But - and I cannot stress this enough - we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future..
But in the book of Hansen et..al does it not also say that Thine Global Climate Models art in good agreement with the most holy of temperature reconstructions? Surely the divinely inspired scriptures of Science can not contradict one another, for Science is proven truth.
I appreciate your points, and am convinced the underlying evidence supports the notion that unprecedented AGW is unproven. I am more saddened though by the entirety of the debate reverting to the same tired arguments we saw in the dark ages over how holy books should be interpreted and which priests and prophets really were authoritative. Anyone thinking that the scientific method could overcome flaws in human nature must be having their souls crushed by the debates being run today.
Of course the calibrated it to the instrumental temperature record (from 1850â"1995 actually) - that is the only actual data there is, the rest is just a proxy. But then, you didn't even bother to look at S11 where they show results for different smaller (as in only a century) calibration periods, and guess what, the reconstruction calibrated to the record from the earlier period 1850-1949 still shows the hockey stick.
I don't care if calibrating the raw data plots a graph that looks like a giraffe. I care that if you look at the raw data being calibrated(Fig S9), the proxy data does NOTHING unusual after 1900.
Let me repeat myself since you seemed to have missed it a few times already, the raw proxy data does NOT show any unprecedented pattern from 1900-2000. Suddenly though, after 'calibrating' that data, it does show an unprecedented pattern starting at 1900-2000. You can not tell me though that the 1900-2000 leap is from the proxy data, it is 100% a result of the 'calibrating'. Are you telling me you have no problem with that?
Now if you look at the second graph in the image, you will see reconstructions - and most of them are above the hockey stick line, and all of them follow the ups-and-downs.
If you look at the second image you'll see a red dotted line marking measured temperature that continues to run sharply away from all the other data from about 1980(hard to tell without the raw data the exact point).
For the period that looks to be around 1900 through 2000 something else should stand out to you. The proxy data marches lock step together, with virtually no deviation from one data set to another. They are in fact so tight they overlap and appear nearly as one thick rainbow colored line. From 1000-1800 those same data set vary wildly from each other. That is NOT an artifact of the industrial revolution beginning in 1900, it is an artifact of the methods for building the reconstructions. The common practice, as used by Mann et al. is to calibrate the proxy data against the measured record, which runs fro 1900-2000. That method is creating the hockey stick tail out of raw proxy data that simply does NOT have that distinctive pattern in it.
Think I'm just crazy? I certainly did at first. I was at first sure that a look at the proxy data would prove such a notion to be as absurd as it seemed. Surely there was something in the raw proxy data if you looked at it that also showed a significant change after 1900. Enter the supplementary index for Mann's most recent 2008 update to the hockey stick graph. The pdf is here.
If you can spare the time to look go see page 15, figure S9. It shows graphs of the raw proxy data that was found to be valid and was used in Mann's reconstruction. If anything jumps out it is not unprecedented change from 1900 onwards, it is the resemblance to random line noise. Any method that can turn Mann's raw proxy data into a hockey stick starting at 1900 would turn random line noise into that same hockey stick.
Go and look and tell me I'm crazy. It's there as plain as day and I'd love to find some kind of more sane explanation than that it was missed or deemed irrelevant by a team of PHD's. As it stands though I can not see any other explanation. The raw proxy data shows absolutely NO unprecedented or even noteworthy pattern anywhere, let alone from 1900-2000. How else can one explain that data turning into a hockey stick shaped recreation? Honestly, I would truly love to see some better explanation.
I did some quick searching and cannot find the desired data either, but here is where I tend to trust the independent review of the IPCC of the methods. I doubt that you're the first person to question the change in data source, so presumably there is also data out there (that I can't put my hands on) that shows that these two ways of measuring temperature are equivalent.
I also presumed the data must be out there. My first thought on hearing criticisms of Mann's graph was to look at it closer because many of the criticisms seemed ridiculous to have gone over looked in a published paper. The heaviest criticism being that even random line noise graphed with Mann's method resulted in a hockey stick graph. That seemed to me a big enough criticism it would have been roundly refuted. All my digging though has just shown me that if anything, it seems to be true.
Take a look at Mann's most recent paper and it links to a Supporting Information PDF that discusses their method and the datasets used. It does not provide the raw data, but does include one graph of it that appears to have been minimally altered. It's Figure S9 on page 15. If you go look at it the data goes all the way up to 2000, and there is absolutely NOTHING special or noteworthy that changes from 1900-2000. A single set has a few spikes after 1900, but it turns out in fact that set is noted by Mann to have been of suspect quality as "Natural variability in the sediment record was disrupted by increased human impact in the catchment area at A.D. 1720". But even with that set, the data clearly shows absolutely nothing in the data that resembles a hockey stick. If anything the graphs on a casual glance most closely resemble line noise. That sounded awfully familiar, and does not instill much faith in me about Mann's methods for turning that data into any kind of hockey stick.
Looking at the graphs projected from the seemingly mundane raw data shows at most a very gradual warming after 1800, and very often Mann's team stops graphing the proxy data after 1900. Without exception they always include a bold red line graphing measured temperatures after 1900 showing a distinctive hockey stick. The problem is the proxy lines just do not appear to follow it. From the data I've been able to see I currently am very much on the skeptical side of Mann's data. Given how much weight Mann's work has been given by groups like the IPCC, I'm equally skeptical of their 'standards' for what counts as verified and reproducible science.
When you look at these points, 1998 was, quite frankly, an outlier.
Agreed.
Thus, we don't see a "10 years of cooling". We see that 10 years ago, we had an abnormally warm year and that over 10 years, the 5-year average has continued to rise.
Once again, no argument from me.
My rather blithe mention of "10 years of cooling" was referring to the fact that after 1998 we see 8 of the next 10 years are all cooler than 1998. I agree though that 1998 was an outlier, and that we shouldn't draw much of a conclusion from that fact. That's why my full statement was: The problem is not that we see 10 years of cooling from 1998.Of course a period of 10 years in climate terms is going to be dominated by the noise. That noise though is the exact point being made by skeptics.
More over, I think I too noted 1998 was an anomaly when I said:1998 is just a particularly good example of the anomalies that exist in such a short term set of climate data.
My point, which I guess my last sentence was worded poorly for, was the importance of looking at the big picture and not just anomalies. Graphing the instrumental record alone doesn't show anything 'unprecedented', it just shows fairly steady warming from start to finish. We need more to know if the last 100 years is just some natural anomaly over the last 10,000. I referenced Mann's graph because it appears to illustrate that problem. 900 years of proxy temperature data from 1000-1900 all showing a mildly fluctuating graph. Then, tacked onto the end, is 100 years of surface air temperature readings from 1900-2000 that push the last 100 years of the graph off the chart.
I don't interpret that as showing a radical temperature change starting 100 years ago. When the leap corresponds with a change in the data source I look at the data source. When it turns out that mean surface temperature is recognized as being susceptible to short term fluctuations that seems some confirmation.
All it would take to 'convert' or convince me is to have a look at the proxy data results from 1000-2000, not just from 1000-1900. Those last 100 years are obviously the point of interest on Mann's graph. And call me skeptical, but I want the original proxy data measurements, not just the final 'corrected' mean temperatures. If the proxy data from 1000-2000 reflects the same radical deviation starting in 1900 then we have something. Everywhere I've looked so far though the proxy data ends around 1900, or gets merged/averaged with the instrumental record after 1900. Nowhere have I been able to find a temperature recreation based on proxies alone that shows the same leap starting in 1900 that Mann's graph has.
The global surface temperature is a part of the bigger picture - just because the oceans store the majority of heat, this does not imply that the global surface temperature is useless.
I see, so the global surface temperature is only useless from 1998 through to today. It's still useful in showing a warming trend leading up to 1998. So 10 years from 1998-2008 is too short to see a trend, but 40 years from 1968-1998 is long enough to spot 'historically unprecedented' warming. I think there is some basis here for skepticism.
As for the "Hockey Stick": Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong... the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years.
Of course, if you believe that the US National Academy of Science is in on the conspiracy, then this is what you'd expect them to say!
I believe in the data. Go look at your link and the version of Mann's graph that is up. It shows fluctuating temperatures from 1000 through to 1900. From 1900 through to 2000 though the data suddenly takes a sharp rise, sharper than the entire rest of the graph. What stands out to me though isn't how warm it suddenly has become. What stands out is that the graph also shows that 100% of the reconstruction from 1000-1900 relies on various proxy data sources. What is even more telling is that 100% of the thermometer measured data starts at EXACTLY 1900. Thermometer data, of course, consists primarily of the surface temperature record. That seems to remind me that we already agreed that surface temperatures tend to be more useful over the long term because they are subject to much more short term variation.
Actually, after 1900, what little proxy data is graphed lands FAR below the surface temperature record. What is more, without the surface temperature record there to draw the average up, from 1900-2000 the Mann graph would show nothing unprecedented at all about the last 100 years. It is in fact ONLY when surface temperature is included that the last 100 years looks in any way special. Given the wide agreement on it's vulnerability to short term variation the proxy data since 1900 seems to confirm that surface temperature from 1900-2000 is NOT a good reflection of overall heating of the planet.
