I think you have me confused with someone else. Please re-read my statement and tell me where I used the words "drop in the bucket".
But again, the ricin metaphor is a false one. In that example you are going from zero ricin to some value above zero. the change to the system is extremely dramatic with zero time for adaptation. Additional CO2 may be a problem, but at the current rate of things, we have a great deal of time to adapt. It isn't an issue that will cause sudden and acute shock to the system. The metaphor doesn't hold water in any way shape or form.
I've always had two issues with articles on geothermal
1. What happens to the core when we start pumping large amounts of heat out of the core? How long until it cools enough for our magnetic field to collapse enough to be dangerous?
2. What happens to the atmosphere when we pump all that heat from the core into it? How long until the oceans boil?
Seems like very important questions to me...
Please, for the love of deity, tell me you are joking... geothermal wells are, at most, about 3 km deep. Estimates for the deepest are about 10 km, and that would be terribly, and likely, cost prohibitive.
The earth's OUTER core is 2890 km deep, and the inner core is 5150 km deep. We won't be pumping any heat our of the core, and we certainly won't be pumping enough out to cool it enough for our magnetic field to collapse, unless of course you are in possession of some fantastic new drilling technology that the world has yet not discovered.
...which has nothing to do with how our climate works.
Our bodies have zero ricin in them. Add about 22 micrograms per kilogram and you will kill an average adult. For your analogy to work, the atmosphere would have to have been completely void of CO2 before humans started burning fossil fuels, and then now we have put in a lethal dose worth.
Are there any credible suspects other than "atmospheric composition" at the moment? All that heat doesn't just appear from the vacuum of space...
Once upon a time I looked at a classroom globe and noticed something remarkable about our planet. Something like 71% of it is covered by water. Hmmm, I wonder if such an enormous volume of something could play a role in our climate....
Please explain why CO2 is waste. Even the AGW camp agrees that CO2 alone is not the problem. The hypothesis is that there are net positive feedbacks which will cause runaway warming. I'm inclined to listen to the actual empirical evidence which shows that the earth, like pretty much ALL the natural systems on it, does not exist in a net positive feedback state.
The onus of proof is on the AGW folks as they are the ones who have formed the hypothesis. Welcome to science 101. Have a quick read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis
It has been clearly stated for years that it is regarded as a negative and offensive term. That you do not recognize that, and blindly continue to use it does not absolve you of the offense.
nope, those hypotheses have been dis-proven, therefore there is no reason to continuing to try and collect data to support them. See, isn't science fun? You make a hypothesis, you test it, if the data does not support it, you either throw out the hypothesis or revise it to better fit the data.
And by data I mean observational data, not computer output. The two are not the same thing.
Yeah right.... the Republican Presidential candidates and Tea Partiers and Creationists and Fox News anchors should teach scientists how to properly employ the scientific method.... because they obviously have far more experience and expertise in the the scientific method than.... you know.... actual scientists.
who in their right mind (no pun intended) would look to right wing nut jobs for advice on ANYTHING?!
Just because I want scientists to use proper scientific method does not mean that I am a creationist, right wing, etc. It just means that I would like to see proper scientific method being employed on the topic.
There have in fact been numerous examples of evidence found which contradict predictions made under the CAGW hypothesis. Why has the hypothesis never been re-examined? Why is contradictory empirical evidence less convincing than computer model output?
The fact that humans are causing climate change should be as obvious as the nose on your face. The fact that we cover mass percentages of landmass in the hottest parts of the world in asphalt and concrete, without even bothering to plant sufficient green spaces or shade plants, is bloody fucking obvious. The fact that we denude forests and lush, diverse ecosystems to make way for millions of acres of single-plant farmland is bloody fucking obvious. The fact that animals and plants have begun adapting to OUR man-made changes in the environment, with some dying out and others altering habits, is bloody fucking obvious. The fact that due to climate shifts, previously "tropical" plants are migrating (e.g. not just spreading but surviving well) at higher latitudes than they were ever recorded surviving before - that is Bloody Fucking Obvious. Likewise for the shifted patterns in timing and location of migratory bird species and the shifted survival rates and patterns of environmentally sensitive "warning species", like many species of frogs that scientists look to as an indicator of the health of their overall ecosystem.
