The only carbon emission reductions we have actually had have been involuntary due to recession, and due to fracking. All the policies actually designed to reduce emissions have just ended up being corporate welfare and have had no effect on emissions.
Yes, it has always been marginal; most of the Pacific islands are. People don't make such dangerous voyages and settle on isolated rocks for fun, they do it because they don't have a choice.
By the standards of 90% of the rest of the inhabitable world, it really isn't (or at least it wasn't). I don't think you know much about Pacific islands. You are, after all, generalizing about all islands in an area that covers a third of the surface of our planet.
In different words, their standard of living hasn't changed much, but they want what others have, but they want it delivered to their remote island. Good luck with that. Anyway, if you look at Nauru's per capita GDP, it's still better than many other nations, including India, Vietnam, and Pakistan.
You don't seem to remember back in this conversation more than a few posts. The whole point about Nauru was that they experienced rapid development due to exploitation of their natural resources and, once the resources ran out, it left them with expensive infrastructure and expectations about standard of living and integration into the modern economy. Looking at Nauru's current per capita GDP and comparing it to other nations is a bit silly. Try looking at Nauru's employment rate and reconciling those numbers.
That's the whole point of capitalism: you vote with your money; if you make good decisions, you get rewarded, if you make bad decisions, you get punished.
And if you don't have money, you don't get a vote. You're implicitly describing a plutocracy here. In any case, markets shift away from functioning cleanly based on the definition of good and bad decisions. In a properly functioning market speculation would not be rewarded. In the real world, markets are almost all speculation. What's most important is what other people are willing to pay rather than how productive the thing being invested in actually is.
With governments, that mechanism doesn't exist: if 51% of the population makes bad decisions, the other 49% of the population have to suffer the consequences as much as everybody else. The 51% will never even figure out that it was their fault because they don't suffer any more than the others. Bush voters didn't get preferentially punished for Bush's screwups, and Obama voters aren't getting preferentially punished for Obama's screw-ups.
US government is awful. I'm not going to claim that it isn't. Most governments are awful. Of course, they're full of the same kind of people making the same kinds of awful, corrupt decisions as corporations. At least governments have to pretend a little bit that they're on your side. In any case, you still haven't shown how there's some "free market" method of allocating publicly owned resources.
You proposed we adopt sustainability, which will invariably lead to economic collapse.
I think you need to consider the definition of the term: "oxymoron".
I and many others are proposing to do nothing about climate change and deal with the consequences later, which at most leads to a small reduction in economic output many decades from now.
Climate change is only one consequence. Basically you're proposing recklessness. You want to be the prodigal son who fritters everything away, then you want to waltz back home and have them slay the fatted calf for you. As long as I'm doing parables: you want to be the grasshopper and not the ant. What you're proposing is the absolute opposite of wisdom and good sense.
It's an argument you can't win, because any serious move towards sustainability has such grave economic consequences that any politician attempting it would be kicked out of office right away. The only carbon emission reductions we have actually had have been involuntary due to recession, and due to fracking. All the policies actually designed to reduce emissions have just ended up
I chose the term "most" carefully. The bigger islands are quite comfortable, but the smaller they get, the more marginal and numerous they get.
I do remember. You tried to give it as an example of the dangers of something, although you were never quite clear about what. It's not an example of the dangers of unsustainability because Nauru's resources could never have been used sustainably. It's not an example of the dangers of free markets, because Nauru reached its current point through tribal, collectivist policies. And it's not even clear that the Nauruan's are economically worse off now than they were pre-contact (although they may be less happy).
Oh, dear, you really don't understand the difference between market "votes" and political "votes"? In markets, you "vote" for or against products, for or against successful businesses; in politics, you vote for or against laws and representatives. Different kinds of "votes". Problems occur when you're trying to use political votes to make market decisions, or vice versa. (Furthermore, there is nobody in the US who has "no money"; everybody has some money to spend.)
Speculation is taking on high risks for the potential of large financial gains. Many ventures require people willing to take high risks because they are inherently risky. Most of the high tech companies you rely on day to day wouldn't exist without speculation.