Or, to put it even more simply, you gotta look at the long-term trend and not just a few years.
Well and that is just the point, now isn't it? The problem is not that we see 10 years of cooling from 1998. Of course a period of 10 years in climate terms is going to be dominated by the noise. That noise though is the exact point being made by skeptics.
If 10 years of cooling is lost in the noise, doesn't the same hold to at least some extent when looking at 40 years of the same data? On a climate scale, it's still extremely short. 40 years of surface temp increase seems as poor a basis for declaring 'unprecedented' warming as 10 years of decrease is a basis for declaring a long term cooling trend. 1998 is just a particularly good example of the anomalies that exist in such a short term set of climate data. Another 10 years of similar cooling and suddenly Mann's hockey stick graph will look an awful lot less scary.
So your really going to stand by your referenced link to some new scientist article? I think even scientists defending global warming will readily call your new scientist article BS.
Why, you seem to have asked? Because the article goes on, at great length, dismissing the importance and reliability of the surface temperature record: falling surface temperatures do not prove that the entire planet is losing heat.
It goes on later even to say: Globally, this means that if the oceans soak up a bit more heat energy than normal, surface air temperatures can fall even though the total heat content of the planet is rising. Conversely, if the oceans soak up less heat than usual, surface temperatures will rise rapidly.
In fact, most of the year-to-year variability in surface temperatures is due to heat sloshing back and forth between the oceans and atmosphere, rather than to the planet as a whole gaining or losing heat.
You can not deny that the article virtually dismisses any trends in surface temperature as unimportant and unreliable. I do not care if it goes on to list other reasons for warming, I care about the fact it is dismissing the surface temperature record.
You must realize just how much of the 'evidence' of global warming is ENTIRELY dependent on surface temperature records. Mann's hockey stick graph is completely dependent on surface temperatures. Virtually every reconstruction of pre-industrial temperature through proxies is calibrated against the surface temperature record.
If this New Scientist article is to be believed, yes, maybe you can refute the claim that temperature peaked in 1998. You also open a much bigger hole, the declaration that the surface temperature record is invalid and unreliable for measuring climate change. What exactly does one have left, without the surface temperature record, to say anything about temperature trends from any time prior to the late 1960's?
I wonder why these discredited myths keep getting moderated up on Slashdot time and time again
Maybe these 'discredited' myths keep getting mentioned because people like you keep providing links to 'discredit' them that are complete BS.
Here's a direct quote from your link arguing over temperatures peaking in 1998: According to the dataset of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre (see figure), 1998 was the warmest year by far since records began
So that seems to confirm there certainly does exist at least some evidence for claims about a peak in 1998. Hardly seems to discredit the idea to me. Oh, but the site does have an explanation: The Hadley record is based only on surface temperatures, so it reflects only what's happening to the very thin layer where air meets the land and sea.... falling surface temperatures do not prove that the entire planet is losing heat.
So would it not follow then that rising surface temperatures do not prove that the entire planet is gaining heat, either? Seems that your source in fact is trying to discredit one of, if not the single strongest, pieces of evidence FOR global warming.
hat I really like about IPCC report is that the whole report is full of uncertainties and highlights areas that needs to be researched more. I like that kind of openness in the face of extremely complex phenomena that is mostly observed as well as modeled with rough approximations so far, work is in progress to fine tune those estimates but it takes time.
Well, parts of the IPCC report are good about mentioning uncertainties. The summaries though very often seem to hope along as though those uncertainties didn't even exist.
There are also some areas where level of scientific understanding is high, one of those areas is CO2.
Ah yes, the IPCC has a few things to say about it's sources for CO2 numbers: The first in situ continuous measurements of atmospheric CO2 made by a high-precision non-dispersive infrared gas analyser were implemented by C.D. Keeling from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) (see Section 1.3). These began in 1958 at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, located at 19N (Keeling et al., 1995).These measurements were followed by continuous in situ analysis programmes at other sites in both hemispheres (Conway et al., 1994; Nakazawa et al., 1997; Langenfelds et al., 2002).
So, there are no direct measurements of CO2 further back than 1958, and for a good while after 1958 there is only 1 dataset. There do of course exist many other measurements of CO2 numbers, but those aren't consistent with these measurements so those records are obviously unreliable. The IPCC doesn't mention that, but is nice enough to give some explanation for the above site selections: Remote sites such as Mauna Loa, Baring Head, Cape Grim (Tasmania) and the South Pole were chosen because air sampled at such locations shows little short-term variation caused by local sources and sinks of CO2 and provided the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented.
Consider me less convinced in the certainty of the IPCC's report than you.
Ultimately the result of the IPCC report is that likelihood that human is causing climate change that is irreversible is very high
If you look though, as pointed out above, the IPCC points out many individual errors and problems with it's underlying facts, but when it comes to the summaries it gets amnesia and all those uncertainties are forgotten. I for one want some more data before I'll be convinced sweeping changes are a good idea. We haven't even 4 decades of good, direct data on global temperature and CO2 levels. Even another 20 years of quality data should make the truth of things painfully clear.
The danger of global warming/climate change has never been a threat to the overall existence of humanity (aside from ranting hyperbolic morons). It is however a threat to the maintenance of modern civilization if it causes enough damage to agricultural yields (whether or not it will do this is debatable, and very very complicated).
So, in summary, change is bad.
If it is as complicated and debatable as you claim surely there is a lot of room for warming to, in fact, improve agricultural yields. Seems quite likely, in fact, if we consider historical vegetation growth to be any indication.
You could have a point there, but it's not relevant, bcause we are sure at a 90-95% confidence level (depending on which particular finding we are discussing).
I work in a university and one thing I've noticed that is that many 'scientists', aka guys with PHD's, are bad at math. They often forget that those 90-95% confidence intervals usually are based on several assumptions. -Warming studies like the hockey graph make multiple assumptions about historical temperature data. Should anyone really be comfortable placing a >90% confidence in the result? -GCM models repeatedly note that water vapor is very poorly modeled but manage to reach predictions with >90% confidence intervals. This despite water vapor being responsible for 60% of the greenhouse effect. And yet repeatedly you will see groups like the IPCC just accepting the final confidence intervals and ignoring the effect of the assumptions underneath on the confidence. Many papers even compound the problem by making one of their assumptions the accuracy of an earlier study's confidence intervals. Studies based on computer modeling are particularly bad for this.
But I assume you would rather defer to the experts and consider my uneducated opinion to be beneath the 'consensus' holders who would naturally have considered and addressed my concerns. Let's take your logic further then and for a lark accept the 90-95% confidence levels.
I presume then we are >90% confident that human CO2 emissions are responsible for historically unprecedented global warming. We can even go further to the warming extreme and pretend there is a >90% confidence that this warming will be world changing within a hundred or so years. The argument I am hearing then that comes next makes no sense to me. I then hear the cry that because it takes man so LONG to change the climate, we must act now, before it is too late.
I'm sorry, but I do not accept that. One can not say the urgency is because man is changing the climate so quickly, and then defend the solution as urgent because man can only change the climate very slowly.
Oh, but the response then is through the magic of CO2 run away warming is much easier than runaway cooling. I say that over a million years of CO2 and temperature data don't seem to show the climate running away on us when CO2 was much higher than today.
The temperature record over the last million years shows a maximum variation of 10 degrees. Call me crazy, but to me that says there is a strong natural forcing mechanism moderating temperature change. The most likely candidate of course being all that water our planet is covered in. Oddly enough, that's the same water that ALL of the IPCC's cited computer models have the worst understanding of and the most inconsistencies in their treatment of.
I joined "Al Gore's religion" around 1997 (specifically because of the 1997 IPCC reports).
You probably should remove the quotes around the religion bit here. The IPCC is a politicized body that claims science as it's authority. You can NOT appeal to it when criticisms are made against the underlying scientific studies and papers it claims to base it's authority on. It's akin to the religious leaders of yesteryear that claimed authority based on a holy book. No-one outside the religious leadership was considered educated or enlightened enough to properly interpret the holy book. So if somebody tried to point out that the bible never said anything about witches weighing the same as ducks, the religious leadership's authority was accepted as the correct interpretation anyways.
Think I'm being overly harsh? Take a good and hard look at the references for the IPCC's papers and the underlying peer-reviewed scientific articles. On the CO2 measurements and records they use they describe the source for directly measured CO2 values as follows: The first in situ continuous measurements of atmospheric CO2 made by a high-precision non-dispersive infrared gas analyser were implemented by C.D. Keeling from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) (see Section 1.3). These began in 1958 at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, located at 19N (Keeling et al., 1995).
There were many other recordings of atmospheric CO2 going back to nearly 1900, but NONE were deemed acceptable. They say more on this later: These measurements were followed by continuous in situ analysis programmes at other sites in both hemispheres (Conway et al., 1994; Nakazawa et al., 1997; Langenfelds et al., 2002).