Problem is, what does any of that have to do with CO2? Increased asphalt and concrete are definitely going to raise local temperatures. I agree. That doesn't mean CO2 is causing CAGW. We are deforesting and planting single plant farmland, and that is a bad thing. I agree. That doesn't mean CO2 is causing CAGW. Animals and plants have begun adapting, some dying out, and others altering habitats. I agree, that's nature and has been happening since life began on this planet. That doesn't mean that CO2 is causing CAGW. Shifted patterns in timing and location... I will assume you are correct that these things are happening. That doesn't mean that CO2 is causing CAGW.
The issue is how to deal with global warming - just ask the people in Texas experiencing extreme drought with a record number of days with temperatures over 100 degrees if they care about scientific theories on why it's happening. Just ask the polar bears who are losing their habitats. Just ask the people of Africa who are seeing their lakes dry up. Just ask the people of Pakistan experiencing record floods. Just ask the people of the southern USA who have seen record numbers and severity of tornadoes and storms in the last few years. There are many more examples from all over the world. Contrary to your apparent belief, politicians didn't cause any of these disasters.
Drought in Texas, look no further than ENSO and what effect La Nina has on that region.
This is a newspaper article, so take it with a grain of salt, but polar bears: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1ea8233f-14da-4a44-b839-b71a9e5df868 "The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s."
Record numbers and severity of tornadoes and storms: have a look at the actual accumulated global cyclone energy graph. http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg It paints a very different picture than the one of killer storms due to CAGW.
There are many examples of predictions from the CAGW hypothesis that have been falsified, and yet the hypothesis has never been revised.
If the predictions of CAGW are falsified, we as engineers, maybe potentially far over-designing things, or worse, designing to a factor of safety for one threat, which isn't a threat at all, while ignoring a real threat. Fact is, without the solid empirical evidence that that we require, we can't know what results to expect, and that is the situation we are currently in. There is a great deal of empirical evidence which does not support the theories which are predicting the expected results.
When the first, say 30 years of a data series has no air conditioners, then the next has a few, then the next has a few more and some asphalt.
Or
When the air conditioners have been there all along, but now the office building has more people so you have to run the air conditioner more, or there is a bigger parking lot than there used to be.
etc.
it leads to an unreliable data set.
You can't change multiple variables in an experiment all at the same time, then treat the data as though no variables have changed except one. That's unreliable data and if it were anything other than "climate data" it would be thrown out.
CO2 in the atmosphere does not cause acid rain, or kill lakes and streams, or destroy sources of clean drinking water, etc. Actual pollutants do. We should ABSOLUTELY be reducing pollution. We should not however spend millions or billions of dollars to pump CO2 into the ground, or other hair-brained ideas that will do nothing except increase the amount of CO2 that we have pumped into the ground for no good reason.
It's not arrogance, it's science. Go ask someone in research for a description of the scientific method. I challenge you to come back and tell me there isn't a step where when the observational data does not agree with the hypothesis, the hypothesis should be revised to better agree with the observational data.
Here's an exercise for you, submit two applications for grant funding. One for research that you state will help to prove AGW, and one that will contradict AGW.
Let me know which one you actually get funding for.
Furthermore, perhaps you should take a read through of those published papers that support AGW and have a look at the conclusions. Let me know if there are any actual definitive conclusions, or if they all are shaped with some wishy washy wording about how it could, might, possibly, perhaps, support something sorta similar to, and not completely contradict, and if our wild ass guess assumptions are correct, even though we know they aren't, oh yeah, and we need more funding...
For the record, I am in full support of finding alternative energy sources. I have no love for oil, and would love to see the high and might oil companies taken down an infinite number of pegs.
That said, I also support proper use of the scientific method. If you don't know the difference between a theory in the literary sense, and scientific theory, then you really need to march yourself right back into a high school science class and educate yourself.
The original argument is that Mann falsified data, and took part in unethical bahaviour.
The straw-man that you formed is that those who don't genuflect at the Church of Mann all think Mann is the perpetrator of the most sinister hoax/conspiracy in history to destroy conservatism and the US economy...
The attempted refutation of the decoy argument is to word it in such a way as to imply that all non-followers are crazy conspiracy theorists who are to be simply ignored.