By definition, publicly owned resources aren't allocated by the free market. Only privately owned resources can be allocated by markets.
Well, the problem is that people who advocate policies under the name "sustainability" in fact advocate unsustainable policies, knowingly or unknowingly.
Sustainability at the very least means ending the use of all fossil fuels, since they are not renewable. What are you going to replace that energy and those resources with? Renewable energy right now is about 12% of global energy production. Where is a plausible plan to increase that to 100%? Most of the renewable energy is hydroelectric, which is cheaper than any other energy source, so that certainly can't be expanded (otherwise it already would have been). Even if you could come up with a technical solution, where is the extra money going to come from to pay for the higher cost of renewable energy?
Or if you are not going to replace them, where is the fertilizer and energy going to come from that we need to feed, clothe, shelter, and protect ourselves?
People proposing sustainability need to answer these questions in great detail before we change what we're doing. Otherwise, adopting policies imposing sustainability is reckless.
I chose the term "most" carefully. The bigger islands are quite comfortable, but the smaller they get, the more marginal and numerous they get.
I'm going to have to assume you put the quotes around "most" because you were being sarcastic. Nauru is 5000+ acres. Not massive by any means. But not the tiny marginal rock you seem to think it is. It's way too small and isolated to be self-sufficient with a modern standard of living, but it's just fine by the standards of pretty much the entirety of history up to the last century or so.
I do remember. You tried to give it as an example of the dangers of something, although you were never quite clear about what.
What I remember is that I gave it as a brief example of the perils of rapid development on the back of quick profits from finite resources. I think I was quite clear about that. Then you latched on to it and made pretty much the entire conversation about that one subject because you didn't really have much else to say about the original topic.
It's not an example of the dangers of unsustainability because Nauru's resources could never have been used sustainably. It's not an example of the dangers of free markets, because Nauru reached its current point through tribal, collectivist policies. And it's not even clear that the Nauruan's are economically worse off now than they were pre-contact (although they may be less happy).
Right, right. The resources of Nauru could never have been used sustainably. The people living there for millennia must not have gotten the memo. As for the dangers of free markets, I'm going to quote myself: "I didn't say that any sort of free market caused Nauru's problems." I did argue with your simplistic fixed idea that so-called "free markets" could somehow magically fix their problems.
Oh, dear, you really don't understand the difference between market "votes" and political "votes"?
It's idiotic to use the term "vote" when it's not a vote. When you mean something completely different, use different terminology. Don't worry though, I do understand that when people talk about "voting" with dollars in any context they're pretty much just spewing marketing weasel-speak sewerage from their mouths.
Furthermore, there is nobody in the US who has "no money"; everybody has some money to spend.
And if they don't, they don't count as people, keeping your statement tautologically correct in grand old No True Scotsman style.
Speculation is taking on high risks for the potential of large financial gains. Many ventures require people willing to take high risks because they are inherently risky. Most of the high tech companies you rely on day to day wouldn't exist without speculation.
Speculation is gambling. It also used to be implicit in the term that speculation was gambling on the state of the market itself rather than on the actual company/industry/commodity you're theoretically investing in. It's what I always mean when I use the term. It's really a critical difference between pure gambling and actual investment.
By definition, publicly owned resources aren't allocated by the free market. Only privately owned resources can be allocated by markets.
Well duh. That's what I was trying to explain to you. You're the one who wrote:
If phosphate mining had been a large number of competitive small enterprises, many would have screwed up their finances anyway, but some would have used their revenues wisely to plan for the future.
I've been waiting for you to explain how exactly that would have worked.
Well, the problem is that people who advocate policies under the name "sustainability" in fact advocate unsustainable policies, knowingly or unknowingly.
There are a lot of people advocating stupid ideas under the
"Most" referred to pacific islands in general and is the correct term.
Not by a long shot. Nauru has almost no freshwater, poor soils, and only a thin strip of fertile land.
Nauru's resources are phosphate. You can't use that "sustainably". You can dig it out of the ground and sell it, that's all.
No, it's not. Speculation is taking a high risk. Gambling is taking a risk with an expected negative return.