So before 1958, the IPCC is ignoring or rejecting any and all CO2 measurements. From 1958 through to the mid 1970's, the IPCC is relying on but a single site in one location, and from that point on they include an extra three sites using the same methodology. Well, I'm sure they must have a good explanation for being so stringent in choosing sites: Remote sites such as Mauna Loa, Baring Head, Cape Grim (Tasmania) and the South Pole were chosen because air sampled at such locations shows little short-term variation caused by local sources and sinks of CO2 and provided the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented.
I've provided emphasis on the part that should leap off the paper at anybody following through. One of the reasons for choosing the Mauna Loa location as the SOLE source for any CO2 measurements going back any further than 1994 was because it provided the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented. Doesn't that sound like the religions of old that brought out a single line from a holy book to prove what they wanted to do was just and true?
I've found that most of the IPCC's key findings all track back to studies based on similarly hand picked, extremely sparse data sets or on computer modeling. In fact the only thing the IPCC report seems to rely on more heavily than it's hand picked CO2 measurements and the hockey stick graph is computer modeling. Many times relying on computer models calibrated against said hand-picked and sparse data. As long as one has the time to go through the IPCC report and follow down through the referenced studies one continues to find this problem repeated.
On the computer models that the IPCC almost exclusively relies in many cases they have this to say: Recent studies reaffi rm that the spread of climate sensitivity estimates among models arises primarily from inter-model differences in cloud feedbacks. The shortwave impact of changes in boundary-layer clouds, and to a lesser extent midlevel clouds, constitutes the largest contributor to inter-model differences in global cloud feedbacks. The relatively poor simulation of these clouds in the present climate is a reason for some concern. The response to global warming of de
Distinction without a difference, as Israel gets its military funding, toys, and training from the U.S.
Oh, I see, your one of 'those'. I find people that fail/refuse to distinguish between the state of Israel and the USA as separate independent nations have a lot of baggage when discussing anything involving either the Middle East or America.
American military superiority is nowhere near as godlike and all-encompassing as the rednecks, hippies and conspiracy theorists would like to believe.
Yeah, it is, actually.
Alright, so then how do you explain the length of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan? Before you simply declare it is because you can't fight an insurgency with an army, remember where Iraq was 10 years ago. Saddam quite easily held the country together under the fist of his vastly inferior military, using nothing but intimidation, fear and violence to ensure that nobody dared oppose him. If America's military might is so infinitely greater then I take it you agree that America must be showing an enormous amount of restraint in the use of that military, or else they could have ended these conflicts years ago, no?
Of course I know that will be rejected. I will state though I see no way to declare the American military as god-like and without equal on the entire planet at the same time as one decries them an imperialist bent on controlling the entire planet. Clearly if that is their goal, and their power is that great, their reluctance and restraint in using that power to take that goal is peculiar to the point of contradiction.
Oh, come on. The only country with an air force REMOTELY competitive with the US is Russia
No, every joint training maneuver that Israel does with the US has proven that Israel is the one without equal. Not quantity perhaps, but absolutely in quality. If quantity is all that matters, China should be able to rival the US with very little run-up required.
American military superiority is nowhere near as godlike and all-encompassing as the rednecks, hippies and conspiracy theorists would like to believe.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
America has certainly done a lot of damage around the world, but they've also done a lot of good.
Irrelevant.
Oh, I see. So you don't need to balance the good and bad of a nations actions? You can just find a single example of bad foreign policy and that nation would be better off leaving everyone alone?
Just because you want to avoid the question doesn't make it irrelevant.
Or maybe...just maybe...we could have a world where no single nation has a dominant military.
Oh, I see the problem now. You're just not familiar with human history. You see, as a species, when no single nation has a dominant military, the nations inevitably fight with each other until one of them does. That experiment has been run countless times, and those that died as a result are just as countless.
Any morally justified military action can be done as a coalition.
But it won't be. In Rwanda 800,000 died while every single nation in the world could have formed a coalition but simply chose not to. Rwanda was not only a morally justified military action, there was no moral justification for military inaction, but no coalition from anywhere came to the scene.
Saying that we could get by with but a fraction of our military spending is not calling for a return to 1930's isolationism, but of course you knew that already.
Actually, it is, but you too already knew that. Maybe, just maybe, America could field a sufficient military to assure it's own defense after slashing it's budget to 10% of the current amount. But, no nation in it's right mind is going to leave itself vulnerable at home to help another. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but on a gross scale, humans are selfish. Individually we might run into our neighbors burning house to save his cat. On a national level though, one dead neighbor or family member is more valuable than a thousand dead strangers. The bottom line being, America with 10% of it's current military budget, would never send troops to some African jungle to save a bunch of strangers. It would mean opening a very real vulnerability to attack.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
Do you really believe that the world will stop hating America if America stops meddling...?
Reading comprehension much? He answered that question in his first sentence.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize a simple yes or no was sufficient. I'll say no, you'll say yes and we'll just keep going until one of gets tired? Here's the full response that was given: Yes. A large amount of anti-US sentiment is definitely generated by US interference - social, economic, political, covert or military - in the affairs of other countries. It is ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
A simple yes, then stating the obvious about intervention making enemies. The question though was not if intervention makes enemies. The question was if NOT intervening makes enemies. Though perhaps not as obvious, the answer is again of course you will still make enemies if you do not intervene.
Who said anything about isolationism?
Well, if you haven't been following, the original poster said: A good way to solve this would be to stop being the world police and pissing everyone off. If we were just cool with people we easily get by with 10% of the defense budget we have now.
To which came the reply about that being an isolationist policy: It would not surprise me to see America the target of more hatred and violent attacks after returning to isolationism than in its most internationally-meddling times.
To which came the reply: It depends, do you mean real isolationism or 'we won't invade you but we will continue to dominate and manipulate you economically and politically'?
So yes, the assertion was that America would no longer be hated if it just isolated itself and minded it's own business. Several of us are decrying that as ridiculous, where do you stand?
Make no mistake though, if America had instead ignored Saddam they would have hated America.
But not the other 190 nations in the U.N., JUST America.
Yes. Sucks, to be American, doesn't it? It'd be just like in Rwanda, the survivors of that genocide hold most of the outside world in contempt for it's complete unwillingness to protect them when they needed it. But with America being the largest and most capable of helping they are hated more than any other nation for their inaction. The same scale of response is true in Iraq, everyone hates on America for the war, but very few are hating on Australia, even though it was there from day one as well.
OF COURSE the U.S. is responsible for the Iraq's broken state, BECAUSE WE'RE THE ONES WHO BROKE IT.
You'll have to explain to me exactly when you think the US broke it. Because as I see it, they broke it when they backed Saddam and helped him stay in power to become one of the worst dictators of our generation. If you believe in you broke it, you bought it, then the Iraq war was in fact a responsibility they had been shirking for decades.
Getting into a war to fight a country responsible for 50 million+ deaths not only isn't on the same page as wars of choice or CIA-backed coups, it's not on the same frikkin planet.
Tell me, how many deaths was Germany responsible for at the point Pearl Harbor was hit? Are you ignorant of the million dead bodies on Saddam's border with Iran? Is the annexation of Poland that different from the annexation of Kuwait? Was the genocide of the Jewish people really so different from the genocide of the Kurds?
Our defense needs are a fraction of what we're spending right now.
I addressed that, you're just ignoring it, I'm not gonna argue if you aren't gonna listen.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
Yes. A large amount of anti-US sentiment is definitely generated by US interference... It is ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
But that wasn't what the parent said. You were responding to this:Do you really believe that the world will stop hating America if America stops meddling...? The parent agreed with you on many hating America for intervening, he just went on to ask if the world would no longer hate America if it stopped intervening. That's an entirely different question that you seem to have missed.
Q:What are your thoughts on interfering when a state-sponsored genocide is in progress? Response:If the US actually did this maybe people would like it more.
But intervening against state sponsored genocide is NOT an isolationist policy, it's an intervention, meaning WAR. But you are right it could lead to more people loving America, specifically the victims of genocide. Nearly 6 million Kurds love America for it's removal of Saddam, but pleasing them pissed off other people. Make no mistake though, if America had instead ignored Saddam they would have hated America. Either way, intervene or not intervene, millions of people get hurt and hate America as a result of either response.
This relates to the prior question. There are millions of Rwandans who do not hate America for it's interventions, but instead for it's FAILURE to intervene. The bitter part is if America had intervened in Rwanada, every dead Rwandan after America's intervention would be blamed on that intervention. Don't believe me? Look at how the death tolls in Iraq are presented:
It's as though every Iraqi was an immortal living in eternal peace before America invaded. As though every bit of sectarian hatred and violence was caused solely and entirely by America's intervention. Pretending like decades of life under the rule of a genocidal, iron fisted dictator who ruled along the harshest of sectarian lines hadn't seeded that sectarian hatred. It's like the Iraqi infrastructure and economy were in great shape before American bombs blew that all away.
After World War II most of the world actually loved America and it was widely regarded as an inspirational role model for a modern democracy.
But how many would love America for it's role in WW2 if it had NOT intervened? If it wasn't to 'police' the world anymore, shouldn't it have stayed out of WW2 as well? Parent's point was simply that never intervening is NOT the path to having everyone in the world love you.