See, that wasn't too hard to understand now was it?
This is nothing more than a clever restatement of epistemological nihilism. Basically restated it says, "Because we cannot produce a perfect theory, we can have no theory whose predictions we can have a high degree of certainty about,"
It's a moronic position when you consider that the same basic fact that no theory is complete applies to all theories, including theories like Newtonian mechanics and Quantum mechanics, both of which despite obvious missing pieces and flaws are among the most successful theories ever developed.
A theory does not need to be complete to have explanatory power. Maybe you should stop trying to defend oil company shills and inventing bullshit claims about how science works, and, you know, actually learn how science fucking works.
I believe it is you who needs to learn how science actually works.
A theory and a hypothesis are two DRASTICALLY different things. A hypothesis is formed (anthropogenic CO2 is causing unprecedented warming and the net positive feedbacks are pushing the climate past a tipping point beyond which we can not recover from). A null hypothesis is also formed (current warming is within the range of natural variation). Data is collected (make sure you are looking at data, you know, the stuff collected from observation, and not output from a computer model, the two are not to be confused). That data is compared to the hypothesis. If the data supports the hypothesis and or contradicts the null hypothesis, you collect more data, lather, rinse, repeat until it is conclusive that the null hypothesis can be proven false, and the hypothesis is accepted as theory (note, theory is also not law). If the data does not support the hypothesis and/or does not contradict the null hypothesis, the hypothesis is revised to better fit the data... Back to step 1. THAT'S science.
The computer models are a representation of the current hypothesis, and there isn't a single one that has been able to accurately predict future climate and observational data. Wake me when the hypothesis gets revised so that I can see some real science in action...
Slashdot Mirror
I think you have me confused with someone else. Please re-read my statement and tell me where I used the words "drop in the bucket".
But again, the ricin metaphor is a false one. In that example you are going from zero ricin to some value above zero. the change to the system is extremely dramatic with zero time for adaptation. Additional CO2 may be a problem, but at the current rate of things, we have a great deal of time to adapt. It isn't an issue that will cause sudden and acute shock to the system. The metaphor doesn't hold water in any way shape or form.
I've always had two issues with articles on geothermal
1. What happens to the core when we start pumping large amounts of heat out of the core? How long until it cools enough for our magnetic field to collapse enough to be dangerous?
2. What happens to the atmosphere when we pump all that heat from the core into it? How long until the oceans boil?
Seems like very important questions to me...
Please, for the love of deity, tell me you are joking... geothermal wells are, at most, about 3 km deep. Estimates for the deepest are about 10 km, and that would be terribly, and likely, cost prohibitive.
The earth's OUTER core is 2890 km deep, and the inner core is 5150 km deep. We won't be pumping any heat our of the core, and we certainly won't be pumping enough out to cool it enough for our magnetic field to collapse, unless of course you are in possession of some fantastic new drilling technology that the world has yet not discovered.
...which has nothing to do with how our climate works.
Our bodies have zero ricin in them. Add about 22 micrograms per kilogram and you will kill an average adult. For your analogy to work, the atmosphere would have to have been completely void of CO2 before humans started burning fossil fuels, and then now we have put in a lethal dose worth.
I don't think you know what an equilibrium is or how it works.
And for the record, our climate has never been in some sort of perfectly static BALANCE.
...Ah the old removal of context to make your point.
Are there any credible suspects other than "atmospheric composition" at the moment? All that heat doesn't just appear from the vacuum of space...
Once upon a time I looked at a classroom globe and noticed something remarkable about our planet. Something like 71% of it is covered by water. Hmmm, I wonder if such an enormous volume of something could play a role in our climate....
Nope, must be that trace gas in the air.
Please explain why CO2 is waste. Even the AGW camp agrees that CO2 alone is not the problem. The hypothesis is that there are net positive feedbacks which will cause runaway warming. I'm inclined to listen to the actual empirical evidence which shows that the earth, like pretty much ALL the natural systems on it, does not exist in a net positive feedback state.
The onus of proof is on the AGW folks as they are the ones who have formed the hypothesis. Welcome to science 101. Have a quick read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis
You are making the incorrect assumption that AGW has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is still simply an unproven hypothesis.