The same way it always works: people who own a resource will use it to maximize their own goals. So, some people will squander it and their kids will be poor. Others will use it sensibly and their kids will be rich.
Stop waving your hands. Show me a feasible, detailed, widely-accepted scientific and economic plan for human global sustainability. Something that the majority of experts agree on (you know, a "consensus", you like those so much).
Nuclear energy is not sustainable. Nuclear fuel is a precious and finite resource, just like oil.
That's handwaving. Work out the economics of making that work: what's the investment? What's the added energy cost? What are the politics?
It's not an accusation, it's a statement of fact. Nobody has been able to make even a plausible suggestion for how sustainability is to be achieved, let alone a detailed plan. And it's also a fact that unless you can come up with such a plan, neither politicians nor voters are going to go for sustainability.
You bet I am: what you call "present comfort" amounts to the ability to innovate rapidly. You plan on destroying that by first enforcing an ill-conceived set of plans that somehow are supposed to lead to sustainability and then hoping that innovation will later create the technologies to make it all work.
Why would you claims jobs would become not tight because of computers? That doesn't make a damn bit of sense.
"Most" referred to pacific islands in general and is the correct term.
I thought "most" was part of the term "most carefully" implying that you put a lot of care into selecting the word marginal. Now you seem to be saying that you were using the word to refer to pacific islands in general. That doesn't even make any sense. Either you express yourself in really weird ways or it's just the poor memory for previous posts again.
Not by a long shot. Nauru has almost no freshwater, poor soils, and only a thin strip of fertile land.
Nauru has 2+ meters of rainfall a year. It has limited natural storage for that, of course, but that's still far better than nearly everywhere else in the world that isn't right next to a body of fresh water. The high phosphate levels that make the place so attractive to fertilizer companies can actually hurt the growth of various types of plants, but there are plenty of native plants that can grow there. Modern notions of what constitutes arable soil tend to be fairly biased. Just because it's not a great place to grow corn or wheat doesn't mean that it can't produce plenty of nutrition. Also, it only has a thin strip of arable land because of the mining that has destroyed most of the island. You're completely neglecting that the islands food resources used to include some very large bird colonies and that there's abundant fishing. I will re-iterate that people have lived there for millennia.
It's not an example of the dangers of unsustainability because Nauru's resources could never have been used sustainably.
Nauru's resources are phosphate. You can't use that "sustainably". You can dig it out of the ground and sell it, that's all.
Why are you quoting yourself (or possibly quoting me when I quoted you) and then replying to yourself without quoting anything I wrote? Seems a little narcissistic. Also, the statement that you can't use phosphate sustainably are ridiculous. Do you have any idea where the phosphate on Nauru even comes from? It's biologically accumulated through bird droppings. It has built up over time as birds have collected it from sea life. It can be used perfectly sustainably in situ in agriculture. You just can't wrap your head around any use that isn't short-sighted, rapid exploitation.
No, it's not. Speculation is taking a high risk. Gambling is taking a risk with an expected negative return.
There's just a fundamental problem in talking to you. You just don't use the same language as I do. "Gambling is taking a risk with an expected negative return"? Huh? Frankly, you don't seem to be using the same language as anyone.
The same way it always works: people who own a resource will use it to maximize their own goals. So, some people will squander it and their kids will be poor. Others will use it sensibly and their kids will be rich.
You kind of have that a bit backwards. The people who squander other people's resources tend to be the ones who end up rich. Their use is only sensible by a very narrow definition in which they're the only ones who matter. Also, you still haven't explained how your "the people who own a resource" plan would work _on Nauru_. What plan, based on your principles, would have worked there?
Stop waving your hands. Show me a feasible, detailed, widely-accepted scientific and economic plan for human global sustainability. Something that the majority of experts agree on (you know, a "consensus", you like those so much).
You're kidding, right? I have to give you, in this post, a detailed _global_ plan? Maybe I could do it a tweet instead? The details are vast, and it would be supreme hubris to claim that I, or anyone, has a complete grasp on the logistics of the entire freaking world! Meanwhile your notion that wanton, frivolous waste and poor planning will work as long as there are no regula