You have not explained one cogent reason why anyone would hate the US if it ceased interfering in the affairs of other nations for its own benefit.
You seemed to have provided examples yourself though in Sudan, Zimbabwe and WW2. Or do you really believe that the US involvement in WW2 wasn't for it's own benefit? Tell me again, when did they finally join the war effort? It wasn't to stop the genocide, as there were no clear reports of that until the end of the war. Oh, now I remember, it was Pearl Harbor. America went to WW2 on the basis of what happened in Pearl Harbor, not an any selfless goal of freeing the Jews or Europe.
Here's an analogy for the truthers still reading this far. If Pearl Harbor was America's WW2 rally point, why did America invade Europe? It was Japan that had invaded, not Germany. Sound similar to arguments about 9/11 and Iraq? It goes further though, ask anyone to defend American aggression in WW2 against Germany and they'll talk about the holocaust. But that's not fair, because America didn't even know about the holocaust until after and never justified the war on that basis, but instead on Pearl Harbor. Sound similar to arguments about Saddam's annexation of Kuwait and Genocide of the Kurds being used to defend the current Iraq war? They weren't used by the administration, it just chanted 9/11, 9/11.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
A good way to solve this would be to stop being the world police and pissing everyone off.
So you think that America would be better off for that? You may be right, it's hard to say. I wonder though at the 'pissing everyone off' part being better for everyone else.
America has certainly done a lot of damage around the world, but they've also done a lot of good. I'd say, on the whole, it has been more good than bad. At the end, some nation, somewhere, is going to have the strongest military. For all my problems with America, I can't pick a different nation I'd rather see as the strongest. Unfortunately the real world doesn't require that a perfect, or even good option exist, merely a choice of options from which you take what you can get and try to improve upon it. In my book America is a better starting point than any other nation.
I also am sure many would argue about the world being better off if America just minded it's own business. For all that people argue the good America has done in removing or fighting worse governments/dictators, the other side declares it would be better if America did not do so, that things would be better if those wars were not fought. For proof one can easily point to Africa and the fact America has no interest there because there is no profit in it. This would seem to prove that America is acting selfishly. I would point out that just because it is selfish, doesn't mean that it isn't also in the better interest of the civilians of the affected region. Disagree? Look no further than the original example. Which region is better off, the American manipulated Middle-East or the Africa it ignores?
For every Saddam that America is damned for warring against, there is an African genocide like Rwanda it is not being damned for ignoring. I used to be alongside the peaceniks in damning America for going into Iraq because they failed to go into a place like Darfur where people needed the help even more. I've now realized that if I really think they should be damned for not going into Darfur, it was contradictory to damn them for removing a genocidal dictator like Saddam.
Yes, let's all hide under rocks and hope we don't change the world into the bringer of our doom in the process.
People have been altering the genetics of plants and animals for as long as we have practiced agriculture.... the resulting organism, and the myriad interaction with other species, viruses, and environmental conditions are far too complex for humans predict any outcome reliably. We are blindly stabbing at potentially world-changing effects.
Genetic research doesn't seem so radically new in that context anymore, now does it?
The solution we need is not to re-engineer nature to meet the demands of growing populations better, but rather to focus on moderating the needs of people to fit within a natural environment...
Tell that to the people in the world who are starving. You'll find that the only way to further reduce their 'environmental' foot print is by dying. If that looks like a solution to you at least have the courage to come right out and say it.
No matter how you cut it the only options our race has ever had has been re-engineer nature or population control. The ages were the later was chosen have never been pretty.
Hey, if you have no sense of hypocrisy, that's your fault. Iraqi army invades steals art owned by the Kuwaiti Royal family? Appalling! Horror! Looting! Those horrible people! A dozen years later, the US army steals art owned by the Iraqi royal family -- and turns some of it into art praising themselves. And our view on the subject is? Heroes! Justice! Righteousness! Why? Because we like the Kuwaiti royal family and hate the Iraqi royal family.
Sorry, but international law isn't based on who is popular, and applying a different standard of morality to one group over another is known as hypocrisy.
Pretending like Saddam invading Kuwait is no different than the removal of Saddam is known as stupidity.
I find it incredibly annoying how the US uses violations of international law as a reason to demonize, sanction, or even outright invade other nations, but when the US does them, they're mentioned in passing and even cheered.
That's largely based on what international laws are being broken. Not many people are cheering the US for keeping Gitmo open. 'Illegally' removing a known genocidal dictator oppressing everyone he can possibly overpower is harder to criticize just because it is 'legal'. Doubly so when international law had failed for nearly 3 decades to stop the 'illegal' acts of genocide Saddam had been pursuing until the American's illegally stopped him.
Okay, first off, it's completely illegal to deface artwork in the first place, whether you agree with it or not. But just completely ignoring that, this is outright looting. How many freaking times have we condemned as little more than thuggish brigands armed groups who invade one place and leave carrying out things like that?
Are you seriously complaining about taking down a statue made to honor Saddam? More over, your trying to complain about it as 'defacing artwork'? Do you realize how many Iraqi's starved for want of food while Saddam's megalomania drove him to erect these monuments to himself? Do you realize that statue represented Saddam's complete control over every Iraqi? To the point that if a family member dissented with Saddam, you not only had to watch their execution, but applaud? Tearing down that symbol was symbolically important to showing Saddam no longer was to be feared. But hey, maybe your right and the US government sanctioned the looting of a few thousand dollars of raw material to offset the cost of the war. Sorry if my attitude in responding makes you angry when it aught to make you feel stupid.
Saddam kills a kid with gas; US/UK kill a kid with a bomb. The kid is just as innocent and just as dead.
Death is death is death, right? Here's more what happened though. Saddam rounds up and kills every Kurdish person he can find. His people kill them by dropping a VX gas cocktail on villages of unarmed civilians. His people round up all the survivors and put them in concentration camps. Saddam's people then take every last man out of the concentration camps to pre-dug mass graves were they are executed and buried with bulldozers. The women, children and elderly that are kept in the concentration camps are routinely beaten and raped and many die from abuse, neglect and mistreatment. Virtually no children rounger than 3 years of age survive the camps. Enter into this the EVIL Americans that drop bombs on Saddam and his men, killing not only his men but often killing civilians that are nearby.
You seem insistent on calling the two morally equivalent. To be concise, you are wrong!
The US/UK did not "slide on ice" into the war in Iraq by accident; they attacked Iraq when Iraq was no threat to them.
Even if that's true, I think my previous explanation makes it abundantly clear that Saddam's removal was in humanity's best interests.
But who killed more people?
Saddam directly killed 200,000 Kurdish people in his Al-Anfal campaign alone. The number he killed outside those years and from other parts of Iraqi society isn't exactly known. How many would you estimate America has killed? Would you include direct deaths? All Iraqi deaths since this war began? Just remember to measure Saddam's body count by the same measure you use for the American's and I promise you Saddam killed far, far more.
Other posters have pointed this out - Saddam could have been the devil himself, but that doesn't excuse OUR moral obligations. Nobody liked Saddam and I don't see anyone here defending his past actions, but we expect more out of our civilized people and a lot of our actions actually allowed Saddam to go out as a Martyr instead of the low-life scum that he was for murdering his own people.
And Grand Parent had said: We (the US) pretty much pissed on international law the way we treated another head of state (regardless of what you think of Saddam).
Here's your only 'high-ground', that the swiftness of his execution allowed him to become at least partially a martyr. Your cries about OUR moral obligations rang much louder in the years that America stood by and did NOTHING about Saddam or even aided him. Saddam committed genocide, that is the MOST relevant issue regarding our moral obligation because we as human beings are obligated to stop genocide and hold responsible those who commit genocide. Your crying about infinitely smaller matters like making a genocidal dictator watch a bad movie seems kind of besides the point in that light.
Humanitarians have no right to cry about America being evil for ending the reign of a genocidal dictator, the crying and venom is deserved for how long it took them to do it.
We (the US) pretty much pissed on international law the way we treated another head of state (regardless of what you think of Saddam).
Yeah, screw America! Sorry, your gonna complain about the US lack of respect for international law for their treatment of Saddam in the same sentence? Saddam violated international law in ways that make your complaints about the US look LESS important than a jaywalking charge. For anyone aware of even half of Saddam's crimes against humanity this sentence only stirs indignation at your own ignorance.
1.Saddam actively supported and protected internationally wanted terrorists, to the point that one even worked out of an official Iraqi government office(and that is pretending that half the Baath regime doesn't qualify). 2.Saddam developed and used chemical and biological weapons against both Iran and the Kurds. 3.The annexation of another sovereign UN member state. Not an invasion or even occupation, but a complete annexation of Kuwait as a province of the Iraqi state. 4.Genocide, the most horrific account of genocide that we have seen in recent times. An estimated 200,000 Kurdish civilians killed with chemical weapons, mass executions and depraved conditions in concentration camps. Nearly 95% of ALL Kurdish villages were destroyed.
But yeah, lets piss on the Americans for when they treated him like a criminal. Maybe you'd be more consistent to settle for condemning the US treatment of him as an ally back in the day instead.
Slashdot Mirror
But - and I cannot stress this enough - we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future..