Skeptic is the term you are looking for.
It has been clearly stated for years that it is regarded as a negative and offensive term. That you do not recognize that, and blindly continue to use it does not absolve you of the offense.
Says the AC.
nope, those hypotheses have been dis-proven, therefore there is no reason to continuing to try and collect data to support them. See, isn't science fun? You make a hypothesis, you test it, if the data does not support it, you either throw out the hypothesis or revise it to better fit the data.
And by data I mean observational data, not computer output. The two are not the same thing.
Yeah right.... the Republican Presidential candidates and Tea Partiers and Creationists and Fox News anchors should teach scientists how to properly employ the scientific method.... because they obviously have far more experience and expertise in the the scientific method than.... you know.... actual scientists.
who in their right mind (no pun intended) would look to right wing nut jobs for advice on ANYTHING?!
Just because I want scientists to use proper scientific method does not mean that I am a creationist, right wing, etc. It just means that I would like to see proper scientific method being employed on the topic.
There have in fact been numerous examples of evidence found which contradict predictions made under the CAGW hypothesis. Why has the hypothesis never been re-examined? Why is contradictory empirical evidence less convincing than computer model output?
The fact that humans are causing climate change should be as obvious as the nose on your face. The fact that we cover mass percentages of landmass in the hottest parts of the world in asphalt and concrete, without even bothering to plant sufficient green spaces or shade plants, is bloody fucking obvious. The fact that we denude forests and lush, diverse ecosystems to make way for millions of acres of single-plant farmland is bloody fucking obvious. The fact that animals and plants have begun adapting to OUR man-made changes in the environment, with some dying out and others altering habits, is bloody fucking obvious. The fact that due to climate shifts, previously "tropical" plants are migrating (e.g. not just spreading but surviving well) at higher latitudes than they were ever recorded surviving before - that is Bloody Fucking Obvious. Likewise for the shifted patterns in timing and location of migratory bird species and the shifted survival rates and patterns of environmentally sensitive "warning species", like many species of frogs that scientists look to as an indicator of the health of their overall ecosystem.
Problem is, what does any of that have to do with CO2? Increased asphalt and concrete are definitely going to raise local temperatures. I agree. That doesn't mean CO2 is causing CAGW. We are deforesting and planting single plant farmland, and that is a bad thing. I agree. That doesn't mean CO2 is causing CAGW. Animals and plants have begun adapting, some dying out, and others altering habitats. I agree, that's nature and has been happening since life began on this planet. That doesn't mean that CO2 is causing CAGW. Shifted patterns in timing and location... I will assume you are correct that these things are happening. That doesn't mean that CO2 is causing CAGW.
I'm an engineer.
Me too
The issue is how to deal with global warming - just ask the people in Texas experiencing extreme drought with a record number of days with temperatures over 100 degrees if they care about scientific theories on why it's happening. Just ask the polar bears who are losing their habitats. Just ask the people of Africa who are seeing their lakes dry up. Just ask the people of Pakistan experiencing record floods. Just ask the people of the southern USA who have seen record numbers and severity of tornadoes and storms in the last few years. There are many more examples from all over the world. Contrary to your apparent belief, politicians didn't cause any of these disasters.
Drought in Texas, look no further than ENSO and what effect La Nina has on that region.
This is a newspaper article, so take it with a grain of salt, but polar bears: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1ea8233f-14da-4a44-b839-b71a9e5df868
"The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s."
Record numbers and severity of tornadoes and storms: have a look at the actual accumulated global cyclone energy graph. http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg It paints a very different picture than the one of killer storms due to CAGW.
There are many examples of predictions from the CAGW hypothesis that have been falsified, and yet the hypothesis has never been revised.
If the predictions of CAGW are falsified, we as engineers, maybe potentially far over-designing things, or worse, designing to a factor of safety for one threat, which isn't a threat at all, while ignoring a real threat. Fact is, without the solid empirical evidence that that we require, we can't know what results to expect, and that is the situation we are currently in. There is a great deal of empirical evidence which does not support the theories which are predicting the expected results.
interesting that you wail on about personal attacks while using the term "deniers".
bzzzzzzzzzz, wrong.