But in the book of Hansen et. .al does it not also say that Thine Global Climate Models art in good agreement with the most holy of temperature reconstructions? Surely the divinely inspired scriptures of Science can not contradict one another, for Science is proven truth.
I appreciate your points, and am convinced the underlying evidence supports the notion that unprecedented AGW is unproven. I am more saddened though by the entirety of the debate reverting to the same tired arguments we saw in the dark ages over how holy books should be interpreted and which priests and prophets really were authoritative. Anyone thinking that the scientific method could overcome flaws in human nature must be having their souls crushed by the debates being run today.
Of course the calibrated it to the instrumental temperature record (from 1850â"1995 actually) - that is the only actual data there is, the rest is just a proxy. But then, you didn't even bother to look at S11 where they show results for different smaller (as in only a century) calibration periods, and guess what, the reconstruction calibrated to the record from the earlier period 1850-1949 still shows the hockey stick.
I don't care if calibrating the raw data plots a graph that looks like a giraffe. I care that if you look at the raw data being calibrated(Fig S9), the proxy data does NOTHING unusual after 1900.
Let me repeat myself since you seemed to have missed it a few times already, the raw proxy data does NOT show any unprecedented pattern from 1900-2000. Suddenly though, after 'calibrating' that data, it does show an unprecedented pattern starting at 1900-2000. You can not tell me though that the 1900-2000 leap is from the proxy data, it is 100% a result of the 'calibrating'. Are you telling me you have no problem with that?
Now if you look at the second graph in the image, you will see reconstructions - and most of them are above the hockey stick line, and all of them follow the ups-and-downs.
If you look at the second image you'll see a red dotted line marking measured temperature that continues to run sharply away from all the other data from about 1980(hard to tell without the raw data the exact point).
For the period that looks to be around 1900 through 2000 something else should stand out to you. The proxy data marches lock step together, with virtually no deviation from one data set to another. They are in fact so tight they overlap and appear nearly as one thick rainbow colored line. From 1000-1800 those same data set vary wildly from each other. That is NOT an artifact of the industrial revolution beginning in 1900, it is an artifact of the methods for building the reconstructions. The common practice, as used by Mann et al. is to calibrate the proxy data against the measured record, which runs fro 1900-2000. That method is creating the hockey stick tail out of raw proxy data that simply does NOT have that distinctive pattern in it.
Think I'm just crazy? I certainly did at first. I was at first sure that a look at the proxy data would prove such a notion to be as absurd as it seemed. Surely there was something in the raw proxy data if you looked at it that also showed a significant change after 1900. Enter the supplementary index for Mann's most recent 2008 update to the hockey stick graph. The pdf is here.
If you can spare the time to look go see page 15, figure S9. It shows graphs of the raw proxy data that was found to be valid and was used in Mann's reconstruction. If anything jumps out it is not unprecedented change from 1900 onwards, it is the resemblance to random line noise. Any method that can turn Mann's raw proxy data into a hockey stick starting at 1900 would turn random line noise into that same hockey stick.
Go and look and tell me I'm crazy. It's there as plain as day and I'd love to find some kind of more sane explanation than that it was missed or deemed irrelevant by a team of PHD's. As it stands though I can not see any other explanation. The raw proxy data shows absolutely NO unprecedented or even noteworthy pattern anywhere, let alone from 1900-2000. How else can one explain that data turning into a hockey stick shaped recreation? Honestly, I would truly love to see some better explanation.
I did some quick searching and cannot find the desired data either, but here is where I tend to trust the independent review of the IPCC of the methods. I doubt that you're the first person to question the change in data source, so presumably there is also data out there (that I can't put my hands on) that shows that these two ways of measuring temperature are equivalent.
I also presumed the data must be out there. My first thought on hearing criticisms of Mann's graph was to look at it closer because many of the criticisms seemed ridiculous to have gone over looked in a published paper. The heaviest criticism being that even random line noise graphed with Mann's method resulted in a hockey stick graph. That seemed to me a big enough criticism it would have been roundly refuted. All my digging though has just shown me that if anything, it seems to be true.
Take a look at Mann's most recent paper and it links to a Supporting Information PDF that discusses their method and the datasets used. It does not provide the raw data, but does include one graph of it that appears to have been minimally altered. It's Figure S9 on page 15. If you go look at it the data goes all the way up to 2000, and there is absolutely NOTHING special or noteworthy that changes from 1900-2000. A single set has a few spikes after 1900, but it turns out in fact that set is noted by Mann to have been of suspect quality as "Natural variability in the sediment record was disrupted
by increased human impact in the catchment area at A.D. 1720". But even with that set, the data clearly shows absolutely nothing in the data that resembles a hockey stick. If anything the graphs on a casual glance most closely resemble line noise. That sounded awfully familiar, and does not instill much faith in me about Mann's methods for turning that data into any kind of hockey stick.
Looking at the graphs projected from the seemingly mundane raw data shows at most a very gradual warming after 1800, and very often Mann's team stops graphing the proxy data after 1900. Without exception they always include a bold red line graphing measured temperatures after 1900 showing a distinctive hockey stick. The problem is the proxy lines just do not appear to follow it. From the data I've been able to see I currently am very much on the skeptical side of Mann's data. Given how much weight Mann's work has been given by groups like the IPCC, I'm equally skeptical of their 'standards' for what counts as verified and reproducible science.
When you look at these points, 1998 was, quite frankly, an outlier.
Agreed.
Thus, we don't see a "10 years of cooling". We see that 10 years ago, we had an abnormally warm year and that over 10 years, the 5-year average has continued to rise.
Once again, no argument from me.
My rather blithe mention of "10 years of cooling" was referring to the fact that after 1998 we see 8 of the next 10 years are all cooler than 1998. I agree though that 1998 was an outlier, and that we shouldn't draw much of a conclusion from that fact. That's why my full statement was: The problem is not that we see 10 years of cooling from 1998.Of course a period of 10 years in climate terms is going to be dominated by the noise. That noise though is the exact point being made by skeptics.
More over, I think I too noted 1998 was an anomaly when I said:1998 is just a particularly good example of the anomalies that exist in such a short term set of climate data.
My point, which I guess my last sentence was worded poorly for, was the importance of looking at the big picture and not just anomalies. Graphing the instrumental record alone doesn't show anything 'unprecedented', it just shows fairly steady warming from start to finish. We need more to know if the last 100 years is just some natural anomaly over the last 10,000. I referenced Mann's graph because it appears to illustrate that problem. 900 years of proxy temperature data from 1000-1900 all showing a mildly fluctuating graph. Then, tacked onto the end, is 100 years of surface air temperature readings from 1900-2000 that push the last 100 years of the graph off the chart.
I don't interpret that as showing a radical temperature change starting 100 years ago. When the leap corresponds with a change in the data source I look at the data source. When it turns out that mean surface temperature is recognized as being susceptible to short term fluctuations that seems some confirmation.
All it would take to 'convert' or convince me is to have a look at the proxy data results from 1000-2000, not just from 1000-1900. Those last 100 years are obviously the point of interest on Mann's graph. And call me skeptical, but I want the original proxy data measurements, not just the final 'corrected' mean temperatures. If the proxy data from 1000-2000 reflects the same radical deviation starting in 1900 then we have something. Everywhere I've looked so far though the proxy data ends around 1900, or gets merged/averaged with the instrumental record after 1900. Nowhere have I been able to find a temperature recreation based on proxies alone that shows the same leap starting in 1900 that Mann's graph has.
The global surface temperature is a part of the bigger picture - just because the oceans store the majority of heat, this does not imply that the global surface temperature is useless.
I see, so the global surface temperature is only useless from 1998 through to today. It's still useful in showing a warming trend leading up to 1998. So 10 years from 1998-2008 is too short to see a trend, but 40 years from 1968-1998 is long enough to spot 'historically unprecedented' warming. I think there is some basis here for skepticism.
As for the "Hockey Stick": Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong
the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years.
Of course, if you believe that the US National Academy of Science is in on the conspiracy, then this is what you'd expect them to say!
I believe in the data. Go look at your link and the version of Mann's graph that is up. It shows fluctuating temperatures from 1000 through to 1900. From 1900 through to 2000 though the data suddenly takes a sharp rise, sharper than the entire rest of the graph. What stands out to me though isn't how warm it suddenly has become. What stands out is that the graph also shows that 100% of the reconstruction from 1000-1900 relies on various proxy data sources. What is even more telling is that 100% of the thermometer measured data starts at EXACTLY 1900. Thermometer data, of course, consists primarily of the surface temperature record. That seems to remind me that we already agreed that surface temperatures tend to be more useful over the long term because they are subject to much more short term variation.
Actually, after 1900, what little proxy data is graphed lands FAR below the surface temperature record. What is more, without the surface temperature record there to draw the average up, from 1900-2000 the Mann graph would show nothing unprecedented at all about the last 100 years. It is in fact ONLY when surface temperature is included that the last 100 years looks in any way special. Given the wide agreement on it's vulnerability to short term variation the proxy data since 1900 seems to confirm that surface temperature from 1900-2000 is NOT a good reflection of overall heating of the planet.
Or, to put it even more simply, you gotta look at the long-term trend and not just a few years.
Well and that is just the point, now isn't it? The problem is not that we see 10 years of cooling from 1998. Of course a period of 10 years in climate terms is going to be dominated by the noise. That noise though is the exact point being made by skeptics.
If 10 years of cooling is lost in the noise, doesn't the same hold to at least some extent when looking at 40 years of the same data? On a climate scale, it's still extremely short. 40 years of surface temp increase seems as poor a basis for declaring 'unprecedented' warming as 10 years of decrease is a basis for declaring a long term cooling trend. 1998 is just a particularly good example of the anomalies that exist in such a short term set of climate data. Another 10 years of similar cooling and suddenly Mann's hockey stick graph will look an awful lot less scary.
So your really going to stand by your referenced link to some new scientist article? I think even scientists defending global warming will readily call your new scientist article BS.
Why, you seem to have asked? Because the article goes on, at great length, dismissing the importance and reliability of the surface temperature record:
falling surface temperatures do not prove that the entire planet is losing heat.
It goes on later even to say:
Globally, this means that if the oceans soak up a bit more heat energy than normal, surface air temperatures can fall even though the total heat content of the planet is rising. Conversely, if the oceans soak up less heat than usual, surface temperatures will rise rapidly.
In fact, most of the year-to-year variability in surface temperatures is due to heat sloshing back and forth between the oceans and atmosphere, rather than to the planet as a whole gaining or losing heat.
You can not deny that the article virtually dismisses any trends in surface temperature as unimportant and unreliable. I do not care if it goes on to list other reasons for warming, I care about the fact it is dismissing the surface temperature record.
You must realize just how much of the 'evidence' of global warming is ENTIRELY dependent on surface temperature records. Mann's hockey stick graph is completely dependent on surface temperatures. Virtually every reconstruction of pre-industrial temperature through proxies is calibrated against the surface temperature record.
If this New Scientist article is to be believed, yes, maybe you can refute the claim that temperature peaked in 1998. You also open a much bigger hole, the declaration that the surface temperature record is invalid and unreliable for measuring climate change. What exactly does one have left, without the surface temperature record, to say anything about temperature trends from any time prior to the late 1960's?
Climate myths: Global warming stopped in 1998
I wonder why these discredited myths keep getting moderated up on Slashdot time and time again
Maybe these 'discredited' myths keep getting mentioned because people like you keep providing links to 'discredit' them that are complete BS.
Here's a direct quote from your link arguing over temperatures peaking in 1998:
...
According to the dataset of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre (see figure), 1998 was the warmest year by far since records began
So that seems to confirm there certainly does exist at least some evidence for claims about a peak in 1998. Hardly seems to discredit the idea to me. Oh, but the site does have an explanation:
The Hadley record is based only on surface temperatures, so it reflects only what's happening to the very thin layer where air meets the land and sea.
falling surface temperatures do not prove that the entire planet is losing heat.
So would it not follow then that rising surface temperatures do not prove that the entire planet is gaining heat, either? Seems that your source in fact is trying to discredit one of, if not the single strongest, pieces of evidence FOR global warming.
hat I really like about IPCC report is that the whole report is full of uncertainties and highlights areas that needs to be researched more. I like that kind of openness in the face of extremely complex phenomena that is mostly observed as well as modeled with rough approximations so far, work is in progress to fine tune those estimates but it takes time.
Well, parts of the IPCC report are good about mentioning uncertainties. The summaries though very often seem to hope along as though those uncertainties didn't even exist.
There are also some areas where level of scientific understanding is high, one of those areas is CO2.
Ah yes, the IPCC has a few things to say about it's sources for CO2 numbers:
The first in situ continuous measurements of atmospheric CO2 made by a high-precision non-dispersive infrared gas analyser were implemented by C.D. Keeling from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) (see Section 1.3). These began in 1958 at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, located at 19N (Keeling et al., 1995).These measurements were followed by continuous in situ analysis programmes at other sites in both hemispheres (Conway et al., 1994; Nakazawa et al., 1997; Langenfelds et al., 2002).
So, there are no direct measurements of CO2 further back than 1958, and for a good while after 1958 there is only 1 dataset. There do of course exist many other measurements of CO2 numbers, but those aren't consistent with these measurements so those records are obviously unreliable. The IPCC doesn't mention that, but is nice enough to give some explanation for the above site selections:
Remote sites such as Mauna Loa, Baring Head, Cape Grim (Tasmania) and the South Pole were chosen because air sampled at such locations shows little short-term variation caused by local sources and sinks of CO2 and provided the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented.
Consider me less convinced in the certainty of the IPCC's report than you.
Ultimately the result of the IPCC report is that likelihood that human is causing climate change that is irreversible is very high
If you look though, as pointed out above, the IPCC points out many individual errors and problems with it's underlying facts, but when it comes to the summaries it gets amnesia and all those uncertainties are forgotten. I for one want some more data before I'll be convinced sweeping changes are a good idea. We haven't even 4 decades of good, direct data on global temperature and CO2 levels. Even another 20 years of quality data should make the truth of things painfully clear.
The danger of global warming/climate change has never been a threat to the overall existence of humanity (aside from ranting hyperbolic morons). It is however a threat to the maintenance of modern civilization if it causes enough damage to agricultural yields (whether or not it will do this is debatable, and very very complicated).
So, in summary, change is bad.
If it is as complicated and debatable as you claim surely there is a lot of room for warming to, in fact, improve agricultural yields. Seems quite likely, in fact, if we consider historical vegetation growth to be any indication.
You could have a point there, but it's not relevant, bcause we are sure at a 90-95% confidence level (depending on which particular finding we are discussing).
I work in a university and one thing I've noticed that is that many 'scientists', aka guys with PHD's, are bad at math. They often forget that those 90-95% confidence intervals usually are based on several assumptions.
-Warming studies like the hockey graph make multiple assumptions about historical temperature data. Should anyone really be comfortable placing a >90% confidence in the result?
-GCM models repeatedly note that water vapor is very poorly modeled but manage to reach predictions with >90% confidence intervals. This despite water vapor being responsible for 60% of the greenhouse effect.
And yet repeatedly you will see groups like the IPCC just accepting the final confidence intervals and ignoring the effect of the assumptions underneath on the confidence. Many papers even compound the problem by making one of their assumptions the accuracy of an earlier study's confidence intervals. Studies based on computer modeling are particularly bad for this.
But I assume you would rather defer to the experts and consider my uneducated opinion to be beneath the 'consensus' holders who would naturally have considered and addressed my concerns. Let's take your logic further then and for a lark accept the 90-95% confidence levels.
I presume then we are >90% confident that human CO2 emissions are responsible for historically unprecedented global warming. We can even go further to the warming extreme and pretend there is a >90% confidence that this warming will be world changing within a hundred or so years. The argument I am hearing then that comes next makes no sense to me. I then hear the cry that because it takes man so LONG to change the climate, we must act now, before it is too late.
I'm sorry, but I do not accept that. One can not say the urgency is because man is changing the climate so quickly, and then defend the solution as urgent because man can only change the climate very slowly.
Oh, but the response then is through the magic of CO2 run away warming is much easier than runaway cooling. I say that over a million years of CO2 and temperature data don't seem to show the climate running away on us when CO2 was much higher than today.
The temperature record over the last million years shows a maximum variation of 10 degrees. Call me crazy, but to me that says there is a strong natural forcing mechanism moderating temperature change. The most likely candidate of course being all that water our planet is covered in. Oddly enough, that's the same water that ALL of the IPCC's cited computer models have the worst understanding of and the most inconsistencies in their treatment of.
I joined "Al Gore's religion" around 1997 (specifically because of the 1997 IPCC reports).
You probably should remove the quotes around the religion bit here. The IPCC is a politicized body that claims science as it's authority. You can NOT appeal to it when criticisms are made against the underlying scientific studies and papers it claims to base it's authority on. It's akin to the religious leaders of yesteryear that claimed authority based on a holy book. No-one outside the religious leadership was considered educated or enlightened enough to properly interpret the holy book. So if somebody tried to point out that the bible never said anything about witches weighing the same as ducks, the religious leadership's authority was accepted as the correct interpretation anyways.
Think I'm being overly harsh? Take a good and hard look at the references for the IPCC's papers and the underlying peer-reviewed scientific articles. On the CO2 measurements and records they use they describe the source for directly measured CO2 values as follows:
The first in situ continuous measurements of atmospheric CO2 made by a high-precision non-dispersive infrared gas analyser were implemented by C.D. Keeling from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) (see Section 1.3). These began in 1958 at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, located at 19N (Keeling et al., 1995).
There were many other recordings of atmospheric CO2 going back to nearly 1900, but NONE were deemed acceptable. They say more on this later:
These measurements were followed by continuous in situ analysis programmes at other sites in both hemispheres (Conway et al., 1994; Nakazawa et al., 1997; Langenfelds et al., 2002).