When the first, say 30 years of a data series has no air conditioners, then the next has a few, then the next has a few more and some asphalt.
Or
When the air conditioners have been there all along, but now the office building has more people so you have to run the air conditioner more, or there is a bigger parking lot than there used to be.
etc.
it leads to an unreliable data set.
You can't change multiple variables in an experiment all at the same time, then treat the data as though no variables have changed except one. That's unreliable data and if it were anything other than "climate data" it would be thrown out.
quick tip: pollution != CO2.
CO2 in the atmosphere does not cause acid rain, or kill lakes and streams, or destroy sources of clean drinking water, etc. Actual pollutants do. We should ABSOLUTELY be reducing pollution. We should not however spend millions or billions of dollars to pump CO2 into the ground, or other hair-brained ideas that will do nothing except increase the amount of CO2 that we have pumped into the ground for no good reason.
It's not arrogance, it's science. Go ask someone in research for a description of the scientific method. I challenge you to come back and tell me there isn't a step where when the observational data does not agree with the hypothesis, the hypothesis should be revised to better agree with the observational data.
Here's an exercise for you, submit two applications for grant funding. One for research that you state will help to prove AGW, and one that will contradict AGW.
Let me know which one you actually get funding for.
Furthermore, perhaps you should take a read through of those published papers that support AGW and have a look at the conclusions. Let me know if there are any actual definitive conclusions, or if they all are shaped with some wishy washy wording about how it could, might, possibly, perhaps, support something sorta similar to, and not completely contradict, and if our wild ass guess assumptions are correct, even though we know they aren't, oh yeah, and we need more funding...
For the record, I am in full support of finding alternative energy sources. I have no love for oil, and would love to see the high and might oil companies taken down an infinite number of pegs.
That said, I also support proper use of the scientific method. If you don't know the difference between a theory in the literary sense, and scientific theory, then you really need to march yourself right back into a high school science class and educate yourself.
WHOOSH!
isn't that nice of you to go ahead and assume that everyone demanding openness in science is both a denier and a creationist.
It's lovely how you decided to start throwing out insults, all the while, the point flew right over your head.
The original argument is that Mann falsified data, and took part in unethical bahaviour.
The straw-man that you formed is that those who don't genuflect at the Church of Mann all think Mann is the perpetrator of the most sinister hoax/conspiracy in history to destroy conservatism and the US economy...
The attempted refutation of the decoy argument is to word it in such a way as to imply that all non-followers are crazy conspiracy theorists who are to be simply ignored.
See, that wasn't too hard to understand now was it?
This is nothing more than a clever restatement of epistemological nihilism. Basically restated it says, "Because we cannot produce a perfect theory, we can have no theory whose predictions we can have a high degree of certainty about,"
It's a moronic position when you consider that the same basic fact that no theory is complete applies to all theories, including theories like Newtonian mechanics and Quantum mechanics, both of which despite obvious missing pieces and flaws are among the most successful theories ever developed.
A theory does not need to be complete to have explanatory power. Maybe you should stop trying to defend oil company shills and inventing bullshit claims about how science works, and, you know, actually learn how science fucking works.
I believe it is you who needs to learn how science actually works.
A theory and a hypothesis are two DRASTICALLY different things. A hypothesis is formed (anthropogenic CO2 is causing unprecedented warming and the net positive feedbacks are pushing the climate past a tipping point beyond which we can not recover from). A null hypothesis is also formed (current warming is within the range of natural variation). Data is collected (make sure you are looking at data, you know, the stuff collected from observation, and not output from a computer model, the two are not to be confused). That data is compared to the hypothesis. If the data supports the hypothesis and or contradicts the null hypothesis, you collect more data, lather, rinse, repeat until it is conclusive that the null hypothesis can be proven false, and the hypothesis is accepted as theory (note, theory is also not law). If the data does not support the hypothesis and/or does not contradict the null hypothesis, the hypothesis is revised to better fit the data... Back to step 1. THAT'S science.
The computer models are a representation of the current hypothesis, and there isn't a single one that has been able to accurately predict future climate and observational data. Wake me when the hypothesis gets revised so that I can see some real science in action...
Here's a tip: the realclimate censorship machine should never be used as a reliable source.