So before 1958, the IPCC is ignoring or rejecting any and all CO2 measurements. From 1958 through to the mid 1970's, the IPCC is relying on but a single site in one location, and from that point on they include an extra three sites using the same methodology. Well, I'm sure they must have a good explanation for being so stringent in choosing sites:
Remote sites such as Mauna Loa, Baring Head, Cape Grim (Tasmania) and the South Pole were chosen because air sampled at such locations shows little short-term variation caused by local sources and sinks of CO2 and provided the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented.
I've provided emphasis on the part that should leap off the paper at anybody following through. One of the reasons for choosing the Mauna Loa location as the SOLE source for any CO2 measurements going back any further than 1994 was because it provided the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented. Doesn't that sound like the religions of old that brought out a single line from a holy book to prove what they wanted to do was just and true?
I've found that most of the IPCC's key findings all track back to studies based on similarly hand picked, extremely sparse data sets or on computer modeling. In fact the only thing the IPCC report seems to rely on more heavily than it's hand picked CO2 measurements and the hockey stick graph is computer modeling. Many times relying on computer models calibrated against said hand-picked and sparse data. As long as one has the time to go through the IPCC report and follow down through the referenced studies one continues to find this problem repeated.
On the computer models that the IPCC almost exclusively relies in many cases they have this to say:
Recent studies reaffi rm that the spread of climate sensitivity
estimates among models arises primarily from inter-model
differences in cloud feedbacks. The shortwave impact of
changes in boundary-layer clouds, and to a lesser extent midlevel
clouds, constitutes the largest contributor to inter-model
differences in global cloud feedbacks. The relatively poor
simulation of these clouds in the present climate is a reason
for some concern. The response to global warming of de
Distinction without a difference, as Israel gets its military funding, toys, and training from the U.S.
Oh, I see, your one of 'those'. I find people that fail/refuse to distinguish between the state of Israel and the USA as separate independent nations have a lot of baggage when discussing anything involving either the Middle East or America.
American military superiority is nowhere near as godlike and all-encompassing as the rednecks, hippies and conspiracy theorists would like to believe.
Yeah, it is, actually.
Alright, so then how do you explain the length of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan? Before you simply declare it is because you can't fight an insurgency with an army, remember where Iraq was 10 years ago. Saddam quite easily held the country together under the fist of his vastly inferior military, using nothing but intimidation, fear and violence to ensure that nobody dared oppose him. If America's military might is so infinitely greater then I take it you agree that America must be showing an enormous amount of restraint in the use of that military, or else they could have ended these conflicts years ago, no?
Of course I know that will be rejected. I will state though I see no way to declare the American military as god-like and without equal on the entire planet at the same time as one decries them an imperialist bent on controlling the entire planet. Clearly if that is their goal, and their power is that great, their reluctance and restraint in using that power to take that goal is peculiar to the point of contradiction.
Oh, come on. The only country with an air force REMOTELY competitive with the US is Russia
No, every joint training maneuver that Israel does with the US has proven that Israel is the one without equal. Not quantity perhaps, but absolutely in quality. If quantity is all that matters, China should be able to rival the US with very little run-up required.
American military superiority is nowhere near as godlike and all-encompassing as the rednecks, hippies and conspiracy theorists would like to believe.
America has certainly done a lot of damage around the world, but they've also done a lot of good.
Irrelevant.
Oh, I see. So you don't need to balance the good and bad of a nations actions? You can just find a single example of bad foreign policy and that nation would be better off leaving everyone alone?
Just because you want to avoid the question doesn't make it irrelevant.
Or maybe...just maybe...we could have a world where no single nation has a dominant military.
Oh, I see the problem now. You're just not familiar with human history. You see, as a species, when no single nation has a dominant military, the nations inevitably fight with each other until one of them does. That experiment has been run countless times, and those that died as a result are just as countless.
Any morally justified military action can be done as a coalition.
But it won't be. In Rwanda 800,000 died while every single nation in the world could have formed a coalition but simply chose not to. Rwanda was not only a morally justified military action, there was no moral justification for military inaction, but no coalition from anywhere came to the scene.
Saying that we could get by with but a fraction of our military spending is not calling for a return to 1930's isolationism, but of course you knew that already.
Actually, it is, but you too already knew that. Maybe, just maybe, America could field a sufficient military to assure it's own defense after slashing it's budget to 10% of the current amount. But, no nation in it's right mind is going to leave itself vulnerable at home to help another. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but on a gross scale, humans are selfish. Individually we might run into our neighbors burning house to save his cat. On a national level though, one dead neighbor or family member is more valuable than a thousand dead strangers. The bottom line being, America with 10% of it's current military budget, would never send troops to some African jungle to save a bunch of strangers. It would mean opening a very real vulnerability to attack.
Do you really believe that the world will stop hating America if America stops meddling...?
Reading comprehension much? He answered that question in his first sentence.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize a simple yes or no was sufficient. I'll say no, you'll say yes and we'll just keep going until one of gets tired? Here's the full response that was given:
Yes. A large amount of anti-US sentiment is definitely generated by US interference - social, economic, political, covert or military - in the affairs of other countries. It is ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
A simple yes, then stating the obvious about intervention making enemies. The question though was not if intervention makes enemies. The question was if NOT intervening makes enemies. Though perhaps not as obvious, the answer is again of course you will still make enemies if you do not intervene.
Who said anything about isolationism?
Well, if you haven't been following, the original poster said:
A good way to solve this would be to stop being the world police and pissing everyone off. If we were just cool with people we easily get by with 10% of the defense budget we have now.
To which came the reply about that being an isolationist policy:
It would not surprise me to see America the target of more hatred and violent attacks after returning to isolationism than in its most internationally-meddling times.
To which came the reply:
It depends, do you mean real isolationism or 'we won't invade you but we will continue to dominate and manipulate you economically and politically'?
So yes, the assertion was that America would no longer be hated if it just isolated itself and minded it's own business. Several of us are decrying that as ridiculous, where do you stand?
Make no mistake though, if America had instead ignored Saddam they would have hated America.
But not the other 190 nations in the U.N., JUST America.
Yes. Sucks, to be American, doesn't it? It'd be just like in Rwanda, the survivors of that genocide hold most of the outside world in contempt for it's complete unwillingness to protect them when they needed it. But with America being the largest and most capable of helping they are hated more than any other nation for their inaction. The same scale of response is true in Iraq, everyone hates on America for the war, but very few are hating on Australia, even though it was there from day one as well.
OF COURSE the U.S. is responsible for the Iraq's broken state, BECAUSE WE'RE THE ONES WHO BROKE IT.
You'll have to explain to me exactly when you think the US broke it. Because as I see it, they broke it when they backed Saddam and helped him stay in power to become one of the worst dictators of our generation. If you believe in you broke it, you bought it, then the Iraq war was in fact a responsibility they had been shirking for decades.
Getting into a war to fight a country responsible for 50 million+ deaths not only isn't on the same page as wars of choice or CIA-backed coups, it's not on the same frikkin planet.
Tell me, how many deaths was Germany responsible for at the point Pearl Harbor was hit? Are you ignorant of the million dead bodies on Saddam's border with Iran? Is the annexation of Poland that different from the annexation of Kuwait? Was the genocide of the Jewish people really so different from the genocide of the Kurds?
Our defense needs are a fraction of what we're spending right now.
I addressed that, you're just ignoring it, I'm not gonna argue if you aren't gonna listen.
Yes. A large amount of anti-US sentiment is definitely generated by US interference... It is ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
But that wasn't what the parent said. You were responding to this:Do you really believe that the world will stop hating America if America stops meddling...? The parent agreed with you on many hating America for intervening, he just went on to ask if the world would no longer hate America if it stopped intervening. That's an entirely different question that you seem to have missed.
Q:What are your thoughts on interfering when a state-sponsored genocide is in progress?
Response:If the US actually did this maybe people would like it more.
But intervening against state sponsored genocide is NOT an isolationist policy, it's an intervention, meaning WAR. But you are right it could lead to more people loving America, specifically the victims of genocide. Nearly 6 million Kurds love America for it's removal of Saddam, but pleasing them pissed off other people. Make no mistake though, if America had instead ignored Saddam they would have hated America. Either way, intervene or not intervene, millions of people get hurt and hate America as a result of either response.
This relates to the prior question. There are millions of Rwandans who do not hate America for it's interventions, but instead for it's FAILURE to intervene. The bitter part is if America had intervened in Rwanada, every dead Rwandan after America's intervention would be blamed on that intervention. Don't believe me? Look at how the death tolls in Iraq are presented:
It's as though every Iraqi was an immortal living in eternal peace before America invaded. As though every bit of sectarian hatred and violence was caused solely and entirely by America's intervention. Pretending like decades of life under the rule of a genocidal, iron fisted dictator who ruled along the harshest of sectarian lines hadn't seeded that sectarian hatred. It's like the Iraqi infrastructure and economy were in great shape before American bombs blew that all away.
After World War II most of the world actually loved America and it was widely regarded as an inspirational role model for a modern democracy.
But how many would love America for it's role in WW2 if it had NOT intervened? If it wasn't to 'police' the world anymore, shouldn't it have stayed out of WW2 as well? Parent's point was simply that never intervening is NOT the path to having everyone in the world love you.
You have not explained one cogent reason why anyone would hate the US if it ceased interfering in the affairs of other nations for its own benefit.
You seemed to have provided examples yourself though in Sudan, Zimbabwe and WW2. Or do you really believe that the US involvement in WW2 wasn't for it's own benefit? Tell me again, when did they finally join the war effort? It wasn't to stop the genocide, as there were no clear reports of that until the end of the war. Oh, now I remember, it was Pearl Harbor. America went to WW2 on the basis of what happened in Pearl Harbor, not an any selfless goal of freeing the Jews or Europe.
Here's an analogy for the truthers still reading this far. If Pearl Harbor was America's WW2 rally point, why did America invade Europe? It was Japan that had invaded, not Germany. Sound similar to arguments about 9/11 and Iraq? It goes further though, ask anyone to defend American aggression in WW2 against Germany and they'll talk about the holocaust. But that's not fair, because America didn't even know about the holocaust until after and never justified the war on that basis, but instead on Pearl Harbor. Sound similar to arguments about Saddam's annexation of Kuwait and Genocide of the Kurds being used to defend the current Iraq war? They weren't used by the administration, it just chanted 9/11, 9/11.
A good way to solve this would be to stop being the world police and pissing everyone off.
So you think that America would be better off for that? You may be right, it's hard to say. I wonder though at the 'pissing everyone off' part being better for everyone else.
America has certainly done a lot of damage around the world, but they've also done a lot of good. I'd say, on the whole, it has been more good than bad. At the end, some nation, somewhere, is going to have the strongest military. For all my problems with America, I can't pick a different nation I'd rather see as the strongest. Unfortunately the real world doesn't require that a perfect, or even good option exist, merely a choice of options from which you take what you can get and try to improve upon it. In my book America is a better starting point than any other nation.
I also am sure many would argue about the world being better off if America just minded it's own business. For all that people argue the good America has done in removing or fighting worse governments/dictators, the other side declares it would be better if America did not do so, that things would be better if those wars were not fought. For proof one can easily point to Africa and the fact America has no interest there because there is no profit in it. This would seem to prove that America is acting selfishly. I would point out that just because it is selfish, doesn't mean that it isn't also in the better interest of the civilians of the affected region. Disagree? Look no further than the original example. Which region is better off, the American manipulated Middle-East or the Africa it ignores?
For every Saddam that America is damned for warring against, there is an African genocide like Rwanda it is not being damned for ignoring. I used to be alongside the peaceniks in damning America for going into Iraq because they failed to go into a place like Darfur where people needed the help even more. I've now realized that if I really think they should be damned for not going into Darfur, it was contradictory to damn them for removing a genocidal dictator like Saddam.
Yes, let's all hide under rocks and hope we don't change the world into the bringer of our doom in the process.
People have been altering the genetics of plants and animals for as long as we have practiced agriculture.
the resulting organism, and the myriad interaction with other species, viruses, and environmental conditions are far too complex for humans predict any outcome reliably. We are blindly stabbing at potentially world-changing effects.
Genetic research doesn't seem so radically new in that context anymore, now does it?
The solution we need is not to re-engineer nature to meet the demands of growing populations better, but rather to focus on moderating the needs of people to fit within a natural environment...
Tell that to the people in the world who are starving. You'll find that the only way to further reduce their 'environmental' foot print is by dying. If that looks like a solution to you at least have the courage to come right out and say it.
No matter how you cut it the only options our race has ever had has been re-engineer nature or population control. The ages were the later was chosen have never been pretty.
Hey, if you have no sense of hypocrisy, that's your fault. Iraqi army invades steals art owned by the Kuwaiti Royal family? Appalling! Horror! Looting! Those horrible people! A dozen years later, the US army steals art owned by the Iraqi royal family -- and turns some of it into art praising themselves. And our view on the subject is? Heroes! Justice! Righteousness! Why? Because we like the Kuwaiti royal family and hate the Iraqi royal family.
Sorry, but international law isn't based on who is popular, and applying a different standard of morality to one group over another is known as hypocrisy.
Pretending like Saddam invading Kuwait is no different than the removal of Saddam is known as stupidity.
I find it incredibly annoying how the US uses violations of international law as a reason to demonize, sanction, or even outright invade other nations, but when the US does them, they're mentioned in passing and even cheered.
That's largely based on what international laws are being broken. Not many people are cheering the US for keeping Gitmo open. 'Illegally' removing a known genocidal dictator oppressing everyone he can possibly overpower is harder to criticize just because it is 'legal'. Doubly so when international law had failed for nearly 3 decades to stop the 'illegal' acts of genocide Saddam had been pursuing until the American's illegally stopped him.
Okay, first off, it's completely illegal to deface artwork in the first place, whether you agree with it or not. But just completely ignoring that, this is outright looting. How many freaking times have we condemned as little more than thuggish brigands armed groups who invade one place and leave carrying out things like that?
Are you seriously complaining about taking down a statue made to honor Saddam? More over, your trying to complain about it as 'defacing artwork'? Do you realize how many Iraqi's starved for want of food while Saddam's megalomania drove him to erect these monuments to himself? Do you realize that statue represented Saddam's complete control over every Iraqi? To the point that if a family member dissented with Saddam, you not only had to watch their execution, but applaud? Tearing down that symbol was symbolically important to showing Saddam no longer was to be feared. But hey, maybe your right and the US government sanctioned the looting of a few thousand dollars of raw material to offset the cost of the war. Sorry if my attitude in responding makes you angry when it aught to make you feel stupid.
Saddam kills a kid with gas; US/UK kill a kid with a bomb. The kid is just as innocent and just as dead.
Death is death is death, right? Here's more what happened though. Saddam rounds up and kills every Kurdish person he can find. His people kill them by dropping a VX gas cocktail on villages of unarmed civilians. His people round up all the survivors and put them in concentration camps. Saddam's people then take every last man out of the concentration camps to pre-dug mass graves were they are executed and buried with bulldozers. The women, children and elderly that are kept in the concentration camps are routinely beaten and raped and many die from abuse, neglect and mistreatment. Virtually no children rounger than 3 years of age survive the camps. Enter into this the EVIL Americans that drop bombs on Saddam and his men, killing not only his men but often killing civilians that are nearby.
You seem insistent on calling the two morally equivalent. To be concise, you are wrong!
The US/UK did not "slide on ice" into the war in Iraq by accident; they attacked Iraq when Iraq was no threat to them.
Even if that's true, I think my previous explanation makes it abundantly clear that Saddam's removal was in humanity's best interests.
But who killed more people?
Saddam directly killed 200,000 Kurdish people in his Al-Anfal campaign alone. The number he killed outside those years and from other parts of Iraqi society isn't exactly known. How many would you estimate America has killed? Would you include direct deaths? All Iraqi deaths since this war began? Just remember to measure Saddam's body count by the same measure you use for the American's and I promise you Saddam killed far, far more.
Other posters have pointed this out - Saddam could have been the devil himself, but that doesn't excuse OUR moral obligations. Nobody liked Saddam and I don't see anyone here defending his past actions, but we expect more out of our civilized people and a lot of our actions actually allowed Saddam to go out as a Martyr instead of the low-life scum that he was for murdering his own people.
And Grand Parent had said:
We (the US) pretty much pissed on international law the way we treated another head of state (regardless of what you think of Saddam).
Here's your only 'high-ground', that the swiftness of his execution allowed him to become at least partially a martyr. Your cries about OUR moral obligations rang much louder in the years that America stood by and did NOTHING about Saddam or even aided him. Saddam committed genocide, that is the MOST relevant issue regarding our moral obligation because we as human beings are obligated to stop genocide and hold responsible those who commit genocide. Your crying about infinitely smaller matters like making a genocidal dictator watch a bad movie seems kind of besides the point in that light.
Humanitarians have no right to cry about America being evil for ending the reign of a genocidal dictator, the crying and venom is deserved for how long it took them to do it.
We (the US) pretty much pissed on international law the way we treated another head of state (regardless of what you think of Saddam).
Yeah, screw America!
Sorry, your gonna complain about the US lack of respect for international law for their treatment of Saddam in the same sentence? Saddam violated international law in ways that make your complaints about the US look LESS important than a jaywalking charge. For anyone aware of even half of Saddam's crimes against humanity this sentence only stirs indignation at your own ignorance.
1.Saddam actively supported and protected internationally wanted terrorists, to the point that one even worked out of an official Iraqi government office(and that is pretending that half the Baath regime doesn't qualify).
2.Saddam developed and used chemical and biological weapons against both Iran and the Kurds.
3.The annexation of another sovereign UN member state. Not an invasion or even occupation, but a complete annexation of Kuwait as a province of the Iraqi state.
4.Genocide, the most horrific account of genocide that we have seen in recent times. An estimated 200,000 Kurdish civilians killed with chemical weapons, mass executions and depraved conditions in concentration camps. Nearly 95% of ALL Kurdish villages were destroyed.
But yeah, lets piss on the Americans for when they treated him like a criminal. Maybe you'd be more consistent to settle for condemning the US treatment of him as an ally back in the day instead.